Kory M. Shrum's Blog, page 3

#Fridayreads: To Autumn by William Blake #poetry

To Autumn  b y William BlakeO Autumn, laden with fruit, and stainedWith the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou mayst rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.

“The narrow bud opens her beauties to
The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;
Blossoms hang round the brows of Morning, and
Flourish down the bright cheek of modest Eve,
Till clust’ring Summer breaks forth into singing,
And feather’d clouds strew flowers round her head.

“The spirits of the air live on the smells
Of fruit; and Joy, with pinions light, roves round
The gardens, or sits singing in the trees.”
Thus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat;
Then rose, girded himself, and o’er the bleak
Hills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.

October Love: Witches

So I got married last Friday and for that reason, I haven't been able to splatter your internet space with my incessant I LOVE OCTOBER I LOVE FALL posts. But I've still got a couple weeks left so watch me squeeze some in!

I'm going to start with...you guessed it! Witches!

Witches.

The ultimate badasses. They are usually women who aren't afraid to take charge and get it done. They are strong, capable and have fancy powers to boot.

Here are my favorite witches from TV/books in no particular order:



Hermione, Minerva McGonagall, and all the lovely ladies from Hogwarts (except Dolores Umbridge)

Rowling did an amazing job crafting dynamic and powerful ladies. There is plenty to love about the witches of Hogwarts, but my favorite is their resourcefulness, their wit, and the fact they aren't portrayed as subservient to male wizards. The only witch I hate of course is Umbridge. F*&^ Umbridge.




Maharet and MekareMaharet and Mekare are like skorts--are they pants or are they skirts. Or sporks--spoons or forks? Or tomatoes--fruit or vegetable? In this case, vampires or witches?
If you are a purist who read the books and was appalled by the movie, you'd know that Maharet and Mekare were actually witches long before they were turned into vampires. And their harrowing tale, including Maharet's loss of her eyes and Mekare's loss of her tongue, is one of the best written tales I've ever come across.



Serafina PekkalaYou'd have to be familiar with Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy in order to recognize this name. But if you do, you'll remember the amazing and complex woman that she was and the important part she played in Lyra's adventure.






Charlize Theron in Snow White and the HuntsmanSay what you want about Stewart and her twitchiness, but Charlize was AMAZING (as always) in this movie. Her emotional depth, the complexity of her history and her powers make her one of my favorite witches of all time.



Those *^$^$ from The Craft
Okay, what 14-16 year old girl wouldn't have suffered two periods a month for the chance to be one of these ladies. They were the epitamy of cool. 




The Halliwells (Charmed)The power of 3! Who didn't want to wake up one day and find out that they could move things with their minds or freeze time or...okay, no I didn't want the preminision crap, but the active powers were cool. As well as that amazing book and the opportunity to be raised by Grams--who seemed like an amazing witch herself.



Willow Rosenberg (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)What's more adorable than a nerdy, lesbian who plays sidekick to the slayer? A nerdy, lesbian witch. I loved Willow throughout the entire show with all of her various love interests and storylines.



The Sanderson Sisters (Hocus Pocus)As seasonal favorite that I must watch every year, Hocus Pocus and its leading ladies never get old. The humor, the wit, Winifred's palpable irritation with the goldfish brains around her (preach!)--it all comes together perfectly. And while I may not want to BE these ladies, I certainly can't help up like them.
                                                       *
Any witches I missed? Your own favorites? Please share! 

A New Lana Harvey Novel. Happy Book Birthday, @AngelaRoquet!

 Happy book birthday, Ms. Roquet! Today the 7th (and final!) novel in the Lana Harvey, Reapers Inc. series was released.

                     Woooo! (It's here!)
                     *Sobs* (Last one? Really?) 
Here's the details for those of you who haven't heard:


Look at this pretty cover! 


The end is nigh...

Lana Harvey is on top of the world—the underworld, that is. With the war fallout tapering off, she finds herself reduced back to mundane soul harvesting. It’s not a fancy gig, and the pay isn’t thrilling, but that hardly matters now that she’s shacking up with her retired demon consort, Beelzebub. 

The afterlives have stabilized, and all seems well, until an average day on the job crosses Lana’s path with not one but two ghosts she thought were long gone. The startling revelation rips open old wounds and sends her on a quest to discover the truth behind her mentor’s mysterious death, and what it could mean for the fate of Eternity





You can get your copy of Hellfire and Brimstone Amazon, Smashwords, or directly from the author!

Enjoy!

