A Few New Purchases

Canadian Nationals - Dance Champions 2018

In one of my last posts, I mentioned the lovely weekend that Jo and I had in Vancouver attending the Canadian National Dance Championships. This was to determine the skaters who would be attending the upcoming Olympics in South Korea.

Pairs Champions

We had a fantastic time. The venue was excellent and even the food was pretty darn good. It was neat to see performers such as Patrick Chan, Duhamel and Radford and Virtue and Moir who were probably participating in their final Canadian nationals. Bittersweet somewhat. The missus was in tears many times over the weekend.

Shae-Lynne Bourne in the stands

It was also neat just checking out the people in the stands; like some favorites like Jeffrey Buttle and Shae-Lynn Bourne who also acted as host of the event.

All in all it was a great weekend. We may check out the Grand Prix Final in Vancouver next December.... depending if there are any Canadians in it, that is. :0)

We had a bit of a surprise this morning. It wasn't forecast but overnight we had a big dumping of snow. Of course, it stopped mid-morning and the sun has come out. It's done a pretty good job of getting rid of most of it. Yay!

New Books

I found a few new books when I went out on Thursday, making the rounds of the local Little Free Libraries and Nearly New Books.

1. C.J. Box - Endangered.  Box is a new author for me. He writes the Joe Pickett mystery series, amongst others.











"Joe Pickett had good reason to dislike Dallas Cates, and now he has even more—Joe’s eighteen-year-old daughter, April, has run off with him. And then comes even worse news: She has been found in a ditch along the highway—alive, but just barely, the victim of blunt force trauma. Cates denies having anything to do with it, but Joe knows in his gut who’s responsible. What he doesn’t know is the kind of danger he’s about to encounter. Cates is bad enough, but Cates’s family is like none Joe has ever met."

2. Ken Bruen - The Magdalen Martyrs. This is the 3rd book in the Jack Taylor mystery series. 












"
Jack Taylor is walking the delicate edge of a sobriety he doesn't trust when his phone rings. He's in debt to a Galway tough named Bill Cassell, what the locals call a "hard man." Bill did Jack a big favor a while back; the trouble is, he never lets a favor go unreturned.
Jack is amazed when Cassell simply asks him to track down a woman, now either dead or very old, who long ago helped his mother escape from the notorious Magdalen laundry, where young wayward girls were imprisoned and abused. Jack doesn't like the odds of finding the woman, but counts himself lucky that the task is at least on the right side of the law.
Until he spends a few days spinning his wheels and is dragged in front of Cassell for a quick reminder of his priorities. Bill's goons do a little spinning of their own, playing a game of Russian roulette a little too close to the back of Jack's head. It's only blind luck and the mercy of a god he no longer trusts that land Jack back on the street rather than face down in a cellar with a bullet in his skull. He's got one chance to stay alive: find this woman.
Unfortunately, he can't escape his own curiosity, and an unnerving hunch quickly turns into a solid fact: just who Jack's looking for, and why, aren't nearly what they seem."

3. Stephen King - End of Watch. This is the 3rd book in King's Bill Hodges' series. I haven't read the first two; Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers so I might have to start with them.










"For nearly six years, in Room 217 of the Lakes Region Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic, Brady Hartsfield has been in a persistent vegetative state. A complete recovery seems unlikely for the insane perpetrator of the “Mercedes Massacre,” in which eight people were killed and many more maimed for life. But behind the vacant stare, Brady is very much awake and aware, having been pumped full of experimental drugs . . . scheming, biding his time as he trains himself to take full advantage of the deadly new powers that allow him to wreak unimaginable havoc without ever leaving his hospital room. Brady Hartsfield is about to embark on a new reign of terror against thousands of innocents, hell bent on taking revenge against anyone who crossed his path—with retired police detective Bill Hodges at the very top of that long list..."

4. Orson Scott Card - Children of the Mind. This is the 4th book in the Ender's science fiction series. 











"The planet Lusitania is home to three sentient species: the Pequeninos; a large colony of humans; and the Hive Queen, brought there by Ender. But once again the human race has grown fearful; the Starways Congress has gathered a fleet to destroy Lusitania.Jane, the evolved computer intelliegence, can save the three sentient races of Lusitania. She has learned how to move ships outside the universe, and then instantly back to a different world, abolishing the light-speed limit. But It takes all the processing power available to her, and the Starways Congress is shutting down the Net, world by world. Soon Jane will not be able to move the ships. Ender’s children must save her if they are to save themselves."

5. Kerry Greenwood - Raisins and Almonds. This is the 9th book in Greenwood's Phryne Fisher mystery series. 











"In investigating the poisoning of a young man in a bookshop at the Eastern Market, and the wrongful arrest of one Miss Sylvia Lee, Phryne Fisher is plunged into another exciting adventure. Stopping only for a brief, but intensely erotic, dalliance with the beautiful Simon Abrahams Phryne picks her way through the mystery with help from the old faithfuls - Bert, Cec, Dot and Detective Inspector 'Call Me Jack' Robinson. But ultimately it is her stealth and wit which solve the crime - and all for the price of a song."

So there you go. At the moment, Jo and I are watching the first round of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts. Curling for those of you who might not know what it is. Have a great weekend!