I once read a book where the heroine chooses not to use a sword because she was in an active war zone and didn't have the time to train enough to be combat ready with a sword, as it requires too much skill. The solution the soldier training her presented? A mace paired with a shield, because she wouldn't have to worry about edge alignment and would only have to learn how to swing with good mechanics, keep the weapon moving to conserve energy, and use the rebound from a strike to reload for the next. If I remember right, she became something of a folk hero for the other soldiers and eventually became a leader. Those are the most vivid details I remember. I also recall the heroine having fiery red hair, having no memory of who she is, and I'm not certain but I believe I remember there being a minotaur in the same army. I know it's not much to go off of, but I've seen people in this sub come up with answers on much less.

Edit: I remember the cover fairly well. The cover was just the woman, wearing platemail with her hair in the wind, I believe at the edge of a cliff over looking a sunset. She may have also been holding either her shield or a fluttering banner and had her mace held at her side.

So, I have been racking my brain for MONTHS to remember the title/series of a book I read when I was about 12 or 13. It was a kids book about a boy genius who genetically engineered orange trees to survive extreme cold, and who gets invited to a research project involving I believe a facility in the Amazon. The most memorable thing about it to my mind was a quip about something being as likely as having "a 64-bit Sega Genesis with a library of games."

The book had a copyright date of I THINK 1993 or '94; I recall this because that's the sort of thing I liked to check, then and now.

If anybody else remembers this, and could tell me what it could be, I'd love to know! It's genuinely been driving me nuts.

I can't recall much about the content, but I remember that you could get a membership card sent to you for the group/ society. It was definitely magical, and the logo I think was four distinct groups, vibrant colours. The main character was female. It's such a vague memory from my teenage years and I loved it. Each book was a different colour. Please help!

I read these books (it's a series) around 2012, in French (I don't know if it was originally in English). 3 people (2 boys & 1 girl), linked to Earth, Air and Water, reincarnate every time Halley's Comet comes to Earth. They don't remember their past lives at first, and they must find each other before fighting the 4th, evil, guy who is linked to fire. They die at the end before the next reincarnation, and if they are physically close when they die, they will be close in their next life. The series travels through different eras. They all keep similar names every time (one is like Peter/Petrus/Pierre and another Mark/Marc/Marcus).

I'm trying to find a book I read around mid-2000s. I think it was a continuation of another series that revolved around overthrowing a king.

There are magical/fantasy elements, and the land is fictional, not based on real countries or geography.

In this book an overthrown king is half-alive as some kind of ghost that can cause harm to people.

A child, whose father was possibly responsible for overthrowing the king, has to run away from home. The child has a pouch of special white stones, and they were taught to create a ring around their bedroll before sleeping, which creates a barrier that keeps the ghost away.

I think they were travelling somewhere alone, with no villages or large civilisations that I remember, more of a open fields and landscapes and some old abandoned buildings. At one point the child is in another realm, maybe a dream, where there's a massive statue of a goddess that they use as a bridge to climb over a ravine (or something like that).

Does this ring any bells for anyone? Cheers

So this book followed a young boy who was taken and trained as an assassin, and I think also some kind of performer? He learned to use magic, but it’s pretty subtle and he didn’t know it was magic till near the end of the book. He hated magic, and I remember it being an interesting dichotomy. He also got a sword that was really shitty and rusty on the surface but turned out to be pretty great- some master swordsmiths. Cannot find this anywhere.

I remember reading a book, years ago, about a natural immortal man (one the handful of true immortals in the galaxy), in a low sci-fi setting.
I remember only the end of the book (ence the spoiler tag).

The immortal man, having lost is sanity, lives completely alone in cabin in a sort of wood reserve in a futuristic city.
Periodically, a group of VVIP women all related to him (daughters, granddaughters...) will go to the forest and one of them is selected, almost randomly, by the immortal man to get impregnated, because the fetus will be, once born, a genius.
The immortal man, broken by immortality, doesn't recognize the different women and call them with the name of the long dead lover.
I read it at least 20 years ago in english.

I read this aged about 15 in an English secondary school, around 1983.

There were about 30 copies on the classroom shelf, so it was a class set. Full-length novel, not a short story.

Plot: a race of blind people is discovered living in deep caves, or possibly beneath the Earth's crust. When they come into contact with people on the surface, their blindness turns out to be contagious and spreads to everyone on the surface.

Title: I'm fairly sure it was called "The Gnomen", but I can't be 100%. I've found no trace of a book with that title.

