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Adler, Elizabeth A. It all began in Monte Carlo.
Romantic Suspense Jewelry theft

Albert, Susan Wittig. The Darling Dahlias and the cucumber tree. MYSTERY.
The Depression-era women of a Darling, Alabama, garden club get to the bottom of a mysterious buried treasure and a young woman’s murder.

Andrews, Andy. The heart mender: a story of second chances. HISTORICAL FICTION,
While digging up a withering wax myrtle tree beside his waterfront home on the Gulf coast, author Andy Andrews unearths a rusted metal container filled with Nazi artifacts and begins an intriguing investigation that unlocks an unspoken past that took place in his backyard…literally. Previously published as Islands of Saints.

Andrews, Donna. Stork raving mad: a Meg Langslow mystery.

Armstrong, Kelley. Waking the witch. FANTASY.
Otherworld series #11 featuring Savannah Levine.

Aston, Elizabeth. The Darcy connection. ROMANCE.
Mr. Collins of Pride and Prejudice is now the Bishop of Ripon, living with his wife, Charlotte, and their two daughters, who have reached marriageable age. The elder, another Charlotte, is extraordinarily beautiful, and her parents hope her looks and connections will ensure a brilliant marriage. Her sister, Eliza, while not as handsome, possesses a lively intelligence that, in Mr. Collins’s opinion, is too like her godmother, Mrs. Darcy. In London, Charlotte’s beauty wins her many admirers, despite her small fortune. But Eliza’s wit and attempts to interfere in what she considers an unsuitable marriage for her sister infuriate her family and Charlotte’s suitor — until Eliza herself meets her match.–From amazon.com.

Baker, Sam, The other mothers’ club.
You can choose your family – but are you sure you want to? A funny and touching exploration to an often-misrepresented aspect of female life.

Beck, Glenn. The Overton window. SUSPENSE.
An unprecedented attack on U.S. soil shakes the country to the core and puts into motion a frightening plan, decades in the making, to transform America and demonize all those who stand in the way. Exposing the plan and revealing the conspirators behind it, PR executive Noah Gardner hatches his own plan to save both the woman he loves and the individual freedoms he once took for granted.

Binchy, Chris. Five days apart.
Being able to taste people’s emotions in food may at first be horrifying. But young, unassuming Rose Edelstein grows up learning to harness her gift as she becomes aware that there are secrets even her taste buds cannot discern.

Blackstock, Terri. SUSPENSE. Intervention.
Barbara Covington has one more chance to save her daughter from a devastating addiction: staging an intervention. But when eighteen-year-old Emily disappears on the way to drug treatment–and her interventionist is found dead at the airport where she was last seen–Barbara enters her darkest nightmare of all.

When fourteen-year-old Ella Carmichael is killed by a cyberstalker, her sister Krista vows to protect others from falling into the same trap while she hunts down the online predator.

Britton, Andrew. The exile. SUSPENSE.
Espionage & Darfur

Burke, James Lee. The glass rainbow: a Dave Robicheaux novel. MYSTERY.
Beloved Burke hero Detective Dave Robicheaux returns to New Iberia to solve a series of grisly murders.

Cameron, W. Bruce. A dog’s purpose.
This is the remarkable story of one endearing dog’s search for his purpose over the course of several lives. More than just another charming dog story, this touches on the universal quest for an answer to life’s most basic question: Why are we here? Surprised to find himself reborn as a rambunctious golden haired puppy after a tragically short life as a stray mutt, Bailey’s search for his new life’s meaning leads him into the loving arms of 8 year old Ethan. During their countless adventures Bailey joyously discovers how to be a good dog. But this life as a beloved family pet is not the end of Bailey’s journey. Reborn as a puppy yet again, Bailey wonders, will he ever find his purpose? Heartwarming, insightful, and often laugh out loud funny, this book is not only the emotional and hilarious story of a dog’s many lives, but also a dog’s eye commentary on human relationships and the unbreakable bonds between man and man’s best friend. This story teaches us that love never dies, that our true friends are always with us, and that every creature on earth is born with a purpose.

Campion, Emma. The king’s mistress. HISTORICAL FICTION.
“From childhood Alice Salisbury learned obedience in all things, so at the age of fourteen, she dutifully marries the man her father has chosen for her – at the cost of losing the love of her mother forever, as well as the family she holds dear. But merchant Janyn Perrers is a good and loving husband and Alice soon learns to enjoy her marriage. Her happiness is short-lived, however, ending when a messenger brings news of Janyn’s sudden disappearance. Alice discovers that her husband had many dangerous secrets, secrets which have now put a price on her own head and that of her beloved daughter. Brought under the protection of King Edward III and Queen Philippa, she must dutifully embrace her fate once more – as a virtual prisoner at Court. When the king singles her out for more than just royal patronage, she knows she has little choice but to accept his advances. But obeying the king brings with it many burdens as well as pleasures, as she forfeits her good name to keep her daughter free from harm. Still a young woman and guided by her intellect and good business sense, she uses her gifts as wisely as she can in order to ensure her family’s survival.”–Provided by publisher.

Cantrell, Rebecca. A night of long knives. HISTORICAL FICTION.

Carcaterra, Lorenzo. Midnight angels. SUSPENSE.
Lost works of art in Florence

Carobini, Julie. A shore thing: an Otter Bay novel.
“Callie Duflay just isn’t like the rest of her family. While they’ve built white collar lives, she prefers getting her hands dirty by working with children and local California causes. When Callie learns that a beloved piece of untouched property in her town of Otter Bay may soon be developed, she confronts the architect assigned to the project”–Publisher.

Castillo, Linda. Pray for silence. SUSPENSE.
Chief of Police Kate Burkholder must confront a dark evil to solve the mysterious murders of an entire Amish family of seven. Formerly Amish herself, Kate is no stranger to the secrets the Amish keep from the English–and each other–but this crime is horribly out of the ordinary. Follows Sworn to Silence.

Chamberlin, Holly. The family beach house.
Vacation in Maine

Clinch, Jon. Kings of the earth. MYSTERY.
On a primitive farm on the margins of an upstate New York town, three Proctor brothers live together in a kind of crumbling stasis–until one of them dies in his sleep and the other two are suspected of murder. A deeply intimate saga of the human condition at its limits.

Cole, Julian. The amateur historian. MYSTERY.
Two brothers, PI Rick Rounder and policeman Sam Rounder, square up across the sibling divide as they are both drawn into the case of a missing girl. But the case gets more complicated as Rick’s past catches up with him, and the only clues that the brothers have, relate to a girl who lived–and died–in poverty one hundred years ago.

Compton, Jodi. Hailey’s war. SUSPENSE.
Hailey Cain has a history of testing the limits of her fate: as a fearless bike messenger on the streets of San Francisco; as a young female cadet at West Point. When an old friend from her former life in Los Angeles calls in a favor, Hailey doesn’t have to think long before she accepts the mission. From the dustiest Mexican roads to the meanest streets of East L.A., Hailey finds herself ensnared in a war more deviant and ugly than any she trained for as a cadet. Deep in the gang underworld, pusued by mobsters and authorities alike, Hailey must use her instincts to stay alive–and to protect the innocent from a past that still haunts her.

Connolly, John. The whisperers: a Charlie Parker thriller.
On the border between Maine and Canada, a dangerous smuggling operation is taking place. Drugs, cash, weapons, even people– and something ancient and powerful and evil…

Coulter, Catherine. Whiplash. SUSPENSE.
Married FBI agents Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich are investigating a rather unusual case: Senator David Hoffman is experiencing a ghostly apparition with possible malicious intent. They’re no closer to cracking the case when a call comes in from Connecticut: A top foreign Schiffer Hartwin employee has been found murdered behind the drug company’s U.S. headquarters.

Crouch, Blake. Snowbound. SUSPENSE.
Human trafficking Mexico

Crowley, John. Four freedoms. HISTORICAL FICTION.
In the early years of the 1940s, as the nation’s young men ship off to war, the call goes out for builders of the machinery necessary to defeat the enemy. To this purpose, a city has sprung up seemingly overnight in the windswept fields of Oklahoma: the Van Damme airplane factory, a gargantuan complex dedicated to the construction of the B-30 Pax, the largest bomber ever built. Some men, but mostly women, many of whom have never operated a rivet gun or held a screwdriver, flock to this place eager to earn, to grow, to do their part. Many are away from home for the very first time, enticed by the opportunity to be something more than wife and homemaker. In the middle of nowhere they will live, work, and earn their own money, fearing for the safety of their absent fighting men as the world around them changes forever.–From publisher’s description.

Davidson, MaryJanice. Undead and unfinished. FANTASY.
Another humorous Betsey Taylor.

Demas, Corinne. The writing circle.

DeMille, Nelson. The lion. SUSPENSE.
Asad Khalil, the notorious Libyan terrorist otherwise known as “The Lion,” has returned to America to make good on his threats and take care of unfinished business. John Corey, former NYPD Homicide detective and special agent for the Anti-Terrorist Task Force, will stop at nothing to find and kill Khahil.

Egan, Jennifer. A visit from the Goon Squad.
Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs confront their pasts in this powerful story about how rebellion ages, influence corrupts, habits turn to addictions, lifelong friendships fluctuate and turn, and how art and music have the power to redeem.

Eisler, Barry. Inside out. SUSPENSE.
Marooned in a Manila jail after a bar fight fatality, black ops soldier Ben Treven gets a visit from his former commander. The price of Ben’s release: find and eliminate Larison, a rogue operator from Ben’s unit who has stolen torture tapes from the CIA and is using them to blackmail the U.S. government.

Elmer, Robert. Wildflowers of Terezin. HISTORICAL FICTION.
Christian Fiction on WWII

Farnsworth, Christopher. Blood oath. FANTASY.
Vampires in the White House

Fesperman, Dan. Layover in Dubai. SUSPENSE.

Fesperman, Dan, ed. First thrills: high-octane stories from the hottest thriller authors.
An anthology of previously unpublished work includes contributions by favorite genre authors and a selection of up-and-coming writers.

French, Tana. Faithful Place.
Detective Frank Mackey finds himself straight back in the dark tangle of relationships he left behind twenty-two years ago when the suitcase belonging to his first love, Rosie Daly, shows up behind a fireplace in a derelict house on Faithful Place. The hotly anticipated third novel of the Dublin murder squad.

Freveletti, Jamie. Running dark. SUSPENSE.
Emma Caldridge; bk.2

Gabhart, Ann H. The seeker. HISTORICAL FICTION.
With the country–and her own household–on the brink of civil war, pampered gentlewoman Charlotte Vance hatches a plan to avoid her new stepmother and win back her man by joining the Shaker community at Harmony Hill. Little does she know that this decision will lead her down a road toward unforeseen peace–and a very unexpected love.

Gael, Juliet. Romancing Miss Bronte. HISTORICAL FICTION.
Biographical Fiction on Charlotte Bronte.

Gardiner, Meg. The liar’s lullaby. SUSPENSE.
When the country singer ex-wife of a U.S. president is sensationally murdered during a concert performance, forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett
endeavors to learn the victim’s role in her demise as well as the murder’s relevance for the president.

Gardner, Lisa. Live to tell: a detective D.D. Warren novel. SUSPENSE.
Boston series

Garner, Elizabeth. The ingenious Edgar Jones. HISTORICAL FICTION.
An extraordinary boy, both restless and inquisitive, turns his back on the scholarly life intended for him by his father, and finds his true calling in metalworking after apprenticing himself to a blacksmith.

Gaskell, Whitney. When you least expect it.
“India and Jeremy Halloway are happily married, have creative careers, and live in a remodeled bohemian cottage in a historic West Palm Beach
neighborhood. The only thing missing from their charmed life is the baby they both desparately want. After two years of failed fertility treatments, they are cash-strapped and no closer to parenthood. That’s when they decide it’s time to look into adoption. Lainey Walker’s unexpected pregnancy threatens to derail her dream of moving to Los Angeles and becoming a reality TV-star. She also finds herself homeless and alone when her supportive gym-rat boyfriend kicks her out of their apartment. When the Halloways and Lainey are matched up through an adoption agency, India proposes an unorthodox solution that just might solve all their problems. But as these three are about to discover, a baby changes everything.” – Taken from cover p.4.

Gerritsen, Tess. Ice cold: a Rizzoli & Isles novel. SUSPENSE.
Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli receives the grim news that Maura’s charred body has been found in a mountain ravine. Shocked and grieving, Jane is determined to learn what happened to her friend. The investigation plunges Jane into the twisted history of Kingdom Come, Wyoming, where a gruesome discovery lies buried beneath the snow.

Gonzales, Laurence. Lucy. SCIENCE FICTION.
Jenny Lowe, a primatologist studying chimpanzees, is running for her life with the child of a murdered fellow scientist after a civil war explodes. Grabbing the notebooks of the primatologist who’s been killed, Jenny brings the girl to Chicago to await the discovery of her relatives. The girl is fifteen and lovely, her name is Lucy. Realizing that the child has no living relatives, Jenny begins to care for her as her own. When she reads the notebooks written by Lucy’s father, she discovers that the adorable, lovely, magical Lucy is the result of an experiment. She is part human, part ape, a hybrid human being.

Goodman, Allegra. The cookbook collector.
“…a novel about getting and spending, and about the substitutions we make when we can’t find what we’re looking for…” –inside cover.

Grange, Amanda. Colonel Brandon’s diary.
Epistolary novel based on Sense and Sensibility character.

Griffin, Lynne Reeves. Sea escape.
Family secrets/Mothers & Daughters

Hagberg, David. The cabal. SUSPENSE.
“CIA operative Todd Van Buren meets with a Washington Post investigative reporter who has uncovered strong evidence that a powerful lobbyist has formed a shadowy group called the Friday Club. The cabal’s members include high-ranking men inside the government: a White House advisor, a three star general at the Pentagon, deputy secretaries at the State Department, Homeland Security, the FBI, and even the CIA. The reporter is convinced that the Friday Club is powerful enough to potentially topple the United States government…and he’s terrified of what he knows. That afternoon, Van Buren–son-in-law to the legendary spy Kirk McGarvey–is gunned down. That evening, the reporter and his family are killed. All traces of the existence of the Friday Club are erased. A devastated McGarvey is soon drawn into the most far-reaching and dangerous investigation of his career, the stakes of which could destabilize the United States government, and shake the foundations of the world financial order.”–Dust cover flap.

