#bookscorpion

A good girls guide to murder - Holly Jackson

2. good girl bad blood - Holly Jackson

3. the prisoners throne - Holly Black

4. These violent delights - Chloe Gong

5. our violent ends - Chloe Gong

6. kill joy - Holly Jackson

7. if you could see the sun - Ann Liang

8. assistant to the villain - Hannah Nicole Maehrer

9. dreadful - Caitlin Rozakis

10. as good as dead - Holly Jackson

11. firekeepers daughter - Angeline Boulley

12. the invisible life of Addie LaRue - V. E. Schwab

13. Gallant - V. E. Schwab

14. the girl who fell beneath the sea - Axie Oh

15. Emily Wildes encyclopedia of faeries - Heather Fawcett

16. Destroy the day - Brigid Kemmerer

17. eragon - Christopher Paolini

18. Apprentice to the villain - Hannah Nicole Mather

19. a darker shade of magic - V. E. Schwab

20. a gathering of shadows - V. E. Schwab

21. a conjuring of light - V. E. Schwab

22. thieves’ gambit - Kayvion Lewis

23. the fragile threads of power - V. E. Schwab

24. a tempest of tea - Hafsah Faizal

25. hearts overboard - Becky Dean

26. lightlark - Alex Aster

27. Nightband - Alex Aster

28. legendborn - Tracy Deonn

29. Emily Wilde’s map of the other lands - Heather Fawcett

30. bloodmarked - Tracy Deonn

31. her radiant curse - Elizabeth Lim

32. the hazel wood - Melissa Albert

33. the boy who didn’t come home (the hazel wood 1.5) - Melissa Albert

34. I hope this doesn’t find you - Ann Liang

35. the kamogawa food detectives - Hisashi Kashiwai

36. what you are looking for is in the library- Michiko Aoyama

37. wrath of the triple goddess - Rick Riordan

38. stars and smoke - Marie Lu

39. love and other great expectations - Becky Dean

40. icon and inferno - Marie Lu

41. realm breaker - Victoria Aveyard

42. happily never after - Lynn Painter

43. Mr. Wrong number - Lynn Painter

44. the do-over - Lynn Painter

45. this savage song - V. E. Schwab

46. our dark duet - V. E. Schwab

47. the American roommate experiment - Elena Armas

48. the odyssey- homer

49. accidentally Amy - Lynn Painter

50. the restaurant of lost recipes - Hisashi Kashiwai

51. betting on you - Lynn Painter

52. the poppy war - R. F. Kuang

53. not in love - Ali Hazelwood

54. Meet me in the margins - Melissa Ferguson

55. shipped - Angie Hoffman

56. not in love by Ali Hazelwood

57. save the cat writes a young adult novel by Jessica Brody

58. 100 days of sunlight by Abbie Emmons

59. this time it’s real by Ann Liang

60. I want to die but I want to eat tteokbokki by Baek Se-hee

61. better than the movies by Lynn Painter

62. Spectacular by Stephanie Garber

63. Heartless by Marissa Meyer

64. Dungeons and Drama By Kristy Boyce

65. The Wild Robot by Peter Brown

Menhir Mystery

Author: traumschwinge

Beta Reader: bookscorpion

Artist: Omaano

Rating: E

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Word Count: 29,516

Pairing: Geralt/Duny, Geralt/Emhyr var Emreis

Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Folklore, Magic, Curses, Murder Mystery, Age Difference, First Time, Rated For Violence

Summary:

Roaming the mountains as a witcher does, Geralt stumbles upon a farm infested with ghouls. The investigation of the buildings yields signs of violence. And what he hears when asking around in the nearby village tells him something strange is afoot on the mountain. An old elven shrine, confusion about when the farm had been abandoned, strange tales of a monster roaming the forest. Curiosity piqued, Geralt sets out to unravel this mystery.

The thing to remember is that when I say “not that religious,” it’s relative – i.e. a person not very religious by medieval standards would still be considered quite religious today, because the church was the medium in which public and private life was framed and in which everyone took part. It’s like how pretty much most people in the West celebrate Christmas whether or not they’re religious – it is part of the civic faith of the society. However, the perception that everyone was a bunch of wild-eyed religious zealots who unquestionably accepted whatever the church said is super, SUPER wrong.

Some reading to start you off here:

Those Terrible Middle Ages!: Debunking the Myths, by Regine Pernoud (San Francisco; Ignatius Press, 2000), is the closest thing I have to a short, readable, and general history intended for a popular audience. It will give you plenty of quick facts and overall framework for, as noted, refuting some major medieval misconceptions. Everything from here on out will be more specialized/academic.

