Thursday, June 14, 2012

Random Recs from Liz and Michelle

Under the direction of famed explorer Porter Stone, an archaeological team is secretly attempting to locate the tomb of an ancient pharaoh who was unlike any other in history. Stone believes he has found the burial chamber of King Narmer, the near mythical god- king who united upper and lower Egypt in 3200 B.C., and the archaeologist has reason to believe that the greatest prize of all—Narmer’s crown—might be buried with him. No crown of an Egyptian king has ever been discovered, and Narmer’s is the elusive “double” crown of the two Egypts, supposedly pos­sessed of awesome powers.

The dig itself is located in one of the most forbidding places on earth—the Sudd, a nearly  impassable swamp in north­ern Sudan. Amid the nightmarish, disorienting tangle of mud and dead vegetation, a series of harrowing and inexpli­cable occurrences are causing people on the expedition to fear a centuries- old curse. With a monumental discovery in reach, Professor Jeremy Logan is brought onto the project to investigate. What he finds will raise new questions . . . and alarm.

In the hands of master storyteller Lincoln Child, The Third Gate breaks new ground and introduces a fascinating new protagonist to the thriller world.

Read an excerpt HERE.


An dazzlingly inventive novel about modern family, from the author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
The set-up of Mark Haddon's brilliant new novel is simple: Richard, a wealthy doctor, invites his estranged sister Angela and her family to join his for a week at a vacation home in the English countryside. Richard has just re-married and inherited a willful stepdaughter in the process; Angela has a feckless husband and three children who sometimes seem alien to her. The stage is set for seven days of resentment and guilt, a staple of family gatherings the world over.

But because of Haddon's extraordinary narrative technique, the stories of these eight people are anything but simple. Told through the alternating viewpoints of each character, The Red House becomes a symphony of long-held grudges, fading dreams and rising hopes, tightly-guarded secrets and illicit desires, all adding up to a portrait of contemporary family life that is bittersweet, comic, and deeply felt. As we come to know each character they become profoundly real to us. We understand them, even as we come to realize they will never fully understand each other, which is the tragicomedy of every family.
The Red House is a literary tour-de-force that illuminates the puzzle of family in a profoundly empathetic manner -- a novel sure to entrance the millions of readers of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.




It is the late summer of 1938, Europe is about to explode, the Hollywood film star Fredric Stahl is on his way to Paris to make a movie for Paramount France. The Nazis know he’s coming—a secret bureau within the Reich Foreign Ministry has for years been waging political warfare against France, using bribery, intimidation, and corrupt newspapers to weaken French morale and degrade France’s will to defend herself.

For their purposes, Fredric Stahl is a perfect agent of influence, and they attack him. What they don’t know is that Stahl, horrified by the Nazi war on Jews and intellectuals, has become part of an informal spy service being run out of the American embassy in Paris.

From Alan Furst, the bestselling author, often praised as the best spy novelist ever, comes a novel that’s truly hard to put down. Mission to Paris includes beautifully drawn scenes of romance and intimacy, and the novel is alive with extraordinary characters: the German Baroness von Reschke, a famous hostess deeply involved in Nazi clandestine operations; the assassins Herbert and Lothar; the Russian film actress and spy Olga Orlova; the Hungarian diplomat and spy, Count Janos Polanyi; along with the French cast of Stahl’s movie, German film producers, and the magnetic women in Stahl’s life, the socialite Kiki de Saint-Ange and the émigré Renate Steiner.

But always at the center of the novel is the city of Paris, the heart and soul of Europe—its alleys and bistros, hotels grand and anonymous, and the Parisians, living every night as though it was their last. As always, Alan Furst brings to life both a dark time in history and the passion of the human hearts that fought to survive it. 

A young boy's disappearance from the southern hamlet of Niceville sets off a series of events that will expose the dark secret festering below the town's pleasant exterior. Elmore Leonard has said of this gripping novel: "Terrific dialogue, oddball characters, and a wild story... A great read."

One fine spring day in Niceville, a young boy named Rainey Teague disappears on his way home from school. Literally disappears--security camera footage captures the moment of his instant, inexplicable vanishing. The search for the boy is led by ex-Special Forces veteran Nick Kavanaugh, now a detective with the local police and no stranger to lowlifes and their criminal hijinks. In the nightmare that follows Rainey's disappearance, Nick and his wife, Kate, a family practice lawyer, find themselves drawn into a shadow world between life and death, where they will come face-to-face with an ancient malevolent power that lies beneath Niceville, darker and older than the mountain forest surrounding its source: a 1,000-foot-deep pit known as Crater Sink.

Learn more about the book and the author HERE.
Read a chapter HERE.


Now available as a three-volume paperback boxed set, E L James's" New York Times" #1 bestselling trilogy has been hailed by" Entertainment Weekly" as being "in a class by itself." Beginning with the GoodReads Choice Award Romance Finalist" Fifty Shades of Grey," the Fifty Shades Trilogy will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever.

This boxed set includes the following novels:

Fifty Shades of Grey: When college student Anastasia Steele goes to interview young entrepreneur Christian Grey, she encounters a man who is beautiful, brilliant, and intimidating. The unworldly Ana realizes she wants this man, and Grey admits he wants her, too--but on his own terms. When the couple embarks on a daring, passionately physical affair, Ana discovers Christian's secrets and explores her own desires.

Fifty Shades Darker: Daunted by Christian's dark secrets and singular tastes, Ana has broken off their relationship to start a new career. But desire for Christian still dominates her every waking thought. They rekindle their searing sensual affair, and while Christian wrestles with his inner demons, Ana is forced to make the most important decision of her life.

Fifty Shades Freed: Now, Ana and Christian have it all--love, passion, intimacy, wealth, and a world of possibilities for their future. But Ana knows that loving her Fifty Shades will not be easy, and that being together will pose challenges that neither of them would anticipate. Just when it seems that their strength together will eclipse any obstacle, misfortune, malice, and fate conspire to turn Ana's deepest fears into reality.

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