Tom's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 17 Jan 2025 00:06:38 -0800 60 Tom's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Os Pilares da Terra, Volume I (Os Pilares da Terra, #1)]]> 2411565 498 Ken Follett 9722337882 Tom 0 to-read 4.42 1989 Os Pilares da Terra, Volume I (Os Pilares da Terra, #1)
author: Ken Follett
name: Tom
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1989
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/17
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]]> Volkhavaar 1593377
For VOLKHAVAAR is a novel of witchcraft and wonders on a world far removed from those we know. Here the gods contend for power - the Dark forces against the Light - and here an entire city and its land is plunged into the shadow of an evil beyond anything conceivable. It is the story of Shaina the slave girl and of Volk the outcast who enslaved himself to cosmic forces to gain total power - and of how they were finally to meet and clash - with an entire world as their prize.

VOLKHAVAAR is high fantasy comparable only to the best of Andre Norton and Michael Moorcock.]]> 192 Tanith Lee 0879973129 Tom 0 to-read 3.73 1977 Volkhavaar
author: Tanith Lee
name: Tom
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1977
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/03/07
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]]> The Seven Story Mountain 3212606 La montagna dalle sette balze, pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1949 e tradotto in moltissime lingue, è considerato una sorta di breviario della spiritualità moderna.]]> Thomas Merton Tom 0 to-read 4.13 1948 The Seven Story Mountain
author: Thomas Merton
name: Tom
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1948
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/02/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution]]> 55801224 A startling new look at quantum theory, from the bestselling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics and The Order of Time.

One of the world's most renowned theoretical physicists, Carlo Rovelli has entranced millions of readers with his singular perspective on the cosmos. In Helgoland, he examines the enduring enigma of quantum theory. The quantum world Rovelli describes is as beautiful as it is unnerving.

Helgoland is a treeless island in the North Sea where the twenty-three-year-old Werner Heisenberg made the crucial breakthrough for the creation of quantum mechanics, setting off a century of scientific revolution. Full of alarming ideas (ghost waves, distant objects that seem to be magically connected, cats that appear both dead and alive), quantum physics has led to countless discoveries and technological advancements. Today our understanding of the world is based on this theory, yet it is still profoundly mysterious.

As scientists and philosophers continue to fiercely debate the meaning of the theory, Rovelli argues that its most unsettling contradictions can be explained by seeing the world as fundamentally made of relationships rather than substances. We and everything around us exist only in our interactions with one another. This bold idea suggests new directions for thinking about the structure of reality and even the nature of consciousness.

Rovelli makes learning about quantum mechanics an almost psychedelic experience. Shifting our perspective once again, he takes us on a riveting journey through the universe so we can better comprehend our place in it.]]> 233 Carlo Rovelli 0593328884 Tom 0 to-read 4.07 2020 Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution
author: Carlo Rovelli
name: Tom
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail]]> 52962238
A few years ago, Ray Dalio noticed a confluence of political and economic conditions he hadn’t encountered before. They included huge debts and zero or near-zero interest rates that led to massive printing of money in the world’s three major reserve currencies; big political and social conflicts within countries, especially the US, due to the largest wealth, political, and values disparities in more than 100 years; and the rising of a world power (China) to challenge the existing world power (US) and the existing world order. The last time that this confluence occurred was between 1930 and 1945. This realization sent Dalio on a search for the repeating patterns and cause/effect relationships underlying all major changes in wealth and power over the last 500 years.

In this remarkable and timely addition to his Principles series, Dalio brings readers along for his study of the major empires—including the Dutch, the British, and the American—putting into perspective the “Big Cycle� that has driven the successes and failures of all the world’s major countries throughout history. He reveals the timeless and universal forces behind these shifts and uses them to look into the future, offering practical principles for positioning oneself for what’s ahead.]]> 576 Ray Dalio 1982160276 Tom 0 to-read 4.26 2021 Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail
author: Ray Dalio
name: Tom
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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]]> Lonely Castle in the Mirror 54633167
Delving into their emotional lives with sympathy and a generous warmth, Lonely Castle in the Mirror shows the unexpected rewards of reaching out to others. Exploring vivid human stories with a twisty and puzzle-like plot, this heart-warming novel is full of joy and hope for anyone touched by sadness and vulnerability.]]> 355 Mizuki Tsujimura 0857527274 Tom 0 currently-reading 4.25 2017 Lonely Castle in the Mirror
author: Mizuki Tsujimura
name: Tom
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/11/16
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]]> Rashomon and Other Stories 672376 Rashomon, tells the chilling story of the killing of a samurai through the testimony of witnesses, including the spirit of the murdered man. The fable-like "Yam Gruel" is an account of desire and humiliation, but one in which the reader's sympathy is thoroughly unsettled. And in "The Martyr," a beloved orphan raised by Jesuit priests is exiled when he refuses to admit that he made a local girl pregnant. He regains their love and respect only at the price of his life. All six tales in the collection show Akutagawa as a master storyteller and an exciting voice of modern Japanese literature.]]> 110 Ryūnosuke Akutagawa 0871401738 Tom 0 to-read 4.03 1915 Rashomon and Other Stories
author: Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
name: Tom
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1915
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/04/20
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]]> Dangerous Attachments 3302995 --West Coast Review of Books
As a consultant to the New Mexico prison system, forensic psychiatrist
Dr. Sylvia Strange has probed the minds of some of the country's most disturbed and dangerous criminals. But nothing prepares her for the madness of Lucas Watson.
"[A] CHILLING TALE, PEPPERED WITH CONTINUOUS PLOT TURNS.--San Francisco Examiner
When Lucas escapes from the state penitentiary, he cooly and methodically begins to stalk Sylvia. Now, caught in a harrowing cat-and-mouse-game that only one of them can win, Sylvia must use all of her psychological insights and courage to stay one step ahead of a madman.
"DANGEROUS ATTACHMENTS continues to surprise and excite to the very end. An emotional, vivid thriller."
--Vincent Bugliosi
Author of Helter Skelter
"COMPELLING . . . NOT TO BE MISSED."
--Mostly Murder]]> 344 Sarah Lovett 0804112975 Tom 0 to-read 2.92 1995 Dangerous Attachments
author: Sarah Lovett
name: Tom
average rating: 2.92
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/04/16
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]]> The Searcher 52661162
Then a local boy appeals to him for help. His brother is missing, and no one in the village, least of all the police, seems to care. And once again, Cal feels that restless itch.

Something is wrong in this community, and he must find out what, even if it brings trouble to his door.]]> 451 Tana French 073522465X Tom 0 to-read 3.70 2020 The Searcher
author: Tana French
name: Tom
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/04/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Stranger Diaries (Harbinder Kaur, #1)]]> 40796097
To make matters worse, the police suspect the killer is someone Clare knows. Unsure whom to trust, she turns to her closest confidant, her diary, the only outlet she has for her darkest suspicions and fears about the case. Then one day she notices something odd. Writing that isn't hers, left on the page of an old diary: "Hallo, Clare. You don’t know me."

Clare becomes more certain than ever: “The Stranger� has come to terrifying life. But can the ending be rewritten in time?]]> 338 Elly Griffiths 1328577856 Tom 0 to-read 3.81 2018 The Stranger Diaries (Harbinder Kaur, #1)
author: Elly Griffiths
name: Tom
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/04/15
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]]> The First Actress 52301693
From her beginnings as the daughter of a high-class courtesan to her extraordinary transformation into the most celebrated actress of her era, Sarah Bernhardt is brought to life by an internationally bestselling author praised for his historical novels featuring famous women.

Her highly dramatic professional life begins when Sarah's mother pulls her out of convent school to set Sarah up in her own trade as a sexual companion to a rich elderly gentleman. Despite her desire to pursue a career in stage acting, her mother cuts her off and Sarah has no choice but to comply. Pregnant and unmarried at sixteen, she is expected to give up her baby to the nuns, but she refuses to let him go.

A natural talent and darkly beautiful, Sarah gets a few theatrical roles, thanks to her bold, innovative acting style that attracts both admiration and scorn. Audiences want to see this controversial young actress, and amazingly, she is hired by the famed Comédie Française--only to have her life torn asunder in the savagery of the 1870 Siege of Paris. Amidst the ruins of the city, Sarah nurses wounded soldiers while falling passionately in love with her leading man.

Rising to the height of her fame as the toast of Paris, shocking audiences with her uninhibited acting style and portrayal of male characters, Sarah becomes world famous, touring America and Europe to sold-out crowds. Told in her own voice, this is Sarah Bernhardt's incandescent story--a fascinating, intimate account of a woman whose wholly original talent and indomitable spirit has enshrined her in history as the Divine Sarah.]]> 420 C.W. Gortner 1524799076 Tom 0 to-read 3.93 2020 The First Actress
author: C.W. Gortner
name: Tom
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/04/08
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]]> All the Ways We Said Goodbye 43615526 The New York Times bestselling authors of The Glass Ocean and The Forgotten Room return with a glorious historical adventure that moves from the dark days of two World Wars to the turbulent years of the 1960s, in which three women with bruised hearts find refuge at Paris� legendary Ritz hotel.

The heiress . . .
The Resistance fighter . . .
The widow . . .
Three women whose fates are joined by one splendid hotel

France, 1914. As war breaks out, Aurelie becomes trapped on the wrong side of the front with her father, Comte Sigismund de Courcelles. When the Germans move into their family’s ancestral estate, using it as their headquarters, Aurelie discovers she knows the German Major’s aide de camp, Maximilian Von Sternburg. She and the dashing young officer first met during Aurelie’s debutante days in Paris. Despite their conflicting loyalties, Aurelie and Max’s friendship soon deepens into love, but betrayal will shatter them both, driving Aurelie back to Paris and the Ritz� the home of her estranged American heiress mother, with unexpected consequences.

France, 1942. Raised by her indomitable, free-spirited American grandmother in the glamorous Hotel Ritz, Marguerite “Daisy� Villon remains in Paris with her daughter and husband, a Nazi collaborator, after France falls to Hitler. At first reluctant to put herself and her family at risk to assist her grandmother’s Resistance efforts, Daisy agrees to act as a courier for a skilled English forger known only as Legrand, who creates identity papers for Resistance members and Jewish refugees. But as Daisy is drawn ever deeper into Legrand’s underground network, committing increasingly audacious acts of resistance for the sake of the country—and the man—she holds dear, she uncovers a devastating secret . . . one that will force her to commit the ultimate betrayal, and to confront at last the shocking circumstances of her own family history.

