Sterling Municipal Library

by Barbara Taylor Bradford

Release Date: 2010-07-01

Barbara Taylor Bradford, who has earned herself a place in the hearts of millions with her phenomenal bestsellers A Woman of Substance, Hold the Dream, and To Be the Best, now brings us the equally enthralling and truly masterful story of three generations of women...and the choices they make.

Audra's story, begun in 1926 England, is one of struggle. After the great passion of her marriage is replaced by tragedy, she vows to give her precious daughter Christina the world. Repaying the benefits of her mother's iron-willed promise, Christina rises to the top of the fashion industry as the head of her own business empire in New York. But in the most fateful decision of her life, she sacrifices her real dream in the name of love. With her daughter Kyle, the story comes full circle. Will her mother's dream be Kyle's own? Or will she tear the family apart with a single, momentous decision of her own?

As powerful and personal a tale as any Barbara Taylor Bradford has ever written, this is a wonderfully involving and sweeping novel of three remarkable women, each committing an act of will that will define their lives forever.

by Marlena de Blasi

Release Date: 2010-10-22

Marlena de Blasi, the acclaimed author of such delectable memoirs as A Thousand Days in Venice and That Summer in Sicily, now brings her luminous prose to the world of fiction with this remarkable debut novel. Set against the backdrop of Europe as it moves inexorably toward World War II, Amandine follows a young orphan's journey in search of her heritage.

The story opens in Krakow in 1931, as a baby girl is conceived out of wedlock, the byproduct of a foolish heart and a tragic inheritance. The child's grandmother, a countess, believes that she is protecting her daughter when she claims that the baby didn't survive. In truth, however, she deposits the infant at a remote convent in the French countryside, leaving her with a great sum of money and in the care of a young governess named Solange.

Solange takes it upon herself to give the child a distinctive name, Amandine, and the two form a special bond. But even Solange's unconditional love cannot protect her charge. Mistrusted by both the abbess and the convent girls, the unusually astute and curious Amandine finds her childhood filled with challenges and questions: Who is she? Where does she come from?
���
Eventually, Solange is forced to choose between the terrors of the convent and those of a global war looming outside its doors. Thus, with a purseful of worthless francs and a sack of provisions, the two flee north toward Solange's childhood home. But what should have been a two-day journey by train becomes a perilous, years-long odyssey across Occupied France'and deeper into the treacheries of war.

Tracing the flight of Amandine and Solange while peering into the lives of the countess and her daughter, Amandine's mother, who still mourns and dreams of the child she thinks she lost forever, Marlena de Blasi's epic novel winds its way toward a dramatic and compelling conclusion, as mother and daughter draw ever nearer. Amandine is a sumptuous tale of identity and survival, persistent hope and unexpected love.

by Sara Gruen

Release Date: 2010-09-07

�
Sam, Bonzi, Lola, Mbongo, Jelani, and Makena are no ordinary apes. These bonobos, like others of their species, are capable of reason and carrying on deep relationships'but unlike most bonobos, they also know American Sign Language.

Isabel Duncan, a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab, doesn't understand people, but animals she gets'especially the bonobos. Isabel feels more comfortable in their world than she's ever felt among humans . . . until she meets John Thigpen, a very married reporter who braves the ever-present animal rights protesters outside the lab to see what's really going on inside.

When an explosion rocks the lab, severely injuring Isabel and liberating the apes, John's human interest piece turns into the story of a lifetime, one he'll risk his career and his marriage to follow. Then a reality TV show featuring the missing apes debuts under mysterious circumstances, and it immediately becomes the biggest'and unlikeliest'phenomenon in the history of modern media. Millions of fans are glued to their screens watching the apes order greasy take-out, have generous amounts of sex, and sign for Isabel to come get them. Now, to save her family of apes from this parody of human life, Isabel must connect with her own kind, including John, a green-haired vegan, and a retired porn star with her own agenda.

Ape House delivers great entertainment, but it also opens the animal world to us in ways few novels have done, securing Sara Gruen's place as a master storyteller who allows us to see ourselves as we never have before.


From the Hardcover edition.

by Susan Isaacs

Release Date: 2010-10-01

A rare mix of wit, social satire, and suspense, along with characters who leap from the page to speak directly to the reader -- a moving story about a love that just won't give up, As Husbands Go is the latest from critically acclaimed, bestselling author, Susan Isaacs.