Halpern, Adena. 29. Smart Funny Women.
Humorous take on Cinderella

Harbison, Elizabeth M. Thin, rich, pretty. Smart Funny Women.
Three women–Holly, Nicola, and Lexi–learn the path to true contentment and save each other in this humorous story about old rivalries, deep secrets, and the three things all women wish they were.

Hasler, Susan. Intelligence. SUSPENSE.
Domestic terrorism

Hatcher, Robin Lee. A matter of character.
The sisters of Bethlehem Springs series

Hayman, James. The chill of night: [a novel of suspense].
Legal thriller set in Maine

Haynes, Dana. Crashers. SUSPENSE.
When a passenger plane, a Vermeer One Eleven, slams into the ground outside Portland, Oregon, a team–the “crashers”– is quickly assembled to investigate the cause. Usually the team has months to determine the cause of a crash. But this time it’s different. This time, the plane was brought down deliberately, without leaving a trace, and this was only a trial run.

Hiaasen, Carl. Star Island.
Humorous take on Paparazzi and celebrity

Hilderbrand, Elin. The island.
It’s the perfect summer getaway– but some secrets are hard to escape…When her elder daughter abruptly cancels her engagement, and her lavish wedding, Birdie takes both daughters and her cousin to Tuckernuck Island. There dramatic truths are uncovered, old loves are rekindled, and new loves make themselves known.

Hinshelwood, Tom. The killer. SUSPENSE.
Assassins in Paris

Holden, Wendy. Farm fatale: a comedy of country manors.
British Smart Funny Women.

Hollowell, Jenny. Everything lovely, effortless, safe.
Actresses in Hollywood

Hoover, Michelle. The quickening. HISTORICAL FICTION.
Great Depression

Horn, Dara. All other nights. HISTORICAL FICTION.
Jacob Rappaport, a Jewish soldier in the Union army during the Civil War is ordered to murder his own uncle in New Orleans, who is plotting to assassinate President Lincoln. After this harrowing mission, Jacob is recruited to pursue another enemy agent, the daughter of a Virginia family friend. But this time, his assignment isn’t to murder the spy, but to marry her.–From publisher’s description.

Howard, Evan Drake. Galilean secret.
Christian Fiction on antiquities

Hurwitz, Gregg Andrew. They’re watching. SUSPENSE.
Electronic surveillance in CA

Isaacs, Susan. As husbands go.
Grief & mystery on Long Island

James, Steven. The bishop: a Patrick Bowers thriller.
The Bowers files; bk. 4

Jance, Judith A. Queen of the night. SUSPENSE.
Cold case in AZ

Jenoff, Pam. A hidden affair. SUSPENSE.
What kind of man could fake his own death and then, for more than a decade, let his loved ones suffer? After such a betrayal, what woman would want him back? Meet erstwhile Cambridge University sweethearts Jared Short and Jordan Weiss, whose star-crossed odyssey continues in Jenoff’s intriguing sequel to Almost Home. Following Jordan’s discovery of Jared’s apparent survival–and her own narrow escape from enemies still out to silence him–the plucky young diplomat chucks her State Department commission to seek closure. But instead of answers, what lies ahead on a perilous chase stretching from London to the Aegean are more conundrums. Along the way, Jordan encounters Ari Bruck, a seductive mystery man who might be a Mossad agent, and Nicole Short, an elegant blonde who apparently runs in the same circles as Jared.

Johansen, Iris & Roy Johansen. Shadow zone. SUSPENSE.
A discovery by submersible designer Hannah Bryson suggests a possible cause of mythical Atlantis’s mysterious demise that has potentially cataclysmic consequences for the modern world.

Kalogridis, Jeanne. The scarlet contessa: a novel of the Italian Renaissance.
Daughter of the Duke of Milan and wife of the conniving Count Girolamo Riario, Caterina Sforza was the bravest warrior Renaissance Italy ever knew. She ruled her own lands, fought her own battles, and openly took lovers whenever she pleased. Her remarkable tale is told by her lady-in-waiting, Dea. Dea reviews Caterina’s scandalous past and struggles to understand their joint destiny, while Caterina valiantly tries to fight off Cesare Borgia’s unconquerable army.

Kava, Alex. Damaged: a Maggie O’Dell novel. SUSPENSE.

King, Lily. Father of the rain.
“…Gardiner Amory is a New England WASP who is beginning to feel the cracks in his empire. Nixon is about to be impeached, his wife is leaving him, and his worldview is rapidly becoming outdated. His daughter, Daley, has spent the first eleven years of her life carefully negotiating her parents’ conflicting worlds: the liberal, socially committed realm of her mother and the conservative, decadent, liquor-soaked life of her father…As she grows into adulthood, Daley rejects the narrow world that nourished her father’s fears and prejudices, and embarks on her own separate life—until he hits rock bottom…” –Dust jacket flap.

King, Stephen. Blockade Billy.
From New York Times bestselling author Stephen King comes the haunting story of Blockade Billy, the greatest Major League baseball player to be erased from the game. Even the most die-hard baseball fans don’t know the true story of William “Blockade Billy” Blakely. Blockade Billy had a secret darker than any pill or injection that might cause a scandal in sports today. His secret was much, much worse… and only Stephen King, the most gifted storyteller of our age, can reveal the truth to the world, once and for all.

Kingsbury, Karen. Take four.
Above the line series; bk. 4. Filmmakers Keith Ellison and Dayne Matthews finally ink a deal with the nation’s top young actor. But the actor takes a public fall that threatens his reputation. Now the producers must act as missionaries to save the film, their families, and the young movie star.

Kramer, Julie. Silencing Sam. MYSTERY.
MN journalist

Kuzneski, Chris. The prophecy. SUSPENSE.
Treasures and prophecies

Lackberg, Camilla. The ice princess. MYSTERY.
After she returns to her hometown to learn that her friend, Alex,was found in an ice-cold bath with her wrists slashed, biographer Erica Falck researches her friend’s past in hopes of writing a book and joins forces with Detective Patrik Hedstrom, who has his own suspicions about the case.

Lamb, Cathy. Such a pretty face.
Plastic surgery dilemma

Land, Jon. Strong justice: a Caitlin Strong novel. SUSPENSE.
A Mexican girl on the run from human traffickers brings fifth-generation Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong to the sleepy border town where her legendary grandfather once worked, a region that hides a deadly weapon with a potential to give a new enemy the means to terrorize the United States.

Lansens, Lori. Rush Home Road.
For Jodi Picoult fans, Canadian abandoned children tale

Lawson, Michael. House justice: a Joe DeMarco thriller.
When a leak within the CIA results in the brutal torture and death of a US spy in Tehran, who just gave information to the CIA about a crooked American contractor in Iran, Joe DeMarco is tasked to investigate. Teaming up with the CIA, DeMarco discovers that the victim once had a fling with a journalist now serving time in prison and threatening to unravel DeMarco’s entire operation.

Le Beau, John J. Collision of evil. SUSPENSE.
When an American tourist is murdered in the Bavarian Alps, Kommissar Franz Waldbaer begins an investigation that yields no suspects or clues, but the arrival of the victim’s brother sends them both on a trail of evil leading to forgotten episodes from the Third Reich.

Lowe, Gail. Former things.
Wakefield author–On the surface, the relationship breakdown between Emily Preston and her adult daughter, Nicole, seems rooted in a denied request for money. But at the core of their estrangement is a family secret revealed in this heartbreaking, stunningly detailed narrative. After learning that she has been left out of her father’s will, Nicole abandons her mother, leaving her to grieve for 20 years. At age 70, Emily sells her home and moves to a retirement
community where she meets Evan Pierce, a young man who convinces her to search for Nicole to restore the relationship. Emily then rents an RV for the summer, and she and Evan embark on a thousand-mile journey to look for Nicole. On the last leg of their trip, a tragedy occurs — one that finally brings mother and daughter face to face.–Amazon.com.

Macomber, Debbie. Hannah’s list.
Widower’s dead wife arranges his next marriage

McCall Smith, Alexander. Corduroy mansions.
The author captures the goings on of the residents and visitors at Corduroy Mansions, Pimlico, from nasty Liberal Democrat MP Oedipus Snark to the newest resident, Pimlico Terrier Freddie de la Hay.

McCrumb, Sharyn. The devil amongst the lawyers: a ballad novel. MYSTERY.
In the wake of a sensationalized 1934 trial involving an Appalachian Virginia teacher’s alleged murder of her tyrant father, novice journalist Carl Jennings is denounced by a greedy media determined to portray the defendant as a backwards mountain girl.

Mills, DiAnn. A woman called Sage. ROMANCE.
Sage Morrow has lost everything she loved. Now, she is a Colorado bounty hunter determined to track down and bring killers to justice … and it’s personal. But when the tables are turned, will Sage become the one who is hunted? A high-energy historical romance novel set in the late 1800s.

Mitchell, David S. The thousand autumns of Jacob De Zoet.
1799, Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor. Jacob de Zoet, a devout and resourceful young clerk, has a chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, the disfigured daughter of a samurai doctor and midwife to the city’s powerful magistrate. The borders between propriety, profit, and pleasure blur until Jacob finds his vision clouded, one rash promise made and then fatefully broken–the consequences of which will extend beyond Jacob’s worst imaginings. On the Man Booker Longlist.

Murnane, Maria. Perfect on paper: the (mis)adventures of Waverly Bryson. Smart Funny Women.
Waverly’s fiance calls off the wedding at the last minute, and she finds her life spiraling downward. Bad dates, a bitchy coworker out for Waverly’s job, and her dad’s constant problems are starting to wear on her. To keep her head above water, Waverly starts to jot down Honey Notes, a pipe dream for a line of funny, self-deprecating greeting cards.

Nathan, Melissa. Pride, prejudice, and Jasmin Field. Smart Funny Women.
Humorous British Austen takeoff

Neggers, Carla. The whisper.
Romantic Suspense in Boston/Women archaeologists

Nelson, Peter. I thought you were dead: a love story.
Funny Dog story

Nicholls, David. One day.
Over twenty years, snapshots of an unlikely relationship are revealed on the same day–July 15th–of each year. Dex Mayhew and Em Morley face squabbles and fights, hopes and missed opportunities, laughter and tears. And as the true meaning of this one crucial day is revealed, they must come to grips with the nature of love and life itself. Soon to be a major motion picture from Focus Features/ Random House Films.

Noble, Diane. The sister wife. HISTORICAL FICTION.
Wealthy Mormon convert Mary Rose and shipbuilder Gabriel make their way to a new Mormon settlement, where Prophet Joseph Smith’s edicts about polygamy lead Gabriel to take additional wives and Mary Rose to question her faith.

Norman, Howard A. What is left the daughter. HISTORICAL FICTION.
Nova Scotia WWII

O’Flynn, Catherine. The news where you are.
Frank, a television newsanchor in Birmingham, England, is on the verge of a midlife crisis. The demolition of buildings designed by his late father, the somewhat mysterious death of his on-screen partner and mentor, Phil, and Frank’s obsession with people who die alone lead him down a path of self-discovery.

Oksanen, Sofi. Purge.
Aliide Truu, an older woman guilty of crimes during the Soviet occupation of Estonia, takes in a young woman, Zara, who is trying to escape a sex-trafficking ring, and as they work through their suspicion, the two rediscover a tragic family history from the past.

Parkhurst, Carolyn. The nobodies album.
On her way to deliver the manuscript to her editor, bestselling novelist Octavia Frost reads a news crawl in Times Square and learns that her rock-star son, Milo, has been arrested for murder. Though she and Milo haven’t spoken in years–an estrangement stemming from their tragic past–she drops everything to go to him.

Patterson, James & Maxine Paetro. Private: Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, London, Chicago, Paris, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Rome. SUSPENSE.
Former CIA agent Jack Morgan runs Private, a renowned investigation company with branches around the globe. He already deep into the investigation of a multi-million dollar NFL gambling scandal and the unsolved slayings of 18 schoolgirls when he learns of a horrific murder close to home: his best friend’s wife, Jack’s former lover, has been killed.

Perry, Marta. Anna’s return. ROMANCE.
Pleasant Valley; bk. 3

Pitkeathley, Jill. Dearest cousin Jane: a Jane Austen novel. HISTORICAL FICTION.

Pouncey, Maggie. Perfect reader.
At the news of her father’s death, Flora quits her big-city magazine job and returns to Darwin, the quaint New England town where she grew up, to retreat into the house he has left her, filled as it is with reminders of him. Even weightier is her appointment as her father’s literary executor. It seems he was secretly writing poems at the end of his life–love poems to a girlfriend Flora didn’t know he had.

Pronzini, Bill. Betrayers: a Nameless Detective novel.

Racculia, Kate. This must be the place.
NY Boarding House

Radish, Kris. Hearts on a string. Smart Funny Women
Traveling women

Reich, Christopher. Rules of Betrayal. SUSPENSE.
Doctors Without Borders & terrorism

Richards, Emilie. Fortunate harbor.
Tracy Deloche, Rishi Kapur, Wanda Gray, Alice Brook, Olivia Symington, and newcomers Dana Turner and her daugher Lizzie live in the seaside cottages of Happiness Key, a rundown Florida development. Their friendship is put to the test when CJ, Tracy’s ex-husband, unexpectedly shows up, wanting to reconnect after he’s released from prison pending a new trial. Tracy ponders giving him a second chance. But then there’s Marsh Egan, her off/on environmentalist boyfriend whose troublemaking ex, Sylvia, is also back in town.

