:bash:

My reveal:



If I Am Missing or Dead: A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation
by Janine Latus



I reviewed this book for ELLE Magazine's June Nonfiction Jury. It is scheduled to be released on May 1, 2007. I personally really enjoyed this book, though I found parts of it quite difficult to read. I had a very hard time deciding whether I preferred this book or my other favorite, Kabul Beauty School. The third book was not as wonderful as these two!

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. At age 37, Janine Latus's younger sister, Amy, was strangled to death by her live-in boyfriend, bundled in a plastic tarp and buried beside a remote country road. It was a wretched end to a too-short life, one frequently marked by disappointment, sadness and struggle. In the hands of a less gifted writer, Amy's story might stand only as an encomium or a cautionary tale: a glimpse into the life of one abused woman, representative of thousands like it. But Latus weaves a double strand. Part memoir, part biography, the book (which grew out of an article in O Magazine) explores Latus's own relationships with abusive men—and her eventual emancipation from a marriage riven by emotional and physical violence. Latus has a spare, economical style, softened by an undercurrent of humor and marked by a total absence of self-pity. When on a ski vacation, a boyfriend brutally beats her, breaking several of her ribs and her nose—and then makes love to her, in a twisted form of penance—Latus doesn't wince in the retelling. She lets ambiguities and contradictions abide: she loved her husband, even as he humiliated and hurt her. Had things been slightly different, she seems to say, she—and not Amy—might have perished at the hands of her partner. Unforgettable, unsentimental and profoundly affecting, Latus's book resonates long after the final page is turned.

Ramson reveals:






When her husband Kenny dumps her by cell phone mere months before their ten-year wedding anniversary, Gracie Pollock finds herself reeling. Though her nine-year role as the wife of a semifamous Hollywood studio executive often left her dry and she never fully embraced the "status" (according to Kenny), Gracie has grown accustomed to the unique privileges afforded by Tinseltown's brand of power and wealth: reservations at Spago on a Friday night; beauty treatments by dermatologists (Arnie), manicurists (Jessica), and colorists (Cristophe) to the stars; line-jumping at Disneyland with her daughter and Ugg-wearing celebrity offspring. And despite the fact she had consented to name their daughter Jaden in a (failed) attempt to lure Will Smith to one of Kenny's productions, Gracie believed she and Kenny were different from other Hollywood couples. She never thought she'd be a starter wife. But now that her marriage is over, her phone isn't ringing, her mailbox is empty, and it's only through a faux pas by her world-class florist that she learns her husband has upgraded: Kenny is dating a pop tartlet.

With images of Kenny's 'tween queen everywhere she turns, Gracie seeks refuge at her best friend's Malibu mansion for some much-needed divorce therapy. Soon she's associating with all the wrong people, including a mysterious hunk who saves her from drowning, the security guard at her gated community, and -- God forbid -- Kenny's boss, one of Hollywood's better-known Lotharios.

With her signature wit, sassy style, and cameos of the rich and famous -- and wannabe rich and famous -- Gigi Grazer tackles the most delicious and dastardly details of a divorce and recovery, Hollywood style.

My Book Is Abby Cooper, Psychic Eye by Victoria Laurie





You'd think being clairvoyant would give Abigail Cooper the ability to avoid danger. But being psychic doesn't necessarily allow you to sidestep murder and mayhem—it just lets you know that they're coming....

In Royal Oak, a suburb of Detroit, thirtysomething Abby Cooper lives a life that's kind of like vanilla ice cream—good enough, but a little bland. Her work as a P.I.—Psychic Intuitive—can be rewarding, but she feels like somehow she's missing out on the hot-fudge topping....

Now she's getting what she wished for—when a client winds up dead and the clues start pointing in Abby's direction. Turns out she knows too many details about the murder for her own good. To make matters worse, the hot blind date she just met is the lead investigator on the case. And gorgeous Detective Dutch Rivers is convinced she's a fraud.

No matter how great her psychic abilities, Abby doesn't know if she can solve this case. Unfortunately for her, though, the killer thinks she can....