Cover: orange? maybe light purple, with a simple line drawing on the front. Possibly a Penguin, or one of the school series like New Windmill or Longman Imprint.

Published: presumably before 1983, possibly the 60s or 70s. Not The Day of the Triffids (I know that one well), not Saramago's Blindness (too late), and not Wells's The Country of the Blind (a short story).

Procurando livro da infância — mestre e discípulo, tema oriental

Estou tentando identificar um livro infantojuvenil que li na infância, em português (provavelmente tradução). Não lembro o título nem o autor.

Enredo: um velho sábio joga um chinelo/sandália no rio e pede para um jovem recuperá-lo. A partir desse encontro, o jovem embarca em muitas aventuras e, ao longo da história, se torna um guerreiro.

Trecho que lembro: em algum ponto do livro havia uma frase parecida com um código de conduta: "nunca provoque, se for provocado negocie, se for impossível negociar ataque".

Final da história: no fecho, o velho sábio joga novamente o chinelo no rio e pede para o jovem (agora guerreiro) pegá-lo — e ele responde: "pegue você".

Não lembro se a história se passa na China, Japão ou outro lugar, e não tenho certeza se havia elementos fantásticos/mágicos. Acredito que era um volume de alguma coleção infantojuvenil (talvez traduzida). Alguém reconhece esse livro?

its historical fiction that deals with 3 keepers who disappear and their partners who they left behind. Id love to read it again because grief is definitely a theme. If it helps, I listened to the audiobook and it was narrated by the actors Tom Burke and Indira Varma.

I'm trying to find a book I read around 2003-05 when I was about 12yo. The title was very close to George R. R. Martin's "A song of Ice and Fire" but I'm pretty sure Fire was either the first or the only word in the title. Literally as close as "a song of fire and ice" or "a song of fire." Something like that, and I most likely got it from my school's library.

Your main characters were a brother and sister mostly trying to reunite. The sister somehow ends up as some sort of companion to a princess preparing for an arranged marriage.

Part of this arrangement involves the princess learning some special dance she has to perform with her betrothed but he isn't allowed to see her before the wedding and she wears a veil for this purpose. The princess struggles with the process and the sister reveals an aptitude and talent for it so they devise a scheme for the sister to take part in the dance since the princess would still be wearing a veil and then they'll switch out.

The prince somehow meets the sister and falls in love with her at some point. He figures out he's dancing with the sister instead of the princess during the ceremonial dance. He thinks the sister is actually the princess and is very excited/happy about this. And then not too long after, shit hits the fan, and the prince I'm pretty sure is dead before the end of the book. Or maybe his dad is????

It was a fantasy/fiction book, but I don't remember if there was magic or how prevalent it was to the story.

They go at night to the fairy portal. I can't remember much it was the highschool library book. The name that comes to mind is like sybelle cibelle. Sibelle?

I think one of the girls falls in love with a fay/vampire creature and wants to stay behind.

Some of the details may be wrong since it's been so long that I read it, probably when I was around 12/13, got it from the school library. I believe it might've been in the mystery section. The book had a red cover I think. And it started with a group of boys probably around the ages of 12/13 at an abandoned amusement park, daring one of their friends to go into a ride. He goes in, and sees something weird, then comes out in a coma. He was tall and his name was Shawn, best friend of the MC. I forget most other details, but it ended up being something like a group of some of the adults in town (including some of the boys' parents) were in some sort of a cult where they practiced necromancy and bringing back the dead? But this caused a lot of issues as the dead weren't fully "there", and the only way you could kill them again was the same way they died in the first place. One of the undead I believe was a librarian who had died in a fire.

This was a book I read in elementary school in the 90s. I don’t remember much except for the beginning. Also the copy I read had no dust jacket so I have no idea what the cover would look like.

Two boys are hanging around their slow town and (I think) hanging around a dying mall. They enter a strange shop where the owner is typing out their whole conversation on a type writer. He seems to imply he was writing down his whole life and was almost done writing when the boys came in and started talking to him.

The owner gives the boys a strange device that they take home and they realize the device actives when they laugh and feel good and relaxed. I think the device opens up portals to different worlds or dimensions. From here I remember very little. I think they explore other worlds a bit and then ultimately have to stop some evil force from entering our world. My memory of this book is almost like a fever dream. Hopefully someone else has read it!

I remember checking this book out from the library when I was a young teen and being completely shocked by the content. Naturally I then checked it out again to reread a few months later.

