Hot New Book Releases

Storm Prey (Lucas Davenport Series #20) by John Sandford

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 20 May 2010 07:04:00 -0700

Book release date: May 18, 2010

Genre: thriller

The latest Lucas Davenport thriller from the New York times-bestselling author John Sandford.

Book synopsis:

Lucas Davenport, fast-driving, sharp-dressing investigator with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, is the rock star of John Sandford’s Prey novels. And Storm Prey, the 20th thrill ride in the series, is the reason we keep coming back.

In the wee hours of a bitter cold morning, three thugs who’ve just busted a hospital pharmacy go tearing out of the parking garage and nearly crash into an attractive woman entering the structure. Later, a news story on the break-in announces that a bound and badly beaten pharmacy employee has died, leaving the burglars facing murder charges and wondering: Did the looker they saw get a good look at them?

It doesn’t take long for a doctor in on the heist to figure out that the potential witness is Weather Karkinnen, the surgeon/wife of Lucas Davenport, a big-deal detective who isn’t afraid to shoot first and ask questions later. What’s more, Davenport has called in his posse of top cops to make sure she’s surrounded at all times. Now that would have been a good move if the artless band of bandits decided to take a crack at her themselves. But knowing their limits, they’ve hired a stone-cold killer to make sure this new operation is a success….

Excerpt:

To read Chapter One of Storm Prey, click HERE.

Author's biography:

John Sandford is the pseudonym of the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling novelist John Roswell Camp. Camp was born on February 23, 1944, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He received a B.A. in American History and a Masters in Journalism from the University of Iowa. Camp worked for the Miami Herald from 1971 to 1978. In 1978 he moved to Minneapolis and started working for the Saint Paul Pioneer Press as a features reporter before becoming a daily columnist at the newspaper in 1980. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1980, for a series of stories on Native American culture. In 1986 he won the Pulitzer for Non-Deadline Feature Writing for a series of stories collectively titled "Life on the Land: An American Farm Family". The series, written during the midwest farm crisis, followed a typical southwest Minnesota farm family through the course of a full year. He stopped writing full-time for the Pioneer Press in 1989, although he didn't stop entirely until the next year. In 1989 Camp wrote two novels that would become the first books of his two bestselling series. Both novels, The Fool's Run of the Kidd series and Rules of Prey of the Prey series, were accepted and due to be published three months apart. The Fool's Run was published under the name "John Camp", but the publisher asked Camp to provide a pseudonym for Rules of Prey so it was published under the name "John Sandford". After the Prey series proved to be more popular, with its charismatic protagonist Lucas Davenport, The Fool's Run and all of its subsequent sequels have been published under the "Sandford" name. In 2007 Sandford started a third series featuring Virgil Flowers, who previously was a supporting character in Invisible Prey.

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 4 May 2010 02:45:00 -0700

Book release date: May 4, 2010

Genre: fiction, humor

Book synopsis:

The hyperactive love child of Page Six and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? caught in a tawdry love triangle with The Fan. Even Kitty Kelly will blush.

Soaked, nay, marinated in the world of vintage Hollywood, Tell-All is a Sunset Boulevard–inflected homage to Old Hollywood when Bette Davis and Joan Crawford ruled the roost; a veritable Tourette’s syndrome of rat-tat-tat name-dropping, from the A-list to the Z-list; and a merciless send-up of Lillian Hellman’s habit of butchering the truth that will have Mary McCarthy cheering from the beyond.

Our Thelma Ritter–ish narrator is Hazie Coogan, who for decades has tended to the outsized needs of Katherine “Miss Kathie” Kenton—veteran of multiple marriages, career comebacks, and cosmetic surgeries. But danger arrives with gentleman caller Webster Carlton Westward III, who worms his way into Miss Kathie’s heart (and boudoir). Hazie discovers that this bounder has already written a celebrity tell-all memoir foretelling Miss Kathie’s death in a forthcoming Lillian Hellman–penned musical extravaganza; as the body count mounts, Hazie must execute a plan to save Katherine Kenton for her fans—and for posterity.

Tell-All is funny, subversive, and fascinatingly clever. It’s wild, it’s wicked, it’s bold-faced—it’s vintage Chuck.

Excerpt

To read an excerpt from the first two chapters of Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk, click HERE.

Author's biography:

Charles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk (born February 21, 1962) is an American transgressional fiction novelist and freelance journalist. He is best known for the award-winning novel Fight Club, which was later made into a film directed by David Fincher. Palahniuk began writing fiction in his mid-thirties. By his account, he started writing while attending writer's workshops, hosted by Tom Spanbauer, which he attended to meet new friends. Initially, Palahniuk struggled to find a literary agent and went without one until after the publication of Fight Club. Palahniuk's books prior to Lullaby have distinct similarities. The characters are people who have been marginalized in one form or another by society, and who react with often self-destructive aggressiveness (a form of story that the author likes to describe as transgressive fiction). Starting with Lullaby, his novels have been satirical horror stories. When not writing fiction, Palahniuk tends to write short non-fiction works. Working as a freelance journalist in between books, he writes essays and reports on a variety of subjects; he sometimes participates in the events of these writings, which are heavy in field research. He has also written interviews with celebrities, such as Juliette Lewis and Marilyn Manson. These works appear in various magazines and newspapers, such as the Los Angeles Times and Gear magazine. Some of these writings have shown up in his book Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories. Palahniuk also includes some non-fiction factoids within his fictional works. According to the author, these are included in order to further immerse the reader in his work. The content of Palaniuk's works has earned him a reputation as a nihilist. Palahniuk however rejects this label, claiming he is a romantic, and that his works are mistakenly seen as nihilistic because they express ideas that others do not believe in. Palahniuk has won the following awards: the 1997 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award (for Fight Club), the 1997 Oregon Book Award for Best Novel (for Fight Club), the 2003 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award (for Lullaby). He was also nominated for the 1999 Oregon Book Award for Best Novel for Survivor and for the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel for Lullaby in 2002 and Haunted in 2005. He lives near Vancouver, Washington.

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Reckless by Andrew Gross

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 14:52:00 -0700

Book release date: April 27, 2010

Genre: thriller

Great new thriller from Andrew Gross

Book synopsis:

Ty Hauck is shattered by the news. A close friend from his past, along with her husband and daughter, has been brutally murdered in their home by vicious intruders. Now he will risk everything he loves to avenge her death...

A wealthy banker, seeing his world about to crumble around him, knows his family is in unfathomable danger…

A US government agent watches the sudden bank transfers of millions in cash and suspects that this is the first step in a plot to unleash a wave of global panic…

Ty Hauck hunts the murderer of a friend—and steps into the crosshairs of a sinister conspiracy— in this most electrifying novel yet from New York Times bestselling thriller master Andrew Gross.

Private security investigator Ty Hauck, with Naomi Blum, a tenacious agent from the U.S. Department of Treasury, unravels the evidence that joins these seemingly unrelated events—revealing a reckless scheme that stretches from New York to London to Central Europe and gives new meaning to the phrase ‘too big to fail. What began with a tragedy that opened a door to Hauck’s past—a door that he thought was long closed—ends with a frantic race to avert a disaster that could shake the very security of our country—and even the world.

Excerpt

To read an excerpt from the first three chapter's of Reckless, click HERE.

Praise

"RECKLESS is sexy-as-hell and Andrew Gross's best."

- James Patterson

Author's Biography:

Andrew Gross (born 1952) is an American author, best known for his collaborations with suspense writer James Patterson. Andrew Gross is the author of the New York Times and international bestsellers The Blue Zone and The Dark Tide, and coauthor of five number one bestselling novels with James Patterson, including Judge & Jury, Lifeguard, and The Jester. Gross lives in Westchester County, New York, with his wife, Lynn. They have three children.