France, 1964. For Barbara “Babs� Langford, her husband, Kit, was the love of her life. Yet their marriage was haunted by a mysterious woman known only as La Fleur. On Kit’s death, American lawyer Andrew “Drew� Bowdoin appears at her door. Hired to find a Resistance fighter turned traitor known as “La Fleur,� the investigation has led to Kit Langford. Curious to know more about the enigmatic La Fleur, Babs joins Drew in his search, a journey of discovery that that takes them to Paris and the Ritz—and to unexpected places of the heart. . . .]]> 464 Beatriz Williams 0062931113 Tom 0 to-read 4.02 2020 All the Ways We Said Goodbye
author: Beatriz Williams
name: Tom
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2020
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]]> <![CDATA[The Ten Thousand Doors of January]]> 43521657
Then she finds a strange book. A book that carries the scent of other worlds, and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure and danger. Each page turn reveals impossible truths about the world and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.]]> 374 Alix E. Harrow 0316421995 Tom 4 3.99 2019 The Ten Thousand Doors of January
author: Alix E. Harrow
name: Tom
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2019
rating: 4
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]]> Her Last Flight 52749670 The beloved author returns with a remarkable novel of both raw suspense and lyric beauty� the story of a lost pilot and a wartime photographer that will leave its mark on your soul.

In 1947, photographer and war correspondent Janey Everett arrives at a remote surfing village on the Hawaiian island of Kauai to research a planned biography of forgotten aviation pioneer Sam Mallory, who joined the loyalist forces in the Spanish Civil War and never returned. Obsessed with Sam’s fate, Janey has tracked down Irene Lindquist, the owner of a local island-hopping airline, whom she believes might actually be the legendary Irene Foster, Mallory’s onetime student and flying partner. Foster’s disappearance during a round-the-world flight in 1937 remains one of the world’s greatest unsolved mysteries.

At first, the flinty Mrs. Lindquist denies any connection to Foster. But Janey informs her that the wreck of Sam Mallory’s airplane has recently been discovered in a Spanish desert, and piece by piece, the details of Foster’s extraordinary life emerge: from the beginnings of her flying career in Southern California, to her complicated, passionate relationship with Mallory, to the collapse of her marriage to her aggressive career manager, the publishing scion George Morrow.

As Irene spins her tale to its searing conclusion, Janey’s past gathers its own power. The duel between the two women takes a heartstopping turn. To whom does Mallory rightfully belong? Can we ever come to terms with the loss of those we love, and the lives we might have lived?]]> 400 Beatriz Williams 0062834800 Tom 0 to-read 4.21 2020 Her Last Flight
author: Beatriz Williams
name: Tom
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/04/08
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]]> <![CDATA[The Last Train to Key West (The Perez Family, #3)]]> 52777855 In 1935 three women are forever changed when one of the most powerful hurricanes in history barrels toward the Florida Keys.

For the tourists traveling on Henry Flagler's legendary Overseas Railroad, Labor Day weekend is an opportunity to forget the economic depression gripping the nation. But one person's paradise can be another's prison, and Key West-native Helen Berner yearns to escape.

After the Cuban Revolution of 1933 leaves Mirta Perez's family in a precarious position, she agrees to an arranged marriage with a notorious American. Following her wedding in Havana, Mirta arrives in the Keys on her honeymoon. While she can't deny the growing attraction to her new husband, his illicit business interests may threaten not only her relationship, but her life.

Elizabeth Preston's trip to Key West is a chance to save her once-wealthy family from their troubles after the Wall Street crash. Her quest takes her to the camps occupied by veterans of the Great War and pairs her with an unlikely ally on a treacherous hunt of his own.

Over the course of the holiday weekend, the women's paths cross unexpectedly, and the danger swirling around them is matched only by the terrifying force of the deadly storm threatening the Keys.]]> 314 Chanel Cleeton 0451490894 Tom 0 to-read 4.10 2020 The Last Train to Key West (The Perez Family, #3)
author: Chanel Cleeton
name: Tom
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> The Sun Down Motel 46136180 Something hasn’t been right at the roadside Sun Down Motel for a very long time, and Carly Kirk is about to find out why in this chilling new novel from the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of The Broken Girls.

Upstate New York, 1982. Viv Delaney wants to move to New York City, and to help pay for it she takes a job as the night clerk at the Sun Down Motel in Fell, New York. But something isnʼt right at the motel, something haunting and scary.

Upstate New York, 2017. Carly Kirk has never been able to let go of the story of her aunt Viv, who mysteriously disappeared from the Sun Down before she was born. She decides to move to Fell and visit the motel, where she quickly learns that nothing has changed since 1982. And she soon finds herself ensnared in the same mysteries that claimed her aunt.]]> 340 Simone St. James 0440000181 Tom 0 to-read 4.11 2020 The Sun Down Motel
author: Simone St. James
name: Tom
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> The Arctic Fury 49181796 408 Greer Macallister 1728215692 Tom 0 to-read 3.81 2020 The Arctic Fury
author: Greer Macallister
name: Tom
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> Hollywood Park 49235526 HOLLYWOOD PARK is a remarkable memoir of a tumultuous life. Mikel Jollett was born into one of the country’s most infamous cults, and subjected to a childhood filled with poverty, addiction, and emotional abuse. Yet, ultimately, his is a story of fierce love and family loyalty told in a raw, poetic voice that signals the emergence of a uniquely gifted writer.

We were never young. We were just too afraid of ourselves. No one told us who we were or what we were or where all our parents went. They would arrive like ghosts, visiting us for a morning, an afternoon. They would sit with us or walk around the grounds, to laugh or cry or toss us in the air while we screamed. Then they’d disappear again, for weeks, for months, for years, leaving us alone with our memories and dreams, our questions and confusion. �

So begins Hollywood Park, Mikel Jollett’s remarkable memoir. His story opens in an experimental commune in California, which later morphed into the Church of Synanon, one of the country’s most infamous and dangerous cults. Per the leader’s mandate, all children, including Jollett and his older brother, were separated from their parents when they were six months old, and handed over to the cult’s “School.� After spending years in what was essentially an orphanage, Mikel escaped the cult one morning with his mother and older brother. But in many ways, life outside Synanon was even harder and more erratic.

In his raw, poetic and powerful voice, Jollett portrays a childhood filled with abject poverty, trauma, emotional abuse, delinquency and the lure of drugs and alcohol. Raised by a clinically depressed mother, tormented by his angry older brother, subjected to the unpredictability of troubled step-fathers and longing for contact with his father, a former heroin addict and ex-con, Jollett slowly, often painfully, builds a life that leads him to Stanford University and, eventually, to finding his voice as a writer and musician.

Hollywood Park is told at first through the limited perspective of a child, and then broadens as Jollett begins to understand the world around him. Although Mikel Jollett’s story is filled with heartbreak, it is ultimately an unforgettable portrayal of love at its fiercest and most loyal.]]> 384 Mikel Jollett 1250621569 Tom 0 to-read 4.28 2020 Hollywood Park
author: Mikel Jollett
name: Tom
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2020
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]]> Girl in Disguise 29946121
But is the woman she's becoming-capable of lies, swapping identities like dresses-the true Kate? Or has the real disguise been the good girl she always thought she was? As the tensions between the north and south escalate, Kate takes on a job in which the stakes have never been higher. The nation's future is at risk, even as the lines between disguise and reality begin to blur.]]> 308 Greer Macallister 1492635227 Tom 0 to-read 3.70 2017 Girl in Disguise
author: Greer Macallister
name: Tom
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Eine unbeliebte Frau (Bodenstein & Kirchhoff, #1)]]> 7177178
Eine Ladung Schrot aus dem eigenen Jagdgewehr beschert dem Frankfurter Oberstaatsanwalt ein schnelles, wenn auch sehr hässliches Ende. Die schöne junge Frau, die tot am Fuß eines Aussichtsturms im Taunus liegt, ist viel zu unversehrt, um an den Folgen eines Sturzes gestorben zu sein. Kriminalhauptkommissar Oliver von Bodenstein und seine neue Kollegin Pia Kirchhoff sind sich einig: Der erste Todesfall war ein Selbstmord, der zweite jedoch ein Mord. Bald häufen sich sowohl die Motive als auch die Verdächtigen. Doch was hat den Staatsanwalt in den Tod getrieben?]]> 384 Nele Neuhaus 3548608876 Tom 0 to-read 3.74 2006 Eine unbeliebte Frau (Bodenstein & Kirchhoff, #1)
author: Nele Neuhaus
name: Tom
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/04/03
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]]> Deeplight 50157754 They say that there is a dark realm of nightmares that lies beneath the true sea. When the Undersea arches its back, the upper sea is stirred to frenzy.

They say that the Undersea was the dwelling place of the gods.

They say many things of the Myriad, and all of them are true.

The gods are dead. Fifty years ago, they turned on one another and tore each other apart. Nobody knows why.

Now, even coin-sized scraps of dead god are worth a fortune because of the strange powers they're said to possess. But few are brave enough to dive and search for them.

When fifteen-year-old Hark finds the still-beating heart of one of these deities, he'll risk everything to keep it out of the hands of the smugglers, scientists, and cults who would kill for its power. Because Hark needs the heart if he wants to save the life of his best friend, Jelt. But the power of a god was not meant for human hands.

With the heart, Jelt begins to eerily transform, and Hark will have to decide if he can stay loyal to his friend—or what he's willing to sacrifice to save him.]]> 419 Frances Hardinge 1419743201 Tom 0 to-read 4.03 2019 Deeplight
author: Frances Hardinge
name: Tom
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Lost Starship (Lost Starship, #1)]]> 23146375 392 Vaughn Heppner Tom 2 to-read 3.84 2014 The Lost Starship (Lost Starship, #1)
author: Vaughn Heppner
name: Tom
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2014
rating: 2
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date added: 2021/04/02
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]]> Where the Crawdads Sing 36809135
But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.

In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.]]> 384 Delia Owens 0735219117 Tom 0 to-read 4.35 2018 Where the Crawdads Sing
author: Delia Owens
name: Tom
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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]]> The Cold Millions 50358038
The Dolans live by their wits, jumping freight trains and lining up for day work at crooked job agencies. While sixteen-year-old Rye yearns for a steady job and a home, his older brother, Gig, dreams of a better world, fighting alongside other union men for fair pay and decent treatment. Enter Ursula the Great, a vaudeville singer who performs with a live cougar and introduces the brothers to a far more dangerous creature: a mining magnate determined to keep his wealth and his hold on Ursula.


Dubious of Gig’s idealism, Rye finds himself drawn to a fearless nineteen-year-old activist and feminist named Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. But a storm is coming, threatening to overwhelm them all, and Rye will be forced to decide where he stands. Is it enough to win the occasional battle, even if you cannot win the war?