Ace's Reveal:

The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith



From Publishers Weekly
Murder and moral obligation mingle in this whimsical new series from the author of the smash hit The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. McCall Smith's new heroine is Scottish-American philosopher Isabel Dalhousie, a single woman of independent means who edits the esteemed Review of Applied Ethics and presides over the titular club. When Isabel witnesses fund manager Mark Fraser fall from a balcony after a performance at an Edinburgh concert hall, she feels obliged to investigate the gentleman's demise. "I was the last person that young man saw," Dalhousie tells her beloved niece, Cat. "The last person. And don't you think that the last person you see on this earth owes you something?" Given her affinity for applied ethics, questions of conscience are a daily concern for Isabel, and the more she thinks about Fraser's fall, the less accidental it seems. Among those who might have pushed him: his shifty roommate, his colleague's scheming spouse and a disgruntled broker with a craving for cash. Fans of Botswanan heroine Precious Ramotswe are sure to embrace Scotsman McCall Smith's plucky new protagonist, who leads a cast of delightfully quirky characters that includes Toby, a dapper bachelor with a dubious understanding of fidelity, and Grace, Dalhousie's morally upright housekeeper, who sizes up society's reprobates in two syllables or less. Scotland's climate may be misty and cool, but McCall Smith's charming prose warms every page of this winning series debut.

Giz's reveal is:

The Night Watch by Sarah Waters



A novel of relationships set in 1940s London that brims with vivid historical detail, thrilling coincidences, and psychological complexity, by the author of the Booker Prize finalist Fingersmith.

Sarah Waters, whose works set in Victorian England have awards and acclaim and have reinvigorated the genres of both historical and lesbian fiction, returns with novel that marks a departure from nineteenth century and a spectacular leap forward in the career of this masterful storyteller.

Moving back through the 1940s, through air raids, blacked-out streets, illicit liasons, and sexual adventure, to end with its beginning in 1941, The Night Watch tells the story of Londoners: three women and a young man with a past-whose lives, and those of their friends and lovers, connect in ways that are surprising not always known to them. In wartime London, the women work-as ambulance drivers, ministry clerks, and building inspectors. There are feats of heroism, epic and quotidian, and tragedies both enormous and personal, but the emotional interiors of her characters that Waters captures with absolute and intimacy.

Waters describes with perfect knowingness the taut composure of a rescue worker in the aftermath of a bombing, the idle longing of a young woman her soldier lover, the peculiar thrill convict watching the sky ignite through the bars on his window, the hunger a woman stalking the streets for encounter, and the panic of another who sees her love affair coming end. At the same time, Waters is absolute control of a narrative that offers up subtle surprises and exquisite twists, even as it depicts the impact grand historical event on individual lives.

Tender, tragic, and beautifully poignant, The Night Watch is a towering achievement that confirms its author as "one of the best storytellers alive today" (Independent on Sunday).

Lauren reveals:


Lucifer's Shadow by David Hewson

"In an ancient burial ground on an island off Venice, a young woman's casket is pried open, an object is wrenched from her hands, and an extraordinary adventure begins." From the moment he arrives in Venice, Daniel Forster is seduced by the city's mystery and eroticism. An earnest young academic, Daniel has come for a summer job cataloguing a private collector's library. But when Daniel's employer sends him to buy a stolen violin from a petty thief, a chain reaction of violence and deception ignites. Suddenly Daniel is drawn into a police investigation - and a tempest swirling around a beautiful woman, a mysterious palazzo, and a lost musical masterpiece dating back centuries. With each step he takes, Daniel unwittingly retraces a journey that began in 1733, when another young man came to Venice. And when, in this realm of intrigue and beauty, two lovers came face-to-face with a killer - and a mystery was born.

Xallroyx's Reveal:

The Assistants
by
Robin Williams


Wanted: Young, photogenic writer with one year of experience as an assistant to Hollywood power players to pen easy-reading, summer novel about same.
If the publisher had run this advertisement to find an author for Robin Lynn Williams' debut novel, The Assistants, they would have gotten all that and an innovator to boot. Rather than content herself with the established axiom of Assistant Lit--one lowly assistant, one mean boss--she presents five attractive young nobodies, each taking turns with the first-person point-of-view. (The book even includes pictures of models portraying the protagonists so go ahead and check your imagination at the front cover!) Do you like the narrative voice to be wise and irreverent? If so, you'll enjoy reading about Griffin, the agent's assistant, who struggles to prove that he--not his employer--is the one who knows how to unearth rare talents. Or maybe you'll prefer the saccharine aftertaste of Rachel, a Texas belle who slaves for a has-been sitcom actress. Or the sex-obsessed Jeb, who craves the love of a good woman--his boss's wife. The team is rounded out by Michaela, the wanna-be actress, who logs plenty of time on the casting couch, and Kecia, an actor's assistant, who is kept busy battling both her weight and the IRS.

The Assistants is diverting enough to keep readers entertained, just check your expectations at the door. Writers of Assistant Lit have mastered the art of telling it like it is when it comes to thankless office work, but not when it comes to endings. In real life, the bosses usually win.

