Brett Ellen Block's unforgettable debut novel, The Grave of God's Daughter, is a haunting story of lost innocence, transgression, faith, and forgiveness set against the stark canvas of a struggling mill town. At the funeral of her estranged mother, a woman is faced with the past she has tried to put behind her only to find that what transpired in her childhood has never been further away than her own shadow, and now the choice to close the thirty-year rift between mother and daughter has been laid before her. The year is 1941. Rooted in the lonely outreaches of the Allegheny Mountains is the town of Hyde Bend. Its heart was a steel mill; its bones are the tight community of Polish immigrants who inhabit it; and its blood, their fierce Catholic faith. But buried in the town's soul is a dangerous secret surrounding the death of a revered priest. When a young girl from the town's poorest quarter accidentally unearths a sliver of the truth surrounding the illicit secret, a woman is found dead and Hyde Bend erupts in fear and finger-pointing. Compelled to unravel the intertwining mysteries, the young girl discovers her own family at the center. To save them and herself, she must confront everything she thought she knew, including her feelings about all she holds sacred. Vivid, evocative, and psychologically penetrating, The Grave of God's Daughter captures the hidden inner life of a town battling to survive in a rapidly changing world, and paints an extraordinary portrait of a young girl's fierce longing for grace. The result is a novel of transcendent beauty that no reader will soon forget. Views: 8
When the Danford Gang terrorized Arizona, no one—not the U.S. Marshals or the Army—could bring them in. It took Wild Bill Hickok to do that. Only Wild Bill was able to put them in the Yuma Territorial Prison, where they belonged.But prison couldn't hold them. The venomous gang escaped and took the Governor's wife and her sister as hostages. So it was up to Wild Bill to track them down and do the impossible—capture the Danford Gang a second time. Only this time, the gang's ruthless leader, Fargo Danford, had a burning need for revenge against the one man who put him and the gang in prison in the first place, a need as hot as the scorching Sonora sun ... and as deadly as the desert trap he had set for Bill. Views: 8
From Publishers WeeklyThis SF mystery's smooth and exciting surface makes it difficult to appreciate how exceptionally good it is at combining action and ideas. After a string of well-developed space operas, McDevitt returns to the lead characters of his second novel, A Talent for War (1988): antiquarian entrepreneur Alex Benedict (think Indiana Jones with an eye for profit) and his beautiful assistant, Chase Kolpath (think smart, sexy Dr. Watson). Decades earlier, in a future version of the Marie Celeste incident, the spaceship Polaris was discovered drifting and empty, its captain and passengers apparently vanished in an instant. Now, Alex and Chase realize that someone is tracking down relics of the Polaris and is willing to kill anyone who gets in the way. Alex is first of all a businessman, but he becomes stubbornly fascinated with the impossible puzzle. While Chase saves Alex's neck from increasingly ingenious attacks, he untangles a complex plot. The real problem turns out to be not how the mass disappearance was done but the tangled motives behind it. McDevitt does a fine job of creating different worlds for Alex and Chase to explore as they hunt clues. Through Chase's wry narration, the novel also succeeds in presenting characters who may be concealing important facets of themselves. That's appropriate in an SF mystery novel, but especially in one that turns out to have a surprisingly serious human core. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistA mystery surrounds the starship Polaris, whose crew vanished while observing a stellar collision. Some 60 years later, two freelance archaeologists discover a good many artifacts that belonged to the vanished crew, the appearance of which attracts much attention--frivolous, festive, larcenous, and even outright homicidal. The archaeologists set out to track down whoever is out to get them and to recover the stolen artifacts, if possible, and at least protect the surviving ones. They lead a merry chase, involving both interstellar voyages and 14-hour train trips (McDevitt sees railroads in any civilized future) and revealing a good many carefully guarded secrets about both VIPs and ordinary citizens. The traveling affords readers a panoramic view of humanity 2,000 years hence, and that at book's end only part of the mystery has been revealed bodes strongly of a sequel, which would be no bad thing at all, at all. Another highly intelligent, absorbing portrayal of the far future from a leading creator of such tales. Roland GreenCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Views: 8
From Publishers WeeklyThis collection from shock novelist Palahniuk (Choke; Lullaby) is an eye-opening look at the raw material that goes into Palahniuk's fiction, as well as proof that the novelist's art is derived from keen observation and recording of details. Often these are as grotesque as a closeup in a horror film (e.g., in talking to a group of wrestlers enduring Olympic tryouts, Palahniuk focuses on their injuries, both physical and emotional). Half the essays are magazine assignments and include insightful profiles of rock star Marilyn Manson, indie-movie queen Juliette Lewis and a high schooler who wants to explore space via a homemade rocket. Others offer the author's impressions of a demolition derby, the Rock Creek Lodge Testicle Festival and life aboard the USS Louisiana. Palahniuk often philosophizes, dwelling on the effects his fiction has had on "reality," especially the obsession his fans have had with his novel Fight Club. Palahniuk is fixated on the transformation of life's raw material into fiction and the writing process itself, which he sees as having the potential for self-fulfillment. (Incidentally, Brad Pitt, who played Fight Club's protagonist, emerges as Palahniuk's alter ego, and a number of the essays play on this theme, creating a patchwork memoir.) Palahniuk's fans will undoubtedly revel in the secrets the author reveals. Newcomers might initially feel queasy, but they're likely to warm up to his visceral prose and come to enjoy it. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistFrom Fight Club (1996) and the guys who fight for sport to Choke (2001) and a young man who might literally be the son of Jesus, Palahniuk's novels are consistently populated with extraordinary eccentrics. So it's no surprise that in this collection of previously published magazine pieces, he writes mostly of the bizarre. Palahniuk focuses on themes of solitude and community, on our need to feel simultaneously special and a part of something. He attends the Olympic wrestling trials, for instance, and examines why men endure cauliflower ear and debilitating injury to participate in a sport that no one watches or cares about. The personal essays (Palahniuk describes a romp through Seattle while wearing a dog costume, for instance) don't shine as much as the journalistic pieces, although fans will be interested to learn personal details about Chuck and his experiences with quasi celebrity. But the best narratives here-- particularly a lengthy one on Americans who build European-style castles--show Palahniuk's deep compassion for oddballs and misfits, a hard-boiled kindness for which his fans revere him. John GreenCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Views: 8
