PDR Lindsay Reviews Tilly True by Dilly Court

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novel cover: Tiily True by Dilly Court, a novel‘Tilly True’ by Dilly Court; Century; Random House; 2006; £18.99; CAN$48.50; hb and pb; 518 pages; ISBN: 1 8460 5083 9 and 978 1 8460 5083 1

AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON IN PAPER & KINDLE FORMATS

‘Tilly True’ is another of Dilly Court’s sagas set in Victorian London. It’s a meal of a read, over 500 pages, spanning several years, and with a large cast of characters. Just the book for a daily read whilst commuting or a lunch time escape savouring the book chapter by chapter.

Tilly is determined that she’s not going to stay poor, and a chance meeting with the Reverend Palgrave starts her on a journey out of poverty and into the magical world of India, through a marriage to Francis Palgrave’s younger brother. But nothing is what it seems and sagas don’t end anywhere except at home. So in true saga fashion Tilly must suffer and struggle, and return to London, before she ends up in the arms of the right man, back home amongst her own people.

Dilly Court is good at tough female characters and Tilly is one the reader cheers on. She might be stubborn, even short sighted about certain matters, but she’s a fighter and she doesn’t forget her family.

As in most sagas, plot is all, so sometimes character motivation is a little thin, but it’s a good read for saga lovers, with well researched historical detail.

Tamarack County, a New Novel by William Kent Krueger

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novel cover: Tamarack County, a novel by author William Kent Kruegerby William Kent Krueger

Author William Kent Krueger always produces a good novel for those who like who-dun-its.  His newest in the continuing saga of Corcoran O’Connor is bound to please. –D. L. Keur, The Deepening

AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON IN HARDCOVER, KINDLE, AND AUDIO FORMATS

ABOUT THIS NEW NOVEL

“Like many men and women who’ve worn a badge for a good part of their lives, Corcoran Liam O’Connor was cursed. Twice cursed, in reality. Cursed with memory and cursed with imagination.”

Tamarack County, Minnesota, the gateway to the pristine Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Within its borders lie a million acres of deep forest, a thousand crystal clear lakes, and a few quiet towns. This is the place that, for most of his life, sheriff-turned-private investigator Cork O’Connor has called home.

As a blizzard swells just days before Christmas, the car belonging to the wife of a retired local judge is discovered abandoned on a rural road. After days without any leads, the search-and-rescue team, assisted by O’Connor, has little hope of finding her alive, if at all.

Early on, Cork notices small details about the woman’s disappearance that tell a disturbing story. And when the beloved pet dog of a friend is found decapitated, he begins to detect a startling pattern of ominous incidents throughout the area. Then Cork’s son is nearly killed, and he knows this is no trick of his imagination. Someone is spinning a deadly web in Tamarack County. At the center is a murder more than twenty years old for which an innocent man may have been convicted. Cork remembers the case only too well. He was the deputy in charge of the investigation that sent the man to prison.

As the threat of violence continues, so does life in the O’Connor household. Anne, Cork’s younger daughter, comes home, having determined that she’s going to leave her religious order. Teenaged Stephen is in love for the first time, and Cork is being courted as well, even as he struggles to redefine life without his wife, killed several years ago. What they all discover is that love, too, can be a curse. It can cause the greatest euphoria and the most profound despair. It can inspire forgiveness and understanding, passion and desire. It can provoke jealousy and rage. It can bring on betrayal and even murder.

With the darkest days of the year at hand, the storms of winter continue to isolate Tamarack County. Somewhere behind the blind of all the darkness and drifting snow, a vengeful force is at work, and Cork has only hours to stop it before his family and his friends will be forced to pay the ultimate price for the sins of others.

Full of riveting suspense, fascinating characters, and set in a gorgeous yet unforgiving landscape, Tamarack County is an outstanding addition to an award-winning series that mystery lovers can’t get enough of.

Pittacus Lore, Best Selling YA Dystopian SF Author

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Pittacus Lore, author

So who is Pittacus Lore?

Here’s what his Amazon page says: “Pittacus Lore is Lorien’s ruling Elder. He has been on Earth for the last twelve years, preparing for the war that will decide Earth’s fate. His whereabouts are unknown.”

So, who is Pittacus Lore? Really?

Why, James Frey and Jobie Hughes, of course, writing under the collective pseudonym Pittacus Lore.

Of course, some say that, actually, the books are ghost-written by Frey’s author factory…which, of course, is more than possible.

Be that as it may, Pittacus Lore books are a great success.

The latest?

The Fall of Five

novel cover, The Fall of Five by Pittacus Lore

AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON IN KINDLE, AUDIO, & HARDCOVER

I thought things would change when I found the others. We would stop running. We would fight the Mogadorians. And we would win.

But I was wrong. Even though we have come together, we barely escaped from the Mogadorians with our lives. And now we’re in hiding, trying to figure out our next move.