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 14:33:00 -0700

Book release date: April 27, 2010

Genre: historical fiction

From the sugar plantations of Saint-Domingue to the lavish parlors of New Orleans at the turn of the 19th century, the latest novel from New York Times bestselling author Isabel Allende (Inés of My Soul, The House of the Spirits, Portrait in Sepia) tells the story of a mulatta woman, a slave and concubine, determined to take control of her own destiny.

Book synopsis:

Born a slave on the island of Saint-Domingue, Zarité -- known as Tété -- is the daughter of an African mother she never knew and one of the white sailors who brought her into bondage. Though her childhood is one of brutality and fear, Tété finds solace in the traditional rhythms of African drums and in the voodoo loas she discovers through her fellow slaves.

When twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770, it’s with powdered wigs in his baggage and dreams of financial success in his mind. But running his father’s plantation, Saint Lazare, is neither glamorous nor easy. It will be eight years before he brings home a bride -- but marriage, too, proves more difficult than he imagined. And Valmorain remains dependent on the services of his teenaged slave.

Spanning four decades, Island Beneath the Sea is the moving story of the intertwined lives of Tété and Valmorain, and of one woman’s determination to find love amid loss, to offer humanity though her own has been battered, and to forge her own identity in the cruellest of circumstances.

Excerpt

To read an excerpt from Island Beneath the Sea, click HERE.

Praise

“Allende is a master storyteller at the peak of her powers.”

---Los Angeles Times

Author's biography:

Isabel Allende Llona (born 2 August 1942) is a Chilean writer. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the "magic realist" tradition, is one of the best-known women writers in Latin America. She is largely famous for novels such as The House of the Spirits (La casa de los espíritus) (1982) and City of the Beasts (La ciudad de las bestias) (2002), which have been commercially very successful. Allende has been described as "the world’s most widely read Spanish-language author." Her novels often focus on the experiences of women, are sometimes based on her own experiences, and weave myth and realism together. She has lectured and toured widely, and has taught literature at many American colleges. Having adopted American citizenship in 2003, she currently resides in California with her husband. She is of Basque, Spanish and Portuguese descent.

Would you like to read this novel? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin by Hampton Sides

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 14:12:00 -0700

Book release date: April 27, 2010

Genre: history, non-fiction, crime,

From the acclaimed bestselling author of Ghost Soldiers and Blood and Thunder, a taut, intense narrative about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the largest manhunt in American history.

Book synopsis:

On April 23, 1967, Prisoner #416J, an inmate at the notorious Missouri State Penitentiary, escaped in a breadbox. Fashioning himself Eric Galt, this nondescript thief and con man—whose real name was James Earl Ray—drifted through the South, into Mexico, and then Los Angeles, where he was galvanized by George Wallace’s racist presidential campaign.

On February 1, 1968, two Memphis garbage men were crushed to death in their hydraulic truck, provoking the exclusively African American workforce to go on strike. Hoping to resuscitate his faltering crusade, King joined the sanitation workers’ cause, but their march down Beale Street, the historic avenue of the blues, turned violent. Humiliated, King fatefully vowed to return to Memphis in April.

With relentless storytelling drive, Sides follows Galt and King as they crisscross the country, one stalking the other, until the crushing moment at the Lorraine Motel when the drifter catches up with his prey. Against the backdrop of the resulting nationwide riots and the pathos of King’s funeral, Sides gives us a riveting cross-cut narrative of the assassin’s flight and the sixty-five-day search that led investigators to Canada, Portugal, and England—a massive manhunt ironically led by Hoover’s FBI.

Magnificent in scope, drawing on a wealth of previously unpublished material, this nonfiction thriller illuminates one of the darkest hours in American life—an example of how history is so often a matter of the petty bringing down the great.

Excerpt

To read an excerpt from Chapter One of Hellhound on His Trail, click HERE.

Author's biography:

Hampton Sides (born 1962) is an American historian and magazine journalist. He is the author of Hellhound on His Trail, Ghost Soldiers, Blood and Thunder, and other bestselling works of narrative history and literary non-fiction. Sides is editor-at-large for Outside magazine and has written for such periodicals as National Geographic, The New Yorker, Esquire, Preservation, Men's Journal, Men's Vogue, and The Washington Post. His magazine work, collected in numerous published anthologies, has been twice nominated for National Magazine Awards for feature writing. Ghost Soldiers , a World War II narrative about the rescue of Bataan Death March survivors, has sold slightly over a million copies worldwide and has been translated into a dozen foreign languages. The book was the subject of documentaries on PBS and the The History Channel, and was the basis for the 2005 Miramax film, "The Great Raid." Ghost Soldiers won the 2002 PEN USA Award for non-fiction and the Discover Award from Barnes & Noble. The book's success led Sides to create The Ghost Soldiers Endowment Fund, a non-profit foundation dedicated to preserving the memory of the sacrifices made by Bataan and Corregidor veterans by funding relevant archives, museums, and memorials. Sides' Blood and Thunder focuses on the life and times of controversial frontiersman Kit Carson, and his role in the conquest of the American West. Blood and Thunder was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2006 by Time magazine, and was selected as that year's best history title by both the History Book Club and the Western Writers of America. Blood and Thunder was the subject of a major documentary on the PBS program "The American Experience" and is currently under development for the screen. A native of Memphis with a BA in history from Yale, Sides lives in Santa Fe with his wife Anne and their three boys, all soccer players. He is a past fellow of Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the Japan Society, and a media fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution. He is an adviser and board member of the Mayborn Journalism School's annual conference on Literary Non-fiction. Hampton has guest-lectured at Columbia University, Yale, Stanford, Colorado College, SMU, the Autry Museum of the American West, and the National World War II Museum, among other institutions. He has appeared as a guest on such national broadcasts as The American Experience, the Today Show, Book TV, the History Channel, Fresh Air, CNN, CBS Sunday Morning, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and NPR's "All Things Considered."

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Winston's War: Churchill, 1940-1945 by Max Hastings

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 13:47:00 -0700

Book release date: April 27, 2010

Genre: Historical, biography, military,

From our foremost historian of World War II, a vivid and incisive portrait of Winston Churchill during wartime.

Book synopsis:

A vivid and incisive portrait of Winston Churchill during wartime from acclaimed historian Max Hastings, Winston’s War captures the full range of Churchill’s endlessly fascinating character. At once brilliant and infuriating, self-important and courageous, Hastings’s Churchill comes brashly to life as never before.

Beginning in 1940, when popular demand elevated Churchill to the role of prime minister, and concluding with the end of the war, Hastings shows us Churchill at his most intrepid and essential, when, by sheer force of will, he kept Britain from collapsing in the face of what looked like certain defeat. Later, we see his significance ebb as the United States enters the war and the Soviets turn the tide on the Eastern Front. But Churchill, Hastings reminds us, knew as well as anyone that the war would be dominated by others, and he managed his relationships with the other Allied leaders strategically, so as to maintain Britain’s influence and limit Stalin’s gains.

At the same time, Churchill faced political peril at home, a situation for which he himself was largely to blame. Hastings shows how Churchill nearly squandered the miraculous escape of the British troops at Dunkirk and failed to address fundamental flaws in the British Army. His tactical inaptitude and departmental meddling won him few friends in the military, and by 1942, many were calling for him to cede operational control. Nevertheless, Churchill managed to exude a public confidence that brought the nation through the bitter war.

Hastings rejects the traditional Churchill hagiography while still managing to capture what he calls Churchill’s “appetite for the fray.” Certain to be a classic, Winston’s War is a riveting profile of one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century.

Excerpt

To read an excerpt from Winston’s War, click HERE.