Call her superficial, but Susie B. Anthony Rabinowitz Gersten assumed her marriage was great -- and why not? Jonah Gersten, M.D., a Park Avenue plastic surgeon, clearly adored her. He was handsome, successful, and a doting dad to their four-year-old triplets Dashiell, Evan, and Mason. But when Jonah is found in the Upper East Side apartment of second-rate "escort" Dorinda Dillon, Susie is overwhelmed with questions left unanswered. It's bad enough to know your husband's been murdered, but even worse when you're universally pitied (and quietly mocked) because of the sleaze factor. None of it makes sense to Susie -- not a sexual liaison with someone like Dorinda, not the "better not to discuss it" response from Jonah's partners. With help from her toughtalking, high-style Grandma Ethel who flies in from Miami, she takes on her snooty in-laws, her husband's partners, the NYPD, and the DA (is the person arrested for the homicide the actual perp, or just an easy mark for a prosecutor who hates the word "unsolved"?), as she tries to prove that her wonderful life with Jonah was no lie. Susan Isaacs brilliantly turns the conventions of the mystery on end as Susie Gersten, suburban mom, floral designer, and fashion plate, searches not so much for answers to her husband's death as for answers to her own life.

by Lisa Wingate

Release Date: 2010-10-01

National bestselling author Lisa Wingate returns with an uplifting novel set in Blue Sky Hill, where unexpected challenges and new relationships give deeper meanings to "home".

When Tam Lambert learns that her family's upscale home is in foreclosure, the life she's known is forever changed. Tam and her family must move to a changing Dallas neighborhood called Blue Sky Hill...

New resident Shasta Williams knows nothing of real estate schemes when she and her husband purchase a home in Blue Sky Hill. To her it's the perfect place to raise her children. Better yet is getting to know Tam, who lives next door. When neighbors realize that a corrupt deal could force them from their homes, friendships and loyalties are tested. Over the span of one summer, two young women discover the strength and maturity to do the impossible. They find that even in Blue Sky Hill, life-altering relationships and amazing possibilities can begin to blossom...

by Pamela Morsi

Release Date: 2010-11-22

After Andrea Wolkowicz abandons corporate life to help care for her sister, she quickly wears out the want ads in their rust-belt hometown. Time to be her own boss.

Every mogul knows the best idea is an old idea with a new twist. So Andi proudly revives her father's business: an old-fashioned car wash…staffed entirely by bikini-clad women. That ought to get traffic'and blood'flowing on Grosvenor Street!

This gutsy gimmick soon has the whole town in a lather, and not necessarily in a good way.

Scandalized citizens are howling, neighboring businesses are worried. But straitlaced grocery-store owner Pete Guthrie is definitely intrigued. He knows it's hard to run a small business in a big-box world. To him, Andi's brains and bravery are as alluring as the bikini she calls business attire.

by Carey Wallace

Release Date: 2010-10-22

An iridescent jewel of a novel that proves love is the mother of invention

In the early 1800s, a young Italian contessa, Carolina Fantoni, realizes she is going blind shortly before she marries the town's most sought-after bachelor. Her parents don't believe her, nor does her fiancé. The only one who understands is the eccentric local inventor and her longtime companion, Turri. When her eyesight dims forever, Carolina can no longer see her beloved lake or the rich hues of her own dresses. But as darkness erases her world, she discovers one place she can still see-in her dreams. Carolina creates a vivid dreaming life, in which she can not only see, but also fly, exploring lands she had never known.

Desperate to communicate with Carolina, Turri invents a peculiar machine for her: the world's first typewriter. His gift ignites a passionate love affair that will change both of their lives forever.

Based on the true story of a nineteenth-century inventor and his innovative contraption, The Blind Contessa's New Machine is an enchanting confection of love and the triumph of the imagination.

by Robert B. Parker

Release Date: 2010-07-28

Law enforcement in Appaloosa had once been Virgil Cole and me. Now there was a chief of police and twelve policemen. Our third day back in town, the chief invited us to the office for a talk.
 
The new chief is Amos Callico, a tall, fat man in a derby hat, wearing a star on his vest and a big pearl-handled Colt inside his coat. An ambitious man with his eye on the governorship'and perhaps the presidency'he wants Cole and Hitch on his side. But they can't be bought, which upsets him mightily.
           
When Callico begins shaking down local merchants for protection money, those who don't want to play along seek the help of Cole and Hitch. When Cole is forced to fire on the trigger-happy son of politically connected landowner General Horatio Laird, Callico sees his dream begin to crumble. The guns for hire are thorns in the side of the power-hungry chief, and he'll use any excuse to take them out. There will be a showdown'but who'll be left standing?

by Jim Butcher

Release Date: 2010-10-22

The new novel in the #1 New York Times bestselling Dresden Files series.

Long ago, Susan Rodriguez was Harry Dresden's lover-until she was attacked by his enemies, leaving her torn between her own humanity and the bloodlust of the vampiric Red Court. Susan then disappeared to South America, where she could fight both her savage gift and those who cursed her with it.

Now Arianna Ortega, Duchess of the Red Court, has discovered a secret Susan has long kept, and she plans to use it-against Harry. To prevail this time, he may have no choice but to embrace the raging fury of his own untapped dark power. Because Harry's not fighting to save the world...

