#H.L. Burke

[deborahocarroll]

One Year Later: Uncommon Universes Authors

Today I want to shout out all the UUP authors (or were-to-be UUP authors) and their epic releases, re-releases, and where you can find them and their books! A year ago many of us were saddened by the doors closing at Uncommon Universes Press, a beloved small press run by Janeen Ippolito, Sarah Delena White, and A.C. Williams. (Shoutout to them for running such a wonderful press for so many…

[donut-rambles]

Re: your tags on the would you rather poll: YES, I am referring to H.L. Burke's SVR-verse! That is crazy! I'm excited to meet another fan, though! Which book specifically were you reading? (I was reading an ARC of Her Fake Superhero Boyfriend, which was SO GOOD.)

NO WAY!! That’s awesome!! So stoked to meet another fan of her books!

I was reading “Blind Date with a Supervillain”

Super excited for Her Fake Superhero Boyfriend to release! What was your favorite part of it? Which of her books is your favorite?

[taleweaver-ramblings]

Just a heads up — if you're looking for clean or Christian indie fiction, this sale runs today through Monday and features literally hundreds of free or $0.99 ebooks. Featured authors include Kendra E. Ardnek, Tara Grayce, Sarah Beran, H.S.J. Williams, H.L. Burke, Sarah Pennington, and others. I always find lots of good books here, so I definitely recommend checking it out!

(Oh, and it's not in the sale, but H.L. Burke's A Superhero for Christmas appears to be available for free today! If you've ever wanted to see what happens when you stick superheroes in a Hallmark Christmas movie, this is for you. It's actually delightful, and I don't even like Hallmark movies. XD)

[fairytalearista]

You said to give you a number, so I am giving you the number 42.

Flower by H.L. Burke, am at 5%, reading on Kindle via a freebie.

This one falls firmly into my "started but not invested in yet" category. I like most of the author's books, so I will probably click soon enough, though. But, um, there's a girl who doesn't know she's a plant princess. Or something like that. I prefer the old covers to the current ones.

I'm not really rushing to finish this one as I'll need to clear a KU slot before I can read the sequels.

Also, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Omnibus is on my currently reading shelf if y'all can find it, though it's a low number 'cause it's been there a while (the smaller the number, the older it is).

[random-bookquotes]

There is little in this kingdom the fairies don’t meddle in, and princesses get the worst of it. It was vindictive fairies who turned our queen into a mannequin, changed the queen’s mother into a duck, and caused the queen’s grandmother to speak backwards for a year. Our royal family fears the creatures like the plague.

H.L. Burke, An Ordinary Knight: A Fairy Cursed Fable 

[jolieeason]

WWW Wednesday: NOvember 4th 2020

WWW Wednesday: NOvember 4th 2020

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading? What did you recently finish reading? What do you think you’ll read next?

Personal:

Miss R doesn’t need glasses. She had her appointment on Wednesday (after I posted last week’s WWW Wednesday). Her vision was perfect. The Drwas super nice and said her vision is…

[kelsieengen]

Book Review: Heart of the Curiosity

Book Review: Heart of the Curiosity

Heart of the Curiosity H.L. Burke

Oh boy this was a sweet read.

A romantic slow burn, a sweet, clean romance, with action, adventure, and a Sherlock Holmes quality feel, this book is so worth it.

Every book that I read by Burke is really a great novel. Some resonate with me more than others, and I really found this one to be one of her best. (The other one I really enjoyed for its depth of…

[godzilla-reads]

Godzilla-Reads Young Readers Recs

“Seedfolks” by Paul Fleischman

“Black Panther: The Young Prince” by Ronald L. Smith

“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” by J.K. Rowling

“The Lightning Thief” by Rick Riordan

“A Wrinkle in Time” by Madeline L’Engle

“Matilda” by Roald Dahl

“The Giver” by Lois Lowry

“The Graveyard Book” by Neil Gaiman

“Cora and the Nurse Dragon” by H.L. Burke

“Dealing with Dragons” by Patricia C. Wrede

“A Bad Beginning” by Lemony Snicket

“Holes” by Louis Sachar

“Island of the Blue Dolphins” by Scott O’Dell

“The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“The Phantom Tollbooth” by Norton Juster

“Where the Red Fern Grows” by Wilson Rawls

“Inkheart” by Cornelia Funke

“Artemis Fowl” by Eoin Colfer

“The Golden Compass” by Philip Pullman

“Brown Girl Dreaming” by Jacqueline Woodson

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Mississippi Mass Choir - When I Rose This Morning From the 1996 album "I'll See You In The Rapture" Written by H.L. Parker and Carlton Reese | Soloist: Mosie "Mama" Burks

[dreamersdrivel]

Ebook Freebies ~ 2/4

Ebook Freebies ~ 2/4

https://www.amazon.com/One-Black-Rose-Omnibus-Books-ebook/dp/B00VTVKHNY/ref=zg_bs_3511261011_f_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=JVTJTWBRH54ZTZ9AZ0ACOne Black Rose: Sixteen-year-old Autumn goes to stay with her friend Carley in Castleton, Maine, for the summer. As soon as she arrives she meets Holt Roth and Samuel Cheshire. Her reaction to Holt is strong, her reaction to Samuel is shocking. It turns…

[failbetterwriting]

My Top 5 Reads of 2018

My Top 5 Reads of 2018

2018 was one of the best reading years for me, at least since college. According to Goodreads, I’ve read 15 books (soon to be 16), which spanned a variety of genres and included traditionally published books and indie books. I thought it would be fun to count down my favorite books of the year.

