Short story first published in October 2001. We travel by a delightful story. There is a lot of magic, witchcraft, princes and much love and passion. It is a fantasy tale. Some quotes:
«I can see the world through books, and lives through the stories.»
«If you have only a window on the world, you must look out of it.»
«We're born what we're born, (...). Neither you nor I could live well or happy if we cast off our duty.»
«How can this be? How can you bring me so much? I turned you away, without love.», said Deirdre. «No, you let me go, with love. It took me time to understand that – and you. To understand what it cost you. (...).», answered Kylar.
I bought these six books "Once upon a time", by Nora Roberts, in a shop selling second-hand products. The six books have cost 2 euros. I won because this author delighted my afternoons with wonderful and beautiful stories, that melt the hearts of those who know what love is. This short story was first published in December 2002. Some quotes:
«[Kadra] (...) You would be weak and foolish if you didn't question, and the weak and foolish would be of no use to me.»
«[Kadra] Is your world so perfect, so important, that you believe it stands alone in the vastness of time and space? Harper Doyle, can you have lived and still believe you are alone? (...).»
«[Harper] I recognized you, (...). I pushed that aside, clicked back into what made sense so I could deny it. But I recognized you, somehow, the minute I saw you.»
«[Kadra] It was the same for me. This is not something I understand, but only feel. I do not know the meaning.»
«[Kadra, at the zoo] It is not right to look them up. They are not born for this. (...) This is a cruel thing you do here. This is a sorry place, this zoo. Is this what you teach your young? (...) That one species can be locked away for the amusement of another?»
«[Harper] (...) Civilization has encroached. There isn't as much room as there once was. In captivity, they're safe, I guess, and tended. They can't be hunted or taken as trophies.»
«[Kadra] They are not free, (...).»
«[Kadra] No joining had ever been so intense or (...). Nor to find herself both conquered and victorious. (...) the intimacy of the kiss that had been like... feeding each other. (...).»
«[Harper] Kissing isn't just for joining. (...) after making love... (...). Sometimes, after, while a couple is still tuned to each other, they kiss to show how much pleasure they were giving. (...).»
«[Kadra] You make me want (...) in ways I have never wanted.»
«[Harper] You make me need. (...). In ways I've never needed.»
«(...) With him, a joy she hadn't known was locked inside her could be free.»
«You're magnificent, Kadra. "Beautiful" is too ordinary, too simple a word (...).»
«[Kadra] Don't speak of death, even as an expression. Not before battle. (...). It is bad luck. (...).»
«The thing about New York, Harper thought, (...), was there was always someone dressed weirder than you were.»
«[Kadra] We are born for a purpose. How we live, how we treat others who live with us forms our spirit and determines if we will fulfill that purpose or fail. (...).»
«[Kadra] Your people have so many colors of skin. It's beautiful. You are blessed to have such richness of person, such variety. (...)».
«(...) When this is over, Kadra, we'll find a way. That's what people do when they love each other. They find a way.»
«[Kadra] (...) when they feed on us, they hope to consume what it is that makes us human. Our heart, our soul. But they cannot. All they can take and transform is the body. The heart and soul live on in another place. And that place is locked to them.»
It is erotic and pornographic literature. Despite containing coarser terms, this book is better than «Fifty shades», by E. L. James. It is better than last one due to greater action and imagination, and best expression of feelings. However, this kind of literature serves more to erotic entertainment. And anyone looking for a lot of passion and action may find the book boring, because the author is lost in pornographic descriptions. Next book of this collection is «when I'm with you». Some brands, places and quotes in the book:
«Baby-doll vintage» dress example:
«(...), I’m glad about your architecture background. Your skill and knowledge in that field is undoubtedly what gives your artwork so much precision, depth, and style. (...).»
Musee d'Archeologie Nationale et Domaine, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France:
«The St. Germain’s interior (...). Walking through the rooms gave the impression of going back in time to a posh, elegant, lived-in seventeenth-century palace showcasing priceless furnishings and incredible pieces of Grecian and Roman art.»
Aphrodite of Argos:
Herman Surenburg painting example («Spirit of the forest»). «It's about making meaning from chaos.», Ian Noble said:
«She was an incredible beauty, after all. The fact that she seemed completely oblivious to her sexuality fascinated him.»
«She became somber and formidable as a judge when she worked, all of her self-consciousness burned to mist by her brilliant talent and an uncommon grace that she didn't appear to know she possessed. She also was ignorant of her potent sexual appeal. He, on the other hand, was acutely aware of its promise and power. Unfortunately, he was equally conscious of her naïveté. He could practically smell it surrounding her; her innocence intermingled with an untested sexuality, creating a heady perfume that had set him off balance.»
«Oh, an older soul I've never seen in such a wee one's eyes. (...) Serious. Eerily smart.», Mrs. Hanson said about Ian Noble.
«Where’s the fun in planning for a tattoo? You’re supposed to wake up with a truly atrocious, supersleazy one in the morning and not have a clue how you got it the night before.», Justin joked.
