"Apocalypse" by Dean Crawford~Suspenseful!

SUMMARY:

In the notorious Bermuda Triangle, a private jet vanishes without a trace, taking with it scientists working for the world-famous philanthropist Joaquin Abell. Meanwhile, Captain Kyle Sears is called to a murder scene in Miami. A woman and her daughter have both been shot through the head. But within moments of arriving, Sears receives a phone call from the woman’s husband, physicist Charles Purcell.

“I did not kill my wife and child,” he says. “In less than twenty-four hours I will be murdered and I know the man who will kill me. My murderer does not yet know that he will commit the act.” With uncanny accuracy, Purcell goes on to predict the immediate future just as it unfolds around Sears, and leaves clues for a man he’s never met, former war correspondent Ethan Warner.

The hunt is on to find Purcell, and Warner is summoned by the Defense Intelligence Agency to lead the search. But this is no ordinary case, as Warner and his partner, Nicola Lopez, are about to discover. The future has changed its course, and timing is everything. The end is just beginning . . .

Relentlessly fast-paced and action-packed, Apocalypse combines realistic science, suspense, and intrigue to create an ingenious blockbuster thriller.

PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK:
Published by:  Touchstone
Pages:  410
Genre:  Contemporary Fiction/Suspense/Thriller
Author:  Dean Crawford
Find him:  http://www.deancrawfordbooks.com


ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

Dean Crawford is the author of the internationally published series of novels featuring Ethan Warner, a former United States Marine now employed by a government agency tasked with investigating unusual scientific phenomena. The novels have been Sunday Times paperback best-sellers and have gained the interest of major Hollywood production studios.

www.deancrawfordbooks.com

Forthcoming titles:

"Survivor" Volume 1 to 4 - March to December 2014

"Haven: Redemption" - Q2, 2014

"Holo Sapiens: Resurrection" - Q2 2014



THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS :

This is the third installment in a series Mr. Crawford is writing, but it is also an easy stand-alone novel.  It's fast paced, highly readable and a book crafted for those who are avid researchers into the unexplainable such as the Bermuda Triangle!

Characterization is strong here with believable and likeable characters in the detectives Warner and Lopez.  They are intelligent and have good "bantering" skills that keeps the action moving in a direction that harbors the foreboding.  I can see how these two would make a solid footing for Crawford's continuing series.

I found the scientific information daunting at times, but as I pushed through it it became more clear, and the story held its own.  I think those more inclined will find the book a fascinating read.

This is one for a quiet weekend at home.  It kept me guessing and kept my attention throughout.  One I think men should especially enjoy. Suspenseful!

3.5 stars                     Deborah/TheBookishDame

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Book Haul~HUGE!! Sept. & October

 

 

Due to an illness in this last month, I let my book haul notices slip.  I'm better and feeling well, again.  As you can see in my reviews this past week, I'm back on top.  The situation in no way has to do or has affected my ability to read or write or think, so I'm most grateful for that!!  It had to do with my hearing, and has gotten better; especially the headaches from it.

 

So, I'm now off to tell you about my book hauls which have stacked up over the past 4 weeks.

Some of them are my own purchases as you will see.  I'm so psyched to get to the reviews.

I've not shown you these below:

 

"Rasputin's Shadow"

"The Shogun's Daughter"

"Havisham"

 

because I have just reviewed or will be reviewing them in this next week.

 

 

On with the books, then....

 

The first really wonderful one which I'm a quarter the way through already is:

 

Summary:

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A page-turning thriller for readers of Stephen King, Gillian Flynn, and Stieg Larsson, Night Film tells the haunting story of a journalist who becomes obsessed with the mysterious death of a troubled prodigy—the daughter of an iconic, reclusive filmmaker.

This one takes a bit of patience getting into, but the illustrations/news clippings inside make it interesting to follow.  I'm loving it.
Thank you Random House for this book!!


Next Book:

Almost ten years have passed since Julia Win came back from Burma, her father’s native country. Though she is a successful Manhattan lawyer, her private life is at a crossroads; her boyfriend recently left her, she has suffered a miscarriage, and she is, despite her wealth, unhappy with her professional life. Julia is lost and exhausted.

I don't know much about this sequel to "The Art of Hearing Heartbeats" but I think it may be a good book.  I'm looking forward to seeing if it is...    I appreciate this copy from Other Press.

