Paula Longhurst's Blog, page 12

Man In The Microwave Oven, Susan Cox

Six months after the events of Man on the Washing Machine, Theo Bogart is doing the long-distance relationship thing with Ben and settling into her San Francisco community; so it's a shock  when a blackmailer threatens to expose her true identity and promptly meets a sticky end.

 Theo and the other residents become suspects and days later a mysterious foreigner shows up at Theo’s shop looking for her Grandfather, causing all manner of family secrets to come tumbling out of the closet along with another body.

 With those she loves now at risk, Theo is determined to find a connection between the victims. Is it espionage, embezzlement, love, real estate, wine, wimples? And could this put her in the killer’s sights?

Another corona update

The last post about the bookstore was about us being inundated with orders well then Mother Nature threw us a curveball.

Utah gets canyon winds every once in a while I think the last time was 2011, anyway they sound lovely don't they?

So around Sept 8th we had canyon winds overnight and the reality is that the wind funnels through the canyons which speeds it up so that it comes out the mouth of the canyons at under hurricane force but still strong enough to do damage. We clocked gusts of 110 miles an hour, that's CAT1 hurricane strength! The old growth trees in Utah were uprooted, trees fell on our neighbour's houses and knocked out the power at TKE and lots of other local homes and businesses in the Sugarhouse area. Meanwhile the orders continued to pour in to the store because the internet still works if you've got power and lots of people in Utah and around the country didn't lose theirs. 

Cut to four days later, the power was restored and our small band of staff rolled up our sleeves and got to work. We've been very honest, telling customers that their orders might be delayed and they have been wonderful and the best news is that we are getting caught up because staff members are working on orders and paperwork that would normally done in-store at home on their days off. It's a bit Heath-Robinson but it appears to be working. And now back to more paperwork..... 

Searcher, Tana French

 This is the standalone I've been waiting for!

 Not long after Cal Hooper moves to a picturesque village in the west of Ireland he gets a visitor. A young kid, obviously local. Though he doesn’t know the boy, the kid knows about him; the village telegraph has seen to that. An in-commer, especially an American is going to raise some eyebrows and Carl’s a divorced ex-cop. The kid wants help finding a runaway sibling and Cal agrees to poke around but this new community is tight-knit and tugging on one string could unravel his new life before it even begins.

One by One, Ruth Ware

 Snoop is an app, a very profitable one and the major shareholders are holding a corporate retreat high in the French alps.  Cue backstabbing of Shakespearean proportions and that’s before the stage 5 natural disaster. Being trapped in a luxurious chalet with plenty of food just waiting to be rescued doesn’t sound so bad; except there’s a killer amongst the group, a blizzard raging outside and civility is starting to fray. No one is getting out of this unscathed-not even the staff.

I always say that the Ware's newest book is the best one yet and this is no exception.

Another Corona Update

 We are working so hard! 

Since my last update on the bookstore we've lost several more staff - they're teachers so they are back teaching and our students have gone back to College and we are keeping our fingers crossed that they all remain healthy. In the last week Salt Lake City moved from orange to yellow (which is lower risk but not no risk) so more stores are opening their doors. Problem is we are tiny, social distancing is pretty much impossible. We are still wearing masks and sanitizing but our orders, especially the internet variety dropped off.

We've had quite a bit of publicity and that may have hurt us because it seemed like we were doing well, even thriving behind our closed doors. 

We've been in bad spots before but this we realized could be the end. We did get the PPP loan but that money is long gone and while congress and the senate take a vacation, all over the country small business are going to the wall. Whilst the corporations can ride this out, small businesses can't.

Anyway, we asked for help and boy did we get it. We're hip deep in internet orders once again for our 'do your Christmas Shopping in September' campaign. It remains to be seen how this shakes out as we only have a certain amount of staff to process these orders but the community is showing their love for our little bookstore and our fingers are flying across our keyboards to send that love back out to our loyal customers.

Eighth Detective, Alex Pavesi

Editor Julia Hart travels to a stunning but remote Greek island. Her firm, Blood Type Books is eager to republish a series of murder mysteries by now retired mathematician Grant McAllister based on his research paper The Permutations of Detective Fiction.
Julia’s job is to go over the stories with him and write a new intro. She finds Grant charming but secretive and his mysteries, like his life, have inconsistencies that Julia finds maddening so she turns to his stories to find the truth, and then she sets a trap...

Execution, S.J Parris

The latest in this series of fascinating historical mysteries featuring former Italian monk Bruno Giordano, the heretic turned spy in the service of England.
Bruno’s self imposed French exile has come to an end. Sent back to England to his old spymaster Walsingham with news of a plot to murder a queen. He is asked to infiltrate the conspiracy posing as a Spanish priest. Walsingham’s past double dealings have come back to haunt him whilst Bruno’s past, in the comely form of Sophia Underhill,  may prove to be his undoing.
N.B. If you haven't read this series start with 'Heresy'

Mesa Verde Victim, Scott Graham

1891 Colorado: Joey leaves the Cannon farm on a secret mission for a foreign archaeologist-never to return.
Present Day Durango: Chuck Bender and his brother in law Clarence become suspects in a friend’s murder on the same day that another colleague summons Chuck to a private dig close to Mesa Verde national park. The team’s findings could rock the archaeological world to its foundations if they live to tell about them.

Shakespeare For Squirrels, Christopher Moore

Moore has taken A Midsummer Night’s Dream and turned it into a wickedly funny bawdy whodunnit.
Pocket is the ‘hero’ of this tale; a professional Fool, who is quite handy with a throwing knife. Cast adrift by his latest lady love, Pocket and co are sunk and almost drowned on the shores of Athens.
Pocket is saved by fairies and then set upon by the watch commander. He must solve the murder of one Robin Goodfellow. At stake, the life of Pocket’s apprentice. Most of the suspects will be very familiar to fans of the bard. The denouement is both bloody and hilarious, and did I mention squirrels?

Devolution, Max Brooks

House sitting at Green Loop - a small exclusive planned community in the Cascades - is just what Kate Holland needs. Fresh air, nature out your window. Mount Rainier in the distance. Yes it’s isolated, supplies come in by drone but it’s also self-sufficient, solar powered and high tech. Kate starts journaling to have fodder for her Skype therapy sessions, while husband Dan hunches over his IPad.
No one at Green Loop expected Mount Rainier to erupt and what it unleashed wasn’t just ash clouds and boiling mudslides...
Months later Kate’s journal is discovered in the devastated remains of Green Loop. That journal and interviews with Kate’s brother, Frank and Senior Ranger Josephine Schell enable Max Brooks,author of World War Z to piece together what happened and who-or what was responsible and the lines between fiction and non-fiction are officially blurred.