A man falls dead in the street in front of her, with a note clutched in his hand. But before she can rendezvous with the major, she witnesses an unnatural death. In his usual infuriating way, the Major has left her task as vague and mysterious as possible.Įllie, ever-ready to aid her country, heads north, her safecracking tools in tow. She is to travel under an assumed identity to the port city of Sunderland and there await further instructions. “Ellie is a smart and gutsy new heroine.” -Ann Lee HuberĪs the Blitz continues to ravage London, Ellie McDonnell-formerly a safecracking thief, but currently determined to stay on the straight and narrow to help her country-is approached by British Intelligence officer Major Ramsey with a new assignment. The third in the Electra McDonnell series from Edgar-nominated author Ashley Weaver, Playing It Safe is a delightful World War II mystery filled with spies, murder, romance, and wit.
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Dick Francis’s Writing WorkĪfter one too many injuries on the field, Dick Francis was forced to retire from the world of professional horse racing, and so he turned his attention to his other passion in life writing. This physical toll is reflected in his work, as many of the jockeys in Francis’s novels also suffer similar injuries during their fictional careers. But his life as a jockey came at a cost, and he suffered numerous broken bones and internal organ damage during this time. He went on to win more than three hundred and fifty British National Hunt races and became a national celebrity as a champion jockey.įrancis reached the height of his riding career during the 1950s when he served as the royal jockey to Queen Elizabeth II and the Queen Mother. But when the war ended, he returned to Britain to continue his true passion for horse racing, and his career quickly skyrocketed. As a child, he always knew he wanted to become a famous jockey one day, and that’s exactly what he did.īy the time he was 18 years old, he was already professionally riding and training horses, but before he could make a name for himself in the equestrian world, the Second World War broke out, and he enlisted in the Royal Air Force.ĭuring his six years of service, Francis became an elite fighter pilot and spent much of his time in Africa. Dick Francis was born in 1920 in Pembrokeshire, Wales. It is a less dramatic work, and yet there are small moments of drama – as this is the story of a family, and there is some drama in every family. In a way The Parasites is like none of those. I like the chilling, unsettling nature of her shorter fiction, the historical novels like The House on the Strand, the gothic drama of Rebecca, and the slower paced novels with a strong sense of place like The Flight of the Falcon. My reading has inadvertently led me to explore different sides of the writing of Daphne du Maurier and I have found I like it all. Again, it is quite different to the other two books of hers I have just read, and different again to those I read last year. My third read for #DDMreadingweek was Daphne du Maurier’s 1949 novel The Parasites which is considered to be fairly autobiographical. To order a copy for £8.49 (RRP £9.99) go to or call 03. The Hidden Life of Trees – What they Feel, How they Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World is published by Harper Collins. Wohlleben’s book will change your view of the wooded world. Trees are, for instance, “social beings”, communicating with each other through their roots, thanks to the fungal “ wood wide web” that permeates the forest soil, even sharing nutrients in hard times. Wohlleben’s aim is to let us see the trees and forests around us not just as “lumber factories” but as wondrous organisms, as complex as any animal. He starts with wise words for those entering a forest: “Slow down, breathe deep and look around.” Not only is the air cleaner under trees, as their leaves filter out harmful pollutants, but pine forests release defensive compounds that kill germs: “Trees disinfect their surroundings.” Trees also release oxygen, so a walk in the woods is “like taking a shower in oxygen”. Wohlleben draws on decades of experience as a forester in Germany’s Eifel mountains for this eye-opening book. One of the world’s most venerable trees is a spruce in Sweden that is 9,500 years old. A ccording to Peter Wohlleben, we fail to understand trees because “they live on a different time scale” from us. I think in my review of the first volume I said that it reminds me of Blade Runner and I, Robot and a couple of other things. Quite some exciting stuff.Īs for the artwork, I still very much like the style of that manga. And then there’s also the usual exploring, some interesting reveal towards the end, and also one moment that made my heart stop. There’s a lot of fighting in this volume. Kyrii and Cibo, still in search of the Net Terminal Gene, first manage to get some answers, then get into trouble, make new friends, get into more trouble, fight hard to survive, ideally manage to do that, and then hopefully get some more answers. With a better understanding of the worldbuilding I was finally able to fully immerse myself in the plot. Some chapters, towards the end especially, are very good. The reader has to do a lot less (guess)work compared to the previous volume. The characters are actually having a couple of conversations now that enhance comprehension of the world, of the several factions in it, and of their respective motivations. This second volume is a huge step forward in terms of storytelling. The De la Garza family is anything but a cohesive, lovey-dovey unit. (We joke.) But seriously, there are a lot of deeper issues going on beneath the surface level of yummy food and caliente romances. We all know how much Americans love their books-turned-movies ( Pride and Prejudice, Twilight, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, etc.), and we have a feeling that the steamy sex scenes enticed a large amount of readers and viewers.