Roberts, Nora. The search. SUSPENSE.
Fiona, a dog trainer who participates in canine search-and-rescue missions, is devastated after her fiance is murdered, but her emotions are rekindled when Simon, a newcomer to town, brings his puppy Jaws to her for obedience training.

Ruchti, Cynthia. They almost always come home.
Canadian Christian Fiction

Rue, Nancy N. Antonia’s choice.
Christian Fiction/Aging parents

Shepherd, Lynn. Murder at Mansfield Park. MYSTERY.
Jane Austen homage

Sigler, Scott. Ancestor. SUSPENSE.
On a remote island in the Canadian Arctic, PJ Colding leads a group of geneticists who have discovered the holy grail of medicine–a computer-
engineered living creature whose organs can be implanted in any person, with no chance of transplant rejection. There’s just one problem: these “ancestors” are not docile.

Silva, Daniel. The Rembrandt affair. SUSPENSE.
Gabriel Allon series

Singh, Jaspreet. Chef.
Cooks in India

Skyhorse, Brando. The Madonnas of Echo Park.
Mexican Americans in Echo Park, CA

Steiner, Peter. The terrorist. SUSPENSE.
Louis Morgan; bk.2 Espionage

Stevens, Chevy. Still missing. SUSPENSE.
Abduction in British Columbia

Stoker, Dacre. Dracula: the un-dead. HORROR.
The great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker, Dacre Stoker collaborates with Dracula historian Ian Holt to pen the first Stoker-family-supported sequel to the 1897 horror classic. Based on Bram Stoker’s notes, the legendary story continues 25 years after the events of the original. An evil has once again crept onto the land, this time to hunt down those responsible for Dracula’s demise.

Straub, Peter. A special place: the heart of a dark matter. SUSPENSE.
A boy, Keith Hayward, is drawn to an irresistible fascination with death and the taking of life. His Uncle Till, who has led a shadowy career as local celebrity “Ladykiller,” recognizes his nephew’s nature and tutors him in the art of doing ill without getting caught.

Tafoya, Dennis. The wolves of Fairmount Park. MYSTERY.
PA drive-by shootings

Tanenbaum, Robert. Betrayed. SUSPENSE.
Butch Karp & Marlene Ciampi Legal series

Taylor, D. J. Ask Alice. HISTORICAL FICTION.
In 1920s London, former actress and society hostess Alice Keach receives a mysterious visitor and unearths a secret long ago buried in rural Kansas.

Thor, Brad. Foreign influence: a thriller.
Recruited as a field operative, Scot Harvath has just returned from his first assignment abroad when a bombing in Rome kills a group of American college students. The evidence points to a dangerous colleague from Harvath’s past and a plan for further attacks on an unimaginable scale.

Tiffany, Grace. My father had a daughter: Judith Shakespeare’s tale. HISTORICAL FICTION.
Biographical Fiction.

Trollope, Joanna. The other family.
When Richie dies unexpectedly, Chrissie must now tell the truth to their three daughters: their parents were never married. There is more shock to come when his will is read: he ever forgot the wife and son he left behind years ago. Now two families must confront their losses–and each other.

Turow, Scott. Innocent. SUSPENSE.
“INNOCENT continues the story of Rusty Sabich and Tommy Molto who are, once again, twenty years later, pitted against each other in a riveting
psychological match after the mysterious death of Rusty’s wife”–Provided by publisher.

Vantrease, Brenda Rickman. The heretic’s wife. HISTORICAL FICTION.
16th C. Great Britain

Vaughn, Carrie. Discord’s apple. FANTASY.
Discovering a magical storeroom in a house she is destined to inherit, Evie Walker finds a cache of mythological and legendary artifacts that she is charged to keep out of the hands of villains who threaten the world with apocalyptic violence.

Verdon, John. Think of a number. MYSTERY.
NY serial murders

Waldman, Ayelet. Red Hook Road.
After John Tetherly and Becca Copaken die in a freak car accident an hour after their wedding, their families are left to bridge stark class and cultural divides, and eventually forge deep-rooted bonds thanks to the twin deities of love and music. Becca’s family is well off, from New York, and summers in Red Hook, Maine, a small coastal town where John’s blue-collar single mother, Jane, cleans houses for a living. They interact, awkwardly, over how to bury the couple, the staging of an anniversary party, and over Jane’s adopted niece, whose amazing musical talent makes a connection to Becca’s ailing grandfather, a virtuoso violinist, who agrees to give her lessons. Becca’s younger sister, Ruthie, a Fulbright scholar, meanwhile, falls in love with John’s younger brother, Matt, the first Tetherly to go to college, before he drops out to work at a boatyard and finish restoring his brother’s sailboat, which he plans on sailing to the Caribbean.

Walsh, Dan. The homecoming.
Sequel to Unfinished Gifts.

Weiner, Jennifer. Fly away home.
Infidelity and politics

Weir, Alison. Captive queen: a novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine.
The author harks back to the twelfth century with a sensuous and tempestuous tale that brings vividly to life England’s most passionate and destructive royal couple: Eleanor of Aquitaine and King Henry II. Nearing her thirtieth birthday, Eleanor has spent the past dozen frustrating years as consort to the pious King Louis VII of France. For all its political advantages, the marriage has brought Eleanor only increasing unhappiness and daughters instead of the hoped for male heir. But when the young and dynamic Henry of Anjou arrives at the French court, Eleanor sees a way out of her discontent. For even as their eyes meet for the first time, the seductive Eleanor and the virile Henry know that theirs is a passion that could ignite the world. Returning to her duchy of Aquitaine after the annulment of her marriage to Louis, Eleanor immediately sends for Henry, the future King of England, to come and marry her. The union of this royal couple will create a vast empire that stretches from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees, and marks the beginning of the celebrated Plantagenet dynasty. But Henry and Eleanor’s marriage, charged with physical heat, begins a fiery downward spiral marred by power struggles, betrayals, bitter rivalries, and a devil’s brood of young Plantagenets including Richard the Lionheart and the future King John. Early on, Eleanor must endure Henry’s formidable mother, the Empress Matilda, as well as his infidelities, while in later years, Henry’s friendship with Thomas Becket will lead to a deadly rivalry. Eventually, as the couple’s rebellious sons grow impatient for power, the scene is set for a vicious and tragic conflict that will engulf both Eleanor and Henry. This is an historical novel that encompasses the building of an empire and the monumental story of a royal marriage.

Whalen, Marybeth. The mailbox. ROMANCE
“When Lindsey Adams first visits the Kindred Spirit mailbox at Sunset Beach, North Carolina, as a teenager, she has no idea that twenty years later she will still be visiting the mailbox–still pouring out her heart in letters that summarize the best and worst parts of her life. Returning to Sunset for her first vacation since her husband left her and her two kids, Lindsey struggles to put her sorrow into words. Memories surface of her first love, Campbell Forrester–and the rejection that followed. When Campbell reappears in her life, Lindsey must decide whether to trust in love again or guard herself from greater pain.”–P. [4] of cover.

Whitson, Stephanie Grace. Sixteen brides. HISTORICAL FICTION.
Christian women

Wickham, Madeleine. A desirable residence.
Realtor Marcus Witherstone knew the perfect tenants from London who would rent Liz and Jonathan Chambers old house: a glamorous PR girl, Ginny, and her almost-famous husband, Piers. But soon Liz is lost in blissful dreams of Marcus, Jonathan is left to run their business, and neither of them has time to notice that their teenage daughter is developing an unhealthy passion for the tenants.

Windsor, Linda. Healer. HISTORICAL FICTION.
Her mother’s dying prophecy to the chieftain Tarlach O’Byrne sentenced Brenna of Gowrys to twenty years of hiding. Twenty years of being hunted–by the O’Byrnes, who fear the prophecy, and by her kinsmen, who expect her to lead themagainst their oppressors. But Brenna is a trained and gifted healer, not a warrior queen, so she lives alone in the wilderness with only her pet wolf for company. When she rescues a man badly wounded from an ambush, she believes he may be the answer to her deep loneliness. Healing him comes as easy as loving him. But can their love overcome years of bitterness and greed … and bring peace and renewed faith to the shattered kingdom?

Wingate, Lisa. Beyond summer.
Blue Sky Hill series; bk.3
Christian Fiction

Are you ready for more relaxing vacation reads? Here are a few suggestions for readers as you search for the perfect way to enjoy the last of the summer sun. Most of these titles are already at the library or soon to be found there.

Getting your hands on any copy of the Millennium Trilogy is difficult. Steig Larsson’s series begins with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, continues with the The Girl Who Played with Fire, and ends with The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. While waiting, check out both Arnaldur Indridason’s Jar City (Iceland) or Karin Fossum’s Don’t Look Back (Norway) for the first in two excellent series.
South Africa is another popular venue for current novels. In Malla Nunn’s A Beautiful Place to Die, Detective Emannuel Cooper straddles the racial divide while investigating the murder of a small-town police captain. Set against the cinematic background of the harsh South African landscape, Cooper’s inquiries uncover a web of secrets and lies.

Another mystery set in South Africa is Deon Meyer’s Blood Safari. Emma Le Roux hires a personal security expert when her believed-dead brother is named as a suspect in the murders of five people. Full of page-turning tension, this will strongly appeal to mystery and suspense fans seeking intelligent, hard-boiled action.
Jassy Mackenzie’s Random Violence is the first in a series. Returning to South Africa after living in England for ten years following her policeman father’s murder, PI Jade de Jong agrees to help her father’s former partner investigate a series of carjacking cases and discovers a pattern that may have a link to her father’s death. Grim, gritty, and violent, the novel offers a revealing view of modern South Africa.

Do you enjoying reading something terrifying and entertaining? Try F.G. Cottam’s The House of Lost Souls. Ten years ago, rumors of human sacrifice, ghosts, and magic were just that—until journalist Paul Seaton confronted unspeakable evil at the abandoned Fischer House and barely escaped with his life. Still haunted by his loss, he is asked to return to prevent the house from claiming more unsuspecting souls.

Here is a great zombie story combining the undead with high school football. Its publisher describes the books as Friday Night Lights meets Dawn of the Dead. In Ryan Brown’s Play Dead, after a rival team causes his football squad’s bus to crash, killing all the players. This is a fast-paced, thrilling, and terribly funny debut by former actor Brown.

If being frightened is appealing, then Brian Evanson’s Last Days will give you your fix. Through spare language, a noir sensibility, and macabre humor, the author crafts a compulsively readable nightmare that asks, “How do you know the moment when you cease to be human?” If you enjoyed Stephen King’s Misery, this one may be for you.

Want something a bit less serious? Imagine five very different women stuck together in a Florida hotel room after a terrible storm shuts down the entire area. Kris Radish does just that in Hearts on a String. The author deftly juggles the different personalities and throws in some wacky side story lines. Radish also wrote The Shortest Distance Between Two Women (2009) and always writes a compelling and pleasing story.

Jennifer Ross’s Icing on the Cupcake is a first novel that highlights realistic characters and funny situations. Texas Southern belle Ansley is on the brink of getting engaged but her cattiness and downright meanness have gotten the best of her, and she finds herself fiancé-less as well as friendless. When she runs off to NYC to live with her estranged grandmother, she realizes that it is time to find a purpose for her life and turn things around.

Looking for a Love Story by Louise Shaffer is terrific at weaving contemporary and historical family stories. In this novel, the author mixes the stories of Francesca who is a blocked writer whose marriage unexpectedly crumbles and the story of a Depression-era husband-and-wife vaudeville team in need of a ghost writer. Other great titles by this author are Family Acts (2007) and Serendipity (2009).

The Empress of Mars by the late Kage Baker is a Science Fiction novel of fun and high adventure. The British Arena Company abandoned its colonies on Mars when it couldn’t make a profit. Now they want them back, and it is up to Mary Griffith, her three daughters, and the other misfit denizens of Mary’s bar, the only one on Mars, to stop the company as peacefully as they can.

Paolo Bacigalpi’s The Windup Girl gives the Science Fiction reader a sobering and nuanced vision of a future Bangkok teetering on the edge of disaster. In this inhospitable environment, a disparate group of characters calculates how to survive. Fans of Charles Stross’s Accelerando will want to check this novel out.

Adamson, Lydia. Cat on a Beach Blanket: An Alice Nestleton Mystery. (1997)

Barnett, Jill. Days of Summer. (2006)

Bockoven, Georgia. Another Summer. (2010)

Bonasia, Lynn Kiele. Summer Shift. (2010)

Brashares, Ann. The Last Summer (of You and Me). (2007)

Coll, Susan. Beach Week. (2010)

Cook, Claire. Life’s a Beach. (2007)
Summer Blowout. (2008)

Curnyn, Lynda. Killer Summer. (2005)

Dart, Iris Rainer. Beaches. (1985)

Diamant, Anita. Good Harbor. (2001)

Ford, Michael Thomas. Last Summer. (2003)

Ganek, Danielle. The Summer We Read Gatsby. (2010)

Green, Jane. The Beach House. (2008)

Groh, Brian. Summer People. (2007)

Hannah, Kristin. Distant Shores. (2002)
Summer Island. (2001)

Henry, Patti Callahan. Driftwood Summer. (2009)

Hilderbrand, Elin. Barefoot. (2007)
The Beach Club. (2000)
The Blue Bistro. (2005)
The Castaways. (2009)
The Island. (2010)
The Love Season. (2006)
Nantucket Nights. (2002)
Summer Affair. (2008)
Summer People. (2003)

Holton, Cathy. Beach Trip. (2009)

Landis, Jill Marie. Summer Moon. (2001)

Mitchard, Jacquelyn. Still Summer. (2007)

Monroe, Mary Alice. The Beach House. (2002)

Nash, Jennie. The Last Beach Bungalow. (2008)

Patterson, James w/ Peter de Jonge. The Beach House. (2002)
Beach Road. (2006)

Raucher, Herman. Summer of ’42. (1971)

Rice, Luanne. Firefly Beach. (2001)

Richards, Emilie. Happiness Key. (2009)

Robards, Karen. Beachcomber. (2003)

Shreve, Anita. Body Surfing. (2007)

Stone, Jean. Beach Roses. (2003) Paperback Fiction

Thayer, Nancy. Moon Shell Beach. (2006)
Summer House. (2009)

Whitehead, Colson. Sag Harbor. (2009)

Wolitzer, Hilma. Summer Reading. (2009)

Supper Sleuths, a mystery discussion group, meets every second Tuesday evening at 6:00pm to discuss mysteries of every genre and type. Feel free to bring your own snack or brown bag lunch with you to the meeting.

