Weekly Finds 6/24/110

Twenty Boy SummerDark Deceptions by Dee Davis

From the back of the book:  Covert operations expert Nash Brennon has spent the last eight years trying to forget Annie Gallagher, his former field partner and the only woman he ever loved.  Annie betrayed him when he needed her most, then vanished without a trace.  Now suddenly she's back in the game - this time as a suspected traitor and threat to national security.

Annie's son has been kidnapped by political terrorists.  The price for his life?  Assassinate a UN ambassador.  When Nash and his group find her, the smoldering passion between Annie and the man she swore she'd never contact again blazes out of control.  Their enemy's endgame is personal, and one false move could cost them their lives.

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

From the electronic description:  The first volume in the critically acclaimed Temeraire series.

Aerial combat brings a thrilling new dimension to the Napoleonic Wars as valiant warriors rise to Britain's defense by taking to the skies atop the mighty backs of fighting dragons.  When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes its precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweep Capt. Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future and an unexpected kinship with an extraordinary creature.  Thrust into the rarified world of the Aerial Corps as a master of the dragon Temmeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle.  For as France's own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte's boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism by fire.

Life, Love, and a Polar Bear Tattoo by Heather Wardell
From the electronic description:  When Candice's in-laws died in a car accident eight months ago, she lost her husband Ian too.  After only two years of marriage their guilt and pain haven left them living together but apart.  During Ian's month-long trip overseas, Candice places to decide if her marriage can be saved, but when the first man she ever loved is the new client at work, she wonders what she truly wants from life and love.

The Season by Sarah MacLean

From the electronic description:  Seventeen year old Lady Alexandra is strong-willed and sharp-tongued - in a house full of older brothers and their friends, she had to learn to hold her own.  Not the best makings for an aristocratic lady in Regency London.  Yet her mother still dreams of marrying Alex off to someone safe respectable, and wealthy.  But between ball gown fittings, dances, and dinner parties, Alex, along with her two best friends, Ella and Vivi, manages to get herself into what may be her biggest scrape yet.

When the Earl of Blackmoor is mysteriously killed, Alex decides to help his son, the brooding and devilishly handsome Gavin, to uncover the truth.  But will Alex's heart be stolen in the process?  In an adventure brimming with espionage, murder, and other clandestine affairs, who could possible have time to worry about finding a husband?  Romance abounds as this year's season begins!


Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler

From the electronic description:  According to her best friend Frankie, twenty days in Zanzibar Bay is the perfect opportunity to have a summer fling, and if they meed one boy every day, there's a pretty good chance Anna will find her first summer romance.  Anna lightheartedly agrees to the game, but there's something she hasn't told Frankie - she's already had that kind of romance, and it was with Frankie's older brother, Matt, just before his tragic death one year ago.

Weekly Finds: 6/19/10

The Clouds Beneath the Sun: A Novel by Mackenzie Ford - received from librarything early review program.

From the back of the book:  Kenya, 1961.  As a small plane carrying Natalie Nelson lands at a remote airstrip in the Seregeti, Natalie knows she's run just about as far as she can from home.  Trained as an archaeologist, she has accepted an invitation to be part of  a famous excavating team, her first opportunity to escape England and the painful memories of her past.

But before she can get her bearings, the dig is surrounded by controversy involving the Masai people - and murder.  Compounding the tension, Eleanor Deacon, friend of the Masai, who is leading the excavating mission, watches a rift grow between her two handsome sons, Christopher and Jack.  Natalie's growing attraction to Jack soon becomes a passionate affair that turns dangerous when she must give evidence in a trial that could spark even more violence and turmoil.

The startling beauty of the Kenya setting, the tension of looming social upheaval, and the dizzying highs and the crushing lows of a tragic love affair are all captured brilliantly on every page of the extraordinary and unforgettable novel.

Siren of the Waters by Michael Genelin - Barnes and Noble free Fridays.

From the electronic description: Commander Jana Matinova, Slovakian policewoman, pursues a master criminal.






The Glades by Clifton Campbell

From the electronic description:  Jim Longworth is an attractive and brilliant Chicago homicide detective with a reputation for being difficult.  When his captain wrongfully accuses him of sleeping with his wife and shoots him, he is exiled and forced to relocate.  He lands in the sleepy, middle-of-nowhere town of Palm Glade, outside of Florida's Everglades, where sunshine and golf are plentiful and crime is seemingly at a minimum.  But Longworth soon finds out this town isn't quite as idyllic as he originally thought, when murders keep piling up.  Each case pulls Longworth off the golf courses and reluctantly into his element as one of the sharpest homicide detectives to wear a badge.

Love Remains (The Matchmakers) by Kate Dacus

From the electronic description:  Zarah's and Bobby's grandmothers see a chance to bring together high school sweethearts and beat their senior friends in a matrimony challenge.

