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February Books…

The Wolf At The Door, by Jack Higgins

On Long Island, a trusted operative for the president nudges his boat up to a pier, when a man materializes out of the rain and shoots him. In London, General Charles Ferguson, adviser to the prime minister, approaches his car on a side street, when there is a flash and the car explodes. In New York, a former British soldier, who is also a bit more than that, takes a short walk in Central Park to stretch his legs, when a man comes up fast behind him, a pistol in his hand. And that is only the beginning. Someone is targeting the members of the elite intelligence unit known as “the Prime Minister’s private army” and all those who work with them, and whoever is doing it has a lot of resources at his command. Sean Dillon has an idea of who it may be, an old nemesis who has clearly gotten tired of their interference in his schemes. But proving it is going to be a difficult task. And surviving it the hardest task of all. . .

Apple Turnover Mystery, by Joanna Fluke

Hannah Swinson is working long hours at her bakery, the Cookie Jar, as well as dating two men, dentist Norman Rhodes and local sheriff Mike Kingston. Her personal life gets more complicated with the reappearance of Bradford Ramsey, a college professor with whom Hannah had a brief fling when she was a naïve graduate student. Hannah hopes ladies’ man Bradford has forgotten the embarrassing episode. When Hannah winds up serving as a magician’s assistant for a charity show, she has the misfortune to find Bradford, the show’s host, backstage stone cold dead. With her usual wit and flair, amateur sleuth Hannah narrows down the list of suspects in Bradford’s murder, but can she catch the culprit before she becomes the next victim? Scrumptious recipes include mocha nut butterballs and chocolate marshmallow cookie bars.

Brendan, by Morgan Llwelyn

This is the story of Saint Brendán the Navigator, whose legendary quest to find the Isle of the Blessed is one of the most remarkable and enduring of early Christian tales. Among Irish saints, Brendán the Navigator is second only to Patrick. Founder of several Christian monasteries, he most famously guided a group of monks on a dangerous journey into the unknown vastness of the ocean on a search for Paradise. Based on the medieval “Life of St. Brendan,” Morgan Llywelyn’s imaginative retelling of the Christian legend of this most remarkable man is a lyrical and surprising feast for the mind and heart. It is a story of truth and transcendence, of inner strength and daily discipline, of love and longing, and of towering faith. And of course, miracles.

Death Of A Valentine, by M.C. Beaton

Amazing news has spread across the Scottish countryside. The most famous of highland bachelors, police sergeant Hamish Macbeth, will be married at last. Everyone in the village of Lochdubh adores Josie McSween, Macbeth’s newest constable and blushing bride-to-be. While locals think Josie is quite a catch, Hamish has a case of prenuptial jitters. After all, if it weren’t for the recent murder of a beautiful woman in a neighbouring village, there wouldn’t be a wedding at all. For it was a mysterious Valentine’s Day package—delivered to the victim before her death—that initially drew Hamish and Josie together on the investigation. As they work side by side, Hamish and Josie soon discover that the woman’s list of admirers was endless, confirming Hamish’s suspicion that love can be blind, deaf . . . and deadly.

Conspirita, by Robert Harris

In this gripping second installment to his ancient Rome trilogy, Harris proves once again that politics is an ugly game. Beginning in 63 B.C.E. and told by Cicero’s slave secretary, Tiro, this complex tale continues to chronicle Cicero’s political career as he charms, co-opts, and bribes his way into the exalted position of consul, ruler of Rome. Although Cicero is known as a brilliant politician and philosopher, he was also a slick manipulator and shameless schemer, competing with equally sneaky rivals Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus. Cicero realizes that as the empire expands, the greatest threat to Rome comes from within, plotted by well-financed conspirators bent on turning the republic into a dictatorship. With fabulous oratory and trickery, Cicero uncovers and crushes an insurrection, exposing himself to great danger and possible assassination. Riots, murder, civil unrest, corruption, treachery, and betrayal mark Cicero’s political legacy, resulting in a battle between him and Julius Caesar. Throughout, however, Tiro remains loyal and remarkably astute, recognizing that it is an act of madness for a man to pursue power when he could be sitting in the sunshine reading a book.

Days Of Gold, by Jude Devereaux

The prequel to Lavender Morning places Deveraux on familiar historical romance ground as she traces the journey to America of the namesake of the fictional town of Edilean, Va. English-born Edilean Talbot is very out of place when she arrives in 1766 Scotland to live with her uncle. A pressing problem presents itself when her uncle plans to marry off the rich, beautiful and well-educated Edilean to one of his unsavory friends the moment she turns 18. Reluctantly, Angus McTern, the highland hunk who laughs at Edilean even as he falls for her, helps her escape and accompanies her on a transatlantic voyage acting the role of husband. Once in Boston, they go their separate ways, later reuniting when old friends help Edilean dispense with an enemy. After dozens of novels, Deveraux has a sure hand evoking plucky heroines, dastardly villains and irresistible heroes, as well as a well-rounded supporting cast.

