Wednesday, November 5, 2014

What's New in Fiction

Melting the Ice by Jaci Burton
Play by Play Series Book # 7

Everything’s coming together for budding fashion designer Carolina Preston. Only months away from having her own line, she could use some publicity. That’s when her brother suggests his best friend as a model - hockey player Drew Hogan.
Carolina and Drew already have a history - a hot one, back in college. Unforgettable for Carolina, but for Drew, just another slap shot. This time, though, it’s different. His perfect body would be for professional use only. This time, she could use him.
Drew is all for it. He’s looking forward to the exposure. Plus, it would give him a chance to prove to Carolina that he’s changed. If only he could thaw her emotions, convince her to let down her guard and let him in just one more time...
For more information on Jaci Burton and her latest works visit this website.
The Contractors by Harry Hunsicker
Jon Cantrell Series Book # 1

Private military contractors. They're not just for foreign wars anymore. Jon Cantrell, a disgraced ex-cop, works for one such company. He's a DEA agent paid on a commission basis, patrolling one of the busiest drug-hubs in the country: Dallas, Texas. 

When Cantrell confiscates the wrong shipment of drugs, he finds himself in possession of a star witness in a cartel trial that could destroy the largest criminal organization in the hemisphere. To turn a profit, all he has to do is deliver the witness to the US Attorney in a tiny town called Marfa on the other side of the state. An easy trip, except a group of competing DEA contractors and a corrupt Dallas cop want everybody involved dead. 

This heart-stopping thriller takes listeners deep into a strange underworld where the lines between government officials and mercenaries blur. In this complex network of drug traffickers, cartels, politicians, and police, no one's hands are clean.

For more information on Harry Hunsicker and his latest works visit this website.

The Divide by Lin Enger

For many anguished months Ben and Sarah Cooper's daughter has been on the run from the FBI, wanted for murder and acts of eco-terrorism.  But when Abbie's body is found embedded in the ice of a remote mountain creek, the family's devastation deepens into mystery. 

How did she die? And what was the trail of events that led this golden child of a loving family so tragically astray?
 
In a journey of discovery and redemption that takes us from the streets of New York to the daunting grandeur of the West, The Divide tells the story of a family fractured by betrayal.  It explores the pain we inflict on those we love the most and charts the passions and needs, the dashed hopes and disillusionments, that connect and divide all men and women.

For more information on Lin Enger and his latest works visit this website.

The Stranger You Seek by Amanda Kyle Williams
Keye Street Series Book # 1

The papers have called me a monster. You’ve either concluded that I am a braggart as well as a sadist or that I have a deep and driving need to be caught and punished.  

In the sweltering heat of an Atlanta summer, a killer is pushing the city to its breaking point, preying on the unsuspecting, writing taunting letters to the media, promising more death. Desperate to stop the Wishbone Killer before another victim meets a shattering end, A.P.D. lieutenant Aaron Rauser turns to the one person he knows can penetrate a deranged mind: ex–FBI profiler Keye Street.
 
And you must certainly be wondering if I am, in fact, the stranger you seek. 
 
Keye was a rising young star at the Bureau until addiction derailed her career and her life. Now sober and fighting to stay so, Keye picks up jobs where she can get them: catching adulterers, serving subpoenas, chasing down bail jumpers, and dodging the occasional bullet. With multiple victims, little to go on, and an entire police force looking for direction, the last thing Keye wants is to be pulled into the firestorm of Atlanta’s worst nightmare.

Shall I convince you? 
 
And then it suddenly becomes clear that the hunter has become the hunted -- and the stranger she seeks is far closer than she ever dared imagine.

For more information on Amanda Kyle Williams and her latest works visit this website.

The Orchid House by Lucinda Riley

As a child Julia Forrester spent many idyllic hours in the hothouse of Wharton Park, the great house where her grandfather tended exotic orchids. Years later, while struggling with overwhelming grief over the death of her husband and young child, she returns to the tranquility of the estate. There she reunites with Kit Crawford, heir to the estate and her possible salvation.
When they discover an old diary, Julia seeks out her grandmother to learn the truth behind a love affair that almost destroyed Wharton Park. Their search takes them back to the 1930s when a former heir to Wharton Park married his young society bride on the eve of World War II. When the two lovers are cruelly separated, the impact will be felt on generations to come.
For more information on Lucinda Riley and her latest works visit this website.