An intimate story of brotherhood, love, sacrifice, and betrayal set against the panoramic backdrop of an early twentieth-century America that eerily echoes our own time, The Cold Millions offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of a nation grappling with the chasm between rich and poor, between harsh realities and simple dreams. Featuring an unforgettable cast of cops and tramps, suffragists and socialists, madams and murderers, it is a tour de force from a “writer who has planted himself firmly in the first rank of American authors� (Boston Globe]]> 342 Jess Walter 006286808X Tom 0 to-read 3.89 2020 The Cold Millions
author: Jess Walter
name: Tom
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> This Tender Land 25813942
After committing a terrible crime, Odie and Albert are forced to flee for their lives along with their best friend, Mose, a mute young man of Sioux heritage. Out of pity, they also take with them a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy. Together, they steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi in search for a place to call home.

Over the course of one unforgettable summer, these four orphan vagabonds journey into the unknown, crossing paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. With the feel of a modern classic, This Tender Land is an en­thralling, bighearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole.]]> 450 William Kent Krueger 1476749299 Tom 0 to-read 4.35 2019 This Tender Land
author: William Kent Krueger
name: Tom
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/04/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Winter Pasture: One Woman's Journey with China's Kazakh Herders]]> 54224001
In bringing this faraway world to English language readers here for the first time, Li creates an intimate bond with the rugged people, the remote places and the nomadic lifestyle.]]> 320 Li Juan 166260033X Tom 0 to-read 3.76 2012 Winter Pasture: One Woman's Journey with China's Kazakh Herders
author: Li Juan
name: Tom
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/31
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]]> Ink and Bone 43879249 Read the stunning bestseller voted a Best Book finalist in the ŷ Choice Awards!

In this explosive psychological thriller by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger, a young woman’s mysterious gift lands her in the middle of a dangerous investigation of a little girl’s disappearance.

For as long as she can remember, twenty-year-old Finley Montgomery has been able to see into the future: dream about things before they happen, see beyond the physical world, and unconsciously make supernatural things happen. But Finley can’t control these powers, and moves to The Hollows to live with her grandmother, a renowned seer who can help Finely understand and master her gifts. But once in The Hollows, Finley’s gift proves to be both a blessing and a curse.

Like Finley, Merri and Wolf Montgomery are in the worst possible hell. Their daughter Abbey has been missing for ten months. Leads exhausted, the police have all but given up hope; but Merri is unable to shake the feeling that time is running out, and makes a desperate, last ditch effort to locate her daughter.

Finley and Merri are on winding, treacherous paths towards the same point. When they finally come together in The Hollows, nothing is as it seems. But one thing is clear: The Hollows always gets what it wants.]]> 353 Lisa Unger Tom 0 to-read 4.10 2016 Ink and Bone
author: Lisa Unger
name: Tom
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/31
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]]> <![CDATA[Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through North America's Stolen Land]]> 49411424 The son of working-class Mexican immigrants flees a life of labor in fruit-packing plants to run in a Native American marathon from Canada to Guatemala in this "stunning memoir that moves to the rhythm of feet, labor, and the many landscapes of the Americas" (Catriona Menzies-Pike, author of The Long Run).

Growing up in Yakima, Washington, Noé Álvarez worked at an apple-packing plant alongside his mother, who “slouched over a conveyor belt of fruit, shoulder to shoulder with mothers conditioned to believe this was all they could do with their lives.� A university scholarship offered escape, but as a first-generation Latino college-goer, Álvarez struggled to fit in.

At nineteen, he learned about a Native American/First Nations movement called the Peace and Dignity Journeys, epic marathons meant to renew cultural connections across North America. He dropped out of school and joined a group of Dené, Secwépemc, Gitxsan, Dakelh, Apache, Tohono O’odham, Seri, Purépecha, and Maya runners, all fleeing difficult beginnings. Telling their stories alongside his own, Álvarez writes about a four-month-long journey from Canada to Guatemala that pushed him to his limits. He writes not only of overcoming hunger, thirst, and fear―dangers included stone-throwing motorists and a mountain lion―but also of asserting Indigenous and working-class humanity in a capitalist society where oil extraction, deforestation, and substance abuse wreck communities.

Running through mountains, deserts, and cities, and through the Mexican territory his parents left behind, Álvarez forges a new relationship with the land, and with the act of running, carrying with him the knowledge of his parents� migration, and―against all odds in a society that exploits his body and rejects his spirit―the dream of a liberated future.]]> 240 Noé Álvarez 1948226464 Tom 0 to-read 3.48 2020 Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through North America's Stolen Land
author: Noé Álvarez
name: Tom
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/29
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]]> The Roanoke Girls 30689335 Listening time 10 hours 41 minutes

Vowing to discover the fate of her missing cousin, a woman returns to her family’s Kansas estate where she spent one haunting summer as a teen, and where she discovered the dark heart of the Roanoke clan that left her no choice but to run.

Lane Roanoke is fifteen when she comes to live with her maternal grandparents and fireball cousin, Allegra, at the Roanoke family estate in rural Osage Flats, Kansas, following the suicide of her mother. Lane knows little of her mother’s family, other than the fact that her mother ran away years before and cut off all contact with her parents. Allegra, abandoned by her own mother at birth and raised by her grandparents, introduces Lane to small-town life and the benefits of being one of the rich and beautiful Roanoke girls. But there is darkness at the heart of the Roanoke family, and when Lane discovers its insidious pull she has no choice but to run, as far and as fast as she can.

Eleven years later, Lane is scraping by in Los Angeles when her grandfather calls with the news that Allegra has gone missing. “Come home,� he beckons. Unable to resist his pleas, Lane returns to Osage Flats, determined to find her cousin and assuage her own guilt at having left Allegra behind all those years ago. Her return might mean a second chance with Cooper, the boyfriend whom she loved and destroyed that fateful summer. But it also means facing the terrible secret that made her flee, one she may not be strong enough to run from again.

As it weaves between the summer of Lane’s first arrival and the summer of her return, The Roanoke Girls shocks and tantalizes, twisting its way through revelation after mesmerizing revelation, exploring the secrets families keep and the fierce and terrible love that both binds them together and rips them apart.]]> 279 Amy Engel 1101906669 Tom 0 to-read 3.68 2017 The Roanoke Girls
author: Amy Engel
name: Tom
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/29
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]]> Be Not Far from Me 46139175
Ashley knows this truth deep in her bones, more at home with trees overhead than a roof. So when she goes hiking in the Smokies with her friends for a night of partying, the falling dark and creaking trees are second nature to her. But people are not tame either. And when Ashley catches her boyfriend with another girl, drunken rage sends her running into the night, stopped only by a nasty fall into a ravine. Morning brings the realization that she's alone - and far off trail. Lost in undisturbed forest and with nothing but the clothes on her back, Ashley must figure out how to survive despite the red streak of infection creeping up her leg.]]> 240 Mindy McGinnis 0062561626 Tom 0 to-read 3.80 2020 Be Not Far from Me
author: Mindy McGinnis
name: Tom
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/29
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]]> How Fire Runs 53263743 272 Charles Dodd White Tom 0 to-read 4.09 2020 How Fire Runs
author: Charles Dodd White
name: Tom
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/29
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]]> POW! 15059453
In this bizarre romp through the Chinese countryside, the author treats us to a cornucopia of cooked animal flesh―ostrich, camel, donkey, dog, as well as the more common varieties. As his dual narratives merge and feather into one another, each informing and illuminating the other, Mo Yan probes the character and lifestyle of modern China. Displaying his many talents, as fabulist, storyteller, scatologist, master of allusion and cliché, and more, POW! carries the reader along quickly, hungrily, and giddily, up until its surprising dénouement.

Mo Yan has been called one of the great novelists of modern Chinese literature and the New York Times Book Review has hailed his work as harsh and gritty, raunchy and funny. He writes big, sometimes mystifying, sometimes infuriating, but always entertaining novels―and POW! is no exception.]]> 386 Mo Yan 0857420763 Tom 0 to-read 3.51 2003 POW!
author: Mo Yan
name: Tom
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/28
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]]> <![CDATA[Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead (Claire DeWitt Mysteries, #1)]]> 9231999 éٱ𳦳پDz inspired Claire’s unusual practices. Claire also has deep roots in New Orleans, where she was mentored by Silette’s student the brilliant Constance Darling—until Darling was murdered. When a respected DA goes missing she returns to the hurricane-ravaged city to find out why.]]> 273 Sara Gran 0547428499 Tom 0 to-read 3.68 2011 Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead (Claire DeWitt Mysteries, #1)
author: Sara Gran
name: Tom
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Generation Loss (Cass Neary, #1)]]> 102880 265 Elizabeth Hand 1931520216 Tom 0 to-read 3.77 2007 Generation Loss (Cass Neary, #1)
author: Elizabeth Hand
name: Tom
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/28
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]]> The Less Dead 48891445
What she finds is an imcomplete family--the only person left is Nikki, her mother's older sister. Aunt Nikki brings upetting news: Margot's mother is dead, murdered many years ago, one of a series of sex workers killed in Glasgow.

The killer--or killers?--has never been found, Aunt Nikki claims. They're still at large... and sending her letters, gloating letters that include the details of the crime. Now Margot must choose: take the side of the world against her dead mother, or investigate her murder and see that justice is done at last.

Darkly funny and sharply modern, Denise Mina's latest novel is an indelible, surprisingly moving story of daughters and mothers, blood family and chosen family, and how the search for truth helps one woman to find herself.]]> 240 Denise Mina Tom 0 to-read 3.30 2020 The Less Dead
author: Denise Mina
name: Tom
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/28
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]]> <![CDATA[The Book of Lamps and Banners (Cass Neary, #4)]]> 50358124 Acclaimed crime writer Elizabeth Hand returns to her cult-favorite series: Photographer Cass Neary is hard-up for cash and in more danger than she realizes, in the hunt for an ancient, legendary book.
Cass Neary needs cash to get home to New York, and she's already sold her camera-like losing a limb, for a photographer of her experience. Her best chance is to get in on the deal that Griffin, an old flame, is about cut with a notoriously particular bookseller for a gorgeous, ancient illuminated manuscript: The Book of Lamps and Banners. This Book is more than just a beautiful object-its text and images are said to have a powerful magic capable of life-changing effects on anyone who reads it.
But before the sale can be completed, an intruder brazenly steals the Book out from under the dealer's nose. Cass and Griff are the only suspects. To clear their names, and keep the missing text out of dangerous hands, Cass plunges into a curious underworld at the intersection of antiquarian books, cutting-edge software, and modern nationalist politics. This breathless psychological thriller, featuring one of the greatest amateur sleuths of the past decade, could only come from the mind of Elizabeth Hand.]]> 352 Elizabeth Hand 0316485934 Tom 0 to-read 3.58 2020 The Book of Lamps and Banners (Cass Neary, #4)
author: Elizabeth Hand
name: Tom
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/28
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]]> A Dark Lure (A Dark Lure, #1) 25316313 Twelve years ago, Sarah Baker was abducted by the Watt Lake Killer and sexually assaulted for months before managing to escape. The killer was caught, but Sarah lost everything: her marriage, her child, and the life she loved.

