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Oct. 7th, 2025 12:05 pm
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It's re-release day for RAVEN CALLS! (amazon affiliate link)

I'm beginning to feel the enthusiasm of the downward slide here: there are only four Walker Papers left to release after this, and I'm so excited to have the series out in the world again. I've just sent in the cover specs for NO DOMINION, and it's just so cool to see the series come together with the same cover model and everything across the whole thing. ::starry eyes::



The cover to CE Murphy's RAVEN CALLS, book eight of the Walker Papers urban fantasy series, features heroine Joanne Walker in a dramatic Irish setting, with a castle and a golden glowing sky in the distance. She holds her rapier horizontally in both hands, as if offering it to someone. A glowing blue magical raven fills the sky above her shoulder. Cover art and design by G&S Cover Design Studio.

After a year of adjusting to having shamanic powers, Joanne Walker has leveled up—and now she’s got to start all over again. She’s more open to the idea now, but it means throwing caution to the wind.

Caution, and her job, and her potential relationship with her former boss...and possibly any hope for a future tied to a timeline she recognizes at all. Determined to heal herself of a magically-inflicted injury, Joanne returns to her ancestral homeland—and when she activates her newly-increased powers, Ireland’s ancient, deep magic rips her out of time and into a history of regrets and unfinished business.

The aos sí of Irish legend—the fair folk, gods, and heroes of old—have paid the price of tangling with a dark power who stands against everything Joanne has ever believed in...and her ability to protect them is stymied by what she’s already done to save others. As the consequences of her actions begin to build up, Joanne is faced with two impossible choices—and loses her beloved best friend Gary to one, leaving her to face the other alone.

And as dark magic devours her from within, Joanne must risk everything to destroy the monster that haunts her—or fight the gods themselves to save it.



RAVEN CALLS is available in e-book at Amazon and in print at Barnes & Noble!
tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
[personal profile] tamaranth
2025/154: I Who Have Never Known Men — Jacqueline Harpman (translated by Ros Schwarz)
I ... have no memories of my own childhood. Perhaps that’s why I’m so different from the others. I must be lacking in certain experiences that make a person fully human. [loc. 1546]

We first encounter the nameless narrator near the end of her solitary life, determined that her story will not die when she does. Gradually we discover her history: that her first memories are from an underground prison where she, and thirty-nine adult women, were held captive for years. She can't recall anything from before the prison, and none of the women can tell her much: just screams, flames, a stampede...Read more... )

tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
[personal profile] tamaranth
2025/153: All of Us Murderers — KJ Charles
"Gideon and I have nothing to be ashamed of. Or perhaps I do. Perhaps all of us Wyckhams are murderers, by Act or proxy or inaction or just heredity..." [loc. 2943]

Zebedee Wyckham is invited to visit his cousin's remote country house. Expecting a warm welcome from a cousin he only vaguely remembers, Zeb is horrified to find himself thrust into the company of his relations: his estranged brother Bram, Bram's wife Elise, Zeb's cousin Hawley, a new-found young cousin called Jessamine -- and, worst of all, Zeb's own ex, Gideon, who he hasn't seen since they both lost their jobs due to Zeb's behaviour. 

Read more... )
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[personal profile] tamaranth
2025/152: Giovanni's Room — James Baldwin
As for the boys at the bar, they were each invisibly preening, having already calculated how much money he and his copain would need for the next few days, having already appraised Guillaume to within a decimal of that figure, and having already estimated how long Guillaume, as a fountainhead, would last, and also how long they would be able to endure him. The only question left was whether they would be vache with him, or chic, but they knew that they would probably be vache. [p. 53]

I read about James Baldwin's life and work in Nothing Ever Just Disappears, and it sparked the urge to read one of his novels: Giovanni's Room is perhaps the best-known: a short novel about an American, David, who goes to Europe to 'find himself', takes up with Giovanni but fears and rejects his own sexuality, and ends up with emptiness. David's first-person narrative begins, he tells us, on 'the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life': the morning on which Giovanni will be executed. 

