Friday, October 30, 2009

Eileen Goudge Tells About Family Bonds -- Lost & Re-found

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.

Nora Roberts.
Bed of roses
Florist Emma Grant cannot find Mr. Right, until her passion grows for someone who has been in front of her the whole time, Jack Cooke, an architect that works closely with her and her colleagues at Vows wedding planning

Michelle Cameron.
The fruit of her hands : the story of Shira of Ashkenaz
A tale based on the life of the author's thirteenth-century ancestor finds Shira, the wife of a famous medieval Jewish rabbi and scholar, rescued from a wrongful imprisonment and blossoming under previously restricted intellectual challenges before seeking refuge from increasing anti-Semitic beliefs.

Haywood Smith.
Ladies of the lake
Spending a summer together in the hopes of inheriting their grandmother's lake estate, four sisters share old rivalries and new understandings while struggling with respective challenges in the areas of finance, marriage, and boundaries.

Kate Grenville.
The lieutenant
Daniel Rooke was always an outsider. Daniel could only hope - against all the evidence - that he would one day find his place in life. By 1788, Daniel has become Lieutenant Rooke, astronomer with First Fleet as it lands on the unknown shores of New South Wales. But the place where they have landed will prove far more revelatory than the night sky.

Janet Skeslien Charles.
Moonlight in Odessa
A tale inspired by the Russian mail-order bride industry finds young engineer Daria landing a secretary job at a foreign firm and redirecting her licentious boss toward a more willing mistress before taking work with a matchmaking agency, through which she meets an American teacher who fails to attract her as strongly as an irresponsible mobster.

Patricia Cornwell.
The Scarpetta factor
Kay Scarpetta offers her services pro bono to the New York City medical examiner's office, in addition to her duties as CNN's senior forensic analyst, which seems to trigger a series of unsettling events, including an apparent death threat.

Sheramy Bundrick.
Sunflowers
Nineteenth-century French prostitute Rachel Courteau becomes drawn to one of her newest clients, Vincent Van Gogh, and a true relationship blossoms until outside pressures threaten the safe haven they have created.

Terry Pratchett.
Unseen academicals : a novel of Discworld
While Archchancellor Ridcully, at the request of benevolent tyrant Lord Ventinari, scrambles to compose a capable football team from the unathletic rabble at Ankh-Morpork's Unseen University, handsome yet lazy Trev falls for dim yet pretty kitchen maid Juliet, and hopes his friend Nutt's friendship with the cook, Glenda, will help him win romance.

Lisa Patton.
Whistlin' Dixie in a nor'easter
Leaving her beloved Memphis to help her husband's pipe dream of running a Vermont inn, southern belle Leelee Satterfield discovers numerous unanticipated challenges and is forced to apply her southern-style wits in the wake of a cruel swindle.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Marcia Muller & Michael Connelly Among Favorite Authors With New Books on the Library Shelves

Stuart MacBride.
Blind eye
DCI Logan McRae investigates the torture and murder of several businessmen from the Polish community in Aberdeen, Scotland, trying to discern whether it is truly a hate crime or instead a veiled gangland turf war.

Michelle Moran
Cleopatra's daughter
A tale inspired by the lives of the children of Cleopatra and Marc Antony finds Selene, her twin Alexander, and their younger brother Ptolemy sent to Rome to be raised by a formidable family rival after the deaths of their parents.

Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt
Dracula : the un-dead
sequel cowritten by Bram Stoker's great-grandnephew and based on the original author's handwritten notes takes place twenty-five years later and finds Van Helsing's morphine-addicted protégé obsessed with countering evil forces and Quincey Harker learning disturbing truths about his parents' dark secrets in the wake of several murders.

John Saul.
House of reckoning
Outcast by an injury sustained from her father, foster child Sara Crane befriends a former mental patient and her art teacher and soon creates paintings of long-ago violent crimes committed by the inmates of a local asylum.

John Irving.
Last night in twisted river
In a story spanning five decades, a twelve-year-old boy in New Hampshire mistakes the constable's girlfriend for a bear, leading to an unfortunate accident that forces the boy and his father to become fugitives pursued by the constable, with their only help coming from a fiercely libertarian logger,

Marcia Muller.
Locked in
Fully conscious but locked in an unresponsive body after being shot by an unknown assailant, private investigator Sharon McCone lies in a hospital bed desperately struggling to communicate and solve the mystery of the attack.

Deborah Crombie.
Necessary as blood
A young mother has gone missing, and only Scotland Yard's Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and his partner, Gemma James, can stop a vicious killer and protect the child whose fate hangs in the balance.

Michael Connelly.
Nine dragons
Investigating the shooting death of a Chinese liquor store owner, detective Harry Bosch identifies a suspect as a Los Angeles member of a Hong Kong triad only to have his daughter go missing, a situation that prompts his high-stakes search across the Pacific.

Vince Flynn.
Pursuit of honor
In a new thriller featuring CIA superagent Mitch Rapp, fearless Americans must risk their lives for their country's security, fighting a covert war that can never be discussed, even with their own political leaders.