Struggling with PTSD, Sarah changes her name to Olivia West and finds sanctuary working on Broken Bar Ranch. But as her scars finally begin to heal, a cop involved with her horrific case remains convinced the Watt Lake Killer is still out there. He sets a lure for the murderer, and a fresh body is discovered. Now Olivia must face the impossible—could the butcher be back, this time to finish the job?

As a frigid winter isolates the ranch, only one person can help Olivia: Cole McDonough, a writer, adventurer, and ranch heir who stirs long-dormant feelings in her. But this time, Olivia’s determination to shut out her past may destroy more than her chance at love. It could cost her her life.

]]> 418 Loreth Anne White 1477878734 Tom 0 to-read 4.25 2015 A Dark Lure (A Dark Lure, #1)
author: Loreth Anne White
name: Tom
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[The Dark Bones (A Dark Lure, #2)]]> 41943994 An Amazon Charts and Washington Post bestseller.

She’s come back to solve the mystery of her father’s death and confront her own dark past.

When Detective Rebecca North left her rural hometown, she vowed never to return. Her father’s apparent suicide has changed that. The official report is that retired cop Noah North shot himself, knocked over a lantern, and set his isolated cabin ablaze. But Rebecca cannot believe he killed himself.

To prove it, she needs the help of Ash Haugen, the man she left behind. But Rebecca and Ash share more than broken hearts. Something darker lies between them, and the investigation is stirring it back to life. Clues lead them to the home of Olivia West and her deeply troubled twelve-year-old daughter, Tori. The child knows more about the murder than anyone can imagine, but she’s too terrified to say a word.

And as a cold-blooded killer resurfaces from the past, Rebecca and Ash begin to fear that their own secrets may be even harder to survive.]]> 440 Loreth Anne White 1542091551 Tom 0 to-read 4.23 2019 The Dark Bones (A Dark Lure, #2)
author: Loreth Anne White
name: Tom
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/28
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]]> <![CDATA[Cold Waters (Normal, Alabama #1)]]> 43381002 From USA Today bestselling author Debbie Herbert comes a thrilling story of murder and madness set in the darkest corner of Alabama.

Everyone thinks fourteen-year-old Violet is a murderer. After a summer-night swim with her best friend, Ainsley, Violet is found confused, wandering in the forest—and Ainsley’s never seen again. But without a body, murder charges won’t stick, so Violet is sent away.

After more than a decade in a psychiatric ward, Violet returns to her broken-down hometown of Normal, Alabama, to claim her dead mother’s inheritance and help her overworked sister care for their unstable, alcoholic father. Violet, still haunted by that night eleven years ago, endures horrific flashbacks and twisted hallucinations while townsfolk spit accusations—and for all she knows, they’re right.

As the summer heats up, details of Ainsley’s fate appear like a beast’s wild eyes, watching in the darkness, and grim revelations about Violet’s family threaten to devour her. Already on the edge of madness, Violet must fight to keep her sanity long enough for the terrible truth to burst from the cold, dark waters.]]> 333 Debbie Herbert 1542042496 Tom 0 to-read 3.84 2019 Cold Waters (Normal, Alabama #1)
author: Debbie Herbert
name: Tom
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/28
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]]> <![CDATA[One Small Sacrifice (Shadows of New York, #1)]]> 42258946 An apparent suicide. A mysterious disappearance. Did one man get away with murder—twice?

NYPD detective Sheryn Sterling has had her eye on Alex Traynor ever since his friend Cori fell to her death under suspicious circumstances a year ago. Cori’s death was ruled a suicide, but Sheryn thinks Alex—a wartime photojournalist suffering from PTSD—got away with murder.

When Alex’s fiancée, Emily, a talented and beloved local doctor, suddenly goes missing, Sheryn suspects that Alex is again at the center of a sticky case. Sheryn dislikes loose ends, and Cori’s death had way too many of them.

But as Sheryn starts pulling at the threads in this web, her whole theory unravels. Everyone involved remembers the night Cori died differently—and the truth about her death could be the key to solving Emily’s disappearance.]]> 366 Hilary Davidson 1542090261 Tom 0 to-read 3.96 2019 One Small Sacrifice (Shadows of New York, #1)
author: Hilary Davidson
name: Tom
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/28
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]]> <![CDATA[The Tao of Raven: An Alaska Native Memoir]]> 29876594
Using the story of Raven and the Box of Daylight (and relating it to Sun Tzu�s equally timeless Art of War) to deepen her narration and reflection, Hayes expresses an ongoing frustration and anger at the obstacles and prejudices still facing Alaska Natives in their own land, but also recounts her own story of attending and completing college in her fifties and becoming a professor and a writer. Hayes lyrically weaves together strands of memoir, contemplation, and fiction to articulate an Indigenous worldview in which all things are connected, in which intergenerational trauma creates many hardships but transformation is still possible. Now a grandmother and thinking very much of the generations who will come after her, Hayes speaks for herself but also has powerful things to say about the resilience and complications of her Native community.]]> 174 Ernestine Hayes 0295999608 Tom 0 to-read 4.18 2016 The Tao of Raven: An Alaska Native Memoir
author: Ernestine Hayes
name: Tom
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/27
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]]> In Her Bones 38532154 Fifteen years ago, Lilith Wade was arrested for the brutal murder of six women. After a death row conviction, media frenzy, and the release of an unauthorized biography, her thirty-year-old daughter Edie Beckett is just trying to survive out of the spotlight. She’s a recovering alcoholic with a dead-end city job and an unhealthy codependent relationship with her brother.

Edie also has a disturbing secret: a growing obsession with the families of Lilith’s victims. She’s desperate to see how they’ve managed—or failed—to move on. While her escalating fixation is a problem, she’s careful to keep her distance. That is, until she crosses a line and a man is found murdered.

Edie quickly becomes the prime suspect—and while she can’t remember everything that happened the night of the murder, she’d surely remember killing someone. With the detective who arrested her mother hot on her trail, Edie goes into hiding. She’s must get to the truth of what happened that night before the police—or the real killer—find her.

Unless, of course, she has more in common with her mother than she’s willing to admit�
]]> 308 Kate Moretti 1501166476 Tom 0 to-read 3.68 2018 In Her Bones
author: Kate Moretti
name: Tom
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/27
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]]> Saltblood 54928081
Robin didn’t mean to break the law. Didn’t know at first what law she’d broken. And now she’s on her way to Salt Rock � a new-model prison for a new kind of criminal, way out in the remote Northern Isles of Scotland.

On Salt Rock, she'll meet other prisoners like her � men and women from all over the world, spirited away from the lives they knew for crimes they didn’t know they were committing.

She'll uncover the complex web of conspiracy that connects them all, confronting some of the darkness of her own past in the process.

And she'll come face to face, finally, with an evil as old as the land itself.

It’s hell in those waters.]]> 306 T.C. Parker Tom 0 to-read 4.02 2020 Saltblood
author: T.C. Parker
name: Tom
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/03/27
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]]> Piranesi 50202953
There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.]]> 272 Susanna Clarke 163557563X Tom 0 to-read 4.22 2020 Piranesi
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Tom
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2020/12/04
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]]> The Monster of Elendhaven 43263515
These monsters of Elendhaven will have their revenge on everyone who wronged the city, even if they have to burn the world to do it.]]> 160 Jennifer Giesbrecht 125022568X Tom 0 to-read 3.54 2019 The Monster of Elendhaven
author: Jennifer Giesbrecht
name: Tom
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/12/10
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]]> <![CDATA[The Infinite Blacktop (Claire DeWitt Mysteries, #3)]]> 38532150
More sure of herself than of the police, Claire follows the clues on a 52-hour odyssey through shimmering Las Vegas and the shabby surrounding desert to find out who wants her dead. But in order to save herself, Claire will have to revisit her own complicated past as she navigates the present: a past of childhood obsessions, rival detectives, lost friends, and mysteries mostly—but not always—solved.

Three intertwining stories illuminate three eras of Claire’s life: her early years as an ambitious girl detective in Brooklyn (before it was gentrified), which ended when her best friend and partner in crime-solving disappeared; a case of an unexplained death in the art world of late-1990s Los Angeles, when, devastated by the demise of her mentor in New Orleans, Claire was forced to start again; and her current quest to save her own life from a determined assassin.

As the connections between the stories come into focus, the truth becomes clear. But Claire, battered and bruised, will never quit her search for the answer to the biggest mystery of all: how can anyone survive in a world so clearly designed to break our hearts?]]> 290 Sara Gran 1501165712 Tom 0 to-read 3.88 2018 The Infinite Blacktop (Claire DeWitt Mysteries, #3)
author: Sara Gran
name: Tom
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2019/06/29
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]]> The Feral Detective 37578865
The unlikely pair traverse California's stunning Inland Empire, navigating the enclaves of hippies and vagabonds who aim to live off the grid. They learn that these outcasts exist in warring tribes--the Rabbits and the Bears--and that Arabella is likely caught in the middle. As Phoebe tries to delicately extricate her, she realizes that Heist has a complicated history with these strange groups and that they're all in grave danger.

Jonathan Lethem's first detective novel since Motherless Brooklyn delivers the same memorable delights: ecstatic wordplay, warm and deeply felt characters, and an offbeat sense of humor. Combined with a vision of California that is at once scruffy and magnificent, The Feral Detective emerges as a transporting, comic, and absolutely unforgettable novel.]]> 336 Jonathan Lethem 0062859080 Tom 4 2.96 2018 The Feral Detective
author: Jonathan Lethem
name: Tom
average rating: 2.96
book published: 2018
rating: 4
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date added: 2019/06/18
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]]> Eileen 23453099 So here we are. My name was Eileen Dunlop. Now you know me. I was twenty-four years old then, and had a job that paid fifty-seven dollars a week as a kind of secretary at a private juvenile correctional facility for teenage boys. I think of it now as what it really was for all intents and purposes—a prison for boys. I will call it Moorehead. Delvin Moorehead was a terrible landlord I had years later, and so to use his name for such a place feels appropriate. In a week, I would run away from home and never go back.

This is the story of how I disappeared.

