Reveals only! :bash:

The Little Lady Agency by Hester Browne

Sophie Kinsella fans will devour this romantic comedy about men, manners and multi-tasking When sweet, naive Melissa seeks a job with her old Home Economics teacher she is half way through the interview before it dawns on her that Mrs McKinnon isn't interested in her cookery skills, but is in fact running an escort agency. Melissa panics, but she needs the cash - and what harm can providing lonely men with stimulating conversation over dinner do? More exciting still, she'll get to wear a disguise...Enter her alter ego: Honey. As flirty and feminine as a Bond girl, as confident and sexy as Mary Poppins in silk stockings, Honey brings out a side to Melissa she never knew she had. A side that will get her into hot water, (and out of it) and that she'll never want to lose...

Morsie's reveal:

Jade Tiger by Jenn Reese

Shan Westfall -- half-Chinese, half-American, one hundred percent kung fu badass -- is on a mission to recover five mystical jade animals before they fall into the wrong hands.

Fifteen years ago, Shan's mother led a secret society of female martial artists sworn to protect the small but powerful sculptures. Then the Jade Circle lost four of the five animals during a murderous attack on their sanctuary -- and Shan's destiny was sealed.

Now an adult and the protector of the remaining figure, a jade tiger, only Shan can recover the jade crane, snake, leopard, and dragon. Joined by geeky archaeologist Ian Dashell, her quest for the statues takes her on a dangerous trek across three continents. But when Shan finally confronts the man who destroyed her past, she loses hope. How can she possibly succeed where her mother failed?

Publishers Weekly Review:
Reese's vibrant debut introduces Shan Westfall, a half-Chinese, half-American crime fighter, who yearns to unite the mystical power of the Jade Circle, an ancient female order embodied by five jade animal artifacts. The Jade Circle is currently incomplete, broken by a ruthless crime lord who seeks the statues' power for his own nefarious purposes. Shan's determined search leads her to the jade crane held by archeologist Ian Dashell, who becomes an ally and, after a period of smoldering erotic tension, her lover. Flying kicks, heart-stopping spins and amazing somersaults propel the action. Complicating matters is Ian's colleague, Dr. Daniel Buckley, an antiquities expert; One-eye, an evil Asian martial artist; and Sifu Xia, a feisty 60-year-old kung fu queen. Reese choreographs both the romantic moves and the martial arts with flair. Juno is a new fantasy imprint of Wildside Press featuring strong female characters, exotic locales and romance.

Ri's Reveal

Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein's Brain
by Michael Paterniti



Driving Mr. Albert chronicles the adventures of an unlikely threesome--a freelance writer, an elderly pathologist, and Albert Einstein's brain--on a cross-country expedition intended to set the story of this specimen-cum-relic straight once and for all.

After Thomas Harvey performed Einstein's autopsy in 1955, he made off with the key body part. His claims that he was studying the specimen and would publish his findings never bore fruit, and the doctor fell from grace. The brain, though, became the subject of many an urban legend, and Harvey was transformed into a modern Robin Hood, having snatched neurological riches from the establishment and distributed them piecemeal to the curious and the faithful around the world.

The brain itself has seen better days, its chicken-colored chunks floating in a smelly, yellow, formaldehyde broth, yet its beatific presence in the book, riding serenely in the trunk of a Buick Skylark, encased in Tupperware, reflects the uncertainty of Einstein's life. Was he a sinner or a saint, a genius or just lucky? Harvey guards the brain as if it were his own. From time to time, he has given favored specialists a slice or two to analyze, but the results have been mixed. Physiologically, Einstein's brain may have been no different from anyone else's, but plenty of people would like the brain to be more than it is, including Paterniti:

I want to touch the brain. Yes, I've admitted it. I want to hold it, coddle it, measure its weight in my palm, handle some of its fifteen billion now-dormant neurons. Does it feel like tofu, sea urchin, bologna? What, exactly? And what does such a desire make me? One of a legion of relic freaks? Or something worse?