Author's biography:

Sir Max Hugh Macdonald Hastings, FRSL (born 28 December 1945) is a British journalist, editor, historian and author. He is the son of Macdonald Hastings, the noted British journalist and war correspondent, and Anne Scott-James, sometime editor of Harper's Bazaar. Hastings was educated at Charterhouse School and University College, Oxford, which he left after a year. He became a foreign correspondent and reported from more than sixty countries and eleven wars for BBC television and for the Evening Standard in London. Hastings was the first journalist to enter the liberated Port Stanley during the Falklands War. After ten years as editor and then editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph, he returned to the Evening Standard as editor in 1996 until his retirement in 2001. He received a knighthood in 2002. He has presented historical documentaries for BBC TV, and is the author of many books, including Bomber Command which earned the Somerset Maugham Award for non-fiction in 1980. Both Overlord and The Battle for the Falklands won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Prize. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England from 2002-2007. He currently writes a column for the Daily Mail but often contributes articles to other publications such as The Guardian and The New York Review of Books. In his 2007 book Nemesis: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 (also known as Retribution in the United States), the chapter on Australia's role in the last year of the Pacific War was criticised by the Returned and Services League of Australia and one of the historians at the Australian War Memorial for, in their view, exaggerating discontent in the Australian Army during this period. Hastings lives with his second wife Penny (née Levinson), with whom he had two children, in west Berkshire. In 1999, his 27-year-old son Charles killed himself in Shanghai, China. Hastings dedicated his book Nemesis: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 to his late son.

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern by Victor Davis Hanson

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:29:00 -0700

Book release date: April 27, 2010

Genre: history, military,

A master historian explores how war has shaped our societies—and how societies shape warfare—from Ancient Greece to the present day, in a sweeping survey that offers profound lessons for facing today’s conflicts.

Book synopsis:

Victor Davis Hanson has long been acclaimed as one of our leading scholars of ancient history. In recent years he has also become a trenchant voice on current affairs, bringing a historian’s deep knowledge of past conflicts to bear on the crises of the present, from 9/11 to Iran. “War,” he writes, “is an entirely human enterprise.” Ideologies change, technologies develop, new strategies are invented—but human nature is constant across time and space. The dynamics of warfare in the present age still remain comprehensible to us through careful study of the past. Though many have called the War on Terror unprecedented, its contours would have been quite familiar to Themistocles of Athens or William Tecumseh Sherman. And as we face the menace of a bin Laden or a Kim Jong-Il, we can prepare ourselves with knowledge of how such challenges have been met before.

The Father of Us All brings together much of Hanson’s finest writing on war and society, both ancient and modern. The author has gathered a range of essays, and combined and revised them into a richly textured new work that explores such topics as how technology shapes warfare, what constitutes the “American way of war,” and why even those who abhor war need to study military history. “War is the father and king of us all,” Heraclitus wrote in ancient Greece. And as Victor Davis Hanson shows, it is no less so today.

Excerpt

To listen to an audio lecture "A western way of war" from The Father of Us All, click HERE.

Praise:

“Few writers cover both current events and history--and none with the brilliance and erudition of Victor Davis Hanson. In The Father of Us All, he uses his deep knowledge of military history to shed light on present-day controversies. Required reading for anyone interested in war, past or present.”

—Max Boot, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of The Savage Wars of Peace and War Made New

Author's biography:

Victor Davis Hanson (born 1953 in Fowler, California) is a military historian, columnist, political essayist and former classics professor, notable as a scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a commentator on modern warfare and contemporary politics for National Review and other media outlets, and was a strong supporter of the policies of US President George W. Bush. He was for many years a professor of classics at Cal State University, Fresno, and is currently the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007, the Claremont Institute's Statesmanship Award at its annual Churchill Dinner, and the $250,000 Bradley prize from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in 2008. His many bestselling books include Carnage and Culture, A War Like No Other, and An Autumn of War. Hanson is also a farmer (growing raisin grapes on a family farm near Fresno, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism.

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it Amazon by clicking HERE.

Foxy: My Life in Three Acts by Pam Grier

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:03:00 -0700

Book release date: April 28, 2010

Genre: autobiography, memoir, entertainment,

Beautiful, bold, and bad, Grier burst onto the movie scene in the 1970s, setting the screen on fire and forever changing the country's view of African-American actresses. Revealing, thoroughly candid, and audacious, this no-holds-barred autobiography offers a tantalizing look at this screen icon.

Book synopsis:

Some may know her as hot, gutsy, gun-totin' Foxy Brown, Friday Foster, Coffy, and Jackie Brown. Others may know her from her role as Kit Porter on The L Word. But that only defines one part of the legend that is Pam Grier.

Beautiful, bold, and bad, Pam Grier burst onto the movie scene in the 1970s, setting the screen on fire and forever changing the country's view of African American actresses. With a killer attitude and body to match, Grier became the ultimate fantasy of men everywhere. But she quickly proved that she was more than just a desirable film goddess. She had the brains, courage, and tenacity to sustain a career that would span more than 30 years.

In Foxy, she chronicles the good, bad, and steamy highlights in her life and career. From her early beginnings as a star in Foxy Brown to her Golden-Globe nominated role in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, Grier reveals her hard-won battles against racism and sexism, her victories in Hollywood, and her relationships with Richard Pryor and Kareem Abdul Jabar. Here, we see Pam in all of her incredible roles-from army brat and movie star to cancer survivor and dedicated activist. Revealing, thoroughly candid, and audacious, this is a no-holds-barred look at one of our most enduring screen idols.

This book is broken down into Three Parts: The Early Years, 'Fros and Freaks, and Finding the Balance.

Chapters include:

Chapter One: ARMY BRAT
Chapter Two: MEETING MONSTERS
Chapter Three: ANIMALS OVER PEOPLE
Chapter Four: THE SUMMER OF FAILED LOVE
Chapter Five: MOVING TO THE PULSE
Chapter Six: LEW AND ALLAH
Chapter Seven: BLAXPLOITATION BREAKOUT
Chapter Eight: THREE STRIKES AND I'M OUTTA THERE!
Chapter Nine: TRIAL BY LOSS
Chapter Ten: FIGHTING FOR HER LIFE
Chapter Eleven: NO MAN'S LAND
Chapter Twelve: GOING BROWN: FROM FOXY TO JACKIE
Chapter Thirteen: THE L WORD
Chapter Fourteen: HEALING AND HORSE SENSE

Excerpt

To read an excerpt from Foxy: My Life in Three Acts, click HERE.

Author's biography:

Pamela Suzette "Pam" Grier (born May 26, 1949) is an American actress. She came to fame in the early 1970s, after starring in a string of moderately successful women in prison films and blaxploitation films such as 1974's Foxy Brown. Her career was revitalized in 1997 after her appearance in Quentin Tarantino's film Jackie Brown. She is one of a few African American actresses to have received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. She has also been nominated for a SAG as well as a Satellite Award for her performance in the iconic film Jackie Brown. She received an Emmy Award nomination for her work in an Animated Program Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Ever Child. Rotten Tomatoes has ranked her as the second Greatest Female Action Heroine in film history. Director Quentin Tarantino, in an interview promoting Jackie Brown on Charlie Rose, remarked that she may well have been cinema's first female action star.

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

The Dead Republic by Roddy Doyle

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 16:26:00 -0700

Book release date: April 29, 2010

Genre: historical fiction

The triumphant conclusion to the trilogy that began with A Star Called Henry.

Book synopsis:

After spending thirty years in America, Henry Smart returns to Ireland in this moving finale to his story.

At the end of Oh, Play That Thing, the second volume of Roddy Doyle's trilogy about Henry Smart, Henry, his leg severed in an accident with a railway boxcar, crawls into the Utah desert to die — only to be discovered by John Ford, who's there shooting his latest Western. Ford recognizes a fellow Irish rebel and determines to turn Henry's story — a boy volunteer at the GPO in 1916, a hitman for Michael Collins, a republican legend — into a film. He appoints him "IRA consultant" on his new film, The Quiet Man.

The Dead Republic opens in 1951 with Henry returning to Ireland for the first time since his escape in 1922. With him are the stars of Ford's film, John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, and the famous director himself, "Pappy," who, in a series of intense, highly charged meetings tries to suck the soul out of Henry and turn it into Hollywood gold-dust.

