Friday, 31 May 2019
Thursday, 30 May 2019
Resurrection Bay (Caleb Zelic Series) by Emma Viskic
Paperback: Caleb Zelic, profoundly deaf since early childhood, has always lived on the outside - watching, picking up telltale signs people hide in a smile, a cough, a kiss.
When a childhood friend is murdered, a sense of guilt and a determination to prove his own innocence sends Caleb on a hunt for the killer. But he cannot do it alone.
Caleb and his troubled friend Frankie, an ex-cop, start with one clue: Scott, the last word the murder victim texted to Caleb. But Scott is always one step ahead.
This gripping, original and fast-paced crime thriller is set between a big city and a small coastal town, Resurrection Bay, where Caleb is forced to confront painful memories. Caleb is a memorable protagonist who refuses to let his deafness limit his opportunities, or his participation in the investigation. But does his persistence border on stubbornness? And at what cost? As he delves deeper into the investigation Caleb uncovers unwelcome truths about his murdered friend - and himself.
Resurrection Bay (2015) is the first book in the original and appealing Caleb Zelic series set in Melbourne, Australia.
About the author: Emma Viskic is a classical clarinettist and author of the critically acclaimed Caleb Zelic series. Her musical career has ranged from performing with José Carreras and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, to playing at an engagement party that ended in a brawl.
Emma’s debut novel, Resurrection Bay, won the 2016 Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction, as well as an unprecedented three Davitt Awards: Best Adult Novel, Best Debut, and Readers' Choice. Resurrection Bay was iBooks Australia’s crime novel of the year, and a UK Financial Times Book of the Year. It is currently shortlisted for the UKs CWA God Dagger and New Blood awards. The second Caleb Zelic novel, And Fire Came Down, recently won the 2018 Davitt Award for Best Adult Novel. Emma undertook extensive research to create the character of Caleb Zelic, including learning Australian sign language (Auslan).
The third novel in the series, Darkness For Light, will be out on 5 September 2019.
Rating: 5/5
Wednesday, 29 May 2019
The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike Series) by Robert Galbraith
Paperback: The Silkworm (2014) - It takes a unique mind to solve a unique crime.
A compulsively readable crime novel with twists at every turn, The Silkworm is the second in the highly acclaimed series featuring Cormoran Strike and his determined young assistant Robin Ellacott.
When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, she just thinks he has gone off by himself for a few days - as he has done before - and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home.
But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine’s disappearance than his wife realises. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were published it would ruin lives - so there are a lot of people who might want to silence him.
And when Quine is found brutally murdered in bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any he has encountered before.
Much like The Cuckoo's Calling, The Silkworm was met with critical acclaim, selling more copies than its predecessor in its opening weeks. The Silkworm was a nominee for both the Shamus Awards (Best Hardcover Novel) and the Dagger Awards (Best Book).
About the author: Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym of J K Rowling. After Harry Potter, the author chose crime fiction for her next books, a genre she has always loved as a reader. She wanted to write a contemporary whodunit, with a credible back story.
Robert Galbraith’s Cormoran Strike series is classic contemporary crime fiction from a master story-teller, rich in plot, characterisation and detail. Galbraith’s debut into crime fiction garnered acclaim amongst critics and crime fans alike. The first four novels The Cuckoo’s Calling (2013), The Silkworm (2014), Career of Evil (2015) and Lethal White (2018) all topped the national and international bestseller lists. The first three books in the Strike series have been adapted for television, produced by Brontë Film and Television.
J K Rowling’s original intention for writing as Robert Galbraith was for the books to be judged on their own merit, and to establish Galbraith as a well-regarded name in crime in its own right.
Now Robert Galbraith’s true identity is widely known, J K Rowling continues to write the crime series under the Galbraith pseudonym to keep the distinction from her other writing and so people will know what to expect from a Cormoran Strike novel.
Rating: 5/5
Tuesday, 28 May 2019
A Book Of Bones (A Charlie Parker Thriller Series) by John Connolly
Hardback: Always a pleasure to read John Connolly's Charlie Parker Thriller series and have read all 17 of them! Beyond highly recommended!
He is our best hope.
He is our last hope.
On a lonely moor in the northeast of England, the body of a young woman is discovered near the site of a vanished church. In the south, a girl lies buried beneath a Saxon mound. To the southeast, the ruins of a priory hide a human skull.