Next book:

Overview:          

From the ballrooms and mansions of Denver’s newly wealthy, to the seamy life of desperate women, Fallen Women illuminates the darkest places of the human heart.

It is the spring of 1885 and wealthy New York socialite Beret Osmundsen has been estranged from her younger sister, Lillie, for a year when she gets word from her aunt and uncle that Lillie has died suddenly in Denver.  What they do not tell her is that Lillie had become a prostitute and was brutally murdered...

I love this type of historical fiction.  Look for this to be read soon!  Many thanks to St. Martin's Press...


A book I purchased last night:

         

It is the year 2059. Several major world cities are under the control of a security force called Scion. Paige Mahoney works in the criminal underworld of Scion London, part of a secret cell known as the Seven Seals. The work she does is unusual: scouting for information by breaking into others’ minds. Paige is a dreamwalker, a rare kind of clairvoyant, and in this world, the voyants commit treason simply by breathing...

By now everyone knows how I die for dystopians!  This one has been all over the bookish world as a great book.  So, I had to buy it for myself.  Love the cover and can't wait to get into it...   This book is published by Bloomsbury.

The end of the world was only the beginning.

In his internationally bestselling and critically acclaimed novel The Passage, Justin Cronin constructed an unforgettable world transformed by a government experiment gone horribly wrong. Now the scope widens and the intensity deepens as the epic story surges forward with . . .

THE TWELVE

In the present day, as the man-made apocalypse unfolds, three strangers navigate the chaos. Lila, a doctor and an expectant mother, is so shattered by the spread of violence and infection that she continues to plan for her child’s arrival even as society dissolves around her. Kittridge, known to the world as “Last Stand in Denver,” has been forced to flee his stronghold and is now on the road, dodging the infected, armed but alone and well aware that a tank of gas will get him only so far. April is a teenager fighting to guide her little brother safely through a landscape of death and ruin. These three will learn that they have not been fully abandoned—and that in connection lies hope, even on the darkest of nights.

One hundred years in the future, Amy and the others fight on for humankind’s salvation . . . unaware that the rules have changed. The enemy has evolved, and a dark new order has arisen with a vision of the future infinitely more horrifying than man’s extinction. If the Twelve are to fall, one of those united to vanquish them will have to pay the ultimate price.

A heart-stopping thriller rendered with masterful literary skill, The Twelve is a grand and gripping tale of sacrifice and survival.

Just had to give you the whole blurb here because this is my very favorite apocalyptic novel of the year's sequel...Please see my review of "The Passage" here in the last month.   I couldn't wait to get my hands on this book.  So, I bought it and keep staring at it as I read others I've had in line to read first!    It's published by Ballantine Books/Random House.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Wife of Henry VIII comes a powerful and moving novel about Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII's first wife and mother of Mary I

When young Catherine of Aragon, proud daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, is sent to England to marry the weak Prince Arthur, she is unprepared for all that awaits her: early widowhood, the challenge of warfare with the invading Scots, and the ultimately futile attempt to provide the realm with a prince to secure the succession. She marries Arthur's energetic, athletic brother Henry, only to encounter fresh obstacles, chief among them Henry's infatuation with the alluring but wayward Anne Boleyn.

Beautiful cover on this historical fiction.  I have enjoyed Carolly Erickson's novels in the past and look forward to this one.  Published by St. Martin's Press, and many thanks for the copy!

A deeply touching Southern story filled with struggle and hope.

     Emmalee Bullard and her new baby are on their own. Or so she thinks, until Leona Lane, the older seamstress who sat by her side at the local shirt factory where both women worked as collar makers, insists Emmalee come and live with her.  Just as Emmalee prepares to escape her hardscrabble life in Red Chert holler, Leona dies tragically.  Grief-stricken, Emmalee decides she’ll make Leona’s burying dress...

I've been looking to read this book for a while, but it's in my stacks coming up.  Can hardly wait to get to it.  I'm so appreciative to Broadway Books/Crown Publishing for sending it to me, along with a darling packet of tissues to dry my tears!!

This is a book available also in paperback, which I received a copy of from the kind author.  Here's a summary:

William Darcy is obsessed with his ancestors. So much so that he intends to rebuild Pemberley (destroyed during the Uprising) stone by stone, and he wants to employ reconstruction expert Seraphene Grant to help him.

