Paula Longhurst's Blog, page 16

Tenth Girl, Sara Faring

A remote finishing school in Patagonia seems to be the safest place for Mavi. Her mother, one of the Argentine ‘disappeared’ is most likely dead and posing as an English teacher at the Vaccaro School could protect Mavi from a similar fate. From the moment she arrives, however, something about the house, the students, staff and the Vaccaros themselves feels ‘off’. Staff and students start behaving strangely, especially Domenico who flips from hating Mavi to being her guardian angel.
Can Mavi make the right moves to defeat an unseen enemy when time and history are against her.

It's all gone a little bit Sci Fi

Some of you have commented on the number of sci-fi books reviewed on here recently. I read a lot of sci-fi as a teen and although mystery will always be my first love, good sci-fi is definitely standing in a healthy second place.

Quite often in the store people say 'oh I've never read sci-fi' but then they buy 'The Rook' because it's in mystery thriller (which it totally should be) but with the tagline 'On Her Majesty's Supernatural Secret Service' and my recommendation that if you like Dr. Who, Torchwood and Monty Python, The Rook is their lovechild, it is sci-fi.

Cool Books is what this blog is all about and that includes any genres that I've read and loved.

Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

Gideon Nav is great with a sword but she’s no cavalier and that’s exactly what Harrowhawk, daughter of the ninth house of the locked tomb needs, seeing as hers just ran away and took his awful poetry and his mother with him.

Harrow promises Gideon that if she performs just one service and she’ll be a very rich and free woman. Travel to a deserted gothic palace, endure some trials; watch her mistress become one of the most powerful necromancers in the history of the nine houses, stuff like that. Slight problem, seven other houses, deadly magic, alluring necromancers, creepy priests and killers hiding in plain sight not to mention the fact that Harrow and Gideon can’t stand each other.

Cold Storage, David Koepp

Imagine the Andromeda Strain, written by Carl Hiassen and you've got Cold Storage.
1987: a mutated virus arrives back on earth in the wilds of the Australian outback, courtesy of NASA's crashed Skylab.  Pentagon bioterror expert Roberto Diaz and his commander Trini Romano are sent to contain it and they do, but not without casualties. Despite Diaz's protests scientists take a sample of the virus back to the US and place it in cold storage at absolute zero to keep it inert.2019: Diaz is on the verge of retirement and the world has forgotten about the virus which isn't at absolute zero anymore and is busy establishing a foothold colony at what is now a storage facility in rural Kansas.
All that stands between it and global destruction are an aging Diaz, ex-con Teacake, single mother, Naomi and a second hand weapon of mass destruction with a less than reliable timer.

Old Bones, Preston & Child

Historian Clive Benton, an ancestor of the ill-fated Donner Party has saved the journal of Tamzene Donner from the wrecking ball. He approaches the Santa Fe Archaeological Institute to put together an expedition to find the ‘lost camp’. The expedition led by Dr. Nora Kelly comes into the sights of junior FBI agent Corrie Swanson who is following a curious but deadly present-day lead on her first active case.

The Turn of the Key, Ruth Ware

‘Let me tell you the truth about that night.’
Rowan Caine is on remand in a Scottish jail, she’s writing to a barrister in hopes that he’ll represent her when her murder case comes to trial. She tells him of the dream job, a live in nanny position with a sky high salary. The Elincourt family’s high-tech smart house buried deep in the Scottish countryside where everything works via an app and there are cameras in almost every room, and the nightmare that ensued when she moved in with the perfect family.
Rowan is under no illusions, she admits she lied to get the job, and lord knows she isn’t perfect but Rowan is adamant that she didn’t kill anyone.
So who did?

City of Windows, Robert Pobi

Present day New York City, there’s a gunman haunting the rooftops during the worst blizzard in living memory. The FBI needs the unique talents of Dr. Lucas Page who became an astrophysicist after his time at the bureau almost killed him and deprived him of several limbs into the bargain. As more victims fall and Fox News whips New Yorkers into full fear mode Page reluctantly joins the hunt for the shooter and unwittingly places his loved ones in grave danger.
A timely literary thriller that pulls no punches and moves at the speed of a snipers bullet.

The Gomorrah Gambit, Tom Chatfield

From a garden shed in East Croydon hacker and activist Azi Bello can communicate with the world. There are very few people he trusts but fellow hacker Sigma is one of them and she’s on the run from some very bad people. Enter the mysterious and to Azi, scary ‘Anna’. She and her fellow agents need Azi’s help to save Sigma and get her intel and he can only do that IRL (in real life)
By helping Sigma, whom he is falling for, Azi may be leading both of them into danger. Chased from the depths of East Croydon, via Berlin to the glittering tech hubs of Silicon Valley with only a taciturn but deadly German and Azi's estranged best friend turned tech Wunderkind by his side; Azi has to save innocent victims on the other side of the globe with just his wits, and a laptop.

Under The Cold Bright Lights, Gary Disher

The local snake catcher in the quiet suburb of Pearcedale got more than he bargained for when he went after a copperhead. He unearthed a body buried under a concrete slab. Melbourne police bring in formerly retired detective Alan Auhl who works in a small team that investigates unsolved homicides; like John Elphick whose daughters still think he was murdered and Dr. Neil the black widower whose guilt Auhl has so far failed to prove.
Whilst working on the 'slab man' case the black widower resurfaces with an unlikely accusation. Auhl will go to any lengths to see justice done this time.

Saturday Night Ghost Club, Craig Davidson

Niagara Falls in 1980: Jake Baker was a twelve year old with the summer stretched out before him. Little did he know how much his twelfth year would affect the course of his life. 
New friends, the Yellowbirds, falling in love for the first time and the ‘Saturday Night Ghost Club’ hosted by Uncle C, eccentric conspiracy theorist with an occult shop and a ‘bat phone’ for the conspiracy de jour. What begins as harmless fun soon uncovers a dark conspiracy of the town’s very own involving some townsfolk Jake knows very well.