The next Supper Sleuths Discussion takes place September 14, 2010 at 6:00pm to 7:30pm in the Lecture Hall.

For our meeting in September, read–at least–the first in each of these series. Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear and The Strange Files of Fremont Jones by Dianne Day. Click here for the list.

The next gathering of Beebe Library’s book discussion group, Books By the Lake, is on September 15, 2010 in the Lecture Hall at 7:30pm for the discussion of two books with the theme of Desert Exploration: Mary Doria Russell’s Dreamers of the Day and Janet Wallach’s nonfiction title, Desert Queen.

Please consider: While reading these two books, compare how the authors deal with character and setting, bearing in mind that Russell’s book is fiction and Wallach’s book is nonfiction.

Janet Wallach’s nonfiction Desert Queen recounts the extraordinary life of Gertrude Bell, an English adventurer–adviser to kings, ally of Lawrence of Arabia–who explored the Arab world and helped create the modern Middle East. Mary Doria Russell’s fictional Dreamers of the Day takes place in the wake of the Great War and the devastating influenza pandemic of 1919, forty-year- old Ohio schoolteacher Agnes Shanklin decides to use her inheritance to take a trip of a lifetime to Egypt and the Holy Land, where she meets T. E. Lawrence and Karl Weilbacher, a charming German spy with an intense interest in Lawrence.

For more information about this group, see the Books By the Lake page.

Click on the titles below to search the catalog

Allende, Isabel. Island beneath the sea. HISTORICAL FICTION.
“The story of a mulatta woman, a slave and concubine, determined to take control of her own destiny in a society where that would seem impossible”–Provided by publisher.

Ashworth, Jenn. A kind of intimacy.
Annie Fairhurst is a socially inept and obese Briton who has murdered her husband and child, which is alluded to but not confirmed until later in the story. She moves into a duplex occupied by an unmarried couple, Neil and Lucy, and Annie immediately becomes obsessed with Neil, who unfortunately makes the mistake of being friendly. Interspersed throughout are glimpses of Annie’s past, her troubled marriage and stilted feelings toward her infant daughter, Grace.

Avery, Claire. Hidden wives. SUSPENSE
Contemporary polygamy in Utah.

Bagshawe, Tilly. Sidney Sheldon’s After the darkness. SUSPENSE.
Blessed with the face of an angel and the guileless, trusting nature of a child, Grace Brookstein is the prized wife of the king of Wall Street, Lenny Brookstein. Despite the stock market’s terrifying collapse, the Brooksteins’ glamorous lifestyle of polo tournaments and jets remains untouched–until the day Lenny goes sailing from their Nantucket beach estate and never comes home. When his abandoned yacht is found far out at sea, Grace is devastated. She has no idea that his disappearance is just the beginning of a dark, terrifying nightmare of murder, lies, greed, and betrayal that will shatter her life and destroy everything she has ever known.

Balogh, Mary. A secret affair. ROMANCE.
Regency Huxtable series; bk. 5

Barry, Brunonia. The map of true places.
Zee Finch, a psychotherapist, has come home to Salem to take care of her ailing father and to try to figure out her own life after the suicide of one of her patients, which was made even more difficult by Zee’s past–her mother committed suicide herself, in front of her.

Bass, Elizabeth. Miss you most of all.
Few things are as lasting as the bond between sisters. In her poignant debut, Elizabeth Bass explores the lengths one cobbled-together family will go to for each other, and the power of a connection that never fades

Bender, Aimee. The particular sadness of lemon cake.
Being able to taste people’s emotions in food may at first be horrifying. But young, unassuming Rose Edelstein grows up learning to harness her gift as she becomes aware that there are secrets even her taste buds cannot discern.

Blum, Jenna. The stormchasers.
Twenty years after her bipolar brother’s penchant for chasing tornadoes leads to deadly consequences, Karena Jorge finds out that he has escaped from a psychiatric ward, prompting her to join a band of professional stormchasers in hope of finding her disturbed brother.

Bolton, S. J. Blood harvest. MYSTERY.
Missing children in England.

Bonasia, Lynn Kiele. Summer shift.
Forty-four-year-old Cape Cod clam bar owner Mary Hopkins struggles to find the peace, love, and human connection that have eluded her for decades as she copes with her beloved great-aunt’s descent into Alzheimer’s disease, the tragic accident of a young waitress, and her rekindled romance with Dan, a lost love.

Brackmann, Lisa. Rock paper tiger. SUSPENSE.
Iraq war veteran in China

Brashares, Ann. My name is memory.
Daniel has spent centuries falling in love with the same girl. Life after life, crossing continents and dynasties, he and Sophia (despite her changing name and form) have been drawn together, and he remembers it all. Daniel has “the memory”, the ability to recall past lives and recognize souls of those he’s previously known. It is a gift and a curse. For all the times that he and Sophia have been drawn together throughout history, they have also been torn painfully, fatally, apart. Interwoven through Sophia and Daniel’s unfolding present day relationship are glimpses of their expansive history together.

Brown, Janelle. This is where we live.
The bohemian life of artsy new homeowners Claudia and Jeremy is thrown into chaos by the failure of Claudia’s first film, the return of Jeremy’s successful ex-girlfriend, and the staggering adjustment of their monthly mortgage payments.

Brown, Ryan. Play dead. SUSPENSE.
For the first time in Killington High School history, the Jackrabbits football team is one win away from the district championship where it will face its most vicious rival. On the way to the game, the Jackrabbits’ bus plunges into a river, killing every player except for bad-boy quarterback Cole Logan who is certain the crash was no accident. Bent on payback, Cole turns to a mysterious fan skilled in black magic to resurrect his teammates. But unless the undead Jackrabbbits defeat their murderous rival on the field, the team is
destined for hell. — from publisher description.

Burris, Skylar Hamilton. An unlikely missionary. HISTORICAL.
In this sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Charlotte and her husband find themselves in the presence of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who informs them that she has arranged a mission trip for them. This seeming whim of their benefactress will prove to have far greater consequences than any of them can foresee. Charlotte finds herself far away from the world she once knew and the practical niche she had carved within it. Charlotte discovers that the very traits she thought were disadvantages in her old world are valued highly by her fellow workers and even by the harsh Mr. Rivers. But will her practicality and pragmatism enable her to endure tragedy, brace her for the revelation of Mr. Rivers’ past, and equip her to search her soul and discover who she really is?

Cardillo, Linda. Across the table. MYSTERY.
Contains “Across the Table” & “Dancing on Sunday Afternoons.” Restaurant owner in Boston.

Carey, Peter, Parrot and Olivier in America. HISTORICAL FICTION.
Olivier is the traumatized child of aristocratic survivors of the French Revolution. Parrot is the motherless son of an itinerant English printer. They are born on different sides of history, but their lives will be connected in the United States by an enigmatic one-armed marquis.

Catton, Eleanor. The rehearsal.
New Zealand high school sex scandal

Chamberlain, Diane. The lies we told.
Maya and Rebecca Ward are both accomplished physicians, but that’s where the sisters’ similarities end. As teenagers, they witnessed their parents’ murder, but it was Rebecca who saved Maya from becoming another of the gunman’s victims. The tragedy left Maya cautious and timid, settling for a sedate medical practice with her husband, Adam, while Rebecca became the risk taker.
—.Secrets she left behind. (2009)
“Keith Weston nearly lost his life in an act of arson. He survived–but with devastating physical and emotional scars. Without his mother, he has no one to help him heal, no money, nothing to live for but the medications that numb his pain. Isolated and angry, his hatred has one tight focus: his half-sister, Maggie Lockwood. Nineteen-year-old Maggie spent a year in prison for the acts that led up to the fire. Now she’s back home.”–p. [4] of cover.

Clevidence, Carin. The house on Salt Hay Road.
A fireworks factory explodes in a quiet seaside town. In the house on Salt Hay Road, Clay Poole is thrilled by the hole it’s blown in everyday life. His older sister, Nancy, is more interested in the striking stranger who appears, dusted with ashes, in the explosion’s aftermath. The Pooles–taken in as orphans by their mother’s family–can’t yet know how the bonds of their makeshift household will be tested and frayed. As their aunt searches for signs from God and their uncle begins an offbeat courtship, they are pulled toward two greater cataclysms: the legendary hurricane of 1938 and the encroaching war.

Cole, Meredith. Dead in the water. MYSTERY.
Photographer in Williamsburg, VA.

Coll, Susan. Beach week.
High school graduates spend the summer at the beach–as their parents deal with the changing times around them.

Cook, Claire. Seven year switch.
After being left alone to raise her young daughter for seven years, Jill’s husband Seth re-enters her life after seven years asking for forgiveness.

Coopersmith, Grace. Nancy’s theory of style. SMART FUNNY WOMEN.
While Nancy Edith Carrington-Chambers is busy preparing for San Francisco society’s biggest fundraiser, the fussy fashionista experiences some cataclysmic revelations that turn her world upside down.

Coulter, Catherine. Whiplash. SUSPENSE.
Married FBI agents Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich are investigating a rather unusual case: Senator David Hoffman is experiencing a ghostly apparition with possible malicious intent. They’re no closer to cracking the case when a call comes in from Connecticut: A top foreign Schiffer Hartwin employee has been found murdered behind the drug company’s U.S. headquarters.

Cristofano, David. The girl she used to be. SUSPENSE.
Mafia witness.

Cronin, Justin. The passage. SCIENCE FICTION.
A security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment that only six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte can stop.

Cussler, Clive. The spy. SUSPENSE.
In 1908, a brilliant American battleship gun designer dies in a sensational apparent suicide. The man’s grief-stricken daughter turns to the legendary Van Dorn Detective Agency to clear her father’s name. Van Dorn puts his chief investigator on the case, and Isaac Bell soon realizes that the clues point not to suicide but to murder.

De Blasi, Marlena. Amandine. HISTORICAL FICTION.
Krakow, 1931. A baby girl is born out of wedlock, and deposited at a remote convent in the French countryside. Amandine is raised by her governess, Solange. As global war looms, the two flee toward Solange’s childhood home, and begin a perilous, years-long odyssey across Occupied France– and deeper into the treacheries of war.

Deaver, Jeffery. The burning wire: a Lincoln Rhyme novel. SUSPENSE.
Quadriplegic forensic criminologist Lincoln Rhyme leads his team–NYPD detective Amelia Sachs, officer Ron Pulaski, and FBI agent Fred Dellray–to find and stop a killer who uses electricity as modus operandi. Meanwhile, Rhyme is consulting on another high-profile investigation in Mexico with a most coveted quarry in his crosshairs: the hired killer known as the Watchmaker, one of the few criminals to have eluded Rhyme’s net.

Dekker, Ted. The bride collector. SUSPENSE.
Serial killers & brides

DeMille, Nelson. The lion. SUSPENSE.
Asad Khalil, the notorious Libyan terrorist otherwise known as “The Lion” has returned to America to make good on his threats and take care of unfinished business. John Corey, former NYPD Homicide detective and special agent for the Anti-Terrorist Task Force, will stop at nothing to find and kill Khahil.

Doiron, Paul. The poacher’s son. SUSPENSE.
Desperate and alone, game warden Mike Bowditch strikes up an uneasy alliance with a retired warden pilot, and together the two men journey deep into the Maine wilderness in search of a runaway fugitive–Mike’s father. But the only way for Mike to save his father is to find the real killer–which could mean putting everyone he loves in the line of fire.

Doyle, Roddy, The dead republic.
Irish historical revolutionaries

Duarte, Judy. The house on Sugar Plum Lane.
Inspirational fiction about grandmothers and granddaughters.

Dugoni, Robert. Bodily harm. SUSPENSE.
Desperate and alone, game warden Mike Bowditch strikes up an uneasy alliance with a retired warden pilot, and together the two men journey deep into the Maine wilderness in search of a runaway fugitive–Mike’s father. But the only way for Mike to save his father is to find the real killer–which could mean putting everyone he loves in the line of fire.

Eastland, Sam. Eye of the Red Tsar: a novel of suspense.
House of Romanov

Emma, Linda. Prime Meridian.
The explosion of a hidden land mine 6,000 miles away should have had no effect on Jenna. She neither knew anyone fighting in the Iraq War nor felt any strong political connection to the quagmire that was daily splashed across the newspapers’ front pages. But the running loop segment on CNN, and the photojournalist peering out from every frame, brought Jenna back to another life and the boy who challenged her to be more. Danny was gone and the what ifs that she had years ago suppressed, came flooding back. Married with a young daughter, Jenna lives in tiny Meridian and works part time at the local newspaper penning to a readership which worries more about landscapes than landmines. Until Danny’s death, Jenna had considered her life full. But now, she wonders if within the cocoon of suburbia, she hasn’t allowed herself to become the very person against whom Danny once railed. And when another man challenges her to try more, to be more, Jenna is reminded of the potential she once saw in herself and for her life-all the paths she did not take. As Jenna sets off in a in a directionless quest for answers to questions she’s only just beginning to formulate, she wonders if it isn’t too late to take that other road.

Evanovich, Janet. Sizzling sixteen. MYSTERY.
Someone wants to kill Vinnie, but who? The list is long, and it’s up to Stephanie to whittle it down to one in this 16th Stephanie Plum novel.

Everson, Eva Marie. This fine life.
In this unique and tender story of an unlikely romance, boarding school graduate Mariette Puttnam returns to her privileged life at home, unsure where life will take her. More schooling? A job? Marriage? Nothing feels right. How could she know that the answer is waiting for her within the narrow stairwell of her father’s apparel factory, exactly between the third and fourth floors? Set in the summer of 1959.