Ten years later Henry is in Dublin, working in Ratheen as a school caretaker, loved by the boys, who call him "Hoppy Henry" on account of his wooden leg. When Henry is caught in a bomb blast, that wooden leg gets left behind. He soon finds himself a hero: the old IRA veteran who's lost his leg to a UVF bomb. Wheeled out by the Provos at funerals and rallies, Henry is to find he will have other uses too, when the peace process begins in deadly secrecy...

In three brilliant novels, A Star Called Henry, Oh, Play That Thing and The Dead Republic, Roddy Doyle has told the whole history of Ireland in the twentieth century. And in the person of his hero, he has created one of the great characters of modern fiction.

Excerpt

To read an excerpt from The Dead Republic, click HERE.

Praise:

“Doyle is a stellar storyteller. . . . Doyle exhibits a peerless ear for cynicism as he grapples with the violence and farce of Irish history.”
— Publishers Weekly

Author's biography:

Roddy Doyle (born 8 May 1958 in Dublin) is an Irish novelist, dramatist and screenwriter. He is the author of eight novels, a collection of stories, and Rory & Ita, a memoir of his parents. Several of his books have been made into successful films, beginning with The Commitments in 1991. He won the Booker Prize in 1993. Doyle grew up in Kilbarrack, Dublin. He now resides in Dublin. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from University College Dublin. He spent several years as an English and geography teacher before becoming a full-time writer in 1993. During this period, one of his pupils was Enda Walsh. He established a creative writing centre, Fighting Words, which opened in Dublin in January 2009. It was inspired by a visit to his friend Dave Eggers' 826 Valencia project in San Francisco. Fighting Words is open to students of all ages, and a core principle is that all tutoring in creative writing is provided free.

Would you like to read this novel? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 13:30:00 -0700

Book release date: April 29, 2010

Genre: general fiction

Introducing a fresh, exciting Chinese-American voice, Girl in Translation is an inspiring debut about a young immigrant in America, a smart girl who, living a double life between school and sweatshop, understands that her family’s future is in her hands.

Book synopsis:

When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong to Brooklyn squalor, she quickly begins a secret double life: exceptional schoolgirl during the day, Chinatown sweatshop worker in the evenings. Disguising the more difficult truths of her life—the staggering degree of her poverty, the weight of her family’s future resting on her shoulders, her secret love for a factory boy who shares none of her talent or ambition—Kimberly learns to constantly translate not just her language but herself, back and forth, between the worlds she straddles.

Through Kimberly’s story, author Jean Kwok, who also emigrated from Hong Kong as a young girl, brings to the page the lives of countless immigrants who are caught between the pressure to succeed in America, their duty to their family, and their own personal desires, exposing a world we rarely hear about. Written in an indelible voice that dramatizes the tensions of an immigrant girl growing up between two cultures, surrounded by a language and a world only half understood, Girl in Translation is an unforgettable and classic novel of an American immigrant—a moving tale of hardship and triumph, heartbreak and love, and all that gets lost in translation.

Excerpt:

To read an excerpt from Girl in Translation, click HERE.

Praise:

"Part fairy tale, part autobiography... what puts this debut novel toward the top of the pile is its buoyant voice and its slightly subversive ending that suggests "happily ever after" may have more to do with love of self and of family than with any old Prince Charming."

-O, The Oprah Magazine

Author's biography:

Jean Kwok was born in Hong Kong and immigrated to Brooklyn as a young girl. Jean received her bachelor's degree from Harvard and completed an MFA in fiction at Columbia. She worked as an English teacher and Dutch-English translator at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and now writes full-time. She has been published in Story magazine and Prairie Schooner.

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Paradise General: Riding the Surge at a Combat Hospital in Iraq by Dave Hnida

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 13:11:00 -0700

Book release date: April 27, 2010

Genre: memoir, medical, military

Book synopsis:

In 2004, at the age of forty-eight, Dr. Dave Hnida, a family physician from Littleton, Colorado, volunteered to be deployed to Iraq and spent a tour of duty as a battalion surgeon with a combat unit. In 2007, he went back—this time as a trauma chief at one of the busiest Combat Support Hospitals (CSH) during the Surge. In an environment that was nothing less than a modern-day M*A*S*H, the doctors’ main objective was simple: Get ’em in, get ’em out. The only CSH staffed by reservists— who tended to be older, more-experienced doctors disdainful of authority—the 399th soon became a medevac destination of choice because of its high survival rate, an astounding 98 percent.

This was fast-food medicine at its best: working in a series of tents connected to the occasional run-down building, Dr. Hnida and his fellow doctors raced to keep the wounded alive until they could be airlifted out of Iraq for more extensive repairs. Here the Hippocratic Oath superseded that of the pledge to Uncle Sam; if you got the red-carpet helicopter ride, his team took care of you, no questions asked. On one stretcher there might be a critically injured American soldier while three feet away lay the insurgent, shot in the head, who planted the IED that inflicted those wounds.

But there was levity amid the chaos. On call round-the-clock with an unrelenting caseload, the doctors’ prescription for sanity included jokes, pranks, and misbehavior. Dr. Hnida’s deployment was filled with colorful characters and gifted surgeons, a diverse group who became trusted friends as together they dealt with the psychological toll of seeing the casualties of war firsthand.

In a conflict with no easy answers and even less good news, Paradise General gives us something that we can all believe in—the story of an ordinary citizen turned volunteer soldier trying to make a difference. With honesty and candor, and an off-the-wall, self-deprecating humor that sustained him and his battle buddies through their darkest hours, Dr. Hnida delivers a devastating and inspiring account of his CSH tour and an unparalleled look at medical care during an unscripted war.

Excerpt

To read an excerpt from Chapter One of Paradise General, click HERE.

Praise:

"Paradise General will inspire, shock, and entertain you. Dr. Hnida brings a combat emergency room to life, from the infrequent quiet moments, leavened with wit, humor, and reflection, to the chaos of a midnight helicopter-borne cargo of mangled limbs. You can't help but be awed by the courage of Dr. Hnida and his fellow physicians as they work tirelessly to save the lives of countless patients, both friend and foe, without the right equipment, sleep, or complaint."

—Craig M. Mullaney, author of the New York Times bestseller The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education

Author's biography:

Dr. Dave Hnida is a busy practicing physician and an award-broadcasting journalist. As the Medical Editor, of CBS4 Dr. Dave brings a family doctor to television, answering viewer questions and putting medical headlines and complicated issues into easy-to-understand, usable information. He joined the CBS4 team in September of 1991 covering medicine not only for Denver viewers but also across the country for NBC and CBS News. Hnida was educated at the University of Pennsylvania and completed his internship and residencies at Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center and Denver General Hospital. He has been working in the Denver area as a family and emergency physician for 25 years. Hnida is a combat-decorated Major in the U.S. Army Medical Corp. He has served two tours of duty in Iraq since the war began in 2003. His first tour he served as a combat surgeon with the 160th Airborne MP Battalion. His second tour took to a Combat Support Hospital as a trauma surgeon. Hnida is also a medical officer with the National Medical Response Team for Weapons of Mass Destruction, a counter-terrorism medical group. Hnida's CBS4 health reports can be seen daily on CBS4 News.

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

The Council of Dads: My Daughters, My Illness, and the Men Who Could Be Me by Bruce Feiler

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 12:45:00 -0700

Book release date: April 27, 2010

Genre: health, family,

A moving, illuminating new work from New York Times bestselling author Bruce Feiler that touches on life and death, love and fatherhood, and offers inspiration for us all.

Book synopsis:

Bruce Feiler was a young father when he was diagnosed with cancer in 2008. He instantly worried what his death might mean for his daughters. “Would they wonder who I was? Would they wonder what I thought? Would they lack for my approval, my discipline, my voice?”

Three days later he came up with a stirring idea of how he might give them that voice. He would reach out to six men, from all the passages in his life, and asked them to be present through the passages in his daughters’ lives. And he would call this group of men, “The Council of Dads.”

