We’re about to find out who’s been naughty or nice . . . It’s Christmas season, and a snowstorm has shut down Philadelphia’s airport. Somehow, Navy pilot Sam Merrick has to get to Maine for his best friend’s wedding. Enter the “Santa Brigade,” a group of boisterous oldsters headed to Maine on a bus chartered by their senior center. Only one problem: the group’s director is Sam’s wounded ex-flame, Reba. Their angry yet romantic sparks start melting the snowflakes . . . Next the troupe adds bounty hunter Kevin Wilder, Sam's best friend, who needs a ride to Maine while hand-cuffed to his latest capture, the fiery (yet innocent) Callie Brandt. Then, as the Santa Brigade rolls through the night it picks up ex-pro quarterback Stan Kijewski and forest ranger Dana Freeman, a woman so hot she ought to be declared a fire hazard. So now we have a bus full of cheerfully meddling seniors, three couples battling romantic dilemmas, an ex-NASCAR bus driver who refuses to let the snowbound roads beat her, a stocking full of oddball hitchhikers, and the magic of the holidays, where love waits under the mistletoe on this very special night. Views: 35
Madison Spencer, the liveliest and snarkiest dead girl in the universe, continues the afterlife adventure begun in Chuck Palahniuk’s bestseller Damned . Just as that novel brought us a brilliant Hell that only he could imagine, Doomed is a dark and twisted apocalyptic vision from this provocative storyteller. The bestselling Damned chronicled Madison’s journey across the unspeakable (and really gross ) landscape of the afterlife to confront the Devil himself. But her story isn’t over yet. In a series of electronic dispatches from the Great Beyond, Doomed describes the ultimate showdown between Good and Evil. After a Halloween ritual gone awry, Madison finds herself trapped in Purgatory—or, as mortals like you and I know it, Earth. She can see and hear every detail of the world she left behind, yet she’s invisible to everyone who’s still alive. Not only do people look right through her, they walk right through her as well. The upside is that, no longer subject to physical limitations, she can pass through doors and walls. Her first stop is her parents’ luxurious apartment, where she encounters the ghost of her long-deceased grandmother. For Madison, the encounter triggers memories of the awful summer she spent upstate with Nana Minnie and her grandfather, Papadaddy. As she revisits the painful truth of what transpired over those months (including a disturbing and finally fatal meeting in a rest stop’s fetid men’s room, in which . . . well, never mind), her saga of eternal damnation takes on a new and sinister meaning. Satan has had Madison in his sights from the very beginning: through her and her narcissistic celebrity parents, he plans to engineer an era of eternal damnation. For everyone . Once again, our unconventional but plucky heroine must face her fears and gather her wits for the battle of a lifetime. Dante Alighieri, watch your back; Chuck Palahniuk is gaining on you. Views: 35
In Bad Blood, the second book in the Gibbons and Tozzi thriller series, FBI agents Mike Tozzi and Cuthbert Gibbons get into deep trouble when they investigate a deadly partnership between the Mafia and the Japanese yakuza. Gibbons takes a severe beating from a deranged assassin who believes he's the reincarnation of an ancient samurai, and Tozzi vows revenge. But the sword-wielding madman is itching to turn Tozzi into sushi. The Godfather meets The Seven Samurai spiced with wasabi-strength humor."Explosive…Inspired plotting that just keeps ratcheting up the tension and the comedy!" Kirkus Reviews"Everything a suspense novel should be—a highly credible, tautly paced stunner." Publishers Weekly Views: 35
In a future less than fifty years away, the world is still as we know it. Time continues to tick by. The truth is that it is ticking away. A powerful few know what lies ahead. They are preparing for it. They are trying to protect us. They are setting us on a path from which we can never return. Views: 35
Long-listed for the prestigious Davitt and Ned Kelly Awards for Crime fiction this Amazon Best Seller is a brain-teasing conspiracy thriller for the adventurous reader. 'By the Power of these keys the Head of the Church will be made the Lord of Hell'In late 2012 a cryptic invitation leads a crime novelist to Venice's Island of the Dead. Seventy four years later a similar cryptic invitation brings Grail Historian Otto Rahn to an apartment in Berlin. What awaits him will change his life forever. What ensues is a hunt for Le Serpent Rouge, a notorious book of black magic written by a Pope, a book Himmler wants to add to Hitler's library. But there are others looking for the grimoire. A shadowy circle of men are watching Rahn's every move, and they will stop at nothing to possess the book and the legendary key that unlocks its terrifying power...a power that has the potential to effect the future. The Sixth Key has been described as a three dimensional game of chess with real characters, a time machine that will blow your mind and change the way you see the world and the impulses behind war forever.Review'Chilling, Thrilling, and Willing!' The Canberra Times'It had me hooked from the first page.' - Sisters in Crime'An Addictive Thriller' - Libri Blog'In the tradition of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, Adriana Koulias weaves a tale of esoteric intrigue in The Sixth Key.' - The Cairns Post'Koulias weaves an elegant plot that keeps you guessing until the last page.'