Farooki, Roopa. Half life.
Intermarriage in Singapore

Frank, Dorothea Benton. Lowcountry summer.
When Caroline Wimbley Levine returned to Tall Pines Plantation, she never expected to make peace with long-buried truths about herself and her family.

Furst, Alan. Spies of the Balkans. SUSPENSE.
As war approaches northern Greece, the spies begin to circle–from the Turkish legation to the German secret service. In the ancient port of Salonika, Costa Zannis, a senior police official, head of an office that handles special “political” cases, risks everything to secure an escape route for those hunted by the Gestapo.

Ganek, Danielle. The summer we read Gatsby.
Sisters who never knew each other inherit a house in the Hamptons.

Garlock, Dorothy. Stay a little longer. ROMANCE.
Historical set in Minnesota.

Gautreaux, Tim. The missing. SUSPENSE.
After the devastation in France just as World War I, Sam Simoneaux went back to New Orleans eager for a normal life. But when a little girl disappears from a department store on his shift, he loses his job and soon joins her parents working on a steamboat plying the Mississippi. Sam comes to suspect that on the downriver journey someone had seen this magical child and arranged to steal her away, and this quest leads him not only into this raucous new life on the river, but also on a journey deep into the Arkansas wilderness. Here he begins to piece together what had happened to the girl–a discovery that endangers everyone involved and sheds new light on the massacre of his own family decades before.

Gibbon, Maureen. Thief.
Interpersonal triangles.

Giffin, Emily. Heart of the matter.
Following a tragic accident, two women–Tessa Russo, a renowned pediatric surgeon, and Valerie Anderson, an attorney and single mother–living in the same Boston suburb but with relatively little in common aside from a fierce love for their children converge in ways no one could have imagined.

Goodwillie, David. American subversive.
Terrorists.

Grant, Andrew. Die twice. SUSPENSE.
Espionage.

Green, Jane. Promises to keep.
Six people–sisters Callie and Steff Perry, their divorced parents Walter Cutler and Honor Pitman, Lila Grossman and the man of her dreams, Eddie–each receive a shocking note that summons them together for one extraordinary summer in Maine–a summer that will change their lives forever.

Gregory, David. The last Christian. SCIENCE FICTION.
Artificial Intelligence.

Gross, Andrew. Reckless. SUSPENSE.
The shocking murder of a suburban family leads private security investigator Ty Hauck, with Naomi Blum, a tenacious agent from the U.S.
Department of Treasury, to uncover a frightening global conspiracy. Unraveling evidence of a reckless banking scheme that stretches from New York to London to central Europe, they race to avert a disaster that could threaten the security of the United States.

Gruber, Michael. The good son. SUSPENSE.
Somewhere in Pakistan, Sonia Laghari and eight fellow members of a symposium on peace are being held captive by armed terrorists. Sonia, a deeply religious woman as well as a Jungian psychologist, has become the de facto leader of the kidnapped group, while her son Theo, an ex-Delta soldier, uses his military connections to find and free the victims.

Gwin, Minrose. The queen of Palmyra. HISTORICAL FICTION.
“An atmospheric debut novel about growing up in the changing South in 1960s Mississippi in the tradition of The Secret Life of Bees and The Help“–Provided by publisher.

Hall, Tarquin. The case of the man who died laughing: from the files of Vish Puri, India’s most private investigator. MYSTERY.
A prominent Indian scientist dies in a fit of giggles when a Hindu goddess appears from a mist and plunges a sword into his chest. The main suspect is a powerful guru named Maharaj Swami, who seems to have done away with his most vocal critic. Vish Puri, India’s Most Private Investigator, master of disguise and lover of all things fried and spicy, doesn’t believe the murder is a supernatural occurrence, and proving who really killed Dr. Suresh Jha will require all the detective’s earthly faculties. To get at the truth, he and his team of undercover operatives travel from the slum where India’s hereditary magicians must be persuaded to reveal their secrets to the holy city of Haridwar on the Ganges.

Hamilton, Laurell K. Bullet. FANTASY.
Assassins are coming to St. Louis to kill master vampire Jean-Claude, necromancer Anita Blake, and werewolf Richard Zeeman. Anita knows they’re coming, but even being forewarned doesn’t mean the triumvirate will win.

Harris, Robert. Conspirata. HISTORICAL FICTION.
Rome

Harvey, John. Far cry. MYSTERY.
Missing children in England.

Harvey, Michael T. The third rail. MYSTERY.
PI in Chicago.

Hawke, Richard. House of secrets. SUSPENSE.
Family secrets & political intrigue.

Hewson, David. City of fear. MYSTERY.
When a terrorist group stationed in Rome adopts a symbol from an ancient civilization to justify a violent agenda targeting a G8 conference, Nic Costa of the Questura is called upon to discern the plot and uncovers disturbing links to top government levels.

Hijuelos, Oscar. Beautiful Maria of my soul, or, The true story of Maria Garcia y Cifuentes, the lady behind a famous song.
In a part sequel and part retelling of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, the inspiration for the Mambo King’s biggest hit, Maria, now 60 years old, reminisces about her days and nights in Havana, offering a completely different perspective on the Mambo Kings’ story.

Hinton, J. Lynne. Wedding cake.
Hope Spring series

Hobb, Robin. Dragon haven. FANTASY.
As the dragons, the humans–including the strong and defiant Rain Wild girl Thymara; the wealthy dragon scholar and Trader’s wife, Alise; and her companion, the urbane Sedric–and their magical supply barge, captained by the gruff Leftrin, forge their way ever deeper into uncharted wilderness, human and beast alike discover they are changing in mysterious and dangerous ways … and that all of them may not survive.

Hoffman, Paul. The left hand of God. FANTASY.
Follows the adventures of sixteen-year-old Thomas, one of thousands of imprisoned youths being trained in combat by warrior monks who becomes aware of his secret destiny after a daring escape.

Holmes, Gina. Crossing oceans.
Family secrets in NC

Hood, Ann. The red thread.
The painful and courageous journey toward adoption made by several of her clients forces Maya Lange, founder of The Red Thread, an adoption agency that specializes in placing baby girls from China with American families, to confront the lost daughter of her past.

Hunt, James Patrick. The silent places. SUSPENSE.
Missouri

Hyland, Tara. Daughters of fortune.
Sisters–Coming of age.

Jackson, Joshilyn. Backseat saints.
After a gypsy predicts that Rose’s violent husband will kill her, Rose grabs a gun and her dog Gretel and sets out on a cross-country escape, following messages that her missing mother has left for her and unraveling family secrets.

Jiji, Jessica. Sweet dates in Basra.
WWII Iraq friendship.

Jones, Shane. Light boxes. FANTASY.
Spirits.

Kargman, Jill. Arm candy. SMART FUNNY WOMEN.

Kennedy, Thomas E. In the company of angels.
Imprisoned for teaching political poetry to his students, Bernardo Greene has been tortured for months in Pinochet’s Chile when he is visited by two angels who promise that he will survive to experience beauty and love once again. Months later, in Copenhagen, where he has come for treatment, the Chilean exile befriends Michela Ibsen, herself a survivor of domestic abuse.

Koontz, Dean R. Frankenstein: lost souls. FANTASY.
Two years after they saw him die, the man they knew as Victor Helios lives on. Detectives Carson O’Connor and Michael Maddison; Victor’s engineered wife, Erika 5, and her companion Jocko; and the original Victor’s first creation, the tormented Deucalion, have all arrived at a small Montana town where their old alliance will be renewed–and tested–by forces from within and without, and where the dangers they face will eclipse any they have yet encountered.

Koryta, Michael. So cold the river. SUSPENSE.
After he is hired by Alyssa Bradford to research the life of her 95-year- old billionaire father-in-law, Eric Shaw visits the man’s hometown, where he discovers a restored hotel that has a checkered past–and a newly reawakened evil bent on revenge.

Kwok, Jean. Girl in translation.
Chinese immigrants in NY

LaHaye, Tim F. & Craig Parshall. Edge of Apocalypse.
The End series.

Landis, Jill Marie. Heart of stone.
Irish angel series; bk. 1

Larkin, Allie. Stay.
Impulsively buying a puppy on the Internet after the heartbreak of watching the love of her life marry another, Van is dismayed when her purchase produces a one-hundred-pound German shepherd whose unlikely friendship introduces her to a ruggedly handsome veterinarian.

Larsson, Stieg. The girl who kicked the hornet’s nest. SUSPENSE.
If and when Lisbeth Salander recovers, she’ll be taken back to Stockholm to stand trial for three murders. With the help of her friend, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, she will not only have to prove her innocence, but also identify and denounce those in authority who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to suffer abuse and violence. And, on her own, she will plot revenge–against the man who tried to kill her, and the corrupt government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life. Final book in a trilogy.

Lindsey, Johanna. That perfect someone. ROMANCE.
Having returned from the high seas after dodging the fiance his greedy father, the Earl of Manford, wanted him to marry, Richard Allen crosses paths with his furious fiance and must flee with her on an ocean voyage once the Earl learns his son is alive.

Lowell, Elizabeth. Death echo. SUSPENSE.
Former CIA agent Emma Cross and former special ops team leader MacKenzie Durand fight their growing attraction to each other as they race to locate the missing yacht “Blackbird” and its cache of lethal cargo. They’ve got seven days to uncover the truth . . . or a major American city will be lost.

Lustbader, Eric. Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne objective. SUSPENSE.
The Central Intelligence training program Treadstone produced two graduates of equal skill and determination–Jason Bourne and a vicious Russian mercenary, Leonid Arkadin. As Bourne’s destiny circles closer to Arkadin’s, it becomes clear that the eventual collision of these men is not of their own making. Someone else has been watching and manipulating them. Someone who wants to know, “Who is the more deadly agent?”

Magee, Doug. Never wave goodbye: a novel of suspense.
Kidnapping

Marlantes, Karl. Matterhorn: a novel of the Vietnam War. HISTORICAL FICTION.
High in the mountains of South Vietnam, a young lieutenant is flown to an isolated anonymous hill between Laos and the DMZ where a company of Marines is building a fire-support base. It is his first day in the jungle. From the moment his feet hit the mud–the brass have named the hill Matterhorn–his senses are assaulted by a chaotic swirl of monsoon rain and fog, screeching radios and bulldozers, and the stench of almost two hundred men who are some combination of sick, exhausted, filthy, sodden, and scared out of their minds. He has no idea if he is up to this.

Martin, William. City of dreams. SUSPENSE.
Peter Fallon adventure.

Martini, Steve. The rule of nine: a Paul Madriani novel. SUSPENSE.
US Terrorism.

Matlock, Curtiss Ann. Little town, great big life.
“So what if Winston Valentine is ninety-two years old? He isn’t dead yet! And he’s out to prove it. His exuberant show of life–coming to you live from radio dial 1550–revitalizes Valentine, Oklahoma, for its centennial celebration. The townsfolk are determined to make this an anniversary to remember. Except Belinda Blaine, who, at thirty-eight, doesn’t feel like celebrating. Suddenly she’s carrying a child –and the guilt of an earlier pregnancy nearly twenty years ago. No one in her close-knit community knows of either, including her sweet-mannered husband, Lyle. But disclosing this pregnancy will mean revealing her past and opening her heart. And Belinda’s not quite ready for that. As Belinda struggles over what to do, she finds comfort in unexpected places. After all, in Valentine, neighbors are family and strangers are friends. And this small town holds secrets and mysteries, and takes care of its own.”–P. [4] of cover.

McCauley, Stephen. Insignificant others.

McGovern, Cammie. Neighborhood watch. MYSTERY.

McKenna, Shannon. Fade to midnight.
Shapeshifting Romantic Suspense.

McNeil, Gil. Needles and pearls.
Knitting Smart Funny Women

Meyer, Stephenie. The short second life of Bree Tanner: an Eclipse novella. FANTASY.
In this devastating story, Bree Tanner–a character introduced in Eclipse–and the newborn vampire army prepare to close in on Bella Swan and the Cullens, following their encounter to its unforgettable conclusion.

Michaels, Fern. Cross roads. SUSPENSE.
Sisterhood series.

Michel, DeLaune. Aftermath of dreaming.
Romantic triangle in CA

Milne, Kevin Alan. Sweet misfortune.
“A story about finding love and proving that happiness is not just a myth”–Provided by publisher.

Mooney, Ted. The same river twice. SUSPENSE.
When Odile Mevel, a French clothing designer, agrees to smuggle ceremonial May Day banners out of the former Soviet Union, she thinks she’s trading a few days’ inconvenience for a quick thirty thousand francs. Yet when she returns home to Paris to deliver the contraband to the American art expert behind this scheme, her fellow courier has disappeared, her apartment is ransacked for no discernible reason, and she has already set in motion a chain of events that will put those closest to her in jeopardy.

Morgan, Jude. Charlotte and Emily: novel of the Brontes. HISTORICAL FICTION.

Morrison, Boyd. The ark. SUSPENSE.
Ancient antiquities.

Nash, Jennie. The threadbare heart.
Disaster and loss.

O’Faolain, Nuala. Best Love, Rosie.
Like many a modern, well-travelled woman, Rosie has lived a fascinating life, full of adventure and the pleasure of many lovers in her younger years. Now, facing the challenges of middle-age, she finds that the things that defined her most — work, love, independence — begin to fail her. She comes home to Ireland to care for her elderly aunt Min, trapped by circumstances in sleepy Dublin. But when an opportunity arises to visit New York again, the story takes an unexpected turn.

O’Farrell, Maggie. The hand that first held mine.
In the thrilling, underground world of bohemian post-war London, Lexie Sinclair is making an extraordinary life for herself. Taken up by magazine editor Innes Kent, she learns to be a reporter, to know art and artists, to embrace her life fully and with a deep love at the center of it.

