Please reveal your books here

First reveal:


My book is:
Playing with Fire by Gena Showalter
(2006-09-01)



Used to be my greatest achievement was holding a job more than three days. Now suddenly I can shoot fireballs, chill your drink or blow-dry your hair at fifty paces with a blink of my eye!

It all started when this crazy scientist dropped something in my Grande Mocha Latte.

Of course I got wicked sick.

Next morning I'm waking up with this total hottie bending over me.

He tells me

1) his name's Rome Masters,

2) he's a government agent and

3) I can control the four elements with a thought.

He seems even less pleased by my (apparently irreversible) transformation than I am…. Because now he'll have to kill me.

Chronic's reveal:



Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

From the Publisher
Curtis Sittenfeld's debut novel, Prep, is an insightful, achingly funny coming-of-age story as well as a brilliant dissection of class, race, and gender in a hothouse of adolescent angst and ambition.

Lee Fiora is an intelligent, observant fourteen-year-old when her father drops her off in front of her dorm at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts. She leaves her animated, affectionate family in South Bend, Indiana, at least in part because of the boarding school's glossy brochure, in which boys in sweaters chat in front of old brick buildings, girls in kilts hold lacrosse sticks on pristinely mown athletic fields, and everyone sings hymns in chapel.

As Lee soon learns, Ault is a cloistered world of jaded, attractive teenagers who spend summers on Nantucket and speak in their own clever shorthand. Both intimidated and fascinated by her classmates, Lee becomes a shrewd observer of-and, ultimately, a participant in-their rituals and mores. As a scholarship student, she constantly feels like an outsider and is both drawn to and repelled by other loners. By the time she's a senior, Lee has created a hard-won place for herself at Ault. But when her behavior takes a self-destructive and highly public turn, her carefully crafted identity within the community is shattered.

Ultimately, Lee's experiences-complicated relationships with teachers; intense friendships with other girls; an all-consuming preoccupation with a classmate who is less than a boyfriend and more than a crush; conflicts with her parents, from whom Lee feels increasingly distant, coalesce into a singular portrait of the painful and thrilling adolescence universal to us all.

Morsie's reveal:

The Penny Tree
by Holly Kennedy



Do You Recognize This Woman? As the years go by, I often ask myself this: How did I lose the only woman I ever loved? The answer isn’t straight, or simple, but if I don’t do something about it, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life...

Annie Hillman’s been dangling from the end of her rope for so long, she’s forgotten how to do more than hold on. Forced to move back to her small hometown, she’s working a temporary job that feels more permanent by the day. Her son Luke is becoming an out-of-control truant. And though her younger son Eric has survived a long illness, the medical bills are burying Annie. Her only refuge is the old Douglas fir tree that has been special to her since childhood, when her father helped her nail a penny to the trunk to mark an important chapter of her life...

Then the oddest thing happens. The local newspaper carries an ad featuring a picture of Annie—when she was young and free—on the front page, with an earnest message of love and regret from an unknown admirer. The paper’s editor refuses to name names, but the ads continue to appear. And when the story breaks, Annie finds herself in the national spotlight.

Now, for the first time in years, Annie is beginning to see that joy might be possible even in the midst of hard times—and that the life she’s led, along with the people she’s loved, might still show her the way...

Note: this copy is an Advanced Reader Copy, the book will not be available until April 2007

Grave Surprise by Charlaine Harris

This is the 2nd book in Charlaine Harris's new Harper Connelly Mystery series.

Book Description
When I was fifteen, I was struck by a bolt of lightning through an open window of the trailer where we lived... I recovered, mostly. I have a strange spiderweb pattern of red on my torso and right leg, which has episodes of weakness. Sometimes my right hand shakes. I have headaches. I have many fears. And I can find dead people. That was the part that interested the professor...

At the request of anthropology professor Dr. Clyde Nunley, Harper Connelly and her stepbrother Tolliver come to Memphis to give a demonstration of Harper's unique talent. And what better place to have that demonstration than in a very old cemetery?

Dr. Nunley doesn't bother to hide his skepticism, especially when Harper stands atop a grave and senses two bodies beneath her—one of a centuries-dead man and the other of a young girl, recently deceased. When the grave is opened, Harper's claim is proven true. The dead girl is Tabitha Morgenstern, an eleven-year-old abducted from Nashville two years previously—a child whom Harper had tried, and failed, to find. The coincidence raises suspicions about her among the police—so she and Tolliver undertake their own hunt to find the killer. They make a nocturnal visit to the cemetery, hoping that Harper can sense something further about the murder.

And then, the next morning, a third dead body, is found in the grave...

Apolonia's reveal:



Master of Wolves by Angela Knight

From the Publisher
USA Today bestselling author Angela Knight returns with more werewolves -- and a handler who's too hot to handle.
Jim London is outraged over the death of his friend, a fellow cop and werewolf--and wants to get to the bottom of what he thinks was murder. The only way to find out is to go undercover--and, in his wolf form, Jim can do that better than anybody. There's only one complication: The new K9 handler, Faith Weston, is sexy enough to bring out the animal in any man.

