PALACE OF POETRY

    • Sunday, 20 March 2016

    MY ONLY LOVE

    March 20, 2016 0
    MY ONLY LOVE
    MY  ONLY  LOVE


    My only love

    Just to say I love you
    Never seems enough
    I have said it many times
    I am afraid you won’t understand
    What I really mean what I say it
    How can so much feeling
    So much adoration fit into
    Those three little words
    But until I find some other
    Way of saying what I feel then
    I love you will have to do
    So no matter how many times I say it
    Never take it lightly for you my life
    And my only love
    I love you now more than ever before

    I see even more than you know
    About all you are
    About observations not a theory but a simply fact….
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    MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD BY JEFFERY ARCHER

    March 20, 2016 0
    MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD BY JEFFERY ARCHER
    MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD BY JEFFERY ARCHER

    SYNOPSIS:-

     Mightier than the Sword opens with an IRA bomb exploding during the MV Buckingham's maiden voyage across the Atlantic - but how many passengers lose their lives? When Harry Clifton visits his publisher in New York, he learns that he has been elected as the new president of English PEN, and immediately launches a campaign for the release of a fellow author, Anatoly Babakov, who's imprisoned in Siberia. Babakov's crime? Writing a book called Uncle Joe, a devastating insight into what it was like to work for Stalin. So determined is Harry to see Babakov released and the book published, that he puts his own life in danger. His wife Emma, chairman of Barrington Shipping, is facing the repercussions of the IRA attack on the Buckingham. Some board members feel she should resign, and Lady Virginia Fenwick will stop at nothing to cause Emma's downfall. Sir Giles Barrington is now a minister of the Crown, and looks set for even higher office, until an official trip to Berlin does not end as a diplomatic success. Once again, Giles's political career is thrown off balance by none other than his old adversary, Major Alex Fisher, who once again stands against him at the election. But who wins this time? In London, Harry and Emma's son, Sebastian, is quickly making a name for himself at Farthing's Bank in London, and has proposed to the beautiful young American, Samantha. But the despicable Adrian Sloane, a man interested only in his own advancement and the ruin of Sebastian, will stop at nothing to remove his rival.

     REVIEW:-

     In the fifth Clifton Chronicles novel, the epic family saga takes us from the mid-1960s into the 1970s. This isn't one of those series where the reader can just jump in with the latest book; the story of the Clifton and Barrington families began just after WWI, and there is a long and complicated backstory to this latest installment. For readers familiar with the saga, here's the gist: Harry Clifton, the best-selling mystery writer, is championing the cause of a Russian writer and political prisoner; Emma, Harry's wife, is embroiled in a battle for control of her family business, the Barrington Shipping Company; Emma's brother, Giles, is facing a bleak political future; and Giles' ex-wife, Virginia, is orchestrating the overthrow of Emma, the ruination of Barrington's, and the destruction of Giles' career. And that's just for starters. Like its predecessors, this is a rich, compelling, intricately structured story with plenty of intrigue and surprises. 

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    BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR BY JEFFERY ARCHER

    March 20, 2016 0
    BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR BY JEFFERY ARCHER
    BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR BY JEFFERY ARCHER


    SYNOPSIS:-

     Be Careful What You Wish For: 4 (Clifton Chronicles #4), available in paperback, is a novel which revolves around the Cliftons and the Barringtons. The book begins with Harry Clifton and his wife Emma Clifton who hurry to the hospital after they hear about the car accident that their son Sebastian has been a part of. Emma Clifton wishes to take up the post of the chairman at the Barrington Shipping Company, after Toss Buchanan was forced into resignation. With the company planning to build the new luxury liner called the MV Buckingham, there are people trying to destroy the family business. Don Pedro Martinez brings in his candidate, Major Alex Fisher, to fill in the chairman position. Be Careful What You Wish For: 4 further tells the story of how the adopted daughter of Harry and Emma falls in love with her fellow student, Clive Bingham in London, whom she intends to marry. The wedding is planned, but on the eventful day, Lady Virginia Fenwick who is visiting Priscilla Bingham, Clive's mother, poisons the wedding chalice. Amidst everything that is going on, Cedric Hardcastle becomes a board member of the Barringtons. He's a bluff Yorkshireman who was never in the picture until now. This creates an environment of confusion and tension amongst the families. Hardcastle finds himself trying to decide which candidate to support for the chairman's chair. Be Careful What You Wish For: 4 (Clifton Chronicles # 4) was published on 19th March, 2014. It presents the readers with a lot of unexpected twists and turns.

