Books with author Ellen C. Clayton

Monsters do not hide under the bed on the Island of Selkirk. Monsters haunt the forests in the form of feral elves with knife sharp teeth, vicious talons, and sickly, glowing yellow eyes. For centuries the people of Selkirk have fought these monsters, enacting a Clearing every four years to push the elves back from their borders. Then, after one such Clearing, a babe is found abandoned in the wreckage.Tallis only desires a path of her choosing, to live without attention or interference. Along with her friends, she dreams of leaving Kincardine and going where no one knows them, to live unhindered by the prejudice that comes of being poor, an outsider, an orphan. All Tallis needs is enough coin, and she’ll be free. But the monsters have other plans.Hissing her name like a battle mantra, the elves pour into Kincardine, devouring and burning everything in their path. Fleeing her home in secret, Tallis and her friends must discover why the creatures are so intent on finding her, and stop them from framing her as the real monster of Selkirk.

After fleeing Theda, all Tallis wants is to return to Selkirk. But the bounty on her—and her friends’—heads means she needs reinforcements before attempting to return. Following the advice of Seneschal Isabetta, Tallis, Tomas, Rosslyn, and Colben set sail for Arcadia.Once there, they discover they won’t be able to achieve their goals without becoming members of Arcadian society—which means competing through battle, often to the death. But if the fighters don’t kill Tallis, the complex political machinations of the nobility might, for only they can give Tallis what she needs. Not all their exploits on the road to achieving their goals are as simple as survival, however, especially as a missing child pulls them away from their tasks and duties. But when they encounter an elder elf searching for his son, Tallis is set on the irreversible path of seeking the facts regarding half-elves and their bloody history. She must delve into their shared history beyond the prophecy, and what those truths could mean for her and Tomas’s future.

The exception is supposed to prove the rule. A woman may be forgiven for defying Popular Prejudice, if she is very pretty, very silly, and very wicked. Popular Prejudice has the natural instinct of yielding to any little weakness that may be imagined to flatter a Man. But Popular Prejudice is superbly angry with a woman who is perhaps not pretty, yet ventures to claim good sense and personal will, and who may be innately good. Popular Prejudice is the fast friend of lean-faced Envy; and woe betide the woman (or even the man) who would presume to sit down at the board of these allies uninvited.Popular Prejudice, having decided that woman is a poor, weak creature, credulous, easily influenced, holds that she is of necessity timid; that if she were allowed as much as a voice in the government of her native country, she would stand appalled if war were even hinted at. If it be proved by hard facts that woman is not a poor, weak creature, then she must be reprimanded as being masculine. To brand a woman as being masculine, is supposed to be quite sufficient to drive her cowering back to her 'broidery-frame and her lute.Popular Prejudice abhors hard facts, and rarely reads history. Yet nobody can deny that facts are stubborn things, or that the world rolls calmly round even when wars, rumours of wars, revolutions, and counter-revolutions, are raging in every quarter and sub-division of its surface.War is, undoubtedly, a horrid alternative to the average woman, and she shrinks from it—as the average man shrinks. But, walking down the serried ranks of history, we find strange records of feminine bravery; as we might discover singular instances of masculine cowardice, if we searched far enough.

Tallis is now the secret weapon in Lady Zofia's attempts to claim the Arcadian throne. But as the players vying for the crown are revealed, victory is far from assured. Marcelina's rescue becomes the key to unlocking the army Tallis so desperately needs. But with Tomas and Colben sent on a mission without Tallis, Rosslyn, or Adelaide, things get more complicated--and bloodier--awakening something in Tallis she's not certain she can cage ever again. With the elves god-like trees falling ill and driven to madness under mysterious circumstances, Tallis suspects she and Colben may not be as unique as she originally thought. As Tallis races to uphold her end of Lady Zofia's bargain and confront Lord Bogdan, the presence of pirates from Andor and a familiar face from Theda put all their lives in jeopardy. Tallis and her friends soon discover that Tallis isn't the only one capable of enacting a catastrophic prophecy, and if Tallis doesn't return to Selkirk soon it may be lost forever.