Praise for Angela Knight's paranormal romances:

"Intense and compelling." --Romance Reader

"Powerfully intriguing." --Romance Readers Connection

"Torrid and exhilarating." --Best Reviews

"Passionate and hot." --Just Erotic Romance Reviews

rebeccajames reveals:

On The Edge Of Darkness by Kathy Cronkite

Book Description
"I was ashamed. It was a confession of weakness. For years, depression meant the crazy house. As I look back at it, [my shame] just seems damned foolishness, which is one reason I talk about it now."
--Mike Wallace

"Toward the end I couldn't get up. I just physically couldn't."
--Kitty Dukakis

They have made the impossible climb into the spotlight and attained their brightest dreams. But for Mike Wallace, Kitty Dukakis, William Styron, Joan Rivers, and countless other people struggling against the debilitating effects of depression, life's most challenging battle is waged not in the public eye, but in the darkest recesses of the mind. In her brilliant new work, Kathy Cronkite gives voice to dozens of celebrated professionals who have endured--and conquered--the hopelessness of chronic depression. Most of all, this courageous book brings a ray of hope to the 24 million Americans who live in the shadows of this misunderstood disease, yet bravely seek a path toward the light. You will learn:

What to do when the sadness won't go away.
Why women are most vulnerable to unipolar disorder.
How substance abuse can mask the symptoms of depression.
The latest therapeutic options for children who are affected by their own--or a parent's--illness.
Which effective new treatments can lift the burden of depression--for up to 90 percent of people who suffer from it!

Salon by Maral Khorozian & Rebecca Le Tourneau (TBR)

I'm thirty-four and I live with my mum and dad in a part of Sydney they call "Little Armenia". It's where old Armenian ladies sit in black wool dresses outside their front doors, looking out on the tiny square of concrete they call a garden. Wogs like to concrete everything......... My mum thinks I'm a virgin. Yeah, right, a virgin at thirty-four. Not likely......... When I think back, I can't believe how much fun we had for what was always an incredibly schizophrenic situation. By night I was the dutiful daughter, asleep in bed under my pristine doona. And by day (and most of the evening) while Mum thought I was safely doing nails, I was caught up in a whirl of business and friends and glittering social events and restaurants and ... Flint.

Meet Sabina Keshkesh, keeper of secrets. Sabina has owned her own beauty salon offering all the usual hair, body and nail torture for twenty years. It is over Sabina's small nail table that people expose their cuticles ... and their souls. Sabina's strong, yet caring nature attracts to the salon a diverse mix of personalities. The people we meet in Salon make us laugh and cry, they make us think, they reveal a potpourri of emotions we can all identify with.

Maral Khorozian and Rebecca Le Tourneau's gutsy debut novel about life, love and blowwaves invites you to drop your dignity at the door and pick it up on your way out. Maral was born in Jordan in the early 60s and has lived in Sydney since her family emigrated three decades ago. Her years of listening to her beauty salon clients provided her with inspiration for Salon. Rebecca has worked in Sydney in Australian television since 1984, her New York Jewish mother severely influencing her career.

Kel's reveal is:

Real Vampires Have Curves (TBR)




What - did you think all vamps were pale, thin and brooding? Don't I wish.

Gloriana St. Clair is an eternally "full-figured" vampire-she just happened to be bloating when a sexy Scotsman sank his teeth into her. She and said Scot-Angus Jeremiah Campbell III, aka Jeremy Blade - have been on and off again for centuries, currently off. A couple hundred years has taught them how to press each other's buttons - in good ways and bad.

Glory's headed for Austin and a new business venture: Vintage Vamp's Emporium. After all, she loves clothes, and she is an antique. Only problem is, there's a billionaire techno-freak vampire hunter on the loose. Blade's in total he-vampire mode, and wants Glory to move in with him so he can "protect" her. But it's time for this vamp to explore her own powers...


So, go ahead and :drool: and :pirate: away!! :lol:

Nan's reveal:



My Favorite Witch by Annette Blair (TBR)
SYNOPSIS

Hockey player Jason Pickering Goddard is at the top of his game when a knee injury sidelines him. Finessed by his grandmother Bessie, Chairman of The Pickering Foundation, he finds himself serving as head of fundraising for the organization during his convalescence. Jason walks in on his new assistant, Kira Fitzgerald, performing a spell he believes is designed to wither her former fiancé’s significant parts, and he’s both intrigued and wary of the beauty he’ll be working with for the next several months.

Kira has sworn off jocks for life and is less than thrilled by the prospect of working side-by-side with a super-jock. Admittedly, Jason has some good ideas for raising money for the boys of St. Anthony’s, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s a jock! And quite possibly an idiot, for he’s sent out invitations for a Ghost and Graveyard Tour at one of the foundation’s mansions, a mansion that has no ghosts!

In between ghost-hunting, putting together a bachelor auction, giving hockey lessons to a bunch of enthusiastic orphans and setting up a special on-location segment of popular cooking show Kitchen Witch, Kira and Jason find themselves fighting a growing attraction. Hockey is Jason’s life, and he’s determined to go back to it, and to a life with no room in it for the permanence Kira represents. Still, he’s never known anyone more alluring than Kira, when she’s not waving her wand around. And Jason is destroying many of the jock stereotypes Kira believes, compliments of her cheating ex.

