Penance

To be labeled "of ill repute" in medieval society implied that a person had committed a violation of accepted standards and had stepped beyond the bounds of permissible behavior. To have a reputation "of good repute", however, was so powerful as to help a person accused of a crime be acquitted by his or her fellow peers. Labeling a person in medieval times was a complex matter. Often, unwritten codes of behavior determined who was of good repute and who was not. Members of the nobility committing a "fur-collar crime" might have considerable leeway to oppress their neighbors with violence and legal violations; however, a woman caught without appropriate attire and without the proper escort hazarded the label of a "woman of ill repute." Gender, class, social statutes, wealth, connections, bribes, friends, and the community all played a role in

Only one thousand Humans survived The Travel from the shattered Earth. Some Humans say it was their penance for crushing such beauty. Eighteen-year-old Braita merely thought it was pathetic, pathetic that her people had been that blind.

Glitter is about the female sexual experience, which contrary to what the media would have you believe, is not all bubble baths and chick flicks. Women are constantly judged as slutty, or uptight, but the reality is somewhere in between those two, and sometimes, no where near either. We have secret shames and private desires and we all feel we are the only one.

Amanda Leduc s stunning novel is the tale of two unlikely dreamers: Sam, a man who wakes up one day to find himself growing wings, and Lilah, a woman who has lost her brother to the streets of Vancouver. As Sam finds himself falling away from the world as he grows feathers from his back, Lilah seeks sexual penance under the harsh hand of her boss, her own transformation subtle and terrifying.