Book picks similar to
Floating in Darkness - A Journey of Evolution by Ron Garan
home-library
5-star-books
bookshelf
favorites
Savvy Sage Online
Richard Sprout - 2020
Make new friends. Oh, and try not to die.A first person LitRPG Gamelit Fantasy novel, Savvy Sage Online tells the story of how Nate, a twenty something guy ended up a beta tester for a next generation game system. While inside, he tries builds relationships while avoiding evil sorcerers, deadly monsters and learning how to creatively apply his new magical skills in interesting ways.Once inside the game world, Nate quickly makes friends, first with Roger and then Jenny, a plucky warrior redhead who saves him from becoming cat food. After that, Nate meets Alice, a mage working tables to save for guild dues. When Alice gives Nate a Request, he dives deep magical exploration to help make their ambitious plans come true.Together, the three fight monsters, dive into a dangerous dungeon, learn innovative magical techniques and plot to create a new place of learning for the curious. Debut novel from Richard Sprout, Savvy Sage Online is an original story over 124,000 words in length.Pick up this binge-worthy tale today!Themes from the book: Relationships with women, cultivation of magical skills, settlement building, meta-magic, crafting, gamelit, game mechanics, RPG elements, level progression, exploration, crafting, skill development and more. Savvy Sage Online is a book that will thrill fans of authors like Eric Vall, Logan Jacobs, Noah Layton, Tamryn Tamer, A.J. Markam and Simon Archer, or series like Princess Master, Ex-Supers, Herald of Shalia, Skullduggery, Tribe Master and Forge of the Gods.
Daisy Jones & The Six
Taylor Jenkins ReidTaylor Jenkins Reid - 2019
in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go-Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock and roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.Another band getting noticed is The Six, led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.
Hairspray and Lighter
J. Jupes - 2018
He didn't expect Darlene Johnson to walk into his office with her chocolate box. And certainly didn't expect what followed. . Book One of the Detectives That Don't Fit Series.
Perfect
Tricia Copeland - 2020
Five passionate paths to the perfect love.Chloe refuses to compromise when it comes to romance and success. Powering through her sophomore-level college business classes, she’s done with the effort of distance-dating her high-school sweetheart. But when he proposes just as she hits it off with a hunky basketball player, she worries following her heart could send her bright future to the bench.As Chloe matures becoming a rising star in the fashion industry, love knocks another four times. But while each potential suitor eventually pops the question, only she knows her ultimate happy ending.Whose arms will embrace Chloe when she chooses her forever man?Perfect is a standalone clean contemporary romance. If you like tender moments, lighthearted comedy, and endings you choose yourself, then you’ll adore Tricia Copeland’s option-filled tale.Buy Perfect to pick your ideal walk down the aisle today!
Still Alice
Lisa Genova - 2007
D in neuroscience from Harvard University. Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children and a house on the Cape, is a celebrated Harvard professor at the height of her career when she notices a forgetfulness creeping into her life. As confusion starts to cloud her thinking and her memory begins to fail her, she receives a devastating diagnosis: early onset Alzheimer's disease. Fiercely independent, Alice struggles to maintain her lifestyle and live in the moment, even as her sense of self is being stripped away. In turns heartbreaking, inspiring and terrifying, Still Alice captures in remarkable detail what's it's like to literally lose your mind...
Gone Girl
Gillian Flynn - 2012
Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one that they love. With his twin sister, Margo, at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn’t do it, where is that beautiful wife? And what was in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet?With her razor-sharp writing and trademark psychological insight, Gillian Flynn delivers a fast-paced, devilishly dark, and ingeniously plotted thriller that confirms her status as one of the hottest writers around.One of the most critically acclaimed suspense writers of our time, New York Times bestseller Gillian Flynn takes that statement to its darkest place in this unputdownable masterpiece about a marriage gone terribly, terribly wrong. The Chicago Tribune proclaimed that her work “draws you in and keeps you reading with the force of a pure but nasty addiction.” Gone Girl’s toxic mix of sharp-edged wit and deliciously chilling prose creates a nerve-fraying thriller that confounds you at every turn.Source: gillian-flynn.com
Phantom
Susan Kay - 1990
This incredible portrait of Erik--the Phantom--recreates his entire life, from his survival as a child in a carnival freak show to his creative genius behind the Paris Opera House--and its labyrinthine world below--to his discovery of love.
The Thirteenth Tale
Diane Setterfield - 2006
The enigmatic Winter has spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself -- all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she at last wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. She summons biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, hidden by those who loved her most, remains an ever-present pain. Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winter's story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission. As Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good, Margaret is mesmerized. It is a tale of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and a devastating fire. Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida's storytelling but remains suspicious of the author's sincerity. She demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves. The Thirteenth Tale is a love letter to reading, a book for the feral reader in all of us, a return to that rich vein of storytelling that our parents loved and that we loved as children. Diane Setterfield will keep you guessing, make you wonder, move you to tears and laughter and, in the end, deposit you breathless yet satisfied back upon the shore of your everyday life.