Read more... )

Monthly culture, August 2025

Sep. 30th, 2025 08:50 am
tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
[personal profile] tamaranth
01AUG25: Macbeth (Shakespeare) -- Wilton's Music Hall
Read more... )
07AUG25: Official Secrets (Hood, 2019) -- Netflix
Read more... )
08AUG25: Weapons (Cregger, 2025) -- Greenwich PictureHouse
Read more... )


EDINBURGH 2025
19AUG25: The Cyclops (Acting Coach Scotland) -- Annexe at theSpace @ Symposium Hall
Read more... )
19AUG25: Mitch Benn: The Lehrer Effect -- Underbelly
Read more... )
19AUG25: Women of Rock (Night Owl Shows) -- Grand Theatre at theSpace @ Surgeons' Hall
Read more... )
19AUG25: Iphigenia in Tauris (Intothedark / Euripides) -- The Annexe at Paradise in The Vault
Read more... )
20AUG25: A Poem and a Mistake (by Cheri Magid, performed by Sarah Baskin) -- Assembly Rooms
Read more... )
20AUG25: Arachne (Britt Anderson, Whisper Theatre) -- Britt Anderson, Whisper Theatre
Read more... )
20AUG25: Miriam Margolyse -- Edinburgh International Conference Centre
Read more... )
21AUG25: Monstering the Rocketman (Henry Naylow) -- Pleasance Dome
Read more... )
21AUG25: Circa - Wolf -- The Lafayette at Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows
Read more... )
21AUG25: Canvas of Sound (Tazeen Qayyum, Feras Charestan and Basel Rajoub) -- The Hub
Read more... )
22AUG25: From Primordial Soups to Primates in Suits (Dr David Jones) -- South Gallery Annexe at Dovecot Studios
Read more... )
22AUG25: Bolero (Kinetic Orchestra) -- DB3 at Assembly @ Dance Base
Read more... )
22AUG25: Iago Speaks (Rumpus) -- Big at theSpaceTriplex
Read more... )
23AUG25: Bacchae (Company of Wolves) -- Upstairs at Assembly Roxy
Read more... )
23AUG25: Figures in Extinction (Nederlands Dans Theater) -- Festival Theatre
Read more... )
23AUG25: Pop Off Michelangelo (Blair Russell Productions) -- Udderbelly at Underbelly, George Square
Read more... )
23AUG25: As You Like It: A Radical Retelling (Cliff Cardinal) -- Church Hill Theatre
Read more... )


28AUG25: Thursday Murder Club (Columbus, 2025) -- Netflix
Read more... )
29AUG25: The Roses (Roach, 2025) -- Greenwich PictureHouse
Read more... )
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[personal profile] tamaranth
2025/151: Is a River Alive? — Robert Macfarlane
...the Mutehekau Shipu’s mode is, surely, purely flow, I think, and its grammar of animacy is one of ands and throughs and tos and nows, of commas not full stops, of thens not buts, aura not edge, of compounds and hyphens and fusings, silver-blues and grey-greens and mist-drifts and undersongs, process not substance, this joined to that, always onrushing, always seeking the sea and here and there turning back upon itself, intervolving, eddying in counterflow to cause spirals and gyres that draw breath into water, life into the mind, spin strange reciprocities, leave the whole world whirled, whorled. [loc. 4333]

If a corporation can be treated as a person, why can't a river? Macfarlane explores three river systems -- the Rio Los Cedros in Ecuador, the Mutehekau Shipu in Canada, and the three rivers braided through Chennai -- and combines poetry, spirituality and adventure in a philosophical discussion of what constitutes 'life' and how a river is part of the 'polyphonic world', important and valuable not just for how it can be exploited but for its own intrinsic qualities.

