conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a description for a book titled Pendragon about Sherbrooke, Meggie, Bride with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction.. Start with the sentence 'the author's latest Regency-era romance continues the saga of the Sherbrooke family, relayed in her Bride Trilogy (The Sherbrooke Bride, etc'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: the author's latest Regency-era romance continues the saga of the Sherbrooke family, relayed in her Bride Trilogy (The Sherbrooke Bride, etc.). While attending her first London ball, 18-year-old Meggie, daughter of Reverend Tysen Sherbrooke, encounters an old schoolgirl crush, her "almost-cousin" Jeremy. Certain that she is now old enough to be truly in love, she's devastated when her affections aren't returned. In an attempt to get over Jeremy, she hastily marries Thomas Malcombe, the earl of Lancaster, a man who has been scarred by his history with untrustworthy women. Meggie must win over her husband, even as she battles her nasty mother-in-law for control of the estate. Her troubles don't stop there, however; someone is trying to kill her, and she and Thomas must discover who and why. Although fans of the series will undoubtedly enjoy revisiting the charming and eccentric Sherbrooke family, new readers will find themselves at a loss to explain some of their bizarre behavior (the family's tradition of cat racing, for instance). Several of the novel's plot points are left unresolved as well such as the reason behind Mrs. Malcombe's antipathy toward Meggie and the motive behind Thomas's younger brother's rakish behavior. Despite the occasional charming moment, this slight story falls short of the author's usual standards. (Jan.)Forecast: Over the years, the author's fan base has expanded to include devotees of contemporary romantic suspense and thriller novels, but these readers won't find her latest a worthy introduction to her historicals. the author's long-time fans, however, will pluck this one off the shelf before the dust has a chance to settle.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first five paragraphs for this book.. Start with the sentence 'Pendragon
  I will weep no more for the lost, asleep in their water graves'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Pendragon
  I will weep no more for the lost, asleep in their water graves. I have no more tears for my youth in the temple of the brindled ox. Life is strong in me and I will not grieve for what was or might have been. Mine is a different path and I must follow where it leads.
  But I look out from my high window onto fields of corn ripening to the scythe. I see them rippling like a golden sea, and in the rustling of the dry leaves I hear again the voices of my people calling to me across the years. I close my eyes and I see them now as they were from my earliest memories. They stand before me and I enter once more that glad time when we were young and the cataclysm had not come upon us – before Throm appeared with dire prophecies burning on his lips.
  It was a time of peace in all Atlantis. The gods were content and the people prospered. We children played beneath Bel's golden disk and our limbs grew strong and brown; we sang our songs to fair Cybel, the ever-changing, to grant us dreams of joy; and we lived out our days in a land rich with every comfort, thinking it would always be that way.
  And so I take my pen and begin to write. Perhaps writing will ease the long months of my confinement. Perhaps my words will earn a measure of the peace that has been denied throughout my life.
  In any case, I have little else to do; I am a captive, made prisoner in this house. So, I will write: for myself, for those who come after, and for the voices that cry out not to be forgotten.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The rider lurched forward; his knees crashed down on the platform. His eyes rolled up into his skull, he toppled onto his side and lay still. Charis stared at him for a moment and then, cautiously, crept to him. She pressed her fingertips to the side of his neck and felt the flutter of a weak pulse. She pulled the man's garment aside and examined the wound. It was clean and the blood already congealing. Her pit experience told her he would live.
  She heard a shout from below and, with her hands on her knees, she straightened herself, feeling hot knives ripping along her spine. The pain was making her groggy, but she gulped air to keep her head clear and moved to the stone breastwork. Six of the enemy troops had climbed the bank and were running up the hill to the watchtower.
  Charis sighed. She could not fight another enemy soldier, let alone six. She turned, picked up the fleece and flung it onto the flames which were now burning furiously, their ragged red streaks angry against the pale yellow of the risen sun.
  The wooden poles that formed the beams of the crude roof collapsed then, scattering flames onto the platform itself. She backed away from the flames, hoping that Kian would somehow see the pyre and recognize it as a warning. She slumped against the stone as the enemy soldiers came pounding up the inside steps.
