Welcome back and what an interesting result we had last week! I had a joint first and a joint second, but as there was no clear third place and I want to reduce my books I am only going to keep the joint first…..so the results are in and……
Not one single vote for Nicholas Sparks – definitely not a fan favourite here! This means I am keeping….
Happy with this week’s results and loved the bantering! I currently have on my Goodreads shelves 2,270 books and I need this down so more ruthlessness will ensue.
Ok, on to this week’s books, what do I have in store for you????
Duma Key by Stephen King
Published by Pocket Books on October 21, 2008
Pages: 769
Goodreads
Also by this author: UR, In the Tall Grass
On Duma Key, a man who should be dead finds healing in the solitude of painting...but Edgar Freemantle is far from alone.
After a terrible construction site accident severed his right arm, scrambled his mind, and imploded his marriage, the wealthy Minnesota builder faces the ordeal of rehabilitation alone and enraged. Renting a house on a stunningly beautiful and eerily undeveloped splinter off the Florida coast, Edgar slowly emerges from his prison of pain to bond with Elizabeth Eastlake, a sick old woman whose roots are tangled deep in Duma Key. And as he heals, he paints - feverishly, compulsively, his exploding talent both a wonder and a weapon. For Edgar's creations are not just paintings but portals for the ghosts of Elizabeth's past...and their power cannot be controlled.(back cover)
'Salem's Lot by Stephen King
Also by this author: UR, In the Tall Grass
Stephen King's second novel, the classic vampire bestseller "'SALEM'S LOT," tells the story of evil in small-town America. For the first time in a major trade edition, this terrifying novel is accompanied by previously unpublished material from King's archive, two short stories, and eerie photographs that bring King's fictional darkness and evil to vivid life. When Stephen King's classic thriller"'SALEM'S LOT" hit the stands in 1975, it thrilled and terrified millions of readers with tales of demonic evil in small-town America. Now, thirty years later and still scaring readers witless, "'SALEM'S LOT" reemerges in a brilliant new edition, complete with photographs, fifty pages of deleted and alternate scenes, and two short stories related to the events of the novel. While the original edition of "'SALEM'S LOT "will forever be a premier horror classic, "'SALEM'S LOT: ILLUSTRATED EDITION," with the inclusion of material from King's archive, is destined to become a classic in its own right and a must-have for all Stephen King fans. In this edition, the hair-raising story of Jerusalem's Lot, a small town in Maine whose inhabitants succumb to the evil allure of a new resident, is told as the author envisioned it, complete with fifty pages of alternate and deleted scenes. With a new introduction by the author, two short stories related to the events and residents of Jerusalem's Lot, the lavishly creepy photographs of Jerry Uelsmann, and a stunning new page design, this edition brings the story to life in words and pictures as never before. No library will be complete without this ideal collector's item for any King aficionado, the definitive illustrated edition of the great "'SALEM'S LOT."
Spartacus: The Gladiator (Spartacus, #1) by Ben Kane
Published by Preface Digital on January 19, 2012
Goodreads
The first of two epic novels which tell the story of one of the most charismatic heroes history has ever known - Spartacus, the gladiator slave who took on and nearly defeated the might of Rome, during the years 73-71 BC.
Historically very little is known about Spartacus. We know that he came from Thrace, a land north of Greece, that he once fought in the Roman legions and that, during two fateful years, he led a slave army which nearly brought Rome to its knees.
In Ben Kane's brilliant novel, we meet Spartacus as he returns to Thrace, ready to settle down after a decade away. But a new king has usurped the throne. Treacherous and violent, he immediately seizes Spartacus and sells him to a Roman slave trader looking for new gladiators.
The odyssey has begun which will see Spartacus become one of the greatest legends of history, the hero of revolutionaries from Karl Marx to Che Guevara, immortalised on screen, and now brought to life in Ben Kane's great bestseller - a novel which takes the story to its halfway point and is continued in Spartacus: Rebellion.
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks, Barry Bostwick
A man with a faded, well-worn notebook open in his lap. A woman experiencing a morning ritual she doesn't understand. Until he begins to read to her. An achingly tender story about the enduring power of love.
A man with a faded, well-worn notebook open in his lap. A woman experiencing a morning ritual she doesn't understand. Until he begins to read to her. The Notebook is an achingly tender story about the enduring power of love, a story of miracles that will stay with you forever.
Set amid the austere beauty of coastal North Carolina in 1946, The Notebook begins with the story of Noah Calhoun, a rural Southerner returned home from World War II. Noah, thirty-one, is restoring a plantation home to its former glory, and he is haunted by images of the beautiful girl he met fourteen years earlier, a girl he loved like no other. Unable to find her, yet unwilling to forget the summer they spent together, Noah is content to live with only memories...until she unexpectedly returns to his town to see him once again.
Allie Nelson, twenty-nine, is now engaged to another man, but realizes that the original passion she felt for Noah has not dimmed with the passage of time. Still, the obstacles that once ended their previous relationship remain, and the gulf between their worlds is too vast to ignore. With her impending marriage only weeks away, Allie is forced to confront her hopes and dreams for the future, a future that only she can shape.