Sunny's Reveal





Run for Home by Sheila Quigley
(The first book in the Lorraine Hunt series)

From the Back Cover
1985: a man runs for his life –wounded, exhausted, hunted remorselessly by a woman assassin known only as The Headhunter. 2001: sixteen-year-old Kerry Lumsdon runs across the same terrain. She runs to win and she runs to forget.

When a headless body is found in the wastelands of the Seahills Estate, Detective Inspector Lorraine Hunt is called in to investigate. But then a more urgent case lands on her desk when Kerry’s sister, Claire, is violently kidnapped.

Headstrong, willful, and wary of the police, Kerry sets out on a frantic search for Claire. But her hunt takes her to a violent underworld, a sixteen-year-old murder and, finally, to secrets about her own past her mother hoped she’d never have to face.

And all the time, for Claire, the clock is ticking …

Chronic's reveal is:



From the Publisher
After too many vodka tonics at her best friend's baby shower, twenty-seven-year-old Sasha finds herself having a ladies' room epiphany. How quickly life can change, she thinks to herself: one minute she's writing a master's thesis about a TV comedy show for kids- and the next, the program actually gets optioned with her as the star. But Sasha's awe at the twists of fate proves to be premature. The real shock comes the next day, when her routine visit to the ob-gynreveals that she's pregnant-even though she hasn't slept with anyone in more than two years.

To her unbelieving ears comes the doctor's diagnosis: Sasha's body has unwittingly hosted a cellular hitchhiker, a medical anomaly known as "lazy sperm." And now that this plodding genetic contribution has finally fulfilled its destiny, it will be up to Sasha to summon the courage to revisit her past loves even as her future slowly takes shape inside her. Which of her exes will be the father and how will he take the astounding news? And what will the end of the mystery mean to Sasha? The answers are revealed in this wonderfully inventive debut about the bonds that linger between people even after they part ways, and how the future can change in the twitch of a tail.

DPA's reveal

The Course of Honour by Lindsey Davis




The love story of the Emperor Vespasian, who brought peace to Rome after years of strife, and his mistress, the freed slave woman Antonia Caenis, this book recreates Ancient Rome's most turbulent period - - the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero, and Vespasian's rise to power. As their forbidden romance blossoms, she is embroiled in political intrigue, while he embarks on a glorious career. Years pass, then Vespasian risks all in the climactic struggle for power - - bringing hope for Rome, but a threat to the relationship that has endured so long.

Enemy Women, the outstanding first novel by poet Paulette Jiles, leads us into new terrain, both geographic and historical, in the war between the states. Set in the Missouri Ozarks during the Civil War, Jiles's story focuses on the trying times of 18-year-old heroine Adair Colley. When a group of renegade Union militiamen attacks the Colley home, stealing family possessions, burning everything down, and taking away her father--an apolitical judge--Adair gathers the remnants of her clothes and mounts a rescue effort. Unfortunately, she is falsely accused of being a Confederate spy, a charge that lands her in a squalid women's prison run by a decent commandant embarrassed by his post. After he helps her escape, the two agree to seek out one another after the war; their separate, harrowing journeys and the evolution of each character throughout make for breathtaking action and powerful writing. Each chapter of Enemy Women begins with excerpts from historical testimony about this terrible period in the Civil War, when marauding soldiers pillaged and murdered whole families and communities at will. These documents add depth and resonance to Jiles's remarkable narrative.

American Fuji
by Sara Backer



"Expect the unexpected. This is Japan." That's Gaby Stanton trying to explain to Alex Thorn why his questions about the mysterious death of his son, an exchange student at a small Japanese university, are likely to go unanswered. But those words could also serve as the leitmotif for this exuberantly funny tale of Americans abroad in modern-day Japan. After five years in Japan, Gaby herself has learned to expect the unexpected. Fired from her university position for no reason, she has taken the only job available to her: selling fantasy funerals to the Japanese. And because the firm she works for shipped Cody Thorn's body home, Alex has turned up on her doorstep, looking for answers. What ensues is a wild ride through the manners, mores, and prejudices of the Japanese. Peopled with a cast of ill-assorted exiles from the West and with Japanese from every walk of life, American Fuji is many novels in one: a teasing mystery; a quest that is alternatively slapstick and tender; a revealing Baedeker to contemporary Japan; and a delightfully sophisticated romantic comedy. It is indeed about expecting the unexpected in a world where appearances are not all that they seem.

on Amazon

Another good description

Irenic's reveal:

Different cover.