Oliveira, Robin. My name is Mary Sutter. HISTORICAL FICTION.
Traveling to Civil War-era Washington, D.C., to tend wounded soldiers and pursue her dream of becoming a surgeon, headstrong midwife Mary receives guidance from two smitten doctors and resists her mother’s pleas for her to return home.

Orringer, Julie. The invisible bridge. HISTORICAL FICTION.
WWII

Palahniuk, Chuck. Tell-all.
Hazie Coogan, who for decades has tended to the outsized needs of veteran actress Katherine “Miss Kathie” Kenton, discovers that bounder Webster Carlton Westward III has written a celebrity tell-all memoir foretelling Miss Kathie’s death in a forthcoming Lillian Hellman-penned musical extravaganza. As the body count mounts, Hazie must execute a plan to save Katherine Kenton for her fans–and for posterity.

Palmer, Diana. Dangerous. ROMANCE.
A merciless man with a haunted past, FBI agent Kilraven can’t help being attracted to Winnie Sinclair, a shy 911 operator. When he makes the disturbing discovery that her family’s unsavory past might have a bearing on his cold case, Winnie is determined to help him crack it–and the ice around this Texan’s heart.

Parrish, Stephen. The Tavernier Stones. SUSPENSE.
Cartographer John Graf, shunned by his Amish community for pursuing higher education, becomes embroiled in a mystery when the remains of 17th-century mapmaker Cellarius, the subject of centuries-old conjecture, emerge from a German bog. The discovery of his corpse and a ruby clutched in his death grip gives credence to the existence of the fabled Tavernier Stones, a cache of the world’s most prized missing jewels. Graf joins forces with a gemologist-turned-grifter to solve a puzzle Cellarius encoded into his final and most famous map.

Patterson, James & Maxine Paetro. The 9th judgment. SUSPENSE.
A young mother and her infant child are ruthlessly gunned down while returning to their car in the garage of a shopping mall. The same night, the wife of A-list actor Marcus Dowling is woken by a cat burglar and in just seconds there is a nearly empty safe, a lifeless body, and another mystery that throws San Francisco into hysteria. Before the Women’s Murder Club can piece together either case, one of the killers forces Detective Lindsay Boxer to put her own life on the line–but is it enough to save the city?

Patterson, Richard North. In the name of honor. SUSPENSE.
Capt. Paul Terry, one of the army’s most accomplished young lawyers, must defend Brian McCarran, a general’s son who recently returned from a harrowing tour in Iraq. In the high-profile court-martial, Terry is joined by Brian’s sister, Meg McCarran, who leaves her practice in San Francisco to help save her brother. Before the case is over, Terry will become deeply entwined with Meg and the McCarrans–and learn that families, like war, can break the sturdiest of souls.

Perry, Marta. Rachel’s garden.
It has been almost a year since the Amish community of Pleasant Valley lost Ezra Brand to tragedy. Now his wife Rachel struggles to raise their three children and run their farm. Rachel’s friends and family have come forward to help. But all of their constant advice, however well intentioned, puts undue pressure on Rachel. Pleasant Valley Series.

Perry, Thomas. Strip. SUSPENSE.
Thieves in LA

Pezzelli, Peter. Villa Mirabella.
Italian American family in RI

Pickard, Nancy. The scent of rain and lightning. MYSTERY.
Stand-alone takes place in Kansas

Pintoff, Stefanie. In the shadow of Gotham. MYSTERY.
NY

Puchner, Eric. Model home.
1980a CA

Rachman, Tom. The imperfectionists.
Newspaper business & reporting

Radish, Kris. Hearts on a string. SMART FUNNY WOMEN.
Women traveling.

Rebeck, Theresa. Twelve rooms with a view.
Sisters and inheritance.

Ribon, Pamela. Going in circles.
Humorous roller derby.

Robinson, Patrick. Intercept: a novel of suspense.
Modern Terrorism.

Rose, M. J. The hypnotist. SUSPENSE.
“An FBI agent, tormented by a death he wasn’t able to prevent, a crime he’s never been able to solve and a love he’s never forgotten, discovers that his true conflict resides not in his past, but in a … past life.–Flyleaf.

Ross, Adam. Mr. Peanut.
A police procedural of the soul, a poignant investigation of the relentlessly mysterious human heart. After thirteen years of marriage, David can’t imagine a happy life without Alice–yet he obsessively contemplates her demise. When she dies, David is both deeply distraught and the prime suspect.

Sankaran, Vanitha. Watermark: [a novel of the middle ages]. HISTORICAL FICTION.
The daughter of a papermaker in a small French village in the year 1320–mute from birth and forced to shun normal society–young Auda finds solace and escape in the wonder of the written word. Believed to be cursed by those who embrace ignorance and superstition, Auda’s very survival is a testament to the strength of her spirit. But this is an age of Inquisition and intolerance, when difference and defiance are punishable ‘sins’ and new ideas are considered damnable heresy. When darkness descends on her world, Auda–newly grown to womanhood–is forced to flee, setting off on a remarkable quest to discover love and a new sense of self…and to reclaim her heritage and the small glory of her father’s art.

Scotch, Allison Winn. The one that I want.
Tilly Farmer is thirty-two years old and has the perfect life she always dreamed of, married to her high school sweetheart, working as a guidance counselor in her hometown, trying for a baby. At seventeen, Tilly lost her mother to cancer, her father drowned his grief in alcohol, and she played parent to her two younger sisters more often than being a kid herself. Then one sweltering afternoon at the local fair, everything changes. Tilly wanders into the fortune teller’s tent and is greeted by an old childhood friend, now a psychic, who offers her more than just a reading. “I’m giving you the gift of clarity”, her friend says. “It’s what I always thought you needed.” And soon enough, Tilly starts seeing things: her father relapsing, Tyler uprooting their happy, stable life, and even more disturbing, these visions start coming true.

Slaughter, Karin. Broken. SUSPENSE.
When Special Agent Will Trent arrives in Grant County, Georgia, he finds a police department determined to protect its own and far too many unanswered questions about a prisoner’s death and about a policewoman’s role in the death of Grant County’s popular police chief.

Smiley, Jane. Private life. HISTORICAL FICTION.
Margaret Mayfield is nearly an old maid at twenty-seven in post-Civil War Missouri when she marries Captain Andrew Jackson Jefferson Early. Margaret is a good girl who has been raised to marry, yet Andrew confounds her expectations from the moment their train leaves for his naval base in faraway California. Soon she comes to understand that his devotion to science leaves precious little room for anything, or anyone, else. When personal tragedies strike and when national crises envelop the country, Margaret stands by her husband. But as World War II approaches, Andrew’s obsessions take a different, darker turn, and Margaret is forced to reconsider the life she has so carefully constructed.

Sokoloff, Alexandra. Book of shadows. MYSTERY.
Occult crime.

Solares, Martin. The black minutes.
“When a young journalist named Bernardo Blanco is killed in the fictional Mexican port city of Paracuan, investigation into his murder reveals missing links in a disturbing multiple homicide case from twenty years earlier. As police officer Ramon Cabrera discovers, Blanco had been writing a book about a 1970′s case dealing with the murder of several young schoolgirls in Paracuan by a man known as the Jackal…”–Front inside flap.

Steel, Danielle. Family ties.
In this compelling novel, a young woman overnight becomes mother to her sister’s three small children. Grown now, each of them will choose a different path. Through it all, one thing will remain: family ties.

Steinhauer, Olen. The nearest exit. SUSPENSE.
Intelligent espionage.

Stewart, Leah. Husband and wife.

Strobel, Alison. The weight of shadows.
Christian fiction on spousal abuse.

Temple, Peter. Truth. MYSTERY.
Australian murder.

Thayer, Nancy. Beachcombers.
Lily Fox, the baby of her family, sends her sister Abbie urgent emails begging her to return home to Nantucket. Their middle sister, Emma, has taken to her bed, emotionally devastated after the loss of her high-powered stockbroker’s job and a shockingly unexpected break-up with her fiance. Also, Lily is deeply worried that Marina, the beautiful, enigmatic woman renting their guesthouse, has set her sights on the sisters’ widowed father, Jim.

Thompson, Janice A. It had to be you. ROMANCE.
Weddings by Bella; bk. 3

Tobey, Danny. The faculty club. SUSPENSE.
Enjoying a prestigious first year in law school marked by a coveted job with a top professor and a relationship with a beautiful Rhodes scholar, Jeremy Davis is admitted into a mysterious club that promises him phenomenal successes and hides a deadly ancient secret.

Von Ziegesar, Cecily. Cum laude.
College Freshmen in Maine–a satire.

Wayne, Teddy. Kapitoil.
Oil and Wall Street.

White, Karen S. On Folly Beach.
Folly Beach, South Carolina, has survived despite hurricanes and war. But it’s the personal battles of Folly Beach’s residents that have left the most scars, and why a young widow has been beckoned there to heal her own. To most people, Folly Beach is simply the last barrier island before reaching the great Atlantic. To some, it’s a sanctuary for lost souls, which is why Janie Hamilton’s mother encourages her to buy the local bookstore, Folly’s Finds, hoping it will distract Janie from the loss of her husband. Janie is at first resistant. So much has already changed. But after finding love letters and an image of a beautiful bottle tree in a box of used books from Folly’s Finds, she decides to take the plunge. But the seller insists on one condition: Janie must allow Lulu, the late owner’s sister, to continue selling her bottle trees from the store’s backyard.

Wright, Kim. Love in mid air.
Risking her safe but lackluster marriage in an affluent Southern suburb to embark on an affair that she believes is more fulfilling, Elyse challenges the decisions her book-club friends have made about their own relationships and freedoms.

Why is Jody Picoult so popular?

Jodi Picoult’s readers are immediately drawn into the lives of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. She creates communities familiar to everyone. The author then explores what happens to everyday people when their lives go out of control. Picoult is known for her current and controversial issue-oriented themes, presenting all sides of the topic, and creating sympathy for everyone involved, making it difficult to take sides. Readers return to her for her highly satisfying stories that feature consistently interesting characters in an easy-to-read but compelling, page-turning tale.
(Some material taken from Kaite Meditore Stover’s Jodi Picoult: Author Readalikes; NoveList Plus 7/13/10)

Elizabeth Berg. The art of mending (like My Sister’s Keeper) Returning home for a family reunion, Laura Bartone and her brother, Steve, are stunned by their sister’s allegations of shocking behavior on the part of their mother, and must come to terms with the truth and lies within their family.
Open House. Samantha’s husband has left her, and after a spending spree, she settles down to reconstruct a life for herself and her son. Sam takes in boarders to make her mortgage payments while she tries to figure out what to do with her life and comes to realize that only she has the keys to her own happiness.

Chris Bohjalian. Before you know kindness (like My Sister’s Keeper) After a decade of spending a delightful summer week at their country house in New Hampshire, the members of the extended Seton family are confronted by a terrible accident, testing the values and relationships that hold them together.
The Buffalo Soldier. The devastating loss of their twin daughters in a flash flood turns the lives of Terry and Laura Sheldon upside down as their marriage is tested by grief, Terry’s brief love affair, and their growing relationship with their foster child, a ten-year-old African American boy.
Midwives . A seasoned midwife in rural Vermont faces the antagonism of the law, the hostility of traditional doctors, and the accusations of her own conscience.
Past the Bleachers. After Bill Parrish loses his young son Nathaniel to leukemia, he fills the void in his life by coaching a local Little League team and becoming attached to a mute boy, Lucky, who eerily reminds Bill of his own lost son. Out of Print and Hard to Find.

Amy Bourret. Mothers and other liars. When Ruby was 19, she found a baby abandoned in a rest-stop trash can. Thinking she is doing the right thing, Ruby takes the baby to raise as her own. Flash forward nine years, and Ruby and the little girl, Lark, are a happy family in New Mexico, where Ruby works as a nail technician. They have a large network of friends and bond with Ruby’s boyfriend’s family. Then Ruby sees a tabloid article about an abandoned baby, and everything tilts. Lark wasn’t simply left, she was kidnapped, and now Ruby must figure out what to do.

Rosellen Brown. Before and After. (like Picture Perfect) When the chief of police comes to question Jacob Reiser about the brutal murder of his teenage girlfriend, it throws the entire family into a feud laced with guilt and questions of loyalty.

Diane Chamberlain. Secret Lives. A Virginia-born actress discovers the truth about her dead mother’s unhappy life and must come to terms with the uncle who adopted her and her rebellious, painful adolescence.
Breaking the silence. Visiting an elderly stranger to fulfill a deathbed promise to her father, Laura Brandon’s life is violently disrupted when her own husband commits suicide and their five-year-old daughter, who witnessed the suicide, stops speaking
Keeper of the Light. When a gunshot victim dies on her operating table, Dr. Olivia Simon learns that the victim is Annie O’Neill, the woman with whom Olivia’s husband is in love, plunging Olivia, her husband Paul, and Annie’s husband Alec into a dark world of obsession, passion, and deception where only the truth can set them free. Out of Print and Hard to Find.
Her Mother’s Shadow. Lacey O’Neill, while trying to care for the rebellious daughter of her late best friend, finally learns the truth about her own mother’s murder when a stranger arrives in the town of Kiss River, exposing the mysteries of the past.

Kathryn Cushman. Waiting for Daybreak. Clarissa’s dream of running her own pharmacy comes to a screeching halt after her grandfather hires Paige, who is desperate to help her mother pay for a cure that isn’t covered by insurance while also hiding a deadly secret. (Christian Fiction)

Roddy Doyle. The woman who walked into doors. (like Picture Perfect) Relates the story of Paula Spencer, a woman approaching forty and struggling with alcoholism and a violent marriage. Not as easy a read as Picture Perfect but the thematic material is similar. Doyle writes about a woman’s experience with a perception that is rare, a compassion that is scorching and an uncompromising frankness that splinters his heroine’s suffering directly into the reader’s heart. Doyle triumphs here, with a tough-minded but deeply moving exploration of a wretched marriage and a woman who has lost all her self-esteem. Literary.