Or does he? Seraphene wasn’t born yesterday. She can smell a rat, particularly when it stinks all the way up to her airship. She knows Darcy is hiding something. But with the Authorities after her and her other options dwindling by the moment, the temptation of genuine English tea and a gorgeous Steampunk gentleman are very difficult to resist.

But what if Darcy’s mystery job courts nothing but trouble? What if Darcy is harboring a secret to kill for? When kiss comes to shove, will Darcy’s secret destroy Seraphene, or will it be her salvation?

Join us on a romantic adventure like no other in this whimsical Pride and Prejudice-inspired tribute, featuring Wickham, Georgiana, dirigibles, funky fish, and swash-buckling pirates.

 

 

Bestselling author Diane Chamberlain delivers a breakout book about a small southern town fifty years ago, and the darkest—and most hopeful—places in the human heart

After losing her parents, fifteen-year-old Ivy Hart is left to care for her grandmother, older sister and nephew as tenants on a small tobacco farm.  As she struggles with her grandmother’s aging, her sister’s mental illness and her own epilepsy, she realizes they might need more than she can give...

Oh, boy...another good one from Diane Chamberlain.  I've loved her books in the past.  With much appreciation from St. Martin's Press.


NOW here's a book I nearly fell on my knees begging for!!

 

The author of the classic bestsellers The Secret History and The Little Friend returns with a brilliant, highly acclaimed new novel.

Composed with the skills of a master, The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present day America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity.

It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a thirteen-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.

This summary doesn't really do justice to the genius writing skills of Donna Tartt.  She is an author of our Age.  I'm already well into the book and can hardly put it down.  Seriously, I could carry this book with me everywhere!   I'm thrilled that Little, Brown & Co. sent me a copy.  Just couldn't be more thrilled...

 

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From the acclaimed author of The Rehearsal comes a novel about a young woman on trial for murder in nineteenth-century New Zealand.

On a blustery January day, a prostitute is arrested. In the midst of the 1866 gold rush on the coast of New Zealand, this might have gone unnoticed. But three notable events occur on that same day: a luckless drunk dies, a wealthy man vanishes, and a ship's captain of ill repute cancels all of his business and weighs anchor, as if making an escape. Anna Wetherell, the prostitute in question, is connected to all three men.

Oooo, doesn't this one sound good!?  The cover is gorgeous in reality. Huge book:  830 pages.  Many thanks to Little, Brown and Co. for the copy.

Overview

For fans of Tana French and The Silent Wife, THE LAST WINTER OF DANI LANCING is a chilling debut thriller hailed by Sophie Hannah as “brilliant” about one murder’s devastating ripple effects.

Twenty years ago, college student Dani Lancing was kidnapped and brutally murdered. The killer was never found. Dani’s family never found peace.

This is one I was waiting to read.  Have heard good things about it, and I started it only to be interrupted by a review I had to get out early.  I'm anxious to get back to it.  Kindly sent by the people at Crown Publishing.


I have a few more, but think I will break this Haul up a little and will save the rest for next week.  This post is getting too long.

I hope you enjoy reading about the new books, and hope you'll see some you'd like to pick up yourself.

Please let me know if anything appeals, and keep well...

Always,   Deborah/TheBookishDame

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"The Passage" by Justin Cronin~The Best of Apocalypse Novels!

SUMMARY :

NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST NOVELS OF THE YEAR BY TIME MAGAZINE AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
The Washington Post • Esquire • U.S. News & World Report • NPR’s On Point • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • BookPage • Library Journal

An epic and gripping tale of catastrophe and survival, The Passage is the story of Amy—abandoned by her mother at the age of six, pursued and then imprisoned by the shadowy figures behind a government experiment of apocalyptic proportions. But Special Agent Brad Wolgast, the lawman sent to track her down, is disarmed by the curiously quiet girl—and risks everything to save her. As the experiment goes nightmarishly wrong, Wolgast secures her escape—but he can’t stop society’s collapse. And as Amy walks alone, across miles and decades, into a future dark with violence and despair, she is filled with the mysterious and terrifying knowledge that only she has the power to save the ruined world.

