The accidents of style: good advice on how not to write badly
Fasten your seat belt for a crash course in careful usage.... Just like automobile accidents, accidents of style occur all over the English-speaking world, in print and on the Internet, thousands of times every day. They range from minor fender benders, such as confusing their and there, to serious smashups, such as misusing sensual for sensuous or writing loathe when you mean loath.
The book was published on August 2004. The story follows Harry Dresden as he delves deep into a series of murders and bizarre accidents surrounding the unlikeliest of clients...
Novelist Ellis Brooks arrives to the mysterious Bosco estate to write a book based on the dark events that took place there during the summer of 1893. All she knows is that the wealthy Milo Latham brought in a psychic medium to help his wife contact their three dead children-only to have the seance turn deadly, and his remaining child abducted. As Ellis uncovers the Latham family's dark secrets, a series of bizarre accidents occur.
Winnie, the Witch loves travelling by broomstick. Sadly, when the sky starts filling up with all kinds of flying machines, Winnie and Wilbur have a few mid-air crashes and a few more near misses. Winnie tries a little magic to turn her broomstick into a bicycle, a skateboard, even a horse. But the accidents still happen. Perhaps, Winnie needs to look no further than the end of her nose for an answer to her problems...
It is May in Chelsea, London. The glittering river is unusually high on an otherwise ordinary afternoon. Adam Kindred, a young climatologist in town for a job interview, ambles along the Embankment, admiring the view. He is pleasantly surprised to come across a little Italian bistro down a leafy side street. During his meal he strikes up a conversation with a solitary diner at the next table, who leaves soon afterwards. With horrifying speed, this chance encounter leads to a series of malign accidents through which Adam will lose everything - home, family, friends, job, reputation, passport, credit cards, mobile phone - never to get them back.