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review 2018-06-03 17:11
The Best of Us by Joyce Maynard
The Best of Us: A Memoir - Joyce Maynard

A special thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury USA for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Joyce Maynard, author and journalist, discovers true love later in life.  Before she met Jim, who we are told several times, has a great head of hair—I imagine Patrick Dempsey gets told this a lot too—Maynard believes she is done with marriage.  She is fiercely independent, but open to companionship and ends up realizing that Jim is more than a companion, he is her partner.

The couple has a whirlwind romance, and marry, only to have their years together cut tragically short.  Jim is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer just after they celebrate their first year of marriage.  Raw, honest, and heartbreaking, Maynard doesn't shy away from sharing the ups and downs of marriage with the added strain of a terminal illness.  She courageously writes about Jim's final days—her writing is beautiful and reminds us that love is fleeting, as is time, and that both are a gift to the heart.  

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review 2017-09-10 00:20
The Best of Us
The Best of Us: A Memoir - Joyce Maynard

By: Joyce Maynard

ISBN: 978-1635570342

Publisher:  Bloomsbury USA

Publication Date: 9/5/2017 

Format: Hardcover

My Rating:  5 Stars

From New York Times bestselling author Joyce Maynard, a memoir about discovering strength in the midst of great loss--"heart-wrenching, inspiring, full of joy and tears and life." (Anne Lamott)

 

From the author of (2016) Under the Influence Joyce Maynard once again delivers a mesmerizing and beautiful journey and love story.  Love, loss, grief, and marriage. Cancer, and its battles. Life changing experiences. 

 

I loved THE BEST OF US! A deeply moving and powerful tribute. One of the best memoirs I have read in 2017. 

 

Raw and honest, a poignant and beautifully written memoir that accompanied me for a 20 hr. car ride in bumper-to-bumper gridlock traffic while evacuating Hurricane Irma from South Florida. This was supposed to be a birthday weekend trip with my sons coming into town from NC to Florida. Then with IRMA, the hotel canceled and the airlines. Not happening. 

 

Recalculate. Now, I had to evacuate and leave Florida. The perfect book would be THE BEST OF US. Loaded on all my devices and synced to my car. I knew she would carry me through. 

 

What was supposed to be a trip to Highlands, NC (Western Mountains north of Atlanta) to escape Florida and IRMA on Thursday before the upcoming disaster. With only two roads out of Florida and 7 million people in South Florida trying to evacuate. This would have been a 12-15 hr drive. 

 

However, it turned into a 20 hr. drive and never even got out of Florida, much less cross into Atlanta or NC. I could not wait to get out of the car and no hotels on this strip of the turnpike. I only made it a little north of Orlando, in Ocala, FL. (On a normal day, would take you 4 hrs.). At the end of the Florida Turnpike, when I saw I-75 after driving all night, lack of sleep, lack of fuel for travelers, overcrowded highways, and no vacancy; you can bet I grabbed the first hotel I could find when they had a last minute cancellation. 

 

I recall sitting there in the heat, trying to decide where to go, with my A/C running at a truck stop on the turnpike with hundreds of stranded families with their children and pets, sitting in my car listening to THE BEST OF US. 

 

I looked around at all the hundreds of families that may never see their homes again and are sleeping in their cars. While listening to Joyce and her brave fight as well as Jim's courage and tenacity.  

 

I am currently riding out the impending storm here in Ocala, FL at the same hotel for its duration before I can return home to Palm Beach. This central location may still face issues as well, but at least I will not be on the waterfront in South Florida. Still waiting it out until Monday and beyond to see what will happen. 

 

Without the audiobook, to accompany me on this stressful journey, narrated by Joyce, not sure I could have made it thru this time. I always purchase her audiobooks. Her voice is spellbinding. Her stories grab you by the heartstrings and never let go. 