The Best Place to Be by Lesley Dormen

From Publishers Weekly
Each of the eight related stories in Dormen's accomplished collection offers a snapshot from the scattershot life of Grace Hanford. "Fifty and holding," a child of divorce from Cleveland, Ohio, with decades of therapy and blind dates behind her, Grace has spent years "dissecting the romantic lives of single women in their twenties and thirties" for Marvelous Woman magazine in New York City. Married to money-manager Richard, Grace has all the trappings of middle-age (the kitchen renovation, the "looming face-lift") except children of her own (Richard has two from a previous marriage). The first—and best—story, "The Old Economy Husband," lays out Grace's life in Greenwich Village, where she's lived long enough to watch the UPS man go gray. While ghostwriting an etiquette book, she recognizes she has relinquished her earlier theories about love and chosen a man "who made me feel like my fiercest, most clear-hearted twelve-year-old self." Subsequent stories limn with less panache the transitional periods in Grace's life: attending Elmira College for Women circa 1964 ("The Secret of Drawing"), quarreling with her younger brother over their dead mother's effects ("Gladiators"), arranging a reunion with her estranged father ("Curvy"). Dormen's narrator takes plenty of knocks, making the happiness she finds all the sweeter.

Bobbie's Reveal:

Plain Truth A Novel by Jodi Picoult http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/4929520


From Publishers Weekly
Though it begins as the quietly electrifying story of an unmarried Amish teenager who gives birth to a baby she is accused of then smothering, Picoult's latest (after Keeping Faith) settles into an ordinary trial epic, albeit one centered intriguingly on an Amish dairy farm near Lancaster, Pa. Katie Fisher, 18, denies not only having committed the murder but even having borne the baby, whose body is found in the Fishers' calving pen, and she sticks to her story, even when she is quizzed by Ellie Hathaway, the high-powered Philadelphia attorney who undertakes Katie's defense as a favor to Leda, an aunt she and the young woman share. Ellie, who has retreated to Leda's farm in Paradise to reconsider her life--she successfully defends guilty clients--embarks on the case reluctantly: at 39, she wants nothing more than to have a child. However, to meet bail stipulations, she volunteers as Katie's guardian (since Kate's strict parents reject her) and moves in with the Fishers. Living with the Amish necessitates some adjustments for both parties, but Katie and Ellie become fast friends in spite of their differences. Very little action occurs beyond the initial setup, though the questions remain: Who was the father of Katie's child? And did she smother the newborn? Told from both third-person omniscient and first-person (Ellie's) vantages, the story rolls leisurely through the trial preparations, the results of which are repeated, tediously, in the courtroom. Perhaps the story's quietude is appropriate, given its magnificently painted backdrop and distinctive characters, but one can't help wishing that the spark igniting the book's opening pages had built into a full-fledged blaze. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal
YA-Philadelphia defense lawyer Ellie Hathaway retreats to her great Aunt Leda's home in Paradise, PA, to get a break from her high-pressure job. Almost at the same time that she arrives, a dead baby is discovered in the barn of an Amish farmer. A police investigation reveals that the mother is an 18-year-old unmarried Amish girl, Katie Fisher, and that the infant apparently did not die of natural causes. Even in the face of medical proof that she recently gave birth, Katie denies the murder charge. Ellie reluctantly agrees to defend her, even though she does not want to be defended. To better understand her client, Ellie moves into the farmhouse with the Fisher family where she begins to see firsthand the pressures and sacrifices of those who live "plain." As she searches for evidence in this case, she calls upon a friend from her past, Dr. John Cooper, a psychiatrist. As Coop and Ellie work together to unravel fact and fiction, they also work to resolve issues in their relationship. Readers will experience a psychological drama as well as a suspenseful courtroom trial. The contrast between the Amish culture and the "English" provides an interesting tension. This study of opposites details much information about a way of life based on faith, humility, duty, and hon-esty.
Carol Clark, formerly at Fairfax County Public Schools, VA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

rebecca's reveal:



Annunciation: A Novel by Ellen Gilchrist


Book Description
Amanda is rich, bored and middle-aged, a would-be-writer who has left her husband and traded New Orleans for the hill country of Arkansas. There she is happily translating an obscure 18th-century French poetess whose illicit affair led to imprisonment and suicide.
Amanda finds herself infatuated with a student. What starts as a fling becomes a grand and impossible passion. Then she discovers she is pregnant, as was the woman whose poems she re-creates, and we watch as the parallel stories of these two women unfold, each ending tragically.