The Republic world of Skye is bracing itself for another onslaught from the Jade Falcon Clan. The planet's only hope lies with Jasek Kelswa-Steiner and his Stormhammers—forging an alliance that may be worse than surrender. Views: 8
What happens when a first-time dominant and submissive come together? The answer is a great deal of heartache. Brendon is an AFL footballer who advertises on the internet for a submissive. Suzie, a secretary at Homicide Squad, is curious and answers his ad. Views: 8
To save her brother from financial ruin, police diver Piper Harland does the one thing she swore she’d never do—return to the tiny island hometown on Stewart Island where Ryan “West” Westlake crushed her heart. West lost Piper once, but now she’s back for an unexpected six week visit. Maybe he wants her a little bit, but can he fall in love with such a flight risk? Views: 8
KIDNAPPED HEARTS
Tess Smith was bolder than the broncs Virgil Connor tamed as a boy at
the Double B Ranch, where he'd been sent for breaking the law one too
many times. Heck, the FBI agent still couldn't believe the sassy tabloid
reporter had kidnapped him at gunpoint. She claimed she was protecting
runaway child witness, Joey Begand, who swore someone in the Bureau
wanted him dead. And when two goons posing as agents tried to mow them
down, Connor had to admit they might be right. He knew there was only
one place where they could buy time so he could sort out this mess --
the Double B. But first he had to earn his captor's trust, even if it
meant seducing Tess into submission...and losing his desperado heart
forever. Views: 8
The Women's Murder Club returns in a shockingly suspenseful thriller. Plunging into a burning town house, Detective Lindsay Boxer discovers three dead bodies...and a mysterious message at the scene. When more corpses turn up, Lindsay asks her friends Claire Washburn of the medical examiner's office, Assistant D.A. Jill Bernhardt, and San Francisco Chronicle reporter Cindy Thomas to help her find a murderer who vows to kill every three days. Even more terrifying, he has targeted one of the four friends. Which one will it be?From Publishers WeeklyFrom the start, Patterson's Women's Murder Club series (1st to Die; Second Chance) has felt like high-concept TV with a smart edge, featuring an appealing and reliable cast of four female crime busters (a cop, a prosecutor, a medical examiner, a reporter) who race along byzantine plot lines humming with blood and sex, romance and heartbreak. But Patterson is an author who will detonate readers' presumptions for the sake of story, and in the series' third installment, the prolific author, working with frequent collaborator Gross (The Jester, etc.), defies expectations in a shocking way. Readers will love him for it. San Francisco Homicide lieutenant Lindsay Boxer, who narrates most of the action, is jogging with assistant DA Jill Barnhardt when Lindsay notices two things: first, bruises on Jill's shoulder; then the explosion of a nearby townhouse, into which Lindsay rushes to save a child. With the juxtaposition of these two plotlines, Patterson jumpstarts this enjoyably convoluted tale. The townhouse, home to a greedy CEO and his family, was destroyed by members of a terrorist group calling itself "August Spies"; Lindsay's chase after the group, which commits further killings, brings her into close proximity to what promises to be a new series regular, Joe Molinari, deputy director of the Office of Homeland Security. Love blooms for Lindsay but, meanwhile, love has curdled at Jill's house, where Jill's husband is abusing her. Then comes the big surprise, and the story's remainder plays out at high emotion and warp speed. There's a calculated feel to all that happens, but clever manipulation of an audience serves Patterson as well as it served Hitchcock: his fans will only clamor for more. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review'Patterson knows where our deepest fears are buried... There's no stopping his imagination.' -- New York Times Book Review Views: 8
After years on the run, Burke is desperate to return to his native New York, the only way he can reconnect with his outlaw "family." But to survive in their part of the City, where reputation is everything, Burke must take major risks to reestablish his presence. So when a Mafia man contacts him about the murder-as-message of his sixteen-year-old daughter - the offspring of what he calls an "outside the tribe" affair that he must keep secret at all costs - Burke's depleted bankroll persuades him to step out of the shadows and do something he hasn't done in years...actually investigate a crime.Burke needs cover to penetrate the teenage subculture of the Long Island town where the girl lived and died, so he puts together a crew of gifted role-players, including a pair of lesbian "power exchangers" who market their special brand of sex on the Internet. When Burke himself surfaces as a casting director, seeking tomorrow's stars for a movie to be shot on location, the investigation quickly spins off into uncharted depths. What he discovers is a new kind of filmmaking, a new kind of violence, and a predator unlike any he's ever known. When they meet head-on over a brutal work of cinema verite, only one of them will survive the final cut. Views: 8
I met Angelica by accident, but as soon as I saw her I knew I was in love. And that was before I realized how much of a freaky babe she was. But I was soon to find out. Shortly after we were alone, she laid out the ground rules. If I wanted to spend another night with her, I had to survive the first one. And she was going to do to me whatever she wanted. Adults only. 18+ Views: 8
