When progressive activist Jill Parmele lands a spot as co-host on Loggerheads, she considers it a good career move. There’s just one problem. ANN, the network that produces Loggerheads is unapologetically conservative. And her co-host, Brad Chadwick, reflects its right wing philosophy.
It’s not long before sparks fly between the two, but when Jill finds herself undeniably drawn to her dominant nemesis she’s confused by her own desires. And when Chadwick figures out she’s interested - and that this fiery liberal is actually a closet submissive - he’s determined to fulfill her every desire. Views: 62
Kristina Taylor's biological clock just went off. She has endometriosis. Now "who's your baby's daddy" just took on a completely new meaning. A brilliant plan for conception includes her hot best friend Johnny Huston. Taking him to bed won't be a hardship-if she can only get him to play by her rules. After all, she wants to maintain their friendship. Not easy if he ends up being the best sex of her life.Knock her up? Krissy has to be crazy. Or is she? Johnny has loved her since high school. Her plan might not include life after baby. His does. But how is he going to show her how good they can be together with all her rules-no kissing, no touching, no caressing. He can make love to her, but she's determined not to enjoy it. To hell with that and to hell with her rules. He's determined to show her friendship is the best foundation for a relationship.But there are always complications...With Johnny, Krissy is afraid to look to the future. Right now, she can't get enough of the present, and she dreads the thought of losing what she's had with him in the past. Views: 62
A foreign film importer, Gi-yeong is a family man with a wife and daughter. An aficionado of Heineken, soccer, and sushi, he is also a North Korean spy who has been living among his enemies for twenty-one years. Suddenly he receives a mysterious email, a directive seemingly from the home office. He has one day to return to headquarters. He hasn’t heard from anyone in over ten years. Why is he being called back now? Is this message really from Pyongyang? Is he returning to receive new orders or to be executed for a lack of diligence? Has someone in the South discovered his secret identity? Is this a trap? Spanning the course of one day, Your Republic Is Calling You is an emotionally taut, psychologically astute, haunting novel that reveals the depth of one particularly gripping family secret and the way in which we sometimes never really know the people we love. Confronting moral questions on small and large scales, it mines the political and cultural transformations that have transformed South Korea since the 1980s. A lament for the fate of a certain kind of man and a certain kind of manhood, it is ultimately a searing study of the long and insidious effects of dividing a nation in two. From Publishers WeeklySpanning a single day, this tense spy novel from Kim (I Have the Right to Destroy Myself), marred only by some stilted prose, is also a deeply compelling study of the self and varying themes of trust. Kim Ki-yong, a North Korean spy who's lived undercover for 21 years, has fully adapted to life in Seoul, South Korea, where he runs a successful foreign-film importing business, owns a home, and has a wife and teenage daughter, neither of whom is aware of his past or actual identity. As Ki-yong ponders returning to the austere and sterile militaristic regime of the North after receiving a coded message from his handler ("Liquidate everything and return immediately"), his wife, Ma-ri, struggles with infidelity and his daughter, Hyon-mi, maneuvers the tumultuous and tricky landscape of adolescence. Kim offers a riveting tale of espionage along with keen observations of human behavior. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistAn e-mail changes Kim Ki-yong’s life. Seemingly a piece of spam in the Seoul resident’s in-box, it’s actually a coded communiqué from Pyongyang, ordering him to return to North Korea—immediately. Ki-yong isn’t a sleeper spy, exactly; it’s just that he hasn’t received any orders in 10 years. Now, at age 42, he has spent exactly half his life in South Korea. He lives comfortably, working as an importer of foreign films, with lockstep life in the north only a distant memory. Will he meet the minisub and go back? Or will he defy the command and stay? This isn’t really a spy story but a fascinating, personal portrait of life in a divided country and its toll on the citizens’ psyches. It’s not just Ki-yong’s story, either: his alienated wife, Ma-ri, is on her own intense journey of self-discovery, and, in complete ignorance of her parents’ worries, daughter Hyon-mi struggles with boys, school, and growing up. Kim’s thoughtful, effortless prose is a pleasure. His characters are completely relatable and their story is revelatory. A writer to watch—and, of course, read. --Keir Graff Views: 62
"Dara Joy fans, rejoice! Robin Owens has created a unique world of her own...fun and sexy."—Anne Avery In HeartMate and Heart Thief, award-winning author Robin D. Owens built a world where psychic talents and desires of the heart flourish. Now, she returns to Celta with a story of star-crossed lovers... Healer Lark Collinson hates the street dueling that is a way of life among the noble families on Celta—it was just such a skirmish that killed her Healer husband and left her a grieving widow. The last thing she wants is to love a man to whom fighting is a way of life—a man like the brashly confident Holm Holly. All it takes is one brief touch for Holm to know that Lark is his HeartMate, though wooing her will be his greatest challenge. For not only does she despise everything he represents, but the long-standing feud between their families has exploded into even greater violence. Their destiny has been revealed...but at... Views: 62
