April 2016 Newsletter
Happy April Everyone! I’m very sorry for the delay in this. I was traveling to Texas for Wrestlemania weekend and was just too busy to send it out.
I love to read during my travels and I read all three books in Blake Crouch’s Wayward Pines series. Holy crap did I enjoy those so much. Soon as I came home I immediately purchased the TV show and am watching all of that.
I enjoyed e-mailing back and forth with many of you in the last month. One thing I’ve noticed since I’ve started the newsletter is a lot of people saying they tried some books based on either my recommendation, or the newsletter mentioning them.
I always think it’s fun to be recommended a book, or to recommend it yourself. So I’m going to start a new feature in the newsletter each month: Top 3 Book Recommendations of the Month. In that section I will list 3 books – they may be old new – and provide a brief description, as well as give you reasons as to why you might like it. These will be books that I’ve either personally read, or been strongly recommended by someone else.
As for my reading this month – I spent the month reading a bunch of Gregg Hurwitz Books. In the last month I heard so much about Orphan X and although I haven’t read it yet, I’ve been going through most of his standalones. What a great author, and I’ve added one of his books to the recommendation list below.
I also read the latest Linwood Barclay novel – the 2nd in the Promise Falls Trilogy. I was tempted to go back and read the 1st one as my memory was a bit hazy but I was able to recall the majority of it thankfully, and the book was good enough that lack of memory wasn’t that much of a deterrent.
Also on the plane I read the new Harlan Coben. Darn that was good. Just about to go for a bath and start The Blade Artist – the latest book by Irvine Welsh featuring Begbie!
Each month we give away 2 prizes. 1st prize is a $50 Amazon Gift Certificate, and 2nd prize is a $25 Amazon gift certificate.
To win all you have to do is be a subscriber. Nothing more! When we go to hit “Publish” we take a list of all of our subscribers, throw them into a random draw and those are the winners.
Our $50 gift certificate winner is Linda from Massachusetts, and our $25 gift certificate winner is Cheryl from Connecticut . Both of you have been e-mailed. If you haven’t received an e-mail check your junk mail folder!
Graeme
OrderOfBooks.com
Book Recommendations
In this section I give 3 random book recommendations. They can be old books, they can be new. But either way – I recommend you read them if the type of genre they are in appeals to you.
The Day Before Midnight: Written by Stephen Hunter in 1989 back when could do no wrong. It starts fast with terrorists kidnapping a welder from him home, with the plan to break into a missile silo and basically end the world. Amazing action, fantastic characters and a story that moves at an incredible fast pace. Read more about it.
The Winner: David Baldacci is known for his John Puller, Amos Decker and Will Robie series of books. Before all of those however, Baldacci was the king of standalone novels with some incredible books. The Winner is the story of a dirt poor trailer park girl who wins the lottery, due to someone fixing it for her. His only rule is she must leave the USA forever. She can’t commit to that though, and that leads to one of the best thrillers I’ve ever read.
Hell House: There’s a reason Stephen King called this the scariest haunted house book he’s ever read. This is not one for the faint hearted – Richard Matheson has penned an amazing novel A physicist and a couple of mediums have to spend time in the Hell House. One thing I really like too is that it goes at a really fast pace. Every horror fan needs to read this.
April 2016 Book of the Month
It’s actually not out until May 3rd, but I had to push Rick Riordans first book in the Trials of Apollo series, the Hidden Oracle.
Riordan is of course the author of the Percy Jackson books and is a tremendous author. This one is getting a lot of hype and for good reason – it looks be yet another excellent fantasy book.
Apollo is an immortal – but he ticks off his father Zeus and suddenly he finds himself in New York City as a regular teenage boy – not immortal anymore. A really cool concept and I can’t wait to read it. Pre-order here.
Your Thoughts:
Thanks to everyone for their feedback last month on what they had just read, were currently reading and about to read. It gave me many, many more books to add to my “books to read” list. Sigh.
The feedback is posted below.
This months question is on audiobooks.
While communicating with you guys I’ve heard a lot about audio books. Some of you listen to them over books, some do both. Some listen on their commute, some listen at home as opposed to watching TV.
Basically I want to hear all your audio book feedback. What your experience is with them, what’s important to you in them(ie: is narrator a big deciding factor) and more. And the most important question:
If we were to create a website dedicated to audio books, what would you like to see on it?
E-mail us your feedback to site@OrderOfBooks.com or just reply to this e-mail, and we’ll pick the best comments and feature it in next months newsletter.
10 Notable Books Coming Out In April 2016
Here are some of the more notable books coming out in April. This is based on how popular the character or author are at our website:
Family Jewels by Stuart Woods – Latest Stone Barrington
The Last Mile – an Amos Decker Novel by David Baldacci
War Hawk – a Tucker Wayne Novel by Grant Blackwood / James Rollins
Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel (Debut – lot of hype!)
Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave
The 14th Colony – a Cotton Malone novel by Steve Berry
One With You by Sylvia Day
The Beast by J.R. Ward
Most Wanted by Lisa Scottoline
Extreme Prey by John Sandford
Reader Mailbag:
See here