During the eighteenth century there were to be found in nearly every European army, one or more female soldiers. They sometimes held commissions as officers, but more frequently served as non-commissioned officers or privates. Those women and girls who enlisted in the British Army were generally wives or sweethearts of soldiers whose regiments had been ordered abroad, and the women, preferring to encounter the dangers and hardships of a foreign campaign rather than the miseries of separation, disguised themselves in male attire and enlisted in some battalion which was embarking for the seat of war. Sometimes, indeed, women, deserted by their husbands, resolved to follow their unfaithful spouses all over the world: and, unable to afford travelling expenses, enlisted at the first recruiting depôt, and trusted to chance for meeting with or hearing of the object of their search. As no personal examination of recruits took place in those days, either in Great Britain or elsewhere, there was no way of finding out the imposture until afterwards, more especially as the female soldiers behaved themselves quite as manly as their comrades.Of course in every country there have been local celebrities whose names even are unknown beyond the frontiers, for a man or woman must perform very great deeds to become famous in foreign lands. Thus it happens, while we are familiar with the names of many an English female soldier, we know of only two or three women who served during the last century in the armies of France. Yet the world well knows that Frenchwomen are second to none[3] in warlike esprit. One of these Gallic warriors was Captain Bodeaux, an officer holding a commission as lieutenant in one of the regiments which went over to Ireland under the command of St. Ruth, to assist James the Second. This gallant officer distinguished herself at the battle of the Boyne, July 1st, 1690, where she met with Mr. Cavanaugh, father of Christian Davies. She stopped at the house of that gentleman (who was also fighting for King James) till about three in the morning, when, being alarmed, they fled together precipitately. Christian Davies describes this officer as "a very handsome young French gentleman," though the real sex of Bodeaux was not unknown to her. At the siege of Limerick, June, 1691, she held Thomond bridge, over the Shannon, with a small body of troops, against the English, till at last she fell, covered with wounds. Such was the bravery of this young French officer that her death was lamented even by the foe. Great was their astonishment when they found their valiant antagonist was a woman.

Monsters do not hide under the bed on the Island of Selkirk. Monsters haunt the forests in the form of feral elves with knife sharp teeth, vicious talons, and sickly, glowing yellow eyes. For centuries the people of Selkirk have fought these monsters, enacting a Clearing every four years to push the elves back from their borders. Then, after one such Clearing, a babe is found abandoned in the wreckage.Tallis only desires a path of her choosing, to live without attention or interference. Along with her friends, she dreams of leaving Kincardine and going where no one knows them, to live unhindered by the prejudice that comes of being poor, an outsider, an orphan. All Tallis needs is enough coin, and she’ll be free. But the monsters have other plans.Hissing her name like a battle mantra, the elves pour into Kincardine, devouring and burning everything in their path. Fleeing her home in secret, Tallis and her friends must discover why the creatures are so intent on finding her, and stop them from framing her as the real monster of Selkirk.

After fleeing Theda, all Tallis wants is to return to Selkirk. But the bounty on her—and her friends’—heads means she needs reinforcements before attempting to return. Following the advice of Seneschal Isabetta, Tallis, Tomas, Rosslyn, and Colben set sail for Arcadia.Once there, they discover they won’t be able to achieve their goals without becoming members of Arcadian society—which means competing through battle, often to the death. But if the fighters don’t kill Tallis, the complex political machinations of the nobility might, for only they can give Tallis what she needs. Not all their exploits on the road to achieving their goals are as simple as survival, however, especially as a missing child pulls them away from their tasks and duties. But when they encounter an elder elf searching for his son, Tallis is set on the irreversible path of seeking the facts regarding half-elves and their bloody history. She must delve into their shared history beyond the prophecy, and what those truths could mean for her and Tomas’s future.

Tallis is now the secret weapon in Lady Zofia’s attempts to claim the Arcadian throne. But as the players vying for the crown are revealed, victory is far from assured. Marcelina’s rescue becomes the key to unlocking the army Tallis so desperately needs. But with Tomas and Colben sent on a mission without Tallis, Rosslyn, or Adelaide, things get more complicated—and bloodier—awakening something in Tallis she’s not certain she can cage ever again.With the elves god-like trees falling ill and driven to madness under mysterious circumstances, Tallis suspects she and Colben may not be as unique as she originally thought. As Tallis races to uphold her end of Lady Zofia’s bargain and confront Lord Bogdan, the presence of pirates from Andor and a familiar face from Theda put all their lives in jeopardy.Tallis and her friends soon discover that Tallis isn’t the only one capable of enacting a catastrophic prophecy, and if Tallis doesn’t return to Selkirk soon it may be lost forever.