Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life (A sortabiography)

Eric Idle

Crown Archetype.

Comedian, actor, author, singer, playwright, director and songwriter. Eric Idle has turned his hand to all these with enormous success. The name Monty Python is known all over the world, and millions have taken the absurdist and so-typically British silliness to their hearts. Much has been written about the Python phenomena over the years, but there’s always something to add. Most of the Python crew have written memoirs, and Eric Idle adds to the knowledge by producing his own sortabiography.

Idle was born on March 29, 1943 in South Shields, County Durham, England. His early life was touched by tragedy when his RAF veteran father died in a road accident on Christmas Eve 1945 while hitchhiking home on leave to his family. Idle was sent on a charitable basis to the Royal Wolverhampton School, a tough boarding school where bullying was rife. As he writes of the establishment, “It was a physically abusive, bullying, harsh environment for a kid to grow up in. I got used to dealing with groups of boys and getting on with life under unpleasant circumstances and being smart and funny and subversive at the expense of authority. Perfect training for Python.”

Idle went on to Cambridge University under a scholarship, where he met John Cleese and formed a lifelong friendship that expanded over the swinging Sixties to include all the future Pythons. Idle’s induction to the famous Footlights saw him blossom as a sketch-writer, which segued into a varied career which has seen him travel the world almost as much as fellow Python, Michael Palin. Idle got to know and love such great stars as Beatle George Harrison, comic geniuses Robin Williams and Billy Connolly, as well as countless other stars of stage, screen and TV. His tributes to Harrison and Williams are especially moving.

Named after his greatest hit, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, which became the top request at British funerals, this sortabiography is a laugh aloud insider account into the Python crew at their best and worst, and one man’s incredible journey into the world consciousness. 

 

Guilt

Guilt

by Amanda Robson

Avon Books

Miranda and Zara Cunningham are twins, different in both looks and personality. Zara is a flighty, outgoing and artistic soul with a history of self-harm. Miranda, more stable and grounded, worries for her sister. She offers Zara support and a home to get over her last bout of cutting, but her plans for a secure life come off the rails when Zara meets Sebastian Templeton.

From the get-go Zara seems obsessed by Sebastian. When Miranda meets him for the first time she feels she can’t trust the guy. Sebastian has swarthy good looks, but something behind his cavalier over-friendly attitude toward her strikes Miranda as all wrong. Matters don’t improve when he gets a position in the tax department at the firm where Miranda works as an accountant and begins to affect her good standing with her employer. As the relationship between Zara and Sebastian deepens the warning bells in Miranda’s mind sound all the louder. What is it in Sebastian’s past that drives his present behavior? Why is he doing all he can to drive a wedge between the twins? An act of sexual assault and a terrible betrayal leaves one twin dead and the other fighting for her freedom. The survivor has to put her life on the line before she can win justice for them both.

Robson put a lot of heart, soul and hard-won experience into Guilt to create a harrowing page-turning read from start to finish. Miranda, Zara and Sebastian pop off the page as real characters with believable drives and reasons all their own.

True Fiction

TrueFiction

by Lee Goldberg

Thomas & Mercer

Waikiki Beach, Hawaii is the scene of an horrific airplane crash that kills hundreds aboard the flight and the hotels off the beach. In Seattle, best-selling thriller writer Ian Ludlow is aghast when he sees the TV news feeds – because he knows he was the inspiration behind the crash. Three years before, Ludlow and a number of other writers were recruited by the CIA. Their brief was to create scenarios for terrorist atrocities to help the government prepare for the worst. Now it looks like someone in the CIA enacted Ludlow’s scenario. He discovers that someone has already killed the other writers – now they want him dead too.

Ludlow goes on the run with the reluctant help of his author’s escort, Margo French. They soon realize the scope of government surveillance in everyday life as attempt after attempt is made to kill them. Escaping by the skin of their teeth, Ludlow and Margo know they have to identify their pursuer and stop him before their luck runs out. Only one man can help – former TV star turned survivalist recluse Ronnie Mancuso. When the three team up they have a chance to turn the tables on their pursuer – but it’ll mean going into the lion’s den. Can Ian Ludlow channel his fictional hero and save the day in a plot worthy of one of his books?

Humorous, thrilling and scary, True Fiction is a great caper story of the little guys taking on the all-encompassing secret state in a knock-down drag-out fight to the finish.

The Devil's Triangle

TheDevil’s Triangle

by Catherine Coulter and J T Ellison

Simon & Schuster Pocket Books Fiction

Covert Eyes is a crack FBI team headed by Special Agent Nicholas Drummond, with a flexible brief to act against crime anywhere in the world. Drummond gets a phone call from notorious art thief Kitsune, known as The Fox. He and Kitsune have a history and mutual respect, so when she tells him she’s in deep trouble, Drummond listens.

Kitsune took a commission to steal the Staff of Moses from the Topkapi museum in Istanbul. Her theft leads Covert Eyes to Venice, Italy and a firefight in the Piazza San Marco. It seems Kitsune’s mysterious employers want to ensure she never gets to expose them. Drummond and his team find a trail that leads to the Genesis institute headed by twins Ajax and Cassandra Kohath – megawealthy, sociopathic and lethal. The twins are themselves on the trail of the Ark of the Covenant, an immensely powerful artifact which they claim as their family’s birthright. Drummond discovers the Kohaths already have an uncanny century-long ability to control weather to their own advantage. Beijing was hit by a vicious sandstorm which killed thousands. Now a colossal hurricane is heading right for Washington DC. Can Drummond track the Kohaths to their secret lair and avert a major disaster?