 


 

While listening, filled with anxiety and stress worrying if I would (will) have an apartment to return to on the water, top floor in West Palm Beach and on the heels shortly after my dad's death in June (heart) and mom's (cancer) last August, I had to take a moment to think beyond my current situation, while listening to this beautiful and heartbreaking love story. I related on so many levels. I have so much to be thankful for. Her voice was calming and soothing. 

 

Being around the same age as the author, and single (divorced), I found it refreshing —two courageous and talented people were able to find one another and bring so much joy to one another if only for a short time. 

 

From the love, tears, fears, and sorrows, I adore Joyce Mayard's writing and highly recommend this amazing book. Flaws and all, she shares a personal story with passion, heart, and soul; filled with humor, wit, love, grief, honesty, and raw emotion. From the darkest hours to the magical moments. 

 

An added bonus for the audiobook readers, the author, and Jim share their wedding vows. Priceless! Readers, you have to meet Jim. An incredible man and one which will not be forgotten. 

 

An inspiring story! For readers who enjoyed When Breath Becomes AirHighly Recommend the author and this amazing book. Buy the audio!  An ideal choice for book clubs and further discussions. Book Guide 

 

 

 

 

 The New York Times 

 

 

Source: www.judithdcollinsconsulting.com/single-post/2017/08/01/The-Best-of-Us
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text 2017-09-08 17:38
Labor Day: A Novel (P.S.) Joyce Maynard $1.99
Labor Day - Joyce Maynard

With the end of summer closing in and a steamy Labor Day weekend looming in the town of Holton Mills, New Hampshire, thirteen-year-old Henry—lonely, friendless, not too good at sports—spends most of his time watching television, reading, and daydreaming about the soft skin and budding bodies of his female classmates. For company Henry has his long-divorced mother, Adele—a onetime dancer whose summer project was to teach him how to foxtrot; his hamster, Joe; and awkward Saturday-night outings to Friendly's with his estranged father and new stepfamily. As much as he tries, Henry knows that even with his jokes and his "Husband for a Day" coupon, he still can't make his emotionally fragile mother happy. Adele has a secret that makes it hard for her to leave their house, and seems to possess an irreparably broken heart.

 

But all that changes on the Thursday before Labor Day, when a mysterious bleeding man named Frank approaches Henry and asks for a hand. Over the next five days, Henry will learn some of life's most valuable lessons: how to throw a baseball, the secret to perfect piecrust, the breathless pain of jealousy, the power of betrayal, and the importance of putting others—especially those we love—above ourselves. And the knowledge that real love is worth waiting for.

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review 2017-04-22 18:57
W SIECI ZŁUDZEŃ - Joyce Maynard
W sieci złudzeń - Joyce Maynard

W sieci złudzeń to współczesna powieść psychologiczna, właściwie dramat psychologiczny.

 

Helen pochodzi z dysfunkcyjnej rodziny, w której dla jej matki nigdy nie była ukochaną córką. Po odejściu męża do innej kobiety, Helen przeżywa trudny okres w swoim życiu i zaczyna nadużywać alkoholu. Pija wieczorami, kiedy jej mały synek zasypia.  Pewnego dnia jej syn potrzebuje pomocy lekarskiej, a ona… nie zastanawiając się wsiada z nim do samochodu. Pech chciał, że zatrzymana zostaje przez policję, następstwem czego odebrane jej zostają prawa do opieki nad dzieckiem i syn trafia do nowej rodziny ojca. Helen spragniona ciepła, miłości i czyjegoś bliskiego towarzystwa zaprzyjaźnia się z małżeństwem, które szybko zaczyna ją traktować jak kogoś bardzo bliskiego. Kobieta nie zdaje sobie jednak sprawy z tego, że przyjaźń jakiej doświadcza od Avy (kobiety po wypadku, poruszającej się na wózku inwalidzkim) i Swifta jest pewnego rodzaju uzależnieniem. Ślepa i głucha jest na wszelkiego rodzaju przestrogi, kocha swoich nowych przyjaciół, ale… kiedy jej synek staje się świadkiem pewnego wypadku, ta cudowna „przyjaźń” nagle znika jak za dotknięciem czarodziejskiej różdżki. Czy Helen uda się odzyskać syna? Kto tak naprawdę jest jej przyjacielem a kto udaje przyjaźń manipulując jej życiem? Jak daleko może posunąć się człowiek, aby utrzymać pozory życia?

