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| Comox Wharf |
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| FIFA World Cup |
Group My Wish My Guess
A Netherlands Netherlands (the same for each this time)
B England England
C Poland Argentina
D Denmark France
E Germany Germany
F Canada Belgium (the most wishful thinking of all)
G Switzerland Brazil
H South Korea Portugal
Canada's first game is Wednesday vs Belgium. 'Upset!', he shouts.
2023 Challenges
In my post on Thursday, I highlighted one of my possible reading challenges for 2023, a Finish a Series challenge. Today I'll look at one of my individual reading challenges. This year my 12 + 4 challenge was to Start a Series. I picked 16 books that were the first of series I've been waiting to start. I've currently read 11 books so far and have 2 on the go, so I think I'll end up finishing 13 by years end. Here are some I might try next year if I do the 1st in Series Challenge again.
"The chimneys of industry rise over Adua and the world seethes with new opportunities. But old scores run deep as ever.
On the blood-soaked borders of Angland, Leo dan Brock struggles to win fame on the battlefield and defeat the marauding armies of Stour Nightfall. He hopes for help from the crown. But King Jezal's son, the feckless Prince Orso, is a man who specializes in disappointments.Savine dan Glokta - socialite, investor, and daughter of the most feared man in the Union - plans to claw her way to the top of the slagheap of society by any means necessary. But the slums boil over with a rage that all the money in the world cannot control.
The age of the machine dawns, but the age of magic refuses to die. With the help of the mad hillwoman Isern-i-Phail, Rikke struggles to control the blessing, or the curse, of the Long Eye. Glimpsing the future is one thing, but with the guiding hand of the First of the Magi still pulling the strings, changing it will be quite another..."
Her host, a charismatic archaeologist, is racing to dig up the fabled island’s next great treasure–even, perhaps, the tomb of the King of the Gods, himself. But then a beautiful young woman is found hanged and a golden youth drives his Bugatti over a cliff. From out of the shadows come whispers of past loves, past jealousies, and ancient myths that sound an eerie discord with present events. Letty will need all her determination and knowledge to unravel the secrets beneath the Villa Europa’s roof–and they will lead her into the darkest, most terrifying place of all…."
Lucy begins to realize that her Jewish husband is about to be framed for the crime—an outcome that would be convenient for altogether too many of the various political machinations underway in Parliament in the coming week. But whoever's behind the murder, and the frame-up, didn't reckon on the principal investigator from Scotland Yard being a man with very private reasons for sympathizing with outcasts and underdogs—and prone to look beyond the obvious as a result.
As the trap slowly shuts on Lucy and David, they begin to see a way out—a way fraught with peril in a darkening world."
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| Janice Law |
In The Big Payoff, Peters is employed in the research department of New World Oil Company, a position that suits this now reformed blackmailer. Happy with her lover, Harry, Anna has abandoned the seductive intellectual and psychological game of blackmail for the straight and narrow.
But mysterious deaths among New World's British contacts convince Anna that something is wrong in the executive suite. Worse, she is soon blackmailed by a British secret service agent who's following the same trail.
Anna reluctantly bugs her boss's phone and copies company files, but when her British contact turns up dead, Anna finds that she-and Harry-are in mortal danger. Her old skills come in handy as she tries to keep ahead of ruthless killers, first in Washington, D.C. and then in the north of Scotland."
"Anna Peters, Washington, D.C.-based private investigator, knows little about hockey or Florida when she agrees to help Jurgen "T-Rex" Parkes, star center of the NHL-expansion Orlando Showmen, clear his name of his teammate Alf Rene's murder. She also isn't entirely sure her client is innocent. Anna faces an uphill battle: Parkes asked Rene to meet him the night of the murder, and he has no alibi. The Showmen management is more concerned about the team's tarnished image than seeking the truth, and the media are swarming around Parkes and his family. As Anna digs into the case, she finds Parkes uncooperative, the victim's family and friends secretive and suspicious, and her own safety in jeopardy."
"In postwar France, a gambler finds that surviving his vacation may be a long shot.
Peace has come to England and the blackout is over, but the gloom has yet to lift from London. One night, leaving a gambling club where he has run up a considerable tab, the young painter Francis Bacon, accompanied by his lover, sees a man gunned down in the street. They do what they can to stanch the flow of blood, but the Frenchman dies in the hospital. Soon afterward, Bacon receives a strange offer from the club owner: He will erase Bacon’s debts if the painter delivers a package to the dead man’s widow, Madame Renard, on the Riviera. What gambler could resist a trip to Monte Carlo?After handing over the parcel, Bacon learns that Madame Renard is dead—and the striking young woman who accepted the delivery is an imposter. The Riviera may be lovely, but in 1945, its sun-drenched beaches can be just as dark as the back alleys of London."
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