Friday Finds (August 22)

Hosted by Should be Reading

FRIDAY FINDS showcases the books you ‘found’ and added to your To Be Read (TBR) list… whether you found them online, or in a bookstore, or in the library — wherever! (they aren’t necessarily books you purchased).

So, come on — share with us your FRIDAY FINDS

This week I have two finds from NetGalley that I would have missed if it weren’t for fellow bloggers highlighting them in their finds, so please keep them coming as you never know one day I might run out of books! I’m sure this compulsion should be a recognisable condition but I’m not sure that I’m ready to take the necessary steps to beat it, in fact I know I’m not.

First up, I have a copy of The Twilight Hour by Nicci Gerrard, half of the very successful partnership that makes up Nicci French. This book is due to be published on 23 October 2014.

A book about a personal history is just up my street however this is the third notable book that I have read this year about old age; Elizabeth is Missing and The Girl Next Door also featuring elderly protagonists.

Blurb

Eleanor Lee is fiercely independent. She has lived alone well into her nineties, despite her now near-total blindness. Now, finally, she has been persuaded by her children to move into a home.
She employs Peter, a recent graduate nursing a broken heart, to spend the summer sorting through her attic – papers, photographs, books and letters – ahead of the move.
These fragments of her own history unleash in Eleanor a long-concealed story of forbidden love, betrayal, passion, grief and self-sacrifice; and in their unlikely friendship, something is unlocked in Peter’s heart, too.NetGalley

I also have managed to get a copy of Dying For Christmas, the latest book by Tamar Cohen who has now decided to use the more informal Tammy Cohen , there’s nothing better as far as I’m concerned for the sweetness of Christmas to be offset by a psychological thriller and this one sounds good.

Blurb

I am missing. Held captive by a blue-eyed stranger. To mark the twelve days of Christmas, he gives me a gift every day, each more horrible than the last. The twelfth day is getting closer. After that, there’ll be no more Christmas cheer for me. No mince pies, no carols. No way out …
But I have a secret. No-one has guessed it. Will you? NetGalley

I was very excited to hear that Peter James is having a second book published this year, a collection of short stories; A Twist of the Knife, due to be published in November 2014.

Blurb

Combining stories from ebook story collections Short Shockers One and Short Shockers Two, and with never-before-seen new material, this is a story collection you won’t forget. From a woman intent on revenge, to a restaurant critic with a fear of the number thirteen, and from a story of ghostly terror to the first ever case of his best-loved Detective, Roy Grace, James exposes the Achilles heels of each of his characters, and makes us question how well we can trust ourselves, and each other. Funny, sad, but always shocking, each tale carries a twist that will haunt readers for days after they turn the final page . . .Amazon

The Zig Zag Girl by Elly Griffiths also caught my eye, this book is also due to be published in November 2014 and is a stand-alone book from the creator of the Ruth Galloway series.

Blurb

Brighton, 1950.
When the body of a girl is found, cut into three, Detective Inspector Edgar Stephens is reminded of a magic trick, the Zig Zag Girl.
The inventor of the trick, Max Mephisto, is an old friend of Edgar’s. They served together in the war as part of a shadowy unit called the Magic Men.
Max is still on the circuit, touring seaside towns in the company of ventriloquists, sword-swallowers and dancing girls. Changing times mean that variety is not what it once was, yet Max is reluctant to leave this world to help Edgar investigate. But when the dead girl turns out to be known to him, Max changes his mind.
Another death, another magic trick: Edgar and Max become convinced that the answer to the murders lies in their army days. When Edgar receives a letter warning of another ‘trick’, the Wolf Trap, he knows that they are all in danger… Goodreads

Can anyone explain to me why Brighton is such a popular place for crime novels?

Fellow blogger from Musings From a Bookmammal kindly pointed out that Lucy Worsley has written another book, The Art of the English Murder which will look very smart next to my copy of A Very British Murder. This is why I love blogging because I’m fairly certain this book would not grace Bookmammal’s bookshelf yet she thought of me when she saw it. Strangely this is being published soon in the US but here in the UK we have to wait until November, this will be top of my Xmas list! Goodreads

Blurb

Murder a dark, shameful deed, the last resort of the desperate or a vile tool of the greedy. And a very strange, very English obsession. But where did this fixation develop? And what does it tell us about ourselves? In The Art of the English Murder, Lucy Worsley explores this phenomenon in forensic detail, revisiting notorious crimes like the Ratcliff Highway Murders, which caused a nationwide panic in the early nineteenth century, and the case of Frederick and Maria Manning, the suburban couple who were hanged after killing Maria s lover and burying him under their kitchen floor. Our fascination with crimes like these became a form of national entertainment, inspiring novels and plays, prose and paintings, poetry and true-crime journalism. At a point during the birth of modern England, murder entered our national psyche, and it s been a part of us ever since. The Art of the English Murder is a unique exploration of the art of crime and a riveting investigation into the English criminal soul by one of our finest historian”s. Goodreads

So for a change I’ve found more than I’ve acquired this week – what have you found? Please share!