     REVIEW:-

     After a year long wait and pondering on various permutations and combinations about what will happen to the characters after finishing the third book (Best Kept Secret) in The Clifton Chronicles series, I laid my hands on 'Be Careful What You Wish For' as soon as it got released worldwide. I kept reading it whole day today just to find out what happens to the Cliftons and the Barringtons this time. And once again, Lord Archer, being a marvelous storyteller and a tease that he is, has managed to leave the story at a point where I just can't wait for the next book in the series.

     The story begins with Harry Clifton receiving a call from Emma telling him that their son, Sebastian has been killed in a car accident. Harry, who is on a book tour for his latest William Warwick book is in New York, catches the first flight to London only to find out that it was not Sebastian who died in the car accident, but his companion for the journey, Bruno Martinez.Pedro Martinez, who is anyway mad at the Cliftons and the Barringtons for what they did to him in the previous book goes all out there to seek revenge for his son Bruno's death, among other reasons. This time his target becomes Barrington's more than 100 years old shipping company and he plays on the front foot to ensure that the company goes bankrupt. He somehow manages to place Major Alex Fisher on the board of directors of the company to keep a close watch on the inside happenings. Ross Buchanan, the chairman of the company had to resign from his post after a debacle that has been carefully operated by Pedro to bring the company down and Emma Barrington takes over as the new chairman of the board, which came as a shock for Pedro. Emma, being a strong-headed woman that she is, fights the adversities that the shipping company is facing along with tumultuous affairs on her personal front as well.

     Meanwhile, Sebastian, after the accident, starts working for Cedric Hardcastle, Chairman of the Farthings Bank, as his assistant. Being an intelligent man himself, Sebastian manages to impress his boss, as he himself is a shrewd banker. Cedric Hardcastle plays an important role in the story and with an intelligent aide like Sebastian with him, manages to pull off an operation against Martinez that goes wrong time and again.
    Some new characters and many old characters play an important role in taking the story forward. With his latest offering, Jeffrey Archer has again proved that there is no other storyteller like him. Just when you feel that the story is dragging a bit, he will bring in a twist that will make you sit straight and force you to turn pages to know what next and so on and so forth. For readers, who are keenly following The Clifton Chronicles series, some things in this book will take you by surprise and one particular happening in the book will leave you sad. And for those, who still haven't laid their hands on The Clifton Chronicles series, it is never too late, start with the first book right away. And those like me, who are an ardent fan of the series, Keep Calm & Wait For 2015 for the next book in the series.

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    ONLY TIME WILL TELL BY JEFFERY ARCHER

    March 20, 2016 0
    ONLY TIME WILL TELL BY JEFFERY ARCHER
    ONLY TIME WILL TELL BY JEFFERY ARCHER

    SYNOPSIS:-

     The epic tale of Harry Clifton's life begins in 1919, in the backstreets of Bristol. His father was a war hero, but it will be twenty-one tumultuous years before Harry discovers the truth about how his father really died and if, in fact, he even was his father. Only Time Will Tell takes a cast of memorable characters from the ravages of the Great War to the outbreak of the Second World War, when Harry must decide whether to take his place at Oxford, or join the fight against Hitler's Germany. In Jeffrey Archer's masterful hands, you will be taken on a journey that you won't want to end, even after you turn the last page of this unforgettable yarn, because you will be faced with a dilemma that neither you, nor Harry Clifton, could ever have anticipated.

     REVIEW:-

     Only Time Will Tell, Jeffrey Archer’s 16th novel, is the first in a new three-volume cycle the master is calling The Clifton Chronicles.

