Friday Finds

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I'm glad to say that for once I've actually managed to easily acquire all of my recent book discoveries, and I can't wait get started on them during the upcoming week.

These first two books I found on Netgalley.

Andrew Kaufman is the author of another book on my TBR list that I haven't yet gotten hold of, All my Friends are Superheroes, and so I was interested in sampling his writing with this intriguing novella.

The Tiny Wife by Andrew Kaufman

A thief charges into a bank with a loaded gun, but he does not ask for money; what he asks for, instead, is the object of greatest significance currently in the possession of each patron. The thief then leaves, and the patrons all survive, but strange things soon begin to happen to them: One survivor’s tattoo jumps off her ankle and chases her around; another wakes up to find that she’s made of candy; and Stacey Hinterland discovers that she’s shrinking, incrementally, a little every day, and nothing that her husband or son do can reverse the process. The Tiny Wife is a fable about losing yourself in circumstances and finding yourself in the the love of another.

The Emperor's Knife caught my attention because it sounds so much like Brandon's

Sanderson's Elentris, at least the first part of the synopsis. I haven't yet heard anything about this book, author, or publisher so I'm not sure what to expect but I really hope it will turn out to be as good as it sounds.

The Emperor's Knife by Mazarkis Williams

There is a cancer at the heart of the mighty Cerani Empire: a plague that attacks young and old, rich and poor alike, marking each victim with a fragment of a greater pattern. Anyone showing the marks is put to death. That is Emperor Beyon's law . . .

But now the pattern is reaching closer to the palace than ever before. In a hidden room, a forgotten prince has grown from child to man, and as the empire sickens, Sarmin, the emperor’s only surviving brother, is remembered. He awaits the bride his mother has chosen: a chieftain’s daughter from the northern plains.

Mesema travels from her homeland, an offering for the empire’s favour. She is a Windreader, used to riding free across the grasslands, not posing and primping in rare silks. She finds the Imperial Court’s protocols stifling, but she doesn’t take long to realise the politicking and intrigues are not a game, but deadly earnest.

Eyul is burdened both by years and by the horrors he has carried out in service to the throne. At his emperor’s command he bears the emperor’s Knife to the desert in search of a cure for the pattern-markings.

As long-planned conspiracies boil over into open violence and rebellion, the enemy moves toward victory. Now only three people stand in his way: a lost prince, a world-weary killer, and a young girl from the steppes who once saw a path through a pattern, among the waving grasses.

I just got this book out of the library, and it's another one that I haven't heard of before, but am really hoping that it turns out to be as good as it sounds.

Before Ever After

Samantha Sotto

Three years after her husband Max's death, Shelley feels no more adjusted to being a widow than she did that first terrible day. That is, until the doorbell rings. Standing on her front step is a young man who looks so much like Max; same smile, same eyes, same age, same adorable bump in his nose; he could be Max's long-lost relation. He introduces himself as Paolo, an Italian editor of American coffee table books, and shows Shelley some childhood photos. Paolo tells her that the man in the photos, the bearded man who Paolo says is his grandfather though he never seems to age, is Max. Her Max. And he is alive and well.

As outrageous as Paolo's claims seem; how could her husband be alive? And if he is, why hasn't he looked her up? Shelley desperately wants to know the truth. She and Paolo jet across the globe to track Max down; if it is really Max and along the way, Shelley recounts the European package tour where they had met. As she relives Max's stories of bloody Parisian barricades, medieval Austrian kitchens, and buried Roman boathouses, Shelley begins to piece together the story of who her husband was and what these new revelations mean for her "happily ever after." And as she and Paolo get closer to the truth, Shelley discovers that not all stories end where they are supposed to

Fun links of the Week:

First I came across this article listing 10 of the strangest items that have been left unclaimed at airlines, but which is just my kind of thing, but then, even better, was this link to a store in Alabama that sells all these items which no one has ever come to pick up. How have I never heard of this place before?! I've never had a reason to go to Alabama but before now it's at the top of my list of place to go the next time I'm in America.

Some of the recent Imagur pictures that made me laugh, along with their original headlines:

Um... I'll catch the next bus.

 

Should I "use soap" too?