- Good Reading Magazine'Ms Koulias captures the attention of the reader with plot twists and good narrative tension. It is unpredictable to the very end.' - Letteratura & Cinema'...Richly dense, well constructed novel, with a dynamism and excitement that make the pages typically cinematic, sliding like the frames of an Indiana Jones film.' - Libri di Scriveri From the AuthorAUTHOR INTERVIEW:Who is your target audience?AK: I write books that I would read myself and I like complex mysteries, multi layered thrillers that are textured; books that need your full attention. My goal is to engage the reader and to have him or her participate in the imaginative process. I also love playing around with language and usually try to tailor it to the era of my story. So, I guess this means that those who are after a fast read don't usually 'get' my books. I suppose I write for people who like milieu and atmosphere, who love language and historical mysteries tinged with the supernatural and religious.What do you hope your readers will get out of your booksAK: I hope that at the end of reading my books my readers will have questions about the world we live in, about history and what we consider truth and fiction, because they have been given a different perspective.Is there more coming?AK: I am writing the fifth book in the series right now, making my Quartet a Quintet: Ghost Club and the Devil's Alphabet is a story set in London in 1888 around two real historical characters George Albert Smith (the father of UK Cinema) and Douglas Blackburn (who invented short hand). They were both entertainers on the Brighton stage and are involved with mesmerism and hypnotism. They become entangled in a web of intrigue surrounding the death of a mutual friend when they stumbled unwittingly on a strange club that appears to be involved in the Jack the Ripper Murders. I'm having a lot of fun writing it!What makes your books unique/outstanding?AK: They are a series but they can be read in any order because they are only loosely woven together and so each book can stand alone. They interconnect like puzzle pieces. What is your writing process?AK: I work a 10 hour day. I have a rough sketch of what I'm going to write, the themes and characters and the plot and then I just write. After that I do a lot of editing and I end up with a multitude of drafts which eventually I hone into a book. I guess my books are narrative driven and that means I'm often surprised to find out things about my characters that I didn't know! How do you cope with criticism?AK: Well, that is very hard because we all love our work to be loved, but in truth it is unavoidable and it is even something you should be proud of! Yes! As writers we create concepts that may not fit with the concepts already living in the readers for various reasons. What writers should keep in mind is that if writing is to develop as an art then popularity can't be the focus. Writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Herman Hesse were ahead of their times and some of their books were terribly unpopular until the readers caught up with their work and then they were touted as geniuses. The truth is by the time a book becomes popular and is praised universally it is already outdated. That isn't to say that popularity isn't a great byproduct and a consolation! But it should not be the main focus of writing in my view. When I see a criticism that is very emotive, I realise that at least I have touched something in that person because I have been frustrated with a book myself, which many years later I have picked up and have found life changing! It is all in the standpoint. In fact, my favourite quote, given to me recently by a friend is from Lessing's introduction to "The Golden Notebook": Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty." I do believe that to be true. If a book bores you in your 40s and 50s you might have to wait until your next life! :) Views: 35
They called it the Thorn Hill Massacre—the brutal attack on a once-thriving Weir community. Though Jonah Kinlock lived through it, he did not emerge unscathed: like the other survivors, Jonah possesses unique magical gifts that set him apart from members of the mainline guilds. At seventeen, Jonah has become the deadliest assassin in Nightshade, a global network that hunts the undead. He is being groomed to succeed Gabriel Mandrake, the sorcerer, philanthropist, and ruthless music promoter who established the Thorn Hill Foundation, the public face of Nightshade. More and more, Jonah’s at odds with Gabriel’s tactics and choice of targets. Desperate to help his dying brother Kenzie, Jonah opens doors that Gabriel prefers to keep closed. Emma Claire Greenwood grew up worlds away, raised by a grandfather who taught her music rather than magic. An unschooled wild child, she runs the streets until the night she finds her grandfather dying, gripping a note warning Emma that she might be in danger. The clue he leaves behind leads Emma into Jonah’s life—and a shared legacy of secrets and lingering questions. Was Thorn Hill really a peaceful commune? Or was it, as the Wizard Guild claims, a hotbed of underguild terrorists? The Wizards’ suspicions grow when members of the mainline guilds start turning up dead. They blame Madison Moss and the Interguild Council, threatening the fragile peace brokered at Trinity. Racing against time, Jonah and Emma work to uncover the truth about Thorn Hill, amid growing suspicion that whoever planned the Thorn Hill Massacre might strike again. Views: 35
Fourteen-year-old Allison O'Brian has never known what it's like to have a real family. She knows nothing about her father, and her mother is a glamorous movie star who has little time for her. But when Allison stumbles upon a long-lost letter, she learns there is more to her past than meets the eye, and she embarks on an adventure to find the love of a family she has always dreamed about.Beloved author Melody Carlson shares a story of adventure that will take readers from coast to coast in post-WWII America. These two 2-in-1 volumes give girls ages 9-12 Allison's entire exciting story. Views: 34
Louise Erdrich's The Master Butchers Singing Club is a powerfully told story of love, death, redemption, and resurrection. After German soldier Fidelis Waldvogel returns home from World War I to marry his best friend's pregnant widow, he packs up his father's butcher knives and sets sail for America. He settles in Argus, North Dakota, where he sets up a meat shop with his wife Eva, who quickly befriends the struggling yet resourceful Delphine Watzka. Delphine, who runs a vaudeville show with her balancing partner Cyprian Lazarre, has returned home to Argus to care for her alcoholic father. While most of this emotionally rich novel focuses on the changing landscape of small-town life as seen through Delphine and Fidelis's eyes, Erdrich does a masterful job of illuminating hidden dramas through her secondary characters. Erdrich's portrayal of these various townsfolk, including members of the Master Butchers Singing Club, truly shows off her storytelling talent. Her ability to infuse each character with a distinct and multifaceted personality makes this novel an intimate and thought-provoking adventure. --Gisele Toueg Views: 34
