Saturday, October 11, 2014

The King's Curse; The Death of Archie; Supernatural Enhancements

"The King's Curse" by Philippa Gregory is the sixth in her Cousin's War series. It follows the life of Lady Margaret Pole, born a Plantagenet and cousin to Henry VII's wife, Elizabeth. She is married off to a minor knight and loyal supporter of the King. Lady Margaret is there when Prince Arthur dies, and swears to Princess Katherine that she will do anything it takes to see her married to Prince Henry and on the throne of England, so when the subject comes up of if Arthur and Katherine consummated their marriage, Margaret did a palms up and refused to say more. Henry VII dies, and his son, one of the most evil tyrants the world has seen, Henry VIII, takes the throne and marries Katherine. Margaret is there when their baby sons die, one after the other, and is Princess Mary's governess. She is there when Henry throws aside his true wife for Anne Boleyn. She is there for all of it, until Henry throws her in the tower and cuts off her head, a little old lady in her sixties, simply because he could. It was very moving and nicely done.

I was at the Long Beach Comic Con a few weekends ago, and I saw this comic. I used to read Archies all the time as a kid, I still have a bunch. I had to see how poor Archie met his end. He died saving a friend from a bullet, in true Archie style. It made me want to go back and reread some of my old ones.







"Supernatural Enhancements" by Edgar Cantero was suitably spooky for this time of year. I love the cover! So, A. is a young twenty something European lad who discovers, in 1995, that he had a second cousin twice removed in America who has died, committed suicide, actually, by jumping out of a window the exact same way his father before him did. Since Ambrose Wells never married, A. is his closest heir. A. comes to Virginia to see the mansion left to him, bringing along his mute companion, a teenage girl named Niamh. They start digging into the clues Ambrose left behind for his butler, who fled the scene before A. showed up. Ambrose was a bit of a hermit who seemed to devote his life to research of some sort, and every year at the Winter Solstice a group of his fellow researchers would show up at the house for several days. What they did no one seems to know. Very odd things keep happening, like light bulbs bursting, shadows in the tub, and wicked nightmares. The house is of course haunted, but in a very unusual way. It was very good and quite creepy, I enjoyed it.

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