 

Przyznam szczerze, że książka jest dość trudna. Angażując się w życie głównej bohaterki, od samego początku czułam, że w tym pięknym, idealnym związku coś zgrzyta. Być może są małżeństwa tak obrazkowe, ale… rzadko się takich ludzi spotyka. Zaślepiona i oczarowana zachowaniem spotkanych przypadkowo ludzi, główna bohaterka jest jakby marionetką, która cieszy się z tego, że ktoś dobrze bawi się pociąganiem za jej sznurki. Ile fałszu i obłudy można wyczytać z zachowania ludzi, którzy potrafią być do bólu mili i uprzejmi.

 

Często wielu ludzi zbyt późno przekonuje się o tym, że prawdziwa przyjaźń to nie jest tak zbytnio kolorowana i rozgłaszana wszem i wobec, ale ta, która cichutko sprawdza się w praktyce życia. Niektórzy potrafią kupić sobie przyjaźń, nie tylko drogimi prezentami, czy wystawnymi kolacjami w luksusowych restauracjach ale również samymi słowami – słowami, których ta druga strona oczekuje, a nawet wręcz pożąda bo jej pragnienia ciepła i emocjonalnej więzi z drugim człowiek jest zbyt silna.

 

Autorka bardzo zręcznie nakreśliła ten rodzaj uzależnienia emocjonalnego człowieka od innych, pokazując jak bardzo można „oślepnąć” spoglądając tylko w jednym kierunku.

 

Moim zdaniem trochę mało wyraziście przedstawiła osoby tego dramatu. Jak dla mnie osobowości bohaterów były trochę mdłe, mało wyraźne, takie że nie potrafiłam ich sobie wyobrazić ani wizualnie ani mentalnie. Przez większą część książki prawie nic się nie dzieje, główna bohaterka tylko zachwyca się swoimi nowymi przyjaciółmi, a oni… są jakby mało realni. Myślę, że gdyby te wszystkie osoby były szczegółowo wykreowane, książka by na tym zyskała. Przyznam jednak, że moją uwagę przyciągnęły dialogi, ciekawe… chociaż trochę monotematyczne.

 

Jednak sam pomysł na fabułę i poprowadzenie jej tak jak to zostało przekazane, jest całkiem dobry. Nakłania czytelnika do myślenia i analizy poszczególnych wątków i zachowań ludzkich. Taka przyjaźń jaką przedstawiła autorka z pewnością zdarzyła się niejednemu człowiekowi, i dopiero po jakimś czasie zdał sobie on sprawę z tego, że to nie była przyjaźń (czy miłość) tylko toksyczne uzależnienie od drugiego człowieka. Jak szybko można wpaść w szpony tego uzależnienia, kiedy pragnienia i marzenia wypierają rozsądek. Bardzo podobał mi się jednak wątek walki głównej bohaterki z nałogiem, z uzależnieniem od alkoholu. Trudna walka, którą nie każdy wygrywa, tu została przedstawiona nadzwyczaj pozytywnie.

 

Nie jest to lektura lekka, łatwa i przyjemna, ale czyta się ją dość szybko. Krótkie rozdziały zawsze jakoś tak wpływają na to, że szybciej przechodzę do kolejnych stron. Książka napisana w pierwszej osobie, to często coś w rodzaju pamiętnika, czy zwierzeń, a tych wielu z nas lubi słuchać.

