The Guardians by Ana Castillo


"In her latest work, award-winning novelist, poet, and essayist Castillo (Peal My Love Like an Onion ) explores the gritty, grimy, and ultimately deadly world of the Mexico-U.S. border. Beautiful, middle-aged Regina, a public school aide, is raising her saintly nephew Gabo. Gabo's mother was murdered seven years ago by "coyotes," traffickers in humans and drugs. Now the boy's father, a frequent border crosser, has gone missing. As Regina begins her frantic search, she works with Miguel, a brilliant, charismatic, and disillusioned teacher whose estranged wife has also disappeared. The story of the anguished searches of these courageous, loving people is variously narrated by Regina, Gabriel, Miguel, and Miguel's grandfather. Castillo's voice is as much political as poetic: she writes of corrupt or powerless officials on both sides. That most of the victims are "legal" makes little difference to the tragic finale of this gripping novel."


~Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib., McMinnville, OR Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Lottery by Patricia Wood


"Perry Crandall has an IQ of 76, but is not retarded, as he'll have you know: his IQ would need to be less than 75 for that, and he knows the difference even if others may not. Perry, the 32-year-old narrator of Wood's warm-fuzzy debut, has worked at the same marine supply store for half his life and lives with his wisecracking grandmother Gram, whose gems of folk wisdom help him along. But when Gram dies, Perry's selfish, money-grubbing family members swoop in and swindle him out of the proceeds from the sale of her house—and then come a-knocking again when Perry wins $12 million in the Washington State Lottery. Suddenly everyone is paying attention to Perry, but who can he trust? Even his friends from the marine supply store behave differently, and on top of everything else, Perry finds himself falling for convenience store clerk Cherry, who has problems of her own. Despite his family's shenanigans and sinister maneuverings, Perry holds his own and discovers abilities he didn't know he had."



~ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Led Zeppelin Crashed Here by Chris Epting



"Epting's latest guidebook to pop-culture landmarks (after The Ruby Slippers, Madonna's Bra, and Einstein's Brain: The Locations of America's Pop Culture Artifacts) is dedicated to rock 'n' roll. Divided into themed sections, it covers, e.g., locations of famous performances, blues and jazz spots, and rock 'n' roll museums. Two somewhat macabre sections (whose entries are arranged alphabetically by artist) are dedicated to death and burial sites. This thematic organization is handy, unless you want to track down all the entries on a particular artist, in which case you'd have to look in every section. Even artists with entire chapters dedicated to them, like Elvis and the Beatles, have stray entries in the book's other parts. Organization aside, the entries are engaging and diverse. Epting manages to pay tribute to the major players without marginalizing the minor ones, choosing moments in musical history that cover a broad range of styles and generations."

-- John Helling, Aguilar Branch, NYPL Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A Hatred for Tulips by Richard Lourie


"Dark and fascinating.... Lourie's prose is spare and evocative, the plot compelling." - The Wall Street Journal


"According to Lourie's fictional account, the informant who turned Anne Frank and her family in to the Nazis was a mere adolescent, motivated more by a desire to feed his dying father, who was subsisting on tulip bulbs, than by an obsessive hatred for Jews or by an unalloyed greed. When the brother he hasn't seen for 60 years visits from America, self-pitying Joop confesses his terrible boyhood secret, which he claims prevented him from marrying, cultivating friendships or leading a normal life, and relives the war years. Events include Joop's brief play at sabotage (discovered by a Dutch Nazi uncle and reported to Joop's father, who savagely beats him); Joop surviving diphtheria (he's blamed when a similarly infected sibling dies); and Joop's parents' unhappy marriage and casual anti-Semitism, which cast shadows over his ordinary activities. Lourie's rendering of Anne Frank's fictional betrayer as a callous, misguided youth is stark and deftly written."


~Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Left for Dead: The Untold Story of the Greatest Disaster in Modern Sailing History by Nick Ward and Sinead O'Brien



"In this gripping account, Ward finally breaks his multiyear silence and shares his story of what happened to him on his boat Grimalkin during the storms that beset England's Fastnet sailing race in 1979. The race started off in near-perfect conditions on August 11 for the 303 yachts participating. The yachts left Cowes, England, to round Fastnet Rock off Ireland's southwest coast and sail back to Plymouth. Two days later, a storm of near-hurricane force left 15 dead, caused 24 crews to abandon ship, sank five yachts, and required the rescue of 136 sailors in the largest peacetime sea-and-air operation ever. Ward was on the 30-foot Grimalkin with five other men. After being repeatedly battered by blow-downs (waves that knock over a boat 90 to 180 degrees), most of the crew decided to abandon ship—a controversial decision because Ward and another sailor, Gerry Winks, were left on the Grimalkin, presumed dead. Both, in fact, were alive. Ward survived another 14 hours, resuscitating Winks (who eventually died) before being rescued."