“I believe my daughters will have plenty of opportunities in their lives,” he wrote to these men. “They’ll have loving families. They’ll have welcoming homes. They’ll have each other. But they may not have me. They may not have their dad. Will you help be their dad?”

The Council of Dads is the inspiring story of what happened next. Mixing the harrowing tale of his treatment with the uplifting lessons of these men–“Approach the Cow,” “Pack Your Flip-Flops,” “Live the Questions,” “Harvest Miracles”–Feiler’s account is touching, funny, and ultimately a deeply moving account of parenthood, loss, and love.

Along the way he paints vivid portraits of his father, his two grandfathers, and various father figures in his life to explore the changing role of fatherhood in America. He mixes these with an intimate, highly personal chronicle of his “Lost Year” battling cancer and reconstructing his leg– an ordeal, like Jacob wrestling with an angel in the Book of Genesis, leaves him marked and transformed by the most profound questions of the human spirit.

The Council of Dads is the work of a master storyteller confronting the most difficult experience of his life and emerging with a book of wisdom, comfort, and hope that will change the way parents relate to their children, their friends, and their own lives.

Excerpt

To download and read an excerpt of The Council of Dads, click HERE.

Author's biography:

Bruce Feiler (born October 25, 1964) is a writer on social issues and, particularly more recently, on religion. He is the New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including Walking the Bible, Abraham, and Where God Was Born. He tends to write in an accessible, conversational style, blending travelogue, interviews, autobiography, and personal musings with history and archaeology. He writes on religion from a progressive point of view. Some of his back catalog of books was republished in paperback after the commercial success of his Walking the Bible (2001). He hosted a television version with the same name, shown on PBS. He is credited with formulating the Feiler Faster Thesis: the increasing pace of society and journalists' ability to report it is matched by the public's desire for more information. Feiler is a native of Savannah, Georgia, and now lives in New York City with his wife. Linda Rottenberg, and their twin daughters. His wife sometimes appears as a traveling companion in his books.

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Getting the Pretty Back: Friendship, Family, and Finding the Perfect Lipstick by Molly Ringwald

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:50:00 -0700

Book release date: April 27, 2010

Genre: autobiography, memoir, health, mind, body

As the endearing and witty star of the beloved John Hughes “brat pack” classics Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink, Molly Ringwald defined teenage angst, love, and heartbreak. Now a wife and mother of three, and a star on the current hit television drama The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Molly is facing a new angst-inducing time in her life—her fortieth birthday! Encouraging every woman to become “the sexiest, funniest, smartest, well dressed, and most confident woman that you can be,” Molly shares a lifetime of experience in a vibrant, fun, stylish, and sexy collection of intimate stories and candid advice: Getting the Pretty Back, a fully illustrated “girlfriend’s guide” to life.

To her millions of fans, Molly Ringwald will forever be sixteen. As the endearing and witty star of the beloved John Hughes classics Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink, Molly defined teenage angst, love, and heartbreak. While remembered eternally as the enviable high school princess Claire, or the shy, vulnerable Samantha, Molly has just celebrated her fortieth birthday. Facing a completely new, angst-inducing time in her life, she is embracing being a woman, wife, mother of three, actress, and best friend with her trademark style, candor, and humor.

In Getting the Pretty Back, Molly encourages every woman to become "the sexiest, funniest, smartest, best-dressed, and most confident woman that you can be." She shares personal anecdotes and entertaining insights about the struggle to get through the murky milestones and identity issues that crop up long after the prom ends. Whether she's discussing sex and beauty, personal style, travel and entertaining, motherhood, or friendship, Molly embodies the spirit of being fabulous at every age, and reminds us all that prettiness is a state of mind: it's "the part of you that knows what you really want, that takes risks."

Lavishly illustrated by Ruben Toledo, Getting the Pretty Back is sure to charm women of all ages with Molly's unforgettably personal, refreshingly outspoken take on life, love, and, of course, finding that perfect red lipstick. . . .

To listen to an audio excerpt, click HERE.

Molly Kathleen Ringwald (born February 18, 1968) is an American actress, singer and dancer. She became popular with teenage audiences in the 1980s, as a result of her starring roles in the John Hughes movies Sixteen Candles (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985), and Pretty in Pink (1986). She returned to the public eye with her role as Anne Juergens in the ABC Family show The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Her pregnancy was written into the storyline of The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Getting the Pretty Back is her first book.

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

The Long Song by Andrea Levy

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:28:00 -0700

Book release date: April 27, 2010

Genre: historical fiction

“As well as providing a history of post-abolition Jamaica, The Long Song is beautifully written, intricately plotted, humorous and earthy. In patois-inflected prose, Levy conjures the greed and licentiousness of the island’s sugar impresarios and heiresses as they indulge vast meals and sexual gropings—before casting Jamaica aside like a sucked orange. Those who enjoyed Small Island will love The Long Song, not just for the insights on the ‘wretched island,’ but as a marvel of luminous storytelling.”
—Ian Thomson, Financial Times

The author of Small Island tells the story of the last turbulent years of slavery and the early years of freedom in nineteenth-century Jamaica.

Small Island introduced Andrea Levy to America and was acclaimed as “a triumph”. It won both the Orange Prize and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award, and has sold over a million copies worldwide. With The Long Song, Levy once again reinvents the historical novel.

Told in the irresistibly willful and intimate voice of Miss July, with some editorial assistance from her son, Thomas, The Long Song is at once defiant, funny, and shocking. The child of a field slave on the Amity sugar plantation, July lives with her mother until Mrs. Caroline Mortimer, a recently transplanted English widow, decides to move her into the great house and rename her “Marguerite.”

Resourceful and mischievous, July soon becomes indispensable to her mistress. Together they live through the bloody Baptist war, followed by the violent and chaotic end of slavery. Taught to read and write so that she can help her mistress run the business, July remains bound to the plantation despite her “freedom.” It is the arrival of a young English overseer, Robert Goodwin, that will dramatically change life in the great house for both July and her mistress. Prompted and provoked by her son’s persistent questioning, July’s resilience and heartbreak are gradually revealed in this extraordinarily powerful story of slavery, revolution, freedom, and love.

To read Foreword and an excerpt from Chapter One, click HERE.

You can also read an essay "The writing of The Long Song" by clicking HERE.

Andrea Levy was born in London in 1956, almost a decade after her parents emigrated to England from Jamaica. She began writing in her mid-thirties and is the author of several short stories and novels, including Small Island, which won both the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction: Best of the Best. Her novels concentrate on the experiences of black Britons. Her novel 'Small Island' has been made into a BBC drama which was televised on BBC in December 2009. Levy is of primarily Afro-Jamaican descent. Levy has a Jewish paternal grandfather and a Scottish maternal great-grandfather. She lives in London.

Would you like to read this novel? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Day for Night by Frederick Reiken

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:02:00 -0700

Book release date: April 26, 2010

Genre: fiction,

“Brilliant plotting, haunting characters, and an elegiac tone distinguish this dazzling novel…Contemporary fiction at its best – accessible, breathtaking, and heartbreaking.”

--Kirkus

The prizewinning author of The Odd Sea and The Lost Legends of New Jersey offers this dazzling and moving novel about a family's mysterious past.

As a child, Beverly Rabinowitz fled Europe with her mother during World War II. Almost half a century later, while vacationing in Florida with her boyfriend and his son, a chance encounter leads to a strangely lucid moment in which she senses that her father, long believed to have been killed during the war, is close by. It’s the first of many seemingly random events that are guiding Beverly, and the people in her life, toward a startling discovery.

Over the course of Frederick Reiken’s provocative, intricate novel, Beverly will learn that her story is part of something larger, and brilliantly surprising. Because her story is not hers alone, but also that of a comatose teenage boy in Utah, an elusive sixties-era fugitive, an FBI agent pursuing a twenty-year obsession, a Massachusetts veterinarian who falls in love on a kibbutz in Israel, and a host of other characters.