Traversing America with Harvey and his sacred specimen, Paterniti seems to be awaiting enlightenment, much as Einstein did in his last days. But just as the great scientist failed to come up with a unifying theory, Paterniti's chronicle dissolves at times into overly sincere efforts to find importance where there may be none, and it walks a fine line between postmodern detachment and wide-eyed wonderment. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the book offers an engrossing portrait of postatomic America from what may be the ultimate late-20th-century road trip.

My reveal:



They're sexy. They're smart. And they aren't afraid of a little danger-not even when it comes to matters of the heart...

Four of today's hottest authors present a quartet of stories about bold women who take no prisoners-either in a fight or in love. Whether it's in the bedroom, in the outer limits of the galaxy, or out on the mean streets, they kick heart-stopping action to the next level. These are women who can hold their own and aren't to be trifled with. The men in their lives know that-and they love it...

LML reveals:

Blue Shoes and Happiness
by Alexander McCall Smith




In this seventh installment in the internationally bestselling, universally beloved series, there is considerable excitement at the shared premises of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors.

A cobra has been found in Precious Ramotswe's office. Then a nurse from a local medical clinic reveals to Mma Ramotswe that faulty blood-pressure readings are being recorded there. And it looks as though Aunty Emang, the advice columnist in the local newspaper, may not be what she seems.

It all means a lot of work for Mma Ramotswe and her inestimable assistant, Grace Makutsi, and they are, of course, up to the challenge. But there's trouble brewing in Mma Makutsi's own life. Her greedy uncles are demanding an extra-large bride price from her well-to-do fiancé, a man of substance, Phuti Radiphuti, and though money may buy her that fashionably narrow (and uncomfortable) pair of blue shoes, it won't buy her the happiness that Mma Ramotswe promises her she'll find in simpler things - in contentment with the world and enough tea to smooth over the occasional bumps in the road.

Giz's reveal is:

The Football Factory by John King

4 1/2 stars on Amazon



Synopsis
A first novel about a seasoned Chelsea Football Club hooligan who represents a disaffected society operating by brutal rules. The story encompasses social degradation, unemployment, racism, casual violence, excessive drink and bad sex - and how they fall into a political context.

My reveal is

A Round-Heeled Woman by June Juska



'Round-heeled' is an old fashioned laberl for a woman who is priomiscuous - someone who nowadays might be called easy. It's a surprising way for a cultured English teacher with a passion for the novels of Antony Trollope to describe herself, but then that's just the first of many surprises to be found in this poignant, funny, utterly unique memoir. June Juska is a smart, energetic divorcee who decided she'd been celibate for too long, and placed the following personal ad in her favorite newspaper - The New York Review Of Books.

Before I turn 67 - next March - I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you want to talk first, Trollope works for me.

The response was overwhelming and Juska took a sabbatical from tachign to meet some of the men who replied. And since her ad made it clear that she wasn't expecting hand-holding, her dates zipped from first base to home plate in record time.

Sidney's reveal...



From Publishers Weekly
Edwards's assured but schematic debut novel (after her collection, The Secrets of a Fire King) hinges on the birth of fraternal twins, a healthy boy and a girl with Down syndrome, resulting in the father's disavowal of his newborn daughter. A snowstorm immobilizes Lexington, Ky., in 1964, and when young Norah Henry goes into labor, her husband, orthopedic surgeon Dr. David Henry, must deliver their babies himself, aided only by a nurse. Seeing his daughter's handicap, he instructs the nurse, Caroline Gill, to take her to a home and later tells Norah, who was drugged during labor, that their son Paul's twin died at birth. Instead of institutionalizing Phoebe, Caroline absconds with her to Pittsburgh. David's deception becomes the defining moment of the main characters' lives, and Phoebe's absence corrodes her birth family's core over the course of the next 25 years. David's undetected lie warps his marriage; he grapples with guilt; Norah mourns her lost child; and Paul not only deals with his parents' icy relationship but with his own yearnings for his sister as well. Though the impact of Phoebe's loss makes sense, Edwards's redundant handling of the trope robs it of credibility. This neatly structured story is a little too moist with compassion.

