We allowed a young Arab man to stay with us over Christmas. He'd spent a year in our town aged 8 and had returned aged 21 to revisit his old school friends, most of whom had forgotten him and didn't trust his unsolicited FB messages. He arrived on Christmas Eve and was staying in a B&B when we agreed to meet him in a coffee shop. Needless to say, he ended up living at our place for a fortnight before he went home. Over the next decade, he popped over for a visit every few years and we went to Egypt a couple of times. Sadly he was born with a congenital heart defect and died a while ago now, leaving a wife and daughter. We are still in contact with his family.
Back in 2022, we nearly agreed to host a Ukrainian refugee (there's a Government scheme to arrange this) but we were downsizing to a different part of the UK and so it became unfeasible.
My brother-in-law lived with us for 6 months after his divorce 20 years or so ago. That period was quite trying.
It's an old four book series from the '90s but I would recommend The Saga of Pliocene Exile by Julian May. They're available as ebooks. The first one is called The Many Coloured Land.
If you enjoy the world-building, Mrs May wrote a companion series which, IMO, is even better! Starting with a link book (Intervention) there is a three book series called The Galactic Milieu series.
Both series mix fantasy and sci-fi and are truly excellent reads.
I'm a Brit so what do I know? But I can see him taking a leaf out of Putin's playbook and running as VP to a family member running for President, possibly Eric. Then he'll still be in control.
The coffee is luke warm and the doughnuts are stale. It's always windy and slightly too cold for comfort but not cold enough to put the heating on. Your bum itches.
Why were you sent here? See below.
Pride: you bragged about the size of your investments to your poorer relatives.
Greed: you shoplifted from a small 'Mom & Pop' store (stealing stuff from a chain store doesn't count).
Wrath: you were rude to the waitress because of a small error in your order.
Lust: you propositioned your spouse's younger sibling (and got turned down).
Envy: you keyed your neighbour's new car.
Gluttony: you ate the last slice of pizza and drank the last beer.
Sloth: you never got out of bed before 11:00 a.m. at the weekend.
I remember in the GM series, she always ended the books on a cliffhanger, which may have been a brilliant marketing ploy but was simultaneously terrifying.
The Saga of Pliocene Exile / Galactic Milieu series by Julian May. The best sci-fi books I've ever read for world-building and plot. Written in the '90s, hardly anyone remembers them, despite their success at the time.
Yep, same here.