Kai is perfectly unhappy with his life. Cast into a role as shop boy and forced into marriage to save his family, he sees nothing good in his future. In fact, his betrothed, Gerda, seems to hate everything he enjoys. Especially winter and his attraction to dominating his partners. His prospects look grim…until the Snow Queen arrives. Wyn has spent her life alone, living vicariously through those who love winter. When she learns of Kai's predicament, she knows she must save him. If only she could save herself. She craves his dominance, but there's one tiny thing standing in their way. No human can touch her without experiencing chilly agony. And that might bring any relationship to an icy death. Views: 62
EDITORIAL REVIEW: **A passenger train hurtling through the night. An unwed teenage mother headed to Moscow to seek a new life. A cruel-hearted soldier looking furtively, forcibly, for sex. An infant disappearing without a trace. **So begins Martin Cruz Smith’s masterful *Three Stations*, a suspenseful, intricately constructed novel featuring Investigator Arkady Renko. For the last three decades, beginning with the trailblazing *Gorky Park*, Renko (and Smith) have captivated readers with detective tales set in Russia. Renko is the ironic, brilliantly observant cop who finds solutions to heinous crimes when other lawmen refuse to even acknowledge that crimes have occurred. He uses his biting humor and intuitive leaps to fight not only wrongdoers but the corrupt state apparatus as well. In *Three Stations*, Renko’s skills are put to their most severe test. Though he has been technically suspended from the prosecutor’s office for once again turning up unpleasant truths, he strives to solve a last case: the death of an elegant young woman whose body is found in a construction trailer on the perimeter of Moscow’s main rail hub. It looks like a simple drug overdose to everyone—except to Renko, whose examination of the crime scene turns up some inexplicable clues, most notably an invitation to Russia’s premier charity ball, the billionaires’ Nijinksy Fair. Thus a sordid death becomes interwoven with the lifestyles of Moscow’s rich and famous, many of whom are clinging to their cash in the face of Putin’s crackdown on the very oligarchs who placed him in power. Renko uncovers a web of death, money, madness and a kidnapping that threatens the woman he is coming to love and the lives of children he is desperate to protect. In *Three Stations*, Smith produces a complex and haunting vision of an emergent Russia’s secret underclass of street urchins, greedy thugs and a bureaucracy still paralyzed by power and fear.* * Views: 62
First in the brand-new Harry Tate thriller series - Having been made the scapegoat for a botched drugs intercept operation, MI5 officer Harry Tate is dispatched to 'Red Station', a remote outpost in the Balkans, ostensibly to avoid press scrutiny, but where in effect the security services send 'problem' agents they'd like to be rid of. But the outpost is thrust into the international spotlight when troops begin massing in the area; and, as the situation becomes increasingly dangerous, Tate discovers the real, truly shocking, purpose behind 'Red Station' - and decides to fight back . . . Views: 62
From Publishers WeeklyIf 2009's Midwinter was the Dirty Dozen in Elfland, this thrilling sequel is Magical Mission Impossible. Former lothario Silverdun becomes a priest, but finds himself bored. When his government recruits him as a spy, he takes the offer and is shocked when they demand he learn extraordinary physical and magical skills. Silverdun, scholarly former soldier Ironfoot, and deadly empath Sela are assigned to discover the origin of Einswrath, the city-killing weapons unleashed in the previous Seelie/Unseelie war. Standard spy tropes—training sequences, double agents, betrayals from within—take on new life when melded with high fantasy, and Sturges has an easy ear for dialogue and character. Silverdun's backstory is nicely fleshed out in the process, though fans of the first book should be warned that the other characters appear briefly or not at all. (June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Views: 62
Fifteen-year-old Lydia, resigned to a boring summer in Halifax, is thrilled when Megan and her totally hot brother, Sam, move in across the street. But their rude and hostile mother, Mrs. Swicker, is strangely protective, and does everything she can to stop Lydia and her older sister, Jilly, from getting anywhere near her kids.One day Lydia accidentally stumbles across something very puzzling in the Swickers' basement. Determined to find some answers, Lydia enlists the help of Jilly. But the further they investigate, the more bizarre the discoveries. Lydia's suspicions about Mrs. Swicker are mounting, but she has no idea what a twisted, dangerous secret she has uncovered until it's too late. Views: 62
In To Light a Candle, the Demon Queen sends her forces against her human and elven enemies, sowing distraction and death. In the human City, the Queen's agents work to divide the Council and foment rebellion among the City's citizens. In the countryside, they target the most vulnerable and valuable---the young Elf Prince and the Wild Mages who might be the Demons' most dangerous enemies. To his own surprise, young Kellen, once the disappointing son of the great Mage who leads the City's Mage Council, has become a powerful Knight-Mage. Valued for his bravery and his skills as both wizard and warrior, Kellen joins the Elves' war councils. Yet he cannot convince the City of his birth that it is in terrible danger. Kellen's sister Idalia, a Wild Mage with great healing ability, has pledged her heart to Jermayan, a proud Elven warrior. Someday Idalia will pay a tragic Price for a world-saving work of Wild Magic, but until then, she will claim any joy life can offer her. Jermayan, who has learned much while fighting at Kellen's side and loving the human Idalia, finds that everything changes when he Bonds with a dragon while rescuing the Elf Prince and becomes the first Elven Mage in a thousand years. Furious at her enemies' success with the dragon, the Demon Queen attacks in force. Light struggles against Dark, like flickering candleflames buried deep in the shadow of Obsidian Mountain. Views: 62
