It's a lovely Sunday afternoon and I'm relaxing on the couch with Clyde enjoying the Blue Jays, who so far are winning their game against the Detroit Tigers. Unfortunately Jo isn't feeling all that well and is resting in bed. 😢😬 A good rest will help. The other puppy is lying on the stairs, probably licking her feet because she figures I don't know what I can't see.. HA!
Since my last reading update, I've completed 3 books so I'll provide my reviews. I'll also provide the synopses of the next books I'm starting. I've only purchased one new book (Surprise! Surprise!) and I'll provide my synopsis of that. This should be a relatively short post so I'll also continue with my Focus threat, of Women Authors whose works I've been enjoying. So let's get a move on.
Just Finished
"The Farthest Shore is the 3rd book in the Earthsea cycle by author Ursula K. Le Guin. This series just keeps getting better and better. I'm glad that Le Guin's voices found more stories in the series.
Ged, aka Sparrowhawk, the Archmage of Earth Sea meets Prince Arren. Arren's father sent Arren to Roke, the wizard's school to let Ged and his other wizards know that somehow magic seems to be disappearing. Wizards are losing their words, their magic. Clouds are arriving. Ged decides to go in search of the source of this. He offers Arren the chance to go with him and Arren accepts. The two head out on Ged's boat on a journey around Earth Sea to find out what is going on. This becomes a treacherous, life threatening adventure that will eventually take them to the land of the dragons and a most dangerous individual, a battle between life and death.
Sounds like a simple story maybe but Le Guin has a way with presenting characters and stories. The feeling of oppression and danger that grows and grows slowly strikes you to the core. Ged and Arren are wonderful characters and the people they meet on the way add to the tension and greatly enhance the story. At times I felt almost bereft during this story, um.... felt emotional very deeply. I've been reading more and more fantasy of late and enjoying so many of the newer authors but when it comes to story telling, there are few that can excel the way that Le Guin can.. maybe Tolkien, C.S. Lewis.... This was an excellent, intelligent, well-written story. Loved it. (5.0 stars)"
"Hobberdy Dick by Katharine M. Briggs was a complete surprise to me. I decided to order it when I was checking out books listed in the back of another book I was reading. (I can't remember what book I was reading). Hobberdy was written originally in 1955 and is a combination historical fiction (being set during the time of Cromwell in England) and fantasy (Hobberdy is a hobgoblin who is one of many who looked after the estates in Britain. Think of house elves in Harry Potter in that they are bound to families and estates until freed).
Hobberdy Dick lived in and guarded Welford Manor for over 200 years. The Culvers are forced to leave and the manor is abandoned for a long time until a Puritan family, the Widdisons take over. Hobberdy has been guarding the estate, he keeps the house clean and helps the staff with their chores. Of course they don't see Hobberdy. The country folk know of the hobs from their folk tales and some of the staff can sense his presence.
Over the course of the story, Hobberdy comes to love one of the maids, Anne, who is a relative of the original Culvers. He also is taken by Martha, the Widdison's daughter, and also their son, Joel. Hobberdy is central to so many of the events that take place, some mundane, some quite terrifying and some sad. It's a fascinating story and it just gets better and better as it develops. The language takes a bit of grasping at the very beginning but it is easy to get into the flow of it. Hobberdy and his fellow goblins are wonderful characters. Anne is lovely and so is Joel and young Martha. Mrs. Dimbleby, the grandmother of the Widdisons is genteel and sympathetic.
It's just a wonderful story that will draw you in and grab your emotions. As I say it was a lovely surprise and just perfect. Briggs was a folklorist and published a number of books on fairies and witchcraft (Mother Darke is quite scary... yeah, quite). You can see her expertise in this subject matter throughout the book. Try it, it's definitely worth it. (5.0 stars)"
"The Mark Of The Assassin by Daniel Silva is my first attempt at a Daniel Silva thriller and it was worth the effort; a very exciting, tense spy thriller. It is the first book in his Michael Osbourne duology. He has written 20+ books in his Gabriel Allon series.