He's fighting to save his child.

by Sherryl Woods

Release Date: 2010-11-07

After years apart, Mick and Megan O'Brien are finally ready to make it official...again. Most of their grown children couldn't be happier about their rekindled love and impending marriage this holiday season. Only Connor is a holdout. Driven to become a divorce attorney after what he views as his mother's abandonment of their family, Connor's not about to give his blessing to this reunion romance.

The last thing Megan wants to do is hurt her family again. After all, is she really sure she and Mick can make it this time around? And when an unexpected delivery causes chaos, it seems only a miracle can reunite this family.

Of course, it is Christmas ' the season of miracles.

by Chandra Hoffman

Release Date: 2010-08-24

Fox Street was a dead end. In Mo Wren's opinion, this was only one of many wonderful, distinguishing things about it.

Mo lives on Fox Street with her dad and little sister, the Wild Child. Their house is in the middle of the block'right where a heart would be, if the street were a person. Fox Street has everything: a piano player, a fix-it man, the city's best burrito makers, a woman who cuts Mo's hair just right, not to mention a certain boy who wants to teach her how to skateboard. There's even a mean, spooky old lady, if ringing doorbells and running away, or leaving dead mice in mailboxes, is your idea of fun. Summers are Mo's favorite time, because her best friend, Mercedes, comes to stay.

Most important, though, Fox Street is where all Mo's memories of her mother live. The idea of anything changing on Fox Street is unimaginable'until it isn't.

This is the story of one unforgettable summer'a summer of alarming letters, mysterious errands, and surprising revelations'and how a tuft of bright red fur gives Mo the courage she needs.

by Syrie James

Release Date: 2010-07-20

Acclaimed author Syrie James approaches Bram Stoker's classic Dracula with a breathtaking new perspective'as, for the first time, Mina Harker records the shocking story of her scandalous seduction and sexual rebirth.

Who is this magnetic, fascinating man? And how could one woman fall so completely under his spell?

Mina Harker is torn between two men. Struggling to hang on to the deep, pure love she's found within her marriage to her husband, Jonathan, she is inexorably drawn into a secret, passionate affair with a charismatic but dangerous lover. This haunted and haunting creature has awakened feelings and desires within her that she has never before known, which remake her as a woman.

Although everyone she knows fears him and is pledged to destroy him, Mina sees a side to him that the others cannot: a tender, romantic side; a man who's taken full advantage of his gift of immortality to expand his mind and talents; a man who is deeply in love, and who may not be evil after all. Yet to surrender is surely madness, for to be with him could end her life. It may cost Mina all she holds dear, but to make her choice she must learn everything she can about the remarkable origins and sensuous powers of this man, this exquisite monster, this . . . Dracula!

by Tim LaHaye

Release Date: 2010-09-08

In Tim LaHaye---creator and co-author of the world-renowned Left Behind series---and Craig Parshall's Edge of Apocalypse, Joshua Jordan's new weapons defense system will secure America against an array of new enemies, including a nuclear strike on New York City by North Korea. But global forces are mounting and corrupt government leaders will go to any extreme to prevent an impending economic catastrophe. As world events begin setting the stage for the 'end of days' foretold in Revelation, Jordan must weigh the personal price he must pay to save the nation he loves.

by Erin Hart

Release Date: 2010-07-28

AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR ERIN HART DELIVERS A SEARING NEW NOVEL OF SUSPENSE, BRILLIANTLY MELDING MODERN FORENSICS AND IRISH MYTH AND MYSTERY IN THIS CHARGED THRILLER.

American pathologist Nora Gavin fled to Ireland three years ago, hoping that distance from home would bring her peace. Though she threw herself into the study of bog bodies and the mysteries of their circumstances, she was ultimately led back to the one mystery she was unable to solve: the murder of her sister, Tríona. Nora can't move forward until she goes back'back to her home, to the scene of the crime, to the source of her nightmares and her deepest regrets.

Determined to put her sister's case to rest and anxious about her eleven-year-old niece, Elizabeth, Nora returns to Saint Paul, Minnesota, to find that her brother-in-law, Peter Hallett, is about to remarry and has plans to leave the country with his new bride. Nora has long suspected Hallett in Tríona's murder, though there has never been any proof of his involvement, and now she believes that his new wife and Elizabeth may both be in danger. Time is short, and as Nora begins reinvestigating her sister's death, missed clues and ever-more disturbing details come to light. What is the significance of the "false mermaid" seeds found on Tríona's body? Why was her behavior so erratic in the days before her murder?

Is there a link between Tríona's death and that of another young woman?

Nora's search for answers takes her from the banks of the Mississippi to the cliffs of Ireland, where the eerie story of a fisherman's wife who vanished more than a century ago offers up uncanny parallels. As painful secrets come to light, Nora is drawn deeper into a past that still threatens to engulf her and must determine how much she is prepared to sacrifice to put one tragedy to rest . . . and to make sure that history doesn't repeat itself.

by Jeffrey Stepakoff

Release Date: 2010-07-28

by Jennifer Weiner

Release Date: 2010-08-15

Sometimes all you can do is fly away home . . .