(more…)

[artisticbent]

Coiled

A healing touch. A hideous face. A looming curse.

As the ugly twin to a perfect sister, Princess Laidra lives her life in the shadows—until her parents offer her as bait for a giant serpent.

Her escape attempt leaves her shipwrecked on a secluded island with only one inhabitant: Prince Calen, who lives under a curse. If anyone looks upon him, he turns into a giant serpent. Speaking to him in the…

[random-bookquotes]

“I suppose it is difficult to have a 'happily ever after' when your prince charming is the world’s largest lizard.”

H.L. Burke, Dragon's Curse (The Dragon and the Scholar #1)

[thisguyatthemovies]

Addicted to love

Title: “The Souvenir”

Release date: May 17, 2019

Starring: Honor Swinton Byrne, Tom Burke, Tilda Swinton, Tosin Cole, Jack McMullen, Richard Ayoade, Ariane Labed, Jaygann Ayeh

Directed by: Joanna Hogg

Run time: 1 hour, 59 minutes

Rated: R

What it’s about: A shy film school student in 1980s England falls in love with a charming and narcissistic heroin addict

How I saw it: “Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence,” late American journalist H.L. Mencken once wrote. And Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne), the lead character in writer/director Joanna Hogg’s semi-autobiographic film “The Souvenir,” has let imagination triumph. And it never stops triumphing, right up to the predictable end.

Newcomer Swinton Byrne (the daughter of Tilda Swinton, also her mother in this film) plays a shy film school student in early 1980s England. She is planning a feature-length film about a working-class boy who is afraid that his mother will die, and she is in desperate need of a push to blossom not only as a filmmaker but as a young woman. Enter Anthony (Tom Burke), a stylishly dressed, chain-smoking young man who works for the Foreign Office and seems to be of privilege (just as Julie is). They embark on a slow-building romance that is dysfunctional right off the bat. Soon they are sharing the same bed, at first quarreling over who is infringing on the other’s side before they are, so to speak, meeting in the middle.

Anthony is a narcissist and borderline sociopath, but he gives Julie the attention she desperately craves, though little of it is positive attention. He frequently questions her film writing, her motivation for making movies, even her reserved personality. But that’s not the worst of it. Julie learns at a dinner party that Anthony has been keeping a secret – he is a heroin addict.

It’s all downhill from here. Anthony, who is a man of appearances but questionable credentials, starts borrowing money from Julie, and in turn she borrows it from her mother. Dealing with Anthony starts to take its toll on Julie, affecting her schooling and health. Their relationship seems to hit rock bottom when Julie comes home to Anthony to find that most of her valuable possessions have been stolen. Later, he confesses that he had taken everything but (and here’s where love, dysfunction, sociopathic behavior and enabling intersect) she ends up apologizing to him. That kind of behavior becomes a pattern through the rest of their relationship. When Anthony is jailed, Julie takes a new lover but – wait for it – takes Anthony back when he is released. His addiction worsens, and with jail already out of the way, there’s only one outcome left.

“The Souvenir” is a deeply personal film by Hogg. Perhaps too personal. It plays like an inside joke minus the joke. Watching it seems voyeuristic. Perhaps because the characters are privileged and pretentious the way you would expect film school students to be, it’s hard to muster sympathy or empathy for any of them. We learn nothing about how Anthony’s addiction started, and even in his most vulnerable moment, while he is going through withdrawal, feeling sorry for him or rooting for him only vaguely comes to mind and heart. Julie is a sympathetic character if you can view her as a victim of Anthony’s mess, but mostly she either makes bad decisions or apologizes to Anthony for, well, bothering to exist. She stands by her man, but why exactly? Is that what love is supposed to be?

The three main actors (Swinton Byrne, Swinton and Burke) are terrific, as is the supporting cast. “The Souvenir” is stylishly made with great detail and, as is the usual for an arthouse film, slow-moving and quiet. Music doesn’t play often, but when it does it’s played on vinyl and cassettes (this being the ‘80s), and it’s a great mix of opera, jazz, classical and 1980s post-punk and new wave (the Pretenders, Joe Jackson, The Fall).

But “The Souvenir” is as pretentious as its characters, and it’s surprisingly distant instead of intimate. Its purpose, apparently, is to show how a turbulent and doomed relationship helped make a young woman a better artist and person. But who’s to say that wouldn’t have happened anyway, through other, better experiences? Was the relationship the path to growth, or was it just an awful detour?  

My score: 28 out of 100

Should you see it? No. It might hold some interest if there is a heroin addict in your life, so that you know what not to do.

[seattlemysterybooks]

philsp.com

April 1943 issue

J. Lane Linklater, “Killer’s Gift"

Marvin Ryerson, “Stuck with Murder", illustrated by H.I. Parkhurst  

Albert A. Rabin, “Appointment with Murder"

Joe Archibald, “Sham and Eggs” (Willie Klump), illustrated by Joe Archibald

Ted Coughlan, “Somebody Stole My Corpse", illustrated by H.I. Parkhurst   

Arthur J. Burks, “Shadows on the Wall"

Tom Curry, “An Old Account"

Seattle Mystery Bookshop 

[papercraneswriting]

Ashen Blog Tour: Book Food!

Ashen Blog Tour: Book Food!

Today I have the distinct pleasure of introducing author H.L. Burke and her brand new release, Ashen! Ashen is a fantasy Cinderella retelling inspired by Iceland, and, well… I’m sure you can see how I would be interested in that!

But if you’re new here, I write some fairy tale retellings of my own, and about two and a half years ago, my husband and I took our honeymoon in Iceland!

I fell in…