Nora could've written this script... 🤨

He took her hands at the wrists and removed them from where she clutched at his throbe. 

"She is a member of the House of Jaquir. The fact that your blood runs through her veins is 

only more reason for her to be separated and properly trained before her 

betrothal to Kadeem al-Misha."

"Betrothal?" Wild with fear, Phoebe clutched at him again. "She's only a child. 

Even in Jaquir you don't marry off children."

"She will be married on her fifteenth birthday. The arrangements are nearly complete. 

Then she will at last be of some use to me as the wife of an ally."

Sweet Revenge

_________________________

Princess Haya, daughter of the late King Hussein of Jordan, 
applied Tuesday for protective orders using laws intended to 
safeguard victims of forced marriage and domestic abuse. 
The forced marriage protection was for her children.


TIME

_________________________

"Can't." Phoebe leaned against the stall door and waited for the nausea to pass. 
"We can't ever go back. He was going to send you away, baby."

"Away? "

"To Germany." With an unsteady hand Phoebe found a handkerchief and dried
her damp face. "I won't let him send you away, to marry you off to a man 
who could be like him." Steadier, Phoebe knelt and wrapped her arms 
around her daughter. "I won't see you live your life the way 
I've had to live mine. It would kill me."

Sweet Revenge

Nora could've written this script... oh, wait... 😉

"You want to go back."

Phoebe didn't hear the fear, only her own regrets. 

"It's a long way back, Addy. Too far. When I married Abdu

 I left it all behind. 

More than I understood then." 

Sweet Revenge

____________________

TMF95 [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]

After Break-Up With Billionaire Ruler, Dubai Princess Flees With Kids

Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, the sixth wife of Dubai's billionaire ruler,
has reportedly fled the United Arab Emirates with their two children
following the break-up of their marriage.

News18

____________________

 "I want you to be happy, darling. Happy and safe. That's all that matters."

"I like being here with you." Despite all the cookies and tea and lemonade at the couturier's

 she was hungry, but she didn't want to say so. "There is so much to see. 

When you told me about places like this, I thought you were making up stories. It's better than a story."

Phoebe opened her eyes to stare out the window. They were driving along the river in the most romantic city in the world. 

Recklessly, she lowered the glass and drew in a deep breath. 

"There, Addy, do you smell it?"

Laughing, Adrianne leaned closer, like a puppy, to let the breeze race against her face. 

"The water?"

"The freedom," Phoebe murmured. 

"I want you to remember this moment."

Sweet Revenge

Refugee children see snow for first time

The world her mother told her of from time to time was nothing

more than a fairy tale to her. Snow was just something

that danced inside a little glass ball.

Sweet Revenge 

________________

Footage of two Eritrean children enjoying their first snowfall in Canada has been viewed millions of times on social media. 

The 42-second clip, taken by Rebecca Davies, shows the boy and girl jumping in their oversized jackets as the snowflakes come down.

Dancing around the back garden of their Toronto home, the appear to marvel at the sight. 

INDEPENDENT

________________

Adrianne thought of the little glass ball and her brother. 

All at once she wanted to lay her head in her mother's  lap and weep. She wanted to go home, to see her  grandmother and her aunts,to smell the smells of the harem. 

But there was no going back.

"Will it snow?" she asked.

"Sooner or later."

Sweet Revenge

What makes British accent so attractive?

"Afternoon, sir, ma'am. Hope you had a nice trip."

Philip had an urge to kiss the pilot hard on the mouth for no other reason 
than his cheerful British voice. 

Sweet Revenge

_________________

People tend to think a foreign accent is more interesting and more sexy, says Guy Winch, a psychotherapist from Britain who's long been in the United States, “because in general we tend to value what's less common.”

Americans associate a British accent with someone being “more intelligent, more sophisticated and more competent – and those are all qualities that a lot of people find attractive,”

Journal Gazette

Feeling depressed after reaching a big goal?

For a moment she could only kneel where she was, the key still in her hand. 

All of her life she'd been driven toward this moment.

Now that it was here, she couldn't move.

"Addy?"

"It's a little like dying, you know? 

To finally accomplish the most important goal in your life. 

To know that when it's done, it's done, and nothing else 

you ever do will have the same impact." 

Sweet Revenge

_________________

By N 3 14 15 92 65 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59330459

Our society is goal-oriented, from Olympic athletes' competing to bring home the gold to entry-level employees seeking to earn a promotion. But why would achieving those goals leave someone feeling empty rather than elated, and how can that let down be avoided?

Desert News

Nora saw it coming

Fahid studied the matawain who shouted at the lone woman and shoved her roughly out of the suq. He disapproved of such things, but he was not yet king. "It is sometimes difficult to find the balance between what is best in your world and what is best in my own. If Jaquir is to survive more progress, more compromise will be necessary. The laws of Islam cannot change, the traditions of men must."

Sweet Revenge

________________________

Saudi Arabia's crown prince promises to lead his country 'back to moderate Islam'

YAHOO!

Brides around the World

She took his breath away. There was no other way for him to describe it. One moment he was breathing, thinking like any man, and the next, the moment he saw her, everything stopped. Even his fingers went numb. The nerves he thought he didn't have reached up and grabbed him by the throat.

Sweet Revenge

____________________

By Faisal Akram from Dhaka, Bangladesh - Maheer & Progga, CC BY-SA 2.0,

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31632036

From India to Indonesia: 

Beautiful pictures of brides show how traditional wedding dresses look around the world

• Many people associate weddings with white dresses and veils
• However, wedding traditions are in fact very different in how they look
• FEMAIL documents some of the most beautiful ceremonies and traditions
• Some brides don colourful garments; others paint their faces and skin

DAILYMAIL 

Mentions in Nora's Novels

At GoodReads, today, someone was saying how details aren't important in Novels... someone had been pointing that some less rigorous detail in one NR novel that kept distracting her from the story... two members jumped in saying that it wasn't important... I beg to differ... we all love Nora Roberts' Books BUT details DO matter.

When reading a novel - as much deep into it I am - I can't help but having my mind flying away with the several mentions that show up. It is easy for a song, a singer's name, a place mention to send me away from the book into the internet to search for what Nora's trying to show, bring, evoke... that way I can return to the book knowing where and with whom I stand ;)

On one salmon-colored wall was a Maxfield Parrish sea nymph. Noting it, Philip had affirmed that Adrianne was more of a romantic than she wanted to admit.

The Sweet Revenge