The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman trapped between her role as her alcoholic father’s caretaker in a home whose squalor is the talk of the neighborhood and a day job as a secretary at the boys� prison, filled with its own quotidian horrors. Consumed by resentment and self-loathing, Eileen tempers her dreary days with perverse fantasies and dreams of escaping to the big city. In the meantime, she fills her nights and weekends with shoplifting, stalking a buff prison guard named Randy, and cleaning up her increasingly deranged father’s messes. When the bright, beautiful, and cheery Rebecca Saint John arrives on the scene as the new counselor at Moorehead, Eileen is enchanted and proves unable to resist what appears at first to be a miraculously budding friendship. In a Hitchcockian twist, her affection for Rebecca ultimately pulls her into complicity in a crime that surpasses her wildest imaginings.

Played out against the snowy landscape of coastal New England in the days leading up to Christmas, young Eileen’s story is told from the gimlet-eyed perspective of the now much older narrator. Creepy, mesmerizing, and sublimely funny, in the tradition of Shirley Jackson and early Vladimir Nabokov, this powerful debut novel enthralls and shocks, and introduces one of the most original new voices in contemporary literature. Ottessa Moshfegh is also the author of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Homesick for Another World: Stories, and McGlue.]]> 260 Ottessa Moshfegh 1594206627 Tom 5 3.57 2015 Eileen
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: Tom
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2015
rating: 5
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date added: 2019/03/19
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]]> Blackbirds (Miriam Black, #1) 12944651 Miriam Black knows when you will die.

She’s foreseen hundreds of car crashes, heart attacks, strokes, and suicides.

But when Miriam hitches a ride with Louis Darling and shakes his hand, she sees that in thirty days Louis will be murdered while he calls her name. Louis will die because he met her, and she will be the next victim.

No matter what she does she can’t save Louis. But if she wants to stay alive, she’ll have to try.]]> 381 Chuck Wendig 0857662309 Tom 5 to-read 3.74 2012 Blackbirds (Miriam Black, #1)
author: Chuck Wendig
name: Tom
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2019/01/05
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]]> <![CDATA[Dead Harvest (The Collector, #1)]]> 11806282 File Urban Fantasy [ Souled Out | Damned If You Don’t | Collector Mania | On The Run ]e-book 978-0-85766-219-4From the Paperback edition.]]> 300 Chris F. Holm Tom 0 to-read 3.60 2012 Dead Harvest (The Collector, #1)
author: Chris F. Holm
name: Tom
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/12/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Evil Dark (Occult Crimes Unit Investigation, #2)]]> 11500077
A series of seemingly motiveless murders of supernatural creatures points to a vigilante targeting the supe community. Markowski wouldn't normally have much of a problem with that, but his daughter may be next on the killer's list...

File Urban Fantasy [ Unnatural Law | Thicker Than Water | The Bite Stuff | Duty Calls ]

e-book 978-0-85766-137-1]]> 396 Justin Gustainis 0857661361 Tom 0 to-read 3.81 2012 Evil Dark (Occult Crimes Unit Investigation, #2)
author: Justin Gustainis
name: Tom
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/12/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> Planetfall (Planetfall, #1) 24237785
Renata Ghali believed in Lee Suh-Mi’s vision of a world far beyond Earth, calling to humanity. A planet promising to reveal the truth about our place in the cosmos, untainted by overpopulation, pollution, and war. Ren believed in that vision enough to give up everything to follow Suh-Mi into the unknown.

More than twenty-two years have passed since Ren and the rest of the faithful braved the starry abyss and established a colony at the base of an enigmatic alien structure where Suh-Mi has since resided, alone. All that time, Ren has worked hard as the colony's 3-D printer engineer, creating the tools necessary for human survival in an alien environment, and harboring a devastating secret.

Ren continues to perpetuate the lie forming the foundation of the colony for the good of her fellow colonists, despite the personal cost. Then a stranger appears, far too young to have been part of the first planetfall, a man who bears a remarkable resemblance to Suh-Mi.

The truth Ren has concealed since planetfall can no longer be hidden. And its revelation might tear the colony apart…]]> 336 Emma Newman Tom 3 3.70 2015 Planetfall (Planetfall, #1)
author: Emma Newman
name: Tom
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2018/11/27
date added: 2018/11/27
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]]> Stalin Ate My Homework 7438521 352 Alexei Sayle 0340919582 Tom 4 3.82 2010 Stalin Ate My Homework
author: Alexei Sayle
name: Tom
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/10/13
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]]> <![CDATA[Amberlough (The Amberlough Dossier, #1)]]> 29939270 Le Carré meets Cabaret in this debut spy thriller as a gay double-agent schemes to protect his smuggler lover during the rise of a fascist government coup

Welcome to Amberlough City, the illustrious but corrupt cosmopolitan beacon of Gedda. The radical One State Party—nicknamed the Ospies—is gaining popular support to unite Gedda's four municipal governments under an ironclad, socially conservative vision.

Not everyone agrees with the Ospies' philosophy, including master spy Cyril DePaul and his lover Aristide Makricosta, smuggler and emcee at the popular Bumble Bee Cabaret. When Cyril's cover is blown on a mission, however, he must become a turncoat in exchange for his life. Returning to Amberlough under the Ospies' watchful eye, Cyril enters a complex game of deception. One of his concerns is safeguarding Aristide, who refuses to let anyone—the crooked city police or the homophobic Ospies—dictate his life.

Enter streetwise Cordelia Lehane, top dancer at the Bee and Aristide’s runner, who could be the key to Cyril’s plans—if she can be trusted. As the twinkling lights of nightclub marquees yield to the rising flames of a fascist revolution, these three will struggle to survive using whatever means—and people—necessary. Including each other.]]> 400 Lara Elena Donnelly 0765383810 Tom 0 to-read 3.74 2017 Amberlough (The Amberlough Dossier, #1)
author: Lara Elena Donnelly
name: Tom
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/10/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Too Like the Lightning (Terra Ignota, #1)]]> 26114545
The world into which Mycroft and Carlyle have been born is as strange to our 21st-century eyes as ours would be to a native of the 1500s. It is a hard-won utopia built on technologically-generated abundance, and also on complex and mandatory systems of labeling all public writing and speech. What seem to us normal gender distinctions are now distinctly taboo in most social situations. And most of the world's population is affiliated with globe-girdling clans of the like-minded, whose endless economic and cultural competition is carefully managed by central planners of inestimable subtlety. To us it seems like a mad combination of heaven and hell. To them, it seems like normal life.

And in this world, Mycroft and Carlyle have stumbled on the wild card that may destablize the system: the boy Bridger, who can effortlessly make his wishes come true. Who can, it would seem, bring inanimate objects to life...]]> 432 Ada Palmer 0765378000 Tom 3 3.81 2016 Too Like the Lightning (Terra Ignota, #1)
author: Ada Palmer
name: Tom
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2018/10/10
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]]> Dark Orbit 23168784
Upon arrival, the team finds an extraordinary crystalline planet, laden with dark matter. Then a crew member is murdered and Thora mysteriously disappears. Thought to be uninhabited, the planet is in fact home to a blind, sentient species whose members navigate their world with a bizarre vocabulary and extrasensory perceptions.

Lost in the deep crevasses of the planet among these people, Thora must battle her demons and learn to comprehend the native inhabitants in order to find her crewmates and warn them of an impending danger. But her most difficult task may lie in persuading the crew that some powers lie beyond the boundaries of science.]]> 303 Carolyn Ives Gilman 0765336294 Tom 0 to-read 3.66 2015 Dark Orbit
author: Carolyn Ives Gilman
name: Tom
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/10/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Lightless (Lightless, #1) 29092928 Ananke, an experimental military spacecraft launched by the ruthless organization that rules Earth and its solar system, computer scientist Althea has established an intense emotional bond—not with any of her crewmates, but with the ship’s electronic systems, which speak more deeply to her analytical mind than human feelings do. But when a pair of fugitive terrorists gain access to the Ananke, Althea must draw upon her heart and soul for the strength to defend her beloved ship.

While one of the saboteurs remains at large somewhere on board, his captured partner—the enigmatic Ivan—may prove to be more dangerous. The perversely fascinating criminal whose silver tongue is his most effective weapon has long evaded the authorities� most relentless surveillance—and kept the truth about his methods and motives well hidden.

As the ship’s systems begin to malfunction and the claustrophobic atmosphere is increasingly poisoned by distrust and suspicion, it falls to Althea to penetrate the prisoner’s layers of intrigue and deception before all is lost. But when the true nature of Ivan’s mission is exposed, it will change Althea forever—if it doesn’t kill her first.
]]> 320 C.A. Higgins 0553394444 Tom 0 to-read 3.44 2015 Lightless (Lightless, #1)
author: C.A. Higgins
name: Tom
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/10/05
shelves: to-read
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]]> Miami Purity 1087939 170 Vicki Hendricks 0979270936 Tom 0 to-read 3.55 1995 Miami Purity
author: Vicki Hendricks
name: Tom
average rating: 3.55
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/10/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> IQ (IQ, #1) 28962895 A resident of one of LA's toughest neighborhoods uses his blistering intellect to solve the crimes the LAPD ignores.
East Long Beach. The LAPD is barely keeping up with the neighborhood's high crime rate. Murders go unsolved, lost children unrecovered. But someone from the neighborhood has taken it upon himself to help solve the cases the police can't or won't touch.
They call him IQ. He's a loner and a high school dropout, his unassuming nature disguising a relentless determination and a fierce intelligence. He charges his clients whatever they can afford, which might be a set of tires or a homemade casserole. To get by, he's forced to take on clients that can pay.
This time, it's a rap mogul whose life is in danger. As Isaiah investigates, he encounters a vengeful ex-wife, a crew of notorious cutthroats, a monstrous attack dog, and a hit man who even other hit men say is a lunatic. The deeper Isaiah digs, the more far reaching and dangerous the case becomes.

Winner of the Anthony, Macavity, and Shamus Awards]]> 325 Joe Ide 0316267724 Tom 4 3.72 2016 IQ (IQ, #1)
author: Joe Ide
name: Tom
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2018/10/05
date added: 2018/10/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Scoundrels: The Hunt for Hansclapp]]> 40642574
Volume 2 (1952-1974)
There is a rat in the house! Determined to bring their nemesis Gruber Hansclapp to justice, the Majors embark on a global adventure that features kidnapping in the Congo, manslaughter on the Orient Express and romance at the Stasi's Christmas Party. What's more, they embark on the greatest adventure of all: Fatherhood.

