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Powell's Staff:
Five Book Friday: In Memoriam
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Every year, the booksellers at Powell’s submit their Top Fives: their five favorite books that were released in 2023. It’s a list that, when put together, shows just how varied and interesting the book tastes of Powell’s booksellers are. I highly recommend digging into the recommendations — we would never lead you astray — but today...
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Brontez Purnell:
Powell’s Q&A: Brontez Purnell, author of ‘Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt’
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Rachael P.:
Starter Pack: Where to Begin with Ursula K. Le Guin
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Customer Comments
Laurel Johnson has commented on (4) products
Hell's Interstate
by
C. H. Foertmeyer
Laurel Johnson
, November 05, 2006
C.H. Foertmeyer excels at creating imaginative plots and developing unique characters. For his tenth book, he delivers murder, miracles, and supernatural happenings in the heartland of America. The county roads of Kansas cut through peaceful prairies, fertile farmland, and tiny rural communities. In the gently rolling hills along each road, everyone knows their neighbors. Life is safe and predictable, until Reed Haskell and Vern Sanger take their stolen vehicle off the beaten path. Reed is a vicious killer, a murderous animal without heart or conscience. Vern is a prison escapee thrown into Reed's path by chance. Vern is a lonely man who loves his wife and child and contemplates revenge against the man who wrecked his life. He sticks with Reed through a rampage of robbery, murder, and arson because he dreads to be alone, but Vern is not a killer. Ed Brinks is a retired NYPD cop who moved his family to Kansas for a more peaceful life. When a gas leak and fire destroy his home, he finds himself drawn deep into a mystery he can't explain. Topeka detective Ray LaCosta investigates and soon both men join forces to reveal incredible happenings. A stranger named Michael appears at every juncture of their investigation, saving lives and providing hints to Reed and Sanger's whereabouts before fading into thin air. This same man appears to Reed and Sanger with a warning to Vern: "Respect the life." I don't want to give the plot away. These four men are thrown together, with the mysterious Michael appearing before and after each crime scene. The answers to questions asked by all four men defy logic and come from the distant past to impact their present and future. DNA and fingerprints provide solutions, but only one small part of the amazing truth. C.H. Foertmeyer thinks and writes outside the usual genre box. If you are tired of the same old formulaic genres, I recommend you give Hell's Interstate a try.
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Bewildered
by
C. H. Foertmeyer
Laurel Johnson
, November 05, 2006
C.H. Foertmeyer is the award nominated author of seven previous books in the fantasy genre. Fans will find no time travel, shape shifting Native Americans, or other fantasy storylines in Bewildered. What readers will experience is a nifty suspense thriller, a reality based adventure with cunning twists and turns of plot that will keep you guessing until the end. Annie and Charlie McVee plan to hike two hundred miles of the Appalachian Trail as a tenth anniversary gift to themselves. Never one to stick with the ordinary, Charlie plots a hike off-trail, in uncharted territory. Annie is uneasy when they discover impassable cliffs, then a small 18th century town with no inhabitants in sight. They decide to return to the trail, which takes them on a grueling experience that turns deadly when their GPS is damaged in a fall. Charlie wakes up in the Harlon County Tennessee hospital with two broken legs and a fractured hip. The hospital is staffed by one doctor and one nurse, and the facts don't match up with what Charlie remembers. He's told Annie died in a fall. After six weeks of recuperation, he returns to their home in Cincinnati to resume life without Annie. He's transported home by Michael McClellan, a resident of the tiny town they ran across while hiking. The town is Jessup, a Puralist community of people who do not believe in modern technology or violence. After several weeks at home to think about his experience, Charlie discovers chilling truths. His family doctor says x-rays show no sign of badly fractured legs or hip. No medical bills have been sent or insurance claims filed for his six weeks in the hospital. And the hospital, town, and county where he recuperated do not exist on any map or record. He enlists a long time friend to accompany him back to Tennessee in search of answers. Dr. John Roberts joined the Jessup community five years prior to Charlie's accident. He masquerades as a Puralist, who practice pure motives, when in truth he is after gold rumored to be buried nearby Jessup. He's developed an elaborate series of lies to throw Charlie off the truth and convinced the Puralists to go along. Roberts' sanity hangs by a thread as he bides his time anticipating a life of wealth with contraband gold. He definitely does not live by the Puralist philosophy of non violence and is prepared to kill everyone who interferes with his plans. People die. Horrible lies are concocted. And in the end, no one will be the same -- not Charlie, and certainly not the shy Puralists whose way of life is changed forever. Bewildered features appealing characters and wild Appalachian terrain in an exciting storyline. Foertmeyer's first venture into the suspense thriller genre is a heart pounding experience.