~ Margaret Atwater-Singer, Univ. of Evansville Libs., IN Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Agnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer

"A comic caper and a raucous romance....laugh-out-loud funny....a fun ride." - Kirkus Reviews

"Crusie and Mayer (Don't Look Down) reunite to pen this mostly successful romantic comedy with a hint of action-adventure. Agnes Crandall is a feisty food writer and cookbook author on her third fiancé, Taylor Beaufort. Though their future looks bright, their romance is curdling, partly due to their deal with widowed mob wife Brenda Fortunato (who is selling them her old house) to hold a Fortunato family wedding at their house in exchange for three months of payments. After an armed thug tries to kidnap Agnes's dog, who appeared in the local paper wearing a gaudy necklace that Agnes believes (incorrectly) to be junk, a Fortunato family friend (and mobster) asks hit man Shane to keep an eye on Agnes. (He does more, of course, than keep an eye on her.) Brenda, meanwhile, may be trying to screw Agnes out of the house, and then there's the matter of a body and $5 million possibly hidden in thebasement. Crusie and Mayer have crafted a bubbly novel with enough convenient coincidences, caricatured characters and ridiculous situations to make screenwriters of goofball date movies proud; amusing banter and surprising moments of poignancy keep the mushrooming plot barely in check."

~ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Way Life Should Be by Christina Baker Kline

"Thirty-three-year-old New Yorker Angela Russo, dissatisfied with a career that amounts to gliding across a smooth plateau of predictability and fed up with abysmal blind dates, responds to an online personal ad written by Rich, a sailing instructor from Mount Desert Island, Maine. Angela begins to fall in love with the idea of Maine life just as much as she finds herself falling for Rich, and when her career suddenly goes up in flames, she moves to Mount Desert Island. Once she arrives, however, she learns that her vision of perfect New England life—and her perfect New England man—is far removed from reality. Rather than return to New York, Angela rents a rundown cottage and begins teaching an impromptu cooking class (based on recipes from her Italian grandmother). She befriends an eclectic handful of locals and carves out a new identity for herself. Initially, this tale of a lovelorn city girl out of her element feels like another foray into well-covered territory. But Kline (Desire Lines; Sweet Water) has a perfect sense of character and timing, and her vivid digressions on food (recipes are included) add sugar and spice to what could have been a stale premise."

~ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Gatecrasher by Madeline Wickham

"Everything's corning up roses for Fleur Daxeny as she goes through more rich men than she does designer hats. Fleur is beautiful, charming, and utterly irresistible, and her success at crashing funerals to find wealthy men is remarkable." "Fleur wastes no time in seducing her latest conquest, the handsome and rich widower Richard Favour, and she swoops into his life like a designer-clad tornado. His children are caught up in a whirlwind as their father's new girlfriend descends on the family estate, leaving chaos and excitement in her perfume-scented wake. Soon, more than one family member is suspicious of Fleur's true intentions." "Fleur is not one to wear her heart on her Chanel sleeve, but she soon finds herself embracing Richard and his lovable family. But just as Fleur contemplates jumping off the gold-digger train for good and enjoying the ride of true love, a long-buried secret from her past threatens to destroy her new family. Can she trust her heart or will she cut ties and run away as fast as her Prada pumps can take her?"--BOOK JACKET.

Red Mutiny: Eleven Fateful Days on the Battleship Potemkin by Neal Bascomb

"The protagonist of New York Times best-selling author Bascomb's (The Perfect Mile) account of the 1905 mutiny that inspired the Russian Revolution did not seem to have revolutionary tendencies before being drafted into the Russian navy in 1900. Yet Afanasy Matyushenko learned early as a member of the peasantry to resent being treated as ignorant chattel. A weapons machinist in the Black Sea Fleet aboard the tsars' newest battleship, the Potemkin, he was treated poorly and forced to work under dangerous conditions. With the help of several comrades, he engineered the takeover of the Potemkin, which ended up crisscrossing the Black Sea for 11 days with the tsar's navy in pursuit. Eventually, the mutinous crew surrendered. Given asylum, Matyushenko traveled abroad but was in the end hanged in his homeland. His legacy, according to Bascomb, was his having been a major force in ending the war with Japan and weakening Tsar Nicholas II's hold on his empire."

~ Harry Willems, Park City P.L., KS Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

How to Talk to a Widower: A Novel by Jonathan Tropper

"I had a wife. Her name was Hailey. Now she's gone. And so am I." That's the mantra of 29-year-old Doug Parker in this latest from Tropper (Everything Changes). Doug spends endless days immersed in drinking and generally doing nothing. Oh, that's not quite true. He sits on the front steps of the home he shared with Hailey and throws rocks at the rabbits that march across his lawn. He also writes a column called "How To Talk to a Widower" for M magazine. Who wouldn't feel sorry for Doug? But pity, he's learned, "is like a fart. You can tolerate your own, but you simply can't stand anyone else's." Women, like meatloaf-toting neighbor Laney Potter, want to heal him; his family, especially discontented twin Claire, want him to snap out of it; and Hailey's 16-year-old son wants Doug to become his legal guardian. Tropper has the twentysomething guy thing down to a science. His prose is funny and insightful, his characters quirky and just a bit off-balance but decent enough to take to our hearts. Ultimately, a series of perhaps unexpected events (including meeting Russ's very cool young guidance counselor) just might bring Doug back to the land of the living."

~Bette-Lee Fox, Library Journal Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

"In 1904, architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed a house for Edwin and Mamah Borthwick Cheney, respectable members of Oak Park, IL, society. Five years later, after a clandestine affair, Frank and Mamah scandalized that society by leaving their families to live together in Europe. Stunned by the furor, Mamah wanted to stay there, particularly after she met women's rights advocate Ellen Key, who rejected conventional ideas of marriage and divorce. Eventually, Frank convinced her to return to Wisconsin, where he was building Taliesin as a home and retreat. Horan's extensive research provides substantial underpinnings for this engrossing novel, and the focus on Mamah lets readers see her attraction to the creative, flamboyant architect but also her recognition of his arrogance. Mamah's own drive to achieve something important is tinged with guilt over abandoning her children. Tentative steps toward reconciliation end in a shocking, violent conclusion that would seem melodramatic if it weren't based on true events. The plot, characters, and ideas meld into a novel that will be a treat for fans of historical fiction but should not be pigeonholed in a genre section."

~Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State Univ. Lib., Mankato Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

This may be a young adult book, but there are a lot of us older readers seriously hooked on this vampire/love story series that began with Twilight and was followed by New Moon. The third book in the series, Eclipse, has just been released.

"Readers captivated by Twilight and New Moon will eagerly devour Eclipse, the much anticipated third book in Stephenie Meyer's riveting vampire love saga.

As Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge, Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between her love for Edward and her friendship with Jacob -- knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the ageless struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella has one more decision to make: life or death. But which is which?"

~ from the Publisher

Shoe Addicts Anonymous by Beth Harbison

"Arriving just in time for beach-read season, the effervescent hardcover fiction debut of cookbook author and romance novelist Harbison features four D.C.-area women who meet weekly to swap and chat about... shoes. Trying to get a handle on her massive consumer debt, Lorna Rafferty posts an Internet ad looking to trade footwear with women who have good taste and wear size seven-and-a-half. A senator's trophy wife, Helene Zaharis, is dreaming of escaping her loveless marriage when she stumbles upon Lorna's post. Overweight phone sex operator Sandra Vanderslice struggles to overcome her agoraphobia long enough to attend the shoe meetings. After a few funny missteps, the threesome finds a fourth member, Joss Bowen, the nanny of a shrewish socialite's hellion boys. Joss couldn't care less about shoes, but uses the group as a reason to get out of the house. Harbison does a fine job of showcasing how each woman is trapped—Lorna by her debt, Helene by her marriage, Sandra by her self-image, Joss by her employment contract—and how the fresh eyes of the group allow them to see themselves in a new light. Harbison creates vivid, convincing characters and handles them well. Reading this novel is like eating a slice of cake."

~ Publisher's Weekly. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Restitution by Lee Vance

"The plot setup of this debut thriller may sound familiar, if not trite: husband and wife in troubled marriage; wife found murdered; police focus on husband as prime suspect; husband must find wife's killer and clear his name. Fortunately, Vance does more than just embroider this theme. After the authorities accuse Peter Tyler, a kingpin at the Wall Street financial firm of Klein and Klein, of his wife's murder, Peter gets entangled in money scams, stolen art, a pharmaceutical giant and a brilliant, ruthless and byzantine act of vengeance. Peter's best friend, Russian business tycoon Andrei Zhilina, may hold the key, but not even Andrei's twin sister, Katya, has been able to contact Andrei in his Moscow office. Peter embarks on a strongly cinematic quest, which takes him from plush Manhattan offices and the Harvard Club to deserted warehouses and meetings with Moscow toughs. Vance's ambitious story line hangs together remarkably well, providing depth and surprises to what otherwise might have been just another fugitive action tale."


~ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Short Change by Patricia Smiley

"At the start of Smiley's diverting third Tucker Sinclair mystery (after 2005's Cover Your Assets), the self-employed Los Angeles business consultant is sorting out the financial problems of her friend PI Charley Tate when distraught and disheveled Eve Lawson walks into Tate's office with complaints of being followed. When Lawson disappears, her boyfriend is killed and Tate is run off the road, Tucker turns detective. She retraces Lawson's erratic recent history, interviewing family members and former boyfriends, but something doesn't add up. At the center of the mystery is a small piece of property, owned by Lawson, that stands in the way of a major luxury development. That the murder occurred in the jurisdiction of LAPD detective Joe Deegan, Tucker's boyfriend, creates a conflict of interest. Meanwhile, Tucker is fighting her aunt for ownership of the cozy beach house she inherited from her grandmother. Satisfied fans will enjoy the forays and foibles of this charming heroine."

~ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Origin by Diana Abu-Jaber


"When a series of seemingly innocent crib deaths come to the attention of fingerprint expert Lena Dawson, she somehow knows that these aren't the standard SIDS cases. The thought of a serial infant murderer is horrifying, yet Lena can't decide if she's just being oversensitive or if the evidence truly points to someone killing babies. Lena's own puzzling past may be influencing her interest in the case; she was adopted as a small child under mysterious circumstances, and the similarities between the babies' deaths and her own childhood begin to haunt her. Could they somehow be connected? Abu-Jaber (Crescent) has created a literary mystery that weaves an intriguing psychological character study with a tense and compelling plot that results in a rewarding finish. Lena is a flawed but appealing protagonist; let's hope she surfaces in sequels. "


~ Kellie Gillespie, City of Mesa Lib., AZ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Kinfolks: Falling off the Family Tree by Lisa Alther


"Most of us grow up thinking we know who are and where we come from. Lisa Alther's mother hailed from New York, her father from Virginia, and every day they reenacted the Civil War at home in East Tennessee. Then one night a grizzled babysitter with brown teeth told Lisa about the Melungeons: six-fingered child-snatchers who hid in cliff caves outside town. Forgetting about these creepy kidnappers until she had a daughter of her own, Lisa learned that the Melungeons were actually a group of dark-skinned people - some with extra thumbs - living in isolated pockets in the South. But who were they? Where did they come from? Were they the descendants of Sir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colony, or of shipwrecked Portuguese or Turkish sailors? Or were they the children of European frontiersmen, African slaves, and Native Americans? Theories abounded, but no one seemed to know for sure." "Learning that a cousin had had his extra thumbs removed, Lisa set out to discover who these mysterious Melungeons really were and why her grandmother wouldn't let her visit their Virginia relatives. Were there Melungeons in the family tree? Lisa assembled a hoard of clues over the years, but DNA testing finally offered answers."