Each is a sacrifice, a summons.
And something in the darkness has heard the call.
But another is coming: Parker the hunter, the avenger. From the forests of Maine to the deserts of the Mexican border, from the canals of Amsterdam to the streets of London, he will track those who would cast this world into darkness.
Parker fears no evil.
But evil fears him.
A Book Of Bones (2019) is the seventeenth book in the superb and unequalled Charlie Parker thriller series.
About the author: John Connolly was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1968 and has, at various points in his life, worked as a journalist, a barman, a local government official, a waiter and a dogsbody at Harrods department store in London. (A dogsbody, for our North American friends, is a 'go-fer'.)
His debut Every Dead Thing swiftly launched him right into the front rank of thriller writers, and all his subsequent Charlie Parker novels have been Sunday Times bestsellers. Books To Die For, which he edited with Declan Burke, was the winner of the 2013 Anthony, Agatha and Macavity Awards for Best Non-fiction. He was the first non-American writer to win the US Shamus award, and the first Irish writer to be awarded the Edgar by the Mystery Writers of America.
He studied English in Trinity College, Dublin and journalism at Dublin City University, subsequently spending five years working as a freelance journalist for The Irish Times newspaper. He divides his time between Dublin and Portland, Maine; makes regular donations to the wine industry; and keeps a number of dogs in a remarkable degree of comfort.
Rating: 7/5
Monday, 27 May 2019
The Second Worst Restaurant In France (The Paul Stewart Series) by Alexander McCall Smith
Hardback: In this delightful sequel to the best-selling comedic novel My Italian Bulldozer (2016), Paul Stuart’s travels take him to a French village, where the local restaurant’s haute cuisine leaves a lot to be desired.
Renowned food writer Paul Stuart, renewed and refreshed from his time in Tuscany, has returned home to work on his new book, The Philosophy of Food. Writing, though, is complicated by Paul's changed domestic circumstances. His editor and new girlfriend, Gloria, has moved in with him, and she has brought along her two vocal and very demanding cats. With his daily routine turned upside down, Paul seeks counsel from his charismatic older cousin, the five-times-married Chloe.
When Chloe suggests Paul spends the summer with her in her rented country house in France, Paul jumps at the chance. However, quelle horreur, once he arrives in the picturesque village of Saint Vincent de la Colline, he is quickly caught up with the petty quarrels and enmities of the local villages and the travails of their infamous and accident-prone restaurant. Can anything be done about this restaurant? Is it really the second worst in France?
Amidst the struggles of the kitchen and his growing suspicions of a darker side to Chloe's colourful past, Paul is caught up in intrigues he can barely comprehend. Life in rural France may be idyllic on the surface, but beneath it some very strange events are brewing.
In this original and highly entertaining story, the tastes and textures of France are on the menu, as are issues of love and adventure. The chef recommends this delightful plat du jour.
The Second Worst Restaurant (2019) is the second book in the Paul Stewart series.
About the author: Alexander McCall Smith, often referred to as ‘Sandy’, is one of the world’s most prolific and best-loved authors. His various series of books have been translated into forty-six languages and become bestsellers throughout the world. These include the highly successful The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, the popular 44 Scotland Street novels, the Isabel Dalhousie novels, the von Igelfeld series and the Detective Varg novels. He also writes stand-alone novels, children's fiction and libretti for short operas.
Alexander has received numerous awards for his writing and holds twelve honorary doctorates from universities in Europe and North America. In 2007, he received a CBE for services to literature and in 2011 was honoured by the President of Botswana for services through literature to the country. In 2015, he received the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and in 2017, The National Arts Club (of America) Medal of Honor for Achievement in Literature.
Rating: 5/5
Sunday, 26 May 2019
Saturday, 25 May 2019
Friday, 24 May 2019
Thursday, 23 May 2019
Sunday, 19 May 2019
High Risk (High Stakes Series) by Simona Arhnstedt
Paperback: High Risk (2018) is the third novel of betrayal and passion in a frozen landscape far from the city lights, by the bestselling author of All In and Falling in the sexy High Stakes Series.
Ambra Vinter dreams of making it to the top of her chosen field. But instead, the beautiful young journalist is sent on assignment to Kiruna, a tiny mining town far north of Stockholm, chasing after yesterday’s news.
