#NowWeAreReading Lesley Thomson's A Kind Of Vanishing
"Eleanor seldom reflected that she invented the most exciting bits of her life. The whimsical world in her head was real, the life she lived a dull perseverance in comparison."
Book cover. A mighty dragon rears between two gothic towers. Her wings and much of her body are purple, the rest gold. Her long, long tail snakes around a tower and back to her. Her face is spiky, her mouth open, baring her teeth in a fierce, but satisfied, grin. Text: Every fire starts with a single spark. A Language Of Dragons. S. F. Williamson
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S. F. Williamson: A Language of Dragons
1923 London. Vivien is considering how best to use her facility for languages, including the various dragon tongues. As war beckons, she has to become a codebreaker.... at Bletchley Park.
Book cover. A dark jungle scene with stars peeking between tree trunks. At the top a highly coloured macaw. Near the bottom a variety of colourful flowers, a blue butterfly, a frog with a stripy body and mottled legs, and a human skull, looking rather disgruntled, with a fat green snake slithering out of one of its eye sockets. Text: An experience like no other. From a writer like no other. Rainforest. Michelle Paver.
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Michelle Paver: Rainforest
A journey into the jungle, and into somebody's mind. Captivating.
Book cover: Green skinned Elphaba, dressed as a witch reaches down to touch finger to finger with fair skinned Glinda, beautifully dressed in a princess outfit. There is a castle and the outline of a flying bird in the far distance.
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Gregory Maguire: Wicked
I nearly didn't start reading because of the Hollywood film poster on the front. Glad I did; it's very well written, seriously dark, and a brilliant exploration of good and evil, perceptions and relationships.
Yesssssss! Preferably our shelf.
We are reading Wicked. Gregory Maguire has a wonderful turn of phrase. "a community of bees, at their work of chamber music and honey".
Book cover. he background looks like a metal ornament fashioned in the shape of black leaves studded with gold lights. Against it the words "Serpent" and "Dove" stand out on elegantly curved gold font. A gold serpent is twisted into the shape of the "and" sign between them. Text: A brillint debut, full of everything I love - Sarah J Maas #1 New York Times bestselling author. New York Times bestselling author Shelby Mahurin
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Shelby Mahurin: Serpent and Dove
Witch and witch hunter are forced into an unlikely marriage (quite plausibly). Their story is told alternately from her and his viewpoints and makes for spell binding reading.
a medicine bottle and another key. Below are medicinal leaves and plants. Text: International bestselling author of The Botanist's Daughter. Kayte Nunn The Silk House. Weaving, healing, haunting. "Entirely spellbinding" Natasha Lester.
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Kayte Nunn: The Silk House
Very absorbing story, appealingly told
Book cover In the foreground a figure that could be a girl or a young woman walks away, clad in knee length white stockings and an orange raincoat. She has blue straight hair. She walks ona wide poorly maintained cobble path. Only just emerging from a thick mist are a forbidding concrete wall on one side and on the other a wall with trees topping it and a large tower. Text: The number one bestseller Lesley Thomson The Detective's Daughter. "Lesley Thomson is a class above" Ian Rankin.
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Lesley Thomson; The Detective's Secret
Brilliantly twisty. A lovely read.
We looked up a book about druidry on eBay. The first book listed under "Explore related items" was "Principles of Engineering Thermodynamics". Has eBay identified a link to a whole new understanding of science?
And which should we buy for the library?
Book cover dominated by a phoenix with wildly flapping wings. it is dark with a tinge of purple against a purple background. It pecks at a complex rune picked out in gold shapes and lettering. Text: A searingly brilliant fantasy. This is magical school with teeth... an unmissable read. Tasha Suri, author of The Jasmine Throne. The Incandescent. Sunday Times bestselling author Emily Tesh
Ringmer review
Emily Tesh: The Incandescent
Brilliant. Starts with the everyday mundane banality of a contemporary school teacher - schedules, lesson plans, risk assessments, then adds a layer of magic, demons and firebirds. Risk assessment takes on a whole new meaning. It's also a love story.