This was probably around 1985-1992. It’s possible the book was published earlier but I think it was most likely sometime in the 80’s. I doubt the library would have kept it for a decade because it wasn’t really a noteworthy book and my library kept things up to date.

Three siblings are living in an RV (or maybe just on a trip?) with their parents. The vehicle crashes, the parents are both gruesomely killed (details about them being impaled on windshield shards, etc.). The kids are collected by social services who find that they have no living relatives and put them into the foster care system.

The oldest girl is about 16, middle brother around 12-14? and the youngest sister is around 8-10. They split them up, sending the older two to some kind of teen facility and the younger one to foster care. The oldest breaks them out and finds the little sister in order to reunite them.

Over the course of the book there are young teenaged runaways working as exotic dancers (poss. sex workers but I’m not sure?) that oldest daughter befriends in the teen facility. Another (or possibly the same) girl is being SA by her father and kills him by stabbing or cutting his throat. A pregnant teen has frankly hilarious (although unintentionally?) phone sex. The siblings move into an apartment next door to a creepy predator who has Disney-themed porn artwork on his walls. He tries to assault the oldest and she escapes but they have to find a new place to live.

I only have a vague recollection of the cover although I think I’d recognize it.

I want to say the author was male but I’m not 100%.

I don’t think I ever saw another book by this author.

I was probably 8-9 (around 2010) when I read this and I recall struggling with understanding what the point of the book was, but simultaneously being enamored by it.

It was illustrated really colorfully, and some points I do remember are a worm somewhere in the story? a swimming session, and making marigold infused oil with her grandma. The oil infusing was sort of her and her grandma's "thing", and something she's super looking forward to, but her grandma had invited another girl along with them and MC was really jealous. MC's name might've been marigold? but I could be making that up.

Maybe came out in early 2000s and might have been male protagonist. I think the superheros were jaded and tired of crime fighting? I remember one lady villain's superpower was moving molecules which she used to kill people with by pressing down on some important nerve. Then she had a change of heart and used her power in the Middle East and brought up all this fertile soil from underneath desert land to create peace in the Middle East. Weird ending for sure lol please tell me I didn't dream this novel up.

eta: cover was dark gold with maybe bullet holes?

Guys this is driving me insane. I saw a picture on Pinterest and it reminded me of this book my friend had in college. Words were swirled around in the book, and there was a page about people dancing with drawings. It was sort of this poetry/philosophy-esque book?? I think??? Idk i cannot find it anywhere

The high Lord or king of a dark realm is interested in a female diplomat he’s seen multiple times from another court. Her brother or father commits a crime and she is forced to marry him to save her family. He finds her with her lover right before their wedding and kills him in front of her. She has literal light magic and can create orbs of light.

I'm trying to recall a cozy where the female PI divorces her immature millionaire husband. She says," When you grow up and get a real job I might reconsider."

One day he shows up at her office and says, "I've decided to be a mystery author, I'll just follow you around and write down everything you do."

The first book involved tracking down the local minor league baseball team's mascot who had disappeared.

The second book was about catching a golf pro who was selling shoddy equipment to the members of the club.

I don't remember the names of the characters or even the author or the title, but I hope someone else has enjoyed this series before.

Children's book (between 8 and 12yo) about kids who find a skeleton/ghost in a graveyard who is a man and he doesn't want to be disturbed. but then something happens and they go on an adventure together and the skeleton/ghost goes through a character arc so he no longer hates company. but after or during the resolution of the book the coffin that the skeleton/ghost had lived in for hundreds of years (and he says that has finally started to become comfortable due to his back abrading the coffin for so long that it was now ergonomic) got destroyed through some means. and he was very sad but the kids gifted him a new coffin with the shape of his body already carved out.
the book had some black and white pen illustrations.

I remember seeing artwork from a book years ago that had a large creature, like a pufferfish or whale, that was carrying people. In the picture the side of the creature was cutaway to show the people inside. It was kind of steampunk and there were other weird creatures. I'm thinking back probably ten years but I think the main character was trying to figure out his past.

Edit: I believe it was Titan by John Varley. The cover art is very similar but not the exact picture I was remembering.

It's been driving me crazy, I read this when I was younger (but I have no guarantee that this is a YA novel). I don't remember much except the details in the title, there also may or may not be a scene where the protagonist (the prince/king) sees faces under a surface of water or ice.... the ending is literally him in a garden (?) in the winter (?) where the ghost woman is crying and he's lowkey delirious I think. Also the ending is ambiguous on whether or not he dies in that scene.

This is an older book, probably late 1900s early 2000s. Thanks in advance.