Historical Fiction
Claude Page is growing up in the French Pyrenees in Pre-revolutionary
France. His father was a watchmaker but had died while in Turkey. His
mother is a herbalist. Claude is apprenticed to a local disenfranchised
cleric. He first learns to enamel, making some bawdy pieces the abbe can sell to cover his debts. Then Claude learns about watchmaking. Claude is a whiz at anything mechanical.
Eventually Claude leaves the abbe to travel to Paris. He loves mechanical things and wishes to make a talking head.
I found this book intriguing regarding the inventions and the period but thought it lacked any great plot. It was a very slow start and maybe this is what kept me from fully liking the book.
First Line: "The case of curiosities came into my possession at a Paris auction in the spring of 1983."
Rating:
(3.5/5)
Winnie Rudge is a writer with massive writers block. She flies out to visit her cousin John in London, England with the hopes that her trip will spark something in her to help her start writing again. When she arrives, John is no where to be found but there are contractors in his flat removing walls to build access to the roof. Winnie tries to find John but also has to deal with the contractors who are convinced the place is haunted. Hammering happens and nails trying to be removed retract back in to the wall. Perhaps this is the ghost of Winnie's great grandfather, whom Scrooge may or may not have been modeled after.
Sookie Stackhouse, a small town barmaid, has survived the fairy wars but just. She had been tortured and seen a good friend, Bill Compton, almost killed. Sookie now is afraid and needs to heal physically and emotionally.
The Weres have finally come out. Behind Merlotte's Bar where Sookie Stackhouse works a young were-panther is found crucified. The victim is Jason's, Sookie's brother, pregnant ex. Sookie wants to find how who is responsible and prove it wasn't Jason.
Sookie Stackhouse, a small town barmaid, comes back from the Vampire Convention in Rhodes. The convention and the bombing of the hotel and hurricane Katrina have left the Louisiana vamps hurting and missing some of their members (figuratively and literally).
This is a set of short stories as told by Mendal Dawes. Dawes is
growing up in the tiny Southern town of Forty-Five, South Carolina. His
father is just plum crazy. He buries things like signs saying they will
become valuable. He disguises his yard as a toxic waste dump to
discourage development.
Sookie Stackhouse, a small town barmaid, is going to accompany 
Lieutenant Eve Dallas is called by a young cop she's been mentoring, Trueheart, after he responds off-duty to a call for help and ends up killing a man. When Dallas arrives, she has two dead men, a severely injured woman and a shell shocked colleague. The computer of the attacker reads "Absolutely Purity Achieved". Dallas brings this back to the office for the electronics department to check out while trying to help Trueheart clear through internal investigations.
Cotton Malone, retired U.S. operative, becomes forcibly involved in
another intrigue after his son is kidnapped and his rare book store in
Copenhagen is burned. The Order of the Golden Fleece, a network of
politically powerful European business men and women, seeks the lost
library of Alexandria. They want to destabilize the Middle East and
create more economic power for the Order. 
Back in Pine Cove, CA again with its wealth of crazy characters, Moore
writes about a Christmas wish. A child sees a store Santa whacked over
the head with a shovel and wishes to have Santa brought back to life. An
angel, Raziel heeds the wish and the entire cemetery full of dead are
now zombies.
IIt is post WWII in London and British author Juliet Ashton is searching
for her next writing project. She has lost her house and possessions in
the bombings. Juliet receives a letter from a man inquiring about
Charles Lamb's books. He had found her name and address in a book he
had bought about Charles Lamb. The letter is from the Isle of Guernsey.