historical-fiction

As the sun lowered into the city's skyline, casting an orange glow over the islands, Jana could feel people's hopes rising.

It wasn't my choice to write this story...it was my responsibility.

... those sectaries in Europe who are always expecting the end of the world, but who hope that, after the earth has been consumed by fire, they will be seated in glory: grilled a little, crisp at the edges and blackened in parts, but still, thanks be to God, alive for eternity, and seated at his right hand.

When giving up is not an option, you survive at any cost.

Her entire life, she__ been told sin was wrong, a black and white interpretation of what is evil and what is holy in the world__olored like a priest__ robe and collar__ut she never believed it to be true. Sin was colorful: scarlet like rose blood, azure like skin deprived oxygen, violet as bruises, jade as rot; a colorful contradiction to the darkness and blinding light all are taught sin and holiness to be.

Once a man is truly dead and carried pale and cold across the Styx--once Old Bones has put an arm about his shoulders and walked him through the Gate into Darkness--might Science yet summon him back?

Wouldn't you like to be my lord Duke of Exeter? Come on, Dom. Say something.""You have lost your mind.""Say something less insulting.

Love, I think, is by necessity constructed of a ladder of lies you climb together.

The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once, on this earth, once, on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now all gone, one generation vanishing into another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone, like ghosts at cockcrow.

Most of [her ashes] fell into the river in a long gray curtain. But some was caught by the wind and blown upward toward the blue spring sky where it swirled a moment in the air, before dissolving into sunlight.

Brother," Artemis chided. "You do not help my hunters. You do not look at, talk to, or flirt with my Hunters. And you do not call them sweetheart.

No man as godly as George, the only fault he finds with God is that he made folk with too few orifices. If George could meet a woman with a quinny under her armpit, he would call out 'Glory be' and set her up in a house and visit her every day, until the novelty wore off. Nothing is forbidden to George, you see. He'd go to it with a terrier bitch if she wagged her tail at him and said bow-wow.'For once he is struck silent. He knows he will never get it out of his mind, the picture of George in a hairy grapple with a little ratting dog.

What I was caught up in, I dimly understood, was the embodiment of history

On Christmas morning, Rebecca lost her moral virginity, her sense of humor - and her two best friends. But, other than that, it was a hell of a holiday.

At the edge of the still, dark pool that was the sea, at the brimming edge of freedom where no boat was to be seen, she spoke the first words of the few they were to exchange. __ cannot swim. You know it?_ In the dark she saw the flash of his smile. __rust me._ And he drew her with a strong hand until the green phosphorescence beaded her ankles, and deeper, and deeper, until the thick milk-warm water, almost unfelt, was up to her waist. She heard him swear feelingly to himself as the salt water searched out, discovered his burns. Then with a rustle she saw his pale head sink back into the quiet sea and at the same moment she was gripped and drawn after him, her face to the stars, drawn through the tides with the sea lapping like her lost hair at her cheeks, the drive of his body beneath her pulling them both from the shore. They were launched on the long journey towards the slim shape, black against glossy black, which was the brigantine, with Thompson on board.

As people's hopes soared, Jana felt a tinge of fear.

I don't know, Benes. I'm not sure I've ever really understood women for that kind of commitment.' He flipped his beer mat up int the air with his index finger and caught it in his hand.

Cowan son of Branieucc, you're the only one of my people that I know for sure still lives.