Rise of The Gryphon Dianna Love

Sometimes failure is just the beginning All Lai has ever wanted is to become a priestess, like her mother and grandmother before her, in service to their beloved goddess. That’s before the unthinkable happens, and Lai fails the trials she has trained for her entire life. She makes the only choice she believes she can: she runs away. From her isolated desert homeland, Lai rides north to the colder, stranger kingdom of Alanum—a land where magic, and female warriors, are not commonplace. Here, she hears tales about a mountain city of women guardians and steel forgers, worshiping goddesses who sound very similar to Lai's own…

In a mystical land torn apart by civil war, a warrior princess must team up with a rival warrior prince to hunt down an evil sorcerer who has summoned a giant flying demon which is terrorizing their land.

This 95-song retrospective covers a period from 1955, when girl groups were just emerging, to 1963, by which time they were an established staple alongside their male counterparts. Certain groups dominate – the Shirelles appear 14 times, for example – but such success stories are the exception rather than the rule. Most of the groups here only managed one or two hits, then found themselves changing their names, personnel or style in an attempt to repeat that initial success before eventually calling it quits. Still, it's those one-hit wonders who are responsible for the really strange, aurally fascinating gems here. Miss Toni Fisher's The Big Hurt stands out, with its haunting arrangement and phasing effects, as do the Paris Sisters' Phil Spector-produced odes to heartbreak and the Bobbettes I Shot Mr Lee (a followup to their 1956 hit Mr Lee), which is a murder ballad masquerading as a pop smash. Bigger names including Little Eva, Etta James and the Supremes also appear, adding some recognisable bulk to a well-curated look at this important period in pop history.