Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich
New Jersey bounty
hunter Stephanie Plum is certain of three truths: People don’t just
vanish into thin air. Never anger old people. And don’t do what Tiki
tells you to do.
After a slow summer of chasing low-level skips
for her cousin Vinnie’s bail bonds agency, Stephanie Plum finally lands
an assignment that could put her checkbook back in the black. Geoffrey
Cubbin, facing trial for embezzling millions from Trenton’s premier
assisted-living facility, has mysteriously vanished from the hospital
after an emergency appendectomy. Now it’s on Stephanie to track down the
con man. Unfortunately, Cubbin has disappeared without a trace, a
witness, or his money-hungry wife. Rumors are stirring that he must have
had help with the daring escape . . . or that maybe he never made it
out of his room alive. Since the hospital staff’s lips seem to be
tighter than the security, and it’s hard for Stephanie to blend in to
assisted living, Stephanie’s Grandma Mazur goes in undercover. But when a
second felon goes missing from the same hospital, Stephanie is forced
into working side by side with Trenton’s hottest cop, Joe Morelli, in
order to crack the case.
The real problem is, no Cubbin also
means no way to pay the rent. Desperate for money—or maybe just
desperate—Stephanie accepts a secondary job guarding her secretive and
mouthwatering mentor Ranger from a deadly Special Forces adversary.
While Stephanie is notorious for finding trouble, she may have found a
little more than she bargained for this time around. Then again—a little
food poisoning, some threatening notes, and a bridesmaid’s dress with
an excess of taffeta never killed anyone . . . or did they? If Stephanie
Plum wants to bring in a paycheck, she’ll have to remember: No guts, no
glory.
Timeless Desire by Gwyn Cready
Two years after losing
her husband, overworked librarian Panna Kennedy battles to distract
herself from crushing Grief, even as she battles to deal with yet
another library budget cut. During a routine search within the library’s
lower levels, Panna opens an obscure, pad-locked door and finds herself
transported to the magnificent, book-filled quarters of a handsome,
eighteenth-century Englishman.
She soon recognizes the man as
Colonel John Bridgewater, the historic English war hero whose
larger-than-life statue loomed over her desk.However, the life of the
dashing Bridgewater is not at all what she imagined. He’s under house
arrest for betraying England, and now looks upon her a beautiful and
unexpected half-dressed visitor as a possible spy.
Despite bad
first impressions (on both sides), Bridgewater nonetheless warms to
Panna, and pulls her into his escape while both their hearts pull the
other headlong into their soul-stirring secrets.Very quickly Panna is
thrown into a whirlwind of high-stakes intrigue that sweeps her from
Hadrian’s Wall to a forbidding stone castle in Scotland. And somewhere
in the outland, Panna must decide if her loyalties lie with her dead
husband, or with the man whose life now depends on her.