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Carver: High Mountain Tragedy
by
C. H. Foertmeyer
Laurel Johnson
, November 05, 2006
C.H. Foertmeyer has taken an all-too-familiar sadness in America today - the fate of troubled teens - and breathed new life into the subject. Although Carver features fictional characters and events, the reality was hair raising to me. The author builds his story very well. Kevin Reynolds, Wiley Coates, and Bryce Spencer are good kids and long time pals, just average teenagers trying to survive their adolescence and enjoy activities they like. Due to various physical, social, or financial shortcomings, all three boys have been objects of ridicule for years. The cruelty of their peers and fellow students is bewildering and more painful as their High School years progress. Still, the boys share common interests - skiing, hunting and camping, exploring the Rocky Mountain wilderness - so they hang together, hoping graduation will change their lot. Mary Clemmons is a spiteful, snobbish student, spoiled rotten by her wealthy father. Her best friend and confidant is Alicia Koppe, a poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Whatever Mary wants, Mary gets by one means or another. And she wants Bryce to pay for telling that she cheated on exams. Her revenge is plotted, and with Alicia's help, Bryce ends up dead. Kevin and Wiley know who caused their friend's death and decide to work their own revenge on the two girls who've made their life a living hell for years. Foertmeyer makes good use of the Rocky Mountain environs as he builds this tale of good boys driven to an awful revenge by circumstance. In fact, his descriptive passages of the natural, wild beauty of the place lulled me into a false sense of hope about the outcome of Carver. Sheriff Al Dramico and his deputy Stan are sly investigators. Nothing slips by them, and in the end, all the guilty parties pay a different price. How the tale plays out is better left unrevealed by me. I suggest you read the book to learn the answers. Carver is more than a novel. It's a social commentary on the world we've come to know through shocking vignettes on TV and in the newspaper. It made me shiver just a little, knowing that no matter how good a person is - how noble the motive - we could be forced into a hell not of our making. I recommend this book for adolescents and adults. There are valid lessons to be learned in it. Mr. Foertmeyer writes well and I'm looking forward to his next creation.
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Taylor Manse
by
C. H. Foertmeyer
Laurel Johnson
, November 05, 2006
C.H. Foertmeyer is the author of ten previous books. He favors fictional stories about the unknown, the mysterious, time travel, and the courage of honorable humans. With Taylor Manse he incorporates all these but adds a new, frightening twist: a hair- raising battle between good people and the ultimate Evil. Wade Robinson is a skilled craftsman who buys, rehabs, and resells houses for a living. In the tiny hamlet of Buffalo Brook, Vermont he finds the ideal fixer-upper, a 19th century Victorian home named Taylor Manse. Several months into the project, Wade is beginning to suspect his wife Anne is "nesting." She's tired of moving from project to project and hopes to settle down in Taylor Manse for good. Two occurrences convince Wade that living at Taylor Manse is not in their best interest. First, locals at his favorite pub share the mansion's dark history: every 25 years on December 27th, gruesome murders and vanishings occur. And second, before Wade has time to investigate the mansion's history, his renovations uncover a trap door to nowhere in the center of the living room floor. At least, he THINKS it goes to nowhere. The twenty-fifth anniversary of the last gruesome murder is fast approaching. Wade needs to finish rehabbing Taylor Manse so he and Anne can move on before December 27. But strange findings in a crumbling carriage house on the property distract him from the renovation. The impossible and unimaginable threaten his life and Anne's, and even moving thousands of miles across country can't protect them now. In all his books, Foertmeyer writes about good vs. evil. In Taylor Manse our hero learns that once evil takes hold of a life, it does not let go without a fight. A supernatural, ancient horror stalks them and Wade must be the one to stand against it. I've read every one of C.H. Foertmeyer's books and thoroughly enjoyed them all. All are imaginative, entertaining, and sometimes scary, but I think Taylor Manse may just be his best so far.
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