"Gilchrist's manner is both stylish and idiomatic--a rare and potent combination." (Times Literary Supplement)

Happybunnygirl reveals:

Fool Me Once by Fern Michaels

(FROM THE BACK OF THE BOOK)

"Olivia Lowell always believed her fater's claim that her mother died in childbirth, until the shocking day a lawyer informs her that her mother has just passed away, leaving her a fortune. The money come with a caveat--and a confession. In her will, Olivia's mother reveals that she and two college friends committed a crime long ago, and now she wants Olivia to track down her accomplices and convince them to come clean. Feeling betrayed and unsure that she even wants her mother's tainted money, Olivia must decide if she can handle the secrets of the past. But with the help and affections of a handsome young lawyer, and the sweet companionship of her beloved Yorkies, Olivia will come to understand who her mother really was, and who she, herself, was meant to be..."

My reveal is....




Shopaholic & Baby by Sophie Kinsella!!

This is an ARC copy!

Hail the return of Kinsella's airhead heroine, Becky Bloomwood, now married, pregnant and working as the head personal shopper for a brand-new London boutique. In this latest installment of the Shopaholic franchise (Shopaholic Ties the Knot; Shopaholic Takes Manhattan; etc.), the commercially insatiable Bex shops for two in every upscale baby shop and catalogue in London, snags a celebrity ob/gyn and leverages a pair of the moment's "most coveted" boots to negotiate a home purchase. Complicating an otherwise uneventful pregnancy, Becky suspects her husband, PR biz-wiz Luke Brandon, is having an affair with her hot doc (who also happens to be Luke's ex-girlfriend), so she hires a gumshoe with predictable madcap results. For chick lit lovers with babies of their own, or for those who covet one, Kinsella mines a rich vein by tweaking 21st-century glossy mag obsessions: from sonograms to the hottest baby strollers to tricked-out birthing rooms. Kinsella's ode to baby blues is both sly and slapstick—and for now, at least, Becky is more lovably Lucille Ball than annoyingly Paris Hilton.

Boogal reveals:



Behind Closed Doors by Shannon McKenna

Surveillance expert Seth Mackey knows everything about the women that his millionaire boss toys with--and tosses aside. Raine Cameron is something different. Night after night, Seth watches her on a dozen different video screens. Her vulnerable beauty haunts him and her fresh innocence stirs a white-hot passion that he can barely control. Raine is pure temptation, but Seth has something more important to take care of first. He's convinced that his boss, Victor Lazar, is responsible for his half-brother's murder. He cannot put his secret investigation at risk, but he can't stop wanting her--craving her--and soon he knows he can't let Victor have her. For Raine may be Victor's next victim . . .

Raine knows she's being watched--but no one can see the secrets in her heart. She has reasons of her own to seek revenge on Victor Lazar, and she will, despite her fear--and the distracting presence of Seth Mackey. Though Raine has little experience with men, Seth's fiercely masculine good looks and animal sensuality stir her most erotic fantasies when she's alone . . .and lead her to a bold plan. Offering her body to him, surrending totally to his ruthless desire might well push her beyond all emotional limits--and beyond fear itself.

Catsalive reveals:



Friendship Cake by Lynne Hinton

From Library Journal
The reaction of the Hope Springs Community Church women's group to the idea of writing a cookbook is lukewarm at best until Beatrice breaks down and confesses that she came up with the idea in hopes that sharing a project will make them better friends. They are an unusual group: Beatrice, the town gossip and make-up artist for the funeral home; Margaret, a reclusive widow; tough Louise, who needs the strength of others as the woman she's secretly loved for 40 years enters the final stages of Alzheimer's; Jessie, an African American, who attended a white church on a dare and found a stronger commitment to the Lord; and Charlotte, the young pastor, who tries to be everything to everyone and risks losing her faith along the way. As these women share recipes and a love of the Lord, they make a friendship cake to last till the end of their lives. Hinton (Meditations for Walking) tackles issues dividing churches today, particularly homosexuality and interracial relationships, in a caring and forthright manner. A deceptively simple first novel; for all collections.

BOB:
When five women from the Hope Springs Community Church form a committee to create a cookbook, they embark on a project more meaningful than they could ever have imagined. As novice pastor Charlotte Stewart, no-nonsense Margaret Peele, maverick Louise Fisher, steadfast Jessie Jenkins, and busy-body Beatrice Newgarden meet to share recipes, they begin to open their lives and hearts as well. Exchanging such delectable Southern recipes as "Twila's Chicken Pie," "Earnestine's Corn Relish," and "Real Friendship Cake," these women offer nourishment for each other's souls, too, for each is struggling to make sense of her life - her past, her relationships, and her faith.