Day For Night illuminates how disparate, far-flung people can be connected, and how the truth of those bonds can upend entire lives. Each chapter is a small universe of its own, and together they form a dazzling whole.

Gliding effortlessly across time and space, in settings that range from Florida to New Jersey to the Caribbean and the Dead Sea, Day For Night builds toward moments of revelation, when refugees from their own lives, or from history’s cruelties, come together in unpredictable and extraordinary ways.

Frederick Reiken is an American author from New Jersey. He attended The Pingry School, Princeton University and the University of California at Irvine. His debut novel, The Odd Sea, won the Hackney Literary Award for a first novel and was a finalist for the Barnes and Noble Discover Prize. It was cited as one of the best first novels of the year by Library Journal and Booklist. His follow-up, The Lost Legends of New Jersey, was a national bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book, and a Best Book of the Year for both the Los Angeles Times and the Christian Science Monitor. His short stories have appeared in publications including The New Yorker, Glimmer Train, Gulf Coast, and the Western Humanities Review, and his essays have appeared in The Writer’s Chronicle. Formerly a news reporter, columnist, and nature writer, he currently serves as the director of the graduate program in writing at Emerson College. The London Telegraph recently listed him as one of “10 rising literary stars of 2010.” He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife and daughter.

Would you like to read this novel? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Time: The Illustrated History of the World's Most Influential Magazine by Norberto Angeletti and Alberto Oliva

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 16:16:00 -0700

Book release date: April 27, 2010

Genre: journalism, photography

The history of Time—from its inception to its iconic status today—recounted by its world-famous editors, art directors, and stellar cast of contributors.

Time is a fascinating look at the history of the world's most influential newsweekly. The complete compendium is illustrated with hundreds of covers and archival photographs, featuring the work of the twentieth century's most respected journalists, editors, and photographers—from Eddie Adams, Neil Leifer, Dirck Halstead, and David Hume Kennerly, to David Burnett, Gregory Heisler, Matt Mahurin, James Nachtwey, and Diana Walker, who together won more major photo awards for Time than all other publications combined. This volume explores Time's documentation of seminal moments in history, including the moon landing, the Kennedy assassination, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and September 11th. It investigates the reasons behind Time's "Man of the Year," transitions in design, the creation of the symbolic red frame, the important designers and illustrators, the covering of both hot and soft news, as well as the magazine's changeover to the 21st century and the creation of Time's international editions.

Norberto Angeletti and Alberto Oliva have been working in journalism for thirty-five years. They have been keynote speakers at the Magazine Publishers Association of America (MPA) as well as international journalism forums. They are co-authors of the book In Vogue.

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster by Jonathan Eig

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:38:00 -0700

Book release date: April 27, 2010

Genre: crime, biography, history, non-fiction

Acclaimed journalist and best-selling author Jonathan Eig blows the lid off the Al Capone story. Based on never-before-seen government documents and newly discovered letters written by Al Capone himself, GET CAPONE presents America’s greatest gangster as you’ve never seen him before.

Drawing on thousands of pages of recently discovered government documents, wiretap transcripts, and Al Capone’s handwritten personal letters, New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Eig tells the dramatic story of the rise and fall of the nation’s most notorious criminal in rich new detail.

From the moment he arrived in Chicago in 1920, Capone found himself in a world of limitless opportunity. He was an impetuous, affable young man of average intelligence, ill prepared for fame and fortune, whose most notable characteristic was his scarred left cheek. Yet within a few years, Capone controlled an illegal bootlegging business with annual revenue rivaling that of some of the nation’s largest corporations. Along the way he corrupted the Chicago police force and local courts while becoming one of the world’s first international celebrities.

A furious President Herbert Hoover insisted that Capone be brought to justice because the criminal was making a mockery of federal law. Legend credits Eliot Ness and his “Untouchables” with apprehending Capone. But it was the U.S. attorney in Chicago and little-known agents working on direct orders from the White House who compromised their ethics—and risked their lives—to get their man.

The most infamous crime attributed to Capone was the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, a crime that Capone insisted he didn’t commit. Using newly discovered FBI records, Eig offers a surprising explanation for the murders.

Get Capone explores every aspect of the man called “Scarface,” paying particular attention to the myths that have for so long surrounded and obscured him. Capone emerges as a worldly, emotionally complex man, doomed as much by his ego as by his vicious criminality. This is the real Al Capone.

The author, a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, brings his uncompromising standards for research and his superb knack for storytelling to one of the most thrilling stories in American history. This eye-opening biography reveals that Capone was the target of one of the most intense criminal investigations in American history — with orders coming directly from the White House. And, despite his many misdeeds, Capone may have been the victim of a rigged trial.

GET CAPONE also offers a bold new theory to explain the Valentine's Day Massacre — and sheds new light on Capone's connection to the crime.

To read an excerpt, click HERE.

Jonathan Eig (born April 26, 1964) is a best-selling American author. His first newspaper job was with the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Eig is a former staff writer for The Wall Street Journal, and he remains a contributing writer there. Eig has published magazine stories in Esquire, The New Republic, Men's Health, and other publications. He is the author of "Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig". His new book, "Get Capone", is based on newly released IRS records and thousands of pages of never-before-released Justice Department files on the investigation of Al Capone. On January 12, 2010, the Chicago Police Department reopened the 1939 murder case of Edward O'Hare to set the record straight about the role O’Hare played in Capone’s conviction based on documents uncovered by Eig and detailed in "Get Capone."

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

The 9th Judgment (The Women's Murder Club) by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:56:00 -0700

Book release date: April 26, 2010

Genre: mystery, thriller

"Patterson and Paetro are at their best here, weaving a number of plots together to create a novel that dips and flows across genre lines.... A series that shows no signs of fatigue or flagging."

--BookReporter.com

Detective Lindsay Boxer chases a jewel thief, a murderous movie star, and a killer with a vendetta against women and children.

The most personal

A young mother and her infant child are ruthlessly gunned down while returning to their car in the garage of a shopping mall. There are no witnesses, and Detective Lindsay Boxer is left with only one shred of evidence: a cryptic message scrawled across the windshield in blood red lipstick.

The most dangerous

The same night, the wife of A-list actor Marcus Dowling walks in on a cat burglar who is about to steal millions of dollars worth of precious jewels. In just seconds there is an empty safe, a lifeless body, and another mystery that throws San Francisco into hysteria.

The most exciting Women's Murder Club novel ever

Lindsay spends every waking hour working with her partner Rich—and her desire for him threatens to tear apart both her relationship with her fiancé and the Women's Murder Club. Before Lindsay and her friends can piece together either case, one of the killers forces Lindsay to put her own life on the line—but is it enough to save the city? With unparalleled danger and explosive action, The 9th Judgment is James Patterson at his compelling, unstoppable best!

To read Prologue, click HERE.

James Patterson is one of the bestselling writers of all time, with more than 170 million copies of his books sold worldwide. He is the author of the two most popular detective series of the past decade, featuring Alex Cross and the Women's Murder Club. He has won an Edgar Award--the mystery world's highest honor--and his novels Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider were made into feature films. His lifelong work to promote books and reading is reflected in his new website, ReadKiddoRead.com, which helps parents, grandparents, teachers and librarians find the very best children's books for their kids. He lives in Florida.

Maxine Paetro is the author of three novels; Manshare, Babydreams, and Windfall, published between 1986 and 1991. She also wrote the biography, Dream Lovers, the Magnificent, Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee by Their Son, Dodd Darin in 1993. Her first book, How to Put Your Book Together and Get a Job in Advertising, was published in 1979 and is still in print today. Paetro has collaborated with best-selling author James Patterson, co-writing The 4th of July, The 5th Horseman and The 6th Target, all New York Times #1 best sellers in the Women's Murder Club Series. The series' seventh book, 7th Heaven, also a Patterson/Paetro collaboration, was published in February, 2008. and the eighth The 8th Confession was published in April 2009.

