Book Haul – The Joys of Audible Plus

I’ve been at a bit of a loss as far as reading and listening is concerned. Then, all of a sudden, as soon as the New Year hit, I started to enjoy it again. Odd, but I’m not going to complain. Started binge-listening to books and devouring podcasts again so have been on the look out for something to keep me well-fed (literary-wise). Luckily for me, Audible Plus has a catalogue of books free to download to members. So, naturally, I took advantage.

I’m also jumping back into the Hercule Poirot novels. Because, apparently, the only things I want to physically read are classic crime fiction.

History shapes those who travel through it.

Determined to save the antiques store she has inherited from ruin after the unexplained disappearance of her parents, Sarah Lester discovers a jumbled collection of vintage postcards that leads her on a journey through time.

Unprepared for the story the postcards weave about their reclusive former owner, Sarah’s life is thrown into disarray as she is transported to Victorian London, colonial New Zealand, and to the British Raj in 19th-century India.

Sarah’s journey through time could solve the mystery of her parents’ disappearance. But one impossible question remains: What will staying in the past do to her future?

Fleeing from a traumatic break-in, Londoners Paul and Tricia Feenan sell up to escape to the isolated Holiwell village where Tricia has inherited a property. Scattered throughout the settlement are centuries-old stones used during the Great Plague as boundary markers. No plague-sufferer was permitted to pass them and enter the village. The plague diminished, and the village survived unscathed, but since then each year the village trustees have insisted on an ancient ceremony to renew the village boundaries, until a misguided act by the Feenans’ son then reminds the village that there is a reason traditions have been rigidly stuck to, and that all acts of betrayal, even those committed centuries ago, have consequences….

A legend is born. In 1972, Jeff Rice’s novel The Night Stalker introduced Carl Kolchak to the world. This spine-tingling novel of supernatural terror became a best seller and served as the basis for the film of the same name, starring Darren McGavin and adapted by legendary Twilight Zone screenwriter Richard Matheson. After The Night Stalker became one of the highest-rated television movies of all time, a sequel, The Night Strangler, was released the following year to great acclaim.

Carl Kolchak, as the world’s first paranormal investigator, would prove to be an irresistible draw for viewers and inspire a weekly dramatic television series which debuted in 1974.

A legend returns. Now, after more than three decades out of print, Kolchak’s creator Jeff Rice has released the original novels which sparked the television phenomenon! At last, The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler are together in one volume: The Kolchak Papers!

Twenty-one years before Kolchak inspired Chris Carter to create The X-Files, there was only one paranormal investigator. Now fans everywhere can relive the adventures of Carl Kolchak in this single, remarkable volume!

Owen Deathstalker, last of the infamous warrior Clan, always considered himself more of a writer than a fighter, preferring his history books to making any actual history with a sword. But books won’t protect him from Her Imperial Majesty Lionstone XIV, who just outlawed and condemned Owen to death, without any explanation, reason, or warning. No wonder she’s called the Iron Bitch.

Now, on the run from Imperial starcruisers, shady mercenaries, and just about everyone else in the Empire, Owen’s options are limited. Though the name Deathstalker still commands respect in certain quarters, out on the Rim, Owen is lucky he can cobble together a makeshift team of castoffs, including an ex-pirate, a cyborg, and a bounty hunter. But allies won’t be enough to save him.

If he’s to live, Owen can either run forever…or take down the corrupt Empire. To do that, he’ll need the fabled Darkvoid Device – an artifact dating back to the first Deathstalker and perhaps the only weapon powerful enough to help this ragtag rebellion win. The time has come for Owen to finally embrace his Deathstalker heritage…and all the blood and death that go along with it.

A brilliant new Gothic thriller from the acclaimed author of The Ghost Writer and The Séance.

Confused and disoriented, Georgina Ferrars awakens in a small room in Tregannon House, a private asylum in a remote corner of England. She has no memory of the past few weeks. The doctor Maynard Straker tells her that she admitted herself under the name Lucy Ashton the day before and then suffered a seizure. When she insists he has mistaken her for someone else, Dr. Straker sends a telegram to her uncle, who replies that Georgina Ferrars is at home with him in London: “Your patient must be an imposter.”

Suddenly her voluntary confinement becomes involuntary. Who is the woman in her uncle’s house? And what has become of her two most precious possessions: a dragonfly pin left to her by her mother and a journal that contains the only record of those missing weeks? Georgina’s perilous quest to free herself takes her from a cliffside cottage on the Isle of Wight to the secret passages of Tregannon House and into a web of hidden family ties on which her survival depends.

Welcome to the hotel where nobody checks out. When a desk clerk welcomes a group of tourists into his mysterious and crumbling hotel, the last thing he expects is that a lone girl on his tour may hold the power to unravel the hidden mystery that has lain for untold centuries within the structure’s walls. The Grand Hotel is a horror novel by esteemed best-selling author Scott Kenemore (Zombie, Ohio) that takes the reader on a thrilling ride through an interconnected series of stories narrated by the desk clerk and the residents of the hotel itself. And while it is not known whether or not the desk clerk is actually the devil incarnate, it is strange that so many visitors who come for a tour of the hotel have a way of never leaving. As the narrator takes you deeper and deeper into the heart of the hotel, secrets that have been hiding for aeons begin to show themselves. Although he is quite prepared for this experience, there is some question as to whether or not the rest of the world shares this readiness. Kenemore’s incredible style and originality carry The Grand Hotel to places most people only see in their nightmares. And while we don’t know all of the secrets that lie within the Grand Hotel, we know that the person who does hold that knowledge puts fear into the narrator himself – a thought that ought to terrify everyone.

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