--BOOK JACKET

Earthly Delights by Kerry Greenwood



"Owned and operated by the larger-than-life Corinna Chapman, Earthly Delights is a Melbourne, Australia, bakery housed on the ground floor of an eccentric apartment building designed in the Roman style. One morning in the alley outside the bakery, Corinna discovers a half-dead junkie, the latest victim in a string of heroin overdoses. Then someone threatens the building's occupants, and Corinna and her neighbors—Meroe, the witch; Mistress Dread, proprietor of an S&M shop; and the Lone Gunmen, three computer nerds—join forces. This series debut from the Australian author of the Phryne Fisher mysteries comes equipped with sassy, sexy characters; snappy dialog; and a plot that devotes more time to baking bread than to throwing red herrings. Put on the coffee pot, whip up a batch of muffins (yes, two recipes are included), and enjoy this thoroughly original tale."



- Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Play Dead by David Rosenfelt

"Few can rival attorney Andy Carpenter's affection for golden retrievers, especially his own beloved Tara. After he astonishes a New Jersey courtroom by successfully appealing another golden's death sentence, Andy discovers that this gentle dog is a key witness to a murder that took place five years before.

Andy pushes the boundaries of the law even further as he struggles to free an innocent man by convincing an incredulous jury to take canine testimony seriously. It will take all the tricks Andy's fertile mind can conceive to get to the bottom of a remarkable chain of impersonations and murder, and save a dog's life—and his own—in the process. "

~ from the book jacket

The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho


"Multimillion-seller Coelho (The Devil and Miss Prym, etc.) returns with another uncanny fusion of philosophy, religious miracle and moral parable. The Portobello of the title is London's Portobello Road, where Sherine Khalil, aka Athena, finds the worship meeting she's leading—where she becomes an omniscient goddess named Hagia Sophia—disrupted by a Protestant protest. Framed as a set of interviews conducted with those who knew Athena, who is dead as the book opens, the story recounts her birth in Transylvania to a Gypsy mother, her adoption by wealthy Lebanese Christians; her short, early marriage to a man she meets at a London college (one of the interviewees); her son Viorel's birth; and her stint selling real estate in Dubai. Back in London in the book's second half, Athena learns to harness the powers that have been present but inchoate within her, and the story picks up as she acquires a "teacher" (Deidre O'Neill, aka Edda, another interviewee), then disciples (also interviewed), and speeds toward a spectacular end...."



Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Night Ferry by Michael Robotham


"This is another dense, action-packed delight of a thriller by the ex-journalist author of Lost and Suspect. Recovering from injuries sustained on the job, Det.Ali Barba, receives a terse but startling note from Cate, an estranged friend who is pregnant, pleading with her to attend a high school reunion. There, in a brief conversation, Cate reveals that someone is trying to take her baby. The plot thickens when Cate and her husband are killed by a passing car as they leave the reunion. The apparent accident reveals that Cate had faked her pregnancy, and as Ali investigates, she uncovers a sinister underground network in which Cate was involved and soon becomes determined to honor her friend's memory by bringing those involved in her death to justice. Readers of Robotham's earlier novels will be pleased to see the return of both Ali Barba and Det. Vincent Ruiz."

—Caroline Mann, Univ. of Portland, OR Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Peony in Love by Lisa See


"Set in 17th-century China, See's fifth novel is a coming-of-age story, a ghost story, a family saga and a work of musical and social history. As Peony, the 15-year-old daughter of the wealthy Chen family, approaches an arranged marriage, she commits an unthinkable breach of etiquette when she accidentally comes upon a man who has entered the family garden. Unusually for a girl of her time, Peony has been educated and revels in studying The Peony Pavilion, a real opera published in 1598, as the repercussions of the meeting unfold. The novel's plot mirrors that of the opera, and eternal themes abound: an intelligent girl chafing against the restrictions of expected behavior; fiction's educative powers; the rocky path of love between lovers and in families. It figures into the plot that generations of young Chinese women, known as the lovesick maidens, became obsessed with The Peony Pavilion, and, in a Werther-like passion, many starved themselves to death. See (Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, etc.) offers meticulous depiction of women's roles in Qing and Ming dynasty China (including horrifying foot-binding scenes) and vivid descriptions of daily Qing life, festivals and rituals. Peony's vibrant voice, perfectly pitched between the novel's historical and passionate depths, carries her story beautifully—in life and afterlife."


Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A Good and Happy Child by Justin Evans



"This debut novel grips readers from the first chapter, which introduces 30-year-old George Davies, a man whose life is falling apart because he is scared to death to be in the same room as his newborn son. When he consults a psychiatrist for help, readers are thrust into the past, encountering George as a pudgy, friendless boy whose father has just died under mysterious circumstances. Is George really possessed by a demon, or is he just losing his mind? Does he need an exorcism—as his father's friends believe—or should he be committed to the state asylum? New York City strategy and business development executive Evans delivers a creepy and entertaining story full of perfectly written characters."