Book cover. Swirling white at the bottom shading to black at the top. In the centre is a complex runic pattern with a sun and stars on a diamond shaped background. Behind it is a square background with rounded edges. In the middle a black dragon soars and to the bottom left a white dragon flies towards it. Text: "Rebecca Yarros has created some awesome dragons! Proud, beautiful and full of unique magics." Christopher Paolini number 1 NYT bestselling author of the Inheritance Cycle. Brave the dark. Onyx Storm Rebecca Yarros number 1 New York Times bestselling author
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Rebecca Yarros: Onyx Storm
The third of the Empyrean series. A tale of peril and bravery impeccably told. The best part is still the dry wit of the dragons as they bond with their inferior human riders.
Book cover - a miserable looking grey rain swept scene with distant houses and trees only just visible. In the foreground is a metal swing frame with two swings on chains, the nearer one in mid flight, but with no child on it or anywhere to be seen. Text: The number one bestseller. Lesley Thomson. Ghost Girl. "Lesley Thomson is a class above", Ian Rankin.
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Lesley Thomson: Ghost Girl
Fabulously well written. Every new character comes off the page in just a few sentences. A very satisfying story.
Book cover Roosa, in a black dress with black stockings and shoes and a black eye mask, and with her black hair flying loose behind her, jumps elegantly from an ornate window in an otherwise featureless concrete wall. Above to the right a helicopter shines searchlights over a towering cityscape. Text: Fran Wilde A Philosophy Of Thieves.
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Fran Wilde: A Philosophy of Thieves
In a post crisis future, the rich are even richer. They put on enormously expensive parties at which gangs of thieves are hired to rob their guests. Roosa is one such artist, who finds herself thrown into a twisty and deadly plot.
Book cover. Against a peach coloured background a black sun sends rays of light towards surrounding clouds. The picture is ringed with several ornate circles. In the centre the silhouette of a white dragon flies across the sun. At the edge a black dragon flies. The title Iron Flame is laced through the picture, together with the words "Burn. It. Down." Text: The thrilling sequel to the number one global bestselling phenomenon Fourth Wing. Rebecca Yarros The Empyrean Series.
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Rebcca Yarros: Iron Flame. Brilliant sequel to Fourth Wing, impeccable writing, compulsive reading.
Book cover. Against a black background a white sun projects shafts of light towards black clouds, the picture ringed by circular golden lines. The silhouette of a black dragon flies in front of the sun. The words Fourth Wing are interleaved in gold thoruhg the pattern. Text: Discover the thrilling must-read global phenomenon. Rebecca Yarros the number one bestselling author
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Rebcca Yarros: Fourth Wing a world with dragons and a lot of danger. There's also quite a lot of sex. Brilliant writing.
Yarros has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and, interestingly, has very convincingly written a main character with the same condition.
Book cover. At the bottom lies an open book with a flower opening above it. The flower could easily be interpreted, in line with the theme of the book, as a vagina. Stylised flames and leaves take up all but the top of the cover, surrounding the book's large print title. There is a Penguin penguin in the bottom right hand corner. Text: From the Booker shortlisted author. "A gorgeous, jewelled, luxurious book" The Times. "Colourfully woven and intelligent" Daily Telegraph. Elif Shafak The Forty Rules Of Love.
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Elif Shafak: The Forty Rules Of Love
An American woman has constructed a life as a perfect wife and mother (despite husband's infidelity), and then life comes at her in the form of a book about the Sufi poet Rumi. TBH, it took a while to get into, but worth it.
we're being followed by a criminologist. Oops. <The Library tiptoes carefully out of sight.>
We've just been told a library is only a library if it's from the Libre region of France, otherwise it's just a sparkling book hoard.
We're very happy to be known as a sparkling book hoard.
And happy new year to all our readers!