     The sequence will chart the life of one Harry Clifton, whom we first meet as the orphaned son of a Bristol stevedore at the start of the 20th century, and where it will leave him – oh, Lord – only time will tell.
    Harry is Archer’s stock character: the unassuming chap from a modest background in whom predatory well-wishers divine some grand potential they conspire to make him fulfil. In this case it’s – well – it’s pretty vague actually but it hardly matters. He could be a gifted frogman.
    Harry is plucked from obscurity and put up for a scholarship to a fancy prep school. Will he be bullied? Will he see off the bully? Will he make various lifelong friends? Will he get a scholarship to Bristol Grammar School? Will he meet a pig-tailed girl with her nose in a book? Will his mother’s tea shop succeed so that she can pay the fees?
    Harry’s path is inevitably barred by those who have reason to be jealous of him or to fear him, but each reversal is met with fortitude and overcome with selfless grind and a dash of talent.
    For long stretches Only Time Will Tell reads like a misery memoir, albeit one written by an accomplished narcissistic fantasist with a penchant for genealogical mysteries. Because at its heart, you see, there is a conundrum: is Harry his father’s son? Or is he the illegitimate son of a shipping magnate?
    There are one or two surprises along the way: a couple of legal niggles and a curious wrinkle in the plotting. Instead of a cracking showdown as the baddie is unmasked there is only a letter of apology and promise to be better in future.
    As ever a little too much of the author creeps in, to sometimes comical result.
    Here is a housemaster talking to a 12-year-old boy: “‘By the way Harry… I’ve just read your essay on Jane Austen, and I was fascinated by your suggestion that if Miss Austen had been able to go to university, she might never have written a novel, and even if she had, her work probably wouldn’t have been so insightful.’
    ‘Sometimes it’s an advantage to be disadvantaged,’ said Harry.
    ‘That doesn’t sound like Jane Austen,’ said Mr Frobisher.
    ‘It wasn’t,’ replied Harry. ‘But it was said by someone else who didn’t go to university,’ he added without explanation.”

    Archer is on top form elsewhere, too. It is as if the laws that bind ordinary novelists don’t apply to him, and he performs his signature trick – the oily glissade past the twin imperatives of plausibility and verisimilitude – with ease, so that despite the better part of you knowing this is an over-egged farrago of corny nonsense, he pins you down like an ultimate fighter.



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    Saturday, 19 March 2016

    A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson

    March 19, 2016 0
    A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
    A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson 


    SYNOPSIS:- 

    A God in Ruins relates the life of Teddy Todd – would-be poet, heroic World War II bomber pilot, husband, father, and grandfather – as he navigates the perils and progress of the 20th century.  For all Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge will be to face living in a future he never expected to have.

    This gripping, often deliriously funny yet emotionally devastating book looks at war – that great fall of Man from grace – and the effect it has, not only on those who live through it, but on the lives of the subsequent generations.  It is also about the infinite magic of fiction.

    Those who loved the bestselling Life After Life will recognise Teddy as Ursula Todd’s adored younger brother – but for those who have not read it, A God in Ruins  stands fully on its own. Few will dispute that it proves once again that Kate Atkinson is one of the most exceptional novelists of our age.

    'Better than most fiction you’ll read this year'  The Times

    'Witty and compassionate'  Marian Keyes

    'Brilliant…a major writer'  David Mitchell

    'Magnificent'  Washington Post

    'Extraordinarily affecting'  Telegraph

    'Devastating'  New York Times

    'Engrossing'  Irish Independent

    'Inexhaustibly ingenious'  Hilary Mantel

    'A marvel'  Gillian Flynn

    'Bleakly funny'  Financial Times


    Extract:-

    30th March, 1944

    The Last Flight

    Naseby



    He walked as far as the hedge that signalled the end of the airfield.

             The beating of the bounds.  The men referred to it as his 'daily constitutional' and fretted when he didn’t take it.  They were superstitious.  Everyone was superstitious.

             Beyond the hedge there were bare fields, ploughed over last autumn. He didn’t expect to see the alchemy of spring, to see the dull brown earth change to bright green and then pale gold.  A man could count his life in harvests reaped.  He had seen enough.

             They were surrounded by flat farmland.  The farmhouse itself stood square and immoveable over to the left.  At night a red light shone from its roof to stop them crashing into it.  If they flew over it when they were coming into land they knew they had overshot and were in trouble.

