Sarah Kurz

"The modern green witch understands that humanity impacts the natural world, not only through how individuals treat it, but also via the energy created by their feelings and beliefs." The Green Witch: Your Complete Guide to the Natural Magic of Herbs, Flowers, Essential Oils, and More  by  Arin Murphy-Hiscock was a wonderful little book!  I'll definitely be referring to it for years to come.  I'm particularly excited to preform the Spring Equinox ritual for welcoming creative energy into your life!    The book begins by explaining what exactly green witchcraft is and then goes on to explain how you can become more tuned in to nature and the world around you.  It's a great book to remind yourself to stop and pay attention.  As humans we tend to be rather self centered.  We forgot that what we put out into the universe can be handed back to us,  By living with nature and respecting it we can learn from it and in return be blessed with...

"The fog turned stubborn and lingered, twisting its tendrils around tree snags and low-lying limbs.  The air was still; even the birds were quiet as she eased forward through the channel.  Nearby, a clonk, clonk sounded as a slow-moving oar tapped a gunwale, and then a boat emerged ghoul-like from the haze." For Kya Clark's entire life people have left her.  First her mother, scarred by years of abuse from her husband, Kya's father.  Then, one at a time, each of her siblings left as well in hopes of finding their own happiness, leaving the very young girl with her drunk and abusive father.  But even he didn't stick around long.  In the winter of 1956 ten-year-old Kya found herself living completely alone in the shack in the marsh.  Having never been to school or properly socialized, Kya kept to the marshes and out of town.  Her only friends were Jumpin', a kind, older gentleman that owned a small marina, and his wife. Over the years Kya finds...

"I squeeze my eyes closed until the tears have nowhere to go.  I'm not going to give up.  I might die, but it's not going to be because I sat here crying like a useless lump.  I can't let myself think I have nothing.  That's what I thought that first day, and I was wrong." 16-year-old Jess Cooper finds her life in Seattle turned upside down when she is severally injured in a car accident.  The same accident that took her mother's life.  With nowhere else to go Jess heads north to Alaska to live with her a father, a man she hasn't known since she was very young.  Upon arriving in Alaska Jess finds that her father doesn't live there.  He lives in a tiny cabin in the wilderness of Canada that can only be reached by plane.  A place very few people know of, and most of those people are bad. Jess reluctantly stays with her father.  She doesn't see many other options and she has no way to leave the remote cabin.  She spends her days...

"The two grigoris stared at me.  I wouldn't say they were horrified.  It would take a lot to horrify these two.  But they were for sure taken aback." America has been torn apart.  The death of the president Franklin Roosevelt and The Great Depression left the country up for grabs and it was sectioned off, the southwestern section being Texoma, the home of Lizbeth Rose.  At nineteen years old she's confident with what she wants to do in life...carry a gun.  Gunnies, people hired to help safely escort others across the dangerous, bare land of Texoma, are in high demand.  So Lizbeth isn't all that surprised when two grigoris, wizzards from the Holy Russian Empire that lies west of Texoma, come to town looking to hire her. Paulina Coopersmith and Eli Savarov are on a search for blood.  Blood from the heir of Rasputin that will help heal their ailing tsar.  However, not all residents of the Holy Russian Empire are happy to have the current ts...

"She exploded out the other side into a world of color and light and noise: green grass, blue sky, the distant sounds of the procession advancing to the tower.  She fell to her knees, still clutching Durendal." Queen of Air and Darkness  is the third book in the Dark Artifices trilogy by Cassandra Clare and it is wonderful!  Clare does a brilliant job of creating worlds and characters, as we have seen in all of her previous shadowhunter novels.  This one is no exception. With this being the third book in the series I won't get into a lot of detail about the plot so I don't risk any spoilers.  This is the final novel featuring the Blackthorn family and Emma Carstairs, although I doubt/hope this is the last time we see them.  One of my favorite things about Cassandra Clare's writing style is that while each series works well alone (The Mortal Instruments, The Infernal Devices, and The Dark Artifices) they also all work extremely well together and we ofte...