Monday, August 31, 2020


 

A Son at the Front by Edith Wharton

A worrisome tale of a woman who has a son in the front lines of the War during World War I.  There are more novels by Edith Whaton HERE.

Saturday, March 7, 2020

A unique, historical Gothic romance of a man visiting Sicily, where he learns of the strange events surrounding a certain family.  He investigates, and falls in love in this suspenseful, Gothic romance.

A Sicilian Romance is a gothic novel by Ann Radcliffe. It was her second published work, and was first published anonymously in 1790.
The plot concerns the fallen nobility of the house of Mazzini, on the northern shore of Sicily, as related by a tourist who learns of their turbulent history from a monk he meets at the ruins of their once-magnificent castle. The Mazzini sisters, Emilia and Julia are 'beautiful' young ladies with many talents. Julia quickly falls in love with the young and handsome Italian count Hippolitus de Vereza, but to her dismay her father decides that she should marry Duke de Luovo instead. After much thought Julia attempts to elope with Hippolitus on the night before her wedding. However, their escape had been anticipated, and the Marquis, Julia's father, ambushes and seemingly kills Hippolitus whose body is carried away by his servants. The Marquis tells Julia that she must marry the duke and after much difficulty she escapes again alone. The Marquis and the Duke spend much of the novel trying to catch Julia and force her to marry the duke. Julia has to flee from her various hiding places as she narrowly avoids capture and eventually ends up, by a secret tunnel, in the abandoned and seemingly haunted southern apartments of the Mazzini castle only to find that her mother, thought to be dead, had been imprisoned there for years by the Marquis, who had grown to despise her. The Marquis's new wife, Maria de Vellorno, commits murder-suicide after the Marquis discovers and accuses her of infidelity, poisoning the Marquis and stabbing herself. Before he dies the Marquis confesses to Ferdinand, his son, that his mother has been imprisoned, and hands him the keys. However, his mother and Julia had already been freed by Hippolitus, who had recovered from his wounds. Ferdinand then finds them at a lighthouse on the coast, waiting to leave for Italy, and they are all joyfully reunited. The introduction to the Oxford World's Classics edition notes that in this novel "Ann Radcliffe began to forge the unique mixture of the psychology of terror and poetic description that would make her the great exemplar of the Gothic novel, and the idol of the Romantics". The novel explores the "cavernous landscapes and labyrinthine passages of Sicily's castles and convents to reveal the shameful secrets of its all-powerful aristocracy" .

Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Monday, December 9, 2019

https://www.ronaldbooks.com/Adventure+Books-4/A+Princess+of+Mars+by+Edgar+Rice+Burroughs+Paperback-4367
A Princess of Mars is a science fantasy novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, the first of his Barsoom series. It was first serialized in the pulp magazine All-Story Magazine from February–July, 1912. Full of swordplay and daring feats, the novel is considered a classic example of 20th-century pulp fiction. It is also a seminal instance of the planetary romance, a subgenre of science fantasy that became highly popular in the decades following its publication. Its early chapters also contain elements of the Western. The story is set on Mars, imagined as a dying planet with a harsh desert environment. This vision of Mars was based on the work of the astronomer Percival Lowell, whose ideas were widely popularized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Barsoom series inspired a number of well-known 20th-century science fiction writers, including Jack Vance, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, and John Norman. The series was also inspirational for many scientists in the fields of space exploration and the search for extraterrestrial life, including Carl Sagan, who read A Princess of Mars when he was a child.

Sunday, November 24, 2019

A Noose for the Desperado by Clifton Adams at Ronaldbooks.com
Outlaw Tall Cameron rides in to Ocotillo, Arizona and is immediatey set up by Marta, a Mexican hell-cat, for a gunning down by a bent US Marshall. Cameron survives the attempt and works his way into the local gang, joining in the vicious raids against smuggling parties from south of the border. Along the way we soon realize that Tall Cameron isn't much of a noble rogue, but is about as unhinged as they come. In fact, no one in Ocotillo is dealing with a full deck. It's the last town north of Hell, where loyalty lasts as long as the next silver dollar. It's dark and bloody, and as bleak as a desert-fried skull.

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

A Monk of Fife is a fictitious narrative purporting to be written by a young Scot in France from 1429 to 1431, During the time of Joan of Arc.

Tuesday, November 5, 2019

A Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
This is the thrilling classic tale by Jules Verne about a voyage to the center of the earth, where a lost civilization is found.

The genre of subterranean fiction already existed long before Verne. However, Journey considerably added to the genre's popularity and influenced later such writings. For example, Edgar Rice Burroughs explicitly acknowledged Verne's influence on his own Pellucidar series.  The story involves German professor Otto Lidenbrock who believes there are volcanic tubes going toward the centre of the Earth. He, his nephew Axel, and their guide Hans descend into the Icelandic volcano Snæfellsjökull, encountering many adventures, including prehistoric animals and natural hazards, before eventually coming to the surface again in southern Italy, at the Stromboli volcano.