When Sylvie Serfer met Richard Woodruff in law school, she had wild curls, wide hips, and lots of opinions. Decades later, Sylvie has remade herself as the ideal politician's wife'her hair dyed and straightened, her hippie-chick wardrobe replaced by tailored knit suits. At fifty-seven, she ruefully acknowledges that her job is staying twenty pounds thinner than she was in her twenties and tending to her husband, the senator.

Lizzie, the Woodruffs' younger daughter, is at twenty-four a recovering addict, whose mantra HALT (Hungry? Angry? Lonely? Tired?) helps her keep her life under control. Still, trouble always seems to find her. Her older sister, Diana, an emergency room physician, has everything Lizzie failed to achieve'a husband, a young son, the perfect home'and yet she's trapped in a loveless marriage. With temptation waiting in one of the ER's exam rooms, she finds herself craving more.

After Richard's extramarital affair makes headlines, the three women are drawn into the painful glare of the national spotlight. Once the press conference is over, each is forced to reconsider her life, who she is and who she is meant to be.

Written with an irresistible blend of heartbreak and hilarity, Fly Away Home is an unforgettable story of a mother and two daughters who after a lifetime of distance finally learn to find refuge in one another.

by Terry McMillan

Release Date: 2010-10-22

Unabridged, 10 CDs, 13 hours

Read by TBA

An exuberant return to the four unforgettable heroines of Waiting to Exhale--the novel that changed African American fiction forever.

by Michele Young-Stone

Release Date: 2010-08-25

When lightning strikes, lives are changed.
�
BECCA
�
On a sunny day in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, eight-year-old Becca Burke was struck by lightning. No one believed her'not her philandering father or her drunk, love-sick mother'not even when her watch kept losing time and a spooky halo of light appeared overhead in photographs. Becca was struck again when she was sixteen. She survived, but over time she would learn that outsmarting lightning was the least of her concerns.
�
BUCKLEY
�
In rural Arkansas, Buckley R. Pitank's world seemed plagued by disaster. Ashamed but protective of his obese mother, fearful of his scathing grandmother, and always running from bullies (including his pseudo-evangelical stepfather), he needed a miracle to set him free. At thirteen years old, Buckley witnessed a lightning strike that would change everything.
�
Now an art student in New York City, Becca Burke is a gifted but tortured painter who strives to recapture the intensity of her lightning-strike memories on canvas. On the night of her first gallery opening, a stranger appears and is captivated by her art. Who is this odd young man with whom she shares a mysterious connection?

When Buckley and Becca finally meet, neither is prepared for the charge of emotions'or for the perilous event that will bring them even closer to one another, and to the families they've been running from for as long as they can remember.

Crackling with atmosphere and eccentric characters, The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors explores the magic of nature and the power of redemption in a novel as beautiful and unpredictable as lightning itself.

by Robert Whitlow

Release Date: 2010-08-18

Competition is tough at the Savannah law firm where Tami Taylor is a law clerk. Tami's work sets her apart -- and the firm's partners see something special in her. So they assign her to a libel case against an abrasive, outspoken preacher who is either a prophet or a lunatic. On the surface it appears to be an open and shut case; the preacher seems fully outside the bounds of the law. But as the investigation continues, Tami is troubled by his uncanny prophetic abilities.

by Susan Gregg Gilmore

Release Date: 2010-11-07

Nobody in Nashville has a bigger name to live up to than Bezellia Grove.� As a Grove, she belongs to one of city's most prominent families and is expected to embrace her position in high society.� That means speaking fluent French, dancing at cotillions with boys from other important families, and mastering the art of the perfect smile.�
�
Also looming large is her given name Bezellia, which has been passed down for generations to the first daughter born to the eldest Grove.� The others in the long line of Bezellias shortened the ancestral name to Bee, Zee or Zell.� But Bezellia refuses all nicknames and dreams that one day she, too, will be remembered for her original namesake's courage and passion.
�
Though she leads a life of privilege, being a Grove is far from easy.� Her mother hides her drinking but her alcoholism is hardly a secret.� Her father, who spends long hours at work, is distant and inaccessible.� For as long as she can remember, she's been raised by Maizelle, the nanny, and Nathaniel, the handyman.� To Bezellia, Maizelle and Nathaniel are cherished family members.� To her parents, they will never be more than servants.��
�
Relationships are complicated in 1960s Nashville, where society remains neatly ordered by class, status and skin color.� Black servants aren't supposed to eat at the same table as their white employers.� Black boys aren't supposed to make conversation with white girls.� And they certainly aren't supposed to fall in love.� When Bezellia has a clandestine affair with Nathaniel's son, Samuel, their romance is met with anger and fear from both families.� In a time and place where rebelling against the rules carries a steep price, Bezellia Grove must decide which of her names will be the one that defines her.

by Thomas Steinbeck

Release Date: 2010-07-28

Thomas Steinbeck has been praised by Publishers Weekly for his stylistic brilliance and accomplished voice. Now, his enthralling novel In the Shadow of the Cypress blends history and suspense with literary mastery and brings vivid realism to California's rich heritage.

