The Latest New Fiction

Smash Cut
by Brown, Sandra




PW Reviews 2009 June #4
This superlative romantic thriller from bestseller Brown (Smoke Screen) features a particularly memorable villain, sociopath Creighton Wheeler, who's obsessed with re-enacting scenes from films like Strangers on a Train and Frenzy. When Creighton's wealthy uncle, Paul Wheeler, is shot dead in an apparent robbery at an Atlanta hotel, Paul's close friend, gallery owner Julie Rutledge, attempts to persuade the police that Creighton ordered the hit. Creighton's father asks Derek Mitchell, a criminal lawyer, to represent the accused Creighton, but Derek declines because he had a plane tryst en route to Paris with Julie after Paul's murder. Angered by Derek's refusal, Creighton stalks Julie; targets Derek's dog, Maggie; and plots to kill the ex-girlfriend of his henchman, Billy Duke, after Billy has second thoughts about helping Creighton. Brown skillfully charts Julie and Derek's quest to catch the slippery fiend. Multiple smash cuts (abrupt scene shifts) lead to a wonderfully frenzied finish. (Aug.)
[Page 30]. Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.


The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder
by Wells, Rebecca

PW Reviews 2009 May #1
Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood) weaves more of the magic that made her a bestseller. At first, Calla Lily Ponder appears to be just like any other young woman growing up in the small town of La Luna, La., where life is simple and Calla Lily is supported by a loving, tightly knit family and a colorful cast of locals. But after a series of hometown heartbreaks, Calla Lily sets out for New Orleans to attend a prestigious beauty academy with dreams of one day opening her own salon. Calla Lily soon learns that while the Big Easy offers a fresh start, adventures and exhilarating new friends, it also presents its own set of tragedies and setbacks. The novel is chock-full of Southern charm and sassy wisdom, and despite its sugary sweetness, it benefits from a hearty dose of Wells’ trademark charisma. Calla Lily's story may not be as involved or satisfying as that of the Ya-Yas, but she's sure to be a crowd-pleaser thanks to her humble aspirations, ever hopeful heart and perseverance no matter what fate throws at her. (July)
[Page 30]. Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.


Blindman's Bluff: A Decker and Lazarus Novel
by Kellerman, Faye

PW Reviews 2009 June #3
In bestseller Kellerman's solid 18th novel to feature L.A. police detective Lt. Peter Decker and his wife, Rina finds that some jury duty should include hazardous duty pay. A shooting rampage at the 70-acre compound and mansion owned by shopping mall magnate Guy Kaffey leaves Kaffey, his wife and two guards dead. Kaffey's oldest son, Gil, apparently was left for dead and two other guards are missing. A plethora of suspects and motives has Decker and his colleagues looking at Guy's brother, Mace, and Guy's younger son, Grant, as well as the missing guards, other household staff, the remaining off-duty staff and possibly business rivals. Decker's cool professionalism is thoroughly tested when a chance courtroom encounter thrusts Rina into the case and puts her in harm's way. Kellerman expertly keeps interlocking investigations moving along with a minimum of confusion but plenty of doubt as to the guilty party or parties. (Aug.)
[Page 30]. Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.


South of Broad
by Conroy, Pat

Kirkus Reviews 2009 July #1
First novel in 14 years from the gifted spinner of Southern tales (Beach Music, 1995, etc.) a tail-wagging shaggy dog at turns mock-epic and gothic, beautifully written throughout. The title refers, meaningfully, to a section of Charleston, S.C., and as with so many Southern tales, one great story begets another and another. This one starts most promisingly: "Nothing happens by accident." Indeed. The Greeks knew that, and so does young Leopold Bloom King. It is on Bloomsday (June 16) 1969 that 18-year-old Leo learns his mother had once been a nun. Along the way, new neighbors appear, drugs make their way into the idyllic landscape and two new orphans turn up "behind the cathedral on Broad Street." The combination of all these disparate elements bears the unmistakable makings of a spirit-shaping saga. Working a paper route along the banks of the Ashley River and discovering the poetry of place ("a freshwater river let mankind drink and be refreshed, but a saltwater river let it return to first things"), Leo gets himself in a heap of trouble, commemorated years later by the tsk-tsking of the locals. But he also finds out something about how things work ("Went out with a lot of women when I was young," says one Nestor; "I could take the assholes, but the heartbreakers could afflict some real damage.") and who makes them work right or not. Leo's classic coming-of-age tale sports, in the bargain, a king-hell hurricane. Conroy is a natural at weaving great skeins of narrative, and this one will prove a great pleasure to his many fans. Copyright Kirkus 2009 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved