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney

Winner of the 2006 Costa Book of the Year

"The frigid isolation of European immigrants living on the 19th-century Canadian frontier is the setting for British author Penney's haunting debut. Seventeen-year-old Francis Ross disappears the same day his mother discovers the scalped body of his friend, fur trader Laurent Jammet, in a neighboring cabin. The murder brings newcomers to the small settlement, from inexperienced Hudson Bay Company representative Donald Moody to elderly eccentric Thomas Sturrock, who arrives searching for a mysterious archeological fragment once in Jammet's possession. Other than Francis, no real suspects emerge until half-Indian trapper William Parker is caught searching the dead man's house. Parker escapes and joins with Francis's mother to track Francis north, a journey that produces a deep if unlikely bond between them. Only when the pair reaches a distant Scandinavian settlement do both characters and reader begin to understand Francis, who arrived there days before them. Penney's absorbing, quietly convincing narrative illuminates the characters, each a kind of outcast, through whose complex viewpoints this dense, many-layered story is told."

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Sudoku Murder by Shelley Freydont


"Given the current popularity of sudoku puzzles, a mystery incorporating the game was due. Katie McDonald leaves her job at a Washington think tank to return to her small New Hampshire town to help her old friend and mentor, professor P.T. Avondale, save his puzzle museum. But he is found murdered lying on his desk with a half-finished sudoku puzzle. Someone wants the old Victorian house that also functioned as the professor's museum. Now Katie must find his killer and rescue the museum where she spent the best days of her unhappy childhood. In this captivating series debut, Freydont, author of the Linda Haggerty mystery series, introduces a new sleuthing heroine with plenty of spunk. Think Parnell Hall's Puzzle Lady novels when looking for a read-a-like. For cozy and puzzle fans."


~ Library Journal Review. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In the Woods by Tana French

"As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home from play. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent wood. When the police arrive, they find only one child, gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours." "Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same wood, he and Detective Cassie Maddox - his partner and closest friend - find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past."

--BOOK JACKET.

North River: A Novel by Pete Hamill



The North River is what real New Yorkers call the Hudson. Two blocks from its shore, Dr. James Finbar Delaney lives on Horatio Street in Greenwich Village. He is a GP, servicing the indigent poor. A wounded veteran of World War I, he is despondent that his wife, Molly, has deserted him and that his only child, Grace, has left her son, two-year-old Carlito, in his care. In the dead of winter in the Depression year of 1934, Dr. Delaney knows the cause of death was always life. Delaney is numb from the war and the abandonment of his family. When he saves the life of gangster friend Eddie Corso, Italian hood Frankie Botts is not happy. Delaney can feel the threat to him and his grandson in his bones. To further complicate matters, the FBI shows up looking for Grace. If there's any consolation for Delaney in the chaos that has become his life, it's Carlito and Rose, his Sicilian illegal alien housekeeper, who has become little Carlito's surrogate mother—and Delaney's lover. Soon the North River comes to symbolize Delaney's tormented life, as enemies and loved ones float in it, and Grace, on a liner, returns to New York to further complicate Delaney's new, delicate household. Hamill (Forever; A Drinking Life) has crafted a beautiful novel, rich in New York City detail and ambience, that showcases the power of human goodness and how love, in its many forms, can prevail in an unfair world.



(June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In the Tenth House: A Novel by Laura Dietz


"Dietz weaves a colorful debut set in Victorian London when psychology was considered experimental, spiritualism was a hobby of the gentle class and neither field was understood or accepted. Budding psychoanalyst Dr. Ambrose Gennett becomes obsessed with beautiful spiritualist Lily Embly when she flees from their chance encounter at a train station. After locating Lily, who is trying to pay down her debt to nefarious lenders with meager earnings from her tarot reading business and by helping her mother perform séances, Gennett learns of her profession and becomes bent on saving her. Lily, meanwhile, is convinced Gennett was sent to help her out of her financial jam and invites his sister and aunt to participate in a séance. Outraged that Lily has co-opted his family, Gennett turns vengeful, and his professional life suffers as his quest to out her as a fraud heats up, and Lily teams up with the scheming Monsieur St. Aubin, who provides Lily with access to a very moneyed crowd. The confrontation erupts at a grand séance and has drastic repercussions neither Lily nor Gennett expect. Dietz handles her characters and plot with a precision uncommon to debut novelists."


(June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Flower Children by Maxine Swann

"This wistful, episodic second novel by Swann (Serious Girls) is made up of vignettes about four sibling "flower children" whose parents are Pennsylvania farm country back-to-the-land hippies. Swann portrays the free-floating '70s coming-of-age of these four siblings—Lu, Maeve (who narrates much of the novel), Tuck and Clyde—who delight in running freely in the countryside, but grow embarrassed by the unconventional practices of their politically active, casual-dressing parents. Their parents, Sam, a Harvard graduate, and Dee, a gardener and artist, built their own house, and though they aim to raise their children in an ideal world "in which nothing is lied about, whispered about, and nothing is ever concealed," the parents separate, and subsequent storylike chapters delineate their children's sometimes rocky confrontation with the world of TVs, junk food and schoolyard cliques. The parents' transient love interests make impressions on the children: Dee's live-in boyfriend, Bobby, avenges the shooting of the children's dogs by local hunters; later, the children set out to rid themselves of Sam's latest squeeze, a glamorous but dim-witted psychologist..."