The six of us are powerful—but we’re not yet strong enough to take on their entire army. We haven’t discovered the full extent of our Legacies. We haven’t learned to work together. And there’s still so much that we don’t know about the Elders or their plan for us. Time is running out, and there’s only one thing we know for certain: We need to find Number Five before they do.

They caught Number One in Malaysia.
Number Two in England.
And Number Three in Kenya.
I am Number Four. I was supposed to be next.
But I’m still alive.

This battle is far from over.

An Exquisitely Exceptional Poetry Book with CD

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new poetry book cover, Cold Mountain Poems, translated by Gary SnyderCold Mountain Poems, 24 Poems by Han-Shan, Translated by Gary Snyder

Here’s an exquisite poetry book, with a bonus of a discussion on CD with the author.  Well worth your time and money if you are a fan of exceptional Chinese poetry like I am.  -D. L. Keur, The Deepening

AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON IN HARDCOVER & KINDLE FORMATS

ABOUT THIS POETRY BOOK & CD

In 1953, Gary Snyder returned to the Bay Area and, at age 23, enrolled in graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, to study Asian languages and culture. He intensified his study of Chinese and Japanese, and taking up the challenge of one of his professors, Chen Shih-hsiang, he began to work on translating a largely unknown poet by the name of Han Shan, a writer with whom the professor thought Snyder might feel a special affinity. The results were magical. As Patrick Murphy noted, “These poems are something more than translations precisely because Snyder renders them as a melding of Han Shan’s Chinese Ch’an Buddhist mountain spirit trickster mentality and Snyder’s own mountain wilderness meditation and labor activities.” The suite of 24 poems was published in the 1958 issue of The Evergreen Review, and the career of one of America’s greatest poets was launched.

In 1972, Press-22 issued a beautiful edition of these poems written out by hand in italic by Michael McPherson. We are doing a new augments edition based on the old, with a new design, a preface by Lu Ch’iu-yin, and an afterword by Mr. Snyder where he discusses how he came to this work and what it meant to his development as a writer and Buddhist.

On May 11, 2012, for the Stronach Memorial Lecture at The University of California, more than fifty years after his days there as a student, Snyder offered a public lecture reflecting on Chinese poetry, Han Shan, and his continuing work as a poet and translator. This remarkable occasion was recorded and we are including a CD of it in our edition, making this the most definitive edition of Cold Mountain Poems ever published.

PDR Lindsay Reviews The English Horses

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novel cover: The English Horses, a novel by William A. Luckey, new coverTHE ENGLISH HORSES by William A. Luckey, Five Star, an imprint of Thomson Gale, US$25.95, hb, 232 pages, ISBN 13: 987-1-59414-509-4

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK & KINDLE FORMATS AT AMAZON

THE ENGLISH HORSES is subtitled a Western Story and that is what we have. This is the tale of Gordon Meiklejon, a younger son, sent off with a good sum of money from England to make his life in America. The story is told by Meiklejon as he looks back on 1912, his first year in New Mexico. That was where he found land with promise, a place where he could raise good beef cattle.

The problem he ran into was that whilst he was accustomed to fenced grazing, where he could control the breeding of his cattle, the ranchers owning the land around him had been used to letting their livestock range freely across everyone’s land. Meiklejon used barbed wire to fence his property and then had to live with the problems it caused, particularly with Burn English the mysterious man who made his living trapping the free ranging mustang.

novel cover: The English Horses, a novel by William A. Luckey, original coverMeiklejon is determined, but so is English. There are no open gun fights or heroes riding into town, which one associates with the western genre, just people in conflict, living with consequences of their actions and the choices they make because of them. These fences don’t make good neighbours, but with these characters, they do make for lively reading.

 

New Non-Fiction: Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami

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non-fiction book cover, Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origamiby Meher McArthur

Here’s one that’s on my Christmas present list. My husband LOVES Origami, and he’s quite expert at it, too. This book looks awesomely exciting for anyone, but especially for those who love the art of paper folding. –DLKeur, The Deepening

AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON

ABOUT THIS NEW NON-FICTION BOOK

Thanks to pioneering masters such as Dr. Robert J. Lang, origami has transcended its humble roots as a traditional Japanese papercraft to take a place among the global fine arts. In Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami, Dr. Lang and Asian art curator Meher McArthur chronicle origami’s remarkable evolution and showcases the widespread applications of paper folding solutions in the fields of contemporary mathematics, engineering, design, and the international peace movement.

Based around a groundbreaking museum show by the same name, Folding Paper features the work of more than forty leading origami artists from around the world, including Brian Chan, Erik Joisel, Erik and Martin Demaine, Tomoko Fuse, Daniel Kwan, Michael LaFosse, Jeannine Moseley, and Akira Yoshizawa. Combining Dr. Lang’s and McArthur’s illuminating narrative history with lavish color photographs of more than sixty breathtaking works—from Joel Cooper’s haunting Cyrus mask to Linda Tomoko Mihara’s delicate Crane Cube to Eric Joisel’s lifelike Pangolin model—Folding Paper is an enthralling introduction to the contemporary art of paper folding.