As bitter winter winds begin to sweep across the lands of Neuterran, three of the Ruling Lords of the Four Kingdoms receive letters with word of the King's Death. The letter sent to the fourth Lord--the King's son, Prince Leeroy--tells only of his father's ailing health, nothing more. With that omission, decades of peace between the Four Kingdoms start to unravel and unlikely paths begin to converge.A girl of sixteen tends to her jealous heart in a black castle perched above the sea. A woman plagued by a grief she will not name finds relief, if not true solace, in the arms of an executioner. A Lord's daughter agrees to marry a Prince not for love, nor gold, but to distance herself from an overly familiar knight. And deep within the lush green Swamplands of the South, a soon-to-be Queen loses sleep at the thought of her husband ruling above all. Following the King's death, the fate of Neuterran comes to rest on the unknowing Prince Leeroy's shoulders. And with the crown without a King, the once-peaceful Neuterran is at risk of slipping back into wars of the past. If you enjoyed A Game of Thrones then The Siren's Last Song will take you on another journey into a world of fantasy, the supernatural, and characters with dark hearts.

"The realization hits: We're not going to win. It's why I couldn't defeat Draewulf in Bron--because this power was never mine anyway." After a fierce battle with Draewulf, Nym barely escaped with her life. Now, fleeing the scorched landscape of Tulla, her storm-summoning abilities are returning; only . . . the dark power is still inside her. Broken and bloodied, Nym needs time to recover, but when the full scope of the shapeshifter's horrific plot is revealed, the strong-willed Elemental must race across the Hidden Lands and warn the other kingdoms before Draewulf's final attack. From the crystalline palaces of Cashlin to the legendary Valley of Origin, Nym scrambles to gather an army. But even if she can, will she be able to uncover the secret to defeating Draewulf that has eluded her people for generations? With a legion of monsters approaching, and the Hidden Lands standing on the brink of destruction, the stage is set for a battle that will decide the fate of the world. This time, will the Siren's Song have the power to save it? "A riveting tale from start to finish."--Marissa Meyer, New York Times bestselling author of The Lunar Chronicles of Storm Siren The last in the low-spice, YA romantasy trilogy Series best read in order: Book 1: Storm Siren Book 2: Siren's Fury Book 3: Siren's Song Full-length book Includes discussion questions for book clubs

A girl searches for a killer on an island where deadly sirens lurk just beneath the waves in this “twisty, atmospheric story that grips readers like a siren song” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). The sea holds many secrets. Moira Alexander has always been fascinated by the deadly sirens who lurk along the shores of her island town. Even though their haunting songs can lure anyone to a swift and watery grave, she gets as close to them as she can, playing her violin on the edge of the enchanted sea. When a young boy is found dead on the beach, the islanders assume that he’s one of the sirens’ victims. Moira isn’t so sure. Certain that someone has framed the boy’s death as a siren attack, Moira convinces her childhood friend, the lighthouse keeper Jude Osric, to help her find the real killer, rekindling their friendship in the process. With townspeople itching to hunt the sirens down, and their own secrets threatening to unravel their fragile new alliance, Moira and Jude must race against time to stop the killer before it’s too late—for humans and sirens alike.

The award-winning novel that started it all. “A riveting tale from start to finish. Between the simmering romance, the rich and inventive fantasy world, and one seriously jaw-dropping finale, readers will clamor for the next book—and I'll be at the front of the line!” —Marissa Meyer, New York Times bestselling author of the Lunar Chronicles In a world at war, a slave girl’s lethal curse could become one kingdom’s weapon of salvation. If the curse—and the girl—can be controlled. “I raise my chin as the buyers stare. Yes. Look. You don’t want me. Because, eventually, accidentally, I will destroy you.” As a slave in the war-weary kingdom of Faelen, seventeen-year-old Nym isn’t merely devoid of rights, her Elemental kind are only born male and always killed at birth—meaning, she shouldn’t even exist. Standing on the auction block beneath smoke-drenched mountains, Nym faces her fifteenth sell. But when her hood is removed and her storm-summoning killing curse revealed, Nym is snatched up by a court advisor and given a choice: be trained as the weapon Faelen needs to win the war or be killed. Choosing the former, Nym is unleashed into a world of politics, bizarre parties, and rumors of an evil more sinister than she’s being prepared to fight . . . not to mention the trainer whose dark secrets lie behind a mysterious ability to calm every lightning strike she summons. But what if she doesn’t want to be the weapon they’ve all been waiting for? Set in a beautifully eclectic world of suspicion, super abilities, and monsters, Storm Siren is a story of power. And whoever controls that power will win. “Intense and intriguing. Fans of high stakes fantasy won't be able to put it down.” —CJ Redwine, New York Times bestselling author of the Ravenspire series “Mary Weber has created a fascinating, twisted world. Storm Siren sucked me in from page one—I couldn’t stop reading! This is a definite must-read, the kind of book that kept me up late into the night turning the pages!” —Lindsay Cummings, author of the Androma Saga “A riveting read! Mary Weber's rich world and heartbreaking heroine had me from page one. You're going to fall in love with this love story.” —Josephine Angelini, internationally bestselling author of the Starcrossed trilogy “Elegant prose and intricate world-building twist into a breathless cyclone of a story that will constantly keep you guessing. More please!” —Shannon Messenger, author of the Sky Fall series

It has long been argued that opera is all about sex. Siren Songs is the first collection of articles devoted to exploring the impact of this sexual obsession, and of the power relations that come with it, on the music, words, and staging of opera. Here a distinguished and diverse group of musicologists, literary critics, and feminist scholars address a wide range of fascinating topics--from Salome's striptease to hysteria to jazz and gender--in Italian, English, German, and French operas from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. The authors combine readings of specific scenes with efforts to situate these musical moments within richly and precisely observed historical contexts. Challenging both formalist categories of musical analysis and the rhetoric that traditionally pits a male composer against the female characters he creates, many of the articles work toward inventing a language for the study of gender and opera. The collection opens with Mary Ann Smart's introduction, which provides an engaging reflection on the state of gender topics in operatic criticism and musicology. It then moves on to a foundational essay on the complex relationships between opera and history by the renowned philosopher and novelist Catherine Clément, a pioneer of feminist opera criticism. Other articles examine the evolution of the "trouser role" as it evolved in the lesbian subculture of fin-de-siècle Paris, the phenomenon of opera seria's "absent mother" as a manifestation of attitudes to the family under absolutism, the invention of a "hystericized voice" in Verdi's Don Carlos, and a collaborative discussion of the staging problems posed by the gender politics of Mozart's operas. The contributors are Wye Jamison Allanboork, Joseph Auner, Katherine Bergeron, Philip Brett, Peter Brooks, Catherine Clement, Martha Feldman, Heather Hadlock, Mary Hunter, Linda Hutcheon and Michael Hutcheon, M.D., Lawrence Kramer, Roger Parker, Mary Ann Smart, and Gretchen Wheelock.

A feminist critique of the Odyssey

Whether referred to as mermaid, usalka, mami wata, or by some other name, and whether considered an imaginary being or merely a person with extraordinary abilities, the siren is the remarkable creature that has inspired music and its representations from ancient Greece to present-day Africa and Latin America. This book, co-edited by a historical musicologist and an ethnomusicologist, brings together leading scholars and some talented newcomers in classics, music, media studies, literature, and cultural studies to consider the siren and her multifaceted relationships to music across human time and geography.