Ramson's reveal is


20 Times A Lady by Karen Bosnak



Delilah Darling's magic number was supposed to be twenty. She always thought she'd find the perfect guy by the time she'd slept with twenty of them. But when she wakes up naked in her disgusting boss's bed after a drunken night out, she's filled with regret - and realizes she's hit her self-imposed limit. Unwilling to up her number but unable to imagine a life of celibacy, Delilah does what any girl in her situation would do: she tracks down every man she's ever slept with in a last-ditch effort to make it work with one of them.

A hilarious romp through Delilah's past loves, 20 Times a Lady proves that in the end, numbers don't matter. True love will come when you're open and ready to accept it.

Here is Nursie's reveal:

The Trouble with Magic by Madelyn Alt






Equal parts amateur whodunit, supernatural fantasy, and quirky romance, The Trouble with Magic -- the first installment of Madelyn Alt's Bewitching Mystery saga -- features Maggie O'Neill, a woman at a crossroads of what has thus far been an uneventful life.

Single, almost 30, and recently terminated from a lousy collections job, Maggie's life in small-town Indiana is at a standstill -- until she fatefully meets Felicity Dow, the owner of an upscale antiques and fine-gifts shop. The two women hit it off immediately, and Maggie is hired on as Felicity's assistant. Felicity -- who happens to be a witch and the head of a group that investigates paranormal encounters in and around northeastern Indiana -- introduces Maggie to an exciting, consciousness-expanding world that includes Wiccanism, spirits, and ghosts; but before Maggie can even finish a full day of work, the estranged sister of her new boss is found murdered in her home, and the good-hearted witch is tagged as the prime suspect. With rumors running rampant and circumstantial evidence piling up, Maggie must somehow find the real killer before Felicity is figuratively burned alive at the stake.

Although fast-paced, lighthearted, and charmingly witty, Alt's The Trouble with Magic tackles some weighty topics (religious intolerance and persecution, the karmic Rule of Three, etc.) with both subtlety and style. This debut novel in the Bewitching Mystery saga is not only a page-turner of the highest order but also the beginning of what should be a highly entertaining paranormal-powered series.

Anth's reveal



Book Description:
For fans of The Birth of Venus, Girl with a Pearl Earring, and The Other Boleyn Girl, Amy Hassinger, author of Nina: Adolescence, delivers this historically lush, lyrical and thoroughly enthralling novel about the forbidden love between a woman and a holy man, and about the moral and spiritual struggles of faith.

In 1896, the priest in a small village in southern France suddenly came into possession of immense wealth. This much is true. What no one knows for sure is where his money came from. The history of the region suggests that he may have stumbled upon clues to a hidden treasure of the Knights Templar. An even more tantalizing possibility is that he discovered coded documents hidden in the structure of his church, documents so threatening to the Catholic Church that he was paid to keep silent. At his death under mysterious circumstances in 1917, his secrets died with him.

Yet there is one other person who may have known all--Marie Dernanaud, the priest’s housekeeper and, some say, his lover. Interweaving the history of France at the turn of the twentieth century, scenes of ancient Judea, and the romantic and religious journey of a spirited and intense heroine, The Priest’s Madonna gives Marie a chance to tell her version of what transpired—as well as her own story of belief, doubt, and illicit passions.

Xallroyx's book is:

Ace's reveal

My book is: Black Ice by Michael
Connelly

The "New York Times" bestselling author's second novel featuring LAPD Detective Harry Bosch is reissued for the first time in a decade. Harry investigates the case of a missing narcotics officer rumored to have been peddling a new drug called Black Ice

Some how Appa's reveal didn't make it over here. I noticed cause I currently hold it. I'm adding it in.

APPA'S REVEAL.......