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:20:00 -0700

Book release date: April 20, 2010

Genre: historical, religious, biography

From the New York Times bestselling author of Amazing Grace, a groundbreaking biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the greatest heroes of the twentieth century, the man who stood up to Hitler.

A definitive, deeply moving narrative, Bonhoeffer is a story of moral courage in the face of the monstrous evil that was Nazism.

After discovering the fire of true faith in a Harlem church, Bonhoeffer returned to Germany and became one of the first to speak out against Hitler. As a double-agent, he joined the plot to assassinate the Fuhrer, and was hanged in Flossenberg concentration camp at age 39. Since his death, Bonhoeffer has grown to be one of the most fascinating, complex figures of the 20th century.

Bonhoeffer presents a profoundly orthodox Christian theologian whose faith led him to boldly confront the greatest evil of the 20th century, and uncovers never-before-revealed facts, including the story of his passionate romance.

To read an excerpt, click HERE.

Eric Metaxas (born 1963 in New York City) is the author of Everything Else You Always Wanted to Know About God (But Were Afraid to Ask) and thirty children's books. He is founder and host of Socrates in the City in New York City, where he lives with his wife and daughter. His daughter is one of the school kids. Metaxas' writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Washington Post, Books and Culture, Christianity Today, Mars Hill Review, and First Things. He has written for VeggieTales, 3-2-1 Penguins! (season 1) and Rabbit Ears Productions, earning three Grammy nominations for Best Children's Recording. His recent publication is Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, which is associated with the 2006 film Amazing Grace.

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

This Body of Death (Inspector Lynley Series #15) by Elizabeth George

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 15:59:00 -0700

Book release date: April 20, 2010

Genre: contemporary mystery,

New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth George is back with a spellbinding tale of mystery and murder featuring Scotland Yard Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley.

On compassionate leave after the murder of his wife, Thomas Lynley is called back to Scotland Yard when the body of a woman is found stabbed and abandoned in an isolated London cemetery. His former team doesn’t trust the leadership of their new department chief, Isabelle Ardery, whose management style seems to rub everyone the wrong way. In fact, Lynley may be the sole person who can see beneath his superior officer’s hard-as-nails exterior to a hidden—and possibly attractive—vulnerability.

While Lynley works in London, his former colleagues Barbara Havers and Winston Nkata follow the murder trail south to the New Forest. There, they discover a beautiful and strange place where animals roam free, the long-lost art of thatching is very much alive, and outsiders are not entirely welcome. What they don’t know is that more than one dark secret lurks among the trees, and that their investigation will lead them to an outcome that is both tragic and shocking.

A multi-layered jigsaw puzzle of a story skillfully structured to keep readers guessing until the very end, This Body of Death is a magnificent achievement from a writer at the peak of her powers.

To read an excerpt, click HERE.

Susan Elizabeth George (born 26 February 1949) is an American author of mystery novels set in Great Britain. Eleven of her novels, featuring her character Inspector Lynley, have been adapted for television by the BBC as The Inspector Lynley Mysteries. She was born in Warren, Ohio, but moved to the San Francisco Bay Area when she was eighteen months old. She was a student of English, receiving a teaching certificate. While teaching English in the public school system, she completed an advanced degree in psychology. Her first published novel was A Great Deliverance in 1988, featuring Thomas Lynley, Lord Asherton, a Scotland Yard inspector of noble birth; Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, Lynley's partner, from a very working-class background; Lady Helen Clyde, Lynley's girlfriend and later wife, of noble birth as well; and Lynley's friends Simon and Deborah St. James.

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Eight Days to Live: An Eve Duncan Forensics Thriller Series #9 by Iris Johansen

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 15:48:00 -0700

Book release date: April 20, 2010

Genre: thriller, suspense

Number-one New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen delivers a thriller that will chill you to the core: Eve Duncan’s adopted daughter Jane has been targeted by a mysterious cult who has decided that she has only eight days to live.

Eve Duncan and her adopted daughter, Jane Macguire, are pitted against the members of a secretive cult who have targeted Jane and have decided that she will be their ultimate sacrifice. In eight days they will come for her. In eight days, what Jane fears the most will become a reality. In eight days, she will die. It all begins with a painting that Jane, an artist, displays in her Parisian gallery. The painting is called “Guilt” and Jane has no idea how or why she painted the portrait of the chilling face. But the members of a cult that dates back to the time of Christ believe that Jane’s blasphemy means she must die. But first, she will lead them to an ancient treasure whose value is beyond price. This elusive treasure, and Jane’s death, are all that they need for their power to come to ultimate fruition. With Eve’s help, can Jane escape before the clock stops ticking?

To read an excerpt, click HERE.

Iris Johansen (born April 7, 1938) is an American author of crime fiction and romance novel. She is the New York Times bestselling author of Deadlock, Dark Summer, Silent Thunder (with Roy Johansen), Pandora’s Daughter, Quicksand, Killer Dreams, On the Run, Countdown, Firestorm, Fatal Tide, Dead Aim, No One to Trust and more. Johansen began writing after her children left home for college. She first achieved success in the early 1980s writing category romances. In 1991, Johansen began writing suspense historical romance novels, starting with the publication of The Wind Dancer. In 1996 Johansen switched genres, turning to crime fiction, with which she has had great success. She had seventeen consecutive New York Times bestsellers as of November 2006. Johansen lives in Georgia and is married. Her son, Roy Johansen, is an Edgar Award-winning screenwriter and novelist. Her daughter, Tamara, serves as her research assistant.

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

A Game of Character: A Family Journey from Chicago's Southside to the Ivy League and Beyond by Craig Robinson

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 15:35:00 -0700

Book release date: April 20, 2010

Genre: biography, sport,

"Craig's understanding of character and his sound judgment for how to win on any court, clearly learned in the extraordinary household where he grew up, are unsurpassed. The lessons he shares in this book provide a playbook for success that can be applied by anyone. It's been a joy to witness his remarkable journey."

-Bill Carmody, Men's Basketball Coach, Northwestern University

The eagerly anticipated inspirational memoir from Michelle Obama's brother, celebrating the extraordinary family members and mentors who have shaped his life

When he stepped into history's spotlight at the National Democratic Convention, Craig Robinson recalls that nothing could have been more gratifying than introducing his sister, Michelle Obama, to millions of Americans. Within minutes, he won the hearts of the nation by sharing highlights of growing up in the modest Robinson household, where the two were raised by devoted parents who taught them the values of education, hard work, and the importance of reaching far beyond what even seemed possible.

Those lessons of character were fundamentals in shaping Craig Robinson's own remarkable journey: from his days playing street basketball on Chicago's Southside, while excelling academically, to admission at Princeton University, where he was later named Ivy League Player of the Year, twice. After playing professionally in Europe, Robinson made an about-face, entering the competitive field of finance. With his MBA from the University of Chicago, his meteoric rise landed him a partnership in a promising new venture. But another dream beckoned and Craig made the unusual decision to forego the trappings of money and status in the business world in order to become a basketball coach. He soon helped transform three struggling teams - as an assistant coach at Northwestern, then as head coach at Brown and now at Oregon State University. In his first season at OSU, he navigated what was declared to be one of the nation's best single season turnarounds.

In A Game of Character, Robinson takes readers behind the scenes to meet his most important influences in his understanding of the winning traits that are part of his playbook for success. Central to his story are his parents, Marian and Fraser, two indefatigable individuals who showed their children how to believe in themselves and live their lives with conviction through love, discipline and respect. With insights into this exemplary family, we relive memories of how Marian sacrificed a career to be a full-time mom, how Fraser got up and went to work every day while confronting the challenges of multiple sclerosis, how Craig and Michelle strengthened their bond as they journeyed out of the Southside to Princeton University and eventually, the national stage.

