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Sep 19, 2011

A book in the hand...

So many people have been on my case recently about my lack of an e-reader.  Regular readers of this blog know that hubby has my permission to bash me over the head with said device if he ever sees me using one.  A friend - who shall remain nameless - teased me that she has all her text books, all her mills and boon novels, and all her outlines in the palm of her hand.  I responded with the following.

I was nineteen and on a youth hostelling trip around Europe.  We were crossing from Austria into Switzerland by train and as is my habit the book I bought to read in Austria had just been donated to the Vienna hostel's library and another one bought at the station, The Eiger Sanction by Trevanian - no brainer really.  At the Austraian/Swiss border immigration hopped on to check our papers and having given the guy my passport I went back to my book.  He smirked at me as he gave the passport back and I thought he was being friendly until I put my book down.  Emblazoned across the back of it was PLENTY OF ACTION, PLENTY OF SEX in really big letters.  I'll never forget that trip because of that book.

Also I take one book and come back with another.  I buy according to country - I've discovered many new titles that way. Angelology by Daniella Trussoni being a prime example. 

I have been known to leave a book in the seat back pocket on a plane or train if it doesn't grab me.  The book jacket tells you something about the person reading it.  Try getting that from your e-reader.

Upsetting the balance

From time to time the amount I write overshadows the amount I read or vice versa.  It doesn't help that this is the busiest I've been for ages so getting the time to do either has been hard to come by.  Have a meeting with my editor this week - and I managed to revise a full two pages of Tball yesterday!  Couple of books I should mention that passed me by at the arc stage.  The Night Circus by Ellen Morgernstern and Headhunter by Jo Nesbo.  Also read Sister by Rosamund Lupton which is a modern day gothic with a stunner of a twist.  On the list this week Hell and Gone by Duane Swierszynski - worth buying for the cover alone - which you can't say about an e-book.  Finish Dracula for book club - and more revisions.

Sep 7, 2011

RIP Noah Boyd

From this morning's Shelf Awareness

Obituary Note: Paul Lindsay aka Noah Boyd

Paul Lindsay, who wrote seven novels as Noah Boyd, died Thursday night. He was 68 and had battled blood cancer since 2005.

Lindsay was a Marine Corps platoon commander in Vietnam, where he was awarded two Purple Hearts and the Silver Star for Bravery. He was then an FBI agent in Detroit for more than 20 years. His novels include Agent X, The Bricklayer and Last Chance to Die. The Bricklayer is being made into a movie.

His family wrote that Lindsay "thought of himself as a literary grifter, someone who, in his own words, 'appeals to a publisher's implicit need for profit rather than producing something of literary merit.' "

He once wrote: "Real writers care far more about publishing what they create than the number of commas in their advances. Fortunately, I have never been cursed with that kind of character. So, for a literary con man, an incurable disease is an opportunity, one that has little choice but to exploit."

Sep 6, 2011

Gripped by Dead Man's Grip

Dead Man's Grip by Peter James arrived in my box last week and I didn't look at it until this morning and then only in a cursory, 'lets read the first couple of pages and decide' kind of a way.  The book isn't out until December and I'm not 50 pages in yet but I'm hooked.  One of the big reasons is that Peter James has a detective series set in Brighton, Sussex - a place I lived and worked and partied in for many years.  Second good reason - a police procedural with an authentic feel.  Third reason, the writing is tight, short chapters, intriguing plot.  This is a series to read from the beginning.  Will be ordering the first book Dead Simple this afternoon.

The old routine

So I'm back to Tuesday and Fridays - workwise. 

Bookwise, I just finished Ice Station Zebra, I'm half-way through To Say Nothing of The Dog by Connie Willis, honestly time travel and chaos theory was never quite so funny.  Simon Toyne's Sanctus is out now but I only just got hold of the arc, if you like Dan Brown et al this is one for you.  Book club pick for October is Dracula, I have to re-read Day of Honey for an event next week and big, big news.  The edit is complete - all 40 chapters of Rollover! 

Sep 1, 2011

All Cry Chaos, Leonard Rosen - September's must-read


American mathematics genius James Fenster has just been blown to bits during a World Trade Organization meeting in Amsterdam and aging Interpol agent Henri Poincaré takes the case.  His wife wants him to retire but Henri has kept his family away from the less savoury aspects of his work for so long that it never entered his head that his recent single-minded apprehension of a war criminal could put all of them in danger.

Henri immerses himself in the Fenster puzzle, finding that Fenster had much in common with Henri’s revered great grandfather but Fenster was only modeling fractals and exploring chaos theory so why are so many people fighting to get hold of his data and would one of them kill him for it?  Against a background of a global countdown by religious crazies trying to hasten the end times, Henri heartsick in more ways than one has a week left on active service and he’s determined to close this case even if it kills him.

The Lantern, Deborah Lawrenson


Nestled in the heart of Provence, Les Genévriers is a run-down but idyllic farm house.  Newly wed Eve falls in love with the place the moment she sees it.  All summer she only has eyes for Dom – the man she calls the best thing that ever happened to her – as they explore the house and grounds and uncover many of its secrets – but not all.  With the passion cooling on their whirlwind romance, Eve starts to look into the history of the house and probe Dom’s reticence to talk about his first wife Rachel and strange things start happening.  Has Dom been here before?  Is the house haunted by a ghost and what is that intoxicating perfume?  Why won’t Dom talk about his first marriage?  Is Eve in danger? Les Genévriers’ rugged beauty veils a terrible secret, one the locals have suspected for decades, one that holds Bénédicte Lincel there still.

Death and the Maiden, Gerald Elias


The New Magini String Quartet appears to be suffering a musical curse, amid flying lawsuits, delays, accidents and no-shows, the members struggle to put together their make-or-break concert, a multi-media laden performance of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden, at Carnegie Hall. 

Daniel Jacobus, renowned blind violin teacher and amateur sleuth is feeling even more curmudgeonly than usual.  He gets pulled into the quartet’s misfortunes by his concern for its newest member, his former student second violinist Yumi Shinagawa, but Yumi is keeping some secrets of her own.

With help from Yumi, cellist Nathaniel Williams and Trotsky (because he can’t runsky) the bulldog Jacobus starts poking his nose in.  Among his suspects, a awol first violinist, a litigious Englishman, the Soviet refugees who made up the original Magini Quartet, a Russian who ‘collects’ rare violins and a music fan with a body odour problem who may be lying dead on the streets of Lima, Peru.

On opening night Death could be visiting the entire quartet, including Jacobus.

New for September

Enjoy.

Currently reading arcs of Sanctus and The Infernals.  Five chapters to go on the edit for my book.  It's all coming together.