In December, this is a place on the edge of darkness and Ambra’s memories of it are just as bleak, for it is where she once suffered at the hands of a brutal foster father. Yet it is here, in the middle of nowhere, that she meets a man who takes her breath away.
Tom Lexington has left Special Forces for a career in private security. But he is still haunted by a mission that almost cost him his life and by the woman who shattered his heart. When he meets Ambra in a café, she brings a promise of light, and heat, to his life, that is, if he dares to let go of all he has been holding onto.
Now, as Ambra risks looking more closely at her own painful past, and stumbles into a story that is hotter than she ever expected, she and Tom must decide whether to take a chance on each other and come in from the cold.
About the author: Simona Ahrnstedt is a bestselling author, licensed psychologist and cognitive behavioural therapist. Her novels are published in over 20 countries including her native Sweden, where she has been credited as the country’s first major romance author. As her novels have swept bestseller lists in Sweden and throughout Europe, she has become an international spokesperson for books by women, for women, and about women.
Rating: 5/5
Wednesday, 15 May 2019
A Rule For The Clergy: Meditations On Ordained Pastoral Ministry by Fr Gerard Bogan
Leatherbinding: This Catholic book offers practical advice to encourage ministers to share challenges and the difficult situations they face with colleagues, with the goal of creating and sustaining fraternal collaboration.
It includes key topics such as: Administration and finance, Confession and spiritual direction, homiletics, building upon each other's works and celebrating the Sacraments.
A Rule For The Clergy (2019) is absolutely a must-have for those in ordained parish ministry.
About the author: Father Bogan has been a parish priest at St Ninian’s for 19 years and for the last five years has also served as parish priest of St Cuthbert’s. Father Bogan is currently the Parish Priest of St Columba's Viewpark, Glasglow, Scotland, succeeding the late Canon Glackin.
Death On The River: A Fiancée's Dark Secrets and a Kayak Trip Turned Deadly (Crime) by Diane Fanning
Paperback: 19 April 2015. It seemed like the perfect romantic getaway: a kayaking trip for two on the Hudson River. But it ended in tragedy when beautiful, blonde Angelika Graswald called 911 to report that her fiancé, the handsome and athletic Vincent Viafore, had drowned in the choppy frigid waters.
Authorities assumed it was an accident but when the bereft bride-to-be posted videos of herself doing cartwheels on social media, shortly after Vincent’s death, suspicions of murder rose to the surface.
After hours of questioning, Angelika made several shocking admissions. She said she felt “trapped” and fed up with Vincent’s “demanding” sexual lifestyle: the nightlife, the strip clubs, the threeways.
“I wanted him dead,” she had said, even though she insisted that she did not kill him.
But as more lurid details emerged, including a $250,000 life insurance policy, a killer question remained: Did Angelika remove the plug of her fiancé's boat and knock away his paddle as he sank?
On 26 May 2015, an Orange County Grand Jury indicted Graswald for murder in the second degree and manslaughter in the second degree.
On 24 July 2017, Graswald reached an agreement with prosecutors to plead guilty to the lesser felony charge of negligent homicide. The agreement was made in consultation with the Viafore family.
On 8 November 2017, Angelika Graswald was sentenced to one and a half to four years in state prison, the maximum allowed, for criminally negligent homicide in Vincent Viafore's death.
On 21 December 2017, Graswald was released from Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women after serving just over two and a half years behind bars.
Death on the River is Fanning's latest work released on 30 April 2019.
About the author: Diane Fanning is the author of 15 true crime books, 11 mystery novels and has been featured in 3 anthology collections. She has been a consultant for 48 Hours and been on numerous other television shows including 20/20, the Today Show and Deadly Women. She lives in Bedford, Virginia, with her husband and a Sheltie named Emmitt Otter.
Tuesday, 14 May 2019
Operation Lighthouse: Reflections On Our Family's Devastating Story of Coercive Control and Domestic Homicide by Luke and Ryan Hart
Paperback: There are two possible worlds we can choose from. One, where good people fear those who are evil, which is unfortunately the world that we currently live in. The other: where evil people fear those who are good. This is the world we wish to create. - Luke and Ryan Hart
Why would an ‘ordinary’ father murder his family?
