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Description
A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American RepublicIt was an age of fascinating leaders and difficult choices, of grand ideas eloquently expressed and of epic conflicts bitterly fought. Now comes a brilliant portrait of the American Revolution, one that is compelling in its prose, fascinating in its details, and provocative in its fresh interpretations. In A Leap in the Dark, John Ferling offers a magisterial new history that surges from the first rumblings of colonial protest to the volcanic election
It was an age of fascinating leaders and difficult choices, of grand ideas eloquently expressed and of epic conflicts bitterly fought. Now comes a brilliant portrait of the American Revolution, one that is compelling in its prose, fascinating in its details, and provocative in its fresh interpretations. In A Leap in the Dark, John Ferling offers a magisterial new history that surges from the first rumblings of colonial protest to the volcanic election of 1800. Ferling's swift-moving narrative teems with fascinating details. We see Benjamin Franklin trying to decide if his loyalty was to Great Britain or to America, and we meet George Washington when he was a shrewd planter-businessman who discovered personal economic advantages to American independence. We encounter those who supported the war against Great Britain in 1776, but opposed independence because it was a "leap in the dark." Following the war, we hear talk in the North of secession from the United States. The author offers a gripping account of the most dramatic events of our history, showing just how closely fought were the struggle for independence, the adoption of the Constitution, and the later battle between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. Yet, without slowing the flow of events, he has also produced a landmark study of leadership and ideas. Here is all the erratic brilliance of Hamilton and Jefferson battling to shape the new nation, and here too is the passion and political shrewdness of revolutionaries, such as Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry, and their Loyalist counterparts, Joseph Galloway and Thomas Hutchinson. Here as well are activists who are not so well known today, men like Abraham Yates, who battled for democratic change, and Theodore Sedgwick, who fought to preserve the political and social system of the colonial past. Ferling shows that throughout this period the epic political battles often resembled today's politics and the politicians--the founders--played a political hardball attendant with enmities, selfish motivations, and bitterness. The political stakes, this book demonstrates, were extraordinary: first to secure independence, then to determine the meaning of the American Revolution. John Ferling has shown himself to be an insightful historian of our Revolution, and an unusually skillful writer. A Leap in the Dark is his masterpiece, work that provokes, enlightens, and entertains in full measure.Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 10/28/2004
ISBN: 9780195176001
Pages: 558
Weight: 2.15lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.00w x 1.40d
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4.9 ★★★★★
Based on 110 reviews
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Product Reviews
★★★★★ 4
High on Tropes and Satisfaction
Format: Kindle
This is a great Romantasy book full of action, adventure, and everything you look for in this genre.
I won’t lie: it does kinda feel like the author found every common trope from every successful book of this kind and threw them all into this novel. But if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Especially in romance, there’s a large audience who has specific expectations, and they want them every time. Nothing wrong with that and many times I’m one of them.
I have no idea what defines a spoiler honestly, so
spoiler alert!!!!!!!
Tropes include:
Only one bed at the inn/bar
Dissatisfaction with life before hunk appears
Lost royalty
The chosen one
Montage of dress up time followed by shocked hunk
Forbidden romance between two from rival peoples
Power that cannot be controlled, simply guided/asked
Gathering intel at the inn/bar
FMC who knows how to fight/use weapons well
There’s probably more but no need to list them all.
Good story and I would recommend!
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Reviewed in the United States on June 14, 2024
★★★★★ 5
Beauty as an assassin? Yes, please.
Format: Kindle
I am a sucker for Beauty and the Beast retellings, especially when there is fae magic involved.
This story is a stand-alone and can easily be read and enjoyed as such, but the story in the background is waiting to unfold.
Briannis is a lost woman trying to find her place in the world. She happens to be an excellent assassin, but only when there is a good reason behind the job. She runs afoul of the law and is coerced into killing the King of Fae.
Their tale begins with much violence and mistrust. They reach an understanding that turns into more as they are stuck inside the Keep thanks to the murderous roses encasing the building.
