Fiction
Related: About this forumWhat Fiction are you reading this week, October 3, 2021?
Happy October
Reading Hour of the Hunter by J. A. Jance. Ms. Jance has written around 75 novels and if they are all as good as this one, I'm gonna be busy for a looong time. This one just grabbed me from the very beginning where it starts with a Native American tale of how certain tribes came to be who they are. This takes place in Arizona and areas I am familiar with, so that's fun. The story is quite dark but she writes so well you just don't want to put it down. A cover blurb says it's "Tony Hillerman meets Dean Koontz." I agree.
Still stuck in 1348 along with Kivrin, the heroine of the Doomsday Book. We're both watching and listening as the plague grows all around us. Granted, hers is a bit nastier than ours: the Black Death vs Covid. But still, the similarities are interesting.
What books are you starting October with?
MontanaMama
(24,013 posts)The timeline of the book ranges from Prohibition era Montana to the wilds of Alaska to wartime London to modern day Los Angeles. Its the story of two women whose stories intertwine and intersect across centuries.
The main character, Marian Graves and her twin brother Jamie were rescued as infants from a sinking ship where there mother perished. It was their father, the ships captain, who saves them and as a result of not going down with his ship, is sent to prison and the children are raised by their dissolute uncle in Montana.
Marian drops out of school at the age of 24 to learn to fly airplanes. She makes a deal with a dangerous and wealthy bootlegger who subsidizes her lessons and Marian knows that someday the price for that arrangement will be very high. But, she does it anyway.
The story about Marian and airplanes is a huge part of the book
but certainly not all of it. The author does an incredible job of telling bits of the story in one era and then jumping to the next century seamlessly. At the beginning I thought two things
One, the author wont be able to pull this off
and two, this book might break my heart. I was wrong about the first
the author tells an epic tale told over centuries. It wasnt confusing
it was necessary. Im not quite done with the book
my heart isnt broken but damn
theres enough tragedy to go around for the characters Ive grown really fond of. I believe I am about to be very surprised at the ending.
I did not expect this novel to take place (in part) in Missoula, Montana, my home town. That was a bonus for me
and, the author was spot on in terms of her geographic references. I live a couple blocks from where the main characters lived. What would be the odds of that? Super fun.
hermetic
(8,622 posts)Thank you for the great description. It sounds like a terrific book.
Happy to see you. Hope all's well up there. Got snow? Looks like a week from now we'll be moving into winter-like weather. Time to turn on the heat. sigh...
MontanaMama
(24,013 posts)We always get a dusting at the end of September. So far, however, its been a lovely fall. Later his week we are looking at highs in the 50s and lows in the 30s so Ill be turning on the heat too.
fierywoman
(8,105 posts)I want to see how it compares to what we're living through now.
THE DEVIL WENT DOWN TO MOSCOW . . . Ordinary citizens of the Soviet Union are met with some extraordinary occurrences when a mysterious "black magician" and his entourage arrive in Moscow. Inspired by Goethe's 'Faust', and an inspiration to Mick Jagger for the lyrics to 'Sympathy for the Devil, ' this classic Soviet/Russian novel is at the same time dark and comic, serious and absurd. It stands as one of the most outstanding pieces of literature from the 20th century. A NEW TRANSLATION FOR THE 21ST CENTURY. Meticulously translated to capture every shade of meaning intended by the author, in a way that makes for an enjoyable read for an English language reader 50 years after it was first published in the U.S.S.R.
I really must read this one. Thanks.
fierywoman
(8,105 posts)yellowdogintexas
(22,705 posts)and I am sure I didn't get half of what was going on.
fierywoman
(8,105 posts)edition. I'm sure most of it flew over my head the other times I read it, so it's something to find out this time!
bif
(23,973 posts)By Elizabeth Church. I'm past the 50 page mark so I'll be sticking with it. So far so good.
hermetic
(8,622 posts)Exquisitely capturing the claustrophobic eras of 1940s and 1950s America, "The Atomic Weight of Love" also examines the changing roles of women during the decades that followed. And in Meridian Wallace we find an unforgettable heroine whose metamorphosis shows how the women's movement opened up the world for a whole generation.
PennyC
(2,312 posts)I'm hooked on Connie Willis now! Also dipping into a short story collection, Rogues, edited by George R. R. Martin.
hermetic
(8,622 posts)She really is a great writer and To Say Nothing of the Dog is a story I really enjoyed.
Timewas
(2,291 posts)Just finished "Billy Summers"
hermetic
(8,622 posts)Everyone seems to be loving it.
You wont put this story down, and you wont forget Billy.
The King of Prussia
(744 posts)Also still on "Death at the Dolphin" by Ngaio Marsh.
Finished "The Thursday Murder Club" earlier in the week. Liked it a lot. Before that "Prelude To A Certain Midnight" by Gerald Kersh. Dreary rubbish I'm afraid.
