featured titles for September, 2005
to see October, click HERE - to see November/December, click HERE

In a riveting debut thriller that has drawn comparisons to masters of the genre like Dennis Lehane and Michael Connelly, Brian Freeman weaves obsession, sex, and revenge into a story that grips the reader with vivid characters and shocking plot twists from the first page to the last.
Lieutenant Jonathan Stride is suffering from an ugly case of déjà vu. For the second time in a year, a beautiful teenage girl has disappeared off the streets of Duluth, Minnesota—gone without a trace, like a bitter gust off Lake Superior. The two victims couldn’t be more different. First it was Kerry McGrath, bubbly, sweet sixteen. And now Rachel Deese, strange, sexually charged, a wild child. The media hounds Stride to catch a serial killer, and as the search carries him from the icy stillness of the northern woods to the erotic heat of Las Vegas, he must decide which facts are real and which are illusions. And Stride finds his own life changed forever by the secrets he uncovers. Secrets that stretch across time in a web of lies, death, and illicit desire. Secrets that are chillingly…immoral.

It should have been an easy introduction to Charlie Fox's new career as a bodyguard, working for the personal protection agency run by her ex-lover, Sean Meyer. Their trip to Florida together should have been a working holiday--and a chance to build on the fresh start they promised to make when they last worked together. All Charlie has to do is baby-sit Trey Pelzner, the gawky fifteen-year-old son of a rich computer programmer in Fort Lauderdale.

The last thing anyone expected was a determined attempt to snatch the boy, or that Trey's father and their entire bodyguard team--including Sean--would disappear off the face of the earth at the same time.

Now somebody out there wants the boy badly and they're prepared to kill anyone who gets in their way. Evading them, alone in unknown territory, takes all the skill and courage Charlie possesses.

As hair-raising as a roller-coaster ride, First Drop skyrockets Zoë Sharp to the top of that exclusive list of suspense writers who are going places fast.

It should have been an easy introduction to Charlie Fox's new career as a bodyguard, working for the personal protection agency run by her ex-lover, Sean Meyer. Their trip to Florida together should have been a working holiday--and a chance to build on the fresh start they promised to make when they last worked together. All Charlie has to do is baby-sit Trey Pelzner, the gawky fifteen-year-old son of a rich computer programmer in Fort Lauderdale.

The last thing anyone expected was a determined attempt to snatch the boy, or that Trey's father and their entire bodyguard team--including Sean--would disappear off the face of the earth at the same time.

Now somebody out there wants the boy badly and they're prepared to kill anyone who gets in their way. Evading them, alone in unknown territory, takes all the skill and courage Charlie possesses.

As hair-raising as a roller-coaster ride, First Drop skyrockets Zoë Sharp to the top of that exclusive list of suspense writers who are going places fast.

Chicago police officer Samantha Mack's gun killed her partner. But who pulled the trigger?

Quotes
"Officer Down is the best cop novel I've read in a very long time, tough and dark and wickedly funny, and Theresa Schwegel is a major new talent."
--Scott Phillips, author of COTTONWOOD

In the third novel of this bestselling series, London investigator Maisie Dobbs faces grave danger as she returns to the site of her most painful WWI memories to resolve the mystery of a pilot’s death

Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone. Alexander McCall Smith’s Precious Ramotswe. Every once in a while, a detective bursts on the scene who captures readers’ hearts—and imaginations—and doesn’t let go. And so it was with Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs, who made her debut just two years ago in the eponymously titled first book of the series, and is already on her way to becoming a household name.

A deathbed plea from his wife leads Sir Cecil Lawton to seek the aid of Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator. As Maisie soon learns, Agnes Lawton never accepted that her aviator son was killed in the Great War, a torment that led her not only to the edge of madness but to the doors of those who practice the dark arts and commune with the spirit world.

In accepting the assignment, Maisie finds her spiritual strength tested, as well as her regard for her mentor, Maurice Blanche. The mission also brings her together once again with her college friend Priscilla Evernden, who served in France and who lost three brothers to the war—one of whom, it turns out, had an intriguing connection to the missing Ralph Lawton.

