Feb 12, 2010

Friday Finds #4


What great books did you hear about / discover this past week?

Share with us your Friday Finds!

Here are my finds:

 "Daemon Hall" by Andrew Nance

Is winning a writing contest worth risking your life?
Nothing exciting ever happens in the town of Maplewood - that is, until famous thriller writer Ian Tremblin holds a short-story writing contest with a prize that seems to be the opportunity of a lifetime: five finalists will get to spend the evening with Tremblin himself in the haunted mansion Daemon Hall, and the winner of the best short story will see publication.
Wade Reilly and the other finalists could never have imagined what they find lurking in the shadows of this demonic mansion. During a suspenseful night of tale-telling, strange incidents mix the realms of the real and the supernatural. What is Tremblin really up to, and can he be trusted? What about Daemon Hall - is it alive? And, more to the point, will any of the contestants make it out of this hall of horrors to tell their story?

"Horns" by Joe Hill

Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache . . . and a pair of horns growing from his temples.
At first Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief. He had spent the last year in a lonely, private purgatory, following the death of his beloved, Merrin Williams, who was raped and murdered under inexplicable circumstances. A mental breakdown would have been the most natural thing in the world. But there was nothing natural about the horns, which were all too real.
Once the righteous Ig had enjoyed the life of the blessed: born into privilege, the second son of a renowned musician and younger brother of a rising late-night TV star, he had security, wealth, and a place in his community. Ig had it all, and more - he had Merrin and a love founded on shared daydreams, mutual daring, and unlikely midsummer magic.
But Merrin's death damned all that. The only suspect in the crime, Ig was never charged or tried. And he was never cleared. In the court of public opinion in Gideon, New Hampshire, Ig is and always will be guilty because his rich and connected parents pulled strings to make the investigation go away. Nothing Ig can do, nothing he can say, matters. Everyone, it seems, including God, has abandoned him. Everyone, that is, but the devil inside. . . .
Now Ig is possessed of a terrible new power to go with his terrible new look - a macabre talent he intends to use to find the monster who killed Merrin and destroyed his life. Being good and praying for the best got him nowhere. It's time for a little revenge. . . . It's time the devil had his due. . . .  

"The Hunt for the Eye of Ogin" by Patrick Doud
Young Elwood Pitch is only thirteen years old when he finds himself entrusted with a sacred mission to restore peace in the far-off world of Winnitok. The land's immortal protector, Granashon, has disappeared and her power that protects the land is fading fast. Elwood, his dog Slukee, and their newfound traveling companions, warrior Drallah Wehr and her talking raven Booj, set out on a dangerous quest to find the missing immortal. Elwood soon has a mysterious dream about the Eye of Ogin, an ancient turtle shell with the power to find Granashon.
Elwood is determined to find the Eye, which was lost centuries before in the great swamp Migdowsh. The Great Swamp is riddled with quicksand, snakes, and monsters, but that does not deter the brave group. Along the way they must navigate an astonishing array of supernatural creatures - yugs, woogans, truans, graycloaks, and a terrible frog demon. Will they find the Eye and restore Granashon's divine power to the land? Will Elwood be able to handle the terrible truth the swamp reveals to him?

"Criss Cross" by Lynne Rae Perkins

She wished something would happen.

Something good. To her. Checking her wish for loopholes, she found one. Hoping it wasn't too late, she thought the word soon.

Meanwhile, in another part of town, he felt as if the world was opening. Life was rearranging itself; bulging in places, fraying in spots. He felt himself changing, too, but into what? So much can happen in a summer.