In 1906, the Chinese in California lived in the shadows. Their alien customs, traditions, and language hid what they valued from their neighbors . . . and left them open to scorn and prejudice. Their communities were ruled'and divided'by the necessity of survival among the many would-be masters surrounding them, by struggles between powerful tongs, and by duty to their ancestors.

Then, in the wake of natural disaster, fate brought to light artifacts of incredible value along the Monterey coast: an ancient Chinese jade seal and a plaque inscribed in a trio of languages lost to all but scholars of antiquity. At first, chance placed control of those treasures in the hands of outsiders'the wayward Irishman who'd discovered them and a marine scholar who was determined to explore their secrets. The path to the truth, however, would prove to be as tangled as the roots of the ancient cypress that had guarded these treasures for so long, for there are some secrets the Chinese were not ready to share. Whether by fate, by subtle design, or by some intricate combination of the two, the artifacts disappeared again . . . before it could be proved that they must have come there ages before Europeans ever touched the wild and beautiful California coast.

Nearly a century would pass before an unconventional young American scientist unearths evidence of this great discovery and its mysterious disappearance. Taking up the challenge, he begins to assemble a new generation of explorers to resume theperilous search into the ocean's depth . . . and theshadows of history. Armed with cutting-edge, moderntechnology, and drawing on connections to powerful families at home and abroad, this time Americans and Chinese will follow together the path of secrets that have long proved as elusive as the ancient treasures that held them.

This striking debut novel by a masterful writer weaves together two fascinating eras into one remarkable tale. In the Shadow of the Cypress is an evocative, dramatic story that depicts California in all its multicultural variety, with a suspense that draws the reader inexorably on until the very last page.

by Isabel Allende

Release Date: 2010-11-22

by Zane Grey

Release Date: 2010-07-15

The head of a vast cattle empire after her father's death, Holly Ripple has also inherited the ranch's problems with rustlers and desperados, whom she keeps at bay by transforming herself into a cattle-queen legend. Reprint.

by David Gregory

Release Date: 2010-12-08

In the future, it's possible to live forever'but at what cost?
�
A.D. 2088.
�
Missionary daughter Abigail Caldwell emerges from the jungle for the first time in her thirty-four years, the sole survivor of a mysterious disease that killed her village. Abby goes to America, only to discover a nation where Christianity has completely died out. A curious message from her grandfather assigns her a surprising mission: re-introduce the Christian faith in America, no matter how insurmountable the odds.
�
But a larger threat looms. The world's leading artificial intelligence industrialist has perfected a technique for downloading the human brain into a silicon form. Brain transplants have begun, and with them comes the potential of eliminating physical death altogether'but at what expense?�
�
As Abby navigates a society grown more addicted to stimulating the body than nurturing the soul, she and Creighton Daniels, a historian troubled by his father's unexpected death, become unwitting targets of powerful men who will stop at nothing to further their nefarious goals. Hanging in the balance'the spiritual future of all humanity.
�
In this�fast-paced thriller, startling near-future science collides with thought-provoking religious themes to create a spell-binding "what-if?" novel.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

by Lauren Weisberger

Release Date: 2010-09-22

Bestseller Weisberger's latest, deliciously naughty novel about normal girls left behind by their new-celeb exes--and the girls'�fitting revenge!

by Danielle Steel

Release Date: 2010-09-28

by Robin Pilcher

Release Date: 2010-07-01

by Louise Shaffer

Release Date: 2010-08-15

In Louise Shaffer's delightfully charming new novel, a hopeless romantic (and author adrift) searches for a happy ending'and decides to write her own love story.
�
After the success of her first novel, Love, Max'an irresistibly funny look at divorce as seen through a dog's eyes'Francesca's fictional saga becomes real when her sexy photographer husband bails on her. The good news is that Francesca gets custody of their apartment and their dog'an adoring scamp who has mastered the art of unconditional love. Still, a girl and her dog have to eat, so a desperate search for income leads Francesca to Chicky, a spunky, red-haired octogenarian who wants Francesca to write the memoirs of her parents, Joe and Ellie, who toured the vaudeville circuit in the early 1920s.

Francesca is reluctant to take the job, but Chicky's tales soon lure her into a showbiz era as irresistible and unlikely as the love story that unfolds. As she re-creates Joe and Ellie's story, Francesca reflects, with hilarious honesty, on her own childhood and marriage'and discovers how to put the pieces of her life back together in a way that redefines herself and the true meaning of family and love.
�

by Donna Ball

Release Date: 2010-11-07

Love is in the air in this delightful novel-third in the bestselling Ladybug Farm series from award-winning author Donna Ball.