Louise Erdrich. The Painted Drum (like Keeping Faith) Discovering a cache of valuable Native American artifacts while appraising an estate in New Hampshire, Faye Travers investigates the history of a ceremonial drum, which possesses spiritual powers and changes the lives of people who encounter it. Erdrich crafts a provocative read elevated by beautiful imagery and stunning language. Literary.

Jeffrey Eugenides. The Virgin Suicides. (like The Pact) The narrator and his friends piece together the events that led up to suicides of the Lisbon girls, brainy Therese, fastidious Mary, ascetic Bonnie, libertine Lux, and saintly Cecilia.

Eileen Goudge. Once in a Blue Moon. Separated in childhood and sent to foster homes after their neglectful mother’s imprisonment, sisters Lindsay and Kerrie Ann are reunited in adulthood and help each other through the fiercest battles of their lives despite their differences.
One Last Dance. In the wake of a family tragedy in which their mother is accused of shooting their father, three sisters–Daphne, Alex, and Kitty–return home to confront a tangle of family secrets and lies and to rebuild their lives in the midst of devastating loss.

Kevin Guilfoile. Cast of Shadows. (like My Sister’s Keeper) Totally different twist on bioethics. When his daughter is brutally raped and murdered, Davis Moore, a Chicago fertility doctor specializing in reproductive cloning, comes up with a horrifying idea–to clone the murderer who killed his daughter from a vial of the killer’s DNA.

David Guterson. Our Lady of the Forest (like Keeping Faith) Sixteen-year-old runaway and unlikely spiritual candidate Ann Holmes, surviving by living in a tent and working as a mushroom picker, experiences a vision of the Virgin Mary in the foggy woods of a Washington November afternoon. Though some readers may be frustrated by the slow pace, Guterson’s third novel is thoughtful, humane, richly detailed, and atmospheric. It should be welcomed by those who loved Snow Falling on Cedars. Literary.

Jane Hamilton. Disobedience. (like My Sister’s Keeper) Chicago private school student Henry stumbles onto the e-mail account he set up for his mother and inadvertently discovers she is having an affair with a violin maker wholly different from Henry’s socialist history teacher father.
A Map of the World. On a diary farm in the midwest, Alice is watching her neighbor’s daughter when she drowns in the pond. This marks the beginning of a series of events that turns Alice into a scapegoat and brings about her family’s downfall.

Kristin Hannah. The things we do for love. (like Plain Truth) Returning to her hometown to care for her aging mother and run the family restaurant, Angie Malone hires job-seeking teen Lauren Ribaldo, with whom she shares an emotional journey that helps both women realize the meaning of family.

Kent Haruf. Eventide. (like Keeping Faith) A novel of small-town life in the high plains region around Holt, Colorado, follows the challenges, emotional upheaval, tragedies, and intertwined destinies of the local inhabitants as they cope with the changes they encounter. This natural interaction of people thrown together by fate and unplanned circumstances realistically mimics life in general and, specifically, the community life of many small towns. The overall tone of the book offers hope and love despite the stark moments of sadness and grief. Compassion, strength of character, and loving concern for all life become the positive forces that help each of the individuals carry on. This book stands alone, but reading the two novels (follows Plainsong) in sequence gives additional meaning and understanding to the events and characters. Literary.

Alice Hoffman. Blue Diary. (like Plain Truth) The revelation of a dark secret about Ethan Ford’s true identity and his past threatens to turn a small Massachusetts town upside down as the truth shatters Monroe’s small-town peace and tests the bonds between family and friends.
Local Girls. An anthology of interconnected short stories captures the lives and destinies of the Samuelsons, a family struggling with tragedy and divorce, in a series of portraits that chronicle Gretel Samuelson’s journey through betrayal, grief, conflicting loyalties, friendship, and loss.
Turtle Moon. Determined to begin life anew in Verity, Florida, with her son, Keith, transplanted New Yorker Lucy Rosen finds everything she ever hoped for and everything she ever feared in her new community.

Eva Hoffman. The Secret. (like My Sister’s Keeper) Seventeen-year-old Iris Surrey, increasingly troubled by her unusually close relationship with her look-alike mother, sets out in 2022 Chicago to learn the identity of her father, and along the way, the secret of her own origin.

Ann Hood. For a quieter, more lyrical tone than Picoult, Hood’s small town female characters are well developed but their problems are closer to home — infidelity, sisterly rivalry, and cold feet at an impending marriage. Hood employs a little more introspection and personal drama in her stories.
Properties of Water. Protagonist Josie Hunter lives with her family in an economically strapped small Rhode Island town near a river that threatens to overflow its banks. A short brutal attack in a mall parking lot robs Josie of her confidence and dignity in addition to her car and groceries. The sudden arrival of her long gone sister, Michaela, exacerbates Josie’s current problems dealing with two constantly fighting daughters, an ailing father, and an unfaithful husband. Out of Print and Hard to Find.

Dara Horn. The World to Come. Having stolen a million-dollar Marc Chagall masterpiece, thirty-year-old quiz-show writer Benjamin Ziskind and his twin sister work to evade the police and evaluate the eighty-year-old link between their family and the famous painting. Horn deftly weaves an intricate story steeped in folklore and family secrets. Along the way, readers are offered glimpses of the possibilities, allegorical and otherwise, of life’s beginning and end. This is intelligent, compelling literary fiction.

Nick Hornby. A Long Way Down. (like The Pact) Meeting on New Year’s Eve on the roof of Topper’s House, a London destination infamous as a last stop for suicidal people, a talk show host, a musician, a teenage girl, and a mother share stories about their circumstances and decisions.

Kazuo Ishiguro. Never let me go. (like My Sister’s Keeper) Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth were once classmates at Hailsham, a private school in the English countryside with a most unusual student body: human clones created solely to serve as organ donors. A reunion draws these three companions on a nostalgic odyssey into the supposedly idyllic years of their lives at the isolated private school in the serene English countryside, and a dramatic confrontation with the truth about their childhoods and about their lives in the present. The author nimbly navigates the landscape of emotion–the inevitable link between present and past and the fine line between compassion and cruelty, pleasure and pain. Literary.

Dave King. The Ha-Ha. Compelling characters & interesting story like Picoult’s reside in this debut novel that explores familial bonds arising between people with no blood ties. Rendered unable to speak, read, or write after a Vietnam War injury thirty years earlier, Howard Kapostash feels trapped by his disability until his high school sweetheart, recently forced into rehab, asks him to care for her nine-year-old son.

Jean Hanff Korelitz. The Sabbathday River. (like Plain Truth) When she stumbles upon the drowned body of a newborn baby girl floating in the Sabbathday River, Naomi Roth, something of an outcast in conservative Goddard, New Hampshire, becomes involved in the case of Heather Pratt, a young single mother, who is charged with murder.

Evan Kuhlman. Wolf Boy. (like My Sister’s Keeper and The Tenth Circle) Grieving over the death of their older brother and son, Francis, some members of the Harrelson family lose themselves in their fantasies, Francis’s fiancee thinks that she is haunted by his ghost, and his younger brother invents a comic strip called “The Adventures of Wolf Boy.”

Lori Lansens. Rush Home Road. When she volunteers to take in five-year-old Sharla Cody for the summer, eighty-year-old Addy Shadd forms a powerful bond with Sharla that prompts her to recollect her own childhood in Rusholme, a town settled by fugitive slaves in the mid-1800s.

Mary Lawson. Crow Lake. In the rural farm country of northern Ontario, the lives of two families–the farming Pye family, and zoologist Kate Morrison and her three brothers–are brought together and torn apart by misunderstanding, resentment, family love, and tragedy.

Madeleine L’Engle. A Live Coal in the Sea. (like Keeping Faith) Three generations of a family struggle with loyalty, commitment, and identity when Camilla Dickinson is confronted by her granddaughter, Raffi, with the news that her father has hinted that Camilla is not really her grandmother.

Billie Letts. Where the Heart Is. Pregnant, overweight, and convinced about her inherent bad luck, Novalee Nation hopes for a new life in a new state with her boyfriend but is dumped along the way in Oklahoma, where she finds her spirit renewed.

Elinor Lipman. The Inn at Lake Devine. When Natalie Marx is 13, she arranges to visit a gentile vacation spot with a camp friend, and years later, the two meet again.

Emily Listfield. Waiting to surface. Notified by police that her sculptor husband of ten years has vanished while swimming off the coast of Florida, magazine editor Sarah is aided by a team of investigators to discern the truth about her husband’s fate.

Yona Zeldis McDonough. In Dahlia’s Wake. Rick and Naomi, one-time college sweethearts, struggle to cope with their grief and guilt after their lives are shattered by the death of their beloved daughter, Dahlia, in an automobile accident. (More like Elizabeth Berg). Out of Print and Hard to Find.

Miller, Sue. Similar to Picoult thematically, except her stories have a more literary quality and delve more deeply into character’s emotions.
While I Was Gone. An Oprah Book Club selection. Jo Becker is supremely content with her life. She’s married to a loving minister, owner/operator of her own veterinary practice and mother to three grown daughters. She doesn’t talk about the summer of 1968 when she walked away from another husband, another family and into a completely different identity only to be jerked back to her previous life after the brutal murder of her best friend. The reappearance of an old housemate forces Jo to analyze every choice she has made since that fateful summer.
The World below. (like Keeping Faith) After being diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1919, a young woman is sent to a sanitarium, where she rediscovers the pleasures of unfettered youth and falls in love with a doomed man.

Lost in the Forest. (like My Sister’s Keeper) For Eva, the divorced and happily remarried mother of three children, and her adolescent middle child, Daisy, the death of Eva’s second husband John in a car accident turns their lives upside down.
The Good Mother. Contemporary Literary Classic. Waging a custody battle for her four-year-old daughter Molly, Anna Dunlap finds herself caught in a conflict arising from her former husband’s and in-laws’ self-righteous definition of a good mother and her own sexual needs.

Jacquelyn Mitchard. The Breakdown Lane. Doling out advice in a Wisconsin newspaper column, Julianne Ambrose Gillis struggles with the challenges of her husband’s inexplicable abandonment and her subsequent diagnosis with a serious illness.
The Deep end of the ocean. Nine years after three-year-old Ben Cappadora’s kidnapping, a twelve-year-old boy knocks at the door of the Cappadora house, looking for yard work. Followed by sequel No Time To Wave Goodbye.
The Theory of Relativity. Readers with a preference for observing how families in turmoil deal with shocking situations will appreciate this novel of grieving grandparents locked in an anguished custody battle for the sole surviving daughter of parents lost in a car accident.

Karen Osborn. The River Road. Inseparable friends since childhood, brothers David and Michael and their neighbor Kay embark on a night of adventure during which a drug-influenced David jumps off a bridge and sets a devastating series of events in motion.

Elliot Perlman. Seven Types of Ambiguity. (like The Pact) Frustrated by years of unrequited love, an unemployed school teacher takes matters into his own hands, with unexpected repercussions, in a story told by six different narrators whose lives have become entangled with one another.

Francine Prose. After. (like 19 minutes) In the aftermath of a nearby school shooting, a grief and crisis counselor takes over Central High School and enacts increasingly harsh measures to control students, while those who do not comply disappear.

Anna Quindlen. Black and Blue. (like Picture perfect) Fran Benedetto tells a spellbinding story: how at 19 she fell in love with Bobby Benedetto; how their passionate marriage became a nightmare; why she stayed and then what happened on the night she finally decided to run away with her son and start a new life under a new name.
Rise and Shine. A novel about two sisters, the true meaning of success, and the qualities in life that matter most. It’s an otherwise ordinary Monday when Meghan’s perfect life hits a wall. A household name as the host of the country’s highest-rated morning talk show, Meghan cuts to a commercial break–but not before she mutters two forbidden words into her open mike. In an instant, it’s the end of an era, not only for Meghan, who is unaccustomed to dealing with adversity, but also for her younger sister, Bridget, a social worker in the Bronx who has always lived in Meghan’s long shadow. The effect of Meghan’s on-air truth telling reverberates through both their lives, affecting Meghan’s son, husband, friends, and fans, as well as Bridget’s perception of her sister, their complex childhood, and herself.

Luanne Rice. Concentrating less on controversial topics and more on family and personal relationships, the authors’ use of characters is similar to Picout; strong, intelligent women who find themselves consumed by life’s everyday and irregular tragedies but work out solutions with help from family and friends.
Home Fires. Glamorous and accomplished Anne has just lost her young daughter in a tragic accident and her husband to another woman. With her world in upheaval, Anne returns to the secluded island hometown that her earthy and envious sister Gabrielle never escaped. A fire in the women’s ancestral home drives Anne to rescue the one object she holds most dear and to be rescued by Thomas Devlin, a scarred firefighter with his own unfortunate past.

Jim Shepard. Project X. (like 19 minutes) Hanratty and his only friend, Flake, struggle to deal with the nightmare of junior high school–bullying, girls who taunt them, jocks who beat them up, a creepy old man who stalks them, and a disaffected sixth grader who adores them.

Carol Shields. Unless. Finely detailed, thoughtful, and sometimes even humorous this novel is about a mother’s grief over a daughter’s break with the family and how it revises her feminist outlook and pushes her craft as a writer in a new direction.

Anita Shreve. Light on Snow. (like Plain Truth) Remembering the December afternoon twenty years earlier when her father and she found an abandoned infant in the snow, Nicky recalls her father’s efforts to escape society after a tragedy and a young woman’s struggles to live with her choices.
Testimony. At a New England boarding school, a sex scandal is about to break. Even more shocking than the sexual acts themselves is the fact that they were caught on videotape. A Pandora’s box of revelations, the tape triggers a chorus of voices–those of the men, women, teenagers, and parents involved in the scandal–that details the ways in which lives can be derailed or destroyed in one foolish moment.

Lionel Shriver. We need to talk about Kevin. (like 19 minutes) If the question of who’s to blame for teenage atrocity intrigues news-watching voyeurs, it tortures our narrator, Eva. Two years before the opening of the novel, her son, Kevin, murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and the much-beloved teacher who had tried to befriend him. Because his sixteenth birthday arrived two days after the killings, he received a lenient sentence and is currently in a prison for young offenders in upstate New York. In relating the story of Kevin’s upbringing, Eva addresses her estranged husband, Frank, through a series of startlingly direct letters.