"Damnable" by Hank Schwaeble

After being disgraced and wrongly imprisoned, special military operative Jake Hatcher finds himself standing watch against an unimaginable threat to humanity. For he's about to discover that the streets of New York City have become a secret battleground between forces he cannot comprehend. 
 "Worst Nightmares" by Shane Briant

Dermot Nolan is an award-winning bestselling author who seems to have it all - a successful career, fame, fortune, and a beautiful wife. Between the royalties coming in from his most recent book and the revenue he has received from the film company that bought the rights, Dermot seems every bit the literary darling.
And yet, for the last year, he has suffered from a bout of writer's block, and in the process has grossly overspent his income. So when Dermot comes across an unsolicited manuscript stuffed into his mailbox, he cannot help but feel intrigued. It tells the story of the homicidal 'Dream Healer,' who snares his victims via his website, worstnightmares.net, seduces them into revealing their innermost fears, and then kills them by revisiting their very own nightmares upon them.
Dermot, with the help of his wife, begins to rework the novel, while simultaneously researching the individual dream stories. In his search, he very slowly begins to realize that the novel may not be entirely fictional, that these poor characters may have perished at the hands of a twisted torturer. Could the Dreamhealer be real? Could these innocent cyber-surfers have fallen victim to a raving maniac? Just how far is fact from fiction? And could Dermot be writing his own ticket to death...his very own worst nightmare?
 "Stones of Fire" by Chloe Palov

Eight hundred years ago a Crusader in the Holy Land discovered a gold box. Under a veil of secrecy it was transported to England and hidden, the clues to its whereabouts embedded in sixteen cryptic lines of verse. For centuries it has been rumoured the treasure was none other than the Ark of the Covenant . . .And now, after a brutal murder in Washington and the theft of an ancient relic known as the Stones of Fire, there's a desperate need to find out whether the rumours are true. For the Stones of Fire was Moses' breastplate, supposedly worn to protect him from the Ark of the Covenant and if - as it seems - a sinister army of mercenaries has masterminded the

theft, it's only a matter of time before they use the Ark to wage war on a terrifying and devastating scale.The Ark of the Covenant must be found. The safety of the world depends upon it.
"Ark of Fire" by Chloe Palov

Photographer Edie Miller witnesses a murder and the theft of an ancient Hebrew relic. Fearing authorities are complicit, she turns to a historian for help. Neither realizes the breadth of the crime, its ties to a government conspiracy, or its connection to the most valuable relic in history - until they are both marked for execution.

 "The Hidden Oasis" by Paul Sussman

2152 BC, Egypt: as the Old Kingdom disintegrates and anarchy slowly engulfs the Nile valley, fifty priests set out under cover of darkness into the Western Desert, dragging with them a sled on which rests a mysterious object swathed in cloth. Weeks later, having reached their destination, they calmly commit mass ritual suicide...1988, Georgia USSR: a plane takes off from an airfield near the recently decommissioned nuclear facility of Mtskheta. Its cargo will fundamentally alter the balance of power in the Gulf. Bound for the Sudan, it disappears somewhere over Egypt's western desert...The present day, Egypt: a group of Bedouin travelling near the edge of the Great Sand Sea stumble across a desiccated corpse, half buried in the dunes. With it are a compass, a camera and a notebook, its pages covered in an indecipherable jumble of jottings and figures. A short time later, Dr Freya Hannan will land at Luxor airport. She's coming to Egypt to attend the funeral of her estranged sister, Alex - an explorer who'd spent the past 15 years in the Middle East, and who'd seemingly had taken her own life.
For Freya, this marks the beginning of an extraordinary adventure - as she is swept up in the search - sometimes violent, often dangerous, always thrilling - for the answer to one of archaeology's greatest mysteries: the location of the legendary lost oasis of Zerzura, and the key to the astonishing, terrifying secret that lies at its heart... 
 "Green Angel" by Alice Hoffman
When her family is lost in a terrible disaster, 15-yr-old Green is haunted by loss and by the past. Struggling to survive physically and emotionally in a place where nothing seems to grow and ashes are everywhere, Green retreats into the ruined realm of her garden. But in destroying her feelings, she also begins to destroy herself, erasing the girl she'd once been as she inks ravens into her skin. It is only through a series of mysterious encounters -- with a ghostly white dog and a mute boy -- that Green relearns the lessons of love and begins to heal as she tells her own story.