Weekly Finds 5/29/110

The Secret Speech by Tom Rob Smith - contest win from The Cajun Book Lady

From the back of the book:  Stalin is dead, and the brutal Soviet regime once held together by fear is beginning to unravel, leaving behind a society where the police are the bloodies criminals of all.  Former Secret Police Office Leo Demidov is struggling to put his former career behind him, to make a life for himself, his wife, Raisa, and the two young sisters they have adopted.  But will the mistrust and betrayals from Leo's own past shatter his family's ability to love and forgive - or destroy them in ways unimaginable?

The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker by Leanna Renee Heiber - Free Friday Barnes and Noble ebook.

From the electronic description:  Hidden in the dark heart of Victorian London, what fortunes, intimate encounters, and supernatural terrors awaited sweet, timid Percy Parker at Athens Academy.

Weekly Finds: 5/21/10

The Keening by A. LaFaye (netgalley ebook)

From the electronic description:  Born into the artistic and eccentric family, Lyza laments that her only talent is carving letters into wood.  That is, until the devastating loss of her mother to influenza during the pandemic of 1918.  The illness has settled on their small coastal town in Maine, and the funeral marches pass Lyza's house almost daily.  When her unconventional father begins to prepare for the return of his dead wife, Lyza is the only one to protect him from being committed to the work farm.  Awash with grief and longing for her mother, Lyza journeys into the thin territory that divides the living from the dead.

Relying on her courage, and an undiscovered talent, Lyza must save her father and find her own path.  From the celebrated author Worth, a powerful story of love that persists beyond the grave.

Executive Privilege Free with Bonus Material by Phillip Margolin (ebook)

From the electronic description:  When private detective Dana Cutler is hired to follow college student Charlotte Walsh, she never imagines the trail will lead to the White House.  But the morning after Walsh's clandestine meeting with Christopher Farrington, President of the United States, the pretty young coed is dead - the latest victim, apparently, of a fiend dubbed "the D.C. Ripper."

A junior associate in an Oregon law firm, Brad Miller is stunned by the death row revelations of convicted serial killer Clarence Little.  Though Little accepts responsibility for a string of gruesome murders, he swears he was framed for one of them:  the death of a teenaged babysitter who worked for the then-governor Farrington.

Suddenly nowhere in America is safe for a small-time private eye and a fledgling lawyer who possess terrifying evidence that suggests the unthinkable:  that someone at the very highest level of government, perhaps the president himself, is a cold and brutal killer.

The Scent of Shadows Free with Bonus Material: The First Sign of the Zodiac by Vicki Pettersson (ebook)

From the electronic overview:  When she was sixteenn, Joanna Archer was brutally assaulted and left to die in the Nevada desert.

By rights, she should be dead.

Now a photographer by day, she prowls a different Las Vegas after sunset - a grim, secret Sin City where Light battles Shadow - seeking answers to whom or what she really is ... and revenge for the horrors she was forced to endure.

But the nightmare is just beginning - for the demons are hunting Joanna, and the powerful shadows want her for their own...

The Writing Circle by Corinne Demas (B&N First Look ebook)

From the electronic description:  They call themselves the Leopardi Circle - six members of a writing group who share much more than their works in progress.

When Nancy, whose most recently published work is a medical newsletter, is asked to join a writing group made up of established writers, she accepts, warily.  She's not at all certain that her novel is good enough for the company she'll be keeping.  Her novel is a subject very close to her heart, and she isn't sure she wants to share it with others, let alone the world.  But Nancy soon finds herself caught up in the group's personal lives as she is with their writing.

She learns that nothing - love, family, loyalty - is sacred or certain.

In the circle there's Gillian, a beautiful, scheming, world-famous poet; Bernard, a pompous but lovable biographer; Virginia, a respected historian and the peacemaker of the group, who also happens to be Bernard's ex-wife; Chris, a divorced father and successful thriller writer; and Adam, the youngest of the group, as aspiring novelist who is infatuated with Gillian.  And there there's Nancy, an unassuming fiction writer embarking on a new chapter of her own life.  They meet to read their work aloud and offer feedback.  Over the course of a year, marriages are tested, affairs begin, and trust is broken.

Through their complicated relationships, these eccentric characters share their families, their beds, and their histories, and soon find that buried secrets have a way of coming to  light.  Hearts break and emotions are pushed to the limit in this richly engaging tale of love, betrayal, and literature.

Rage of Angels by Sidney Angels (ebook)

From the electronic description:  Beautiful Jennifer Parker, having risen from disaster to become a glamorously successful defense attorney, becomes the victim of two powerful men who determine to destroy one another.

Weekly Finds: 5/15/10

Mothers and Other Liars by Amy Bourret (received from librarything early reviewers)

From the back of the book:  As a runaway teen, Ruby Leander could have never imagined the path that would lead her to an abandoned baby.  Fast forward nine years:  Ruby and Lark have made a home for themselves in New Mexico with their wonderful community of friends - life is perfect.  Until that one fateful day when Ruby learns the truth about her daughter's past.  A truth that will change both of their lives, forever.


Embellish by R. L Sloan (won from Miss Remmer's Review)

From the back of the book:  Revenge has never tasted so sweet...