EXCERPT
The day after she was supposed to have been married, Kira Fitzgerald sat with her back to her desk at the Pickering Foundation, systematically and symbolically ridding herself of the dick-wad she’d caught screwing her sister.

She emptied her purse of anything that reminded her of the jock. Then she tossed the debris into her metal trashcan with gratifying force, and broke a tiny but expensive vial of his favorite perfume with great satisfaction. She took each of the addressed, ecru parchment wedding invitations she'd been saving to torture herself, and tossed them as well.

Taking this job as Pickering's Coordinator of Special Events had been a first step in rising from the ashes of her life. Performing this spell was the second. She’d turn everything that reminded her of the snake into ashes as well.

She added a pinch of healing herbs from her pouch, lit a long tapered match, and touched it to the edges of her shattered dreams. “I hate jocks!”

As number of pearl embossed calla lilies, and ridiculous, romantic words began to singe and curl, Kira raised her amethyst-tipped wand, tempted to give the jerk what he really deserved. “I wanna wither your Charlie, Penis!” But like any witch worthy of the title, she would harm none.

Kira wielded her wand with a flourish.

“Charlie Tillinghast

Reap what you sow,

Recall your faithless past,

Travel the row you hoe,

And grow a heart to last.

Though I wish you no ill,

Begone from screwing me.

This is my will,

So mote it be.”

Whoosh! The fire flared to bright and vigorous life, releasing a sickly-sweet scent into the air. “Shit!” She’d forgotten perfume was flammable.

As the flames and the flowery smoke rose, Kira grabbed her consolation bouquet from beside her computer, rescued the yellow roses, poured the water on the fire, and doused the small inferno.

That was when she saw the crisp blue vellum invitation atop her stack of mail, sitting there, free of its envelope, mocking her.

“Cripes, not another wedding.” She leaned forward to read it.

LML's reveal:



Mr. Right by Carolyn Banks

In her introduction to this new edition of her first novel, Banks (A Horse to Die For, etc.) tells us that when the manuscript was making its rounds two decades ago, one reader labeled the book "a smartass parafeminist psycho-erotic thriller." Banks goes on to say, "You can tell that times have really changed, because now it can be that officially, with those words right smack on the cover"--and indeed they are. After 20 years of other openly erotic and outspoken heroines, does this novel stand out as anything but a historical genre icon? The answer is a qualified "yes." Banks's heroine, Lida, is a fully realized and very sympathetic character, too smart for her job of teaching English at a community college in the Washington, D.C., area and constantly looking for love in the wrong places. That her Mr. Right turns out to be a reclusive novelist and self-confessed murderer works well as a plot device. Banks's eye for details of character and relationships was sharp even then: "Jerry's big voice filled the hall. He was an associate professor in the Geography Department and spoke every word as if it had seismic significance." The sex scenes are indeed erotic, if not particularly startling. The only part of the novel that comes across as dated, in fact, is its "parafeminist" agenda. Today, it's common knowledge that women want good sex on their own terms--a knowledge spread in part through novels such as this one.

KRIN's REVEAL

The Silence of the Rain by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza



In this unusual, deadpan thriller, the first of a trilogy by a bestselling Brazilian writer, Inspector Espinosa of the Rio de Janeiro police department, a jaded intellectual who'd rather visit a used bookstore than a crime scene [sounds like my kinda man], must catch the murderer of Ricardo Carvalho, a corporate executive found shot to death in a parking garage, his briefcase and wallet missing. Was it a robbery gone wrong or was someone involved in Carvalho's business or personal life out to get him?

Thus begins a novel with an intriguing, circuitous plot and mysterious, expertly shaped characters, who are always one step ahead of Espinosa.

The sultry Rio setting, whose exotic neighborhoods add definition to the action, and a most unorthodox detective should appeal to police procedural fans with a taste for the offbeat.

Bobbie's reveal:



http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/4920528

Honey, They Shrunk My Hormones
by Caron Chandler Loveless

Humor and Insight from the trenches of midlife.

Is the Alarm on your bilogical clock about to break the sound barrier?
Are you encountering certain anxiety-producing, heat-generating, life-altering experiences?
Could you use a little help sorting things out?

If you said yes to any of these questions, then Honey, They Shrunk My Hormones is exactly what you need. This humorous, insightful book is about way more thanhomones and night sweats. It's a virtual micropedia of the joys and afflictions that often accompany women in their "second daulthood". hitch a wild, informative ride and explore your most nagging concerns - like how to make room for the newest you, aging parents, restocking an empty next, conquering body wars, letting go, and so much more. With candor and valor, best-selling author Caron Loveless prepares you for some of the most glorious growing up God asks a girl to do.

"I'm telling you, this lady knows her hormones - and I recognize every cotton-picken' one of them. True girl talk for the estrogen deprived among us". - Patsy Clairmont, Women of Faith Speaker

"Through Carn's light touch and inclusinve research, I now have an understanding of what's before me. I was both equipped and entertained". - Marita Lattauer, President, CLASServices, Inc.