Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} A Court for Fairies f by Lynn S. A Court For Fairies (Dark Heralds Book 1) by Lynn S. Marissa sat on the edge of her bed. She had carefully gathered the amulet Malachi had given her, mindful not to touch it directly. She held it long enough to numb the voice in her head. Her mind turned to another charm, the one on the chain Esteban had given her. It was impossible for her not to think about her initial reaction to that gift, and how she hid it from her boyfriend so as not to make him aware of certain details—her reluctance to wear it, for one. Sure, she kissed him, even smiled, after gently declining on that invitation once more. The next thing Marissa did was pay a visit to her mother. The idea of a golden charm fused with concrete—as in native soil—stunk of Adriana’s terrible sense of humor. “This is your idea of a joke?” Marissa was calm, but her voice denoted a quiet fury. “You suggested he give me this. God knows if you even compelled him, it is so inconceivable. And on top of that he said, ‘I free you.’ I bet you had a grand old time with your vampyr jokes no one else understands!” “Ugh, Mariushka, you could never take a prank. Such a solemn child. Where did you get your bitter blood? Your father could take and dish a good joke and, well…you got me. But before we go on, for someone so keen on keeping secrets…do you plan to have a match out here or are you the kind who needs to be invited in?” Adriana did her best imitation of an evil laugh, possibly trying to further annoy her daughter. Marissa rushed in and Adriana would have taken another jab, had she not noticed her daughter had taken as much as she could. Marissa sat down on the sofa, eyes gleaming with tears, mouth stretched as if to contain a sob. Adriana hated to see her cry; there was something about her doe eyes that reminded her of Bastian’s final days. “Dragoste, love of my life, you are reading too much into a simple gesture. Okay, I must confess. Esteban told me you were having second thoughts about visiting the Sunshine State and I found it too funny to resist. But, Mariushka, don’t you worry a hair on your pretty little head.” Adriana’s hands caressed her daughter’s temple, combing her fingers through her hair. “You will never have to run; you will never have to hide. You won’t ever have to carry the soil of the place where you were turned on to the blood.” Adriana still remembered those terrible boxes of earth her father was forced to carry, and how he once grabbed her by the hair and shoved her face into the humid soil, forcing her to breathe in. He used to tell her, “You are a dhampyr, girl. My property. Where ever we go, you must take care that I rise from this earth every night or you surely will die.” Those boxes smelled of rot and all things unavoidable. She’d never willingly impose the burden her own father placed on her shoulders. Dame Vera Lynn obituary. At the start of the second world war, Vera Lynn, who has died aged 103, was an up-and-coming dance band singer. By 1945, this working-class young woman had become a symbol of the British wartime spirit, with a status comparable to that of the patrician prime minister, Winston Churchill. After the war, her friend Harry Secombe liked to joke that “Churchill didn’t beat the Nazis. Vera sang them to death.” Lynn’s iconic status as the “Forces’ Sweetheart” was due to the success of her radio series, Sincerely Yours, which linked the soldiers at the front with their loved ones at home. In 1944, she visited the troops in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, which kindled her lifelong commitment to the welfare of veterans, especially those of the Burma campaign. Above all, her celebrity was due to her hit songs. Such numbers as We’ll Meet Again and The White Cliffs of Dover caught and moulded a national mood, despite the harsh criticism her crooning style provoked from some politicians and BBC managers. After VE Day, Lynn resumed her career as a variety artist and recording star, but her association with wartime Britain remained central to her identity and reputation throughout her long life. Until very recently, Lynn was a prominent presence at commemorations of the war. Her place at the heart of national life was officially recognised when she was made OBE in 1969, a dame in 1975 and a Companion of Honour in 2016; her 100th birthday, in March 2017, was marked by the release of a new album and a concert in her honour at the London Palladium. Equally, she became part of popular culture as cockney rhyming slang made her synonymous with gin, chin and skin (as in cigarette papers), she was hymned by pop singers of later generations including Pink Floyd and Ian Dury, and she was the subject of numerous comic impersonations, something she tried unsuccessfully to control through court action in the 1950s. 'We'll meet again': Vera Lynn's anthem of hope through the ages – video. She was an unlikely candidate for the role of national heroine. Born in the penultimate year of the first world war, she was the second child of a working-class family who lived in a small apartment in East Ham, east London. Her father, Bertram Welch, had various jobs, including working as a plumber and docker. Her mother, Annie, was a dressmaker. Vera’s vocal talent was evident from a very early age. After singing at family parties, she made her public debut at a local working men’s club aged seven, billed as a “descriptive child vocalist”. Adopting her grandmother’s maiden name, Vera Lynn soon joined a juvenile concert party, the Kracker Kabaret Kids. In 1932, still only 15, she was signed up by Howard Baker, a bandleader and agent, who supplied dance bands for functions throughout the East End of London. A brief period with Billy Cotton’s band followed, culminating in a week’s engagement in Manchester, from which Cotton sent Vera home. He later described this as “the worst day’s work I ever did”. Cotton’s loss was the pianist Charlie Kunz’s gain. Vera sang with his band on BBC broadcasts. Unusually for the time, Kunz gave Lynn free rein to choose the songs. She visited music publishers in Denmark Street, London’s Tin Pan Alley. There Vera met Walter Ridley, of the Peter Maurice company, who not only found songs for her but undertook to transpose them to a suitable key for Lynn’s unusually deep voice, which was variously described in the press as a “rich contralto” and “a freak mezzo-soprano with an irresistible sob”. From 1937 to 1940, Lynn worked with another top bandleader, Bert Ambrose, who was impressed by her enunciation of lyrics. She toured variety theatres with the Ambrose Octet and took part in broadcasts for the BBC and for Radio Luxembourg, in a show sponsored by Lifebuoy soap. There was also a debut television broadcast from Alexandra Palace in 1938. The following year, she recorded We’ll Meet Again for the first time, shortly before a newspaper columnist claimed she was selling more records than either Bing Crosby or the Mills Brothers. Dame Vera Lynn with her daughter, Virginia, in 1969, after being made OBE. Photograph: ANL/Rex/Shutterstock. Her growing success was reflected in the growth of her fan mail and in her increasing salary. In 1938, she was able to move her family to a new house in Barking and to buy a fur coat and her first car, an Austin 10. In 1939, a new saxophonist joined the Ambrose orchestra. Harry Lewis soon showed his admiration for Vera and in 1941 they were married. Very soon afterwards, the band felt the full impact of the war as Lewis and others volunteered for military service. As members of the RAF they set up the Squadronaires, a dance and jazz group that continued after the cessation of hostilities. Lewis was to give up his career in the late 1940s to become Lynn’s personal manager. He became well known for answering the phone with “What do you want her for?” By 1941 Lynn was a star in her own right and she left Ambrose to begin a solo career. She soon found work on the variety theatre circuit, beginning at Coventry Hippodrome, often topping the bill working with only a piano accompanist. At this time, BBC producers were seeking new ideas for the Forces Programme, which had been established to broadcast to the British expeditionary force. Howard Thomas, later a pioneer of commercial television, proposed a format that would be “a letter to the men of the forces in words and music”. Lynn had previously been voted “No 1 forces sweetheart” by Forces Programme listeners and was an ideal choice to read and sing such a letter. To quote the music historian Paul du Noyer, “she was not a glamorous sex-bomb pandering to the lonesome soldiers’ lower instincts. Instead she aroused a wistful yearning for the idealised fiancee.” It was an immediate success. Up to 2,000 messages were received each week from domestic listeners from which Lynn read out a small sample.