From my angle, arms wrapped around several tree trunks as if holding on for dear life. Just arms, it seemed. Their bodies hidden or gone. I stood in the middle of a forest wrapped in arms, hyperventilating. Because I could feel a pull, a tug, a call to join. And when I walked around to … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – Tree Huggers
On the outskirts of a forgotten town, I found a person with a white sheet draped over them. The sheet covered their entire body. They stood in front of a burnt out building on the side of a gravel drive. Just stood there. All day. No one else came or went. And I sat on … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – Lent Shape
A sense of familiarity closed around my shoulders as I crept through the crumbling ruins of a massive apartment complex. By the several levels towering above me high enough to almost block out the sun and the many rotted out doorways peering down at me, this place had once housed hundreds of people. Now moss … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – The Gift of Knowledge
Blood, slick and swift, dribbled like drops of rain from the needle tips of a tall, old pine. Red gathered around the base of the trunk, staining scrub, dirt, and stones alike. Lessening along the height of the pine, but climbing ever upward, spreading down limb and bough. A bloodred pool glistened at the tree's … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – Bloodred Blight
Craggy rocks nipped at the soles of my feet as I clambered from a sparkling sea. Close to shore, blue light limned the water around every stone, brightening and dimming with the ebb and flow of the waves. Blue clung to my skin, outlining my toes, creeping up my legs. Growing heavier and heavier. Should … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – Sea Sparkle
Twilight lit up with colorful sparkles carpeting the ground around the silhouette of a nearby tree. Colors clustered together like starbursts, clumps of sapphire and aqua scattered around those of tangerine and ruby, alongside honey and violet drops. Where I stood at the limit of their glow, these small orbs twinkled up at me from … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – A Garden of Lights
The white glow of a small ornate lantern pushed back the darkness surrounding us like a tiny star. My guide crouched on a rock beside a still pool, holding a common stick with the ring of the lantern hooked on the end. Below, the reflection of the light glowed just as bright, a twin star. … Continue reading The Hopeful Wanderer – The Taste of Copper
So many amazing books await out in the world, more than I could ever read before I die. I had to narrow down the parameters to my top ten favorite books written by or about women.
In Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett, three years have passed since the events of Foundryside, the first installment in the Founders series. Long enough for Sancia Grado and the allies she made in Foundryside to plan and begin to execute a magical-industrial revolution, one that will make scriving, the sacred and secret art of bending reality to one's will, accessible to all.
In Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, orphaned, broadsword-wielding Gideon Nav makes a bid for freedom from a life of servitude on the claustrophobic planet of the Ninth House, but the Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus, necromancer and bone manipulation prodigy, thwarts Gideon's attempt at escape, demanding the swordswoman's help in exchange for her freedom. The … Continue reading Book Review: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
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