(May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Blood of Flowers: A Novel by Anita Amirrezvani

"In Iranian-American Amirrezvani's lushly orchestrated debut, a comet signals misfortune to the remote 17th-century Persian village where the nameless narrator lives modestly but happily with her parents, both of whom expect to see the 14-year-old married within the year. Her fascination with rug making is a pastime they indulge only for the interim, but her father's untimely death prompts the girl to travel with her mother to the city of Isfahan, where the two live as servants in the opulent home of an uncle—a wealthy rug maker to the Shah. The only marriage proposal now in the offing is a three-month renewable contract with the son of a horse trader. Teetering on poverty and shame, the girl weaves fantasies for her temporary husband's pleasure and exchanges tales with her beleaguered mother until, having mastered the art of making and selling carpets under her uncle's tutelage, she undertakes to free her mother and herself. With journalistic clarity, Amirrezvani describes how to make a carpet knot by knot, and then sell it negotiation by negotiation, guiding readers through workshops and bazaars. Sumptuous imagery and a modern sensibility (despite a preponderance of flowery language and schematic female bonding and male bullying) make this a winning debut."

(June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Quaker Summer: A Novel by Lisa Samson


"One of the most powerful voices in Christian fiction, Samson delivers what seems, on the surface, to be just another Christian women's novel, but in reality is a staggering examination of the Christian conscience. Like most Samson heroines, Heather Curridge is a woman in crisis. Outwardly, her life seems idyllic: she has an unusually handsome, successful and loving husband, a child she adores and the most beautiful home she could imagine. Inwardly, however, she is falling apart, overcome by the idea that this comfortable, affluent life is keeping her from God's will. With the help of several older, wiser Christians, her patient family and her two best friends, Heather comes to some painful conclusions about her past and future. Samson's unflinching exploration of childhood bullying, as well as inner-city poverty and drug culture, are rivaled only by her portrayal of the soul-desiccating acquisitiveness in which many Christians engage, often in a misguided attempt to numb both their heartache and their awareness of God's potentially life-upending plans. Unlike many Christian novelists, Samson does not tidily resolve every single problem her heroine faces, but instead paints an emotionally and spiritually luminous portrait of a soul beckoned by God."


Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Raven Black: A Thriller by Ann Cleeves

"Set in the remote Scottish Shetland Islands, Cleeves's taut, atmospheric thriller, the first in a new series, will keep readers guessing until the last page. Det. Insp. Jimmy Perez investigates the murder of teenage Catherine Ross, found strangled on a snowy hillside shortly after New Year's. While the police and citizens alike are quick to lay the blame on local eccentric Magnus Tait, who was not only the last person to see Catherine alive but also the prime suspect in the disappearance eight years earlier of another girl, Perez has his doubts. He's soon drawn into an intricate web of lies as he unearths the long-buried secrets of everyone from a roguish playboy to Catherine's only school friend. Cleeves, winner of the CWA's Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award (formerly the Gold Dagger), masterfully paints Perez as an empathetic hero and sprinkles the story with a lively cast of supporting characters who help bring the Shetlands alive. When the shocking identity of the murderer is revealed, readers will be as chilled as the harsh winds that batter the isolated islands."

(June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

We have two discussions set for Thursday, June 28 of this award winning mystery, and lots of copies on hand for borrowing. Please join us at 12:30 p.m. or 7:00 p.m. Books and sign up sheet are at the check out desk.

"Many years from now when your children ask what New York City was like just after 9/11, this will be the book you give them in response. It's an exquisite novel full of heart, soul, passion and intelligence, and it's the one this great New York author was born to write." --Lee Child

Absent Friends by S. J. Rozan

The secrets of a group of childhood friends unravel in this haunting thriller by Edgar Award winner S. J. Rozan. Set in New York in the unforgettable aftermath of September 11, Absent Friends brilliantly captures a time and place unlike any other, as it winds through the wounded streets of New York and Staten Island...and into a maze of old crimes, damaged lives, and heartbreaking revelations. The result is not only an electrifying mystery and a riveting piece of storytelling but an elegiac novel that powerfully explores a world changed forever on a clear September morning. In a novel that will catch you off guard at every turn, and one that is guaranteed to become a classic, S. J. Rozan masterfully ratchets up the tension one revelation at a time as she dares you to ponder the bonds of friendship, the meaning of truth, and the stuff of heroism.

In the Age of Love by Michael Stein

"Set in 1980s New Orleans, Stein's fifth novel (after This Room Is Yours) is a tale of lost love found. Jonathan Parrish, an educational consultant in Third World battle zones, is invited to give a presentation at an education conference in the city. Perusing the conference program, he discovers the name of Lily Mayeux, with whom he had been involved in the 1970s. She, meanwhile, finds his name there as well. Having not seen each other in the 12 years since their relationship ended in hurt and misunderstanding after Jonathan failed to return from Nicaragua for the funeral of Lily's sister, neither knows what to expect from the other. They soon find the old feelings returning, despite misgivings about whether these feeling represent who they now are or who they once were. And Lily's being married and the mother of a child is no small complication. In this brief novel, Stein has written a sensitive and nuanced tale of two people struggling toward a future that each, in their own way, has always longed for. "

—Lawrence Rungren, Merrimack Valley Lib. Consortium, Andover, MA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday


"In Torday's winningly absurdist debut, Dr. Alfred Jones feels at odds with his orderly life as a London fisheries scientist and husband to the career-driven Mary, with whom he shares a coldly dispassionate relationship. Just as Mary departs for a protracted assignment in Geneva, Alfred gets consulted on a visionary sheik's scheme to introduce salmon, and salmon-angling, to the country of Yemen. Alfred is deeply skeptical (salmon are cold-water fish that spawn in fresh water; Yemen is hot and largely desert), but the project gains traction when Peter Maxwell, the prime minister's director of communications, seizes on it as a PR antidote to negative press related to the Iraq war. Alfred is pressed by his superiors to meet with the sheik's real estate rep, the glamorous young Harriet, and embarks on a yearlong journey to realize the sheik's vision of spiritual peace through fly-fishing for the people of Yemen. British businessman and angler Torday captures Alfred's emerging humanity, Maxwell's antic solipsism, Mary's calculating neediness and Harriet's vulnerability, presenting their voices through diaries, e-mails, letters and official interviews conducted after the doomed venture's surprisingly tragic outcome."



Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond

"A leisurely walk on a foggy San Francisco beach culminates in every parent's worst nightmare—a missing child. Abby turns her head for a matter of seconds to look at a dead seal pup. When she looks back up, her fiancé Jake's six-year-old daughter, Emma, is gone. Abby knows that Emma is still alive and that the clue needed to solve her disappearance is buried in her memory, but the police and even Jake eventually decide that Emma must have drowned. Stopping the search is not an option for Abby; to let go of Emma would be to let go of her own sanity. Richmond (Dream of the Blue Room) has written a mesmerizing novel of loss and grief, hope and redemption, and the endurance of love....(It will appeal to readers of) Jodi Picoult and Jacquelyn Mitchard."

—Karen Fauls-Traynor, Sullivan Free Lib., Chittenango, NY Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Camel Bookmobile by Marsha Hamilton


"New York City librarian Fiona Sweeney has taken an unusual assignment in Kenya—running a bookmobile service powered by camel and serving isolated, seminomadic villages like Mididima, where teenaged library customer Kanika lives with her grandmother, Neema. Taban, a young man severely scarred as a toddler by a hyena, is shunned by most of the community, but he and Kanika share a friendship and a sweet anticipation of Sweeney's every visit. Matani, Mididima's schoolmaster, is a champion of the service, but even he can't do anything when several missing books threaten the village's reputation and set off a chain of events that expose misguided motives, hidden agendas, illicit romance, and tragedy. This third novel from international journalist Hamilton (e.g., The Distance Between Us, an LJ Best Book) presents a rare and balanced perspective on issues surrounding cultural intrusion and the very meaning and necessity of literacy, using rich and evocative prose that skillfully exposes the stark realities of poverty and charity in today's Africa.... The story was suggested by the Camel Mobile Library Service actually provided by Kenya's national library."


—Jenn B. Stidham, Houston Community Coll.-Northeast, TX Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Landing: A Novel by Emma Donoghue

"Landing is an old-fashioned love story with a uniquely twenty-first-century twist. This romantic comedy explores the pleasures and sorrows of long-distance relationships - the kind that millions of us now maintain by plane, phone, and the Internet. Sile, an Irishwoman with an Indian mother, is a stylish citizen of the new Dublin. A veteran flight attendant turning 40, she is getting itchy in her career as well as in her domestic life. Jude is a twenty-five-year old Canadian who runs a one-room museum and is stubbornly attached to the tiny town of Ireland, Ontario, where she was born and raised. On Jude's first plane trip, their two worlds touch and snag at Heathrow Airport. In the course of the next year, their lives - full of men, women, commitments, and complications - will be drawn into a new, shaky orbit. This story explores age-old questions: Does where you live matter more than who you live with? What would you give up for love, and would you be a fool to do so?"

--BOOK JACKET.

The Nature of Monsters by Clare Clark

"London in 1718 is not a pretty place, particularly if you happen to be young, female, pregnant, and alone. Abandoned by her mother and husband, Eliza Campling is taken into the household of an apothecary and his wife, where she believes she will be relieved of her pregnancy only to come to the dawning realization that the apothecary has other designs on the fetus. Grayson Black, in regular correspondence with the great minds of his day, fancies himself a serious scientist researching the effects of external stimuli on grotesque birth deformities. He takes this research further by attempting to influence the outcome of Eliza's pregnancy by treating her with preparations designed to cause hallucinations and terrors. Eliza takes small comfort from her bleak situation in her friendships with a fellow servant and a friendly bookseller and from the possibility of creating and selling her own cure-all medication. As she did so successfully in The Great Stink, Clark again transports readers to another time and place in this mesmerizing tale of life in the mean streets of 18th-century London. "

—Barbara Love, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Kingston, Ont. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Paula Deen: It Ain't All About the Cookin'
by Paula Deen with Sherry Suib Cohen

"In this richly emotional culinary memoir, Deen, the author of three best-selling cookbooks, star of a popular Food Network television show, and the owner of the celebrated Lady and Sons restaurant in Savannah, GA, shares her life story. Writing in a warm, comfortable, and occasionally salty style, Deen talks about everything from her decades-long battle with agoraphobia and her troubled first marriage to the hard work that went into building her first business, The Bag Lady, and the professional and personal successes that followed. A few of Deen's recipes (almost all new) are sprinkled among her stories, which offer a sample of the distinctively Southern cooking that is the foundation of Deen's life and career. This wonderfully nourishing book will have readers laughing, crying, and hungry for more."