             From here he could see the farmer’s daughter in the yard, feeding the geese.  Wasn't there a nursery rhyme in there somewhere?  No, he was thinking of the farmer’s wife, wasn’t he – cutting off tales with a carving knife.  A horrid image.  Poor mice, he had thought when he was a boy.  Still thought the same now that he was a man.  Nursery rhymes were brutal affairs.

             He had never met the farmer’s daughter nor did he know her name, but he was disproportionally fond of her.  She always waved them off.  Sometimes she was joined by her father, once or twice by her mother, but the girl’s presence in the farmyard was a constant for every raid.

    She caught sight of him now and waved.  Rather than return the wave, he saluted her.  He imagined she would like that.  Of course, from this distance he was just a uniform.  She had no idea who he was.  Teddy was just one of the many.

    He whistled for the dog.

            

    1925

    Alouette


     ‘See!’ he said, ‘there - a lark.  A skylark.’ He glanced up at her and saw that she was looking in the wrong place. ‘No, over there,’ he said, pointing.  She was completely hopeless. 

             ‘Oh,’ she said at last.  ‘There, I see it!  How queer - what’s it doing?’

             ‘Hovering, and then it’ll go up again probably.’  The skylark soared on its transcendental thread of song.  The quivering flight of the bird and the beauty of its music triggered an unexpectedly deep emotion in him.  ‘Can you hear it?’ 

    His aunt cupped a hand to an ear in a theatrical way.  She was as out of place as a peacock, wearing an odd hat, red like a pillar-box and stuck with two large pheasant tail-feathers that bobbed around with the slightest movement of her head.  He wouldn’t be surprised if someone took a shot at her.   ‘If only,’ he thought.  Teddy was allowed – allowed himself - barbaric thoughts as long as they remained unvoiced.  (‘Good manners,’ his mother, counselled, was ‘the armour that one must don anew every morning.’)

             ‘Hear what?’ his aunt said eventually.

    ‘The song,’ he said, mustering patience. ‘The skylark’s song. It’s stopped now,’ he added as she continued to make a show of listening. 

    ‘It might begin again.’

    ‘No, it won’t, it can’t, it’s gone.  Flown away.’ He flapped his arms to demonstrate. Despite the feathers in her hat she clearly knew nothing about birds.  Or any animals for that matter. She didn’t even possess a cat.  She was indifferent to Trixie, their Lurcher, currently nosing her way enthusiastically through the dried-up ditch at the side of the road. Trixie was his most stalwart companion and had been by his side since she was a puppy when she had been so small that she could squeeze through the front door of his sisters’ dollhouse.

    Was he supposed to be educating his aunt, he wondered?  Was that why they were here?  ‘The lark’s known for its song,’ he said instructively. ‘It’s beautiful.’ It was impossible to instruct on the subject of beauty, of course. It simply was. You were either moved by it or you weren’t.  His sisters, Pamela and Ursula, were, his elder brother, Maurice, wasn’t.  His brother, Jimmy, was too young for beauty, his father possibly too old.  His father, Hugh, had a gramophone recording of The Lark Ascending which they sometimes listened to on wet Sunday afternoons.  It was lovely but not as lovely as the lark itself.  ‘The purpose of art,’ his mother, Sylvie, said – instructed even - ‘is to convey the truth of a thing, not to be the truth itself.’  Her own father, Teddy’s grandfather, had been a famous artist, dead long ago, a relationship that gave his mother authority on the subject of art. And beauty too, Teddy supposed. All these things – Art, Truth, Beauty – had capital letters when his mother spoke about them. 

    ‘When the skylark flies high,’ he continued, rather hopelessly to Izzie, ‘it means it’s fine weather.’

    ‘Well, one doesn’t need a bird to tell one if it’s good weather or not, one simply looks about,’ Izzie said.  ‘And this afternoon is glorious. I adore the sun,’ she added, closing her eyes and raising her painted face to the skies. 

    Who didn’t, Teddy thought?  Not his grandmother perhaps, who led a gloomy drawing-room life in Hampstead, with heavy cotton nets drawn to prevent the light entering the house. Or perhaps to stop the dark escaping. 