Take a Deep Breath. It Will Be Your Last

"I always knew I was going to die. I just didn’t know it was going to be today."

Maisie won’t live to see her seventeenth birthday. Her mother and sister are locked in a war over the world, and Maisie is stuck between them. She must decide if she will join her sister’s cause, or defend her mother. In the face of her mother’s demands, Maisie doubts herself and what she truly wants. But her only alternative is to be murdered by the person she loves most.

Jesse wants to find her father’s body and finish him before he can resurrect. If she succeeds she will save millions, if not billions, of lives. But first, Jesse must defeat the woman protecting him.

Will Maisie stand with her? Or fight by her mother’s side?

One decision will make all the difference in the world.


*Dying Breath is the 6th novel in my Dying for a Living fantasy series. You can preorder it on Amazon today. Don't have a kindle? No worries. Soon it will be available through all other major retailers, too. Book 1, Dying for a Living, is always free on Amazon, iTunes, Nook, Kobo, and elsewhere.
* Kory M. Shrum lives in Michigan with her partner Kim and her ferocious guard pug Josephine. She is very fond of naps and foods made of sugar, which is, as you can imagine, a deadly combination. But she tries to compensate for her extreme physical laziness with her overactive imagination. She's an active member of SFWA, HWA, and the Four Horsemen of the Bookocalypse, where she's known as Conquest. She's the author of six contemporary (and somewhat dark) fantasy novels in the Dying for a Living series: Dying for a Living, Dying by the Hour, Dying for Her: A Companion Novel, Dying Light, and Worth Dying For. Dying Breath will be released November 29, 2016.

Dying Breath: Available for Preorder Now

"I always knew I was going to die. I just didn’t know it was going to be today."

Maisie won’t live to see her seventeenth birthday. Her mother and sister are locked in a war over the world, and Maisie is stuck between them. She must decide if she will join her sister’s cause, or defend her mother. In the face of her mother’s demands, Maisie doubts herself and what she truly wants. But her only alternative is to be murdered by the person she loves most.

Jesse wants to find her father’s body and finish him before he can resurrect. If she succeeds she will save millions, if not billions, of lives. But first, Jesse must defeat the woman protecting him.

Will Maisie stand with her? Or fight by her mother’s side?

One decision will make all the difference in the world.

*Dying Breath is the 6th novel in my Dying for a Living fantasy series. You can preorder it on Amazon today. Don't have a kindle? No worries. Soon it will be available through all other major retailers, too. Book 1, Dying for a Living, is always free on Amazon, iTunes, Nook, Kobo, and elsewhere.
* Kory M. Shrum lives in Michigan with her partner Kim and her ferocious guard pug Josephine. She is very fond of naps and foods made of sugar, which is, as you can imagine, a deadly combination. But she tries to compensate for her extreme physical laziness with her overactive imagination. She's an active member of SFWA, HWA, and the Four Horsemen of the Bookocalypse, where she's known as Conquest. She's the author of six contemporary (and somewhat dark) fantasy novels in the Dying for a Living series: Dying for a Living, Dying by the Hour, Dying for Her: A Companion Novel, Dying Light, and Worth Dying For. Dying Breath will be released November 29, 2016.

#Fridayreads: A Poem by Alice B. Fogel

To the BoneRelated Poem Content DetailsBY ALICE B. FOGELOne against the other acrossthe fleetingly infinite field:that dry crackling of pallidcorn stalks clacking comes close to it.behind them mountains range like steppesbetween the tiers of fog they coddle.it's autumn coming closeagain and you need to comparethis one to autumns past, recall the othersputters of color too good to last.something you need to say, somethingyou come close to:wind in its limitless visits—especially in fall when it cleansthe overblown trees—wind in possession of yousays it best. but you go on anyway,trying to pen the breeze:this fall phenomenon differentfrom summer's in its macabrecelebration of the lifeless,in its forever rewritten memoryof what comes next. sorrelleaves swirling in a whirlwindmimic your own compulsiverepetition, its own circleof yearning so closeto a kind of comfort.quickening conversationsof geese flocking southchill through your thin skin:behind it a choir of silenceundefined rows youcloser to what you'll never forget,what you almost rememberthis time. closer to its name.the heart overtaken. the bare staveswaving at boughs' ends, the musicalred wings: somethingthey almost say, more like a sensehunched in darkness, an ache,a suspicion: every time,closer to it, closer. hearhard light on the hillsideflatten the visible scaleinto two dimensions, and you're in lovewith the flatted third:the way it breaks you down,over and over, to mean you arealive. the way you rub it inthe wound that you nevercome close to wanting to close—as if you could scrub away the whirlingof everything else and come downlike snow to the center, the eye, so closeto the purity of knowing inside thispresent pain, that searingwhite place without wind or words.