USA Today has named The Passage as a must summer read: Booksellers across the country are buzzing about this novel, which features a jacket blurb by Stephen King. Film rights have been bought by Fox 2000 for Ridley and Tony Scott.

PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :

Published by:  Ballantine Books
Pages:  766   Plus Excerpt of 2nd book in the series The Twelve
Genre:  Fiction/SyFy/Apocalyptic/Thriller
Author:  Justin Cronin
Website of author:  http://www.justincronin.com
Purchase this book:  Barnes & Noble    Amazon



ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

Justin Cronin is the New York Times bestselling author of The Passage, Mary and O’Neil (which won the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Stephen Crane Prize), and The Summer Guest. Other honors for his writing include a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Whiting Writer’s Award. He lives with his family in Houston, Texas. - See more at: http://enterthepassage.com/author/#sthash.0IbItywA.dpuf

You can find Mr. Cronin on Facebook and Twitter!

THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS :

Every once in ten years an absorbing, heart-stopping thriller comes along that keeps you reading for a non-stop week.  "The Passage" is such a book.  It's one of those books that you put everything in your life on hold to read because you can't wait to turn another page.  It's one of those books that keeps calling to you even when you'd like to ignore it.  "The Passage" is so addictive you'll lose sleep and forget to shower!  I suggest you just block off several days for it right off the bat.

I had no idea what I was getting into when I sat down with this novel.  I actually thought it might be one of those heavily touted but mildly forgettable ones.  This is anything but that.  Set in current times and then a near future, you'll be able to easily relate to the people and situations.  I found it just gripping.  And the plot is unique, as well, though it may seem from the simplistic cover summary that
it isn't.  The book is just difficult to summarize...you've read those types.

Although Amy is supposed to be the central character, I found myself more caught up in the adult survivors of the horrendous "experiment gone wrong" in their make-shift society.  Cronin digs deep to give us vivid characterizations of people living and trying to survive in an impossible situation.  The relationships they forge are tenuous at best, but loving and strong, nevertheless.  It made me keep tracking with them, and it made me have hope for what could happen to us if we ever faced an earthshattering situation as a contemporary society.

Cronin is an author whose time has come.  He's the storyteller of our century with a tale that seems unbelievable and plausible at the same time.  Think of Stephen King only more literary.

You can't miss this one this year.  I can't recommend it highly enough! I've already purchased "The Twelve."

 

5+ stars                  Deborah/TheBookishDame

 

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GIVEAWAY!! "Pure" by Julianna Baggott~Post-Apocalypse Drama!

SUMMARY : 
 
We know you are here, our brothers and sisters . . .

Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost—how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.

Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash . . .
There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked: Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss—maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it's his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her.

When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.

PARTICULARS OF THE BOOK :
Publisher:  Grand Central Publishing/Hachette
Pages:  431
Genre:  YA/Dystopian
Author:  Julianna Baggott
Find the author here:   Baggott Website

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT "PURE" :

Fox 2000 has acquired film rights to PURE, Baggott's post-apocalyptic novel!!!!!!
What people are saying about PURE ...
"Baggott's postapocalyptic world is realized to stunning cinematic effect..."
–– The New York Times Book Review

"... gorgeous ... You will be swept away."
-- Justin Cronin, New York Times Bestselling author of The Passage

"... extraordinary ... an important book ... by one of our finest writers."
-- Robert Olen Butler, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

"... startling and addictive ... Breathtaking and frightening, I couldn't stop reading PURE."
-- Danielle Trussoni, New York Times bestselling author of Angelology

"... glorious ... full of wonderful weirdness, tenderness, and wild suspense. If Katniss could jump out of her own book and pick a great friend, I think she'd find an excellent candidate in Pressia."
-- Aimee Bender, New York Times bestselling author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake



ABOUT THE AUTHOR :

Critically acclaimed, bestselling author Julianna Baggott also writes under the pen names Bridget Asher and N.E. Bode. She has published seventeen books over the last ten years. Film rights for her forthcoming novel PURE have been acquired by Fox 2000. The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted, written under pen name Asher, was published in spring 2011. There are approximately 50 foreign editions of her novels to date.