 

„Smutna”, trochę nostalgiczna okładka, być może nie przyciąga wzroku, ale przynajmniej czytelnik może się domyśleć, że za nią nie znajdzie komedii romantycznej czy zabawnej historyjki. A czasami potrzebujemy takich książek jak ta. Życiowych i smutnych, ale nie pozbawionych nadziei.

 

Polecam tę lekturę do przeczytania nie tylko osobom preferującym powieści psychologiczne. W tej książce czytelnik, czytający ze zrozumieniem, odnajdzie wiele wątków wartych przemyślenia. Nie tylko dramat dziecka rozdartego między matką a ojcem, cierpliwą walkę o miłość czy bezpodstawną zazdrość o drugiego człowieka i bezgraniczne zaangażowanie się w życie innych osób. Jak cienka jest granica między przyjaźnią, miłością a emocjonalnym uzależnieniem?

 

Mam nadzieję, że kiedyś jeszcze sięgnę po inną książkę tej autorki.

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text 2016-01-21 18:32
New books to read

I have gotten a bunch of new books, both ARC's and real books lately. I thought I list them, to be honest, the list got a bit long, longer than I had planned it. But apparently I have gotten quite a lot of new books. I should probably think about not requesting more...hahaha yeah right...

 

In an epic novel that reimagines the Hundred Years War—in a world where angels and demons choose sides on the battlefield—England and France find themselves locked in a holy war, but which country has God's favor?

England, 1337: Edward III is beset on all sides, plagued by debt and surrounded by doubters. He refuses to pay homage to the newly crowned Philip Valois of France and seeks to secure his French holdings, but he's outmanned. Philip can put 50,000 men in the field, but he is having his own problems: he has summoned the angels themselves to fight for France, but the angels refuse to fight. Both kings send priests far and wide, seeking holy relics and heavenly beings to take up the cause of their country, but God remains stubbornly silent, refusing to grant favor to either side.

Meanwhile, among the poor and downtrodden, heretical whispers are taking hold: what if God—who has never been seen to do anything for them—is not the rightful leader of the heavens after all? And as Edward’s situation becomes increasingly desperate, even his counselors begin to believe that if God won’t listen, perhaps they can find a savior not from Heaven, but from Hell.

In a sweeping tale packed with courtiers and kings, knights and priests, and devils and angels, Mark Alder breathes fresh and imaginative life into the Hundred Years War in this unique historical epic.

 

*************

 

When brilliant FBI agent Kendra Donovan stumbles back in time and finds herself in a 19th century English castle under threat from a vicious serial killer, she scrambles to solve the case before it takes her life—200 years before she was even born.

Beautiful and brilliant, Kendra Donovan is a rising star at the FBI. Yet her path to professional success hits a speed bump during a disastrous raid where half her team is murdered, a mole in the FBI is uncovered and she herself is severely wounded. As soon as she recovers, she goes rogue and travels to England to assassinate the man responsible for the deaths of her teammates.

While fleeing from an unexpected assassin herself, Kendra escapes into a stairwell that promises sanctuary but when she stumbles out again, she is in the same place - Aldrich Castle - but in a different time: 1815, to be exact.

Mistaken for a lady's maid hired to help with weekend guests, Kendra is forced to quickly adapt to the time period until she can figure out how she got there; and, more importantly, how to get back home. However, after the body of a young girl is found on the extensive grounds of the county estate, she starts to feel there's some purpose to her bizarre circumstances. Stripped of her twenty-first century tools, Kendra must use her wits alone in order to unmask a cunning madman.

 

*************

 


The New York Times bestselling author of Labor Day and After Her returns with a poignant story about the true meaning—and the true price—of friendship

Alcohol cost Helen her marriage and custody of David, her seven-year-old son. Though she once had aspirations to be an art photographer, she makes ends meet taking pictures of grade-school children and working society parties for a catering company. Recovering from her addiction, she spends her evenings checking out profiles on an online dating site; weekends, she has awkward visits with her son, but he seems to be drifting away from her, fast.

