Write - cubed

In between getting the house shipshape for inspection.  I'm trying to write as much as possible over the next three days as I can't write when we have visitors, which is odd because I can write in coffee shops.  But in coffee shops I sit in a booth so no one is looking over my shoulder - aha.  That's two breakthroughs, the other one is my desk, it's actually tidy!

Lost in France

I just finished the arc for Maxine Kenneth's Paris to Die For (published July 28th) it's pitched as Charade meets James Bond which is fairly accurate but the protagonist is the interesting point for me, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier.  The fiction is wound around actual events in Jackie's life and uses a mix of real and imagined characters and it is set in a rich vein of American history.

Sticking with the French theme, I'm currently halfway through The Grave Gourmet by Alexander Campion, the start of a new culinary mystery series set in Paris.  It features a glamourous police lieutenant and her restaurant critic husband, and the jacket blurb and first chapter was enough to make me buy it.

An evening with Michael Feeney Callan

This week is flying, attended the Robert Redford bio event last night - no he wasn't there - although the bio is authorized Redford is a very private guy and no one was expecting him to put in an appearance.  There was some talk of obtaining a cardboard cutout but that never went anywhere. 

Michael Feeney Callan - the author - is a charming Irishman who answered the many, many questions the vocal audience put to him.  Lets lay to rest the idea that this book is a tell-all, Callan put it best when he said (I'm paraphrasing him) that the book was a 16 year project shaped by voices of people who have worked with Redford and by Callan's observations of Redford - they bumped heads a few times but have remained friends.

Here is a link to a great interview that Doug Fabrizio conducted with Callan yesterday (June 21)

At the event Callan did have a few comments on sloppy mis-informed journalism (Doug's interview is none of those things!).  One review in an LA newspaper showed that not only had the reviewer not read Callan's book (Cardinal sin as far as I'm concerned).  He or she had taken Redford's mythical baseball career from a post on the internet and used it as fact.  Callan wrote to the editor and asked for a correction (which he got) and an apology (which he didn't get) 

Feet up weekend

First weekend when I haven't needed a jacket to sit outside and read.  Read and loved The Good Thief's Guide to Venice (more thoughts of that once I've written a blurb for the store), started our bookclub book Gaston Laroux's Phantom of the Opera (look past the mass market cover) the book is gothic suspense, romance and a hint of comedy, which I was not expecting. Started reading 'Them' by Jon Ronson (author of The Psychopath Test and The Men Who Stare at Goats) on Monday.  I also want to read The Glass Key before our trip to San Francisco.  At this time of year my reading is a group of holding patterns, and each room holds a different book.

Interview with Matt Richtel

Rather than repeat what is posted on TKE's website here's the link to my interview with Matt.

Thoughts on Machine Man

Max Barry's new book is a thriller, a thought provoker, has a wicked thread of humour running through it but also some seriously moral questions.  His character Charlie turns a lemon of an accident into lemonade by upgrading himself and his lab assistants come along for the ride in the ultimate open source development competition.

My favourite line from this book

"Compared to you, Kevin Warwick is a pussy!"

NB Kevin Warwick was my husband's cybernetics professor at Reading University and has a computer chip embedded in his arm.

Full review when Machine Man comes out in August.

Thoughts on the new Sophie Hannah

It fascinates me when a book starts out as one idea and transitions to something you didn't know was coming and does it seamlessly.  That's the experience I just had with The Cradle In The Grave.  Without giving it away a medical issue comes up that is current and needs a lot more investigation and that despite numerous studies to the contrary I still wouldn't put a member of my family through.  There is also that number puzzle I mentioned in the last post which I'm ashamed I couldn't work out.

Sophie Hannah

I'm immersed in the newest Sophie Hannah, Cradle in The Grave, it has everything, injustice, murder, characters with lots of secrets to hide, a medical side and a number puzzle that once it was solved left me slapping my head and I'm not done yet.  I'm on the last 50 pages and for someone it isn't going to end well.  Full review when the book is published in September.  Still have to finish Paris to Die For and then in-between book club books, I've got Machine Man by Max Barry and Trick of the Dark by Val McDermid.

The Good Thief is coming to Salt Lake!

Saturday August 13th - that is when Chris Ewan, author of the Good Thief's Guide series will be coming to TKE to read from and sign his latest book The Good Thief's Guide to Venice.  Chris has a lot of fans in Salt Lake and we're really excited to be hosting him.

The Hypnotist, Lars Kepler

National CID Detective Joona Linna takes on a bizarre and tragic murder case.  A young Swedish family hacked to pieces in their own home.  Questioning the barely surviving witness is not an option, the boy’s life hangs by a thread.  What Linna needs is a hypnotist.

Erik Maria Bark is that hypnotist, problem is he gave up practising ten years ago.  Bark went on national TV and swore he would never hypnotise another soul.  But the detective won’t take no for an answer so Erik puts the boy in a trance.  What happens next won’t just threaten everything Erik has managed to rebuild.  It will tear families apart, turn friends into bitter enemies and rob Erik of Benjamin – his only son.  Gritty, fast-paced and hard to put down.

Before I Go To Sleep, S.J Watson

Every day middle-aged housewife Christine Lucas wakes, her mind a blank slate.  Victim of a car accident, Christine cannot hold on to memories, her husband Ben has given up hope and simply edits her life to make things easier.  But Christine has a secret, Dr Nash and her personal memory book are bringing back flashes of faces and events from the past.    

Every time Christine tries to picture the accident she remembers a hotel room, flowers, champagne and a sensation of drowning and on the eve of a Wedding Anniversary trip she finds three words scrawled across the first page of her journal DON’T TRUST BEN.  But if she can’t trust the man she married who can she trust?

New for June

Before I Go To Sleep and The Hypnotist both come out this month.  Read them with the lights on.