Inside cover, both back and front. In the bottom right corner sits a rose, its petals dissolving into fragments and its leaves drifting away. The fragments and the leaves drift across the two light orange pages.
The hard cover of the book, front and back, is black covered with hundreds of golden dots like stars in a teeming galaxy.
The back of the dust jacket is orange with a stylised rose in the middle. Above it the words "We need the things we can't explain, things we can't prove, or else we die of suffocation. The Secret Commonwealth. The Rose Field. They're necessary...." "Ablaze with light and life... to read Pullman is to experience the world afresh, aglow, in technicolour" Independent.
Book dust jacket, dominated by a fiery red. Two small silhouettes of travellers on camels cross a parched looking desert heading towards a distant mountain range. They are dwarfed by a cavernous sky alive with red and yellow. Text: Philip Pullman The Book Of Dust Volume Three: The Rose Field. Pantalaimon the pine marten daemon looks up from the D of Dust; Asta the cat daemon looks down from the second O of Book.
Probably the best designed book we've seen all year - dust jacket, cover and inside cover all unite to depict the Rose Field.
Book cover. Against a black background there is a complex mandala like image mostly in red and gold with a man's head, with jet black face and red hair, on the left side looking left and on the right side a woman's head with black face and curly gold hair looking right. Text "The Handmaid's Tale but with mindreading." The Times. Torchfire. One spark can start a blaze. Moira Buffini.
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Moira Buffini: Torchfire
Second in the Torch trilogy. Wonderful tale of love, difference and a brutal struggle for supremacy in what remains of the world after we've wrecked it. Can't wait for the third part, but I'm going to have to; it's not out yet. Sigh.
Book cover. A wintry forest of scattered trees with icy trunks and dark branches stripped of leaves. There are several dark silhouettes of bids in flight. Text: In a small Lapland village no misdeed is ever forgotten. The Last Snow. From the international bestseller Stina Jackson. "Superb... a gripping story" The Times. Multi award winning author.
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Stina Jackson: the Last Snow. Deliciously dark with a very satisfying end.
Book cover. In the background are ghostly grey bookshelves. In the foreground an open book; we cannot see any of the words on its pages. Text: The debut novel from Susie Dent. "Kept me reading eagerly" Philip Pullman. Guilty By Definition. "A tantalising mystery for word sleuths and crime fans alike" Janice Hallett
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Susie Dent: Guilty By Definition. Cosy crime and lovely words. What more could a reader want?
Book cover: in a painting we look upwards to a passenger train with lit windows being pulled over a viaduct by a steam engine. The sky above is lit by the setting sun with orange and vibrant red. There are mountains in the background. Below the viaduct we see several pine trees in silhouette. Text: Philip Pullman The Book of Dust Volume Two The Secret Commonwealth. Lyra's daemon Pantalaimon perches, in pine marten form, in the second "O" of "Book".
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Philip Pullman: The Secret Commonwealth The latest instalment of Lyra's life journey unfolds in mesmerising fashion.
We like this.
Book cover. The background is a stylised representation of bad weather, red at the top, light blue with hints of snow in the middle and a dark blue line at the bottom. The silhouettes of two men are outlined in a semi confrontational position. Text: "The Sunday Times number one bestseller. Jo Nesbo. Blood Ties. Family comes first... no matter the cost. Nesbo is a 100 per cent buy today read tonight delight. Lee Child.
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Jo Nesbo: Blood Ties
This is wonderful from Jo Nesbo. Seriously good writing and an excellent plot.
Elly Griffiths and Lesley Thompson are standing in front of some library shelves. Elly is holding a copy of her book The Frozen People and Lesley is holding a copy of her book The Mystery of Yew Tree House.
Tickets still available!
Join local authors Elly Griffiths and Lesley Thomson at 2.30 on Sat 29th Nov at Ringmer Village Hall to hear them talking to each other about their work.
Tickets £5 available from Ringmer Village Library
or email ringmervillagelibrary@gmail.com