When she meets Ava and Swift Havilland, the vulnerable Helen is instantly enchanted. Wealthy, connected philanthropists, they have their own charity devoted to the care and welfare of dogs. Their home is filled with glamorous friends, edgy art, and fabulous parties.

As Helen increasingly falls under the Havillands’ influence—running errands, doing random chores, cataloguing Ava’s art collection—Ava and Swift hire a good lawyer to help her regain custody of her son. But the debt Helen owes them is about to come due.

David witnesses an accident involving Swift, his grown son, Cooper, and the daughter of the Havillands’ Guatemalan housekeeper. With David’s future in the balance, Helen must choose between the truth and the friends who have given her everything.

 

*************

 

An enthralling Edith Wharton-meets-Little Women debut about a family of four artistic sisters on the outskirts of Gilded Age New York high society that centers on the boldest—an aspiring writer caught between the boy next door and a mysterious novelist who inducts her into Manhattan’s most elite artistic salon.

The Bronx, 1891. Virginia Loftin, the boldest of four artistic sisters in a family living in genteel poverty, knows what she wants most: to become a celebrated novelist despite her gender, and to marry Charlie, the boy next door and her first love.

When Charlie proposes instead to a woman from a wealthy family, Ginny is devastated; shutting out her family, she holes up and turns their story into fiction, obsessively rewriting a better ending. Though she works with newfound intensity, literary success eludes her-until she attends a salon hosted in her brother's writer friend John Hopper's Fifth Avenue mansion. Among painters, musicians, actors, and writers, Ginny returns to herself, even blooming under the handsome, enigmatic John's increasingly romantic attentions.

Just as she and her siblings have become swept up in the society, though, Charlie throws himself back into her path, and Ginny learns that the salon's bright lights may be obscuring some dark shadows. Torn between two worlds that aren't quite as she'd imagined them, Ginny will realize how high the stakes are for her family, her writing, and her chance at love.

 

*************

 

When Darren Hatman reports his daughter missing, DI Wesley Peterson isn't too concerned. Leanne Hatman is an aspiring model, keen to abandon her native Devon for the bright lights of London. However, Darren's claim that a photographer has been stalking Leanne soon changes Wesley's opinion.

Leanne works at Eyecliffe Castle, once home to the wealthy D'Arles family and now converted into a luxury hotel. When Darren himself is found brutally murdered in the castle grounds, the police fear is that Leanne has met a similar fate. But, if so, where is her body?

Meanwhile, Wesley's friend, archaeologist Neil Watson, recently returned from a thrilling Sicilian excavation, makes a disturbing discovery near Eyecliffe Castle and surprises Wesley with the news that, while in Sicily, he met Leanne's alleged stalker.

With Eyecliffe Castle becoming the scene of another violent death, Wesley suspects a connection between the recent crimes, the disappearance of two girls back in the 1950s and a mysterious Sicilian ruin called the House of Eyes, a place feared by superstitious locals.

As he works to solve one of his most challenging cases yet, Wesley must face alarming revelations, rooted in centuries of fear and evil . . . as well as dealing with a nightmare of his own.

 

*************

 

New York Times bestselling author Jeffery Deaver returns with his next blockbuster thriller featuring forensic detective Lincoln Rhyme.

Amelia Sachs is hot on the trail of a killer. She's chasing him through a department store in Brooklyn when an escalator malfunctions. The stairs give way, with one man horribly mangled by the gears. Sachs is forced to let her quarry escape as she jumps in to try to help save the victim. She and famed forensic detective Lincoln Rhyme soon learn, however, that the incident may not have been an accident at all, but the first in a series of intentional attacks. They find themselves up against one of their most formidable opponents ever: a brilliant killer who turns common products into murder weapons. As the body count threatens to grow, Sachs and Rhyme must race against the clock to unmask his identity--and discover his mission--before more people die.