Welcome to Soul City, where roses bloom in the cracks of the sidewalk, musical genres become political platforms, and children use their allowance money to buy records from the Vinyl Man. It's an unusually peaceful and magical American community with a strong heritage and sense of unity--at least, that’s how journalist Cadillac Jackson first finds it when he visits the city for a magazine story. It isn't long before a mayoral campaign turns hostile; Cadillac falls hard for Mahogany Sunflower and is taught how to shed his embattled African-American identity so that he, too, might become a resident of this fabled city. What he discovers reveals as much about himself as it does about human nature and the meaning of race in America.

Miles O'Malley is a special kid. The main character of Jim Lynch's debut novel, The Highest Tide, is the smallest 13-year-old on the Washington coast. He's a speed-reading insomniac who is obsessed with Rachel Carson and the troubled girl next door, and who would rather spend time with the creatures of the tidal flats outside his home than with other kids his age. Miles uses his encyclopedic knowledge of the ocean and its inhabitants to collect specimens he sells to aquariums. On one of his late-night jaunts around the bay, Miles hears a strange sound, like a huge exhale. He soon finds himself face-to-face with a giant squid, a species that doesn't live anywhere near Puget Sound and which no one has ever seen alive. The next morning, the now-dead squid is discovered by the rest of the town, and Miles becomes a local celebrity. Sought after by journalists, pursued by cult members and all but ignored by his feuding parents, Miles tries to make sense of it all as his coming-of-age cleverly coincides with a period of tumult in the ocean and the world around him.

This beautiful novel is sure to charm readers with its stunning imagery and amazing characters. The sense of place is so strong in this book that reading it will feel like taking a vacation, and the characters, quirky, flawed and sad as they are, will not easily slip from memory.

Lynch's language sparkles with his love of the ocean. While parts of The Highest Tide offer a catalog of ocean life many readers will have never heard of, the book gives ocean-dwellers and land-lubbers alike a glimpse of the unbelievable variety of sea life that is out there, if only people would notice it. Read this book and be left eagerly anticipating Lynch's next work.

One moment, 15-year-old Liz Hall is riding her bike to meet a friend at the mall. The next thing she knows, she's alone on a mysterious cruise ship with lots of senior citizens playing shuffleboard. Liz soon realizes there's something odd about all the passengers, including herself. It turns out that they've all recently died (Liz was hit by a taxi) and are heading to Elsewhere.

To Liz, Elsewhere seems like an odd place, with its own laws and customs. Despite her new relationship with her grandmother, who died before Liz was born, Liz has a hard time adjusting to her new "life." As one of the few young people arriving in Elsewhere, she's lonely. She spends hours watching her family and friends from a special observation deck, and even makes a dangerous attempt to contact her family, with surprising results that shock her out of her depression, help her discover love and allow her to live again.

In Elsewhere, Gabrielle Zevin has imagined a rich, original vision of the afterlife. There are no tunnels of bright white light, no angels or pearly gates. Most intriguing is the book's conception of reincarnation. The residents of Elsewhere all gradually grow younger, until, as babies, they are reborn on Earth. Life on Elsewhere is finite and predictable; each person has exactly as much time to live backward as they lived forward on Earth, before heading back to Earth to do it all over again. One of the themes of the novel is an exploration of how this knowledge, this life lived backward, affects people's relationships, their choices and their vision of themselves.

Despite its subject matter, Elsewhere largely avoids maudlin sentimentality. Instead, in addition to being genuinely funny in places, this lovely novel is truly thoughtful: "There are so my lives. How we wish we could live them concurrently instead of one by one by one. We could select the best pieces of each, stringing them together like a strand of pearls. But that's not how it works. A human's life is a beautiful mess." Elsewhere inspires reflection on death—and on life.

In the first book in this new fantasy series, three siblings are sent to live with their uncle whose house looks like a ship perched at the edge of the sea. It's not until a great flood comes that the house's name--Drift House--starts to make sense. Floating aimlessly, the ship-like house begins to yield its many secrets.

"She had not sought this moment but she was ready for it. When the policeman bent down to ask "Auntie, are you going to move?" all the strength of all the people through all those many years joined in her. She said, "No."

An inspiring account of an event that shaped American history

Fifty years after her refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus, Mrs. Rosa Parks is still one of the most important figures in the American civil rights movement. This picture- book tribute to Mrs. Parks is a celebration of her courageous action and the events that followed.

Award-winning poet, writer, and activist Nikki Giovanni's evocative text combines with Bryan Collier's striking cut-paper images to retell the story of this historic event from a wholly unique and original perspective.