Read more... )
tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
[personal profile] tamaranth
2025/150: The Last Gifts of the Universe — Riley August
I have been viewing her last stand wrong. Like so many things, it is an issue of translation... It is not a stand — defensively — but a stance. A position. The last one they give to their loved ones, or the world, before they die. [loc. 1776]

Scout and Kieran are siblings, and Archivists -- interstellar archaeologists, searching for whatever killed every other civilisation humanity has ever found. Together with their adorable, plot-relevant ginger cat Pumpkin, they land on yet another dead planet (where Scout, breaking the rules, plants some seeds: 'it doesn't have to be dead forever') and find a recording made by one of the last survivors of an ancient civilisation.Read more... )

mizkit: (Default)
[personal profile] mizkit
When last we saw our heroes, they were returning from a side trip to Memphis. In our absence, Teddy, Freddy, Evelyn and Calliope had a side adventure and then went out and got properly smashed at a drag king club, the name of which is escaping me, somewhere in Cairo. This all went as well as you could possibly imagine, and they returned incredibly hung over.

Teddy and Dr Willie Preston met for the first time. It was most excellent. Tragically, they then parted ways, Teddy to nurse a headache and Willie to lead us into very questionable choices at the Great Pyramids.

DM: Okay, you're at the pyramids! What do you want to do?

The party: ...ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..............

Alice: I'm going to go look at the dig where Willie's sarcophagus disappeared.

Evelyn: I'm going to go look at those very handsome young men digging things up.

Calliope: ...I feel like someone should keep an eye on Alice, so I guess I'll do that...

DM: Can any of you ride camels?

Alice: I have two in ride!

Evelyn: I've got 6 in ride.

DM, mumbling: of course Evelyn is a horse girl

Evelyn's player: -attempts protest- -falters into inevitable agreement-

Calliope: I grew up in central London, I can't ride at all.

DM: Okay, so Alice goes to the dig where Willie's sarcophagus disappeared, Evelyn goes to look at the men working, and Calliope...goes where the camel wants to go. Fey, what are you doing?

Fey: I want to see if there are any mysterious and cryptic messages at the Sphinx.

Alice finds the dig, which is covered over, and immediately starts looking for something to dig it up again with. "I wonder if I can convince the camel to dig..."

DM: ah yes, those notorious digging animals, camels

Calliope's camel: GRRROOOOOOONK

DM: is anybody trying to do anything formal? Get permission for anything?

Alice: Do you think I could steal a shovel from somebody?

Evelyn: Hellooooo, handsome young men! My, what fine muscles you have as you do your hard work! Isn't Egypt lovely! So full of mysterious mysteries! Perhaps you could tell me about what you're working on!

Young men: -are crude-

Calliope's camel: GRRROOOOOOONK

DM: Fey, you find a mysterious and cryptic message at the Sphinx! In the meantime, is anybody trying to do anything formal? Get permission for anything?

Fey: -returns to Evelyn, triumphant-

Young men: -are very crude-

Evelyn: I can tell you're being crude, you naughty young things, although I don't know what you're saying because I'm American and only speak English! Take that!

Calliope's camel: GRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOONK -and also carries Calliope over to an abandoned well/garbage chute that the DM wants us to notice- GRRROOOOOOONK

The poor beleaguered DM: is anybody trying to do anything formal? Get permission for anything?

Calliope & Evelyn: Oh look, we've found a deep empty hole in the ground! Everybody come look!

(Everybody comes to look.)

DM, desperate now: is anybody trying to do anything formal? Get permission for anything?

Me: We've never done anything like that before in this entire adventure, so I'd say we're constitutionally unlikely to start now.

DM, relieved that somebody has made a decision: Okay, great. It's getting very hot out now and other archaeology parties and tourists are going off to rest in the heat of the day.

Evelyn: is there anything nearby I can steal to help us get into that hole without killing ourselves?

DM: Like this truck full of supplies?

Evelyn: AMAZING. I get rope, pitons, lanterns (a long list of other things I can't remember) and...whiskey?

DM: there is no whiskey

Evelyn: DAMN.

After a brief discussion of our general athletic skills, Fey goes down the hole first, to try to put pitons in to make it easier for everybody else. Instead, he falls. Whoops. At least he manages a good roll on his health save and isn't horribly damaged.