īut, hey, it's not all about sex. Like Water for Chocolate was originally published in 1990 in Spanish and was later made into a film and translated into English, becoming a national bestseller. Esquivel's biological and culinary roots are distinctly Mexican. What do you get when you mix the Mexican Revolution, feminism, family drama, adultery, secret forbidden loves, magical realism, mulatto babies, and aphrodisiac heavy recipes? A complex, steaming hunk of a novel from screenwriter-turned-novelist Laura Esquivel. But before she can explain that fact to him, a video of the heroic rescue goes viral. When big, brooding security guard Zafir Ansari rescues Dani from a workplace fire drill gone wrong, it's an obvious sign: PhD student Dani and former rugby player Zaf are destined to sleep together. So Dani asks the universe for the perfect friend-with-benefits - someone who knows the score and knows their way around the bedroom. Romantic partners, whatever their gender, are a distraction at best and a drain at worst. But romance? Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt. USA Today best-selling author Talia Hibbert returns with another charming romantic comedy about a young woman who agrees to fake date her friend after a video of him "rescuing" her from their office building goes viral.ĭanika Brown knows what she wants: professional success, academic renown, and an occasional roll in the hay to relieve all that career-driven tension. One of Oprah Magazine 's 21 Romance Novels That Are Set to Be the Best of 2020 Westwood introduces the reader to the world of Gerard Challis, high ranking civil servant and experimental playwright, viewed through the adoring gaze of young teacher Margaret Steggles. Thanks to the efforts of writer Lynne Truss, Westwood enjoyed a revival in the form of a radio adaptation and was subsequently reissued by Vintage Classics in 2011. However, like her other twenty-five novels, Westwood was completely eclipsed by this early success and remained out of print for many years. The popular and financial success of Cold Comfort Farm, published that year, had allowed her to give up her first career in journalism. When Westwood was published, Gibbons had already been writing fiction full-time since 1932. As a local resident, Gibbons was well-placed to satirise the posturing and pretensions of the artistic types she draws her bead on in the novel. Stella Gibbons’s Westwood portrays life and manners in Highgate and Hampstead during the Second World War. And yeah the name for white man's purposes is an ancestor of white ancestors named William Trogdon. I'd be a better man if I had it the other way around, but it didn't work out that way. William Least Heat Moon More white than Osage. William Least Heat Moon Part, part Osage. William Least - why perhaps a word about the name itself because you're taken with names of little towns anyway. Atlantic Little Brown the publishers, and William Least Heat Moon is my guest, and his reflections on this travel and his book. Discovery not simply of the land itself, but discovery of the nature of its people, who come in all shapes and sizes. It's travels in his van, which he calls ghost dancing across the country in his way and not the superhighways, but the side roads, and it's a book of discovery. It's the book itself, and the adventures of its author and its traveler, William Least Heat Moon. An excerpt appeared in "Atlantic" recently and it's been receiving rave reviews. Studs Terkel Robert Penn Warren described a book, the book "Blue Highways" by William Least Heat Moon, as a masterpiece, and I finished reading it, and to Robert Penn Warren's conclusion, his observation, I say "Amen." Now how do you describe this book, "Blue Highways" of which you no doubt have read. Christie doesn’t mention the couple in her autobiography, and I don’t know to which “justice” she refers! The book was first published in the UK in eight abridged instalments in Woman’s Mirror magazine in September and October 1961, and in the US a condensed version of the novel appeared in the April 1962 issue of the Ladies Home Journal. She married Lt-Cdr John White, and their son Anthony is the current owner of the Flete estate. Helen Mildmay was the heiress to Flete Manor, in Devon, who set about creating beautiful gardens on the estate which she inherited following the death of her brother. The book is dedicated “to John and Helen Mildmay White with many thanks for the opportunity given me to see justice done”. As usual, if you haven’t read the book yet, don’t worry, as always, I promise not to reveal whodunit! And what connection can an old converted pub, The Pale Horse, have with these deaths? With occasional support from his old friend Mrs Oliver, and encouragement from the resourceful and charming young Ginger, he’s able to assist Inspector Lejeune to work out exactly what’s happening – although the final revelation is just as much a surprise to Easterbrook as it is to the reader. In which historian and writer Mark Easterbrook witnesses a fight between two girls in a coffee bar – which leads him into a mystic underworld of seances, black magic and the surprise deaths of unwanted relatives. |