Historically accurate, morally questionable and absolutely true, SCOUNDRELS is one part Flashman to two parts Mordecai Trilogy stirred vigorously and dashed in the face of Ian Fleming. It will leave you with a nasty taste in your mouth, and horribly hungover]]> 424 Victor Cornwall 0995716323 Tom 4 4.46 Scoundrels: The Hunt for Hansclapp
author: Victor Cornwall
name: Tom
average rating: 4.46
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2018/09/30
date added: 2018/10/01
shelves:
review:
I think I actually enjoyed this more than the first. I love the gym description and I wish I could taste that Turkish fungus bread, yum! I genuinely laugh out loud while reading these (in my rhino-skin leather armchair and polar bear fur slippers by the fireplace at the Club, with the "demented pulp" blend in my cigarette holder).
]]> The Good Terrorist 707060 The Good Terrorist follows Alice Mellings, a woman who transforms her home into a headquarters for a group of radicals who plan to join the IRA. As Alice struggles to bridge her ideology and her bourgeois upbringing, her companions encounter unexpected challenges in their quest to incite social change against complacency and capitalism. With a nuanced sense of the intersections between the personal and the political, Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing creates in The Good Terrorist a compelling portrait of domesticity and rebellion.]]> 0 Doris Lessing 0586090045 Tom 4 3.72 1985 The Good Terrorist
author: Doris Lessing
name: Tom
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1985
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/08/08
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Initiation into Hermetics: The Path of the True Adept]]> 619041 356 Franz Bardon 1885928122 Tom 2 4.22 1962 Initiation into Hermetics: The Path of the True Adept
author: Franz Bardon
name: Tom
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1962
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2018/05/01
shelves:
review:

]]> Fearscape (Horrorscape, #1) 16161543
Fourteen-year-old Valerian lives in an age where antiheroes and bad boys are portrayed as the romantic ideal, and good guys are passe and boring. So when Gavin Mecozzi, the school's brilliant but twisted loner, begins to show an interest in her after a chance meeting in a pet store, Val is intrigued. He's charming and poetic and makes her feel things that she thought were only possible in books--

Fear.

Because somebody is stalking Val. Somebody who wants to hurt her. Own her. Possess her. Maybe even kill her.

As her meetings with Gavin unravel into a more complex and frightening relationship, Val can't help but wonder if the new boy in her life is her depraved and obsessive stalker.

And whether he's capable of murder.

Time is running out.]]> 289 Nenia Campbell Tom 0 to-read 3.71 2012 Fearscape (Horrorscape, #1)
author: Nenia Campbell
name: Tom
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/04/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1) 888628
Case was the sharpest data thief in the Matrix, until an ex-employer crippled his nervous system. Now a new employer has recruited him for a last-chance run against an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence. With a mirror-eyed girl street-samurai riding shotgun, he's ready for the silicon-quick, bleakly prophetic adventure that upped the ante on an entire genre of fiction.]]> 278 William Gibson Tom 5 4.01 1984 Neuromancer (Sprawl, #1)
author: William Gibson
name: Tom
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1984
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2018/04/19
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Full Blooded (Jessica McClain, #1)]]> 11823873
After living under the radar for the last twenty-six years, Jessica is thrust unexpectedly into her first change, a full ten years late. She wakes up and finds she’s in the middle of a storm. Now that she’s become the only female full-blooded werewolf in town, the supernatural world is already clamoring to take a bite out of her and her new Pack must rise up and protect her.

But not everyone is on board. The werewolf Rights of Laws is missing text and the superstitious werewolves think that Jessica means an end to their race. It doesn’t help when Jessica begins to realize she’s more. She can change partway and hold her form, and speak directly to her wolf. But the biggest complication by far is that her alpha father can't control her like he can the rest of his wolves.

When a mercenary who’s been hired by the vampires shows up to extract information about the newly turned werewolf only days after her change, they find themselves smack in the middle of a war and there's no choice but to run together. When it’s up to Jessica to negotiate her release against her father’s direct orders, she chooses to take an offer for help instead. In exchange, Jessica must now swear an oath she may end up repaying with her life.]]> 352 Amanda Carlson 0316205206 Tom 0 to-read 3.72 2012 Full Blooded (Jessica McClain, #1)
author: Amanda Carlson
name: Tom
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/04/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Mindplayers 304813 288 Pat Cadigan Tom 0 to-read 3.79 1987 Mindplayers
author: Pat Cadigan
name: Tom
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/04/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Metrophage 66586 256 Richard Kadrey 1888869186 Tom 0 to-read 3.48 1988 Metrophage
author: Richard Kadrey
name: Tom
average rating: 3.48
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/04/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Vacuum Flowers 243854 248 Michael Swanwick 0441858767 Tom 0 to-read 3.77 1987 Vacuum Flowers
author: Michael Swanwick
name: Tom
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2018/04/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Scoundrels (Scoundrels, #1) 34610627
The Majors recount scandalous tales of murder on Everest, panda hunting with the last Chinese Emperor and the theft of a uniquely sordid item from the Nazi fortress Klunghammer. But why have they been under house arrest for over thirty years?

Historically accurate, morally questionable and absolutely true, Scoundrels is one part Flashman to two parts Mordecai Trilogy, stirred vigorously and dashed in the face of Ian Fleming. It will leave you with a nasty taste in your mouth and horribly hungover.]]> 280 Victor Cornwall Tom 4 4.01 2017 Scoundrels (Scoundrels, #1)
author: Victor Cornwall
name: Tom
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2018/01/14
shelves:
review:
I laughed all the way through at this. Very British sitcom classic type humour with lots of history in-jokes. I particularly liked the exotic named cigarette brands. I would have given it 5 stars except the gross out level the humour occasionally reaches will not be for everyone.
]]> The Last Projector 23200517 530 David James Keaton Tom 3 3.98 2014 The Last Projector
author: David James Keaton
name: Tom
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2017/11/01
date added: 2017/11/01
shelves:
review:

]]> Jane Steele 25868918 Reader, I murdered him.

A Gothic retelling of Jane Eyre.

Like the heroine of the novel she adores, Jane Steele suffers cruelly at the hands of her aunt and schoolmaster. And like Jane Eyre, they call her wicked - but in her case, she fears the accusation is true. When she flees, she leaves behind the corpses of her tormentors.

A fugitive navigating London's underbelly, Jane rights wrongs on behalf of the have-nots whilst avoiding the noose. Until an advertisement catches her eye. Her aunt has died and the new master at Highgate House, Mr Thornfield, seeks a governess. Anxious to know if she is Highgate's true heir, Jane takes the position and is soon caught up in the household's strange spell. When she falls in love with the mysterious Charles Thornfield, she faces a terrible dilemma: can she possess him - body, soul and secrets - and what if he discovers her murderous past?]]> 432 Lyndsay Faye 1472217551 Tom 0 to-read 3.86 2016 Jane Steele
author: Lyndsay Faye
name: Tom
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/10/29
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Enemy (The Enemy, #1) 8540357 The Enemy is the first in a jaw-dropping zombie horror series for teens. Everyone over the age of fourteen has succumbed to a deadly zombie virus and now the kids must keep themselves alive.

When the sickness came, every parent, police officer, politician - every adult fell ill. The lucky ones died. The others are crazed, confused and hungry.

Only children under fourteen remain, and they're fighting to survive.

Now there are rumours of a safe place to hide. And so a gang of children begin their quest across London, where all through the city - down alleyways, in deserted houses, underground - the grown-ups lie in wait.

But can they make it there - alive?

This edition contains the first chapter of the second book The Dead.]]> 407 Charlie Higson 0141325011 Tom 0 to-read 4.16 2009 The Enemy (The Enemy, #1)
author: Charlie Higson
name: Tom
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/10/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Outpost (Razorland, #2) 10193062 Deuce’s whole world has changed.

Down below, she was considered an adult. Now, topside in a town called Salvation, she’s a brat in need of training in the eyes of the townsfolk. She doesn't fit in with the other girls: Deuce only knows how to fight.

To make matters worse, her Hunter partner, Fade, keeps Deuce at a distance. Her feelings for Fade haven’t changed, but he seems not to want her around anymore. Confused and lonely, she starts looking for a way out.

Deuce signs up to serve in the summer patrols—those who make sure the planters can work the fields without danger. It should be routine, but things have been changing on the surface, just as they did below ground. The Freaks have grown smarter. They’re watching. Waiting. Planning. The monsters don’t intend to let Salvation survive, and it may take a girl like Deuce to turn back the tide.]]> 317 Ann Aguirre 0312650094 Tom 0 to-read 4.10 2012 Outpost (Razorland, #2)
author: Ann Aguirre
name: Tom
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/10/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Mall (Downside, #1) 9760701
Rhoda is a junkie whose babysitting charge ran off while she was scoring cocaine. She hates her life. Rhoda bullies Dan into helping her search, but as they explore the neon-lit corridors behind the mall, disturbing text messages lure them into the bowels of the building, where old mannequins are stored in grave-like piles and raw sewage drips off the ceiling. The only escape is down.

Plummeting into the earth in a disused service lift playing head-splitting Musak, Dan and Rhoda enter a sinister underworld that mirrors their worst fears. They finally escape, but something feels different. Why are the shoppers all pumped full of silicone? Why are the shop assistants chained to their counters? And why is a café called McColon’s selling lumps of bleeding meat?

Just when they think they’ve made it back to the mall, they realize the nightmare has only just begun...]]> 312 S.L. Grey 0857890425 Tom 0 to-read 3.59 2011 The Mall (Downside, #1)
author: S.L. Grey
name: Tom
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/10/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Unclean Spirits 15802893
Five years ago, it all went wrong for Cason Cole. He lost his wife and son, lost everything, and was bound into service to a man who chews up human lives and spits them out, a predator who holds nothing dear and respects no law. Now, as the man he both loves and hates lies dying at his feet, the sounds of the explosion still ringing in his ears, Cason is finally free. The gods and goddesses are real. A polytheistic pantheon—a tangle of divine hierarchies—once kept the world at an arm’s length, warring with one another for mankind’s belief and devotion. It was a grim and bloody balance, but a balance just the same. When one god triumphed, driving all other gods out of Heaven, it was back to the bad old days: cults and sycophants, and the terrible retribution the gods visit on those who spite them. None of which is going to stop Cason from getting back what’s his...]]> 320 Chuck Wendig 1781080968 Tom 0 to-read 3.61 2013 Unclean Spirits
author: Chuck Wendig
name: Tom
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/10/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> DOUBLE DUCE 160145 172 Aaron Cometbus 086719586X Tom 0 to-read 4.25 2003 DOUBLE DUCE
author: Aaron Cometbus
name: Tom
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/10/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> We Are All Completely Fine 20344877
Stan became a minor celebrity after being partially eaten by cannibals. Barbara is haunted by the messages carved upon her bones. Greta may or may not be a mass-murdering arsonist. And for some reason, Martin never takes off his sunglasses.