Julianna began publishing when she was twenty-two and sold her first novel while still in her twenties. After receiving her M.F.A. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, she published her first novel, Girl Talk, which was a national bestseller and was quickly followed by Boston Globe bestseller The Miss America Family, and then Boston Herald Book Club selection, The Madam, an historical novel based on the life of her grandmother. She co-wrote Which Brings Me to You with Steve Almond, A Best Book of 2006 (Kirkus Reveiws) optioned by producer Richard Brown and adapted by Keith Bunin with Matthew Warchus set to direct.

Her Bridget Asher novels include The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted, The Pretend Wife, My Husband's Sweethearts. More info can be found at her Bridget Asher blog.

She also writes bestselling novels for younger readers under the pen name N.E. Bode as well as under Julianna Baggott. The Anybodies trilogy was a People Magazine pick alongside David Sedaris and Bill Clinton, a Washington Post Book of the Week, a Girl's Life Top Ten, a Booksense selection, and was in development at Nickelodeon/Paramount; The Slippery Map (fall 2007), and the prequel to Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (2007), a movie starring Dustin Hoffman, Natalie Portman, and Jason Bateman. For two years, Bode was a recurring personality on XM Sirius Radio.

Julianna's Boston Red Sox novel The Prince of Fenway Park (HarperCollins), was published in spring 2009. It is on the Sunshine State Young Readers Awards List for 2011-2012.
The Ever Breath (Random House) was published in December, 2009.

Baggott also has a highly acclaimed career as a poet, having published three collections of poetry and having been published in the best literary publications in the country, including Poetry, The American Poetry Review, and Best American Poetry in 2001, 2011 and 2012.

Baggott's work has appeared in over a hundred publications, including the The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Glamour, Ms., Real Simple, and read on NPR's Here and Now, All Things Considered and Talk of the Nation. Her essays, stories, and poems are highly anthologized.

She is an associate professor at Florida State University's College of Motion Picture Arts.

In 2006, Baggott and her husband co-founded the nonprofit organization Kids in Need - Books in Deed, that focuses on literacy and getting free books to underprivileged children in the state of Florida.

Video Trailer

Audio Book Summary

THE BOOKISH DAME REVIEWS :

Well certainly, this is one of the best written post-apocalypse novels to arrive on the bookshelves ever.  Julianna Baggott is a seasoned writer with a vivid imagination.  She is a genius of an author with incredible vision.  Her imagery is stark and unique.  This is a book that rushes up to grasp your attention at the most worrisome levels. What would happen if there were a "detonation" of epic proportions that left mankind changed into hybrids of the rarest sorts?  I was blown away by this book!  Consider what would happen if an elite group decided to rid the world of over-population...
This is in the headlines today, if one is interested enough to pursue the question.

Not only has Ms Baggott created a world of believable inhabitants mutated in extraordinary ways:  half mechanicals/humans blasted in the detonation and melded with animals, birds, tools and toys; but, she's created a world of ash and destruction inhabited by survivors barely holding on to their humanity.  Memories are fragile and fragmented, relationships are shallow, and elders are few and far between.  This is so well-conceived.  Horrifyingly realistic.

Baggott's characters; Pressia, Bradwell and Partridge are symbolic of the survivors we might hope to find in such a post-apocayptic world.  Brave and strong of heart and mind...fighting against the status quo, wise beyond their years.  Even the anti-hero, El Capitan is a victim of his times and somewhat sympathetic.  Her rendering of such well-wrought peoples (others not mentioned here) adds depth in a way that made me devour this book like few others. 

This novel would be perfect for college studies.  Rich in detail, beautifully written, strong in characterization and symbolism for today's world.  It's a warning of a world gone haywire.  It's a hope for survival.  A unique and worthy read.

5 stars     Deborah/TheBookishDame



Happily there is a sequel coming soon!  It's called "Fuse" and will be debuting on February 19th, 2013!

Here's a quick synopsis:  An epic quest that sweeps readers into a world of beautiful brutality, "Fuse" continues the story of two people fighting to save their futures--and change the fate of the world.



                                                              GIVEAWAY!!!!!

             COPY OF  "PURE"  TO BE GIVEN AWAY

                                  Enter by:  Leaving your email
                                               address   and  following
                                               me on Twitter and GFC
                                                     on the sidebar

                     ***DRAWING  WILL BE HELD  OCT. 31ST


US  and Canada only, please!  Sorry....


Find your copy of "Pure" here :  http://amazon.com  or http://barnesandnoble.com

 

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