Renovating a broken-down mansion in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley gave three lifelong friends a welcome second chance. But after taking the biggest risk of their lives, are these women also willing to risk their hearts?

All the effort Cici, Lindsay, and Bridget have put into transforming an historic but overgrown farm into an upscale winery and special events business is paying off-Ladybug Farm has been chosen to host a society wedding. What this really means is that they are about to be invaded by warring mothers-in-law, a Bridezilla, and a completely clueless groom. They have their hands full keeping Ladybug Farm from descending into total chaos.

But there's something about a wedding...

by Danielle Steel

Release Date: 2010-12-08

Bettina Daniels lived a fairytale existence of��glamour, endless parties, and luxury among��America's top celebrities -- simply because she was the��beautiful daughter of famous American author Justin Daniels. Then, in one moment of tragedy, her��father was dead, and Bettina discovered the truth��-- he had spent every dime he'd ever earned and run up��millions in debt. At eighteen, penniless and��alone, she had lost everything except her father's��dearest friend, Ivo Stewart. A wealthy, handsome publisher��of sixty-two, he offered Bettina a��way out: marriage. But only for a time. What lay��ahead for Bettina was a life filled with shocks and��surprises -- and eventually a chance to become a��playwright, and a writer like her father. Having��learned her lessons dearly, Bettina blossoms into��her own person at last.

by Gail Fraser

Release Date: 2010-08-15

Fifth in the acclaimed series set in the enchantingly offbeat town of Lumby.

Pam and Mark Walker are celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary with a week-long family reunion and a ceremony renewing their vows. But when Mark's brother-in-law starts broadcasting his radio talk show from Montis Inn, his disparaging remarks about small-town life cause immediate rifts that only widen when he sides with a real estate developer who wants to turn Lumby into an asphalt Aspen. As the controversy pits family against family, and neighbor against neighbor, will the spirit that defines Lumby triumph once again?

by Jennifer Crusie

Release Date: 2010-10-01

Andie Miller is ready to move on with her life. She wants to marry her fiancé and leave behind everything in her past, especially her ex-husband, North Archer. But when Andie tries to gain closure with him, he asks one final favor of her. A distant cousin has died and left North the guardian of two orphans who have driven away three nannies already, and things are getting worse. He needs someone to take care of the situation, and he knows Andie can handle anything....

When Andie meets the two children, she realizes the situation is much worse than she feared. Carter and Alice aren't your average delinquents, and the creepy old house where they live is being run by the worst housekeeper since Mrs. Danvers. Complicating matters is Andie's fiancé's suspicion that this is all a plan by North to get Andie back. He may be right because Andie's dreams have been haunted by North since she arrived at the old house. And that's not the only haunting....

Then her ex-brother-in-law arrives with a duplicitous journalist and a self-doubting parapsychologist, closely followed by an annoyed medium, Andie's tarot card reading mother, her avenging ex-mother-in-law, and her jealous fiancé. Just when Andie's sure things couldn't get more complicated, North arrives to make her wonder if maybe this time things could just turn out differently....

by Gil McNeil

Release Date: 2010-08-25

The warm and witty sequel to The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club

Slip one . . .

Two weddings and a year after her husband's funeral, Jo Mackenzie is finally starting to get the hang of being a single parent. The boys are thriving, the yarn shop is doing well--thanks to Jo's improvements--and she's just about keeping her head above water.

Knit two together . . .

But a man from Jo's past and a new romance with the hunky local carpenter come along and make life a whole lot more interesting.

Cast off . . .

Can Jo cope when things get really complicated? Because if knitting really does keep you sane when life starts to unravel, Jo's going to need much bigger needles.

Praise for The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club

"Smart novels about starting over don't get any better than this sweet treat."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A warmly winning second-chance novel . . . Smartly written, Beach Street is also very, very funny."
--Christian Science Monitor

by Philip Roth

Release Date: 2010-11-07

by Karen White

Release Date: 2010-07-01

Folly Beach, South Carolina, has survived despite hurricanes and war. But it's the personal battles of Folly Beach's residents that have left the most scars, and why a young widow has been beckoned there to heal her own...

To most people, Folly Beach is simply the last barrier island before reaching the great Atlantic. To some, it's a sanctuary for lost souls, which is why Emmy Hamilton's mother encourages her to buy the local book store, Folly's Finds, hoping it will distract Emmy from the loss of her husband.

Emmy is at first resistant. So much has already changed. But after finding love letters and an image of a beautiful bottle tree in a box of used books from Folly's Finds, she decides to take the plunge. But the seller insists on one condition: Emmy must allow Lulu, the late owner's difficult sister, to continue selling her bottle trees from its back yard.