Unsurprisingly, no one believes their horrific tales until they are sought out by psychotherapist Dr. Jan Sayer. What happens when these likely-insane outcasts join a support group? Together they must discover which monsters they face are within and which are lurking in plain sight.
]]> 182 Daryl Gregory 1616961716 Tom 0 to-read 3.74 2014 We Are All Completely Fine
author: Daryl Gregory
name: Tom
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/10/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Last Days 4309446 Last Days is a down-the-rabbit-hole detective novel set in an underground religious cult. The story follows Kline, a brutally dismembered detective forcibly recruited to solve a murder inside the cult. As Kline becomes more deeply involved with the group, he begins to realize the stakes are higher than he previously thought. Attempting to find his way through a maze of lies, threats, and misinformation, Kline discovers that his survival depends on an act of sheer will.

Last Days was first published in 2003 as a limited edition novella titled The Brotherhood of Mutilation. Its success led Evenson to expand the story into a full-length novel. In doing so, he has created a work that’s disturbing, deeply satisfying, and completely original.]]> 201 Brian Evenson 0980226007 Tom 0 to-read 3.71 2009 Last Days
author: Brian Evenson
name: Tom
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/10/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Night Film 18770398
For McGrath, another death connected to this seemingly cursed family dynasty seems more than just a coincidence. Though much has been written about Cordova's dark and unsettling films, very little is known about the man himself.

Driven by revenge, curiosity, and a need for the truth, McGrath, with the aid of two strangers, is drawn deeper and deeper into Cordova's eerie, hypnotic world. The last time he got close to exposing the director, McGrath lost his marriage and his career. This time he might lose even more.]]> 640 Marisha Pessl 0812979788 Tom 0 to-read 3.78 2013 Night Film
author: Marisha Pessl
name: Tom
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/10/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies]]> 17839778
Table of Contents
Introduction: Reading Langan, by Jeffrey Ford
Kids
How the Day Runs Down
Technicolor
The Wide, Carnivorous Sky
City of the Dog
The Shallows
The Revel
June, 1987. Hitchhiking. Mr. Norris.
Mother of Stone
Story Notes
Afterword: Note Found in a Glenfiddich Bottle, by Laird Barron
Acknowledgments]]> 322 John Langan 1614980543 Tom 5 4.05 2013 The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies
author: John Langan
name: Tom
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/10/24
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review:

]]> Scythe (Arc of a Scythe, #1) 28954189 Thou shalt kill.

A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery. Humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now scythes are the only ones who can end life—and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control.

Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe—a role that neither wants. These teens must master the “art� of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.

An alternate cover edition of ISBN: 9781442472426]]> 435 Neal Shusterman Tom 0 to-read 4.32 2016 Scythe (Arc of a Scythe, #1)
author: Neal Shusterman
name: Tom
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/09/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Noumenon (Noumenon, #1) 32600718
In 2088, humankind is at last ready to explore beyond Earth’s solar system. But one uncertainty remains: Where do we go?

Astrophysicist Reggie Straifer has an idea. He’s discovered an anomalous star that appears to defy the laws of physics, and proposes the creation of a deep-space mission to find out whether the star is a weird natural phenomenon, or something manufactured.

The journey will take eons. In order to maintain the genetic talent of the original crew, humankind’s greatest ambition—to explore the furthest reaches of the galaxy—is undertaken by clones. But a clone is not a perfect copy, and each new generation has its own quirks, desires, and neuroses. As the centuries fly by, the society living aboard the nine ships (designated “Convoy Seven�) changes and evolves, but their mission remains the same: to reach Reggie’s mysterious star and explore its origins—and implications.

A mosaic novel of discovery, Noumenon—in a series of vignettes—examines the dedication, adventure, growth, and fear of having your entire world consist of nine ships in the vacuum of space. The men and women, and even the AI, must learn to work and live together in harmony, as their original DNA is continuously replicated and they are born again and again into a thousand new lives. With the stars their home and the unknown their destination, they are on a voyage of many lifetimes—an odyssey to understand what lies beyond the limits of human knowledge and imagination.]]> 420 Marina J. Lostetter 0062497847 Tom 0 to-read 3.71 2017 Noumenon (Noumenon, #1)
author: Marina J. Lostetter
name: Tom
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/08/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[God's War (Bel Dame Apocrypha, #1)]]> 9359818 Nyx is a bel dame, a bounty hunter paid to collect the heads of deserters � by almost any means necessary.

‘Almost� proved to be the problem.

Cast out and imprisoned for breaking one rule too many, Nyx and her crew of mercenaries are all about the money. But when a dubious government deal with an alien emissary goes awry, her name is at the top of the list for a covert recovery.

While the centuries-long war rages on only one thing is certain: the world’s best chance for peace rests in the hands of its most ruthless killers. . .]]> 288 Kameron Hurley 159780214X Tom 4 to-read 3.67 2011 God's War (Bel Dame Apocrypha, #1)
author: Kameron Hurley
name: Tom
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/08/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Child of Vengeance (Musashi Miyamoto, #1)]]> 15778328
Japan in the late 16th century was a land in turmoil. Lords of the great clans schemed against each other, served by aristocratic samurai bound to them by a rigid code of honor. Bennosuke is a high-born but lonely teenager living in his ancestral village. His mother died when he was a young boy, and his powerful warrior father Munisai has abandoned him for a life of service to his Lord, Shinmei. Bennosuke has been raised by his uncle Dorinbo, a monk who urges the boy to forgo the violence of the samurai and embrace the contemplative life. But Bennosuke worships his absent father, and when Munisai returns, gravely injured, Bennosuke is forced to confront truths about his family's history and his own place in it. These revelations soon guide him down the samurai's path—awash with blood, bravery, and vengeance. His journey will culminate in the epochal battle of Sekigahara—in which Bennosuke will first proclaim his name as Mushashi Miyamoto. This rich and absorbing epic explores the complexities of one young man's quest while capturing a crucial turning point in Japanese history with visceral mastery, sharp psychological insight and tremendous narrative momentum.]]> 322 David Kirk 0385536631 Tom 0 to-read 3.94 1976 Child of Vengeance (Musashi Miyamoto, #1)
author: David Kirk
name: Tom
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1976
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/05/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Coldest Mile (Cold, #2) 4952988
But first he’ll need a score. Chase thinks he’s found it as a driver for a dysfunctional crime family that’s anything but organized. With the Langans� patriarch dying, the once powerful syndicate may unravel before Chase can rip it off. If he survives the bloodbath to come, he’ll face an even uglier showdown. Because his grandfather Jonah is waiting for him at the coldest family reunion this side of hell.]]> 335 Tom Piccirilli 0553590855 Tom 0 to-read 4.00 2009 The Coldest Mile (Cold, #2)
author: Tom Piccirilli
name: Tom
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/05/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Rumrunners 24034128
Meet the McGraws. They're not criminals. They're outlaws. They have made a living by driving anything and everything for the Stanleys, the criminal family who has been employing them for decades. It's ended with Tucker. He's gone straight, much to the disappointment of his father, Webb.

When Webb vanishes after a job, and with him a truck load of drugs, the Stanleys want their drugs back or their money. With the help from his grandfather, Calvin-the original lead foot-Tucker is about to learn a whole lot about the family business in a crash course that might just get him killed.

Praise for RUMRUNNERS:

“A killer. If you dug Bull Mountain, you’ll love it.”—Brian Panovich, author of Bull Mountain

“The best word to sum up this book is ’FUN�, in capital letters.”—Stuart MacBride, author of The Missing and the Dead

“Buckle up...RUMRUNNERS is a fast and furious read.”—Samuel W. Gailey, author of Deep Winter

“Few contemporary writers do justice to the noir tradition the way Eric Beetner does. Others try to emulate and mimic; Beetner just takes the form and cuts his own jagged, raw and utterly readable path.”—Gar Anthony Haywood, author of Assume Nothing, Cemetery Road and the Aaron Gunner series

“Rumrunners just never lets up. It's a fuel-injected, mile-a-minute thrill ride. I had a blast.”—Grant Jerkins, author of A Very Simple Crime and Done In One]]> 244 Eric Beetner 8293326484 Tom 0 to-read 4.18 2015 Rumrunners
author: Eric Beetner
name: Tom
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/05/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Trapeze (Marian Sutro, #1) 13000865 It's Not for the War.

Marian Sutro would be just another young English woman wondering whom she'll marry and how to find a way to be useful. But World War II has turned everyone's life inside out. Marian happens to be bilingual (her father is English, her mother French) and is recruited by the "Inter-Services Research Bureau" and enrolled in a rigorous, take-no-prisoners espionage training course to aid the French resistance. Or at least that's what Marian thinks at first.

But as she learns more about the risky operation her superiors have in mind for her in occupied Paris, she begins to suspect that it may be a more personal connection that singled her out for assignment. A name from her past, Clement Pelletier, suddenly reappears, forcing Marian to call into question her first love, her dangerous mission, and how far she's willing to go for the cause.]]> 371 Simon Mawer 1590515277 Tom 0 to-read 3.59 2012 Trapeze (Marian Sutro, #1)
author: Simon Mawer
name: Tom
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2017/05/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Witch of Painted Sorrows (Daughters of La Lune, #1)]]> 22608277 New York Times bestselling novelist M. J. Rose creates her most provocative and magical spellbinder yet in this gothic novel set against the lavish spectacle of 1890s Belle Époque Paris.

Sandrine Salome flees New York for her grandmother’s Paris mansion to escape her dangerous husband, but what she finds there is even more menacing. The house, famous for its lavish art collection and elegant salons, is mysteriously closed up. Although her grandmother insists it’s dangerous for Sandrine to visit, she defies her and meets Julien Duplessi, a mesmerizing young architect. Together they explore the hidden night world of Paris, the forbidden occult underground and Sandrine’s deepest desires.

Among the bohemians and the demi-monde, Sandrine discovers her erotic nature as a lover and painter. Then darker influences threaten—her cold and cruel husband is tracking her down and something sinister is taking hold, changing Sandrine, altering her. She’s become possessed by La Lune: A witch, a legend, and a sixteenth-century courtesan, who opens up her life to a darkness that may become a gift or a curse.

This is Sandrine’s “wild night of the soul,� her odyssey in the magnificent city of Paris, of art, love, and witchery.]]> 366 M.J. Rose 147677806X Tom 0 to-read 3.41 2015 The Witch of Painted Sorrows (Daughters of La Lune, #1)
author: M.J. Rose
name: Tom
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/05/05
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]]> Sister Alice 100191 -- Library Journal

Millions of years from now, humanity will be on the brink of self-destruction. The world's great leaders have created an elite group who, by their superior wisdom and abilities, keep the peace, maintain progress, and otherwise safeguard humanity's future. Genetically enhanced, they are the carriers of Earth's greatest talents, a force unlike any in the history of mankind.