Some of my favorite quotes
"This is not very..."
"Proper?" His low drawl curled around her guts, sweet and syrupy. "I thought you'd realise by now that I'm far from a
proper man, Miss Iavi."
She swallowed hard. "You're... you're not making sense. You don't even like me."
"I don't?" he said dryly.
"I tried to kill you! Three times in a row!"
"You may want to leave," he added, barely even moving his lips. His voice was low and raspy, little more than a growl; the words came out with laboured breaths. "Before I no longer let you."
"You can’t just act like you didn’t have your fingers inside me a few hours ago! That’s not something you talk about over strawberries!"
He took a sip of tea. "You’ve had your knife inside me too."
"That," she said exasperatedly, "is something extremely different."
"In the sense that I’d be happy to repeat one incident and not the other, yes." He smiled at her over his teacup, shameless...
"You make a terrible king out of me, Briannis Iavi."
"Are you very sure? There’s no need to be polite if you—"
"I’m not being polite!" A trembling laugh escaped her. "I have no intention at all of being polite to you!"
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Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2023
★★★★★ 4
So cute
Format: Kindle
I really enjoyed this retelling! This read was a quick read, and had all the love you need in it! I love the King and the assassin. Cannot wait to continue this series!
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Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2023
★★★★★ 3
Love how this author writes, BUT..
Format: Kindle
I wanted to love everything about this book. I had this book release on my calendar. I read it the moment it became available. I’ve become a big fan after Marshall’s Blood and Bindings series, and I think she does a beautiful job writing complex, thoughtful characters.
BUT.
Spoilers below-
This book missed the mark in two important ways for me. The first is the intro - this “very proper lady assassin” - first of all - we are supposed to believe that SHE is who the most powerful man in the city chose to assassinate his mortal enemy? Sure. She had killed some unsuspecting guys. But the leap from there to a Fae king with magic? And when she goes to do it- she does it by blindly bumbling around his castle and walking into the room where he is and trying to stab him in the middle of the day? I am willing suspend a lot of disbelief for a good story, but that was a major stretch that made the whole premise of the book feel contrived.
And second… a whole dead side of his body? Like … dead. As in.. she smelled the rot. Saw the skeleton and dead mouth and skin. And then … had sex with it?
Um. I’m no prude but … yuck. I couldn’t get past the necrophiliac imagery and visual, and it was a major turn off for me.
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Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2023
★★★★★ 5
Fantasy Romance
Format: Kindle
✨’Would it truly be that bad?' he muttered, and for the first time since she'd awoken, there was a hint of humanity in his quiet words, a crack in that jaundiced shield. Warm breath brushed past her scalp. His arms didn't let go.
'If you ended up here with no way to leave?'
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶️🌶️🌶️
Fantasy Romance 📖
🥀Oh, these moment with our MMC reach deep for me and make me love him all the more! Curse Of The Thorn King is @authorlisettemarshall’s new and utterly enchanting Beauty and the Beast retelling, and I absolutely loved it! This steamy, forced proximity, enemies to lovers story is the first installment in the new Wayfarer Fae series and I fell hard for these characters!
✨I thoroughly enjoyed the unique flower magic systems, the assassin plot, all of fun additions of Lady Lockwell's Handbook of Etiquette, and how that factored into the story. The flirtatious and stabby banter between the two main characters had me grinning like a complete fool as the romance developed….all while experiencing the moments that made my heart ache and even break for our MC’s as the plot unfolded.
🥀As I read Curse of the Thorn King I was consumed by that quintessential balance of angst, tension, steam, COMPLETE frustration (in the best way) emotional turmoil, and swoon worthy moments that my heart has come to associate with the magic of Lisette Marshall’s writing. This authors always makes me feel allll the feels ✨✨It is no surprise that I intimately drawn to these characters and their story.
✨I highly recommend Curse Of The Thorn King to fantasy, fantasy romance, and romantasy readers.
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Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2023