The Book Cove

In 1868, Jack Renton, a teenage Scots sailor, was shanghaied in San Francisco. In 1876, he was rescued from captivity on the Pacific island of Malaita, home to a fearsome tribe of headhunters. After the rescue, in a sensational best-selling memoir, Renton recounted his eight-year adventure: how he jumped ship and drifted two thousand miles in an open whaleboat to the Solomon Islands, came ashore at Malaita, was stripped of his clothes, possessions and his very identity, but lived to serve the island’s tribal chief Kabou eventually as his most trusted adviser. For all the authenticity and riveting detail, however, it turns out that Renton’s chronicle glossed over key events that made him the man that Kabou said he loved, "as my first-born son." Mining the oral history passed down in detail from generations of Malaitans, documentary filmmaker Nigel Randell has pieced together a more complete and grislier account of Renton’s experience—as a man forced to assimilate in order to...

Work/Life/Cycle Staying friends should be easy. But then, so should growing up, and George, Harry and Ian have never really got the hang of that either. They spent their twenties in a state of permanent childish abandon. Now, adulthood is catching up with them and the icy blast of work, commitments and relationships is beginning to take its toll. In one last ditch attempt to keep responsibility from eroding their friendship entirely, the trio decide to take a cycling holiday across the breadth of the country. Which would be fine if they’d ever cycled before. Or if George’s idea of modern cycling wear wasn’t tweed, long socks and cycling clips. Purchase on Amazon About the Author Richard Mapes is an author of comedy novels, who has variously been a scientist, a musician, a film director and a rock star, and is getting tired of being asked what he wants to be when he grows up. Currently, he works for Facebook, making creative tools for advertisers, but he has previously wor...

Fire on the Mountain, the latest book in the Detective Mike Eiser Series, tells the story of the destruction of the Haven family. The Havens, a family with roots growing deep in the muck of Southern mountain bootlegging have progressed from selling illicit corn whiskey through marijuana farming to (in the current generation) methamphetamine production. A set of triplets; Jack, a meth producer and wife of Susan, Jason, another meth producer, who hooks Susan to infuriate Jack, and Jake, a local handyman who creates unholy alliances against Jack and Jason…and a father playing each against the other for his own profit, combine to light a fuse destined to blow the Haven family apart. Two murder investigations; one by Detective Mike Eiser, and one by a detective in a neighboring county, coupled with a DEA clandestine drug lab investigation combine to pressure the Havens. Susan’s in the middle. Is she a victim? Is she a survivor? Or is Susan the flame that ignites the powder keg to...

My name is Andrew Joyce and I write books for a living. Jessi has been kind enough to allow me a little space on his blog to promote my new novel RESOLUTION: Huck Finn’s Greatest Adventure . I think it’s a good book, but what do I know? Anyway, I’m kinda shy about tooting my own horn. So I think I’ll turn things over to my dog Danny—Danny the Dog. He always has a bad attitude and usually does not speak highly of me. But please understand that we co-exist as the old Soviet Union and the United States once co-existed. We tolerate each other. So without further ado, here’s Danny. Andrew dragged me through the pouring rain so that I could be here to help him out. For a person that works with words for a living, he has very little to say in real life. He wants me to tout his book for him, but I don’t think I will. I’m in a foul mood today, so this communiqué will be short. It’s been raining for three days and three nights. One more day of this miserable weather and I’m going to have ...

(Blurb):  Pieces Like Pottery is an examination of the sorrows of life, the strength of character, the steadfast of courage, and the resiliency of love requisite to find redemption. Offering graceful insight into the human condition, each linked story presents a tale of loss and love.  In Expect Dragons , James Hinri learns that his old high school teacher is dying. Wanting to tell Mr. Smith one last time how much his teaching impacted him, James drives across the country revisiting past encounters with his father's rejection and the pain of his youth. Disillusioned and losing hope, little did James know that Mr. Smith had one final lesson for him.  In The Gravesite , Lisa and Mike's marriage hangs in the balance after the disappearance of their only son while backpacking in Thailand. Mike thinks the authorities are right—that Chris fell to his death in a hiking accident—but Lisa has her doubts. Her son was too strong to die this young, and no one can explain t...

( Blurb ): When Ray Barrett turns away from a life which had brought him nothing but heartache and disappointment, he is a shell of who he was and has completely lost his way. He wanders off into the mountains where he encounters a lone wolf that begins to follow him as a wolf during the day, but comes to him as a man at night. He is called MacGregor and is one of the Sidhe, the mound people of Celtic folklore. He becomes a guide for Barrett and whenever MacGregor visits Brock is transported into another world or a dream and is given a task to complete. Each task is a part of either a major historical event or a common life in a part of history Book Information : Publisher : Senserial Publishing Genre : Adventure, Fantasy, War Type : Episodic Length : 1 Season - 5 episodes Guest Review by Pam Nuzum: The Wolf of the Highlands, by Bill Howard, is a unique twist of the usual chapter-style book. It follows an 'Episodic' style, much like a television series, where by ...