Odelia Floris

This book presents over 300 quotes for wisdom, inspiration, motivation and living by, each one a gem whose beautiful light will illuminate. Broadly arranged by category, they are carefully chosen and attractively laid out. Henry David Thoreau's insightful, wisdom-filled words sound across the centuries with increasing relevance. His message of simple, mindful living, integrity and love for the natural world will resonate with many today as they seek more satisfying and responsible ways of living. If you are looking for profound yet simple maxims to live by, this book will be an invaluable friend and guide..

With a touch both loving and wise, George Eliot wrote of many things. But it is her unique insight into human character for which she is valued above all. When reading any one of her great literary masterpieces, the reader is arrested from time to time by some sentence, metaphor or paragraph which sheds astonishing new light on a part of ourselves, the world, or the human condition. We stop, reread it, ponder on its genius and beauty. It is these gems which have been gathered from the great breadth of Eliot's work and are here presented in one concise book. Words on love, marriage, friendship, life, character, virtue, and many more topics, fill these pages. Few will close it without picking up some new pearls to add to their store.

The 'captivating and unusual' Chaucy Shire Medieval Mysteries series continues with The Cockcrow Curse, the highly anticipated sequel to The Heart of Darkness. Escape to late medieval England once more and spend a summer in the beautiful but dangerous little shire of Chaucy. Rowena's change of circumstances was entirely unexpected. But as verdant summer comes to the fields and forests of Chaucy Shire, her blossoming world is pierced by a sudden and mysterious trouble. The unknown forest-dwellers who saved her life in the winter snows have called for the help she promised was theirs in repayment if ever they had need of it. With Sir Richard still suffering the effects of a knee wound, she and he reluctantly ride to the rendezvous in Glymewood Forest. Thus begins a trickle that soon turns to a torrent of trouble. Farms at the fringes of wild Glymewood are being attacked in violent night raids, travellers on the forest roads robbed, and what is worse, the Keeper of the Forest insists he has jurisdiction there, the forest being royal hunting land under the Crown's brutal forest laws. Sir Richard is furious, and the people look on in expectation. Is it too much to expect 'the black sheriff' to be their saviour? Everything points to the unknown forest-dwellers being guilty. But Rowena cannot believe the men who saved her from certain death to be thieves and murderers. Yet there is a man she can believe to be one: squire Gliglois, a young man who unexpectedly arrives late one night claiming to be a distant Hastings relation. Everything about the beautiful young man is unsettling; his icy eyes, his mysterious nocturnal rides, his uncanny resemblance to Sir Richard and strange interest in the knight's sister. Bad as they are, these are only some of the rapidly mounting difficulties facing Eaglestone Castle's new mistress. Then Rowena looks out one fine morning to see a wholly new trouble waiting in the meadow - a trouble that shatters her world and threatens to part her from the man she loves forever. Rowena must stand alone and find more strength than ever before if she is to bring him home and bring peace to Chaucy Shire once again...

Based on Antonin Dvorak's opera Rusalka, which in turn was inspired by traditional Czech fairytales, this novelette tells of the water nymph Rusalka and her love for a human prince. A haunting supernatural love story suitable for readers of all ages. With a look of deepest yearning, Rusalka reached out towards the sky with her tiny, pale hand. 'I want to leave the water and walk in the sun as a mortal ' She uttered this last word with trembling rapture. 'A mortal' The Vodn k was even more astonished. 'Yes, dear father, a mortal ' she cried, rising. 'It was you who told me: they have souls which are immortal, which rise up to heaven when they die ' The Vodn k was sore troubled. 'Stay in the waters' embrace. Do not wish for a mortal soul Mortal souls are full of wickedness ' 'And love ' Rusalka cried ardently, reaching her arms up as though calling it to the host of stars above too. 'By the eternal waters ' exclaimed the Vodn k. 'Do you mean to say you love a mortal'

Little Murmur is doing a poor job of being a demon. His nose is hardly hooked, his chin is round, his fingernails short and not remotely talon-like, and he is so lazy that he can barely be bothered spreading evil and mischief among man. His father is not impressed, and neither are his two older brothers. But still young Murmur prefers to spend his nights lazing in the abandoned churchyard over the wall from his back garden. After all, lying on the lid of the old mayor's tombstone gazing up at the stars is much easier than finding humans to incite to acts of evil. And it is a deal safer too; little chance here of crossing paths with the demons' nemesis, the angels. But the other demons are not happy. Something must be done about Murmur. He needs to be turned into a proper mean, God-mocking demon. He needs to complete Belphegor's Idiot Management Course. The heinous Belphegor has a hard task on his hands. There is no demon more stupid, lazy or cowardly than Murmur in all of Hell. But when a magnificent great-winged angel falls from the sky and lands in the old well in Murmur's churchyard, things take an unexpected turn. Stuck in the well, the angel is ruining the little demon's once-peaceful retreat. To clear him out, Murmur must approach him, speak to him, look upon him... Will this be the little demon's final downfall...?

