Link :Amazon, Goodreads, Price: £9.99
Our protagonist’s life has ground to his halt: his wife has divorced him after having an affair, his business is grinding to a halt as the friend with whom he founded it steadily succumbs to alcoholism, and his best friend Rat disappeared years ago – only occasionally sending bizarre, non-sequitur letters containing money or more recently a picture of some sheep.
This picture becomes important, however, because it contains the image of a sheep with the mark of a star – a sheep that is of great interest to the shadowy right-wing organisation that have controlled Japan for years. An organisation that will pay him a great deal of money to find that sheep – or destroy him if he does not.
Spurred on by his new girlfriend and her magical ears, this man with no motivation finds himself on a quest to find a single lost sheep on a mountainside in a country full of mountains. What he finds will make all that seem relatively normal.
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Girl next door Brooke Knight is building a new life for herself in Michigan. There she meets Calvin Jones, successful owner of a coffee shop and a gym, who looks great in a tight t-shirt. When the two sweethearts fall swiftly and madly in love, it seems like everything is coming up roses. But a dark secret from Brooke’s past is coming to tear it all apart.
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By now we are familiar with the essence of a story: a character with a flaw (an incorrect world view that is making them unhappy) caused by a wound (a serious incident in their past that caused them to firmly believe this view) is presented with a serious problem that challenges this world view. They are face by a series of obstacles attempting to solve this problem (often in the form of a villain), things becoming worse until they overcome their flaw and become a whole person, or they fail and are doomed to misery.
But where does the villain fit into this?
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Our Book of the Month for August is The Three Body Problem by Cixin Lui
Chinese engineer Wang Mao is asked to infiltrate a secretive cabal of scientists after a series of unexplained suicides. What he finds is a virtual world world ruled by the relationship of three suns and a conspiracy spanning space and time that threatens to end the human race.
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Link : Amazon, Goodreads. Price:£5.95
Genetically engineered crops and plagues have wiped out the greater portion of the world’s agriculture, ending the era of great nations and open borders as humanity struggles to survive the latest pestilence. Anderson Lake is a company man trying to discover the secrets of Thailand’s success, one of the few relatively civilised nations remaining. Jaidee is an incorruptible head of the White Shirts, protecting the nation from potentially toxic illegal imports. Hock Seng is a “yellow card”, a once wealthy Chinese refugee from a violent uprising that murdered his family. Their lives will be turned upside-down by of Emiko, a “windup girl”, an android, a sex-slave, and the person who may be about to start a revolution.
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