Personal Copies – Page 8 – Baskerville Book Reviews

Review: Archer of the Heathland: Intrigue

rogue Duke, a beautiful woman, and a deadly mission.

Weyland, the best archer in the king’s army, wants revenge for the slaughter of his family. But when he stumbles across a murdered man with a secret and he saves a duke’s life in battle, he finds himself entangled in noble intrigues of the worst kind. A copper coin, a princess, and a beautiful tavern girl push Weyland’s skill and loyalty to the limit. Now Weyland has to survive long enough to fulfill his promise to the Duke without getting so deeply ensnared in noble intrigues that he cannot escape.

This novelette introduces the new adventure series Archer of the Heathland. Book One of the series, entitled Deliverance, picks up the story of Weyland’s son, Brion, and his desperate flight into the heathland.

This is an adventure series perfect for fans of John Flanagan’s Ranger’s Apprentice, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, T.H. White’s The Sword in the Stone, Christopher Paolini’s Eragon series, and George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire series.

Review: The Deep, Deep Snow

Deputy Shelby Lake was abandoned as a baby, saved by a stranger who found her in the freezing cold. Now, years later, a young boy is missing – and Shelby is the one who must rescue a child.

The only evidence of what happened to 10-year-old Jeremiah Sloan is a bicycle left behind on a lonely road. After a desperate search fails to locate him, the close bonds of Shelby’s hometown begin to fray under the weight of accusations and suspicion. Everyone around her is keeping secrets. Her adoptive father, her best friend, her best friend’s young daughter – they all have something to hide. Even Shelby is concealing a mistake that could jeopardize her career and her future.

Unearthing the lies of the people in Jeremiah’s life doesn’t get the police and the FBI any closer to finding him. As time passes and the case grows cold, Shelby worries that the mystery will stay buried forever under the deep, deep snow. But even the deepest snow melts in the spring.

When a tantalizing clue finally comes to light, Shelby must confront the darkest lie of all. Exposing the truth about Jeremiah will leave no one’s life untouched – including her own.

Review: Emergency Skin (Forward collection)

What will become of our self-destructed planet? The answer shatters all expectations in this subversive speculation from the Hugo Award–winning author of the Broken Earth trilogy.

An explorer returns to gather information from a climate-ravaged Earth that his ancestors, and others among the planet’s finest, fled centuries ago. The mission comes with a warning: a graveyard world awaits him. But so do those left behind—hopeless and unbeautiful wastes of humanity who should have died out ages ago. After all this time, there’s no telling how they’ve devolved. Steel yourself, soldier. Get in. Get out. And try not to stare.

N. K. Jemisin’s Emergency Skin is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

Review: Curtain Call (Short Stories From Antaloor)

A traveling theater company and an actor with a dark secret. This explosive mixture meets the scheming aristocratic world in New Ashos – and misfortune takes its course.

Review: Summer Frost (Forward collection)

A video game developer becomes obsessed with a willful character in her new project, in a mind-bending exploration of what it means to be human by the New York Times bestselling author of Recursion.

Maxine was made to do one thing: die. Except the minor non-player character in the world Riley is building makes her own impossible decision—veering wildly off course and exploring the boundaries of the map. When the curious Riley extracts her code for closer examination, an emotional relationship develops between them. Soon Riley has all new plans for her spontaneous AI, including bringing Max into the real world. But what if Max has real-world plans of her own?

Blake Crouch’s Summer Frost is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

Review: Ark (Forward collection)

On the eve of Earth’s destruction, a young scientist discovers something too precious to lose, in a story of cataclysm and hope by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Divergent trilogy.

It’s only two weeks before an asteroid turns home to dust. Though most of Earth has already been evacuated, it’s Samantha’s job to catalog plant samples for the survivors’ unknowable journey beyond. Preparing to stay behind and watch the world end, she makes a final human connection.

As certain doom hurtles nearer, the unexpected and beautiful potential for the future begins to flower.

Veronica Roth’s Ark is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

Review: Great Illustrated Classics: Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Hound of the Baskervilles

For generations, readers have enjoyed classic literature. They have delighted in the romance of Jane Austen, thrilled at the adventures of Jules Verne, and pondered the lessons of Aesop. Introduce young readers to these familiar volumes with Great Illustrated Classics. In this series, literary masterworks have been adapted for young scholars. Large, easy-to-read type and charming pen-and-ink drawings enhance the text. Students are sure to enjoy becoming acquainted with traditional literature through these well-loved classics.

Review: The Names of the Dead

They locked him up. Now he’s out–for revenge.

Former CIA officer James ‘Wes’ Wesley paid the ultimate price for his patriotism when he was locked up in a French jail for an anti-terror operation gone wrong–abandoned by the Agency he served, shunned by his colleagues and friends, cut off from his family.

Now he is shattered by the news that his ex-wife, Rachel, a State Department analyst, has been killed in a terrorist attack in Spain. He also discovers that his young son, Ethan, is missing. But Wes didn’t know he had a son–until now.

Why was Rachel in Spain? And why did she keep his son secret from him?

Granted early release, Wes takes flight across Europe to search for the truth and exact his revenge. But can he catch the spies who betrayed him before they track him down? In order to find the answers and save his son, Wes realises he must confront the dark secrets in his own past–before it’s too late.

Review: The Hound of the Baskervilles

Box cover.

Could the sudden death of Sir Charles Baskerville have been caused by the gigantic ghostly hound that is said to have haunted his family for generations? Arch-rationalist Sherlock Holmes characteristically dismisses the theory as nonsense. And immersed in another case, he sends Watson to Devon to protect the Baskerville heir and observe the suspects close at hand. With its atmospheric setting on the ancient, wild moorland and its savage apparition, The Hound of the Baskervilles is one of the greatest crime novels ever written. Rationalism is pitted against the supernatural, good against evil, as Sherlock Holmes seeks to defeat a foe almost his equal.

Review+: Minion: Special Huntress Edition, The Awakening & Audiobooks

Minion: Special Huntress Edition, The Awakening.

All Damali Richards ever wanted to do was create music and bring it to the people. Now she is a Spoken Word artist and the top act for Warriors of Light Records. But come nightfall, she hunts vampires and demons—predators that people tend to dismiss as myth or fantasy. But Damali and her Guardian team cannot afford such delusions, especially now, when a group of rogue vampires have been killing the artists of Warriors of Light and their rival, Blood Music. Strange attacks have also erupted within the club drug-trafficking network and drawn the attention of the police. These killings are a bit out of the ordinary, even for vampires. No neat puncture marks in the neck to show where the life’s blood has been sucked from the body. These bodies have been mutilated beyond recognition, indicating a blood lust and thirst for destruction that surpasses any Damali has encountered before. Damali soon discovers that behind these brutal murders is the most powerful vampire she has ever met, and this seductive beast is coming for her next. But his unholy intentions have also drawn the focus of other hellish dark forces. Soon Damali finds herself being pulled deeper into the vast and horrifying vampire world.