Deeper Than The Dead, by Tami Hoag

One fall day in 1985 in Oak Knoll, Calif., fifth-grader Tommy Crane and his sidekick, Wendy Morgan, are fleeing the class bully, Dennis Farman, through a local park when Tommy stumbles over the head of a dead woman buried up to her neck. Two hours from Los Angeles, Oak Knoll is not the sort of town where major crime is a problem, but a serial killer is on the loose who’s already murdered and tortured several women and has another on deck in his secret lair. Fifth-grade teacher Anne Navarre, who counsels Tommy and Wendy, is soon at the center of the investigation being led by a hunky FBI agent, Vince Leone. This is serial killer lite with Hoag’s romance roots dictating both the prose style and the unveiling of the killer.

Kisser, by Stuart Woods

Stone Barrington is back in New York, and after a rather harrowing sojourn in Key West, he’s looking to stay closer to home and work on some simple divorce and custody cases for Woodman & Weld. But when he crosses paths with a fetching Broadway actress-and sometime lip model- Stone gets a little more deeply involved with business than he’d expected. When his new lady love turns out to be a lady with a shady past, Stone and downtown cop Dino Bacchetti realize that her beauty may have an unusually high price. . . .

The Help, by Kathryn Stockett

This optimistic, uplifting debut novel set during the nascent civil rights movement in Jackson, Miss., where black women were trusted to raise white children but not to polish the household silver. Eugenia Skeeter Phelan is just home from college in 1962, and, anxious to become a writer, is advised to hone her chops by writing about what disturbs you. The budding social activist begins to collect the stories of the black women on whom the country club sets relies and mistrusts enlisting the help of Aibileen, a maid who’s raised 17 children, and Aibileen’s best friend Minny, who’s found herself unemployed more than a few times after mouthing off to her white employers. The book Skeeter puts together based on their stories is scathing and shocking, bringing pride and hope to the black community, while giving Skeeter the courage to break down her personal boundaries and pursue her dreams. Assured and layered, full of heart and history, this one has bestseller written all over it.

Muse And Revere, by Charles DeLint

The city of Newford could be any city in North America, bursting with music, commerce, art, love and hate, and of course magic. Magic in the sidewalk cracks, myth at the foundations of its great buildings, enchantment in the spaces between its people. In this new collection, de Lint explores that magic and those spaces, shedding new light on the people and places that readers of novels like Moonheart, Forests of the Heart, The Onion Girl, and The Mystery of Grace have come to love.

A Night Too Dark, by Dana Stabenow

Stabenow deftly explores the environmental and economic impact of gold mining in her sizzling 17th novel to feature Alaska PI Kate Shugak. Global Harvest Resources is intent on opening the Suulutaq Mine, where substantial deposits of gold, copper, and molybdenum have been found on state leases in the middle of the Iqaluk Wildlife Refuge, 50 miles from Niniltna. When Kate, chair of the board of directors of the Niniltna Native Association, and state trooper Jim Chopin find bear-eaten human remains near the truck of Global Harvest roustabout Dewayne A. Gammons, they assume the remains are Gammons’s. After all, there was a suicide note in Gammons’s truck. Weeks later, a wounded and nearly catatonic Gammons emerges from the woods near Kate’s homestead. More puzzles—and murder—follow. An uneasy resolution to the crimes suggests further drama ahead for Kate and her fellow Park rats.

Not My Daughter, by Barbara Delinsky

Delinsky proves once again why she’s a perennial bestseller with this thought-provoking tale of three smart, popular teenage girls who make a pact to become pregnant and raise their babies together. Lily, Mary Kate, and Jess also happen to be the daughters of best friends Susan, Kate, and Sunny, and the mothers are thrown into a tailspin by this unexpected news. Susan, the principal of the town’s high school, has the most to lose, when the schools superintendent and editor of the local newspaper question her abilities as a leader and mother, and other parents prove quick to blame her—a single mother herself who got pregnant as a teenager—as a poor role model. But all three women must come to grips with where they failed as mothers, how the dreams they had for their daughters are disappearing, and scathing small town judgment. Timely, fresh, and true-to-life, this novel explores multiple layers of motherhood and tackles tough questions.

Rebels And Traitors, by Lindsey Davis

Set against the terrible struggle of the English Civil War, Rebels and Traitors is the story of how this turbulent era effected everyone, from rich to poor, and the hopes and dreams that carried them through years of deprivation, bloodshed and terror. When Gideon Jukes and Juliana Lovell, who are on opposites sides of the struggle, meet during one of the era’s most crucial events, their mutual attraction brings the comfort and companionship for which they both have yearned. But the flowering of radical thought collapses; its failure leads to endless plots and strange alliances. And shadows from the past threaten them individually and together in their hard-won peace. Like Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind and John Jakes’ North and South, Lindsey Davis brings to life a turbulent time through the stories of those who struggled, fought, lived and loved on all sides of a defining and devastating time.