Alice, who is equally athletic, follows and successfully puts pitons in to help the others. We leave Dr Willie Preston above-ground in case we need someone to notify the authorities of an emergency.

My father, later, horrified, as we relate the adventure to him: You left BILL in charge of EMERGENCIES?

Us: we are not the best at making good decisions

Back in the game, we all get fifty feet down into the ground, which is somewhat slimy and stinky because of the garbage archaeologists have been throwing down here.

GM: Okay, who's going first?

Alice: I'm going first. Fey fell down the hole. Also my driving trait is curiosity.

Evelyn & Calliope: be our guest

Fey: hnf

GM: By the way, Alice, you are extremely comfortable down here in these tunnels. Absolutely comfortable.

Alice: Of course I am.

Everybody else: WE'RE NOT!

GM: nor should you be

(ok he didn't actually say that but COME ON)

As it turns out, it's almost as bad an idea to let Alice lead the party through catacombs and tunnels of doom while driven by curiosity and no discomfort at all as it would be to let, say, Teddy take the lead. She barges ahead with an alarming single-mindedness while everybody else is like "Um. Um. Perhaps...well, shit, Alice has the light, better catch up!"

...up until the point when there's a Terrible Stench that only Alice can smell, and it belatedly occurs to her that maybe she should try to sense trouble.

DM: -rolls for my perception check- You in danger, girl

DM: You are suddenly very very afraid and feel strongly you should get out of there.

Alice: LET'S GO THE OTHER DIRECTION, GUYS

Unfortunately, while Alice was barging off That Way down a path of horrible black roses, Calliope got another light working and she and Evelyn took a quick look The Other Way, where they saw terrifying Anubis-headed things standing motionless in the darkness. They scurry back with Evelyn hissing, "Whatever you do, don't tell Alice what we just saw" at Calliope.

Calliope: No shit, Sherlock.

Evelyn & Calliope: NOPE WE WERE WRONG LET'S GO THE WAY YOU CHOSE IN THE FIRST PLACE ALICE

Alice: NOPE I'M WRONG LET'S GO THE WAY YOU JUST CAME FROM ALSO CAN'T YOU HEAR THAT CRYING CHILD WE HAVE TO GET TO THE CRYING CHILD NOW THERE ARE MEN CALLING FOR HELP WE MUST HELP THEM!

Fey: you people are all idiots, aren't you

Calliope, who really does think fast: these tunnels all twist around down here, Alice. The sound is probably coming from somewhere else entirely and if we go down the path of black roses we'll find them.

Alice, somewhat dubious: ...okay...

We do not find any crying children or men calling for help. We DO find tunnels dripping blood (LET'S NOT GO THAT WAY), more Anubis-headed monsters, and finally...

...finally a deep glowing red light begins to draw us toward it, and for the first time we begin to go up instead of down, up, up, up...into a chamber filled with the red light, and a hard (yellow?) light that's difficult to even look at, and a general sacrificial vibe, and...

...what quite frankly appears to be a Hellmouth at the far end of the chamber.

DM, cheerfully: Well! You have two or three sessions left in Egypt, I reckon. (pause) Or one, if you mess up!

And on that note, we close tonight's adventure. O_O
tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
[personal profile] tamaranth
2025/149: Sir Hereward and Mr Fitz: Three Adventures — Garth Nix
Self-motivated puppets were not great objects of fear in most quarters of the world. They had once been numerous, and some few score still walked the earth, almost all of them entertainers, some of them long remembered in song and story.
Mister Fitz was not one of those entertainers. [loc. 137]

Two novellas and a short story featuring Sir Hereward, mercenary knight and artillerist, and his former nursemaid Mister Fitz, a sorcerously-animated puppet who is centuries old and wields arcane magic needles. They roam a fantasy landscape (more Restoration than medieval) and are tasked -- by the Agents of the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World -- with destroying specific extra-dimensional entities ('godlets')Read more... )

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