 

*************

 

Leeds, 1914. Sisters Julia and Margaret Wood are struggling to rise above devastating poverty, while the threat of war looms large over their community. Angry feelings about foreigners have reached boiling point; their German-Jewish father's search for work proves hopeless, leaving entrepreneurial Julia to keep the family afloat by hawking homemade pies on the streets of Leeds.

Her beautiful elder sister Margaret, an apprentice milliner and new member of the suffragette set, seeks a faster way out of the daily grind, pinning her hopes on a rich suffragette's journalist son, Thomas.

But as the war rages on, it is left to Julia to discover the true meaning of courage and family, as she learns to look forward to the start of the new day - and the promise of a better life ahead.

 

*************

 

The author of Hard Time and Give It All is back with a new series centred on a daring married couple set to explore their fantasies and those of the stranger they've invited to play.

When he's working, Mike Heyer is all business - every inch the alpha male, with the hard, capable body to back up his persona. But at home he can be a different man entirely, harboring appetites only his wife gets to glimpse...

 

When Samira first learned of her husband's fantasies, she was reluctant, even alarmed. But after witnessing the way they set him on fire, she yielded, and happily indulged. As their games have intensified, so has the rush. And now so has the risk - they're poised to take Mike's indecent desires to the next level, by opening their bed to a sexy, brazen stranger. A man seeming custom-made to grant every last one of Mike and Samira's sinful wishes.

 

Welcoming someone new into their lives was always a dangerous proposition, but the couple imagined if anything was at stake, it was their privacy...not their hearts.

 

*************

 

A powerful story of love and loss from internationally bestselling author Tamara McKinly.
So this is Paris, she thought in awe. Spread out before her beneath a clear blue sky, it was like a precious gift after the smog and filth of London. No wonder it was called the city of love . . .

After a spiteful rumour ruins her career in London, Annabelle Blake must travel to Paris to start afresh. There she makes the acquaintance of Etienne and Henri - one a poet, the other a painter - both charming, talented and handsome. They spend their days flirting and drinking with the city's artistesand Bohemians, and soon Annabelle too is swept up in the exotic and exhilarating world of 1930s Paris. But as ever more young people are drawn to the fight against Fascism in Spain, Annabelle must wake from the dream and confront the reality of war. A lifetime later, gifted artist Eugenie Ashton falls in love with Paris the moment she sets foot outside the Gare de Lyon. Like her mother Annabelle before her, the artistic delights of the city are a bright new world to her: but Eugenie will soon find that in its shadows are hidden the secrets of her family's past.

 

*************

 

California, 1993: Neil Collins and Adam Tayler, two young British men on the cusp of adulthood, meet at a hostel in San Diego. They strike up a friendship that, while platonic, feels as intoxicating as a romance; they travel up the coast together, harmlessly competitive, innocently collusive, wrapped up in each other. On a camping trip to Yosemite they lead each other to behave in ways that, years later, they will desperately regret.

The story of a friendship built on a shared guilt and a secret betrayal, The Faithful Couple follows Neil and Adam across two decades, through girlfriends and wives, success and failure, children and bereavements, as power and remorse ebb between them. Their bifurcating fates offer an oblique portrait of London in the boom-to-bust era of the nineties and noughties, with its instant fortunes and thwarted idealism. California binds them together, until-when the full truth of what happened emerges, bringing recriminations and revenge-it threatens to drive them apart.

 

The Faithful Couple confirms Miller as one of the most exciting and sophisticated novelists in the UK - someone who can tell a great story, with a sense of serious moral complexity. This is that rare bird: a literary novel with mass appeal as well as the potential to win prizes.

*************

 

A woman disappears

One moment, Selena Cole is in the playground with her children and the next, she has vanished without a trace.

A woman returns

Twenty hours later, Selena is found safe and well, but with no memory of where she has been.


What took place in those missing hours, and are they linked to the discovery of a nearby murder?

‘Is it a forgetting or a deception?’