Mr Ivanovsky disturbed her. She felt like an explorer who had suddenly found themselves face-to-face with a strange, never-before-seen creature. It happened one night. One hot, moonlit midsummer night at a ball in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1884. Miss Anna Brown walks out onto the terrace and into arrestingly beautiful Russian artist Sasha Ivanovsky. He is unconventional, unfettered, adventurous, dangerously bohemian-everything she is not, everything she fears. But she is bewitched. His eyes-dark, mysterious, smoulderingly passionate- burn into her mind, into her heart, into her very soul. Unthinkingly, she dances the night away with him. But when dawn breaks, it brings with it the cold light of reality. Anna's carefree exhibition on the dance floor has set the tongues of society wagging, and she cannot bear it. Ivanovsky is dangerous, unsuitable, forbidden. She is determined not to be consumed by fire. She must do the only sensible thing-cut herself from him. She must extinguish the only warmth that had ever touched her and let cold, lonely unhappiness once more be her world. Respect and duty done-they were the things that would define her life. With one glance from his dark eyes, he stole her heart away on that fateful midsummer night. She is desperately determined that he will not steal away her body and soul too. A resistance must be mounted. Her rebel heart must be subdued, and all thoughts of doomed, dangerous loves locked away. But how cold and bleak it is; so cold that she cannot make herself kill the last remaining spark, the ember that still smoulders deep inside her soul... Drop by drop, she feels herself melting away. Soon there might be nothing left of her. But she will not yield. Nothing will prevent her living the life her family and her society demand, however much it hurts, of that she is certain. But the sea has something for Anna. Something dangerous and forbidden. Something she does not want. Something she loves and fears above all things. It is coming closer-closer to tempting her, closer to burning her, closer to shattering her. A storm that cannot be weathered unchanged. A storm that could wreck her... Length: 62,000 words Content: No strong language, some mild, non-graphic adult content In a book from the 19th Century Love Stories series you will find: A swoon-worthy hero who knows how to treat a woman right Real woman with real issues Truly meaningful romance Atmospheric, enticing settings lovingly rendered in poetic, image-rich language Fresh, original writing, plots and characters A rich and zesty mix of wit, irony and slightly quirky humour, contrasted with poignant, heartfelt emotion and involved drama A lively, dialogue-focused narrative style An uplifting and entertaining read which will also leave you satisfied on a deeper level

Set against the open skies and wild beauty of southwest England in 1430, The Heart of Darkness is a medieval mystery about one young woman's quest to shed light on the dark secrets of her shire's sheriff and help him hunt down the villains responsible for a spate of local kidnappings-before they strike again. Her courage began to desert her under Sir Richard's cold, questioning stare. 'Good day, sir. I-I-am Rowena Walden, my uncle, Lord Cunningham, sent me, ' she managed to stammer. 'He said that you-needed a clerk.' When Lady Sabina spitefully volunteered her well-educated cousin Rowena as temporary personal clerk to Chaucy Shire's sheriff, she could not refuse. An unmarried young woman with dead parents and nothing to her name has little choice. But Rowena dreads it. She has heard a lot about the darkly handsome knight: heartless, hot-tempered, impossible to please, just plain bad... As she meets Sir Richard's cold, unnerving stare for the first time, the future does not look good. However, Rowena is not the only one with a problem. Strangely, Rowena's presence at Eaglestone Castle deeply disturbs Sir Richard, who appears determined to intimidate his terrifyingly cunning new clerk into quitting. Unfortunately for him, Rowena finds her new master as fascinating as he is frightening. His finances are over-stretched and highly irregular, and his murky past seems to conceal a dark and painful secret. His fury at the meddling of a lowly clerk whom he cannot sack because of her connections is intense, and his unexpected flashes of tenderness towards her only add to the confusion. But with the local people growing increasingly angry at their sheriff's failure to find three kidnapped girls, Sir Richard is forced to enlist Rowena's help. Can this precarious pair catch the villains who have been carrying off Chaucy's maidens before they strike again? And can Rowena get to the bottom of Sir Richard's mysterious financial woes before he loses everything? Then the stakes become higher than ever when the man whom Rowena thought she would never, could never, love challenges his greatest enemy to a fight to the death. Will he triumph, or will his life bleed away into the dust, and her heart with it?