Twenties girl : a novel
by Kinsella, Sophie

When the spirit of Lara's great-aunt Sadie-a feisty--demanding girl with firm ideas about fashion, love, and the right way to dance--mysteriously appears, she has one last request: Lara must find a missing necklace that had been in Sadie's possession for more than seventy-five years, and Sadie cannot rest without it. Never mind that Lara has her own problems--which Sadie could care less about. Will this sparring duo ever find what they're after?

This Week in Reading May 10 -16

Authors born this week:

Nobel Prize in Literature: Novelist Camilo Jose Cela (1989)

Novelists and story writers
Benito Perez Galdos, Katherine Anne Porter, Juan Rolfo, Bel Kaufman, Nayantara Saghal, Francisco Umbral, Alphonse Daudet, Bruce Chatwin, Armisted Maupin, Koji Susuki

Poets and Playwrights
Poets: Dante Alghieri, Edward Lear, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Andrey Voznesenskii, Adrienne Rich, Kathleen Jamie Playwrights: Arthur Schnitzler, Mikhail Bulgakov, Max Frisch, Anthony Shaffer, Peter Shaffer, Paul Zindel, Allen Ball

Thinkers, Believers, Scientists, Historians, Biographers
Believers: Karl Barth, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Louis Farrakhan Scientists: Richard Feynman, Farley Mowat Historians: Ariel Durant, Janine Basinger

Humorists, Essayists, Editors, Journalists, Officials, Media and Others
Humorists: Mort Sahl, George Carlin Essayists: Hal Borland, Studs Terkel, Edward T. Hall, Jeremy Paxman Officials: Henry Cabot Lodge Media and others: Arthur Sullivan, Irving Berlin, Yogi Berra, George Lucas, Robert Zemeckis

Mystery / Crime / Suspense Writers
Mystery: Daphne Du Maurier, Leslie Charteris

Fantasy / Science Fiction Writers
Fantasy: L. Frank Baum, Roger Zelazny, Stephen R. Donaldson, Thomas Tessier Science Fiction: Olaf Stapledon, L. Neil Smith, John Scalzi

Romance / Historical Fiction Writers
Historical Fiction: Barbara Taylor Bradford

Visual Artists
Illustrators: Margaret Rey

Young People’s Writers
Children’s: Rachel Billington, Carolyn B. Cooney, Mike Lupica, Eoin Colfer

Events to read about from the first woman to run for president to the United States first space station.

This Week’s Questions:

Categorizing writers is always a fuzzy undertaking. While it’s obvious that many novelists wrote short stories, that many fantasy authors also wrote science fiction, and some illustrators also wrote books for children, too, some nonfiction writers also wrote poetry and plays. Many fiction writers wrote nonfiction and a few screenwriters also wrote novels and plays. Some historical fiction is also romance, and some crime is both mystery and supense.Nor always is there a clear line between philosophers and religious thinkers, or between essayists and journalists. And some wrote in several genres and for different ages.The categories used here are generally what the author is most known for, though he or she could easily fit into another category as well.

That said, which author born this week was a philosopher first and a fiction writer second?

Which author has also had a political career and ran for president?

Which nonfiction author readily admitted that some of his nonfiction is fiction?

Which authors published the book they are known by only after segments ran in newspapers?

Which one serialized a book first on a website before it was published?