«You should always control the strengths you have available to you; never let them languish or, worse, allow others to be the ones to control them for you.», Ian said to Francesca.
«It caused no greater shame than to express need, to make oneself vulnerable, and then to have that pure, honest emotion thrown back at you as if it were garbage.»
«Was she so desperate, following a majority of life spent overweight, to have a man like Ian show desire for her that she was willing to sacrifice her dignity?»
«Bach - Brandenburg concertos, (...). It seemed a perfect choice for Ian — the man and the music were both mathematically precise and intensely soulful.»
Le Grand Véfour restaurant, Palais-Royal, in Paris:
George V hotel, in Paris:
«(...) a candlelit private terrace with a stunning view of the glowing lacework steel Eiffel Tower.», in George V hotel, Paris:
Le Cinq, luxury restaurant located in the George V hotel, in Paris:
«I want you to know that I am far from being critical of your appearance. Whether you’re in pearls or your Cubs T-shirt, I find you to be extremely attractive. Perhaps you haven’t noticed?», Ian said to Francesca.
«It’s a developmental milestone, getting your driver’s license, no different than taking your first step... (...)», Ian said.
«If a woman recognizes her power, she can present herself in rags and people will recognize her as a queen.», Ian said to Franscesca.
Sixteen, «that's one of the nicest restaurants in the city [Chicago]! (...). Sixteen was housed in the Trump International Hotel & Tower, the dining room dominated by the modern, clean lines of cherrywood-paneled walls and an enormous, stunning Swarovski-crystal chandelier.»:
«Had she [Francesca] really believed she could expunge him from her mind and soul so easily because of anger? What was fury to the swelling, inexplicable feelings she had for him?»
«(...) a cityscape painting she’d [Francesca] done of the Wrigley Building, the Union and Carbide Building (...).»:
«— I really do spoil you. (...) I wouldn't do this for anyone else.I want you to know that [Ian]. (...) — That's the sweetest thing you've ever said to me [Francesca]»
«The only thing she knew is that whatever Ian was doing in London, it caused him anguish, and that he’d chosen to protect others in his life from that pain./He would be furious at her, if, by some miracle, she ever actually located him. Yet she couldn’t stand the idea of him suffering alone in any way, and she had become utterly convinced that these “emergency” visits to London related to the spiritual demons that plagued him./Besides, if what was in London was destined to destroy whatever they might have together in the future, wasn’t it best just to find out now instead of delaying the inevitable?»
«(...), she recalled that expression he wore once in a while that tore at her so deeply and bewildered her so much, the look of someone who not only had been abandoned and lost but who knew with certainty he would eventually be rejected again.»
330 North Wabash (formerly IBM Plaza also known as IBM Building and now renamed AMA Plaza) is a skyscraper in downtown Chicago:
«She shivered at the memory of Ian’s rough, quiet voice. How she missed him. It was like an open wound deep inside her, a place she couldn't reach in order to soothe.»
«(...) He had seen her so well, even then, seen things in her she hadn’t. He’d cherished those things, cultivated her strengths (...)...»
A beautiful, fantastic and sweeping story of love, power, and justice. In this short story, first published in October 2003, the author was able to create a great story, which may be the basis for the creation of a Disney cartoon or a fantasy movie full of passion. «Magic dimmed in all but the secret places, and some grew to fear as much as covet it.»
«The purloined letter», 1845, «(...) in Paris (...), "au troisième, n.º 33, rue Dunôt, Faubourg St. Germain."» It is a detective story.
«The fall of the house of Usher», September 1839, a macabre horror story: «(...) with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium — the bitter lapse into everyday life — the hideous dropping off of the veil. (...) Among other things, I hold painfully in mind a certain singular perversion and amplification of the wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber.»
«The gold-bug», June 1843, a suspense story: «(...) subject to perverse moods of alternate enthusiasm and melancholy [Sr. William Legrand]. (...) You will observe that the stories told are all about money-seekers, not about money-finders.»
«The tell - tale heart», January 1843. It is is a short story about crime and paranoia.
«Berenice», March 1835, a horror and macabre story about obsession and mental illness: «The undue, earnest, and morbid attention thus excited by objects in their own nature frivolous, (...). (...) the dreamer, or enthusiast, being interested by an object usually not frivolous, imperceptibly loses sight of this object in a wilderness of deductions and suggestions issuing therefrom, until, at the conclusion of a day dream often replete with luxury, he finds the incitamentum or first cause of his musings entirely vanished and forgotten. (...) the primary object was invariably frivolous, although assuming, through the medium of my distempered vision, a refracted and unreal importance. (...) The meditations were never pleasurable; and, at the termination of the reverie, the first cause, so far from being out of sight, had attained that supernaturally exaggerated interest which was the prevailing feature of the disease.»
«The masque of the red death», May 1842. It is a horror short story, a Gothic fiction.
«The man of the crowd», December 1840. It is a short story about obsession.
The author has an excellent ability to describe the mind and mental states, especially the disturbed minds, with too much detail.
