Sunday, 4 March 2018

The Bounty.... the Books I Got, not the Ship... 😎

Squeezing this post in while Jo and I are watching and, actually, enjoying the Oscars. It's been a funny, entertaining show. I hope anybody who might actually check out this BLog once in awhile has been enjoying my Top 100 Favorite Books countdown. (not that I'm begging for plaudits or anything.. 😎 So anyway, below are the books that I purchased and that arrived in the mail on Thursday.

2nd Page Books, Courtenay.

1. Boy's Life by Robert R. McCammon (Horror). I've heard many good things about this book from acquaintances in my Goodreads' book groups. So when I saw it I thought I should try it out.






"Zephyr, Alabama, has been an idyllic home for eleven-year-old Cory Mackenson ... a place where monsters swim in the belly of the river, and friends are forever. Then, on a cold spring morning in 1964, as Cory accompanies his father on his milk route, they see a car plunge into a lake some say is bottomless. A desperate rescue attempt brings Cory's father face-to-face with a vision that will haunt him: a murdered man, naked and beaten, handcuffed to the steering wheel, a copper wire knotted around his neck. As Cory struggles to understand the forces of good and evil at work in his hometown, from an ancient woman called the Lady who conjures snake and hears the voices of the dead, to a violent clan of moonshiners, he realizes that not only his life but his father's sanity may hang in the balance..."

2. Visitor by C.J. Cherryh (SciFi). This past year I read Cherryh's Downbelow Station, which was fantastic.







"The human and atevi inhabitants of Alpha Station, orbiting the world of the atevi, have picked up a signal from an alien kyo ship telling them that the ship is inbound toward Alpha. Five thousand of the inhabitants of Alpha are human refugees from the now derelict Reunion Station. They have seen this scenario before, when a single kyo ship swooped into the Reunion system and, without a word, melted a major section of Reunion Station with a single pass. These refugees, who were rescued through the combined efforts of an allied group of humans and atevi and brought to safety at Alpha, are now desperate with fear.
Bren Cameron brilliant human emissary of Tabini-aiji, the powerful atevi political leader on the mainland below, and also the appointee of the human president of the island nation of Mospheira is the obvious choice of representative to be sent up to deal with both the panicked refugees and the incoming alien ship.
As a member of the space-faring delegation who rescued the refugees, Bren has talked to kyo before and even won their trust by saving one of their kind from a Reunioner prison. Because of his remarkable diplomatic and linguistic abilities, Bren managed to communicate with that grateful kyo individual on a limited basis, and he has evidence that that same kyo is on the ship heading to defenseless Alpha Station.
But no one can predict what an alien race might do, or what their motivations could be.
And Bren Cameron, the only human ever to be accepted into atevi society, is now the one individual with a hope of successfully interacting with the crew of the incoming ship. But Bren knows it will take putting himself in the hands of the kyo.
Can Bren count on the gratitude of one individual alien to save his life and the lives of thousands on Alpha Station?"


3. Fragrant Harbour by John Lanchester (Fiction). I first started looking at Lanchester when I watched the BBC version of his book, Capital. This one sounded interesting.






"It is 1935, and Tom Stewart, a young Englishman with a longing for adventure, buys himself a cheap ticket aboard the SS Darjeeling-en route to the complex and corrupt world of Hong Kong. A shipboard wager leads to an unlikely friendship that spans seven decades as Hong Kong endures the savagery of the Japanese occupation, emerging as a crossroads of international finance and the nexus of a world of warlords, drug runners, and Chinese triads."

Russell Books, Victoria BC


The Collected Works of Billy the Kid; Left Handed Poems by Michael Ondaatje (Poetry/ Canadian Lit). I read this once before while at university. I decided to try it again for one of my book groups. Poetry is the theme for March.





"From the Booker Prize-winning author of The English Patient comes a visionary novel, a virtuoso synthesis of storytelling, history, and myth, about William Bonney, a.k.a. "Billy the Kid, " a bloodthirsty ogre and outlaw saint."

Awesome Books, UK

1.  The Great Spy Race by Adam Diment (Spy). This is the 2nd book in the Philip McAlpine spy series.







"THE GREAT SPY RACE is a competition, organized by a retiring master-spy, for the agents of world powers...and Britain's entry is McAlpine, up to his neck in bullet, blackmail and beautiful birds..."

2. The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde (Fantasy).  This is the 3rd book in the unique Thursday Next fantasy / mystery series. I've enjoyed the first two very much.






"Leaving Swindon behind her to hide out in the Well of Lost Plots (the place where all fiction is created), Thursday Next, Literary Detective and soon-to-be one parent family, ponders her next move from within an unpublished book of dubious merit entitled 'Caversham Heights'."

 WeBuyBooks, UK

1. The Moving Tiger by Ross MacDonald (Mystery). I read a collection of short stories featuring Ross MacDonald's private eye, Lew Archer. Now I want to try his other books with the noted detective.





"Like many Southern California millionaires, Ralph Sampson keeps odd company. There's the sun-worshipping holy man whom Sampson once gave his very own mountain; the fading actress with sidelines in astrology and S&M. Now one of Sampson's friends may have arranged his kidnapping.
As Lew Archer follows the clues from the canyon sanctuaries of the mega-rich to jazz joints where you get beaten up between sets, The Moving Target blends sex, greed, and family hatred into an explosively readable crime novel."


2. To the Devil - A Daughter by Dennis Wheatley (Horror). I've been checking out Wheatley's books as I've read that he was unique in the horror / fantasy genre. Time will tell.


"Beneath the azure sky of the French Riviera, Christina Mordant looks and behaves like any other attractive girl. But each night as darkness falls, the demon within her betrays its presence.
 

A thousand miles away, deep in the Essex marshes, a priest of Satan is about to achieve his life's ambition: Canon Copely-Syle of Bentford Priory prepares for the virgin sacrifice which will give breath to the foul abomination he has created..."

3. The Courts of Morning by John Buchan (Thriller). I've enjoyed Buchan's Richard Hannay adventure series which started with The Thirty-Nine Steps. From what I've read, this appears to feature Hannay but the main character is a friend of his.





"South America is the setting for this adventure from the author of The Thirty-nine Steps. When Archie and Janet Roylance decide to travel to the Gran Seco to see its copper mines they find themselves caught up in dreadful danger; rebels have seized the city. Janet is taken hostage in the middle of the night and it is up to the dashing Don Luis de Marzaniga to aid her rescue."

4. Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear (Mystery). This is the third book in Winspear's historical mystery series featuring private detective Maisie Dobbs.






"A deathbed plea from his wife leads Sir Cecil Lawton to seek the aid of Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator. As Maisie soon learns, Agnes Lawton never accepted that her aviator son was killed in the Great War, a torment that led her not only to the edge of madness but to the doors of those who practice the dark arts and commune with the spirit world.
In accepting the assignment, Maisie finds her spiritual strength tested, as well as her regard for her mentor, Maurice Blanche. The mission also brings her together once again with her college friend Priscilla Evernden, who served in France and who lost three brothers to the war one of whom, it turns out, had an intriguing connection to the missing Ralph Lawton."


There you go. See anything you like? Perfect timing, the Oscars just finished and the dogs are waiting for their nightly walk. Have a great Monday! 

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