Eternally Bad: Goddesses With Attitude
by Trina Robbins

From Publishers Weekly
Speaking of attitude, women looking to get in touch with their inner bitch will revel in Eternally Bad: Goddesses with Attitude, by award-winning feminist cartoonist Trina Robbins (From Girls to Grrrlz), which features a self-test for readers at the end. Looking at long-ago cultures from Ireland and Greece to Japan, Robbins profiles 24 kick-ass babes who are "not your mother's New Age goddess!" While Isis and Artemis do make an appearance, she also introduces less familiar ones, like Inanna, a Sumerian goddess who got her grandfather, the god of wisdom, drunk and convinced him to give her all his magical powers.

Book Description
In this wickedly funny, irreverent tribute to mythological “bad girl” goddesses from around the world, Trina Robbins tells 20 nasty, bitchy, utterly enjoyable tales. Her goddesses sleep with dwarves, slip drugs into drinks, have catfights with their sisters, kill, get even, and generally raise hell. Readers meet Innanna, the Sumerian goddess who plies the god of wisdom with beer so she can steal his powers; Norse goddess Freya, the original Snow White, who is after a diamond necklace; and Lilith, created by God to be Adam’s equal, but hungry for more.

The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud by Ben Sherwood




Synopsis
Heartwarming and uplifting novel examining love in all its guises. As a boy, Charlie St Cloud narrowly survived a car crash that killed Sam, his little brother. Years later, still unable to recover from his loss, Charlie has taken a job tending to the lawns and monuments in the New England cemetery where Sam is buried. When he meets Tess Carroll, a captivating, adventurous woman in training for a solo sailing trip around the globe, they discover a beautiful and uncommon connection that, after a violent storm at sea, eventually forces them to choose between death and live, past and present, holding on and letting go. The Death and Life of Charlie St Cloud is a romantic and uplifting novel about second chances and the liberating power of love.

What I loved by Siri Hustvedt

From Publishers Weekly
The ardent exchange of ideas underlies all manner of passionate action in Hustvedt's third novel (after The Enchantment of Lily Dahl), a dark tale of two intertwined New York families. "What is memory's perspective? Does the man revise the boy's view or is the imprint relatively static, a vestige of what was once intimately known?" So muses Columbia University art historian Leo Hertzberg as he recalls the love affair between artist Bill ("Seeing is flux") Wechsler and his model/second wife, Violet, whom Leo secretly loves almost as much as his own wife, Erica. Leo and Bill become friends when Leo buys a huge portrait of Violet, the first painting Bill has ever sold, and the two are inseparable ever after. Erica and Bill's first wife, Lucille, give birth to sons in the same year and, soon afterward, the Wechslers buy a loft in the same SoHo building. When the boys are four, Bill and Lucille are divorced, and Bill marries Violet. Linked by their love of art and language (Erica is an English professor and Violet a Ph.D. student with a specialty in 19th-century forms of madness), the two couples talk insatiably about art and life, celebrating triumphs and weathering tragedy together. In its second half, the novel shifts into the terrain of the psychological thriller, as Bill and Lucille's son, Mark, a dangerously charming boy, grows up and slips into a sinister New York club scene. So solid and complex are Hustvedt's characters that the change in pace is effortlessly effected-the plot developments are the natural extension of the author's meticulous examination of relationships and motives. In considering Violet, Leo observes, "Unlike most intellectuals, [she] didn't distinguish between the cerebral and the physical." The same distinctions are blurred in this gripping, seductive novel, a breakout work for Hustvedt.-- didn't distinguish between the cerebral and the physical." The same distinctions are blurred in this gripping, seductive novel, a breakout work for Hustvedt.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal
After buying an astonishing painting in a SoHo gallery, art historian Leo Hertzberg tracks down the artist, Bill Wechsler, and they launch a lifelong friendship with all the attendant joys and sorrows. There's great in-house enthusiasm for Hustvedt's third novel.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

darkpunkangel reveals...