    ‘The Knights’ Code’, which he had learned by heart from Scouting for Boys, a book he frequently turned to in times of uncertainty, even now in his self-exile from the movement, demanded that ‘Chivalry requireth that youth should be trained to perform the most laborious and humble offices with cheerfulness and grace.’ He supposed entertaining Izzie was one of those occasions.  It was certainly laborious.

    He shaded his eyes against the sun and scanned the skies for the skylark.  It failed to make a reappearance and he had to make do with the aerial manoeuvres of the swallows.  He thought of Icarus and wondered what he would have looked like from the ground. Quite big, he supposed.  But Icarus was a myth, wasn’t he?   He was going to boarding school after the summer holidays and he really must start getting his facts in order. ‘You will need to be a stoic, old chap,’ his father advised.  ‘It will be a trial, that’s the point of it really, I suppose. Best to keep your head below the parapet,’ he added.  ‘Neither sink nor float, just sort of paddle about in the middle.’

     ‘All the men in the family’ went to the school, his Hampstead grandmother said (his only grandmother, Sylvie’s mother having died long ago), as if it were a law, written down in ancient times.  Teddy supposed his own son would have to go there too, although this boy existed in a future that Teddy couldn’t even begin to imagine.  He didn’t need to, of course, for in that future he had no sons, only a daughter, Viola, something which would be a sadness for him although he never spoke of it, certainly not to Viola who would have been volubly affronted. 

    Teddy was taken aback when Izzie unexpectedly started to sing and – more startling – do a little dance.  ‘Alouette, Alouette, gentille Alouette.’  He knew no French to speak of yet and thought she was singing not ‘gentille’ but ‘jaunty’, a word he rather liked.  ‘Do you know that song?’ she asked him. 

    ‘No.’

    ‘It’s from the war.  The French soldiers sang it.’  The fleeting shadow of something – sorrow, perhaps – passed across her features, but then just as suddenly she said gleefully, ‘The lyrics are quite horrible. All about plucking the poor swallow.  Its eyes and feathers and legs and so on.’

    In that inconceivable yet inevitable war still to come - Teddy’s war - Alouette was the name of 425 Squadron, the French Canadians.  In the February of ’44, not long before his last flight, Teddy made a an emergency landing at their base at Tholthorpe, two engines on fire, shot up as they crossed the Channel.  The French boys gave his crew brandy, rough stuff that they were nonetheless grateful for. Their squadron badges, something Teddy hadn’t known before he met them, showed a swallow above the motto Je te plumerai and he had thought about this day with Izzie.  It was a memory that seemed to belong to someone else.   

    Izzie did a pirouette. ‘What larks!’ she said, laughing. Is this, he wondered, what his father meant when he said Izzie was ‘ludicrously unstable’?

    ‘Pardon me?’

    ‘What larks,’ Izzie repeated. ‘Great Expectations. Haven’t you read it?’  For a surprising moment she sounded like his mother.  ‘But, of course, I was making a joke. Because there isn’t one any longer. The lark, I mean. Flown orf. Gorn,’ she said in a silly Cockney accent. ‘I’ve eaten lark,’ she added in an offhand way. ‘In Italy. They’re considered a delicacy over there. There’s not much eating on a lark, of course. No more than a mouthful really.’

    Teddy shuddered.  The idea of the sublime little bird being plucked from the sky, of its exquisite song being interrupted in full flight, was horrible to him.

    Many, many years later, in the early Seventies, Viola, discovered Emily Dickinson on an American Studies course that was part of her degree. In her scrawly, untamed hand she copied down the first verse of a poem she thought her father would like (too lazy to transcribe the whole of the short poem). ‘Split the lark – and you’ll find the Music, bulb after bulb in silver rolled’.  He was surprised she had thought of him, she rarely did.  He supposed  literature was one of the few things they held in common even though they rarely, if ever, discussed it.  He considered sending her something in return, a poem, even a few choice lines – a means of communicating with her – ‘Hail to thee, blythe spirit!  Bird though never wert’ or ‘Hark how the cheerfull birds do chaunt their lays and carol of love’s praise’ or ‘Ethereal Minstrel! Pilgrim of the sky! Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?’ (Was there a poet who hadn’t written about skylarks?)  He supposed his daughter would think he was patronizing her in some way.  She had an aversion to learning anything from him, possibly from everyone, and so in the end he simply wrote back, ‘Thank you, very thoughtful of you.’



