The vengeful gods of Kayumalon are at war.
The king is indisposed. Invaders have breached the northern borders. Kayumalon is ripe for the taking.
Kalem, the earth mage bound to a promise made to his dead father, finds himself the new ruler of a fallen kingdom. Now, he is forced to lead a weakened country against an army of gods, determined to uphold the duty that destiny had charged him with even if he loses his life for it.
Yin, the wind mage loyal only to her own heart, is forced to choose between love and bloodlust when her lover is bound by duty to her greatest enemy.
Dakila, a mortal man desperate to protect his love, leads the last stand of Kayumalon while they wait, probably in vain, for the forgotten gods to come to their rescue.
JinWun, the fire mage hungry for vengeance, betrays her queen and defects to the enemy, using and abusing every advantage and every tool at her disposal even if they’re not hers. After a lifetime of pain and subjugation, she would fight not for love, not for duty, but only for her fiery fury. Amid the chaos of war, the people of Kayumalon will be forced to choose loyalties and to ultimately answer the question: What is duty if it’s not born from love?
Catagory: Historical Fiction
Penguin Select Classics: Les Misérables
‘To love another person is to see the face of God.’
How crushing and dizzying the hunger must be, that you’re led to steal a bite of bread only to pay for it with your entire life.
Jean Valjean, an ex-convict who is released from prison after serving nineteen years for stealing a loaf of bread. Struggling to find redemption and live an honest life, he is constantly pursued by the relentless Inspector Javert. On this journey he meets Fantine, a woman who is forced to sell her hair and her teeth to support her daughter, Cosette. Both Valjean and a young student Maris are in love with Cosette, but their lives require bigger miracles, and this is a tiny problem.
But love is their saviour, Valjean’s love for Cosette helps him to find redemption, and Marius’s love for Cosette helps him to find courage.
Les Misérables is a complex story that displays how unequal wealth dictates lives, and the power of love.
Penguin Select Classics: Kim
‘This is a brief life, but in its brevity, it offers us some splendid moments, some meaningful adventures.’
Kimball O’Hara is a young orphan detective who lives in British India in the late 19th century. A street-smart child, he is fluent in several languages and recruited by the British Secret Service to help them gather intelligence on the Russian Empire.
Little Kim begins his journey across India, and he encounters a wide variety of people and cultures. He meets a Tibetan lama, a Hindu holy man, and a Pashtun tribesman.
Through his travels in the jungles, cities and the vibrant culture of India, Kim begins to explore what home means to him, is it in the sense of belonging he finds with the Lama so far away from his birthland?
Through his coming-of-age story, Kim’s adventures pay a homage to the inclusive, vibrant, and culturally diverse land of India.
Penguin Select Classics: Sense and Sensibility
“Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience – or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope.”
Does one love from the heart or see the merit of someone’s love through their mind?
Elinor and Marianne Dashwood are two sisters navigating the challenges of romance and societal expectations. Elinor represents the ‘sense’, personifying rationality and practicality. Marianne, on the other hand is governed by her emotions and spontaneity. The sisters’ differing approaches to life and love make a heartwarming narrative through which the story explores relationships, love, family and the idea of self.
Elinor’s practicality is tested as she conceals her true feelings for Edward Ferrars, while Marianne’s open-hearted sensibility leads her into a passionate and potentially risky romance with the dashing John Willoughby.
Which will prove to be the best route to love, caution and mindfulness, or complete abandon and surrender to one’s feelings?
Penguin Select Classics: Persuasion
“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope… I have loved none but you.”
The power of sincere love often brings miraculous second chances.
Anne Elliot, a thoughtful and introspective woman initially rejects the marriage proposal of Captain Frederick Wentworth eight years earlier. Anne, secretly harbouring affection for Frederick, regrets this decision taken under the influence of her family.
One fine day Frederick re-enters Anne’s life as a successful naval officer, now she grapples again with her desires and the opinions of others.
Captain Frederick Wentworth an honourable man, has hopeful and lingering affection for Anne, but won’t persuade her with tricks but only his character.
Will the power of Frederick’s love and sincerity win? Will Anne be able to look past society’s expectations and follow her heart?
Penguin Select Classics: Jane Eyre
“The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter – often an unconscious but still a faithful interpreter – in the eye.”
Jane Eyre, a simple and solid young woman, grew from an orphaned child to a responsible adult with an immense sense of independence and self-worth. With the ambition to work as a house manager she reached Thornfield Hall.
As fate would have it, she falls in love with her handsome, quiet and intimidating employer Edward Rochester. Jane brings to Edward a sense of calmness and being at home, which his mansion could never give him. But their happiness is threatened by a terrible secret that Rochester is hiding. Edward Rochester passionately in love with Jane, is haunted by his past.
When the truth comes out will Edward be able to save their love, keep Jane from leaving? Can Jane learn to trust the love, and that newfound home will be hers forever?
A Rei of Sunshine
A Rei of Sunshine is a coming-of-age tale that weaves together the threads of two former lovers separated by circumstance over many years. When the recently divorced Ari receives an invitation from Fyra to attend her wedding, he jumps on the chance. But as Ari arrives at the wedding, all is not as it seems, and he is catapulted into what he already knew would be a difficult and complicated situation.
With the addition of a mysterious dream world and strange occurrences happening around Fyra’s daughter Rei, it seems that where Ari’s found himself is even more supernaturally complex than he can comprehend.
Penguin Select Classics: Anna Karenina
“He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.”
Anna Karenina, a beautiful, sensuous, and rebellious young woman, is unhappily married to the wealthy but cold aristocrat Alexey Alexandrovitch. Restless in her passionless marriage, she lives in a society and times where Church rules the order for the wealthy; one wrong can bring down the entire family. Thus, she was floating through life until she met Count Vronsky. They fell passionately in love, convinced they met their soulmates. The story goes through their struggles to get approval for divorce, and their desire to live together in a complex society.
Tolstoy uses his characters to raise complex questions about family’s, egos that become a handcuff, and a society that becomes limiting to individual happiness. His famous novel is seemingly ahead of its times as it questions the inherent bias within people.
Penguin Select Classics: A Tale Of Two Cities
“I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.”
The storming of the Bastille, the drop of the guillotine blade—this is the French Revolution that Charles Dickens vividly captures in the novel A Tale of Two Cities.
It was the era of suppressed people rising for their rights, overthrowing centuries of corrupt regime; for them the wounds and blood was sweet as it was tinged with the air of liberation.
With compassion and empathy, Dickens writes some unforgettable scenes and memorable characters: the sinister Madame Defarge, knitting her patterns of death; the gentle Lucie Manette, unswerving in her devotion to her broken father; Charles Darnay, the lover with a secret past, and Sydney Carton, whose unlikely heroism gives his life meaning.
In Dicken’s enigmatic world of treachery and heroism, explore the bravest and weakest corners of human nature, and the redemptive power of love and sacrifice.
Penguin Select Classics: Wuthering Heights
‘He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.’
Set on the moors and based on two households, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, it’s a story of love, passion, and the fear of isolation.
A poor boy, Heathcliff is rescued from the shackles of poverty and is taken in by Mr Earnshaw. He soon develops an intense relationship with his gaurdian’s daughter, Catherine. But her real brother, Hindley detests Heathcliff to the extent that he manipulates her to marry someone else.
Separated by fate but connected by heart, Catherine and Heathcliffe long to be together, uniting in a supernatural realm. Their relationship as lovers and with the others impacts everyone’s lives for
generations to come.
How long can their love last amidst the constant feelings of jealousy, vengeance and hatred? Will the residents of Wuthering Heights find a way to heal?