For ten million years, the Families dominated the galaxy. But then Alice, a brilliant scientist of the Chamberlain family, took part in an attempt to create a new galaxy. Her experiment unleashed vast forces that the family could not control, causing a catastrophe that killed untold billions of people on many worlds.
Before she was punished for her role in the debacle, Alice visited Ord, a younger Chamberlain. Only he, of all the people in the galaxy, knows what Alice tells him. Her words launch him upon a quest that will take him across the vast reaches of space. He must discover his own true nature, and somehow restore the family honor. Sister Alice is his epic story.]]> 368 Robert Reed 0765341476 Tom 0 to-read 3.78 2003 Sister Alice
author: Robert Reed
name: Tom
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/04/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor, #1)]]> 25895524 The international bestselling author of the Broken Empire and the Red Queen's War trilogies begins a stunning epic fantasy series about a secretive order of holy warriors...

At the Convent of Sweet Mercy, young girls are raised to be killers. In some few children the old bloods show, gifting rare talents that can be honed to deadly or mystic effect. But even the mistresses of sword and shadow don't truly understand what they have purchased when Nona Grey is brought to their halls.

A bloodstained child of nine falsely accused of murder, guilty of worse, Nona is stolen from the shadow of the noose. It takes ten years to educate a Red Sister in the ways of blade and fist, but under Abbess Glass's care there is much more to learn than the arts of death. Among her class Nona finds a new family—and new enemies.

Despite the security and isolation of the convent, Nona's secret and violent past finds her out, drawing with it the tangled politics of a crumbling empire. Her arrival sparks old feuds to life, igniting vicious struggles within the church and even drawing the eye of the emperor himself.

Beneath a dying sun, Nona Grey must master her inner demons, then loose them on those who stand in her way.]]> 467 Mark Lawrence 1101988851 Tom 0 to-read 4.14 2017 Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor, #1)
author: Mark Lawrence
name: Tom
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/03/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[A Cavern of Black Ice (Sword of Shadows, #1)]]> 24249 A Cavern of Black Ice is the first book in J.V. Jones's Sword of Shadow series

As a newborn Ash March was abandoned--left for dead at the foot of a frozen mountain. Found and raised by the Penthero Iss, the mighty Surlord of Spire Vanis, she has always known she is different. Terrible dreams plague her and sometimes in the darkness she hears dread voices from another world. Iss watches her as she grows to womanhood, eager to discover what powers his ward might possess. As his interest quickens, he sends his living blade, Marafice Eye, to guard her night and day.

Raif Sevrance, a young man of Clan Blackhail, also knows he is different, with uncanny abilities that distance him from the clan. But when he and his brother survive an ambush that plunges the entire Northern Territories into war, he yet seeks justice for his own . . . even if means he must forsake clan and kin.

Ash and Raif must learn to master their powers and accept their joint fate if they are to defeat an ancient prophecy and prevent the release of the pure evil known as the End Lords.]]> 769 J.V. Jones 076534551X Tom 0 to-read 3.88 1999 A Cavern of Black Ice (Sword of Shadows, #1)
author: J.V. Jones
name: Tom
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/01/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> Guns of the Dawn 23524779 The first casualty of war is truth . . .

First, Denland's revolutionaries assassinated their king, launching a wave of bloodshed after generations of peace. Next they clashed with Lascanne, their royalist neighbour, pitching war-machines against warlocks in a fiercely fought conflict.

Genteel Emily Marshwic watched as the hostilities stole her family's young men. But then came the call for yet more Lascanne soldiers in a ravaged kingdom with none left to give. Emily must join the ranks of conscripted women and march toward the front lines.

With barely enough training to hold a musket, Emily braves the savage reality of warfare.
But she begins to doubt her country's cause, and those doubts become critical. For her choices will determine her own future and that of two nations locked in battle.]]> 658 Adrian Tchaikovsky 1447272676 Tom 4 4.11 2015 Guns of the Dawn
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Tom
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2015
rating: 4
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date added: 2017/01/24
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]]> The Burning Sky (Halcyon #1) 10148201 Alternate Cover Edition for ASIN B004MDLL9K

Taziri Ohana is an elite airship pilot, though the long hours away from home have taken a toll on her family and she longs for a simpler life. When the Northern Air Corps is wiped out in a catastrophic fire, only Taziri survives to help the marshals pursue the suspects across the skies of Marrakesh. Their investigation reveals a vast conspiracy of deposed aristocrats, wealthy industrialists, and warmongers plotting against the crown. Taziri discovers that her own inventions have been perverted by the conspirators, the cities plunge into violent riots, and their only hope for salvation may be an exiled princess, her swashbuckling escort, and a crippled airship plummeting out of the burning sky.

A note about the text

This is a work of historical fantasy. Some of this world may be familiar to you.

But in this world, Europe never emerged from the last Ice Age and only the southern areas are habitable. North Africa is cool, wet, and fertile. Ancient nations such as the Persian Empire have persisted, though others, such as the Romans, never rose to power. Some of the countries in this world reflect the cultures and attitudes of the Renaissance while others reflect the Industrial Age. Historical figures appear, though they too may be different from the ones you have known.

Don’t expect this world to conform to the history that you know. The people and places are different. The climate and wildlife are different.

Even death is different here.]]> 331 Joseph Robert Lewis Tom 0 to-read 3.52 2011 The Burning Sky (Halcyon #1)
author: Joseph Robert Lewis
name: Tom
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/01/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Blood Song (Raven's Shadow, #1)]]> 13569581 “The Sixth Order wields the sword of justice and smites the enemies of the Faith and the Realm.�

Vaelin Al Sorna was only a child of ten when his father left him at the iron gate of the Sixth Order. The Brothers of the Sixth Order are devoted to battle, and Vaelin will be trained and hardened to the austere, celibate, and dangerous life of a Warrior of the Faith. He has no family now save the Order.

Vaelin’s father was Battle Lord to King Janus, ruler of the unified realm. Vaelin’s rage at being deprived of his birthright and dropped at the doorstep of the Sixth Order like a foundling knows no bounds. He cherishes the memory of his mother, and what he will come to learn of her at the Order will confound him. His father, too, has motives that Vaelin will come to understand. But one truth overpowers all the rest: Vaelin Al Sorna is destined for a future he has yet to comprehend. A future that will alter not only the realm, but the world.]]> 591 Anthony Ryan 1466085665 Tom 4 4.42 2011 Blood Song (Raven's Shadow, #1)
author: Anthony Ryan
name: Tom
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2017/01/22
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]]> Dodgers 25893698
It is the story of a young LA gang member named East, who is sent by his uncle along with some other teenage boys—including East's hothead younger brother—to kill a key witness hiding out in Wisconsin. The journey takes East out of a city he's never left and into an America that is entirely alien to him, ultimately forcing him to grapple with his place in the world and decide what kind of man he wants to become.

Written in stark and unforgettable prose and featuring an array of surprising and memorable characters rendered with empathy and wit, Dodgers heralds the arrival of a major new voice in American fiction.

WINNER OF THE LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE 2017 FOR BEST MYSTERY/THRILLER
WINNER OF THE CWA GOLDSBORO GOLD DAGGER 2016 FOR BEST CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR
WINNER OF THE CWA JOHN CREASEY NEW BLOOD DAGGER 2016 FOR BEST DEBUT CRIME NOVEL
WINNER OF THE MARK TWAIN AMERICAN VOICE IN LITERATURE AWARD
FINALIST FOR THE PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD 2017 FOR DEBUT FICTION
LONGLISTED FOR ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL 2017 FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION
NOMINATED FOR THE EDGAR AWARD 2017 FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL]]> 304 Bill Beverly 1101903732 Tom 5 3.80 2016 Dodgers
author: Bill Beverly
name: Tom
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2017/01/08
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I am floored! so much more than I thought it would be!
]]> Crashed (Junior Bender, #1) 15849502
The star Trey has lined up to do all that’s unwholesome on camera is Thistle Downing, America’s beloved child star, who now lives alone in a drug-induced stupor, destitute and uninsurable. Her starring role will be the scandalous fall-from-grace gossip of rubber-neckers across the country. No wonder Trey needs help keeping the production on track.

Junior knows what that he should do � get Thistle out and find her help � but doing the right thing will land him on the wrong side of LA’s scariest mob boss. With the help of his precocious twelve-year-old daughter, Rina, and his criminal sidekick, Louie the Lost (an ex-getaway driver), Junior has to figure out a miracle solution.]]> 356 Timothy Hallinan 1616952741 Tom 0 to-read 3.74 2012 Crashed (Junior Bender, #1)
author: Timothy Hallinan
name: Tom
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/01/04
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]]> <![CDATA[King Maybe (Junior Bender, #5)]]> 25937722

From the Hardcover edition.]]> 401 Timothy Hallinan 1616954337 Tom 0 to-read 4.03 2016 King Maybe (Junior Bender, #5)
author: Timothy Hallinan
name: Tom
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2017/01/03
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]]> <![CDATA[The Terra-Cotta Dog (Inspector Montalbano, #2)]]> 69343 The Terra-Cotta Dog opens with a mysterious tete-a-tete with a mafioso, some inexplicably abandoned loot from a supermarket heist, and some dying words that lead inspector Montalbano to a secret grotto in a mountainous cave where two young lovers, dead fifty years and still embracing, are watched over by a life-size terra cotta dog. Montalbano's passion to solve this old crime takes him, heedless of personal danger, on a journey through the island's past and into a family's dark heart amid the horrors of World War II.']]> 352 Andrea Camilleri 0142004723 Tom 4 3.95 1996 The Terra-Cotta Dog (Inspector Montalbano, #2)
author: Andrea Camilleri
name: Tom
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1996
rating: 4
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date added: 2016/12/27
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]]> <![CDATA[The Universe Versus Alex Woods]]> 15984268
But when he meets curmudgeonly widower Mr. Peterson, he finds an unlikely friend. Someone who teaches him that you only get one shot at life. That you have to make it count.

So when, aged seventeen, Alex is stopped at customs with 113 grams of marijuana, an urn full of ashes on the front seat, and an entire nation in uproar, he's fairly sure he's done the right thing ...

Introducing a bright young voice destined to charm the world, The Universe Versus Alex Woods is a celebration of curious incidents, astronomy and astrology, the works of Kurt Vonnegut and the unexpected connections that form our world.]]> 407 Gavin Extence Tom 0 to-read 4.09 2013 The Universe Versus Alex Woods
author: Gavin Extence
name: Tom
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2016/11/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Murder on Astor Place (Gaslight Mystery, #1)]]> 686718 278 Victoria Thompson 0425168964 Tom 0 to-read 3.87 1999 Murder on Astor Place (Gaslight Mystery, #1)
author: Victoria Thompson
name: Tom
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/11/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>