Answer to Last Week’s Question:

“Poetry is the art of understanding what it is to be alive.” - Archibald MacLeish, poet

“All poetry is putting the infinite with the finite.” – Robert Browning, poet

"Words make love on the page like flies in the summer heat and the poet is only the bemused spectator." – Charles Simic, poet

“The courage of the poet is to keep ajar the door that leads into madness.” – Christopher Morley, mystery novelist.

Ira Levin 1929 - 2007

Popular suspense novelist and playwright Ira Levin has died. Very popular with the reading public, Levin wrote only seven novels but most were made into very successful movies. His novels were filled with suspense and it was said that "he liked giving readers the creeps" as underlying evil came out to interfere with the mundane good one would normal encounter day to day.

His novels included Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives, The Boys From Brazil, and A Kiss Before Dying. His most successful play was the comic mystery Deathtrap.

Masters of the genre: Michael Connelly

There is a well-known genre of fiction (and film) called the "police procedural". Procedurals can be distinguished from standard murder mysteries by their virtual ignoring of any sort of "whodunit" writing or plotting. We don't care who did what to whom in procedurals, and in many cases, we may already know who committed the crimes being investigated. What the writer focuses on instead are the details and manner of solving the crime in question--the procedures used by the police (or other investigators) to find and capture (or kill, in more lurid tales) the criminal--and the characterization of the protagonist and his/her allies.

Michael Connelly has proven to be a prolific and uniformly entertaining author of police procedurals. His main character is a tough, rules-breaking cop with the unlikely name of Hieronymous Bosch. Bosch, who goes by Harry, rarely refuses to make waves inside the department when in hot pursuit of the truth, so we are consistently placed in the position of rooting for a man who is constantly under the gun to produce results. This tension plays out in what we see of Bosch's personal life, as he is almost never allowed to have a girlfriend beyond a few chance encounters that flame out over the course of a book or two due to his obsessive need to run roughshod over anything/anyone that stands in his way to solve The Case.

Connelly, who started writing in the early 1990s, seemingly tried to retire Bosch in the mid-1990s after 4 increasingly successful novels, creating a new crime-solving protagonist in newspaper reporter Terry McCaleb. The McCaleb character only lasted for a handful of books, however, although ironically the only major film to be made so far from Connelly's work--1998's Blood Work--was one of these. Connelly has written 18 novels and 1 autobiographical non-fiction book in 15 years and shows few signs of letting up, to the delight of his growing number of fans, yours truly included.

A select few of his works, starting from the beginning:

Which Books Do You Have?

What books do you have in your home library? Wish you had a better record of what you've read and enjoyed? Do you have lists of books to read at some point and want to get organized? Why not keep all that information in one convenient place?

Take a look at a cool online tool called "goodreads" (www.goodreads.com). According to the site, "you can add and review books that you are currently reading, going to read, or already read. You can also read reviews..."

Basically you make lists of the books you own, books you've read, books you're currently reading and books you want to read in the future. Plus you can see what other people have enjoyed and recommend. All in one place!

It's a neat tool and very handy--check it out.

Good Grief by Lolly Winston

A young woman's life takes a profound, unexpected turn, when her marriage of three years is cut short by tragedy. A widow at age 36, Sophie slips into depression and her life falls apart as she struggles with the pain of losing her husband. Her once bright future darkened, Sophie turns to her best friend, and together they embark on a sometimes painful, sometimes humorous, journey of self discovery.

Ultimately this is an uplifting, emotional story of a woman who, after facing terrible adversity in life, finds ways to overcome heartbreak, anguish, and devastation to begin living and loving again.

