Although quite interesting in premise, the romance aspect is slightly strained. The hero is appropriately heroic, but our heroine is slightly weak willed and rather clueless. No one truly allows themselves to be forced into a life without love. It is an old cliche that doesn't really work this time. But, I will give kudos to the satisfying ending and arrest. Good, but not excellent.

This little book contains twelve realistic, neat gargoyle designs in appropriately subdued stone colors. Some of them have wings, some beaks, some horns, one looks rather like a dog crossed with a seahorse, but all of them are interestingly detailed, with a touch of the grotesque. These are great for Halloween, or any time. Recommended!

I just started to read it but I find this book very clear and with many helpful exercises.

Excellent source for example resumes. There is a great deal of variety, with each of the 200 resumes unique in some way.

However, there is no "how to" section. It is left up to the reader to determine the do's and dont's of each resume.

COVERS A WIDE VARIETY OF OUTRAGEOUS CASES,WITH REWARD AMOUNTS RANGING FROM THE SMALL TO ENORMOUS.......PROBABLY THE MOST SENSELESS MURDER COVERED IS THE MASS MURDERS OF SEVERAL EMPLOYEES AT THE RESTAURANT OF A TEXAS MALL..........THE WRITING HERE BY MISS COOPER IS PRECISE AND TO THE POINT,YET SHE AVOIDS THE LURID ''TRUE DETECTIVE'' APPROACH IN THESE CAPSULE SUMMARIES OF UNSOLVED CRIMES......RECOMMENDED.

This sequel to _Noble Privilege_ follows the same methods and has the same limitation to mostly secondary sources, and it continues Bush's very detailed study of the nuts and bolts of the noble order on the Continent. This time he's concerned with questions of diversity and mutability: Under what circumstances did the noble class grow or diminish, how did one enter the ranks of the aristocracy, how might one (or one's descendants) be de-nobled, what were the actual difference in station between those nobles who were wealthy and those who were not, and how did the latter dissimilarity affect personal conduct, choice of residence, and the necessity of trade? Again, the style is scholarly but quite accessible and the bibliography is very thorough.

This play has some of the best characters ever, and a plot to match. I got caught up in Barry Daniels fantasy world. Superbly funny, a wonderful read.

A must read for anyone wondering what English nobility is like and how it exists in modern society. No matter your opinions on nobility, you will enjoy the concise, understandable, explanations of the peerage and the sometimes hilarious anectodes about life as a peer and those who come in contact with them.

There is plenty of descriptive information about peerage as well as educational data. Funnier and more enlightening than a read through an excyclopedia article, this book will give you a personal look into the lives of the peers and acquaint you with the class system still in place in the U.K.

At some points rather heavily written, the burdensom prose is punctuated with very comedic stories of the peers and their interaction with modern soceity.

For a funny, accurate and fairly objective consideration of the whole concept of English nobility, read "Their Noble Lordships." If nothing else, you will have a good time and know how to properly address a Duke or Baron should you ever meet one.

It's sometimes difficult for Americans to understand how the titled class in Great Britain manages to hang on and on, in what is supposed to be a democracy. In fact, under various Labour governments, Britain has been far more radically socialist than the United States -- but the dukes and earls and barons have always survived. Is it just the British love of tradition? Probably not. In fact, Winchester makes a very good argument, well supported by charts and tables, that class is still alive and well in the U.K. and that the upper class still controls the nation's land to a startling degree. A number of inquiries, even by the government, over the past century have been unable to nail down just how much land each peer controls, but the author estimates the total at something like four million acres -- not much to a large Texas rancher, perhaps, but that constitutes about one-third of all the land area of Britain. And it's in the hands of fewer than 1,500 families.

This is not something British aristocrats really want publicized and, in fact, they go to some lengths to at least obfuscate it. Winchester actually had finished this book in 1978, but his publishers came under assault by a number of titled persons who figured in it. The legal system in Britain pretty much allows individuals who are the subjects of books, no matter how much in the public eye they may be, to suppress such works before publication. It was only with the assistance of a few sympathetic specialist lawyers - especially Sir Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk, the foremost authority on peerage lore in Britain -- that his work finally saw the light of day.

But this lively volume is far from being a dry socioeconomic study! Winchester went and visited as many dukes and earls as would talk to him (some did), as well as chatting up a broad sampling of the barons who constitute the lower rungs of the aristocracy. Some of these, such as the Duke of Devonshire and Baron Mowbray, he seems to approve of, more or less. In other cases, he lets the man's personality and opinions speak for themselves. And it's not a cliché that hunting, fishing, dining, and collecting account for the majority of interests of a great many of the titled. Winchester also describes at length the qualitative differences among the five ranks of the peerage: The special place of the dukes, who are far, far higher on the ladder than even the marquesses next below them; the fact that retiring prime ministers have traditionally been created viscounts; the peculiar inferiority complex of many among the ranks of the barons.

There are also some curious effects that follow enoblement."Those who carry a title as a consequence of their birth are not in one single case as distinguished in any field as was the first holder of the title; in every single case they are either as comfortably settled as was the first holder or are considerably more settled than was that first holder. . . . In short, the elevation to the peerage has brought the group firmly within the Palace gates of the Establishment, yet appears to have done little to increase their usefulness, as a group, to the society that honoured their forebears. Small wonder that most peers, of recent and of ancient creation, are reluctant to give up what privileges they have." So while the author has nothing personal against most of the peers he has observed, he does not think stripping the upper class of most of its acreage and the House of Lords of its remaining legislative powers would be a bad thing.

There's also a great deal of anecdotal history in this book (or it might have been considerably thinner), most of it fascinating and some of it hilarious. The heralds and pursuivants who make up the staff of the College of Heralds often do not approve of those to whom titles and arms are granted, for instance -- and you don't want to annoy someone with a title like Portcullis or Rouge Dragon!

Don't be fooled by the title of this book. It's not really about any "three rules" at all, or how to write fiction either, but instead delves into the what, where and who of fiction. The "what" section, dealing with plot motivators and "story spicers" and comprising a third of the book, is worth the price alone. Noble offers an excellent analysis of what moves stories along. In the process he shows writers how to steal (yes, steal!) from others to make their stories work in a dramatic, cohesive fasion. The "where" and "who" sections will prove less useful to experienced writers, but the "what" section makes this book a truly invaluable and unique resource for writers of all levels. Screenwriters should also find this section helpful in streamlining their plots.