The Prodigal Daughter by Jeffrey Archer (1982) is the story of Florentyna Rosnovski, the daughter of Abel Rosnovski of Archer’s Kane and Abel.
Florentyna becomes the first female president of the USA in this book.
Archer got the inspiration for Florentyna’s political life from the elections of Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi.
A good story. One of Archer’s most popular.
Click PLAY or watch the author introduce the book on YouTube.
I took a year off after High School. A gap year.
And I’m glad I did.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
I wanted to start my planned Bikepacking trip through Norway and (possibly / hopefully) Faroe Islands and Iceland on July 22, 2022.
Surprisingly, I made it to Tromsø, way far north of the Arctic Circle? 😀
Barely. Heathrow was a disaster.
BUT my bike is still in London. Who knows how long it will take to get to remote Tromsø.
Meanwhile …
This one didn’t work for me.
The plot thread with the Brit celebrity didn’t add anything to the story.
Many big fans of Joe Pickett weren’t impressed with the 2018 book.
Wyoming’s new governor isn’t sure what to make of Joe Pickett, but he has a job for him that is extremely delicate. A prominent British businesswoman never came home from the high-end guest ranch she was visiting, and the British Embassy is pressing hard. …
At the same time, his friend Nate Romanowski has asked Joe to intervene with the feds on behalf of an issue passionately felt by falconers, but inexplicably being blocked. It seems like a matter of lesser importance to Joe right now, but the more he digs into both cases, the more someone is trying to stop him. Is it because of the missing woman or the falconers? Or are they somehow connected?
CJBox.net
This one is quite good — even if the plot is farfetched. 😀
… a man camping in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness goes missing.
As the official search ends with no recovery in sight, Cork is asked by the man’s family to stay on the case. Although the wedding (his daughter’s) is fast approaching and the weather looks threatening, he accepts and returns to that vast wilderness.
As the sky darkens and the days pass, Cork’s family anxiously awaits his return. Finally certain that something has gone terribly wrong, they fly by floatplane to the lake where the missing man was last seen. Locating Cork’s campsite, they find no sign of him. They do find blood, however. A lot of it. …
williamkentkrueger.com
Hillier Smith is one of the best online.
AND is one of the few of the best who takes the time to explain how he puts story together.
If I could do 1% of this — I’d be thrilled.
Especially 1% of his sound design.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Scalzi is the author of the great 2005 book Old Man’s War.
The Dispatcher — a 2016 novella — was commissioned by Audible (Amazon) as audio first.
I’d call it SciFi young adult.
The plot is bizarre and fascinating.
In the wake of an unexplained phenomenon worldwide — when people are deliberately killed, they disappear from their site of death and reappear, reset to several hours earlier, in a safe place — the profession of “Dispatcher” evolves. Dispatchers euthanize mortally-injured people before their natural deaths, enabling them to reset.
Tony Valdez is a Dispatcher recruited by the police to assist in investigating the disappearance of another Dispatcher.
wikipedia
Murder by Other Means is a 2020 sequel novella. Equally good.
Murder would now seem to be impossible. Anyone you kill will simply transport back to their home, waking up naked.
Yet there is a way.
Tony Valdez gets caught up in the plot where people start inexplicably committing suicide.
… Or were they murdered by other means?
related – How writing an audio-first novella changed John Scalzi’s writing process
In December 2021, I gambled CAD $349 for the low end DJI drone.
Surprisingly, I really enjoyed it.
As DJI is close to discontinuing — and the latest, greatest replacement costs at least 3x as much — I bought a second one. But this time with the full kit. CAD $592.20 including tax and two year warranty.
In fact, it seems I bought the last Mini SE in Canada. It’s been out of stock on the DJI Canada store ever since.
When one eventually dies, I can use the accessories with the other.
Quality and features are good ’nuff for my YouTube hiking and cycling videos.
Click PLAY or watch a sample on YouTube. Moorecroft Park is my favourite place to drone near Parksville, Vancouver Island. It’s legal and not crowded.
Most important to me with the NEW kit are the 3 batteries plus charger. With my original battery, I now have 4 total which is more than I can imagine using in one day.
Warranty is essential as it’s very easy to crash these things. I’ve crashed about 6 times already, the drone surviving each … SO FAR.
My old Mini SE will be the back-up. I’ll carry both on cycling trips. Just the new combo on hiking adventures.
Click PLAY or watch some samples of my footage on YouTube.
Click PLAY or watch a review on YouTube.
Easily her most complicated plot, through to 1934.
An impossible murder. Everyone could be involved.
Hercule Poirot travels back to England on the midday flight from Le Bourget Airfield in Paris to Croydon Airport in London. He is one of eleven passengers …
As the plane is close to landing, a wasp is spotted flying around the rear compartment before a steward finds that Giselle is dead.
Poirot, who has slept through most of the flight, dismisses the belief she died from a wasp sting. Instead, he points out a dart on the floor, which is found to have a poisoned tip: Giselle was stung in the neck with it. The question remains how she was murdered without anyone noticing. …
Death in the Clouds
I really liked season 1.
And season 2 is even BETTER.
Deborah Vance, a legendary Las Vegas stand-up comedy diva, needs to re-invent her aging act to avoid losing her residency at the Palmetto Casino.
Ava is a young comedy writer who is unable to find work due to an insensitive tweet and her reputation for being self-centered and arrogant.
When Ava’s manager sends her to work as Deborah’s new head writer, the two slowly bond as Ava pushes her new boss to take more risks and Deborah, in turn, helps Ava start to work through her personal problems.
Fantastic comic dialogue.
Interesting video editing.
Great cast.
I’m now a big fan of Canadian comedian Mae Martin.
Of course Hannah Einbinder is great. She’s so natural in this show.
Stealing many scenes is Megan Stalter as Kayla.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. The lesbian cruise episode is funny.
I was also looking forward to The Flight Attendant – season 2. But quit when Cassie Bowden started drinking again. Too depressing.
Rick McCharles 