Latest Reviews
In honor of Jane Austen’s 250th birthday, nine authors --- Adriana Trigiani, Sarah MacLean, Eloisa James, Elinor Lipman, Audrey Bellezza, Karen Dukess, Emily Harding, Nikki Payne and Diana Quincy --- have come together with wildly imaginative reboots of the lives of several of Austen’s minor characters. Written with plenty of love and wit, these clever stories star everyone from PRIDE AND PREJUDICE’s snobbish Caroline Bingley to the modern descendant of SENSE AND SENSIBILITY’s Eliza Williams, and much more. Blurring genres and taking us across the oceans, LADIES IN WAITING is a heartfelt celebration of Jane Austen and her timeless masterpieces.
Eliot and his wife, Claire, have been happily married for nearly four decades. But eight years after Claire was diagnosed with cancer, the end is near, and it's time to gather loved ones and prepare for the inevitable. Over the years of Claire’s illness, Eliot has shifted into the role of caregiver. But as he focuses on settling into what will be their last days and weeks together, Claire makes an unexpected request that leaves him reeling. In a moment, his carefully constructed world is shattered. What if your partner’s dying wish broke your heart? How well do we know the deepest desires of those we love dearly? As Eliot is confronted with this profound turning point in his marriage and his life, he grapples with the man and husband he’s been, and with the great unknowns of Claire’s last days.
On a frigid, windswept day in Scotland’s Western Hebrides, Eleanor Bruton’s body is discovered on the shore. Little did Eleanor’s family know that she was harboring a dark and all-consuming secret --- a scrap of fraying embroidery that seems worthless at first glance. For over a century, two rival organizations of women have gone to deadly lengths to secure the valuable artifact in the hopes of finding the original medieval manuscript from which it was torn. When Dr. Anya Brown garners international attention for her translation of the cryptic Folio 9, she is handpicked by Diana Cornish, a professor and high-ranking member of the Fellowship, to join the exclusive Institute of Manuscript Studies in St. Andrews. Unbeknownst to Anya, she’s been recruited at great personal danger to translate ancient texts that the Fellowship believes critical to their mission.
At 24, Joseph Dollarhide is struggling to find his place as the future head of his ranching family. His childhood friend, Chase Calder, has inherited the rival Calder operation, and longstanding battles over water and grass continue. But there’s yet another weight on Joseph’s shoulders. Years ago, he abandoned his teenage love, Annabeth, to court glamorous Lucy Merriweather, a seductive trickster. The affair imploded, and Annabeth went on to marry a farmer, Silas Mosby, and have two children. But now Joseph has spotted Annabeth and her family in town...and he has no doubt that her oldest, a boy, is his. Joseph’s love for Annabeth never died --- and Annabeth, too, still has feelings for him, though they’re tainted by anger. Learning that Silas is involved in a bootlegging ring leaves Joseph troubled.
Out of place next to her beautiful, immortal sisters and her parents --- both gods, albeit minor ones --- Meddy dreams of leaving her family’s island for a life of adventure. So when she catches the eye of the goddess Athena, who invites her to train as an esteemed priestess in her temple, Meddy leaps at the chance to see the world beyond her home. In the colorful market streets of Athens and the clandestine chambers of the temple, Meddy flourishes in her role as Athena’s favored acolyte. But when she is noticed by another Olympian, Poseidon, the course of Meddy’s promising future is suddenly and irrevocably altered. When her locs are transformed into snakes as punishment for a crime she did not commit, Medusa must embrace a new identity --- not as a victim, but as a vigilante --- and the chance to write her own story as mortal, martyr and myth.
Billy Collins’ DOG SHOW celebrates the joy of our canine best friends, honoring the love we feel for the animals who play such vital roles in our lives. In 25 poems, Collins distills the many ways dogs warm our hearts, from the happiness we experience as we watch a dog run unencumbered by our burdens, to the silliness of cradling a dog in our arms as we step on the scale together. Turning his inimitable eye and ear to the complexities of dog behavior, Collins ponders all that these winning creatures give us and what we learn from them about ourselves.
After his victory at Vorgossos, Hadrian Marlowe finds himself a fugitive, on the run not only from the Extrasolarians, but from his own people, the Sollan Empire he betrayed --- and who betrayed him. Hidden safely beyond the borders of human space, Hadrian awaits the arrival of the one ally he has left: the Jaddian Prince Kaim-Olorin du Otranto. What's more, the inhuman Cielcin have vanished, unseen for more than 100 years. The armies of men have grown complacent, but Hadrian knows the truth: the Cielcin are preparing for their final assault against the heart of all mankind. Only Hadrian possesses the power to stem the tide: an ancient war machine, forged by the daimon machines at the dawn of time. The mighty Demiurge. With it, Hadrian must face not just the Cielcin horde, but their Prophet-King, and the dark gods it serves --- the very gods who shaped the universe itself.
Stuck in a Production Assistant job and living at home with her parents after a painful breakup, 31-year-old Chloe Fairway isn’t where she wants to be in life. The last thing she needs is to face the people who once voted her "most likely to succeed" at her upcoming 10-year college reunion. And she definitely doesn’t want to see her former best friend, Sean Adler, who is now a hotshot film director living the life Chloe dreamed of. Desperate to make a splash --- and to save face in front of the man who might be the one that got away --- she turns to a mysterious dating service. Enter Rob, her handsome, well-read and charming match, the perfect plus-one to take to her reunion. The more she gets to know him, the more perfect he appears to be. As Chloe reconnects with old friends, she begins to question everything she thought she wanted.
Fern has weathered the stillness and storms of a bookseller’s life for decades. But now, in the face of crippling ennui, she transplants herself to the city of Thune to hang out her shingle beside a long-absent friend’s coffee shop. What could be a better pairing? Surely a charming renovation montage will cure what ails her! If only things were so simple. It turns out that fixing your life isn’t a one-time prospect, nor as easy as a change of scenery and a lick of paint. A drunken and desperate night sees the rattkin waking far from home in the company of a legendary warrior, an imprisoned chaos-goblin with a fondness for silverware, and an absolutely thumping hangover. As together they fend off a rogue’s gallery of ne’er-do-wells trying to claim the bounty the goblin represents, Fern may finally reconnect with the person she actually is when nothing seems inevitable.
Tenderhearted Galilee was raised by the Kincaids, a formidable clan of Black women sequestered deep in the weeping willows and dark rushing creeks of their land. Galilee has always known that she’s different --- that there is an old and unknowable secret around her very existence. Lucifer Helel is fronting as the head of security for her wealthy friend Oriaku’s family, protecting a mysterious, ancient artifact. But from the moment she lays eyes on him, Galilee knows he’s not human. From her first incendiary touch, Lucifer knows something even Galilee herself doesn’t --- that she isn’t human either. Leviathan, Lucifer’s most trusted prince of Hell, is determined to eliminate the intolerable danger that is Galilee before she brings death and disaster to those he loves. But Lucifer and Galilee’s attraction threatens to bring all the structures of their existence crashing down around them.
