With a fast pace leading to a sprint finish, Nigel James’ debut novel, Deep Secret, takes horse racing thrillers to a new level.
Champion jockey, AlecHammond, finally has a horse capable of winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup, the one race he needs to win to crown his glittering career. But while Alec embarks on a relationship with a top adult movie star, desperate to keep her lurid past from him, others are plotting to prevent his horse from winning at any cost.
Thrilling races, fixed races, a massive betting coup, sex, murder, kidnap and blackmail all feature as the seamier side of the racing world is laid bare. The action gallops along before the dramatic twists and shocking climax on the day of the race.
An extract from Deep Secret is available to read at www.authorsonline.co.uk
Deep Secret is published by Authors Online
ISBN (Paperback editions): 0 7 552 13785
ISBN-13 (Paperback editions): 9 7807 5521 3788
RRP: £8.99 paperback or eBook Download Price: £3.95
Book review blog site, with some entertainment material from time-to-time.
Thursday, 15 December 2011
The Elephant Within Us By Peter Peeters
A beguiling tale of transformation, romance and environmental politics
Dr John Garfinger is a penniless, jobless about-to-be divorcee, a man with an unwarranted reputation for philandering and a hapless knack for getting himself into embarrassing situations. In desperation he goes to East Africa to start a new life working on a remote elephant reserve - even though he knows nothing about elephants.
But this is Africa where things never quite go to plan. By a bizarre turn of events, the naïve young doctor of biotechnology soon finds himself embroiled in the strange goings-on in a private laboratory where a half-mad German scientist is working on a very unusual time machine. Then John complicates things by falling in love...
Part sci-fi fantasy, part farce, The Elephant Within Us is a beguiling tale of transformation, romance and environmental politics and a fascinating foray into the world of the elephant.
Dr Peter Peeters was born in Belgium where he studied and specialised in high-energy physics. He worked at Brussels University in collaboration with CERN, the European accelerator centre in Geneva, and carried out research at the Argonne National Laboratory in the United States. He has travelled throughout the world and spent a year in Africa with his wife making documentary films, criss-crossing the continent, sleeping in bush and forest in their Land Rover. Dr Peeters has written several non-fiction titles concerned with the future of humanity and the planet. His latest are The Four Phases of Society (1997) and The Global Economy and its Long-Term Future (2008). This is his first novel, and he currently lives in Spain.
FACTFILE:
A witty, entertaining novel that will appeal to readers of the likes of David Lodge and Alexander McCall Smith
The Belgian writer has an intriguing backstory: a doctor of high energy physics and an inveterate global traveller who spent a year in Africa
Peter Peeters is a well-established and respected non-fiction author
£14.99
Hardback
978-1-84624-638-8
Publication date: 27th January 2011
Dr John Garfinger is a penniless, jobless about-to-be divorcee, a man with an unwarranted reputation for philandering and a hapless knack for getting himself into embarrassing situations. In desperation he goes to East Africa to start a new life working on a remote elephant reserve - even though he knows nothing about elephants.
But this is Africa where things never quite go to plan. By a bizarre turn of events, the naïve young doctor of biotechnology soon finds himself embroiled in the strange goings-on in a private laboratory where a half-mad German scientist is working on a very unusual time machine. Then John complicates things by falling in love...
Part sci-fi fantasy, part farce, The Elephant Within Us is a beguiling tale of transformation, romance and environmental politics and a fascinating foray into the world of the elephant.
Dr Peter Peeters was born in Belgium where he studied and specialised in high-energy physics. He worked at Brussels University in collaboration with CERN, the European accelerator centre in Geneva, and carried out research at the Argonne National Laboratory in the United States. He has travelled throughout the world and spent a year in Africa with his wife making documentary films, criss-crossing the continent, sleeping in bush and forest in their Land Rover. Dr Peeters has written several non-fiction titles concerned with the future of humanity and the planet. His latest are The Four Phases of Society (1997) and The Global Economy and its Long-Term Future (2008). This is his first novel, and he currently lives in Spain.
FACTFILE:
A witty, entertaining novel that will appeal to readers of the likes of David Lodge and Alexander McCall Smith
The Belgian writer has an intriguing backstory: a doctor of high energy physics and an inveterate global traveller who spent a year in Africa
Peter Peeters is a well-established and respected non-fiction author
£14.99
Hardback
978-1-84624-638-8
Publication date: 27th January 2011
A Journey Of Ascent By Andy P Weller
A sweeping historical novel spanning 350 years of a British family's history. To be published 27th January 2011
A Journey of Ascent: a gripping family saga tracing nine generations of a family from the sixteenth century to the Great War: 350 years of social revolution, agricultural and industrial transformation.