Heartwarming, inspiring, and even transformational, A Game of Character comes just at the right time in an era of change, reminding readers of our opportunity to work together and embrace the character of our nation, to make a difference in the lives of others and to pave the way for the next generation.

To read an excerpt, click HERE.

Craig Malcolm Robinson (born April 21, 1962) is the head men's basketball coach at Oregon State University and was previously head coach at Brown University. As a player, he was a star forward at Princeton University in the early 1980s. He was a successful bond trader during the 1990s. He is the older brother of First Lady Michelle Obama and the brother-in-law of President Barack Obama. He lives in Oregon with his wife and children.

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

The Third Rail (Michael Kelly Series #3) by Michael Harvey

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 15:22:00 -0700

Book release date: April 20, 2010

Genre: mystery, detective, suspense

A woman is shot as she waits for her train to work. An hour later, a second woman is gunned down as she rides an elevated train through the Loop. Two hours after that, a church becomes the target of a chemical weapons attack. The city of Chicago is under siege, and Michael Kelly, cynical cop turned private investigator, just happens to be on the scene when all hell breaks loose.

Kelly is initially drawn into the case by the killers themselves, then tasked by Chicago’s mayor and the FBI to hunt down the bad guys and, all things being equal, put a bullet in them. Kelly, of course, has other ideas. As he gets closer to the truth, his instincts lead him to a retired cop, a shady train company, and an unnerving link to his own past. Meanwhile, Kelly’s girlfriend, Rachel Swenson, becomes a pawn in a much larger game, while a weapon that could kill millions ticks away quietly in the very belly of the city.

The Third Rail is stylish, sophisticated, edge-of-your-seat suspense from a new modern master.

To read an excerpt, click HERE.

Michael Harvey is the author of The Chicago Way and The Fifth Floor, and is also a journalist and documentary producer. His work has won numerous national and international awards, including multiple Emmy Awards, two Primetime Emmy nominations, and an Academy Award nomination. He holds a law degree from Duke University, a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University, and a bachelor’s degree in classical languages from Holy Cross College. He also owns a bar in Chicago.

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 15:04:00 -0700

Book release date: April 14, 2010

Genre: health, mind, body,

What possesses someone to save every scrap of paper that’s ever come into his home? What compulsions drive a woman like Irene, whose hoarding cost her her marriage? Or Ralph, whose imagined uses for castoff items like leaky old buckets almost lost him his house? Or Jerry and Alvin, wealthy twin bachelors who filled up matching luxury apartments with countless pieces of fine art, not even leaving themselves room to sleep?

Randy Frost and Gail Steketee were the first to study hoarding when they began their work a decade ago; they expected to find a few sufferers but ended up treating hundreds of patients and fielding thousands of calls from the families of others. Now they explore the compulsion through a series of compelling case studies in the vein of Oliver Sacks.With vivid portraits that show us the traits by which you can identify a hoarder—piles on sofas and beds that make the furniture useless, houses that can be navigated only by following small paths called goat trails, vast piles of paper that the hoarders “churn” but never discard, even collections of animals and garbage—Frost and Steketee explain the causes and outline the often ineffective treatments for the disorder.They also illuminate the pull that possessions exert on all of us. Whether we’re savers, collectors, or compulsive cleaners, none of us is free of the impulses that drive hoarders to the extremes in which they live.

For the six million sufferers, their relatives and friends, and all the rest of us with complicated relationships to our things, Stuff answers the question of what happens when our stuff starts to own us.

Dr. Randy O. Frost is the Howard Edward and Elsa Siipola Israel Professor of Psychology at Smith College. He is an internationally known expert on obsessive-compulsive disorder and compulsive hoarding, as well as the pathology of perfectionism. He has published over 100 scientific articles and book chapters on these topics. His work has been funded by NIMH and the Obsessive-Compulsive Foundation. He has co-authored several books on hoarding including Compulsive Hoarding and Acquiring: Therapist Guide and an accompanying workbook as well as Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving and Hoarding. His research has been featured on a variety of television and radio news shows including 20/20 Downtown, Good Morning America, Dateline, National Public Radio (general news as well as the award winning program The Infinite Mind), BBC News, and Canadian Broadcasting Company's The Nature of Things.

Gail Steketee, Ph.D., MSW received her undergraduate degree from Harvard and her MSW and PhD degrees from Bryn Mawr in 1973 and 1987. She joined the faculty at the Boston University School of Social Work in 1986 and is currently Professor and Dean at the School. She has conducted multiple research studies of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), panic and OC spectrum conditions, including body dysmorphic disorder and compulsive hoarding. She has received several grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to study OCD and hoarding. She currently leads a multidisciplinary team studying the psychopathology and treatment of compulsive hoarding, as well as web-based and group treatments and community task force initiatives to address this problem. She has published over 180 articles, chapters and books on anxiety, OCD and related disorders, including 8 books. Her most recent books include Cognitive Approaches to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Compulsive Hoarding and Acquiring: Therapist Guide and Client Manual, and Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Hoarding.

Would you like to read this book?You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

Edge of Apocalypse (The End Series) by Tim LaHaye and Craig Parshall

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 14:45:00 -0700

Book release date: April 20, 2010

Genre: thriller, suspense,

In Tim LaHaye---creator and co-author of the world-renowned Left Behind series---and Craig Parshall's Edge of Apocalypse, Joshua Jordan's new weapons defense system will secure America against an array of new enemies, including a nuclear strike on New York City by North Korea. But global forces are mounting and corrupt government leaders will go to any extreme to prevent an impending economic catastrophe. As world events begin setting the stage for the 'end of days' foretold in Revelation, Jordan must weigh the personal price he must pay to save the nation he loves.

Edge of Apocalypse pulls you into an adrenaline-fueled political thriller laced with End Times prophecy. From Tim LaHaye, creator and co-author of the world-renowned Left Behind series---the most successful adult fiction series ever written---and Craig Parshall comes an epic story ripped from the headlines of world events and filtered through Scriptural prophecy. Set in the near future, Edge of Apocalypse chronicles the beginning of The End---the earth-shattering events leading up to the Apocalypse foretold in Revelation.

Joshua Jordan, former U.S. spy-plane hero turned weapons designer, creates the world's most sophisticated missile defense system, a laser shield code-named Return to Sender. Even as Jordan hopes to secure America against a brazen array of new enemies, he finds himself trapped between international as well as domestic assailants. Global forces conspire to steal the defense weapon even as U.S. government leaders will do anything to stop the nation's impending economic catastrophe---including selling-out Jordan and his weapon. With help from a group of powerfully connected Christian leaders known as The Patriots, Jordan works to save the nation from economic and moral collapse---and to clear his name. As world events begin setting the stage for the 'end of days' foretold in Revelation, Jordan must consider not only the biblical prophecies preached by his wife's pastor, but the personal price he must pay if he is to save the nation he loves.

To read an excerpt, click HERE.

Timothy F. LaHaye (born April 27, 1926 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American evangelical Christian minister, author, and speaker. He is best-known for the Left Behind series of apocalyptic fiction, which he co-wrote with Jerry B. Jenkins. He has written over 50 books, both fiction and non-fiction. Time magazine named LaHaye one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America and in the summer of 2001 the Evangelical Studies Bulletin named him the most influential Christian leader of the preceding quarter century.

Craig Parshall is the Senior Vice President and General Counsel for National Religious Broadcasters (NRB). Parshall has assisted leaders on Capitol Hill in drafting legislative language protecting religious liberties, and he has testified before Congress on constitutional issues. Craig has appeared on numerous national media outlets, including NBC’s Today Show, CNN, CBS radio, C-Span, PBS, NPR and Court TV. His cases have been profiled in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Boston Globe, the National Law Journal, the Chicago Tribune, the Milwaukee Journal, the L.A. Times, and the Des Moines Register, among others. As a writer, Parshall has authored seven legal suspense novels. Recently his legal thrillers have been translated into Dutch.

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.