On 19 July 2016, Claire and Charlotte Hart were murdered in broad daylight, by the family’s father using a sawn-off shotgun. He then committed suicide.
Luke and Ryan Hart, the two surviving sons, open up about their experiences growing up and the circumstances surrounding the murders. They hope to highlight the patterns of behaviour in coercive control and its deadly consequences, improving public awareness and leading to informed discussion on domestic abuse.
Operation Lighthouse (2018) is a unique, insightful, true, honest, and powerful perspective on male violence against women and girls by two courageous and inspiring brothers and is a must-read.
Luke and Ryan, I wish you both happiness, success and peace and that your message of coercive control and domestic homicide be properly understood and fathomed by all, particularly the media, the people who write accounts of real-life devastating domestic tragedies and similar stories. We all have a responsibility to tell the truth and to tackle the corrupt rationalisations and untrue beliefs written about domestic abuse and male violence against women and children thus far. Suffering in silence is one of the worst thing that can ever happen to a human in isolation in an abused household.
About the authors: Luke and Ryan Hart can be contacted via twitter @CoCoAwareness or through their website www.CoCoAwareness.co.uk.
They both speak frequently at events and deliver training on coercive control, domestic abuse and resilience. So far, they have trained over 400 police officers, police community support officers and legal professionals in the Crown Prosecution Service. They are always looking for opportunities to share their story and challenge male violence against women and children in their role as White Ribbon ambassadors.
Monday, 13 May 2019
My Life In Christ Part II by The Spiritual Journals of St John of Kronstadt
Paperback: I do not precede my book by any introduction: let it speak for itself. Everything contained in it is but a gracious enlightenment which was bestowed upon my soul by the all-enlightening Holy Spirit during moments of deep self-concentration and of self-examination, especially during prayer. - Archpriest Ivan Ilyich Sergiev
My Life In Christ (2015) is a classic text of Orthodox Christian spiritual life. This book is a reflection of both the profound spiritual experience and the elevated theological reflection of its author, St John of Kronstadt.
This new edition features a revised and updated English translation and is enhanced by the inclusion of subject and scripture indexes. Appropriate both for beginners in the spiritual life and for those more experienced, no one will come away from reading this work without profit.
My Life In Christ will be returned to time and time again and is appropriate, relevant, and edifying reading for all Christians. The two parts of this present edition are available separately and as a complete set.
About the author: Ivan Ilyich Sergiev (1829-1908), known to his contemporaries as Fr John of Kronstadt, was the most revered figure of the Orthodox Church in Russia in the half-century leading up to the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. Fr John's veneration grew even greater after his death, and in 1964, the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia formally recognised him as a Saint.
About the translator: Nicholas Kotar is a graduate of Holy Trinity Seminary, Jordanville, New York, and holds a degree in Russian Literature from UC Berkeley. My Life In Christ is revised and adapted (with reference to the original Russian text) from the translation of E E Goulaeff by Nicholas Kotar.
Sunday, 12 May 2019
Falling (High Stakes Series) by Simona Ahrnstedt
Paperback: Falling (2017) is the second book in the sensationally sexy High Stakes series that ranges from Sweden to New York City to Africa by bestselling Swedish romance author Simona Ahrnstedt.
Step into the world of Sweden's elite.
Alexander de la Grip is known in the tabloids and gossip blogs as a rich, decadent jet-setting playboy who spends most of his days recovering from the night before. With a string of beautiful conquests, he seems to care about nothing and no one.
Isobel Sørensen has treated patients in refugee camps and war zones, and is about to depart Sweden for a paediatric hospital in Chad. Devoted to her humanitarian work, she cares almost too deeply. Especially when she learns that Alexander is withholding desperately needed funds from her aid foundation.
Is it because she is the only woman who ever told him to go to hell?
As the two push each other’s boundaries to the breaking point, the truth turns out to be much more complicated.
Pain, love, trust, betrayal.
Which will triumph when safety is nothing but an empty word?
Complex, fully realized characters, settings that range from Swedish castles to a barely equipped hospital with exhausted personnel and dying children, and a dangerous rescue mission with a breathtaking finale make this a page-turner to savour.
About the author: Simona Ahrnstedt is a bestselling author, licensed psychologist and cognitive behavioural therapist. Her novels are published in over 20 countries including her native Sweden, where she has been credited as the country’s first major romance author. As her novels have swept bestseller lists in Sweden and throughout Europe, she has become an international spokesperson for books by women, for women, and about women.