Covid 19 cases are skyrocketing locally. So far, hospitalisations and deaths just aren't. We now seem to be at the "living with the virus" stage. Fingers crossed that it works out. On a personal level, we had a day out in Chester, went to a gig in Bradford and actually went to a football match for the first time in 19 months. My writing group - which has been meeting via Zoom - met in person. Our reading group is planning to meet in person at the start of November. So we'll see how the vaccine protects us. I had the flu jab last Monday, but can't have the Covid booster until December - by which time hopefully all will be clearer.
We never quite seem to reach the end, do we?
hermetic
(8,622 posts)There's always something. Glad to hear you are getting out and about. I was wondering about the petrol drivers' shortage and wondering if it was affecting your area.
Here's some fun info about Dange: Dangerous Davies earned his nickname the same way that fat men nicknamed Tiny earn theirs. He is known as the last detective not because there are no others like him, but because he is, in nearly every instance, the last boy picked for the team. With little actual work to occupy him, Dange has plenty of time to pick through the cases that everybody else has forgotten. When he stumbles across a piece of ancient history, it looks like the perfect way to keep him out of the real coppers' way.
The King of Prussia
(744 posts)We drove over into Lancashire and back yesterday, some petrol stations were shut, but there were plenty where we could have filled up if we'd wanted to. We have a supermarket, a pharmacy and 4 pubs in the village so we don't actually need to go anywhere.
hermetic
(8,622 posts)In my town there are 2 supermarkets, 2 pharmacies, and 2 pubs. These people just don't have their priorities in order.
SheltieLover
(59,599 posts)Protagonist is a service dog trainer with a unique empathertic connection. This skill is the intriguing part of the story, thus far.
This author has written quite a few books, all cozies, but most of the couple I've read are internal dialogue, rather than action.
Just finished "Grey Matters," a book about the protagonist writing a doctoral thesis in 18th C. Lit. The story was quite boring. In fact, I skipped to the end. Lol too much internal dialogue again.
hermetic
(8,622 posts)Keep up the good readings.
Some of these are a challenge to keep reading.
broiles
(1,400 posts)Tales Fort Worth in Hell's Half Acre in the early 1900's.
hermetic
(8,622 posts)Taken from actual newspaper accounts of gunfights, jailbreaks, an attempted lynching, and a riot, Nobles deftly weaves together stories of violence, rebellion, and the embedded racism of the time by imagining the scenes-behind-the-scenes among the main characters-who appear and reappear in historical news accounts in uncanny and often sinister ways.
Number9Dream
(1,647 posts)The tenth book in the Saxon series. In this one, Uhtred finally recaptures his ancestral home of Bebbanberg Castle. It was worth the wait.
hermetic
(8,622 posts)I think it's great that you are so involved with these books. They kind of get to be like a second family some times, I think. Must be part of why writers give so much of themselves to their work. And I appreciate that you share this with us.
wnylib
(24,374 posts)several of the books had been published, so I did some "binge reading" to get caught up. Have not read the final one yet but plan to.
pscot
(21,037 posts)Currently on First Comes Scandal, a prequel. No dashing dukes or electric earls for Poppy Bridgerton. She's kidnapped by extremely well-bred pirates! Romance is inevitable.
I'm also reading Leviathon Wakes by James F. S. Corey, who is actually 2 people according to the dust jacket. This is space opera noir. The protagonist is a burnt out cop named Miller. Tasked with finding a missing girl, then fired from his job, he becomes obsessed with the girl. Meanwhile, the Earth, Mars and the Asteroid belt settlements are on the verge of interplanetary war over the missing contents of an abandoned space freighter. Add a monstrous space alien that consumes any life it encounters and you have the makings of a pretty good story.
I'm on the wait list for vol 2, Caliban's War. This is some of the best sci/fi I've read in a while.
Cheers Hermetic
wnylib
(24,374 posts)Viral
This story delves into the effects of climate change, illness, high hospital charges, and denials of coverage by health insurance companies.
A cop couple, husband and wife, leave their jobs at the NYPD elite emergency response force to start their own personal security company. Their business plan is to provide security for public events and social events for the well off. But just as they get started, the covid pandemic develops and destroys their business plan. Nobody is socializing.
To get away from it all after the shutdown ends, they rent a cottage at Cape Cod and take their 4 year old daughter. While there, the mother develops a serious viral infection from a mosquito bite. High fever, low oxygen levels, and seizures. At the hospital, it is diagnosed as EEE, eastern equine encephalitis. Usually a tropical illness, it is spreading to temperate zones as the mosquito carrier expands its habitats due to climate change.
She has a really bad case, involving encephalitis, gets put into the ICU after being treated first in the ER. Next day, the hospital business office tells her husband that the ER bill is $27,000 and their insurance company is denying coverage.
It goes downhill from there as the daughter gets sick and there is no money for the hospital bills due to covid's effect on his business.
Cook always has a social/ethical point in his books. This one is a call for a US national health system.
We really are in a mess here.
yellowdogintexas
(22,705 posts)first in a series. This is second series I have started by this author. She is very readable and really immerses the reader into the story.
This one is set in the time of Akhenaten, the pharaoh who created a new monotheistic religion and basically upended all of Egyptian society (religion, art, architecture etc) I also think he was a bit mad.
He was married to Nefertiti, by the way.