Tempting Titles: Fresh Fiction - May

FICTION:

God of Animals by Aryn Kyle

Kyle's novel begins as adolescent narrator Alice Winston recounts the almost simultaneous departure of her sister, Nona, who elopes with a rodeo cowboy, and the drowning of Polly Cain, one of Alice's classmates. These events loom like specters over the rest of the novel, which brims with a confidence and assuredness atypical of a debut. In light of Nona's exodus, Alice becomes her father's primary assistant in tending the family's barn and her bedridden mother's intermediary to the outside world. Alice's penchant for prevarication—she makes a pretense of having been Polly Cain's best friend—helps her repel this harsh reality. In Alice, Kyle has created an adolescent voice that is charming and authentic but that also has its irksome tics: surprising events always inspire such hyperbolic responses as "the air around me sucked to the rims of the earth" and "Everything was coming undone…the entire world breaking into pieces beneath me." In the long run, though, this is a carp, as the voice exerts an irresistible pull. The prospect of other people leaving—Alice's father with a woman he trains—and the revelation of characters' secrets keep the reader glued to the story. Highly recommended for all public libraries. (Library Journal 2006)


MYSTERY:

Died in the Wool by Rett MacPherson

Torie O'Shea, genealogist and president of the New Kassel, Mo., historical society, unearths long-buried family secrets when she puzzles out the strange 1920s suicides of siblings Glory, Whalen and Rupert Kendall in MacPherson's homespun 10th Torie O'Shea mystery (after 2006's Dead Man Running). The old Kendall house is put up for sale, and Torie hopes to buy and reinvent the home as a textile museum, honoring Glory Kendall, a skilled quilter. But Torie's interest broadens beyond historic fabric and needlework when she begins researching the odd circumstances surrounding the deaths of the Kendalls, who were survived by their father, Sanders. The ominous intrigue touches the present day when a friend of Torie's is poisoned with the same substance found long ago in Glory's body. Torie's determined historical detective work will absorb cozy readers. (Publisher's Weekly Review, March 2007)


SCIENCE FICTION:

For a Few Demons More by Kim Harrison

Harrison's (A Fistful of Charms) "Hollows" series moves to hardcover with this fifth volume, which once again finds witch/independent bounty hunter Rachel Morgan in trouble with werewolves, vampires, and demons. A rash of werewolf suicides brings Rachel into another mystery, and when it becomes clear that the obvious suspects aren't behind the murders, Rachel discovers a motive rooted in an ancient curse. Meanwhile, Rachel's relationships with vampires Ivy (her roommate) and Kisten (her boyfriend) continue to evolve in different directions, resulting in a little jealousy and a lot of tension. Other familiar characters, including recovering demon Ceri and perennial villain Trent Kalamack, make appearances that will satisfy and entertain readers of Harrison's earlier books. The well-crafted world of the Hollows continues to grow more complex, and this book relies so much on the setup from the previous book that readers new to the series may find themselves lost. Harrison's following has grown as readers continue to discover her work, and fans of the early books in Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series will enjoy Rachel Morgan's supernatural adventures. Recommended for public libraries. (Library Journal 11/15/06)

The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond

Photographer Abby Mason’s life is turned upside-down when her fiancé’s young daughter Emma disappears at the beach. Her fiancé Jake is convinced that his daughter drowned that day but Abby believes she was kidnapped and is determined to find the little girl . While the novel chronicles Abby’s search for the missing girl, it also reveals insight into her life, her past, and her passions.

The gripping plot and smooth writing-style will keep you quickly turning the pages up to the end. The Year of Fog is no doubt a satisfying read.

Cage of Stars by Jacquelyn Mitchard

At age twelve Ronnie Swan witnesses the brutal killing of her younger sisters in the backyard of their rural Utah home. Strong faith provides Ronnie’s parents with the strength to forgive the killer of these two girls, but Ronnie cannot. Years pass and eventually she discovers that her sisters’ killer has moved with his family to San Diego. Still angry, Ronnie follows him there and begins a new life, determined to get revenge on this man.

The compelling plot, realistic characters and comfortable writing style make Mitchard's latest book a worthy read.