Michael Osbourne is a CIA desk operator working out of CIA HQ in DC. He was taken from the field a few years previously when his lover was murdered by an assassin. He has since remarried to Elizabeth, a Washington DC lawyer, but Michael continues to try to find the man who killed Sarah. It turns out that this man is now an assassin for hire and is about to set in motion an event that will bring him back in to touch with Michael Osbourne and endanger both Michael's and Elizabeth's lives. The story starts with the bringing down of an American civilian airliner in US air space.
This event will result in a number of murders by 'October' and a race against time to find him and discover who was behind the aircraft disaster. It becomes a complex, intriguing story. Michael Osbourne is an interesting character and has a core of intelligent, reliable, faithful friends. The espionage intrigue is well-crafted from both Michael's and October's PoV's. The assassin is a threatening, competent killer but is he a match for Osbourne? You'll have to read the story which goes from DC to New York to England, France, Holland, even Egypt. It's exciting and fast-paced and even involves an international organization that is trying to control the world.
All in all, well-written, entertaining, tense and exciting. Well worth trying. (4.0 stars)"
Currently Reading
"An orphan and a bastard, Jamie Sommers grew up knowing he had no hope of heaven. Conceived in adultery and born in sin, Jamie was destined to repeat the sins of his parents--or so the nuns told him. And he proved them right. Taking to sea, Jamie sought out danger and adventure in exotic ports all over the world as a smuggler, gunrunner--and murderer. Tough enough to handle anything, he's survived foreign prisons, pirates, and a shark attack. But in a quiet seaside town in Delaware, Jamie discovered something that was enough to drive him insane-and change his life forever. For it was in Hawkes Harbor that Jamie came face to face with the ultimate evil...."
"Flynne Fisher lives down a country road, in a rural near-future America where jobs are scarce, unless you count illegal drug manufacture, which she’s trying to avoid. Her brother Burton lives, or tries to, on money from the Veterans Administration, for neurological damage suffered in the Marines’ elite Haptic Recon unit. Flynne earns what she can by assembling product at the local 3D printshop. She made more as a combat scout in an online game, playing for a rich man, but she’s had to let the shooter games go.
Wilf Netherton lives in London, seventy-some years later, on the far side of decades of slow-motion apocalypse. Things are pretty good now, for the haves, and there aren’t many have-nots left. Wilf, a high-powered publicist and celebrity-minder, fancies himself a romantic misfit, in a society where reaching into the past is just another hobby.Burton’s been moonlighting online, secretly working security in some game prototype, a virtual world that looks vaguely like London, but a lot weirder. He’s got Flynne taking over shifts, promised her the game’s not a shooter. Still, the crime she witnesses there is plenty bad.
Flynne and Wilf are about to meet one another. Her world will be altered utterly, irrevocably, and Wilf’s, for all its decadence and power, will learn that some of these third-world types from the past can be badass."
A man staggers out of his cottage into the streets of Oxfordshire, shattering an otherwise peaceful evening with the terrible sight of his body shaking and heaving, eyes wild with horror. Many of the villagers believe the Devil himself has entered Joseph Makepeace, the latest victim of a "great fog" that darkens the skies over England like a Biblical plague. When Joseph's son and daughter are found murdered--heads bashed in by a shovel--the town's worst suspicions are confirmed: Evil is abroad, and needs to be banished.
A brilliant man of science, Dr. Thomas Silkstone is not one to heed superstition. But when he arrives at the estate of the lovely widow Lady Lydia Farrell, he finds that it's not just her grain and livestock at risk. A shroud of mystery surrounds Lydia's lost child, who may still be alive in a workhouse. A natural disaster fills the skies with smoke and ash, clogging the lungs of all who breathe it in. And the grisly details of a father's crime compels Dr. Silkstone to look for answers beyond his medical books--between the Devil and the deep blue sea. . ."
Evidence points to a sexual fixation on his older brother, Keaton, a teacher currently separated from his wife. Then the murderer—who has been dubbed "Flash" by the media—calls Sonora one night, taunting and mocking her. As the investigation heats up, the harassment continues. The female psychopath knows intimate details about Sonora's family and her past. As the criminal's monstrous plan becomes chillingly apparent, Sonora must risk everything to corner a cunning killer."
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