A Man Called Ove
Fredrik Backman - 2012
Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him the bitter neighbor from hell, but must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations.
Twentymile
C. Matthew Smith - 2021
But Tsula Walker, Special Agent with the National Park Service’s Investigative Services Branch, isn’t so sure.Tsula’s investigation will lead her deep into the park and face-to-face with a group of lethal men on a mission to reclaim a historic homestead. The encounter will irretrievably alter the lives of all involved and leave Tsula fighting for survival – not only from those who would do her harm, but from a looming winter storm that could prove just as deadly.A finely crafted literary thriller, Twentymile delivers a propulsive story of long-held grievances, new hopes, and the contentious history of the land at its heart.PRAISE FOR TWENTYMILE:"[A] taut, page-turning thriller . . ." --Atlanta Journal-Constitution"In C. Matthew Smith’s engrossing novel Twentymile, a park service biologist turns up dead in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and discord regarding annexed land fuels a treacherous chase....a disturbing, potent thriller about ownership and trespassing, as well as unrealized dreams and aggression." --Foreword Reviews"Twentymile is packed with everything I love: A strong, female character; a wilderness setting; gripping storytelling; masterful writing. . . I loved every word. A beautiful and brutal and extraordinary debut." --Diane Les Becquets, bestselling author of Breaking Wild and The Last Woman in the Forest"Original, intelligent. . . Twentymile is an accomplished first novel from a talented and fully-formed writer." --James McLaughlin, Edgar Award winning author of Bearskin“Twentymile is a moody, atmospheric tale of family, vengeance, and anger too-long held, all set in the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains. Ultimately, it is the story of reaching for- discovering and recovering- home, and how such a complicated yearning can play out on both sides of the law." --Steph Post, author of Miraculum, Lightwood, and A Tree Born Crooked"Smith’s spellbinding debut takes readers on a murderous journey through the backwoods of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. . . A thrilling and evocative tale." --Scott Graham, National Outdoor Book Award-winning author of Canyonlands Carnage"A highly enjoyable read suited best to those who like their thrillers to simmer for awhile before erupting in a blizzard of action and unpredictability with a future promise of grander adventures." --Kashif Hussain, Best Thriller Books"C. Matthew Smith's gripping tale centers around the history of our public lands and the people who use and protect them. Twentymile is a tremendously entertaining first novel from a writer who knows how to spin a good yarn." --Rob Phillips, bestselling author of The Cascade Killer, Cascade Vengeance, and Cascade Predator
Carnal: Somewhere Over 40 Winks
Rom LcO'Feer - 2009
Desires go out of control and wishes come true in wrong ways. Once captured, monsters and villains from Mong are sent to the prison of Nightmare. A hideous serial killer manages to break out of the jail into the real world, terrifying the earthlings. A reporter from an obscure magazine company hunts the killer doggedly. Or is it the other way around? He has to find the clues about the killer before his girlfriend becomes the next victim. Time is dashing forward. In desperation, the reporter decides to cross the border of no return and climbs down into Mong. Little did he know what's waiting for him at that murky place.
One Small Sacrifice
Hilary Davidson - 2019
A mysterious disappearance. Did one man get away with murder—twice?NYPD detective Sheryn Sterling has had her eye on Alex Traynor ever since his friend Cori fell to her death under suspicious circumstances a year ago. Cori’s death was ruled a suicide, but Sheryn thinks Alex—a wartime photojournalist suffering from PTSD—got away with murder.When Alex’s fiancée, Emily, a talented and beloved local doctor, suddenly goes missing, Sheryn suspects that Alex is again at the center of a sticky case. Sheryn dislikes loose ends, and Cori’s death had way too many of them.But as Sheryn starts pulling at the threads in this web, her whole theory unravels. Everyone involved remembers the night Cori died differently—and the truth about her death could be the key to solving Emily’s disappearance.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Mary Ann Shaffer - 2008
"I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers." January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she's never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb...As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island—boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society's members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration of the written word in all its guises and of finding connection in the most surprising ways.
These Three Words
Jess van der Hoech - 2018
And if her family were different and her friends actually liked her. Better yet, maybe if she was a different person altogether, preferably a person who doesn't have anxiety about absolutely everything. Just as Luna begins to think all hope is lost, she meets Sadie Rainbow, a counsellor who supports Luna through a journey of self-discovery, where she learns coping strategies that really work and finds the power that can be hidden within three words. These Three Words is a unique therapeutic novel for teenagers with the aim of linking together the feelings, emotions and behaviours connected to anxiety, with some of the therapeutic tools that can be used in order to enable better self-regulation, increased confidence and different ways of thinking. The book is equally valuable to parents of teenagers with anxiety, giving them an insight and understanding into some of the issues that may be affecting their child, and potentially opening up a line of communication and a way forward between parent and teen.
The Night Circus
Erin Morgenstern - 2011
No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night. But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands. True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead. Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.