New Fiction – July 2008

General Fiction

The Rogue by Danielle Steel - an amicably divorced couple--Blake, a globe-trotting entrepreneur, and Maxine, an expert on childhood trauma--confront a life-changing choice as Blake deals with hundreds of orphaned children after a devastating earthquake near one of his foreign homes

The Beach House by Jane Green - sixty-five-year-old Nantucket widow Nan skinny-dips in unattended pools and steals her neighbors' flowers before her dwindling funds force her to take in boarders, a change that brings an unexpected visitor

Married Lovers by Jackie Collins - relocating to Los Angeles to escape an abusive boyfriend, personal trainer Cameron Paradise opens her own fitness studio and pursues an affair with Ryan Lambert, a movie producer with a demanding wife and powerful Hollywood father-in-law

Made in the U.S.A. by Billie Letts - fending for themselves after the death of their mother and the abandonment of their fortune-seeking father, fifteen-year-old Lutie and eleven-year-old Fate flee their hometown in order to avoid becoming wards of the state

The Other by David Guterson - John William Barry, the wealthy scion of two elite Seattle families, and   blue-collar Irishman Neil Countryman, brought together by their fierce love of the natural world, grow up to pursue vastly different paths in life, Neil as a devoted schoolteacher, and John William, a recluse seeking refuge in the wilderness

The Queen of Babble Gets Hitched by Meg Cabot - lovable blabbermouth Lizzie juggles a whirlwind of bridal preparations in the course of her engagement to Jean-Luc, which is frowned upon by her best friends

This Charming Man by Marian Keyes - four different women recount their experiences of heartbreak at the hands of up-and-coming Dublin politician Paddy de Courcy, a charismatic womanizer who hides the truth about his fickle nature

Undead and Unworthy by MaryJanice Davidson - Vampire Queen Betsy Taylor discovers that it is not all marital bliss in the suburbs as her husband, Sinclair, takes up reading "The Book of the Dead," and a pack of once-feral vampires decides to pay an unwelcome visit

Absolute Scandal by Penny Vincenzi - during the boom-or-bust days of the 1980s, the futures and fortunes of several families become entwined in a court battle with prestigious London insurer Lloyd’s

Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry - as her hundredth birthday approaches, Roseanne McNulty is evaluated for release from a mental institution, but her situation is complicated by the possibility that Roseanne remembers her life quite differently from that documented in her patient records

Thrillers

Sail by James Patterson - struggling to maintain family cohesion after the death of her husband, Katherine Dunne plans an elaborate sailing vacation that is unexpectedly challenged by difficulties with her children and a catastrophic accident

Nothing to Lose by Lee Child - Jack Reacher finds himself taking on the entire town of Despair, Colorado as he searches for the truth behind its sinister connection to a brutal war that is killing Americans thousands of miles away

Plague Ship by Clive Cussler - Captain Juan Cabrillo and and the crew of his intelligence-gathering ship-for-hire encounter an adrift cruise ship filled with hundreds of dead passengers that eventually leads to the discovery of a cult's devastating plot for the human race

Hit and Run by Lawrence Block - framed for a high-profile murder that he did not commit, contract hit man John Keller flees for his life and becomes increasingly suspicious about his handler's ominous unresponsiveness

Death and Honor by W.E.B. Griffin - recruited by Wild Bill Donovan to set up an airline that will be an OSS front in 1943 Argentina, Marine pilot Cletus Frade monitors two German operations, including a concentration-camp smuggling ring and a Nazi protection group

Last Oracle by James Rollins - having discovered a way to manipulate and enhance autistic savants as part of a plan to bio-engineer the world's next great prophet, a rogue group of Cold War scientists triggers an unexpectedly dangerous side effect in its young patients

Final Theory by Mark Alpert – when his physicist mentor is brutally murdered for his possible knowledge about Einstein's Unified Theory, Columbia University professor David Swift and his Princeton scientist girlfriend become caught in a violent race between the FBI and a ruthless mercenary for control of the information and its staggering potential