Happy Book Birthday @LBardugo! Crooked Kingdom Out Now

Happy book birthday, Leigh Bardugo! I don't know about you guys, but I've been really excited about this book ever since I read Six of Crows back in December. I preordered the hardcover and everything and thanks to Amazon, got release day delivery. Woo!

Here's the description:

The highly anticipated sequel to the thrilling #1 New York Times-bestselling Six of Crows.Kaz Brekker and his crew have just pulled off a heist so daring even they didn't think they'd survive. But instead of divvying up a fat reward, they're right back to fighting for their lives. Double-crossed and badly weakened, the crew is low on resources, allies, and hope. As powerful forces from around the world descend on Ketterdam to root out the secrets of the dangerous drug known as jurda parem, old rivals and new enemies emerge to challenge Kaz's cunning and test the team's fragile loyalties. A war will be waged on the city's dark and twisting streets―a battle for revenge and redemption that will decide the fate of the Grisha world.

What I loved about Six of Crows:
*The characters
*The dialogue
*The world building


For example:
Kaz leaned back. "What's the easiest way to steal a man's wallet?"
"Knife to the throat?" asked Inej.
"Gun to the back?" said Jesper.
"Poison in his cup?" suggested Nina.
"You're all horrible," said Matthias.


Come on, guys--that's gold! I loved every minute of it. And I have high hopes that Crooked Kingdom is just as awesome. This book is available on Amazon, and I'm sure all other retailers.

Enjoy!

Kory

#Fridayreads: A Poem by Grace Paley

AutumnRelated Poem Content DetailsBY GRACE PALEY1 
What is sometimes called a      tongue of flame or an arm extended burning      is only the long red and orange branch of      a green maple in early September   reaching    into the greenest field out of the green woods   at the    edge of which the birch trees   appear a little tattered   tired    of sustaining delicacy all through the hot summer   re-    minding everyone (in   our family) of a Russian    song   a story by Chekhov   or my father 

2 
What is sometimes called a      tongue of flame or an arm extended   burning    is only the long red and orange branch of    a green maple in early September   reaching      into the greenest field out of the green woods   at the      edge of which the birch trees appear a little tattered   tired    of sustaining delicacy all through the hot summer   re-    minding everyone (in   our family) of a Russian    song   a story by Chekhov or my father on    his own lawn   standing   beside his own wood in    the United States of   America   saying (in Russian)    this birch is a lovely tree   but among the others    somehow superficial 

#Tuesdaybookblog: Cover Reveal for Dying Breath, A Jesse Sullivan Novel

Dying Breath, the 6th Jesse Sullivan Novel
Coming November 29, 2016


*                         *                        *

Well...? What do you think?

#Fridayreads: A Poem by Max Ritvo

The Big LoserRelated Poem Content DetailsBY MAX RITVOAudio PlayerThe guardian angel sits in the treeabove the black lip of streetthe man walks down.He calls the man Cargo.
The angel sees a pinewood box in place of the man,and the street he walks is a boat,the hull like a coal crater.
Somewhere in the real world there is such a boat and box.
The angels call these overlays dreams,and believe they crop up because angelscan’t sleep but want to —
space falls apart when you have unlimited time.  •

The cargo is rattling in the boat.Maybe it’s just the waves, maybe it’s rats.What’s the difference? Either way: it’s the box.
The angel sends the mana happy vision from his past — the time
he fed birthday caketo his goldfishafter an unsuccessful party.
The angel thinks he’s applying lemon oilto the creaky, wounded wood of the box.He knows it’s palliative, but it’s beautiful. •

The man reaches the end of the street. He’s a sick manand he starts to ponder deathas he often does these days:
All of death is right here— the gods, the dark, a moon.Where was I expecting deathto take me if everywhere it isis on earth?
At life’s close, you’re like the child whose parentsstep out for a drive —
everyone else out on a trip,but the child remains in the familiar bed,feeling old lumps like newin the mattress — the lights off —
not sleeping, for who can sleepwith the promise of a world beyond the door? •

That night the child dreamshe’s inside the box.
It’s burning hot, the heat comingfrom bugs and wormsraping and devouring one another.
He starts the hard workof the imagination,learning to minister to the new dream.
Perhaps all that’s needed is a little rain — for everyone to drink and have a bath.
Outside: a car humming,somewhere, his mother’s singing.