For the most part Emmy ignores Lulu as she sifts through the love letters, wanting to learn more. But the more she discovers about the letters, the more she understands Lulu. As details of a possible murder and a mysterious disappearance during WWII are revealed, the two women discover that circumstances beyond their control, sixty years apart, have brought them together, here on Folly Beach. And it is here that their war-ravaged hearts can find hope for a second chance...

by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Release Date: 2010-08-25

"Divakaruni is a brilliant storyteller; she illuminates the world with her artistry; and shakes the reader with her love."
--Junot Diaz

Late afternoon sun sneaks through the windows of a passport and visa office in an unnamed American city. Most customers and even most office workers have come and gone, but nine people remain. A punky teenager with an unexpected gift. An upper-class Caucasian couple whose relationship is disintegrating. A young Muslim-American man struggling with the fallout of 9/11. A graduate student haunted by a question about love. An African-American ex-soldier searching for redemption. A Chinese grandmother with a secret past. And two visa office workers on the verge of an adulterous affair.

When an earthquake rips through the afternoon lull, trapping these nine characters together, their focus first jolts to their collective struggle to survive. There's little food. The office begins to flood. Then, at a moment when the psychological and emotional stress seems nearly too much for them to bear, the young graduate student suggests that each tell a personal tale, "one amazing thing" from their lives, which they have never told anyone before. And as their surprising stories of romance, marriage, family, political upheaval, and self-discovery unfold against the urgency of their life-or-death circumstances, the novel proves the transcendent power of stories and the meaningfulness of human expression itself. From Chitra Divakaruni, author of such finely wrought, bestselling novels as Sister of My Heart, The Palace of Illusions, and The Mistress of Spices, comes her most compelling and transporting story to date. One Amazing Thing is a passionate creation about survival--and about the reasons to survive.

Praise for One Amazing Thing

"The plot of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's new novel could be ripped from the horrifying headlines about Haiti in a strange case of art imitating life. ...One Amazing Thing, which was written well before the Haiti earthquake, is receiving high praise."
--USA Today

"The appeal of these life stories, like that of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, is that they throw the spotlight onto varied lives, each with its own joys and miseries. Together, the stories show how easy it is to divert young lives into unforeseen and restrictive channels, and how hard it is for people to realize their early dreams. Their shared experiences and fears form the frame that holds together this compendium of short stories into an absorbing novel. ...At the end of her novel, her readers are fully engaged in what will happen to those nine people."
--Washington Post

"Hauntingly beautiful. ...One Amazing Thing is a page-turner with high drama, elegant writing, and lots of helpful tips for teamwork in a crisis."
--Houston Chronicle

"Her fiction is so intimate that it often seems as if cultural context is irrelevant. Her character's dreams and disappointments are paramount... The karmic energy of One Amazing Thing revolves around Divakaruni's gifts as a novelist."
--Seattle Times

"Masterful storyteller Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni examines such stories in an apropos novel for our times. Her suspenseful tale of nine souls who suddenly don't know if they will live or die is a tribute -- on many levels -- to hope and survival. But it is also, most successfully, a ringing rebuke to rushes to judgment. It's an adult, literary version of The Breakfast Club, with dire circumstances. 'Hell is other people,' Uma thinks as she looks at one of her fellow distraught victims. But redemption can be other people, too, Uma and the others soon understand. One more amazing thing we've learned from Divakaruni."
--Miami Herald

"Divakaruni portrays in beautiful prose, haunting characters, and a luminously and ominously developed plot, the universal and individual qualities of the search for meaning in life, as well as the search's timelessness. We see the parallel as soon as Uma does: as in The Canterbury Tales, where Chaucer's characters are pilgrims to a holy site, the visa applicants are also pilgrims, on their way to India. Divakaruni is a beautiful writer, using words as lithely and effortlessly as breathing, and while she breathes, she sings."
--Huffington Post

"One Amazing Thing collapses the walls dividing characters and cultures; what endures is a chorus of voices in one single room."
--Jhumpa Lahiri, author of Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake

"I was up very late. I read straight through because this is the sort of book that pulls you along. Divakaruni is so adept with her characterizations...I wanted to be in any of the beauty salons described so lovingly. I wanted to eat the bits of food described with such delicacy."
--Louise Erdrich, author of Love Medicine and A Plague of Doves, from her blog at birchbarkbooks.com

"Ingeniously conceived and intelligently written, this novel is a fable for our time. The characters, troubled or shattered by their past, vibrate with life whenever they begin to speak. The book is a fun read from the first page to the last."
--Ha Jin, author of A Free Life and the National Book Award-winning Waiting

"Chitra Divakaruni understands the power of stories to heal us, make us laugh, and comfort us in the most difficult of circumstances. One Amazing Thing is one powerful and beautifully written book. I loved it, and I'm sure that readers everywhere will embrace it too."
--Lisa See, author of Shanghai Girls