Sizzle, by Julie Garwood

Lyra Prescott, a Los Angeles film student, is closing in on graduation and facing important decisions about her future. She’s already been offered a job at her hometown TV station, an opportunity that could ultimately launch her dream career as a film editor. But heading back home would also mean dealing with her overprotective brothers, social-climbing mother, and eccentric grandmother. Unsure of her future, Lyra dives into work on her final school assignment: a documentary transformed by a twist of fate into a real-life horror film. After she unwittingly captures a shocking crime on camera, a rash of mysterious, treacherous incidents convince Lyra that she’s trapped in a sinister scenario headed for a violent ending. Running scared, she turns to her best friend, Sidney Buchanan, whose connections bring dauntless and devilishly handsome FBI agent Sam Kincaid into Lyra’s life. As the noose of deadly intrigue tightens and the feelings between them deepen, Lyra and Sam must place their faith in each other’s hands—and stand together against the malevolent forces about to break loose.

13 ½, by Nevada Barr

At 15, Polly Farmer escapes an alcoholic mother and a trailer-park no-future, hitchhikes to New Orleans and makes a life for herself as an English professor. Polly, divorced with two daughters, romantically intersects with handsome restoration architect Marshall Marchand—who’s really Dylan Raines, who was incarcerated as the 11-year-old Butcher Boy who axe-murdered his parents 25 years earlier in Minnesota. As Barr artfully unfolds this mystery of wickedness and pain in eerie post-Katrina New Orleans, she tackles a multitude of societal evils, from psychiatric drug abuse to the juvenile justice system, but her central conflict, Polly’s fierce determination to keep her daughters safe while trying to believe in the man she loves, makes this a terrifying, utterly convincing glimpse into the abyss.

Wild Penance, by Sandi Ault

Bureau of Land Management agent Jamaica Wild sets out to piece together a fascinating puzzle that revolves around a secret religious sect society known as the Los Penitentes, but her research turns into a hunt for a killer when she sees a body on a cross tossed off a bridge over the Rio Grande Gorge. Neither medicine woman Momma Anna, her spiritual teacher, nor Father Medina can shed light on the crucified victim. Ault’s love of the outdoors and her respect for American Indian culture are evident in her vivid descriptions of the culture, people, and northern New Mexico landscape.

Treasure Hunt, by John Lescroat

Mickey Dade hates deskwork, but that’s all he’s been doing at Wyatt Hunt’s private investigative service, The Hunt Club. His itch to be active is answered when a body is discovered: It’s Dominic Como, one of San Francisco’s most high-profile activists-a charismatic man known as much for his expensive suits as his work on a half dozen nonprofit boards. One “person of interest” in the case is Como’s business associate, Alicia Thorpe-young, gorgeous, and the sister of one of Mickey’s friends. As Mickey and Hunt are pulled into the case, they soon learn that the city’s golden fundraiser was involved in some highly suspect deals. And the lovely Alicia knows more about this-and more about Como-than she’s letting on. Treasure Hunt is both a nail-biting thriller and a coming-of-age story, filled with Lescroart’s trademark San Francisco flavors. Mickey Dade, its young protagonist, gradually learns the hard lessons Hunt knows only too well, as the world he though he knew unravels around him.

Winter Garden, by Kristen Hannah

Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard; the other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But when their beloved father falls ill, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters. As children, the only connection between them was the Russian fairy tale Anya sometimes told the girls at night. On his deathbed, their father extracts a promise from the women in his life: the fairy tale will be told one last time—and all the way to the end. Thus begins an unexpected journey into the truth of Anya’s life in war-torn Leningrad, more than five decades ago. Alternating between the past and present, Meredith and Nina will finally hear the singular, harrowing story of their mother’s life, and what they learn is a secret so terrible and terrifying that it will shake the very foundation of their family and change who they believe they are.

Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel

Henry VIII’s challenge to the church’s power with his desire to divorce his queen and marry Anne Boleyn set off a tidal wave of religious, political and societal turmoil that reverberated throughout 16th-century Europe. Mantel boldly attempts to capture the sweeping internecine machinations of the times from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell, the lowborn man who became one of Henry’s closest advisers. Cromwell’s actual beginnings are historically ambiguous, and Mantel admirably fills in the blanks, portraying Cromwell as an oft-beaten son who fled his father’s home, fought for the French, studied law and was fluent in French, Latin and Italian. Mixing fiction with fact, Mantel captures the atmosphere of the times and brings to life the important players: Henry VIII; his wife, Katherine of Aragon; the bewitching Boleyn sisters; and the difficult Thomas More, who opposes the king. Unfortunately, Mantel also includes a distracting abundance of dizzying detail and Henry’s all too voluminous political defeats and triumphs, which overshadows the more winning story of Cromwell and his influence on the events that led to the creation of the Church of England.