Sudsy Skald Book Reviews

This story is a prequel to Shadow Study. Ice Study tells a short story after Fire Study and another short story Power Study.

After the events of Fire Study, Yelena and Valek's sabattical is cut short when they become entangled in a plot to prevent the Ice Moon from falling into the hands of a rogue magician.

When word that Yelena is a Soulfinder—able to capture and release souls—spreads like wildfire, people grow uneasy. Already Yelena's unusual abilities and past have set her apart. As the Council debates Yelena's fate, she receives a disturbing message: a plot is rising against her homeland, led by a murderous sorcerer she has defeated before...

With her greatest enemy dead, and on her way to be reunited with the family she'd been stolen from long ago, Yelena should be pleased. But though she has gained her freedom, she can't help feeling isolated in Sitia. Her Ixian background has changed her in many ways—and her newfound friends and relatives don't think it's for the better....

About to be executed for murder, Yelena is offered an extraordinary reprieve. She'll eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace—and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia.

And so Yelena chooses to become a food taster. But the chief of security, leaving nothing to chance, deliberately feeds her Butterfly's Dust—and only by appearing for her daily antidote will she delay an agonizing death from the poison.

Integrity Taylor should have been a Clan princess. Instead she's lived a life on the very periphery of society. Now that she's learnt more about her heritage, however, and the magic that she's capable of wielding, she's not going to hide in the shadows any longer. The once-in-a-generation Sidhe Games are going to provide the perfect opportunity for her to win back her birthright - and the fact that she'll be going head to head, toe to toe and mouth to mouth with golden haired Byron Moncrieffe might just be the icing on the cake.

Since the moment I was ripped from my mother's womb, I've been an outcast amongst my own kind. The Sidhe might possess magical Gifts, unbelievable wealth and unfathomable power but I don't want a thing to do with them. I ran away from their lands in the Highlands of Scotland when I was eleven years old and I've never looked back. I don't need a Clan. I've got my own family of highly skilled thieves who mean more to me than any Sidhe ever could.

Max is back! New husband, new job, and a training regime that cannot fail - to go wrong! Take one interim Chief Training Officer, add five recruits, mix with Joan of Arc, a baby mammoth, a duplicitous Father of History, a bombed rat, Stone Age hunters, a couple of passing policemen who should have better things to do, and Dick the Turd. Stir well, bring to the boil - and wait for the bang! Join Max in the sixth instalment in the off-the-wall Chronicles of St Mary's series.

Behind the seemingly innocuous facade of St. Mary's Institute of Historical Research, a different kind of academic work is taking place. Just don't call it "time travel"--these historians "investigate major historical events in contemporary time." And they aren't your harmless eccentrics either; a more accurate description, as they ricochet around history, might be unintentional disaster-magnets.

St Mary’s is back and is facing a battle to survive in this, the fourth instalment of the Chronicles. Max and Leon are re-united and looking forward to a peaceful lifetime together. But, sadly, they don’t even make it to lunchtime.

St Mary's is back and nothing is going right for Max. Once again, it's just one damned thing after another. The action jumps from an encounter with a mirror-stealing Isaac Newton to the bloody battlefield at Agincourt. Discover how a simple fact-finding assignment to witness the ancient and murderous cheese- rolling ceremony in Gloucester can result in CBC - concussion by cheese.

Book Two in the madcap time-travel series based at the St Mary's Institute of Historical Research that seems to be everyone's cup of tea. In the second book in the Chronicles of St Mary's series, Max and the team visit Victorian London in search of Jack the Ripper, withess the murder of Archbishop Thomas a Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, and discover that dodos make a grockling noise when eating cucumber sandwiches. But they must also confront an enemy intent on destroying St Mary's - an enemy willing, if necessary, to destroy History itself to do it.

The first book in the "USA Today" bestselling British madcap time-travelling series, served with a dash of wit that seems to be everyone s cup of tea. History is just one damned thing after another. Arnold Toynbee Behind the seemingly innocuous facade of St. Mary s Institute of Historical Research, a different kind of academic work is taking place. Just don t call it time travel these historians investigate major historical events in contemporary time.

On a continent ruled by three empires, everyone is born with a "witchery," a magical skill that sets them apart from others. Now, as the Twenty Year Truce in a centuries long war is about to end, the balance of power-and the failing health of all magic-will fall on the shoulders of a mythical pair called the Cahr Awen.

Adesina was trained from childhood to serve her land as a warrior and a spy. When she is selected to combat a group of seditious magic users, she must summon all of her talents--some of which have been buried in the deepest part of her.

For more than a hundred years humans, dwarves, gnomes and elves lived together in relative peace. But times have changed, the uneasy peace is over and now the races once again fight each other - and themselves: dwarves are killing their kinsmen, and elves are murdering humans and elves, at least those elves who are friendly to humans . . . Into this tumultuous time is born a child for whom the witchers of the world have been waiting. Ciri, the granddaughter of Queen Calanthe, the Lioness of Cintra, has strange powers and a stranger destiny, for prophecy names her the Flame, one with the power to change the world - for good, or for evil . . .