As part of The Colorado Sun’s literature section — SunLit — we’re featuring staff picks from book stores across the state. >> Click here for more SunLit
This week’s bookstore: Poor Richard’s Books & Gifts, 320 N. Tejon St., Colorado Springs
My Sister, The Serial Killer
By Oyinkan Braithwaite
Anchor Books
$14.72 (paperback)
July 30, 2019
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From the publisher: Korede’s sister Ayoola is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola’s third boyfriend in a row is dead, stabbed through the heart with Ayoola’s knife. Korede’s practicality is the sisters’ saving grace. She knows the best solutions for cleaning blood (bleach, bleach, and more bleach), the best way to move a body (wrap it in sheets like a mummy), and she keeps Ayoola from posting pictures to Instagram when she should be mourning her “missing” boyfriend. Not that she gets any credit.
Korede has long been in love with a kind, handsome doctor at the hospital where she works. She dreams of the day when he will realize that she’s exactly what he needs. But when he asks Korede for Ayoola’s phone number, she must reckon with what her sister has become and how far she’s willing to go to protect her.
From Jeffery Payne, Book Department Coordinator: “Very, very dark. Very, very funny. What does one do with a problem like Ayoola? First we find bleach…then, well, we ask questions later. This swift and energetic read delightfully surprised me. It made me cringe, snort and appreciate the nuances of Ms. Braithwaite’s beautiful and complicated Nigeria. Find a copy, take the afternoon off and get lost in this refreshing book.”
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From the publisher: Science is a force for good in the world–at least usually. But sometimes, when obsession gets the better of scientists, they twist a noble pursuit into something sinister. Under this spell, knowledge isn’t everything, it’s the only thing–no matter the cost. Bestselling author Sam Kean tells the true story of what happens when unfettered ambition pushes otherwise rational men and women to cross the line in the name of science, trampling ethical boundaries and often committing crimes in the process.
From Jeffery Payne, Book Department Coordinator: “He had me at ‘sozzled’ (Chapter Three, ‘Grave Robbing: Jekyll & Hyde, Hunter & Knox’). The thing I adore is the slightly snarky and entertaining terminology peppered throughout this book. There is no doubt the author enjoys, and knows, what he writes about. He takes the reader on a historic sojourn of often well-meaning-but-often-misguided(?) experimental endeavors and shows the very imperfect and human side of ‘science.’”
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From the publisher: An alliance embarks on a dangerous journey to uncover the secrets of the distant past and save their world in this captivating, deeply visionary adventure from thriller-master James Rollins. A gifted student foretells an apocalypse. Her reward is a sentence of death.Fleeing into the unknown she is drawn into a team of outcasts:
A broken soldier, who once again takes up the weapons he’s forbidden to wield and carves a trail back home. A drunken prince, who steps out from his beloved brother’s shadow and claims a purpose of his own. An imprisoned thief, who escapes the crushing dark and discovers a gleaming artifact – one that will ignite a power struggle across the globe. On the run, hunted by enemies old and new, they must learn to trust each other in order to survive in a world evolved in strange, beautiful, and deadly ways, and uncover ancient secrets that hold the key to their salvation.
From Jeffery Payne, Book Department Coordinator: “Honestly, I was not prepared to like James Rollins’ latest work. I have been a faithful reader of his enjoyable adventure books for the last 20 years and was reluctant to wade into this new realm he has created. Through wonderful narrative the fantastical and doomed world (Urth) is easily imagined, the tempo of the story lines move at an engaging pace and it’s easy to relate to the mish-mash cast of characters. Admittedly, a huge departure from James Rollins’ usual fare but I am intrigued enough to want to learn what happens in the next book.”
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