Annelise Ryan.
Working stiff
A first installment in a new series finds wisecracking nurse-turned-coroner Mattie Winston leaving her unfaithful husband only to find herself implicated in the murder of his girlfriend, a situation for which she struggles to clear her name before falling for a handsome detective.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Get In the Holiday Mood With New Novels from Susan Wiggs & Richard Paul Evans

Susan Wiggs.
Lakeshore Christmas
When Maureen Davenport, a prim and proper librarian, is forced to direct Avalon's annual holiday pageant with Eddie Haven, a recovering former child-star who hates Christmas with a passion, she prays for a Christmas miracle.

Richard Paul Evans.
The Christmas list
The best-selling author of The Christmas Box and Grace returns with a new heartwarming novel for the holiday season, a story of hope, love, and faith.

Val McDermid.
Beneath the bleeding
Recovering in the hospital after the city of Bradfield's star soccer player is poisoned and several are killed in a stadium explosion, Dr. Tony Hill tries to make sense of the case, which is complicated by the fact that his usual ally, DCI Carol Jordan, has been pushed to the margins of the investigation by intelligence services.

Tracie Peterson.
Dawn's prelude
When newly widowed Lydia Sellers discovers that she is the sole recipient of her husband's fortune, her adult stepchildren battle to regain the inheritance for themselves, and, determined to put the memories of a painful past behind her, Lydia travels to join her aunt in Alaska, where the unexpected awaits her.

Christi Phillips.
The Devlin diary
When a Trinity College history professor is found murdered with a torn page of a seventeenth-century diary in his hand, fellow Claire Donovan and historian Andrew Kent believe his death may be linked to a series of unsolved killings in 1670s London.

Jessica Fletcher & Donald Bain.
A fatal feast : a murder, she wrote mystery
Suffering from writer's block with both her novel's deadline and Thanksgiving fast approaching, Jessica Fletcher and her friend, Scotland Yard Inspector George Sutherland, stumble upon the body of a man with a carving knife stuck in his chest.

Mercedes Lackey.
Gwenhwyfar : the white spirit
Gwenhwyfar, the King's daughter, chooses the path of the Warrior, but is called upon by the Ladies of the Well to become Arthur's queen, and faces temptation, trechery, intrigue, and betrayal.

Joanne Fluke.
Plum pudding murder : a Hannah Swensen mystery
When Larry Jaeger, the owner of the Crazy Elf Christmas Tree Lot, is murdered, bakery owner Hannah Swenson, during the busiest time of the year, must sift through a wealth of suspects before a murderous Scrooge strikes again.

Laura Childs.
Tragic magic
Scrapbook shop owner Carmela helps her friend renovate an old mansion in New Orleans into a crafty haunted house for tourists, but finds herself investigating a series of murders when a flaming body comes crashing through the window.

Kerry Greenwood.
Trick or treat : a Corinna Chapman mystery
Greenwood's Melbourne baker deals with a competitor bakery, her boyfriends gorgeous ex-girlfriend, and a strange outbreak of madness which seems to be centered on her street.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

William Bernhardt & Diana Gabaldon Have New Novels on the Library Shelves

William Bernhardt.
Capitol offense
Accused of murdering a police officer he held responsible for the tragic death of his wife, Professor Dennis Thomas implores high-profile lawyer Ben Kincaid to defend him, a case during which the intrepid attorney is pitted against an ambitious DA and a dangerous conspiracy.

Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa.
Daughters of the stone
A tale spanning five generations of a family of African-Puerto Rican women finds mute seamstress Fela working in colonial Puerto Rico and drawing on her tribal beliefs to enable the birth of a daughter who becomes a powerful curandera.

Diana Gabaldon.
An echo in the bone
While Jacobite Jamie Fraser reluctantly participates in the American rebellion with a foreknowledge of the fledgling country's victory, his time-traveling wife, Claire, worries about the ultimate price of the war while struggling to safeguard her family

Peggy Webb.
Elvis and the grateful dead
When two Elvis impersonators meet their maker during the annual Elvis festival, Callie Valentine Jones must come to the aid of her cousin Lovie--a 190-pound bombshell who has had more boyfriends than the King had hits--when she becomes the prime suspect.

Joe Pernice.
It feels so good when I stop
In this funny and irreverent debut novel by the acclaimed singer, songwriter, and front man of The Pernice Brothers, a modern Everyman struggles to learn how to love, want, choose, and commit all on his own terms.

Nick Hornby.
Juliet, naked
Ending her relationship with a man who turns out to be in love with a reclusive singer, Annie initiates an e-mail friendship with the musician that reveals their mutual loneliness, his concerns about his young son, and his plans to release an acoustic version of his most successful album

Alexander McCall Smith.
The lost art of gratitude
Encountering high-flying financier Minty Auchterlonie while attending a birthday party, Isabel learns of Minty's complicated monetary troubles and wonders if the ambitious woman is perpetuating a fraud, a situation that is further complicated by a plagiarism battle with Professor Dove and Cat's problematic new man.

Norb Vonnegut.
Top producer : a novel of dark money, greed, and friendship
In the wake of a man's graphic murder in front of hundreds of party-goers

Margaret Atwood.
The year of the flood
When a natural disaster predicted by God's Gardeners leader Adam One obliterates most human life, two survivors trapped inside respective establishments that metaphorically represent paradise and hell wonder if any of their loved ones have survived.