Monday Morning Introductions

Here's a sample of books that came in for review at Feathered Quill this week.  Check them out and then head on over to our site to read the reviews in a few weeks.















Leonidas of Sparta: A Peerless Peer Sparta at the start of the fifth century BC is in crisis. The Argives are attacking Sparta's vulnerable island of Kythera, but King Cleomenes is more interested in meddling in Athenian affairs. His co-monarch, King Demaratus, opposes Cleomenes' ambitions, and soon the kings are at each other's throats. Exploiting this internal conflict, Corinth launches a challenge to Spartan control of the Peloponnesian League, while across the Aegean Sea, the Greek cities of Ionia are in rebellion against Persia -- and pleading for Spartan aid. King Cleomenes' youngest half-brother Leonidas has only just attained citizenship. He has no reason to expect that this revolt will shape his destiny. At twenty-one, Leonidas is just an ordinary ranker in the Spartan army, less interested in high politics than putting his private life in order. He needs to find reliable tenants to restore his ruined estate, and, most important, to find the right woman to be his bride. Meanwhile, his niece Gorgo is growing up. Not particularly pretty, she is, nevertheless, precocious and courageous -- qualities that get her into trouble more than once. This is the story of both Leonidas and Gorgo in the years before Leonidas becomes king of Sparta and before the first Persian invasion of Greece sets Leonidas on the road to Thermopylae.

Paths to Divinity: Volume 1 An archaeologist gone mad describes the unearthed secrets that drove him to insanity. The tables turn on a 'tender-hearted' serial killer who truly loves his victims. A mortally wounded German soldier contemplates the futility of war and love lost in the company of a tennis-obsessed Grim Reaper. A slain Spartan king is awakened by The Furies and finds his vengeance. A little girl stumbles upon a mythical garden and finds within herself the world's salvation. Paths to Divinity offers tales grotesque and wonderful from the mind of author Joseph DiCristofano. Open this tome, and savor a journey filled with horror, magic, fear, and hope. Escape the trappings of normalcy and embrace your imagination.

Anything Ken and Melissa are at the dawn of a magnificent life together. A passionate romance has led them to the doorstep of marriage. While searching for the perfect wedding present for Melissa, Ken stumbles into a mysterious shop. There, he is given an extraordinary opportunity – to look in on Melissa when she was a girl. Ken has always wished he could have known Melissa from the day she was born and this seems like an incredible blessing. Until he discovers a terrible secret in Melissa's past, one so awful she has found it impossible to mention to him. Now Ken has another extraordinary opportunity. He can go back in time and change the horrible event that has left an indelible mark on Melissa. He can free her of this burden – but doing so could change things so completely that they might never meet. Ken has repeatedly told Melissa that he would do anything for her. But would he truly do anything?

Wax: Pearl Harbor Changed Everything Inspired by the lives of actual "Rosies," this novel follows three young women as they take industry jobs during WWII and as they break their mothers' molds when the war is over.