TheDevil’s Triangle is a blend of Dan Brown and Tom Clancy with a fast plot, great characters, hissable villains and a gripping climax. One for thriller lovers. 

 

Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard

MagnusChase and the Gods of Asgard.

By Rick Riordan.

Disney Hyperion.

Magnus Chase, son of Frey the god of Summer, fell off a bridge, died, and became an einherji – one of the Norse champions of Asgard. He lives on Floor 19 of the Hotel Valhalla together with his friends Alex (who occasionally changes sex), inseparable friends Hearthstone (an elf with father issues) and Blitzen (a dwarf with a literally killer fashion sense), Thomas Jefferson Jr. (a crack-shot Civil War veteran who can never resist a personal challenge), Samirah (devout Muslim Valkyrie) Halfborn Gunderson (Viking berserker with a straightforward approach to life), and Mallory Keen (an Irish revolutionary with mother issues). And then there’s Magnus’ sword Jack, sentient Sword of Summer with a penchant for singing hit songs from the 70’s and 80’s. Life in the hotel is cozy – if you don’t mind dying every day in the ultra-competitive rehearsals for Ragnarok: Watercolor lessons to the death, anyone? The trouble is, Ragnarok might come early. 

 

Loki, god of mischief, is on the loose once more. He’s building an army of giants and undead warriors aboard the gigantic warship Naglfar. Magnus and his friends must recapture Loki before he brings about the end of the Nine Worlds. Bravely setting forth on a banana-yellow magic longship, they encounter a mead-loving sea giant with particular dietary requirements, a Yorkshire giant with a talent for creating murderous pottery, Hearthstone’s father who should never have taken a cursed ring, and a group of giant thralls who really should have unionized. Immortal relatives and Magnus’ feelings for Alex make life even more colorful for the heroes before they have to face Loki for the ultimate trash-talk smack-down.

Riordan’s offbeat and wry sense of humor infused with a deep knowledge of Norse mythology makes Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard an entertaining read from start to finish.

Snap Judgment

SnapJudgment

by Marcia Clark

Thomas & Mercer

Criminal lawyer Samantha Brinkman is used to sparring with respected attorney Graham Hutchins on a TV legal show, and he turns to her for help when his daughter Alicia is murdered. After a high-pressure upbringing Alicia Hutchins won a place and much-needed independence at USC, and she seemed to have a glittering future. When Alicia was found with her throat slashed, suspicion turned on her controlling ex-boyfriend Roan Sutton – but then Sutton is found dead a few days later. Was it suicide – or did Graham Hutchins avenge his daughter?

A witness places Graham at the scene, but he denies any blame for Sutton’s death. Samantha and her team, investigator Alex and BFF/receptionist Michy set to work on the case, but uncover more questions than answers. Alicia’s halo slips a little as Samantha investigates the circumstances. Was Alicia a good girl having fun for the first time in her life, or were there darker forces at work? Matters are complicated for Samantha when a big time criminal shows up to call in a favor. Javier Cabazon isn’t the kind of guy you can say no to. He wants an important witness tracked down – or Samantha and her father Dale will pay the consequences. With Cabazon’s deadline, and the police closing in on Graham Hutchins, Samantha and her friends need to pull out all the stops. She plays by her own rules and is willing to bend or break any law to get results – but can Samantha cut through the mass of motives and family secrets to pull it off this time?

SnapJudgment sees the return of a terrific character in Samantha Brinkman. Marcia Clark renders the world of high-stakes law and flexible morals in perfect three dimensional clarity. 

 

Song of Edmon

Song of Edmon

Adam Burch

47North

Edmon Leontes’ birth was marked in spectacular fashion by a new Fracture opening in the heavens above the tidally-locked world of Tao. His father Edric, proud ruler of the House of Leontes proclaimed its appearance an omen that his son would one day be mightier than he, that the new Fracture would lead to wealth for Tao as it traded with new worlds. Thereafter he seemed to forget about Edmon, allowing him to remain in the care of his mother Cleopatra, matriarch of the Island of Bone in the perpetual light of the Dayside. 

Edmon’s idyllic upbringing crashes to a halt one day when a stranger arrives on the island to claim the rights and privileges of fostering. Phaestion of House Julii is impossibly beautiful and adept at the arts of combat to an uncanny degree. He moves through life with all the assurance of one born to rule – and he claims Edmon for one of his Companions, his elite bodyguard. Edmon must move away from home to begin initiation into the dark and savage martial culture of the more technologically advanced Nightside, where the powerful Houses jockey for position around the throne of the decrepit Wusong, ruler of Tao. 

On the Nightside trial by combat is held as the ultimate expression of humanity, yet Edmon discovers there are secrets the glittering nobility prefer to remain hidden. When a shocking act of betrayal casts him far from his privileged upbringing, Edmon must use all the resources he has and can find and become a player, not a pawn – or else the world he knows will end. 

Adam Burch’s Songof Edmon is a powerful debut with distinct shades of Herbert’s epic Dune novels. The world of Tao and its cultures come to life with a clarity that is sometimes brutal but never less than gripping.