Rating: 5/5
Saturday, 11 May 2019
A Place For Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza
Hardback: A Place for Us (2018) unfolds the lives of an Indian-American Muslim family, gathered together in their Californian hometown to celebrate the eldest daughter, Hadia's, wedding - a match of love rather than tradition.
It is here, on this momentous day, that Amar, the youngest of the siblings, reunites with his family for the first time in three years. Rafiq and Layla must now contend with the choices and betrayals that lead to their son's estrangement - the reckoning of parents who strove to pass on their cultures and traditions to their children; and of children who in turn struggle to balance authenticity in themselves with loyalty to the home they came from.
In a narrative that spans decades and sees family life through the eyes of each member, A Place For Us charts the crucial moments in the family's past, from the bonds that bring them together to the differences that pull them apart.
And as siblings Hadia, Huda, and Amar attempt to carve out a life for themselves, they must reconcile their present culture with their parent's faith, to tread a path between the old world and the new, and learn how the smallest decisions can lead to the deepest of betrayals.
A deeply affecting and resonant story, A Place for Us is truly a book for our times: a moving portrait of what it means to be an American family today, a novel of love, identity and belonging that eloquently examines what it means to be both American and Muslim - and announces Fatima Farheen Mirza as a major new literary talent.
A Place for Us is named one of the Best Books of 2018 by Washington Post, NPR, People, Refinery29, Parade, Buzzfeed. It is an instant New York Times Best Seller as well as New York's "One Book, One New York" Pick.
Rating: 5/5
Tuesday, 7 May 2019
Monday, 6 May 2019
The Penguin Book Of Hell edited by Scott G Bruce
Paperback: “From the Bible through Dante and up to Treblinka and Guantánamo Bay, here is a rich source for nightmares.” - The New York Times Book Review
The Penguin Book of Hell (2018) covers three thousand years of visions of Hell, from the ancient Near East to modern America.
From the Hebrew Bible’s shadowy realm of Sheol to twenty-first-century visions of Hell on earth, The Penguin Book of Hell takes us through three thousand years of eternal damnation. Along the way, you will take a ferry ride with Aeneas to Hades, across the river Acheron; meet the Devil as imagined by a twelfth-century Irish monk–a monster with a thousand giant hands; wander the nine circles of Hell in Dante’s Inferno, in which gluttons, liars, heretics, murderers, and hypocrites are made to endure crime-appropriate torture; and witness the debates that raged in Victorian England when new scientific advances cast doubt on the idea of an eternal hereafter.
Drawing upon religious poetry, epics, theological treatises, stories of miracles, and accounts of saints’ lives, this fascinating volume of hellscapes illuminates how Hell has long haunted us, in both life and death.
About the author/editor: Scott G Bruce is an historian of religion and culture in the early and central Middle Ages (c 400-1200). He teaches in the Department of History at the University of Colorado at Boulder, with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Classics. His research interests include monasticism, hagiography and Latin poetry. He is a specialist on the history of the abbey of Cluny. His work has been funded by the Charlotte W Newcombe Foundation.
Scott G Bruce is the author of three books about the abbey of Cluny: Silence and Sign Language in Medieval Monasticism: The Cluniac Tradition (c 900-1200) (2007); Cluny and the Muslims of La Garde-Freinet: Hagiography and the Problem of Islam in Medieval Europe (2015); and with Christopher A Jones, The Relation metrica de duobus ducibus: A Twelfth-Century Cluniac Poem on Prayer for the Dead (2016).
He is the editor of Ecologies and Economies in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Studies in Environmental History for Richard C Hoffmann (Leiden, 2010). His articles have appeared in Revue bénédictine, Cîteaux: Commentarii cistercienses, The Journal of Medieval Latin, and Early Medieval Europe. He is a co-editor of The Medieval Review.
Scott G Bruce is an enthusiastic participant in the Medieval Academy of America (MAA). He has recently served a two-year term on the MAA Nominating Committee (2012-14) and is currently serving a three-year term on the MAA AHA Program Committee (2013-17).
Scott G Bruce is Director of the University of Colorado's Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (CMEMS) for a three-year term (2013-2016). He worked his way through college as a grave digger.
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