    Before he could stop himself - the armour of good manners falling away - he said, ‘It’s disgusting to eat a lark, Aunt Izzie.’

     ‘Why is it disgusting?  You eat chicken and so on, don’t you? What’s the difference, after all?’  Izzie had driven an ambulance in the Great War, dead poultry could do little to ruffle her emotions.

    A world of difference, Teddy thought, although he couldn’t help but wonder what a lark would taste like.  Thankfully, he was distracted from this thought by Trixie barking extravagantly at something.  He bent down to investigate. ‘A slow worm,’ he said appreciatively to himself, the lark temporarily forgotten. He picked it up gently in both hands and displayed it to Izzie.

    ‘A snake?’ she said, grimacing, snakes apparently having no charms for her.

    ‘No, a slow worm,’ Teddy said. ‘Not a snake. Not a worm either. It’s a lizard actually.’ Its bronze-gold lustred scales gleamed in the sun.  This was beauty too.  Was there anything in nature that wasn’t?  Even a slug demanded a certain salutation, although not from his mother.

     ‘What a funny little boy you are,’ Izzie said.

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    Friday, 18 March 2016

    The Sialkot Saga by Ashwin Sanghi

    March 18, 2016 0
    The Sialkot Saga by Ashwin Sanghi
    The Sialkot Saga by Ashwin Sanghi 


    SYNOPSIS:-

     When it’s a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.’ The trajectories of Arvind and Arbaaz, both ‘businessmen’ of a kind whose lives are unwillingly intertwined, ricochet off one another while they play out their sinister and murderous plots of personal and professional one-upmanship, all the while breaking every rule in the book. Both are unaware that what they seek and fight over is the very obstacle in realising an ancient secret that dates back to a time long forgotten. And yet, at the heart of it all, there lies tenderness... and pathos... and blood... and rare moments of an almost exalted happiness. So, can it be that a man is both sinner and saint, victor and victim, black and white? Ashwin Sanghi, master storyteller and spinner of yarns, weaves together once more threads of the past and present, fact and fiction, history and mythology, business and politics, love and hatred while dangling you ceaselessly over the cliff with this chilling multi-layered narrative, keeping you guessing till the totally unguessable end. And you’re left wondering whether it’s a matter of faith... or fate?

     ABOUT THE AUTHOR:-

     Ashwin Sanghi is counted among India’s highest-selling English fiction authors. 13 Steps to Bloody Good Luck is his foray into the world of non-fiction. Ashwin is the author of three bestsellers—The Rozabal Line, Chanakya’s Chant and The Krishna Key. In addition he has co-authored a crime thriller, Private India, along with James Patterson, the world’s highest-selling writer. Ashwin’s books have sold in lakhs and have been translated into many languages. He was included by Forbes India in their Celebrity India 100 Rankings and was the recipient of the Crossword Popular Choice Award. Ashwin was educated in Mumbai, at the Cathedral & John Connon School and St. Xavier’s College. He also holds a Masters degree in business from Yale. Ashwin lives in Mumbai with his wife Anushika and his son Raghuvir.

     This Book is not yet released, it will be soon released on 5 April 2016. To pre-order and to buy the book at lowest price Click here...
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    Thursday, 17 March 2016

    HOST BY ROBIN COOK

    March 17, 2016 0
    HOST BY ROBIN COOK
    HOST BY ROBIN COOK


    SYNOPSIS:-
    The master of the medical thriller' New York Times The explosive new thriller from New York Times-bestselling author and master of the medical thriller, Robin Cook, takes readers back to where the genre began, with Coma: what happens when innocent hospital patients are used as medical 'incubators' against their will. Lynn Pierce, a fourth-year medical student at Mason Dixon University, thinks she has her life figured out. But when her otherwise healthy boyfriend, Carl, enters the hospital for routine surgery, she doesn't know it's the last time she will see him whole again. Devastated by Carl's death, Lynn searches for answers. Convinced there's more to the story than what the authorities are willing to reveal, Lynn uses all her resources at Mason Dixon-including her initially reluctant lab partner, Edward-to hunt down evidence of medical error or malpractice.What she uncovers, however, is far more disturbing. Hospitals associated with Sentinel Healthcare, including the one attached to Mason Dixon, have unnervingly high rates of unexplained anesthetic complications and patients contracting serious and terminal illness in the wake of routine surgery. When Lynn and Edward begin to receive death threats, they know they're into something bigger than either of them anticipated. They soon enter a desperate race against time for answers before shadowy forces behind Sentinel Healthcare can put a stop to their efforts once and for all. 