 

*************

 

 

From the acclaimed author of The Bones of You comes a haunting and heartbreaking new psychological thriller about a man thrust into the middle of a murder investigation, forced to confront the secrets of his ex-lover's past.

"I was fourteen when I fell in love with a goddess. . ."

So begins the testimony of Noah Calaway, an ex-lawyer with a sideline in armchair criminal psychology. Now living an aimless life in an inherited cottage in the English countryside, Noah is haunted by the memory of the beguiling young woman who left him at the altar sixteen years earlier. Then one day he receives a troubling phone call. April, the woman he once loved, lies in a coma, the victim of an apparent overdose--and the lead suspect in a brutal murder. Deep in his bones, Noah believes that April is innocent. Then again, he also believed they would spend the rest of their lives together.

While Noah searches for evidence that will clear April's name, a teenager named Ella begins to sift through the secrets of her own painful family history. The same age as April was when Noah first met her, Ella harbors a revelation that could be the key to solving the murder. As the two stories converge, there are shocking consequences when at last, the truth emerges.

Or so everyone believes. . .

Set in a borderland where the past casts its shadow on the present, with a time-shifting narrative that will mesmerize and surprise, The Beauty of the End is both a masterpiece of suspense and a powerful rumination on lost love.

 

*************

 

The darkest day of Sam Capra’s life was when he watched his brother, Danny, executed by extremists on an online video. But now, evidence has surfaced that Danny may still be alive—leading a secret, hidden life for the past six years while the world believed him to be dead. What’s more, Sam discovers that Danny may be plotting a murder that could change history: assassinating the Russian president. Determined to stop his brother from committing a murder that may cause a war, Sam goes undercover in a one-man mission to save the world-and to save his brother.

 

*************

 

New York Times and #1 international bestselling author Linwood Barclay delivers the second spine-chilling thriller set in the troubled town of Promise Falls, following the electrifying cliffhanger ending of Broken Promise...
 
After the screen of a run-down drive-in movie theater collapses and kills four people, the daughter of one of the victims asks private investigator Cal Weaver to look into a recent break-in at her father’s house. Cal discovers a hidden basement room where it’s clear that salacious activities have taken place—as well as evidence of missing DVDs. But his investigation soon becomes more complicated when he realizes it may not be discs the thief was actually interested in....
 
Meanwhile, Detective Barry Duckworth is still trying to solve two murders—one of which is three years old—he believes are connected, since each featured a similar distinctive wound.
 
As the lies begin to unravel, Cal is headed straight into the heart of a dark secret as his search uncovers more startling truths about Promise Falls. And when yet another murder happens, Cal and Barry are both driven to pursue their investigations, no matter where they lead. Evil deeds long thought buried are about to haunt the residents of this town—as the sins of the past and present collide with terrifying results.

 

*************

 

The genteel façade of London’s Hampstead is shattered by a series of terrifying murders, and the ensuing police hunt is threatened by internal politics, and a burgeoning love triangle within the investigative team. Pressurised by senior officers desperate for a result a new initiative is clearly needed, but what?


Intellectual analysis and police procedure vie with the gut instinct of ‘copper’s nose’, and help appears to offer itself from a very unlikely source – a famous fictional detective. A psychological profile of the murderer allows the police to narrow down their search, but will Scotland Yard lose patience with the team before they can crack the case?
Praised by fellow authors and readers alike, this is a truly original crime story, speaking to a contemporary audience yet harking back to the Golden Age of detective fiction. Intelligent, quirky and mannered, it has been described as ‘a love letter to the detective novel’. Above it all hovers Hampstead, a magical village evoking the elegance of an earlier time, and the spirit of mystery-solving detectives.


Guy Fraser-Sampson is an established writer best known for his series of ‘Mapp and Lucia’ novels which have been featured on BBC Radio 4 and optioned by BBC television. This is his debut work of detective fiction, and the first title in the Hampstead Murders series.

 

That's it (I think)! Any book here you want to read? 

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