Like a puzzle within a puzzle, the story of Noah and Allie is just the beginning. As it unfolds, their tale miraculously becomes something different, with much higher stakes. The result is a deeply moving portrait of love itself, the tender moments and the fundamental changes that affect us all. Shining with a beauty that is rarely found in current literature, The Notebook establishes Nicholas Sparks as a classic storyteller with a unique insight into the only emotion that really matters.
"I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough."
And so begins one of the most poignant and compelling love stories you will ever read...The Notebook
Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed by Patricia Cornwell
Goodreads
Now updated with new material that brings the killer's picture into clearer focus.
In the fall of 1888, all of London was held in the grip of unspeakable terror. An elusive madman calling himself Jack the Ripper was brutally butchering women in the slums of London’s East End. Police seemed powerless to stop the killer, who delighted in taunting them and whose crimes were clearly escalating in violence from victim to victim. And then the Ripper’s violent spree seemingly ended as abruptly as it had begun. He had struck out of nowhere and then vanished from the scene. Decades passed, then fifty years, then a hundred, and the Ripper’s bloody sexual crimes became anemic and impotent fodder for puzzles, mystery weekends, crime conventions, and so-called “Ripper Walks” that end with pints of ale in the pubs of Whitechapel. But to number-one New York Times bestselling novelist Patricia Cornwell, the Ripper murders are not cute little mysteries to be transformed into parlor games or movies but rather a series of terrible crimes that no one should get away with, even after death. Now Cornwell applies her trademark skills for meticulous research and scientific expertise to dig deeper into the Ripper case than any detective before her—and reveal the true identity of this fabled Victorian killer.
In Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper, Case Closed, Cornwell combines the rigorous discipline of twenty-first century police investigation with forensic techniques undreamed of during the late Victorian era to solve one of the most infamous and difficult serial murder cases in history. Drawing on unparalleled access to original Ripper evidence, documents, and records, as well as archival, academic, and law-enforcement resources, FBI profilers, and top forensic scientists, Cornwell reveals that Jack the Ripper was none other than a respected painter of his day, an artist now collected by some of the world’s finest museums: Walter Richard Sickert.
It has been said of Cornwell that no one depicts the human capability for evil better than she. Adding layer after layer of circumstantial evidence to the physical evidence discovered by modern forensic science and expert minds, Cornwell shows that Sickert, who died peacefully in his bed in 1942, at the age of 81, was not only one of Great Britain’s greatest painters but also a serial killer, a damaged diabolical man driven by megalomania and hate. She exposes Sickert as the author of the infamous Ripper letters that were written to the Metropolitan Police and the press. Her detailed analysis of his paintings shows that his art continually depicted his horrific mutilation of his victims, and her examination of this man’s birth defects, the consequent genital surgical interventions, and their effects on his upbringing present a casebook example of how a psychopathic killer is created.
New information and startling revelations detailed in Portrait of a Killer include:
- How a year-long battery of more than 100 DNA tests—on samples drawn by Cornwell’s forensics team in September 2001 from original Ripper letters and Sickert documents—yielded the first shadows of the 75- to 114 year-old genetic evid...
The Gift by Cecelia Ahern
Published by HarperCollins on August 20, 2009
Pages: 305
Goodreads
Step into the magical world of Cecelia Ahern.
If you could wish for one gift this Christmas, what would it be?
Everyday Lou Suffern battled with the clock. He always had two places to be at the same time. He always had two things to do at once. When asleep he dreamed. In between dreams, he ran through the events of the day while making plans for the next. When at home with his wife and family, his mind was always someplace else.
On his way into work one early winter morning, Lou meets Gabe, a homeless man sitting outside the office building. Intrigued by him and on discovering that he could also be very useful to have around, Lou gets Gabe a job in the post room.
But soon Lou begins to regret helping Gabe. His very presence unsettles Lou and how does Gabe appear to be in two places at the same time?
As Christmas draws closer, Lou starts to understand the value of time. He sees what is truly important in life yet at the same time he learns the harshest lesson of all.
This is a story about people who not unlike parcels, hide secrets.They cover themselves in layers until the right person unwraps them and discovers what’s inside. Sometimes you have to be unravelled in order to find out who you really are. For Lou Suffern, that took time.
Well, what do you think of this bunch of books? Remember to vote below and why not stay for a chat
Until next time xxx
likeherdingcatsblog says
The Gift is lovely so it got me vote
Zoé says
Ah thanks lovely x
nickimags @ The Secret Library Book Blog says
Well that was a hard one as I didn’t particularly like any of them, but voted anyway! ?
Zoé says
I don’t want to make things easy lol ?
Rachel Bridgeman says
So hard choosing between Salem and Duma they are so good ?
Zoé says
Why choose you can vote for both lol x
Rachel Bridgeman says
Good point!!
Zoé says
?
Karen says
I voted for the only one I’ve read ?
Zoé says
Yay thanks for voting!! X
Kelly says
Enough with the Sparks books Zo ? I thought I’d read The Gift but then I read the blurb and apparently I’m confusing it with another Ahern? Weird ? So I went with Salem’s Lot ?
Zoé says
??I think we are near the end of them! I went through a click phase of clicking the same author at one time ? it’s hilarious I don’t remember clicking on half of the books!! ?