     REVIEW:-

     Host by Robin Cook explores medical/biotech ethical issues intertwined with a thrilling storyline. This book mirrors his best-selling 1977 novel Coma that spurred him to be known as the master of medical thrillers. Now over thirty books later this ophthalmologist turned writer expands on the issues of greed and medicine.

     The plot begins with Carl Vandermeer, a healthy Millennial, undergoing a routine operation to repair his knee. Yet, something goes terribly wrong with the anesthesia, leaving Carl in a vegetative state with no brain activity. His girlfriend, Lynn Peirce, a fourth-year medical student at South Carolina’s Mason-Dixon University, where Carl’s operation took place, believes something has gone awry. She enlists her good friend, Michael Pender, also a fourth year medical student, to find out why this hospital, and others associated with Sentinel Healthcare, have high rates of unexplained anesthetic complications. This is in addition to patients entering the hospital with one complaint, but leaving with a more serious medical issue. Lynn and Michael must find answers while fighting the shadowy forces that are attempting to thwart their efforts.

     Besides getting an action packed story readers learn about the dangers regarding healthcare. The theme of the book explains how both pharmaceutical companies and hospital corporations are basically robbing patients legally. In this case a conspiracy exists between Mason-Dixon University, Shapiro Institute, and Sidereal Pharmaceuticals. A powerful quote shows the pharmaceutical industry’s hypocrisy, “They want people to think their motivation is for the public good when they are, in fact, poster boys for capitalism run amok...The reality is that they spend more money on advertising prescription drugs directly to the pubic than they spend on research.”

     Cook commented to blackfive.net, “Once I began medical school, I realized the patient was not the center of things; the doctor and the medical profession were. I thought, 'Someday, I'm going to write about the way it really is.' I became a writer to show the problems with healthcare. I wanted to write about medicine that was closer to the truth. For this book I wanted to point out how the various stockholders are taking advantage of all of us. We are spending way too much on healthcare with very mediocre results. Hospitals are unsafe, just look at the statistics I quote in my book, which are all true. The only people now disenfranchised and out of the system are the patients and doctors. The only way the system can change is the people must demand change, which is where my books come in, as warnings.”

     As with all of Cook’s books he lends a level of authenticity by including medical procedures and research. In Host he details with some exaggeration how biologics works. This new product of the pharmaceutical companies is not based on drugs being made with chemicals but with antibodies. Cook explained, “They are derived from mouse cells that have been further altered with great effort to make them invisible to the human immune system. What they are doing in Host would make them all human. The mystery comes in when the hospital conspires to create guinea pigs by putting patients in a vegetarian state. I did not tie everything up in a bow because I want readers to understand how the pharmaceutical companies and hospital corporations are still using patients for their own benefit, both monetarily and for research purposes.”

     He also gave a heads up about his next projects. The book will delve into social media and medicine. It takes place in Boston, which means both Lynn and Michael might be returning. Cook is also hoping to make a movie after forming his own production company. He did this because he wants control over his own storyline based on his vision, not the director’s.
    Host is a very suspenseful novel that is also a warning to all readers. They begin to understand that those in charge of healthcare have no restrictions and are never transparent. Since healthcare will affect everyone people need to read this informative, action-packed page-turner.

     About the Author:-
    Doctor and author Robin Cook is widely credited with introducing the word 'medical' to the thriller genre, and over twenty years after the publication of his breakthrough novel, Coma, he continues to dominate the category he created. Robin Cook has successfully combined medical fact with fiction to produce over twenty-seven international bestsellers, including Outbreak, Terminal, Contagion, Cell and this, Host, is his most recent.
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