As a young girl, Solis Burkes is raped at the hands of ruthless school bullies - an incident that haunts her into adulthood.  Then she meets Nacio, a strikingly handsome man who seems to know everything about her - including the painful past Solis hasn't told anyone about.  But what Solis doesn't know is that Nacio has been with her every step of the way, protecting her ever since that fateful episode.

It's a destiny he's been working up to for the last 257 years.

Now, as Solis enters a dark world of vampires, voodoo, and passion, she'll need all the protection she can get.  Unbeknownst to her, those responsible for Solis's rape have returned.  Connected to the evil voodoo Priestess Aldicia, they'll stop at nothing in their plans to spew violence and mayhem throughout the city.  And an old family feud dating back centuries puts Solis first on their list of targets.  But not if Solis can unravel the clues fast enough, and inflict her own brand of revenge...

I Thought You Were Dead by Pete Nelson (won from Bookin With Bingo)

From the inside cover:  For Paul Gustavson, a hack writer for the wildly popular For Morons series, life is a succession of obstacles, a minefield of mistakes to stumble through.  His wife has left him, he father has suffered a debilitating stroke, his girlfriend is dating another man, he has impotency issues, and his overachieving brother has invested his parents' money in stocks that tanked.  Still, Paul has his friends at Bay State bar, a steady line of cocktails, a new pair of running shoes, and Stella.  Beautiful Stella.  With long sleek legs, kind eyes, lustrous blond hair.  Their relationship is the one true bright spot in his world.  She offers him sage advice on virtually every topic.  And she only wets herself every once in a while.

Stella is Paul's dog, and she listens with compassion to all his complaints about the injustice of life and gives him better counsel than any human could.  In fact, she seems to know Paul better than he knows himself.  It's their relationship that is at the heart of I Thought You Were Dead, a poignantly funny and deeply moving story about a man trying to fix his past in order to save his future, and about a dog who understands just what it means to be man's best friend.

Gentleman Captain by J.D. Davies (netgalley review ebook)

Electronic description:  The year 1662:  Restoration England, Cromwell is dead, and King Charles II has reclaimed the throne after years of civil war.  It is a time of divided allegiances, intrigue, and outright treachery.  With rebellion stirring in the Scottish Isles, the hard-pressed sovereign needs officers he can trust to sail north and defuse this new threat.

Matthew Quinton is such a man - the second son of a noble royalist family, he is loyal, if inexperienced.  Having sunk the first ship he commanded off the coast of Ireland, Matthew is determined to complete his second mission without loss of life or honor.  But aboard His Majesty's ship the Jupiter the young "gentleman captain" is faced with a resentful crew and has but a few on whom he can rely:  Kit Farrell, an illiterate commoner with vast seafaring experience, and Phineas Musk, a roguish but steadfast family retainer.  As they approach the wild coast of Scotland, Matthew begins to learn the ropes and win the respect of his fellow officers and sailors.

But he has other worries on this crucial mission:  a suspicion that the previous captain of the Jupiter was murdered, a feeling that several among his crew have something to hide, and a growing conviction that betrayal lies closer to home than he had thought.

The Woman Who Named God: Abraham's Dilemma and the Birth of Three Faiths by Charlotte Gordon (netgalley review ebook)

From the electronic description:  The saga of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar is the tale of origin for all three monotheistic faiths.  Abraham must choose between two wifes who have borne him two sons.  One wife and son will share his wealth and status, while the other two are exiled into the desert.  Long a cornerstone of Western anxiety, the story chronicles a very famous and troubled family, and sheds light on the ongoing conflict between the Judeo-Christian and Islamic worlds.

How did this ancient story become one of the least understood and most frequently misinterpreted of our cultural myths?  Gordon explores this legendary love triangle to give us a startling perspective on three biblical characters who - with their jealousies, passions, and doubts - actually behave life human beings.

Karma Bites by Stacy Kramer and Valerie Thomas (netgalley review ebook)

From the electronic description:  Life seems to have it in for Franny Flanders.

Her best friends aren't speaking, her parents just divorced, and her hippie grandmother has moved in.  The only karma Franny's got is bad karma.

Then Franny gets her hands on a box of magic recipes that could fix all of her problems.  It could even change the world!  Finally, life is looking up.

But Franny is about to learn that magic and karma aren't to be played with.  When you mess with the universe, it can bite back in unexpected ways.

Ouch!

The Raven Saint (Charles Towne Belles) by Marylu Tyndall (netgalley review ebook)

From the electronic description:  Join bestselling author M.L. Tyndall for another seafaring historical full of romance, intrigue, action, and adventure.  Grace Westcott has piously served God her whole life.  Captain Rafe Dubois cannot pass up on the opportunity to earn more gold toward the hospital he's building for the poor by kidnapping Admiral Westcott's youngest daughter.  But when the missionary and the mercenary meet, it's full-sail-ahead into tumultuous waters!  Find out what happens when a bitter mercenary who's sworn off God falls in love with a pious woman determined to change him.