Andy Weller has masterfully rewrought the known facts of his long family history into a sweeping historical novel embracing the Reformation, the English Civil War and the Industrial Revolution, populated by novelists, landowners, smugglers, highwaymen, farmers and industrialists, all with one aim in mind: survival in turbulent times.
Weller has not rewritten history here: he has brought the reality of times past to vibrant life in a novel with huge appeal for anyone with an interest in English history from the perspective of the common man.
Andy Weller was born in 1954 near Little Chalfont in Buckinghamshire and first went to school in the very quaint village of Chenies. He became a career civil servant, starting as a clerk involved with the Concorde project. His later civil service career included representing the UK administration in Brussels and Geneva covering a wide range of trade policy issues, often working in partnership with UK business. He is currently working on his second book and lives in Pinner, Middlesex.
FACTFILE:
A true chronicle of early working-class life
One family's eventful route through British history
A fascinating personal journey through an author's family history
£17.99
Hardback
978-1-84624-649-4
Published by The Book Guild www.bookguild.co.uk
A Journey of Ascent: a gripping family saga tracing nine generations of a family from the sixteenth century to the Great War: 350 years of social revolution, agricultural and industrial transformation.
Andy Weller has masterfully rewrought the known facts of his long family history into a sweeping historical novel embracing the Reformation, the English Civil War and the Industrial Revolution, populated by novelists, landowners, smugglers, highwaymen, farmers and industrialists, all with one aim in mind: survival in turbulent times.
Weller has not rewritten history here: he has brought the reality of times past to vibrant life in a novel with huge appeal for anyone with an interest in English history from the perspective of the common man.
Andy Weller was born in 1954 near Little Chalfont in Buckinghamshire and first went to school in the very quaint village of Chenies. He became a career civil servant, starting as a clerk involved with the Concorde project. His later civil service career included representing the UK administration in Brussels and Geneva covering a wide range of trade policy issues, often working in partnership with UK business. He is currently working on his second book and lives in Pinner, Middlesex.
FACTFILE:
A true chronicle of early working-class life
One family's eventful route through British history
A fascinating personal journey through an author's family history
£17.99
Hardback
978-1-84624-649-4
Published by The Book Guild www.bookguild.co.uk
Saturday, 10 December 2011
Who Said That First?
Subtitled 'the curious origins of common words and phrases', this book by Max Cryer is a must buy present for just about anyone, this Christmas!
The person who just likes to know lots of random stuff, the person who sets the village pub quizzes, a writer, someone who loves the history of the English language, etc.
Buy them this book (or just buy it for yourself as your Christmas indulgence for yourself, this year!) and they'll learn who wrote "absence makes the heart grow fonder?" who originated "accidentally on purpose" who came up with the ultimate putdown, "a legend in his own lunchtime" who came up with "sex, drugs and rock and roll" and who first got really cross because somebody really DID steal his thunder?"
There are also some other modern coinings as well as the old classics, such as "Gridlock", "One-upmanship" and the like.
You'll also be surprised about the relevantly ancient origins of some phrases. You will also find out who did not say what, too!
This book is in hardback and costs a very reasonable £9.99. It is published by Summersdale the ISBN is 978 1 84953 191 7. Although please do check out the That's Books Amazon powered book shop, where it may well be considerably less.
www.summersdale.com.
The person who just likes to know lots of random stuff, the person who sets the village pub quizzes, a writer, someone who loves the history of the English language, etc.
Buy them this book (or just buy it for yourself as your Christmas indulgence for yourself, this year!) and they'll learn who wrote "absence makes the heart grow fonder?" who originated "accidentally on purpose" who came up with the ultimate putdown, "a legend in his own lunchtime" who came up with "sex, drugs and rock and roll" and who first got really cross because somebody really DID steal his thunder?"
There are also some other modern coinings as well as the old classics, such as "Gridlock", "One-upmanship" and the like.
You'll also be surprised about the relevantly ancient origins of some phrases. You will also find out who did not say what, too!
This book is in hardback and costs a very reasonable £9.99. It is published by Summersdale the ISBN is 978 1 84953 191 7. Although please do check out the That's Books Amazon powered book shop, where it may well be considerably less.
www.summersdale.com.
That's Christmas: Ideal Christmas gift! Homework For Grown-ups Quiz ...
That's Christmas: Ideal Christmas gift! Homework For Grown-ups Quiz ...: Who is Senuna? Where would you find the islets of Langerhans? Mr Deasy, Gabriel Conroy and Robert Hand are all characters from works by whic...
Magic City by Michael Dean
A sexual coming-of-age comedy set in seventies Berlin.
Magic City is a comedy of errors set in West Germany in 1971. Marcus Himmelfahrt, unable to come to terms with his Jewish heritage and his sexual impotence, has no idea what to do with his life. He takes a job as an English teacher in Ludwigsburg, the Magic City of the title, intending to re-invent himself under a false name.
On day one, he does something he shouldn't in a graveyard and the police are called. His personal habits repeatedly upset his highly strung landlord. He is nevertheless a hit at the language school, and fast establishes a reputation as a ladies' man. But can he live up to it?
Meanwhile, as he wanders around unaware in dreamy innocence, he is framed, followed and shot at. He finally finds love only to be wrongly accused of rampant womanising. Against a background of retribution against a former Nazi and a robbery by the Baader-Meinhof gang, our still oblivious hero is hunted by drug dealers, by his terrifying employer, and by both the East and West German intelligence services.
As the forces against him gain momentum and menace, even the Magic City may not be enough to save him.
Michael Dean read history at Worcester College, Oxford, and has an MSc in Applied Linguistics from the University of Edinburgh. He is a fluent German speaker and a translator - an Associate of the Institute of Linguists. He has had three previous novels published, The Crooked Cross, Hirschfeld's Friends and THORN. He is also the author of Chomsky: A Beginner's Guide and more than 30 English Language Teaching titles, including the best-selling short story New York Café. He lives in Colchester, Essex.
£16.99
978-1-84624-637-1
Magic City is a comedy of errors set in West Germany in 1971. Marcus Himmelfahrt, unable to come to terms with his Jewish heritage and his sexual impotence, has no idea what to do with his life. He takes a job as an English teacher in Ludwigsburg, the Magic City of the title, intending to re-invent himself under a false name.
On day one, he does something he shouldn't in a graveyard and the police are called. His personal habits repeatedly upset his highly strung landlord. He is nevertheless a hit at the language school, and fast establishes a reputation as a ladies' man. But can he live up to it?
Meanwhile, as he wanders around unaware in dreamy innocence, he is framed, followed and shot at. He finally finds love only to be wrongly accused of rampant womanising. Against a background of retribution against a former Nazi and a robbery by the Baader-Meinhof gang, our still oblivious hero is hunted by drug dealers, by his terrifying employer, and by both the East and West German intelligence services.
As the forces against him gain momentum and menace, even the Magic City may not be enough to save him.
Michael Dean read history at Worcester College, Oxford, and has an MSc in Applied Linguistics from the University of Edinburgh. He is a fluent German speaker and a translator - an Associate of the Institute of Linguists. He has had three previous novels published, The Crooked Cross, Hirschfeld's Friends and THORN. He is also the author of Chomsky: A Beginner's Guide and more than 30 English Language Teaching titles, including the best-selling short story New York Café. He lives in Colchester, Essex.
£16.99
978-1-84624-637-1
Fish in Water by Alain Merheje
A tiny, remote village in Cyprus is the scene for a romantic farce.
Cyprus in the summer heat. The smallest village in the world. Nine inhabitants, one drop-dead gorgeous tourist, a flock of impatient hens and an exhausted rooster. This is the stuff that chaos is made of.
Centred on Toni's crumbling taverna, and his surprisingly well-equipped cellar, the action takes place in the course of one dramatic day. What made the delicious Gina behave so oddly? Will Yiannis get his true love back? Can the village idiot save the day? Will Toni ever get a customer to pay for a meal? Can anyone smell chicken cooking?
This is a laugh out loud Hellenic novel of Latin proportions!
Alain Merheje was educated in Syria and Lebanon before relocating to London where he held various posts in the advertising industry which took him all over the world. Eventually he settled on Cyprus (where he now lives) and now indulges his passion for writing and photography. His previous works include a collection of poetry in French and, in English, a collection of poetry, a children's story and a pantomime.
Ideal title to take on holiday
Light, humorous romance set in the sunny Mediterranean calls to mind Mama Mia and Shirley Valentine.
£16.99
978-1-84624-644-9
Cyprus in the summer heat. The smallest village in the world. Nine inhabitants, one drop-dead gorgeous tourist, a flock of impatient hens and an exhausted rooster. This is the stuff that chaos is made of.
Centred on Toni's crumbling taverna, and his surprisingly well-equipped cellar, the action takes place in the course of one dramatic day. What made the delicious Gina behave so oddly? Will Yiannis get his true love back? Can the village idiot save the day? Will Toni ever get a customer to pay for a meal? Can anyone smell chicken cooking?
This is a laugh out loud Hellenic novel of Latin proportions!
Alain Merheje was educated in Syria and Lebanon before relocating to London where he held various posts in the advertising industry which took him all over the world. Eventually he settled on Cyprus (where he now lives) and now indulges his passion for writing and photography. His previous works include a collection of poetry in French and, in English, a collection of poetry, a children's story and a pantomime.
Ideal title to take on holiday
Light, humorous romance set in the sunny Mediterranean calls to mind Mama Mia and Shirley Valentine.
£16.99
978-1-84624-644-9
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