Romeo and Juliet (one of my least favorite plays) set in the forest community of Shady Hollow. He’s a hardworking otter, she’s a (former) beaver heiress. Their parents can’t agree on much, but do believe the couple need to split up. The otter patriarch dies during a very dramatic, very public fight at the top of Twilight Falls. Vera Vixen, reporter, is as horrified as everyone else, but she’s the only one who feels the whole scene was . . . wrong. All clues and an anonymous note point to the young beaver lass. But her beau insists they were together in the woods and surely he wouldn’t lie to protect his father’s killer.

Garland compares beliefs about the afterlife, funerary issues like mummification and embalming, and general attitudes to death and dying across the peoples of the ancient world. Unfortunately the ancient world in this book only covers the various ancient societies of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome (only the original kingdom, not the full empire), plus the Etruscans, Jewish people, early Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and Zoroastrians. That's a lot of course, but look at a map and you see what a very small part of the ancient world. Nothing east of India or west of Italy, north of Italy or south of Egypt. So while it is really interesting, I'm hoping for a volume two covering the Far East, Africa, Australia, and the whole western half of the world.

From a Certain Point of View shares stories from the events of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back as experienced by the background characters. Meet the caf delivery guy who rescues rebels evacuating Echo Base on Hoth. Follow the final thoughts of an Imperial admiral as he’s being force-choked by Darth Vader. A tie-fighter pilot shares her rules for not getting killed. An Uggnaught clan rushes to escape Cloud City when stormtroopers take over. The twenty-odd short stories are written by as many different authors. They vary in tone and length, but all give you the SW galaxy beyond the Skywalker family.

Suspenseful, but at times, hard to stay engaged in.

Loved loved loved I read this series already and decided I need to read it all I loved again it’s that’s good

I’m a big fan of the Meg Langslow Mysteries. The series has gotten maybe a little too cozy with too many delightful side characters who have to make an appearance in every book. I like to go back and re-read the really good earlier books in the series, like No Nest. Meg and fiance Michael host an eXtreme croquet tournament on their new sprawling property. Members of the local historical society make up a team as do their arch-enemies the real estate developers. A disgraced former professor had history with both teams (and Michael). And now she’s dead.

I forgot how sad this book was and happy at the same time so many memories glad I choose for my classic book

This is always an ongoing read for me. I bought the special edition from b&n years ago and read it with my teen and tween

I will for sure read this book again. I received it as a birthday gift because of my love of hockey smut and was completely engulfed while reading. Sleep was lost but pages needed to be read.

People traveled in the 12th-15t centuries. Merchants sought new markets, diplomats finagled treaties, and anyone who could get the necessary funding and permissions took religious pilgrimages. Bale explores the most common holy and trade routes based on what the travelers wrote in journals and guidebooks. It is very interesting, but too limited. Bale points out several times that Christians (Roman and Eastern/Greek), Muslims, and Jewish pilgrims visited many of the same places in Constantinople and Jerusalem. We only have the Christian, and almost exclusively Western European Christian, stories. One small chapter near the end follows Asian travelers’ adventures in the west. Ma Huan (Chinese Muslim), Het’um (Armenian Christian), and Rabban Bar Sauma (Christian Mongol) don’t represent the majority of nonEuropeans. A broader range of viewpoints and less personal commentary from the author would improve the book.