Growing up, I idolized Wonder Woman. She had it all--awesome strength and beauty, intelligence and kindness. To me, she was female perfection. Ever practical, I knew I’d never achieve that ideal (she was just fantasy, after all), but following her tireless quest to rid the world of evil and replace it with love and peace allowed me to envision a place and time in which women enjoyed real power and respect (and could fix problems without a lot of senseless bloodshed). It's never all about thrilling feats of derring-do, of course. There’s a bit of melancholy attached to any superhero story too-- sometimes a sense of loss, and always feelings of loneliness. Nothing comes without a price. Raymond Benson explores what it would be like to become an all-too-human superhero in his new book, The Black Stiletto . ✒ ~ ✒ ~ ✒ ~ ✒ ~ ✒ Martin Talbot is a just a regular Joe. Ordinary-looking, middle-aged, and divorced (with shared custody of an only daughter), he’s not the sort to inspire...
If you dug out your blender... threw in a whole bunch of Only Murders in the Building ... added a soupçon of Friends. .. a jigger or so of Cheers ... and a hearty dash of Mrs. Roper (from Three’s Company )... well, you might end up with something much like the delightful tipple that is Jo Nichols’ mystery novel, The Marigold Cottages Murder Collective . And if you did? Oh my, how sweet it would taste, going down... The elderly, caftan-wearing “Mrs. B” is the proud owner and landlady of a grouping of seven quaint cottages (one of which being her own domicile), in beautiful Santa Barbara, California. The cottages are a blast from the past—tiny, grouped intimately around a miniature courtyard—and constantly fighting off “progress”, in the form of fancy new multi-occupant buildings (the likes of which encroach upon all sides). Being just a short walk from the Pacific Ocean, though, means these little homes are veritable go...
Being a young woman has never been quite the walk in the park it might--at first blush--appear to be. Sure, it looks simple enough when viewed from the outside. Young women giggle and share secrets with their best friends. They sit in front of mirrors, studying their reflections and analyzing every pore. They spend hours in pursuit of the perfect article of clothing or pair of shoes. They daydream about who they want to fall in love with them... and then devise elaborate schemes in the hope of ensuring romantic success. Young women are a lot more than such fluff and frippery, of course. They think about the world at large, looking beyond their own small corner of it. They rail at social injustices and inequalities, and chafe at being told to blindly accept the status quo. They ponder the great unknown of the future, and think, perhaps, that they could solve all the world’s problems, if given the chance. They have minds of their own, and they look for opportunities in which to use them....
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