Wait for Signs by Craig Johnson

Ten years ago, Craig Johnson wrote his first short story, the Hillerman Award–winning “Old Indian Trick.” This was one of the earliest appearances of the sheriff who would go on to star in Johnson’s bestselling, award-winning novels and the A&E hit series Longmire. Each Christmas Eve thereafter, fans rejoiced when Johnson sent out a new short story featuring an episode in Walt’s life that doesn’t appear in the novels; over the years, many have asked why they can’t buy the stories in book form.

Wait for Signs collects those beloved stories—and one entirely new story, “Petunia, Bandit Queen of the Bighorns”—for the very first time in a single volume, regular trade hardcover. With glimpses of Walt’s past from the incident in “Ministerial Aide,” when the sheriff is mistaken for a deity, to the hilarious “Messenger,” where the majority of the action takes place in a Port-A-Potty, Wait for Signs is a necessary addition to any Longmire fan’s shelf and a wonderful way to introduce new readers to the fictional world of Absaroka County, Wyoming.

For more information on Craig Johnson and his latest works visit this website.

The Nightingale Before Christmas by Donna Andrews
Meg Lanslow Mystery Series Book # 18

As the holidays draw near in Caerphilly, Mother volunteers to take part in in a big Christmas-themed decorator show house—each room of a temporarily untenanted house is decorated to the hilt by a different decorator for the public to tour.  

Of course, Mother insists that Meg pitch in with the organization, and she finds herself surrounded by flamboyant personalities with massive egos clashing and feeling their professional reputations are at stake.  

Then the rooms start to be sabotaged, and an unfortunate designer turns up dead—making Mother a prime suspect.  Can Meg catch the real killer in time to save Mother the indignity of arrest?  

For more information on Donna Andrews and her latest works visit this website.

Prince Lestat by Anne Rice
Vampire Chronicles Series Book # 11

The novel opens with the vampire world in crisis...vampires have been proliferating out of control; burnings have commenced all over the world, huge massacres similar to those carried out by Akasha in The Queen of the Damned.

Old vampires, roused from slumber in the earth are doing the bidding of a Voice commanding that they indiscriminately burn vampire-mavericks in cities from Paris and Mumbai to Hong Kong, Kyoto, and San Francisco.

As the novel moves from present-day New York and the West Coast to ancient Egypt, fourth century Carthage, 14th-century Rome, the Venice of the Renaissance, the worlds and beings of all the Vampire Chronicles—Louis de Pointe du Lac; the eternally young Armand, whose face is that of a Boticelli angel; Mekare and Maharet, Pandora and Flavius; David Talbot, vampire and ultimate fixer from the secret Talamasca; and Marius, the true Child of the Millennia; along with all the other new seductive, supernatural creatures—come together in this large, luxuriant, fiercely ambitious novel to ultimately rise up and seek out who—or what—the Voice is, and to discover the secret of what it desires and why...

For more information on Anne Rice and her latest works visit this website.

Havana Storm by Clive Cussler
Dirk Pitt Series Book # 23

While investigating a toxic outbreak in the Caribbean Sea that may ultimately threaten the United States, Pitt unwittingly becomes involved in something even more dangerous—a post-Castro power struggle for the control of Cuba. Meanwhile, Pitt’s children, marine engineer Dirk and oceanographer Summer, are on an investigation of their own, chasing an Aztec stone that may reveal the whereabouts of a vast historical Aztec treasure. 

The problem is, that stone was believed to have been destroyed on the battleship Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898, which brings them both to Cuba as well—and squarely into harm’s way. The three of them have been in desperate situations before . . . but perhaps never quite as dire as the one facing them now.

For more information on Clive Cussler and his latest works visit this website.