A little library augmentation

    Here are the latest arrivals chez Cornflower (though I have others to show you from before I went away - see, backlog on all fronts ...), but beginning on the left there we have The Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai by Ruiyan Xu, "an engrossing novel that will enchant you from beginning to end". Injured in an explosion, Li Jing wakens from brain surgery able to speak only the English he learnt as a child, effectively cutting him off from his wife Meiling and their son. When an American neurologist arrives to work on bringing back Li Jing's native tongue, it is more than language which develops between them, and that is something which Meiling does not need a interpreter to understand.

    Next is Jojo Moyes's The Last Letter from Your Lover (follow that link for a short video): "romantic and poignant, [this] sweeping novel of passion, adultery and heartbreak is also a quiet lament for the lost art of the love letter." Two stories, forty years apart, and the reviewers are effusive in their praise for this book - I was sent the first chapter and I must say I was hooked!

    And now for something completely different, three books for young adults. First there is Scat by Carl Hiaasen, a New York Times bestseller set in the Florida everglades, an eco-thriller which "draws on and disrupts crime, mystery, comedy and adventure conventions, it has something to suit all tastes." "When the most feared biology teacher in Florida goes missing on a school trip to Black Vine Swamp, her class is secretly relieved, but ...." Harriet has already pounced on this book and asked to read it, and she's even offered to review it (I think she thinks there might be money in it, and if so she's got another think coming).

    Next Blood Alchemy by Benjamin J. Myers, the third in his 'Bad Tuesdays' series. "Can three children save the universe against impossible odds?", find out in this adventure which is described as "ambitious, exciting, futuristic, literary fiction which will appeal to fans of Philip Reeve, Robert Muchamore and Anthony Horowitz".

   And if that's not enough for you, how about The Demon Assassin by Alan Gibbons? "Every man will find his way to the devil's door. This is one boy's ongoing journey via his own dark past." A time-shift novel in which teenager Paul Rector takes Hell's Underground back to the London of the Blitz and becomes involved in a plot to assassinate Winston Churchill, "genuinely scary" and fast-paced.

    In our last book today, The Baker Street Phantom by Fabrice Bourland, evil again haunts the streets of London, but this time in 1932 when a series of brutal murders terrorises the capital's citizens. The private detective agency of Messrs. Singleton and Trelawney opens its doors to its first client, Lady Conan Doyle, who tells of mysterious events in Baker Street "and a premonition that the London murders signal terrible danger for mankind.... Can the most famous detective of all time help solve these bloody crimes?" Intriguing.

Comments

[Margaret Powling]

Love the sound of the Jojo Moyes novel ... of coures, I love anything to do with letters (blogs are like modern open letters, are they not?) and the cover reminds me of so many other novels that have envelopes, etc, as covers (The Guernsey spud-peel-pie book, 84 Charing Cross Road, and another I have on the bookshelves upstairs but I'm too lazy to investigate right now) ... but I must refrain from buying it just yet as I went over to Quercus (after reading Mark's comment in the previous Cornflower post) and logged on to Prue Leith's website, saw she had a new novel in print and have ordered that ... I tell you, blogs will be my fiscal downfall!
Margaret P

[yvonne]

Nothing there today that particularly takes my fancy, I'll pop back again, when you drag a few more out from your TBR mountain!