Mysteries

Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich - bounty hunter Stephanie Plum and her motley companions--including Grandma Mazur, vice captain Joe Morelli, and Bob the Dog--become entangled in an adventure involving the Burg's funeral home and a family pot roast

Broken Window by Jeffery Deaver - Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs reluctantly team up to chase down a serial killer who complicates his crimes by leaving behind evidence implicating innocent people

Where Memories Lie by Deborah Crombie - when her friend Erika reveals that a piece of jewelry that had been stolen from her years earlier may be tied to her husband's suspicious death, Detective Inspector Gemma James investigates the piece's appearance at a prestigious London auction house

I Shall Not Want by Julia Spencer-Fleming – investigating a series of murders in an Adironack migrant community, Episcopal priest Clare Fergusson and police chief Russ Van Alstyne find themselves caught in a web of drug smuggling and gang turf wars

Not in the Flesh by Ruth Rendell - when a man and his dog searching for truffles unearth the corpse of a man buried more than a decade earlier, Chief Inspector Wexford must uncover the identity of the victim and the cause of his death

The Dirty Secrets Club by Meg Gardiner - in the wake of an ongoing string of high-profile murder-suicides in San Francisco, forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett is hired by the SFPD to perform investigative autopsies and discovers a harrowing commonality among the suicide victims

Don’t Tell a Soul by David Rosenfelt - when a drunken stranger confides in that he had killed a young woman some three months earlier, Tim Wallace, already suspected of having murdered his wife, suddenly finds his life put under a microscope by the police

Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen - assigned by the Queen of England to entertain a Bavarian princess, penniless aristocrat Lady Georgie must help Princess Hanni unlearn the English she has learned from American gangster films, break her of her shoplifting habit, and investigate a murder

Fever by Bill Pronzini - tracking down a badly beaten compulsive gambler and returning her to her home, Nameless realizes the case has further implications when the gambler disappears again, revealing the existence of a violent racket that preys on gambling victims

Vineyard Chill by Philip Craig - J.W.'s happy domesticity with Zee and the kids is disrupted by a surprising call from a reckless old friend who needs help hiding from would-be assailants, a situation with ties to a beautiful woman's disappearance

Cool Cache by Patricia Smiley - chocolate shop owner Helen Taggart hires Tucker Sinclair as a consultant, but things go badly awry when Tucker stumbles upon the body of the shop's cleaning woman lying beside a bloody green feather

Last Post by Robert Barnard - receiving a letter from a woman who claims to have been her late mother's lover, Eve McNabb considers her mother's mysterious nature and the possibility that the father she has always believed to be dead may still be alive

Romance

Tailspin by Catherine Coulter - dispatched to the Kentucky mountains to discern the fates of a missing special agent and a doctor who is being protected by the FBI, agents Savich and Sherlock find the case complicated by a young woman on the run and the doctor's mental deterioration

No Choice but Seduction by Johanna Lindsey - hot-headed American sea captain Boyd Anderson runs to the aid of his brother-in-law's kidnapped daughter, only to lock horns with a fellow rescuer, the adventure-seeking Katey Tyler

Fearless by Diana Palmer - hoping to destroy a drug cartel operating south of the border, DEA agent Rodrigo Ramirez disguises himself as an itinerant laborer to take a job on Gloryanne Barnes' farm, but his growing attraction to his fiercely independent employer could endanger his mission

Sweet Love by Sarah Strohmeyer - recently fired from her influential television reporting job and struggling to raise a teenage daughter alone, Julie Mueller finds renewal in her relationships with women family members and in a dessert cooking class, where she reconnects with an old flame

Historical

Resolution by Robert B. Parker - relocating to an Old West saloon town, Everett Hitch takes a job protecting the women in a house of ill repute but finds his peace at the side of an old friend challenged by a hired gun and a greedy mine owner

The Spies of Warsaw by Alan Furst - in 1937 Warsaw, on the eve of World War II, intelligence operatives on both sides of the forthcoming struggle wage their own espionage battle in a world of betrayal, intrigue, and abduction