The canons of the 1215 Lateran council, summarized (Harvard.edu) and in full (Fordham.edu). Among them is canon 21: “Everyone who has attained the age of reason is bound to confess his sins at least once a year to his own parish pastor, or with his permission to another, and to receive the Eucharist at least at Easter.” You wouldn’t think you’d need to compel these supposedly super religious people to take communion AT LEAST ONCE A YEAR, AT EASTER, which is basically when the majority of America goes to church anyway. Hey, also try canon 42: “ No cleric may so extend his jurisdiction as to become detrimental to secular justice.” Now, I’m not gonna say this is a model of a tolerant and forward-looking legal code, because it gets pretty hairy at the end with its insistence on distinguishing Jews and Saracens from Christians and barring Jews from public office (as Innocent III was a hard-liner on this point). But have a read-through the summarized version, because it’s short, and because I guarantee it will say at least three things to make you go, “wow, I didn’t know they already thought like that in the Medieval Era.” (Which is, you know, when they are dumb and religious and etc.) There was also the Capitula de Judaeis of Richard I (my homeboy) made in 1194, which specifically legally protected the Jews of England and the Plantagenet lands in France, which – while made largely for economic reasons – represented a drastic change from the stringent anti-Semitism happening elsewhere in Europe.

Elizabeth Siberry, in Criticism of crusading, 1095-1274, examines how the clerical sources dealt with the idea of crusading and whether or not it was justified. Spoiler alert: the clerics almost always thought it was, as did the noble vernacular sources, but since this is my area of specialty, I can tell you that crusading appeals were extremely elite (focused on those who had the means and methods to go) and with the exception of the First and Third Crusades, and to some degree the Second, struggled to retain popular support after an initial highly-successful emotional appeal. Whenever the major crusades were over, the popes could call for help for the Holy Land for years, but the average layman paid no attention; they just weren’t that fussed about it. The Fourth Crusade was highly criticized and suffered from almost constant desertions, as crusaders exercised their individual right to disagree with their leaders and cynically question their supposedly Christian motives. See “The Fourth Crusade and the Just-War Theory,” for a good explanation of how the average Fourth Crusader thought, the religious influences available to them, and the decisions they made.

The Albigensian Crusade in the south of France, 1209-1229, against the schismatic group the Cathars, was also heavily criticized and viewed by contemporaries as being more about a king and pope’s political power, and its bloody excesses became infamous and condemned in its own day. Also, even a remote scanning of the history of the 13th century will see new movements and challenges to the pope’s authority popping up everywhere.

As for women, I answered a bit of this in an earlier ask, but some reading to start you off:

Medieval Maidens: Young Women and Gender in England, 1270-1540, by Kim Phillips (Manchester; Manchester University Press, 2003)

Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe, by Nancy Goldstone (New York; Penguin, 2007)

The Beguines of Medieval Paris: Gender, Patronage, and Spiritual Authority, by Tanya Stabler Miller (Philadelphia; University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014)

As above, when I say that women were not silent/submissive/raped as we like to believe, I do have to qualify, of course, that that does not mean their situation was anywhere comparable to modern feminism. There were still distinct social roles and expectations for them, there was certainly nothing like sexual liberation/freedom (at least legally speaking, though of course practice was different), and not much in the way of legal redress for the ordinary married woman (though noblewomen had more options). However, women were fully valued in the roles they were allowed to play in society, were respected as patronesses, advisors, even rulers (as regents for a husband or son, usually, but nonetheless), and in general, had far more of a rich and varied life than popular historiography and our cherished notions of Progress would like to give them. It’s of note that people only ever complain about things being “historically inaccurate” when women are given any autonomy and agency at all. They won’t complain about physical or archaelogical or linguistic disparities, sometimes by hundreds of years, but give a woman any personhood at all, and “oh no that’s not accurate.” Which is a) BS, and b) represents a desire to indulge what I call “stylized misogyny” – i.e. the idea that it’s supposedly historically or socially acceptable to discriminate against women without consequences in this environment is half the attraction for the modern MRA type. They don’t want real history, they want their idealized history where women “knew their place.”

I was busy so they’re aren’t many

Spectacular by Stephanie Garber

Heartless by Marissa Meyer

Dungeons and Drama By Kristy Boyce

The Wild Robot by Peter Brown

(I had quite a month if you couldn’t tell)

wrath of the triple goddess - Rick Riordan

stars and smoke - Marie Lu

love and other great expectations - Becky Dean

icon and inferno - Marie Lu

realm breaker - Victoria Aveyard

happily never after - Lynn Painter

Mr. Wrong number - Lynn Painter

the do-over - Lynn Painter

this savage song - V. E. Schwab

our dark duet - V. E. Schwab

the American roommate experiment - Elena Armas

the odyssey- homer

accidentally Amy - Lynn Painter

the restaurant of lost recipes - Hisashi Kashiwai

betting on you - Lynn Painter

legendborn - Tracy Deonn

Emily Wilde’s map of the other lands - Heather Fawcett

bloodmarked - Tracy Deonn

her radiant curse - Elizabeth Lim

the hazel wood - Melissa Albert

the boy who didn’t come home (the hazel wood 1.5) - Melissa Albert

I hope this doesn’t find you - Ann Liang

the kamogawa food detectives - Hisashi Kashiwai

Emily Wildes encyclopedia of faeries - Heather Fawcett

Destroy the day - Brigid Kemmerer

eragon - Christopher Paolini

Apprentice to the villain - Hannah Nicole Mather

a darker shade of magic - V. E. Schwab

a gathering of shadows - V. E. Schwab

a conjuring of light - V. E. Schwab

thieves’ gambit - Kayvion Lewis

the fragile threads of power - V. E. Schwab

a tempest of tea - Hafsah Faizal

hearts overboard - Becky Dean

lightlark - Alex Aster