Tempting Titles: Fresh Fiction - April

FICTION:

Whitethorn Woods by Maeve Binchy

"When a new highway threatens to bypass the town of Rossmore and cut through Whitethorn Woods, everyone has a passionate opinion about whether the town will benefit or suffer. But young Father Flynn is most concerned with the fate of St. Ann's Well, which is set at the edge of the woods and slated for destruction. People have been coming to St. Ann's for generations to share their dreams and fears, and to speak their prayers. Some believe it to be a place of true spiritual power, demanding protection; others think it's a mere magnet for superstitions, easily sacrificed. Not knowing which faction to favor, Father Flynn listens to all those caught up in the conflict, and these are the voices we hear in the stories of Whitethorn Woods - men and women deciding between the traditions of the past and the promises of the future, ordinary people brought vividly to life by Binchy."--BOOK JACKET.

MYSTERY:

What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman

Starred Review. A driver who flees a car accident on a Maryland highway breathes new life into a 30-year-old mystery—the disappearance of the young Bethany sisters at a shopping mall—after she later tells the police she's one of the missing girls. As soon as the mystery woman drops that bombshell, she clams up, placing the new lead detective, Kevin Infante, in a bind, as he struggles to gain her trust while exploring the odd holes in her story. Deftly moving between past and present, Lippman presents the last day both sisters, Sunny and Heather, were seen alive from a variety of perspectives. Subtle clues point to the surprising but plausible solution of the crime and the identity of the mystery woman. (Publisher Weekly Review)

FANTASY:

Odalisque by Fiona McIntosh

"Captured by slave traders in the inhospitable desert, Lazar fought his way to freedom, earning the coveted position of Spur of Percheron. Charged with protecting his adopted city from enemies on both sides of its walls, he has led a charmed life as confidant to and protector of Zar Joreb for many years. But now Joreb is dead. Though Joreb's well-intentioned fifteen-year-old heir, Boaz, will take the title of Zar, the balance of power lies in the hands of his beautiful and cruelly ambitious mother, a former harem slave who rose to power by the Zar's favor. Aside from Lazar, whom Boaz trusts and respects, the young Zar's only friend is Pez, the court jester, a misshapen dwarf whose tricks and diversions are accepted only because he is know to be mad. When a stunning young girl is brought to the palace to fill a space in Boaz's harem, both Boaz and Lazar are surprised by their unexpectedly strong reactions to her. But Ana, the odalisque, finds the closeted world of the harem stifling and unbearable. And unbeknownst to all, the gods themselves are beginning to rise in a cyclical battle that is just the beginning, and will enmesh everyone in the palace in a struggle for the very soul of Percheron."--BOOK JACKET.

New Selections Feature - Tempting Titles

Tempting Titles: Fresh Fiction
Tempting Titles: New Nonfiction

On a regular basis now the library's book selectors will choose a few interesting new books from their recent book orders and post reviews here. You can click on the book title or image and read more about the book in the library online catalog. If you have a library card and know your PIN, you can place a hold if the book is labeled "coming soon" or is already in the Glendale or Pasadena collections.

Look for Tempting Titles. It starts today.

Night Swimming by Robin Schwartz

Overweight Charlotte Clapp is told she only has one more year to live. Stunned by the tragic news, she robs $2 million from the bank where she works and escapes from New Hampshire to Los Angeles. While in hiding, Charlotte manages to buy a posh apartment in the Hills, unexpectedly lose weight and make a few good friends.

This first novel by Robin Schwartz is a fun and worthwhile read. It's not perfect, and you may not believe every scenario that's described in the story, but you will have an enjoyable time reading it.

The Girls by Lori Lansens

Rose and Ruby Darlen are conjoined twins attached at the head. Given up at birth by a teenage mother, the girls are raised by a nurse from the local hospital, Aunt Lovey and her husband, Uncle Stash. In the style of a dual autobiographer, Rose and Ruby narrate together to guide the reader through their unusual childhood experiences and unique adult lives.

Sweet, uplifting, memorable and heartbreaking, the reader is guaranteed to feel a multitude of emotions from the first chapter through the end of the book. It's about more than the plot of their shared lives. This novel is about the relationships of twin sisters, family, and friends.

This story will stay with you long after you've finished the last page. Be prepared. You won't be ready to let these girls go.