  A second later, the first one jumped through the entrance hole. He crossed the platform in three quick strides. Charis raised the knife. The man's foot lashed out, and the knife went spinning from her grasp.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last two paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Until that time, I am content: I have a son to raise – a son whom many, including Hafgan and Blaise, believe will be greater than his father.
  As to that, I know nothing. Rumours flourish like weeds when a great man dies. I do not deny Taliesin's rarity among men – and many's the night that I wonder who and what he was – but this I know, as I know my own reflection: in him God found fuel for the spark he puts in all men. Taliesin was a man fully awake and alive; he burned with the vision of a world he meant to create.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Until that time, I am content: I have a son to raise – a son whom many, including Hafgan and Blaise, believe will be greater than his father.
  As to that, I know nothing. Rumours flourish like weeds when a great man dies. I do not deny Taliesin's rarity among men – and many's the night that I wonder who and what he was – but this I know, as I know my own reflection: in him God found fuel for the spark he puts in all men.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first five paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Pendragon
  They were going to kill Arthur. Can you imagine? They would have killed him, too, but I put a stop to it. The arrogance! The stupidity!
  Not that Uther was ever one for a scholar's cope. I expected more from Ygerna, though; she at least had the canny sense of her people. But, she was afraid. Yes, frightened of the whispered voices, frightened of her suddenly exalted position, frightened of Uther and desperate to please him. She was so young.
  So Arthur had to be saved, and at no little expense to myself. I had heard about their sordid plan in the way I have, and made it my affair to confront Uther with it early on. He denied all, of course.
  Uther is a warrior and there is an honesty about that: steel does not lie. Lucky for him he was a man born to his time. He would never have made a decent magistrate, let alone governor – he is a sorry liar. As High King he ruled with a sword in one hand and a bludgeon in the other: the sword for the Saecsen, the bludgeon for the petty kings below him.
  Ygerna was just as bad in her own way. She said nothing, but stood wringing those long white hands of hers, and twisting her silken mantle into knots, staring at me with those big, dark doe eyes that had trapped Uther. Her stomach had just begun to swell; she could not have been more than four or five months pregnant.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: We were outmanned ten to one – it took no scholar to reckon that! But we were a mounted warband. And a battle-trained horse is an incalculable asset in a fight, especially against Saecsens and their like who fight only on foot.
  The fear all had felt at seeing the enemy was thrust aside as men remounted and readied themselves for the attack. Gwendolau called my name, but I did not respond, for I was already spurring my horse forward. I intended to meet the whole Saecsen host alone.
  There were shouts for me to rein up, to halt and wait – and then Gwendolau took command and organized the charge, dividing our small force into two groups to try to split the onrushing wave. Our only hope lay in penetrating their battle line – smashing through once and again, again and again, wearing at them, taking as many as we could out of the fight each time, but never allowing them to close on us or surround us. We were too few, and they were too many – we could not survive a pitched battle.
  As for me, I had no hope at all. I had no plan, no volition but to ride and fight and kill, to slay as many of my beloved's murderers as possible before being slain myself. I tell you I did not care to live, I did not care to continue breathing the air of this world if my Ganieda was not also alive to breathe it.
  The wind of my passing whistled along the upraised blade in my hand. My mount's iron-shod hooves dug into the soft ground and flung the turf skyward. My cloak flew out behind me like a great wing and I screamed...
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.. Start with the sentence 'Kit gaped in amazement'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Kit gaped in amazement. Except for the low crack about his love life, the old geezer was remarkably close to the mark.
  Trepidation and curiosity wrestled one another for a moment. Curiosity won. 'Okay,' he relented. 'Twenty minutes.'
  The two started walking towards the street. 'I've got to call my girlfriend and tell her I'll be a little late,' Kit said, pulling out his phone. He flipped it open and pressed the speed-dial key for Mina's number. When nothing happened, he glanced at the screen to see the 'Network Not Connected' message blinking at him. He waved the phone in the air, then looked again. Still no tiny bars indicating a signal.
  They continued on and, upon approaching the end of the alley, Kit thought he heard a sound at once so familiar and yet so strange, it took him a full two seconds to place it. Children laughing? No, not children. Seagulls.
  He had little time to wonder about this for, at that moment, they stepped from the dim alleyway and into the most dazzling and unusual landscape Kit had ever seen...