—John Charles, Scottsdale P.L., AZ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Carved in Sand: When Attention Fails and Memory Fades in Midlife by Cathryn Jakobson Ramin

“Cathryn what's-her-name has written an understandable, enjoyable, highly informative book about memory and mental acuity—and all the things that plague and hamper them as we age. This is a tremendously comforting book: You are not alone, and you are not losing your mind. Best of all, there are solutions: simple, sound ways to clear the maddening fog of the middle-aged mind. Though just now, I can't recall any.” – Mary Roach, author of Stiff and Spook

"Memory loss and other cognitive problems are increasingly the bugaboo of aging baby boomers, as well as many of their elders. In her first book, veteran journalist Ramin turns herself into a guinea pig as she seeks ways to restore her own failing memory and growing inability to concentrate. Looking at a wide variety of genetic, biochemical and environmental factors that slow the connections among the brain's 100 billion neurons, especially in the hippocampus, Ramin undertakes 10 interventions, methods of achieving her cognitive enhancement. She logs the ups and downs of medications such as Adderall and Provigil; she looks at dietary supplements and biofeedback. She ends with discussions with experts, such as Nobelist Eric Kandel, about what keeps some people mentally young into old age; the key seems to be having the "mental reserves" gained from challenging one's mind with new kinds of learning—such as learning a new language or studying art—that use different parts of the brain; the right diet and exercise also help...."

~ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

What Makes Women Happy by Fay Weldon

"Finally, the age-old question of "What do women want?" gets a lighthearted, realistic answer. Prolific author Weldon (The Life and Loves of a She-Devil) shares her opinions and observations about female happiness—the fact that it never lasts more than ten minutes at a time and primarily comes from sex, food, friends, family, shopping, and chocolate. Weldon avoids ponderous analysis and fluffy self-help talk in favor of humor, keen observations, and entertaining parables. Furthermore, Weldon manages to convince her readers that doing good leads to being happy. The engaging chapters—one each is devoted to the seven sources of happiness and the four threats to it—are full of contrasts between nature (how evolution causes us to behave) and nurture (what behavior society expects); women will recognize their own dilemmas in these analyses. And although this work is light on research or evidence, it is certainly an engaging read that will delight women. "

—Erica L. Foley, Flint P.L., MI Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Lois on the Loose: One Woman, One Motorcycle, 20,000 Miles Across the Americas by Lois Pryce

“Mix a biting British sense of humor with a Yamaha motorcycle and you get this adventure-filled story about an intrepid woman facing her destiny across the Americas, one rain-soaked, bug-infested, low-quality-taco-filled mile at a time.”---Wendy Dale, author of Avoiding Prison and Other Noble Vacation Goals

"Bored by her desk job at the BBC, Pryce decided to convert her travel daydreams into real-life adventure. At her local travel bookshop, she discovered a book called Jupiter's Travels by Ted Simon as well as a few handbooks on motorcycle adventuring, and she was hooked. She bought a small dirt bike, a versatile and affordable Yamaha XT225 Serow, and decided she'd bike from Anchorage, Alaska, to the southernmost city of South America, Ushuaia, Argentina—almost 20,000 miles. In this engaging read, Pryce narrates the adventure. Local bikers helped the witty and sociable Pryce get her Serow fixed, strangers offered shelter or advice and various friends joined her, for better or worse. She rode through flaking dried mud and boulder-strewn donkey paths, through broiling desert heat and blinding Andean snows. Armchair travelers will delight in this funny, vivid account and—almost—wish they'd done it themselves."

~Publishers Weekly Review, Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.

Interested in more adventures of Lois? Check out Lois' website to find out about her recent motorcycle adventure in Africa.

Mergers and Acquisitions by Dana Vachon

"Tommy Quinn is a recent Georgetown grad who has just landed the job of his dreams as an investment banker at J. S. Spenser, and the perfect girl, Frances Sloan, the daughter of one of New York's oldest moneyed families. As he travels from the most exclusive ballrooms of the Racquet and Tennis Club to the stuffiest boardrooms of J. S. Spenser, from the golf links of Piping Rock to the bedrooms of Park Avenue, and from the debauched yacht of a Mexican billionaire to the Ritalin-strewn prep school dorm room of his younger brother, he finds that neither the job nor the girl are what they once seemed."

--BOOK JACKET.

American Outrage: A Novel by Tim Green

"Sure, Jake Carlson is making big bucks as a reporter on the tabloid news show American Outrage, but the former foreign correspondent is ashamed of his job, and his personal life is a mess, too. Widowed for a year, he's struggling to keep his 13-year-old adopted son, Sam, on the straight and narrow. Jake finds a renewed sense of purpose, though, when Sam convinces him to help find his birth mother. He knows the hunt will be difficult, but he doesn't realize just how challenging until he starts asking questions. The head of the agency Jake used for the adoption had died, and there's no trace of the agency, which had been operating slightly under the radar, funneling babies from Albania to the U.S. for couples desperate for children. As Jake attempts to tie his investigation into a story to bolster his waning popularity at American Outrage, he and Sam become the target of violence and revenge. Genre veteran Green hits his stride here, with his best novel since his early football thrillers (Outlaws, 1996)."

~ Mary Frances Wilkens, Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved