The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield is book one of the series The Apollo Murders. Kazimieras Zemeckis, known as Kaz, is a former military pilot turned flight controller who is tasked with overseeing the upcoming NASA launch of Apollo 18. Something that is complicated by the Soviet Union launching Almaz, a spy space station with…
Solar by Ian McEwan is a surprisingly funny novel considering what happens in it. The book opens in 2000 with Michael Beard as he works on starting up a government run institute to research alternative energy sources. He was chosen purely because he won a Nobel Prize for physics a few decades prior but his…
The White Queen, book two of the Plantagenet and Tudor series by Philippa Gregory, picks up not long after the previous book The Lady of the Rivers. This time it follows the life of Elizabeth Woodville, eldest daughter of Jacquetta of Burgundy, who has recently been widowed when her husband, Lord Grey, was killed during…
The Borrowers Aloft is the fourth novel in the Borrowers series by Mary Norton and picks up their adventures an unspecified length of time after the end of the previous one. The Clock family are now living in Fordham, a small village made by Mr. Pott, where they seem to be having a nice peaceful…
I think this next book is one that probably everyone has heard of even if they haven’t read it yet. Animal Farm by George Orwell is a story about just that, a farm that is overtaken by animals. Mr. Jones owns a small property known as Manor Farm where he has a small crop and…
H. G. Parry really throws you for a bit of a loop with A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians, book one of the Shadow Histories. The book opens in 1779 with William Pitt and William Wilberforce first becoming friends and working on becoming members of Parliament in the House of Commoners. They become friends…
The Kind Worth Saving is the sequel to The Kind Worth Killing and the second book in the Henry Kimball/Lily Kintner series by Peter Swanson. It opens with Kimball working as a private investigator when he is approached by a former student, Joan, wishing to hire him, she claims it is because her husband is…
The Lost Hero is the first book in the Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan, the sequel series to Percy Jackson and the Olympians. It opens with Jason, a young man on a school field trip to the Grand Canyon with his friends Piper and Leo. The problem is that Jason seems to have…
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the first book in the Karla trilogy by John Le Carré and is the epitome of a spy novel. George Smiley is a forcibly retired spy who is spending his time debating about possible reconciliation with his estranged wife and about what to do with his abundance of free time.…
Ghost Riders is part of the Ballad Series by Sharyn McCrumb and focuses on a group of ghost riders from the American Civil War hiding in the Appalachian mountains. Rattler is an old Cherokee who has befriended the local reenactors and frequently visits their camps when they set up so he happens to be visiting…
The Draconic Bibliophile
