Sherry > Recent Status Updates

St Paul's Cathedral - May starts crying at Pieta and flees to Baldacchino. While there alone, slips back to meet Bernini. He trys to send her away, sketches her face and gives her a gold coin. She's in a silk dress during this.
Eva's hero is Michelangelo. She slips back while alone to see him chisel his name in statue.

May is established as below the other academics and only partially invested in her boyfriend, Darren, who is paying for the trip. There are 11 others also in the group. George, tour guide, is academic, but very easy going and refers to time oddly. When May first shook hands, she had visions of past Italy and her childhood in India. There is something special about his pen and tiny earthquakes are folds in time.

David inherited a Barony, they travel to his estate. They build the relationship slowly, he kisses her often. She invites him to her bed and he leaves a note that he loves her. She flees back to London in fear of being rejected. Once there she gets the real details about her mother and her parents divorce. David chases after her and discovers her kissing the duke. He's angry & jealous; they make up.

David is recovering and has seen Jocelyn's fear of emotional entanglements like marriage. Her parents divorced. Richard getting operation from Scots doctor to reset his badly set bones. Richard encourages David to try to win Jocelyn's heart. They have to live together for them to try for an annulment.

Narrator's voice is generally flat and uninspiring. Emphasizes slow cadence of book.

Sally decides to try to do everything she can to save David or extend his life. She gets him moved to Jocelyn's house then talks to surgeon Kinlock. He says pain is shrapnel, other is Opium poisoning. Kinlock removes shrapnel and expects full recovery. Sally & Kinlock get on well.

He is in hospital, doped up on laudanum, severe pain, can't move legs. Doctors don't know why he's still alive. She has 4 weeks to find a husband or forfeit much of her fortune to greedy aunt & uncle. She wants elusive duke. Bargain is her spontaneous choice. After wedding & papers signed, she expects to have no more interactions. Sally, his sister, is very combative toward Jocelyn.

Merton comes & takes control of Bacchus, turning him against the others. Elsie realizes Merton is outside and gets close to her, casts Opus spell so that she lost 15 years of memory. Raven cursed Merton with a Truth spell and they turned her over to the police with a list of questions to ask her.

Elsie and Bacchus get married. Working with Raven, they come up with a plan to draw Merton out.

Phillips arrested for murder, but Irene cannot find spell on his person. Merton supposedly dead, but they verify the Opus is not hers.

She frees herself when a servant comes to replace the food. She twists ankle in escape and runs into the Aspector while fleeing then Bacchus finds her and they ride off on his horse.

Bacchus convinces Elsie he wants to marry her. She is slowly coming around to being appreciated. Brother, Reggie finds her. More murder attempts. Spellbreaker trainer sees Elsie fighting assassin; They tell her all and she is helping. They identify American and try to contact him. Elsie is kidnapped and locked in a cellar. Bacchus realizes assassin uses rare ambulation spell and are using it to help find Elsie.

Elsie putting on engagement show because she thinks he doesn't want her and is just waiting for him to drop her like everyone else. She's researching newspaper articles to figure out the American. Bacchus gave her a ring and wants to marry her. She has started training at incredibly slow pace. Merton originally fled Russia and was in a workhouse.

Elsie arrested for unlawful spellbreaking. Still has memory spell in bodice. Merton trying to get Elsie to join her. Bacchus convinced magistrate that her abilities are only a month old because they were betrothed. He wants to come to wedding. She must register & go through training. Ogden figures out where Merton had been keeping the Opuses, but it was cleared out.

Elsie & Ogden try to sketch American. Elsie realizes she was grabbed by woman and this triggered Ogden to remember a woman. After sketching, Elsie realizes it is Master Lily Merton

Elsie saved B, undoing spells before they hit her. Ogden fled, E&B followed. Og casting Opus spells along the way. Gets to Og & discovers he is Master level rational aspector. Also realizes pattern, Og is victim of 18 point knot controlling him and all he does.

Gets telegram about family & instead meets spiritual aspector with gun claiming he won't give it to her. She realizes that her tasks have been undoing spells allowing others to be killed. Ogden has seal matching messages & Nash seems to be his assassin. He is going after Bacchus next. Duke recovered enough to be dining.

The Cowls found Elsie a home & job after workhouse burned down since she unknowingly removed fire protection rune. They periodically gave her "Robin Hood" tasks she happily completed. Met Bacchus on one of these tasks and forced to work with him to protect herself. He had a buried siphon spell on his person that Elsie helped him find & remove. Other end is likely on the Duke.

I'm just not sure this is for me. I hope I didn't pay much for it.

Starts off rough and I am not sure I will stick with it.

She asks him to kiss her. A few days later, she asks for more because she wants it to be with him. Suitor with children wants her so, he starts telling everyone that they are betrothed. This causes Titus to come find out why she made that choice. She told him she didn't & he proposes. Suitor points out Titus involved in previous ruin. She is initially shocked, then realizes he is not the same person.

Uncle killed himself in jail. Anna lost sight & beauty from cellar gunshot wine explosion. Others found guilty. Ryder cleared. Rennie took map Mary provided & found vein of silver & rail route. Mary pregnant, they are setting up ranch near Flagstaff. His money bought land; her money bought livestock & labor.

They arrive for dinner & Uncle points gun at them and herds them to cellar. He puts Anna & Lt in there also, pushing them down the stairs. Ryder convinces Anna to confess details of the plot. Then they started to break wine to cause Uncle to come running to protect his wine. Ryder subdues Uncle just before Jay Mac & family arrive to help.

Anna is lovers with the promoted Lt Rivers. The 5 men that survived the raid were all transferred out of Fort Union. They went to Ryder's uncle for help. He is dismayed and feeling like he has been played by Hamilton. They are plotting for Uncle Wilson to cajole Anna w/ Lt. into a confession in front of hidden witnesses.

After Ryder returned seriously wounded from a fall, he leg was infected and he became feverish. Mary tended his wound, then reopened it to get out the infection. Jarred found them and brought medicines from Maggie that helped Ryder recover. Then they went to the mine to get help from Rennie to go to Washington and follow Anna.

Ryder realizes he left their clothes somewhere along the trail back after the wedding.

Mary & Ryder had a silent symbolic wedding ceremony. She met his family and they feasted & danced, then they returned to the cave. She was not blindfolded. He is allowing her to look at the maps while they talk about the canyon incident.

Ryder is taking Mary out of the cave to marry her. No info about his thought processes. Jay Mac and Moira were captured by Chiricahua when they went out to inspect rail line.

On wagon train, Anna drugs him while caravan attacked & claims he raped her. He is jailed on treason & sentenced to hang. Gets Mary to visit him in her habit and he uses her to escape & forces her to go with him. He holds her captive in a remote cave for 2 weeks. They don't talk about anything meaningful the entire time.

Mary met Ryder at the swimming pond near her family's summer home. She was in distress, he held her. She is leaving the sisterhood. Ryder went to Fort Union, where he holds himself apart. During ball Anna Leigh makes play for him and he taunts her. She is riding out with wagon train next morning.