Elizabeth Strout. Abide with Me. (like Keeping Faith) After the tragic death of his young wife, Reverend Tyler Caskey, a New England minister, struggles to hold together his own life, his family, and his town, while dealing with his personal anger, grief, and loss of faith.

Anne Tyler. Ladder of Years. (like Picture Perfect) Forty-year-old Delia Grinstead, mother of three almost-grown children, impulsively walks away from her marriage and sets off into the unknown to begin an entirely new life, but suddenly she discovers that she is accumulating fresh responsibilities.

Ayelet Waldman. Daughter’s Keeper. (like Plain Truth) When Olivia, wild-haired and headstrong, makes a terrible mistake, she must turn to the person least likely to help–her mother, Elaine.

Jennifer Weiner. In her shoes. Twenty-eight-year-old Maggie Feller, who goes from job to job on the fringes of show business, and her older sister Rose, a lawyer, have had no contact with their grandmother, Ella, since their mother’s death years ago, but all three need to find each other to reach happiness

Hot new fiction titles
Are you ready for more beach reads? Here are a few suggestions for readers as you search for the perfect way to relax amidst the sun and sand or in your air-conditioned living rooms.
First up are some energizing adrenaline-inducing page-turners. If you are unfamiliar with Lisa Gardner and looking for a suspenseful read, then this is a great time to discover her. Her novel, The Neighbor, revolves around the overnight disappearance of a young mother. Alternating points of view and cliffhanger chapter endings drive the pace and keep readers off balance in this compelling and unsettling read.

In Barry Eisler’s newest title, Inside Out, Black Ops soldier Ben Treven, last seen in Fault Line (2009), is sent to find a rogue specialist who stole 92 videotapes from a secret prison at Guantanamo Bay. The graphic violence and sex may make some readers uncomfortable; however, this is a relentless look into the human cost on those who torture on behalf of their country. It is interesting to note that the author spent three years as a covert agent in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations.

This debut by Tom Hinshelwood may remind some of Robert Ludlum’s spy thrillers. In The Killer, top assassin Victor accomplishes an assignment but a hit squad waiting for him lets Victor know his client has betrayed him. Hunting that client with two assassins, the CIA, and Russian Special Forces on his trail keeps Victor running from London to Moscow to Tanzania. Victor’s introspective analysis of his lonely life gives the reader a break between the relentless pace of nonstop shoot-outs.
Mike Lawson brings his political fixer, Joe DeMarco, out for a fifth outing in this series that began with The Inside Ring (2005) in House Justice. When a CIA officer in Iran is captured and murdered because of a congressional leak, the Speaker of the House sends DeMarco to find out who is responsible. One step behind an unknown killer, Joe works with the beautiful CIA agent Angela DeCaprio to find the leakers, who are being tracked and killed one by one. Lawson has honed his skills as a political thriller writer and produces a fast-moving, cynical but moral tale.

Louise Penny introduced us to the Canadian village of Three Pines and Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surete du Quebec in Still Life(2006). In her fifth in this series, The Brutal Telling, Gamache and his team are back in Three Pines investigating the murder of a hermit. This is a true gem of a series that should not be missed by readers who like good plotting, compelling characters, and stunning settings.
If Fantasy is your addiction of choice for lazy reading by the pool, then Brandon Sanderson’s Warbreaker will enthrall you. The ruler of Idris balks at fulfilling a longstanding treaty that requires sending his accomplished favorite daughter, Vivenna, to marry the mysterious god-king of a rival kingdom. He instead replaces Vivenna with Siri, his headstrong and disposable younger daughter. This is a Fantasy author that should not be missed!

Historical fiction fans will be captivated by the grandeur and treachery of Ancient Rome vividly brought to life in Michelle Moran’s tale of the last of the Egyptian Ptolemys in Cleopatra’s Daughter. Following the deaths of their parents, Antony and Cleopatra, ten-year-old Selene and her twin brother, Alexander, have been taken to Rome and placed in the home of Octavia, sister to Octavian and Anthony’s abandoned wife. Through Selene’s eyes, readers are given an intimate view of the imperial family as Octavian consolidates his powers and finally becomes the Emperor Augustine.
Sandra Dallas’s Prayers for Sale takes place in 1936 in an isolated Colorado mining town. The hardy miners’ wives who have eked out an existence in the town of Middle Swan can be difficult, and for newcomer Nit Spindle, friendly prospects are grim. When she sees the elderly Hennie Comfort’s rickety old “prayers for sale” sign, she stops to buy a prayer and, surprisingly, gains a friend. Fans of Lee Sue Monk Kidd and Kaye Gibbons will love this story.

Beth Harbison’s Thin, Rich, Pretty is a fast and fun read by the author of Hope in a Jar (2009). Holly and Nicola became fast friends at summer camp 20 years ago, united in their hatred of rich, spoiled Lexi, who loved making fun of the shy Nicola and the overweight Holly. When the three all meet up again in their late thirties, secrets from summer camp come to the surface, and they realize it’s time to grow up, each in her own way.

A list of authors who either imitate or satirize Miss Austen and her books using her characters, plots, settings, and tone.

FICTION

Aidan, Pamela.

• An assembly such as this.
• Duty and desire.
• These three remain.

Aiken, Joan.

• Jane Fairfax: the secret story of the second heroine in Jane Austen’s Emma.
• Eliza’s daughter.
• The youngest Miss Ward.
• Lady Catherine’s necklace.
• Mansfield revisited.

Aston, Elizabeth.    

• Mr. Darcy’s daughters.
• The exploits & adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy.
• True Darcy spirit.
• The second Mrs. Darcy.
• The Darcy connection.
• Mr. Darcy’s dream.

Aylmer, Janet.     Darcy’s story.

Barron, Stephanie.

• Jane and the unpleasantness at Scargrave manor.
• Jane and the man of the cloth.
• Jane and the wandering eye.
• Jane and the genius of the place.
• Jane and the stillroom maid.
• Jane and the prisoner of Wool House.
• Jane and the ghosts of Netley.
• Jane and His Lordship’s legacy.
• Jane and the barque of Frailty.

Bebris, Carrie.

• Pride and prescience: or, a truth universally acknowledged.
• Suspense and sensibility: or, first impressions revisited.
• North by Northanger: or, the shades of Pemberley.
• The matters at Mansfield, or, the Crawford affair.
• Intrigue at Highbury: or, Emma’s match.

Berdoll, Linda.

• Mr. Darcy takes a wife.
• Darcy and Elizabeth: at home at Pemberley.

Brant, Marilyn.    According to Jane.

Burris, Skylar Hamilton.    

• Conviction.
• An unlikely missionary.

Campbell Webster, Emma.     Lost in Austen: create your own Jane austen adventure.

Cohen, Paula Marantz.

• Jane Austen in Boca.
• Jane Austen in Scarsdale:  or love, death, and the SATs.

Fenton, Kate.     Vanity and vexation.

Fowler, Karen Joy.    The Jane Austen book club.

Grahame-Smith, Seth.     Pride and prejudice and zombies: the classic regency romance.

Grange, Amanda.    

• Mr. Knightley’s diary.
• Captain Wentworth’s diary.
• Edmund Bertrand’s diary.
• Colonel Brandon’s diary.

Hale, Shannon.     Austenland.

Hannon, Patrice.     Dear Jane Austen:  a heroine’s guide to life and love.

Hockensmith, Steven.     Pride and prejudice and zombies: dawn of the dreadfuls.

James, Syrie.     The lost memoirs of Jane Austen.

Lathan, Sharon.     Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy: two shall become one.

McCullough, Colleen.     The independence of Miss Mary Bennet.

Nathan, Melissa.    

• Persuading Annie.
• Pride, prejudice and Jasmin Field.

O’Rourke,  Sally Smith.     The man who loved Jane Austen.

Pattillo, Beth.

• Jane Austen ruined my life.
• Mr. Darcy broke my heart.

Rigler, Laurie Viera.     

• Confessions of a Jane Austen addict.
• Rude awakenings of a Jane Austen addict.

Rubino, Jane.     Lady Vernon and her daughter.

Winters, Ben H.     Sense and sensibility and sea monsters.

NON-FICTION

Adams, Carol.    The bedside, bathtub & armchair companion to Jane Austen.

Cecil, David Lord.     A portrait of Jane Austen.

Flirting with Pride and prejudice: fresh perspectives on the original chick-lit masterpiece.

Henderson, Lauren.     Jane Austen’s guide to dating.

Honan, Park.     Jane Austen: her life.

Jenkyns, Richard.  A fine brush on ivory: an appreciation of Jane Austen.

Mitton, G.E.     Jane Austen and her times, 1775-1817.

Pool, Daniel.     What Jane Austen ate and Charles Dickens knew: from fox hunting to whist: the facts of daily life in nineteenth century England.

Ray, Joan.     Jane Austen for dummies.

DVD

Becoming Jane.

Lost in Austen.

Jane Austen book club.

Click on the titles below to search the catalog

Brown, Dale. Executive intent. SUSPENSE
When the United States develops a new, state-of-the-art missile defense weapon, it threatens global stability and pits the world’s superpowers in a contest for dominance in the space around Earth’s orbit.

Carter, Mary. My sister’s voice.
Deaf artist Lacey Gears’ happy life—good boyfriend, rising career, faithful dog—is upended when she receives a mysterious note informing her that she has a twin sister she didn’t know existed. Lacey soon discovers the message is true and that she’s not an orphan as she had thought: her parents put her up for adoption and kept her hearing twin, Monica. As she comes to terms with this, she reconnects with her sister, but the secrets kept by her birth family could have dire consequences.

Child, Lee. 61 hours: a Reacher novel. SUSPENSE
A tour bus crashes in a savage snowstorm and lands Jack Reacher in the middle of a deadly confrontation. In nearby Bolton, South Dakota, one brave woman is standing up for justice in a small town threatened by sinister forces–and Reacher will risk his own to save her from a coldly proficient assassin who never misses.

French, Nicci. The other side of the door. SUSPENSE.
Bonnie finds her summer fling boyfriend and fellow band member, Hayden, dead on the floor of a friend’s London apartment. She proceeds to hide the corpse and obliterate every sign of her presence at the crime scene. Hayden’s well-known involvement with other women could have provided Bonnie a motive for murder. To complicate matters, at least one more person appears to have altered the crime scene.

Harris, Charlaine. Dead in the family. FANTASY
After the brief but deadly Faery War, Sookie Stackhouse is hurt and she’s angry. Just about the only bright spot in her life is the love she thinks she feels for vampire Eric Northman who is under scrutiny by the new Vampire King because of their relationship. And as the political implications of the Shifters coming out are beginning to be felt, Sookie’s connection to the Shreveport pack draws her into the debate and up against a Fae who wants her dead. Series is the basis for HBO’s True Blood.

Huston, James W. Falcon seven. SUSPENSE.
Captured after bombing a hospital that was mistaken for a terrorist meeting site, two Navy fliers are put on a high-profile trial for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, prompting an impassioned defense by Washington, D.C. lawyer and former Navy seal Jack Caskey. By the best-selling author of Marine One.

Leon, Donna. A question of belief. MYSTERY.
Under the stifling summer sun, Venice is flooded with tourism. Commissario Guido Brunetti is planning the perfect mountain vacation where he can catch up on his reading. However, before he can go, an old friend has him look into a court corruption case. As he probes deeper, Commissario Brunetti quickly becomes embroiled in a shocking murder case that is linked to his own investigation.

Lepore, Jacqueline. Descent into dust. FANTASY.
Twenty-five-year old Victorian widow Emma Andrews discovers that she is destined to hunt vampires.

Macomber, Debbie. Hannah’s list.
On the anniversary of his wife’s death, Dr. Michael Everett receives a letter in which she, making one last request, implores him to marry again and asks him to consider three women–Winter Adams, a lonely chef; Leanne Lancaster, a divorced oncology nurse; and Macy Roth, an eccentric artist. Blossom Street series; bk.6

Margolin, Phillip. Supreme justice: a novel of suspense.
Attorney Brad Miller, FBI agent Keith Evans, and private investigator Dana Cutler untangle a five-year-old murder case involving a ghost ship and the President’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Preston, Douglas J. & Lincoln Child. Fever dream. MYSTERY.
With Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta’s assistance, Pendergast embarks on a quest to uncover the mystery of his wife’s murder. As he probes more deeply into the riddle–the answer to which is revealed in a night of shocking violence, deep in the Louisiana bayou–he finds himself faced with an even greater question: who was the woman he married?

Robards, Karen. Shameless. ROMANCE.
Lady Elizabeth, the youngest and most headstrong of the three Banning sisters, has been engaged three times, and has most scandalously broken off all three engagements. Neil Severin is a wicked rogue, black of heart and black of reputation. A man of no morals, devoid of compassion, he is a government-sanctioned assassin. When circumstances most unexpectedly throw the two together, Beth’s life is in danger and Neil finds himself in the unexpected role of hero, racing to save her before it’s too late.

Sandford, John. Storm prey. SUSPENSE.
Weather Karkinnen, surgeon, wife of an investigator named Lucas Davenport, unwittingly witnesses the robbery of the hospital pharmacy where she works. With the death of a pharmacy worker on their hands, the three thieves set out to find out who Weather is, and eliminate the only possible witness.

Tracy, P. J. Shoot to thrill. MYSTERY.
With the help of local law enforcement and the FBI, the Monkeewrench crew tracks a serial killer using savvy computer technology. Book 5 in series.

Turow, Scott. Innocent. SUSPENSE.
“INNOCENT continues the story of Rusty Sabich and Tommy Molto who are, once again, twenty years later, pitted against each other in a riveting
psychological match after the mysterious death of Rusty’s wife”–Provided by publisher. Follows Presumed Innocent.