The June Competition [closed]
Boost your holiday reading!
This month we have delightfully diverse titles from Faber, Bloomsbury, Simon & Schuster and Alma Books for three Bookhugger readers.
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State of Wonder, by Anne Patchett
There were people on the banks of the river.
Among the tangled waterways and giant anacondas of the Brazilian Rio Negro, an enigmatic scientist is developing a drug that could alter the lives of women for ever. Dr Annick Swenson’s work is shrouded in mystery; she refuses to report on her progress, especially to her investors, whose patience is fast running out. Anders Eckman, a mild-mannered lab researcher, is sent to investigate. A curt letter reporting his untimely death is all that returns.
Now Marina Singh, Anders’s colleague and once a student of the mighty Dr Swenson, is their last hope. Compelled by the pleas of Anders’s wife, who refuses to accept that her husband is not coming home, Marina leaves the snowy plains of Minnesota and retraces her friend’s steps into the heart of the South American darkness, determined to track down Dr. Swenson and uncover the secrets being jealously guarded among the remotest tribes of the rainforest.
What Marina does not yet know is that, in this ancient corner of the jungle, where the muddy waters and susurrating grasses hide countless unknown perils and temptations, she will face challenges beyond her wildest imagination. Marina is no longer the student, but only time will tell if she has learnt enough.
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Fold, by Tom Campbell
Five friends. One year. All bets are off. Reading, 2009. It may not be Vegas, but for Nick, Doug, Vijay, Alan and Simon, it’s as good as they’re going to get. Each in their forties, and beset by anxieties, flaws and frustrations, they meet monthly in each other’s houses for a ‘friendly’ game of poker, enabling Doug to show off his new-minted wealth, Simon to insist on serving only red wine and goats’ cheese and Nick – swimming in a cocktail of envy, fear, bravado and disappointment – to make increasingly desperate attempts to bring an end to his interminable losing streak. While Vijay meticulously records every win and loss on his spreadsheet, and Alan frets about his propensity to break into sweat and his inability to get his wife pregnant, Nick becomes obsessed with the idea of engineering Doug’s downfall: Doug, who with his big house, his successful business and his appalling taste is both everything that Nick aspires to and resents. Convinced of the heroic nature of his task, he aims to triumph over Doug in poker, as well as in life, and in doing so he comes into troubling proximity to Sophia, Doug’s clever and beautiful wife …
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The Possessions of Doctor Forrest, by Richard T. Kelly
The tradition of the Gothic novel comes alive once again in this spine-chilling fable - the story of a disappearance, a diabolical bargain, and a terrifying series of physical transformations.
Three respected Scottish doctors - psychiatrist Steve Hartford, paediatric surgeon Grey Lochran and cosmetic surgeon Robert Forrest - have been friends since their Edinburgh boyhoods, and now live comfortably in suburban London. But for each, midlife has brought certain discontents, especially for Forrest, a reformed hellraiser who broods over his fading looks and the departure of his beautiful younger girlfriend.
When Doctor Forrest goes missing one summer evening and fails to resurface, Lochran and Hartford are alarmed by the thought of what might have befallen their friend. The police can find no evidence of foul play, but the two doctors resolve to conduct their own investigation. Soon, however, Lochran and Hartford find themselves bedevilled by bizarre, unnerving events, and the attentions of menacing strangers. Robert Forrest, they come to realise, was not the friend they thought; and, though nowhere to be seen, he has remained closer than they could ever have dared imagine …
The Possessions of Doctor Forrest proposes a mystery, narrated first through the eyes of Lochran and Hartford. Only in the story’s finale, Robert Forrest’s ‘Confession’ of his sins, is the true and terrible explanation of events revealed. En route Richard T. Kelly leads the reader on a descent into darkness that is both disturbing and beguiling, sinister and erotic, pregnant with strangeness and dread.
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Eleven, by Mark Watson
This is the story of radio DJ Xavier Ireland, who by night offers words of wisdom to sleepless Londoners and by day keeps himself to himself. That is, until a one-of-a-kind encounter forces him to confront his own biggest regret.
Meanwhile, a single moment sparks a chain of events that will affect eleven lives across the city, with unstoppable consequences…
Eleven is a tale of love, loss, Scrabble and six degrees of separation, asking whether the choices we don’t make affect us just as powerfully as those we do.
Two Cows and a Vanful of Smoke, by Peter Benson
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When young Elliot gets a labourer’s job at Mr Evans’s after being sacked from a pig farm for liberating six of its sows, he thinks he’ll have even more opportunities to lean on gates or stare at fields. But his best mate Spike keeps getting him into trouble, first by showing him what is being grown in a tucked-away polytunnel, and then turning up at his caravan’s door with a van full of weed. As Elliot tries to help his friend get rid of the hot merchandise, they find themselves at the receiving end of a cruel cat-and-mouse game.
A tale of adventure with as many twists and turns as the enchanting Somerset landscape that forms its backdrop, Two Cows and a Vanful of Smoke is, above all, a celebration of the English countryside – full of magic, history and superstition – where smoke is in the air, and where not all is what it seems.
The Questions:
To win, answer two simple questions, the answers to which can be found in recent Bookhugger articles…
- Question 1: In State of Wonder, from where to where has the letter telling of Anders Eckman’s death travelled?
- Question 2:In Two Vans and a Cowful of Smoke, what is stronger than stupid?
Terms and conditions
- Closing date for entries: 7th July 2011.
- Open to residents of the United Kingdom only.
- Entry to the competition is by completion of the above form only. Anyone submitting multiple entries will be disqualified.
- The winners will be selected from those correct entries received before the closing date. Our decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
- Only the winning entrants will be contacted by Bookhugger.
- The winner’s name(s) may be published on the Bookhugger website after the closing date of the competition.
- The competition is not open to Bookhugger employees and their families, or to employees of Bookhugger publishers and their families.
June 23rd, 2011 at 9:46 pm
the second treasure hunt is SOME competition. Fours hours into it and I still need one more answer. Well done.
June 30th, 2011 at 9:03 am
[...] Enter the June competition to win a copy of State of Wonder [...]
June 30th, 2011 at 7:23 pm
Well done Peter. Four hours is pretty good going! I’m just about to start some more hunting now – I love this idea.
July 4th, 2011 at 12:02 pm
[...] You have until the 7th July to enter the June competition on Bookhugger to win a copy of State of Wo… [...]
July 7th, 2011 at 2:13 am
Good way of entering the competition. thought the 2nd question was a bit hard until I looked properly…looks like an interesting book
Thanks for the comp