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Showing posts from December, 2016

Reflections 2016

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Year 2016 is pretty uneventful but equally busy with many things that went on . I read much less this year compared to previous years and there was a couple of times when I totally didn't read at all and that's reflective in my review posts. I also didn't buy much novels this year as at the last count, I have nearly 150 copies of to be read novels.  If I successfully read 1 novel a month, it would take me 12 years to finish them..provided I don't buy any books at all from now onward!  If I read 2 books a month, it would take me 6 years to complete them. Wow! So yup, that's where I stand.  But I know I read more than 2 novels a month so there! My work travel also has reduced drastically since the last couple of years due to change of job and that pretty much relates to my reading habits too as I used to read a lot while on work travel as there's nothing much else to do in the hours in between. On the other hand, I have stop doing any committed review

Call The Dying by Andrew Taylor

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Synopsis : Love and need make unexpected bedfellows, and both are blind. As the grip of a long hard winter tightens on Lydmouth, a dead woman calls the dying in a seance behind net curtains. Two provincial newspapers are in the throes of a bitter circulation war. A lorry-driver broods, and an office boy loses his heart.  Britain is basking in the warm glow of post-war tranquillity, but in the quiet town of Lydmouth, darker forces are at play. The rats are fed on bread and milk, a gentleman's yellow kid glove is mislaid on a train, and something disgusting is happening at Mr Prout's toyshop.  Returning to a town shrouded in intrigue and suspicion, Jill Francis becomes acting editor of the Gazette. Meanwhile, there's no pleasure left in the life of Detective Chief Inspector Richard Thornhill. Only a corpse, a television set and the promise of trouble to come. The storyline is set in the rural countryside of UK and started off rather mellow and slo w with

Christmas Greetings - 2016

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Taking this opportunity to wish everyone a very  Merry Christmas  from Purple Queen Fairy and the royal household. God bless you all  and  may you have lots of books in your Christmas stockings!

For The Sake of Elena by Elizabeth George

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Synopsis : Elena Weaver was a surprise to anyone meeting her for the first time. In her clingy dresses and dangling earrings she exuded a sexuality at odds with the innocence projected by the unicorn posters on her walls. While her embittered mother fretted about her welfare from her home in London, in Cambridge—where Elena was a student at St. Stephen's College—her father and his second wife each had their own very different image of the girl. As for Elena, she lived a life of casual and intense physical and emotional relationships, with scores to settle and goals to achieve--until someone, lying in wait along the route she ran every morning, bludgeoned her to death. Unwilling to turn the killing over to the local police, the university calls in New Scotland Yard. Thus, Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and his partner, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, enter the rarefied world of Cambridge University, where academic gowns often hide murderous intentions. For b

The Shinning by Stephen King

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Synopsis : Danny was only five years old but in the words of old Mr Halloran he was a 'shiner', aglow with psychic voltage. When his father became caretaker of the Overlook Hotel his visions grew frighteningly out of control. As winter closed in and blizzards cut them off, the hotel seemed to develop a life of its own. It was meant to be empty, but who was the lady in Room 217, and who were the masked guests going up and down in the elevator? And why did the hedges shaped like animals seem so alive? Somewhere, somehow there was an evil force in the hotel - and that too had begun to shine... This is one of the BEST horror book ever!  I read this when I was much younger many, many years ago and I decided to re-read it again recently. Re-reading it doesn't make it less scary.  I remember being spooked out at home one night recently after reading this in bed and I refuse to venture into the kitchen to get a glass of water! Readers have to pay attention to the d

Paranoia by Joseph Finder

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Synopsis : It was only a prank: diverting cash from Wyatt Telecom's executive slush fund to throw a retirement bash for a member of the loading dock crew. But when corporate security catches up with Adam Cassidy, a low ambition junior staffer at the high-tech behemoth, they call it something else: embezzlement, to the tune of nearly $80 grand. Ruthless CEO Nick Wyatt is impressed by Adam's scheming, and offers him one way out-take on the role of a rising corporate hotshot and infiltrate Wyatt's rival, Trion Systems. His mission is to get close to Trion's legendary founder Jock Goddard, and his ultra-secret "Project Aurora," and report back to Wyatt. With Wyatt pulling the strings and a dramatically improved identity, Adam is set up as Trion's new boy genius. Suddenly, he's got a sweet new Porsche, a closet full of $1,500 suits, and even a lovely lady who thinks he's a dream. But it's all just a mirage, because Adam is about to

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

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Synopsis : Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate -- a life and a role that she has never challenged... until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister—and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves. A provocative novel that raises some important ethical issues, My Sister's Keeper is the story of one family's struggle for survival at all human costs and a stunning parable for all time. Books by Jodi Picoult are never straight forward. It has to either