Susan Price Quotes

The Sterkarms have plundered the border between Scotland and England for generations. Suddenly intruders, calling themselves Elves, want the Sterkarms to stop their violent ways.

The Elves, time travelers from the 21st century, have found a way back to the 16th century and plan to do their own plundering of the land’s rich natural resources. Their only mistake is foolishly underestimating the Sterkarms themselves.

For Andrea Mitchell, an anthropologist working among the Sterkarms, none of this matters. In love with Per -- a young Sterkarm warrior -- and feted as a beautiful Elf-May, she’s never known such happiness in her own time.

But when Per receives a deadly injury, Andrea’s decision to take him into the 21st century to save him has explosive results. Per, seeing how powerful and destructive the Elves truly are, swears to keep them from his land forever. And in the bloody battle that ensues, Andrea must finally choose whose side she is on.

“Two of the riders dismounted, handing their reins to the third -a boy of about fourteen- who remained on his horse. They had a look of each other, the riders, like brothers. The first to dismount, his lance still in his hand, was probably the eldest. He was bearded, but no older than about twenty. He went straight up to Malc and began to pull the back-pack from this shoulders.”

The miraculous invention of a Time Tube has given Great Britain’s mighty FUP corporation unprecedented power, granting it unlimited access to the rich natural resources of the past. Opening a portal into sixteenth-century Scotland, the company has sent representatives back five hundred years to deal with the Sterkarms, a lawless barbarian clan that has plundered both sides of the English-Scottish border for generations.

“That ramp hasn’t been built for Dilsmead Hall in the 21st century. That end of the Tube spent a lot of time in the 16th century. It has easy to tell which end was which, because the end that spend all its time in the 21st was dirty. ”

“Dilsmead Hall was a large and beautiful mansion built by a 19th-century manufacturer, and Bryce’s office was on its upper floor. FUP had taken it over, to house their northern enterprise, but had taken a much publicized pride in preserving as much of the house as possible.”

“You’re expecting us to go back there, to put ourselves at risk, and saying you’ll talk to them again just isn’t good enough! We though you had talked to them!′ The other chorused and nodded agreement, hair flying, beards bobbing.”

“They reached the lifts and, naturally, had to wait for one. Bryce would have preferred to climb the stairs. He folded his arms, ‘I wouldn’t rely too much on them being scared of us. They might be, but -it’s like hoping a ferret won’t bite you because it’s scared, when truth is, the more scared a ferret is, the more likely it is to bite you.‘”

Out of the frozen wastes she studied the words and runes that would give her power to understand the messages of the ghost drum. At last she heard Safa’s cries.

The woman is afraid - the child is not hers but her master’s - but she gives her baby anyway, hoping desperately it will have a life better than her own.

Czar Guidon kept his son Safa imprisoned in a tower. His power could only be matched by the witch-girl Chingis.

“As it walks one way, it sings songs. As it walks the other, it tells stories. This is one of the stories the cat tells.”

“Did the slave-woman dream (asks the cat) or did a witch truly take her baby? And, if a witch truly came, did the witch tell the truth, or did she take the baby, roast it, and eat it at a witches picnic?”

A delightful fairy tale about a prince who gets rescued from a tower by a female shaman. Set in medieval Russia with Lapland witches.

It begins with a slave-woman giving birth to a daughter in the frozen depths of winter. A witch appears, asking for the child, promising to raise it as a shaman.

“In a place far distant from where you are now grows an oak-tree by a lake. Round the oak’s trunk is a chain of golden links. Tethered to the chain is a learned cat, and this most learned of all cats walks round and round the tree continually.”

It is an original fairy tale using elements from Russian history and Russian folklore. Like many traditional tales it is full of cruelty, violence and sudden death.

“She heard the outer door of the house open, and slam shut. Raising her head, she looked down from the stove-top and saw the inner door fly open. In hurried a tall figure, hidden under a big fur hat and a long, quilted, padded, fantastically embroidered coat.”