 "The Atlantis Code" by Charles Brokaw
A thrill-seeking Harvard linguistics professor and an ultrasecret branch of the Catholic Church go head-to-head in a race to uncover the secrets of the lost city of Atlantis. The ruins of the technologically-advanced, eerily-enigmatic ancient civilization promise their discoverer fame, fortune, and power. but hold earth-shattering secrets about the origin of man.
While world-famous linguist and archaeologist, Thomas Lourds, is shooting a film that dramatizes his flamboyant life and scientific achievements, satellites spot impossibly ancient ruins along the Spanish coast. Lourds knows exactly what it means: the Lost Continent of Atlantis has been found. The race is on, and Lourds' challengers will do anything to get there first.
Whoever controls the Lost Continent will control the world.

"Creepers" by Steve Berry

On a chilly October night, five people gather in a run-down motel on the Jersey shore and begin preparations to break into an abandoned hotel nearby. Built during the glory days of Asbury Park by a reclusive millionaire, the magnificent structure, which foreshadowed the beauties of Art Deco architecture, is now a decrepit, boarded up edifice marked for demolition.
The five are "creepers", the slang term for urban explorers - city archaeologists of sorts who go into abandoned buildings to uncover their secrets. And, on this evening they are joined by a reporter who wants to profile them - anonymously, as this is highly illegal activity - for a New York Times piece.
Balenger, the sandy-haired, broad-shouldered reporter with a decided air of mystery about him, isn't looking for just a story, however. And, soon after the group sets forth into the rat-infested tunnel leading to the building, it is clear that he will get even more than he bargained for. Danger, terror and death are awaiting the creepers in a place ravaged by time and redolent of evil.

"Scavenger" is the 2nd book in the Frank Balenger series!


"The Book of Secrets" by Tom Harper

In a snowbound village in the German mountains, a young woman discovers an extraordinary secret. Before she can reveal it, she disappears. All that survives is a picture of a mysterious medieval playing card that has perplexed scholars for centuries. Nick Ash does research for the FBI in New York. Six months ago his girlfriend Gillian walked out and broke his heart. Now he's the only person who can save her - if it's not too late. Within hours of getting her message, Nick finds himself on the run, delving deep into the past before it catches up with him. Hunted across Europe, Nick follows Gillian's trail into the heart of a five-hundred-year-old mystery. But across the centuries, powerful forces are closing around him. There are men who have devoted their lives to keeping the secret, and they will stop at nothing to protect it.

"Zig Zag" by Jose Carlos Somoza
Elisa, a young physics professor, has a terrible secret—a secret she's been hiding for ten years, one which torments her every day. While an advanced physics graduate student at one of the most prestigious universities in Europe, Elisa was invited to join an elite research team working on manipulating String Theory, making it possible to witness images of the past as if they were happening—live. According to the team's groundbreaking research, they theorized that the possibility of witnessing the past—viewing such milestone events as the crucifixion of Christ, or the earth when dinosaurs still roamed—was no longer a theory, but actually possible. But the team's experiments resulted in something much more frightening and dangerous than any of them could ever have imagined. Something they awoke with their work now hunts them—something evil.
Terrified, Elisa is now faced with solving the mysterious and gruesome deaths of each member of the team. The sinister force has focused its sight on her, and in order to solve the mystery and save her own life, she must discover what really happened on the remote island where her team was once sequestered. If she fails to find out the truth, and how to correct what they've unleashed, Elisa's fate will most certainly meet the same masochistic death as her colleagues.

7 comments:

  1. Wow, you've got some GREAT finds here! "Horns" was actually going to be my Waiting on Wednesday choice for next week (though it looks like it comes out next week, woo hoo)!

    Otherwise, I think "Green Angel" sounds like something I'd enjoy.

    Thanks for sharing these!

    My Friday Finds are over at bookwanderer!

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  2. Wonderful finds! I love Alice Hoffman. I've read and reviewed both The Atlantis Code, and The Hunt for the Eye of Ogin on my website. Just did Ogin today actually! My find is at The Crowded Leaf.

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  3. Yah Alice Hoffman. Enjoy! She's a great writer.

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  4. Juju, I saw the book from you :)

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  5. Alayne, I'm not sure, but I think I saw The Hunt for the Eye of Ogin on your blog :)

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  6. There are so many great books on here! Most of them sound like books I'm going to have to look into!

    Here are my finds: Not-Really-Southern Vamp Chick

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