Time to Form - second hand

Basketball star Johnny Chang is murdered and detective Dave Washburn is assigned to the case. What Washburn does not know is that Chang had found a manuscript that taught the secrets of Chinese immortality. With the formula Chang planned to become the greatest basketball player ever and he intended to become immortal. Washburn begins looking for the obvious motives: greed, hate and jealousy. However, the hard-boiled detective soon discovers that nothing about Chang is obvious or ordinary. Washburn, like Chang, will find himself swept away on the wings of dragons.

For readers of Gillian Flynn and Donna Tartt, a dark, propulsive and addictive debut thriller, splashed with all the glitz and glitter of New York City.

They go through both bottles of champagne right there on the High Line, with nothing but the stars over them... They drink and Lavinia tells Louise about all the places they will go together, when they finish their stories, when they are both great writers-to Paris and to Rome and to Trieste...

Lavinia will never go. She is going to die soon.

Louise has nothing. Lavinia has everything. After a chance encounter, the two spiral into an intimate, intense, and possibly toxic friendship. A Talented Mr. Ripley for the digital age, this seductive story takes a classic tale of obsession and makes it irresistibly new.

A major motion picture (2007) from Oscar-winning director Ang Lee ( Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Brokeback Mountain ): an intensely passionate story of love and espionage, set in Shanghai during World War II.

In the midst of the Japanese occupation of China and Hong Kong, two lives become Wong Chia Chi, a young student active in the resistance, and Mr. Yee, a powerful political figure who works for the Japanese occupational government. As these two move deftly between Shanghai’s tea parties and secret interrogations, they become embroiled in the complicated politics of wartime—and in a mutual attraction that may be more than what they expected. Written in lush, lavish prose, and with the tension of a political thriller,  Lust, Caution   brings 1940s Shanghai artfully to life even as it limns the erotic pulse of a doomed love affair.

A mesmerizing literary debut novel of doubt, faith, and perseverance in the aftermath of a family tragedy—for fans of Me Before You, Little Bee, and Tell the Wolves I’m Home.
 
The Bradleys see the world as a place where miracles are possible, and where nothing is more important than family. This is their story.
 
It is the story of Ian Bradley—husband, father, math teacher, and Mormon bishop—and his unshakeable belief that everything will turn out all right if he can only endure to the end, like the pioneers did. It is the story of his wife, Claire, her lonely wait for a sign from God, and her desperate need for life to pause while she comes to terms with tragedy.
 
And it is the story of their children: sixteen-year-old Zippy, experiencing the throes of first love; cynical fourteen-year-old Al, who would rather play soccer than read the Book of Mormon; and seven-year-old Jacob, whose faith is bigger than a mustard seed—probably bigger than a toffee candy, he thinks—and which he’s planning to use to mend his broken family with a miracle.
 
Intensely moving, unexpectedly funny, and deeply observed, A Song for Issy Bradley explores the outer reaches of doubt and faith, and of a family trying to figure out how to carry on when the innermost workings of their world have broken apart.