Praise for Chitra Divakaruni

"[Her] sentences dazzle; the images she creates are masterful."
--The Los Angeles Times

"Divakaruni beautifully blends the chills of reality with the rich imaginings of fairy tale."
--The Wall Street Journal

"Authentic and complex . . . Sophisticated and compassionate . . . Moving . . . [It is] a vision of what it means to be human, and in that resonance lies this collection's triumph."
--The Washington Post

"Divakaruni's stories will touch everyone who reads them . . . It is her gift of language and her ability to cast sentences of exquisite beauty that make her such a high-performance writer."
--USA Today

by Joanna Trollope

Release Date: 2010-08-15

From the superb storyteller and quintessential women's fiction author Joanna Trollope comes a moving and wonderfully observed new novel about two families who must confront love and loss as an inheritance hangs in the balance.

The trouble with dying is that you're not around anymore to explain what you meant to the people who love you…

Richie Rossiter, a crooner and piano man still popular with his loyal fans, is anyone's idea of a lucky man. In his forties, he abandoned his first wife and son in Newcastle for a young woman who believed she could bring him stardom in the south. Not only does Chrissie rejuvenate his career, she gives him twenty-three years of happy domestic life and three lovely daughters.

But then he dies suddenly, and at his funeral Chrissie and her daughters cross paths with Richie's other family for the very first time. And the uneasy truce that has held over the years between Richie's past and his present loves breaks down into open animosities, fanned by certain bequests he has made and certain secret loyalties he has kept. Grief, loss, jealousy and love rewrite the relationships of both families in ways Richie never could have imagined.

by Danielle Steel

Release Date: 2010-09-08

Smart, beautiful, and very rich, Kezia Saint Martin leads two lives: one as a glamorous socialite jetting between the poshest places in Europe and America; the other, under a false name, as a dicated journalist committed to justice and her profession.

But the two worlds are pulling her apart, leaving her conflicted about her identity and the lies she tells to every man she meets. Then she meets Lucas Johns, a bold, dynamic crusader for social change -- and an ex-con. Their attraction is immediate, but their love may be just one step from tragedy at any time.

by Jane Smiley

Release Date: 2010-07-01

A riveting new novel from the Pulitzer Prize winner that traverses the intimate landscape of one woman's life, from the 1880s to World War II.

Margaret Mayfield is nearly an old maid at twenty-seven in post Civil War Missouri when she marries Captain Andrew Jackson Jefferson Early. He's the most famous man their small town has ever produced: a naval officer and a brilliant astronomer'a genius who, according to the local paper, has changed the universe. Margaret's mother calls the match a piece of luck.

Margaret is a good girl who has been raised to marry, yet Andrew confounds her expectations from the moment their train leaves for his naval base in faraway California. Soon she comes to understand that his devotion to science leaves precious little room for anything, or anyone, else. When personal tragedies strike and when national crises envelop the country, Margaret stands by her husband. But as World War II approaches, Andrew's obsessions take a different, darker turn, and Margaret is forced to reconsider the life she has so carefully constructed.

Private Life is a beautiful evocation of a woman's inner world: of the little girl within the hopeful bride, of the young woman filled with yearning, and of the faithful wife who comes to harbor a dangerous secret. But it is also a heartbreaking portrait of marriage and the mysteries that endure even in lives lived side by side; a wondrously evocative historical panorama; and, above all, a masterly, unforgettable novel from one of our finest storytellers.


From the Hardcover edition.

by Jane Green

Release Date: 2010-07-28

Unabridged CDs, 10 CDs, 12 hours

Read by TBA

A momentous new novel set in Maine and filled with surprises, wit, and warmth from the New York Times-bestselling author.

by Norman Zollinger

Release Date: 2010-08-18

Searching for a link to his past, orphan Ignacio Ortiz struggles for survival during both world wars and the beginning of the modern West while fighting his personal feelings about the MacAndrews family that employs him. Reprint. PW.

by Danielle Steel

Release Date: 2010-11-05

by Daphne Kalotay

Release Date: 2010-09-07

by Nicholas Sparks

Release Date: 2010-09-14

The #1 New York Times bestselling author tells the story of romance lost and rediscovered-and the wrenching decision one woman must make between loyalty and love.


Every person's story has a beginning, middle and end, but the path that leads from one stage of life to the next is rarely predictable. Renee's journey begins when she is a carefree college student, studying in Italy with her best friend, Audrey. During that idyllic summer abroad, Renee meets a handsome local, and falls deeply in love. But like all summer romances, the affair comes to an end when she returns to North Carolina. Back home, Renee fulfills everyone's expectations - including her own - by marrying her longtime college boyfriend. Over the next two decades, she raises a family and lives a predictable, if in some ways unfulfilling life. When Audrey announces that she's dying of cancer, Renee drops everything to spend Audrey's last days by her side, unaware that her unconventional best friend still has a few surprises up her sleeve . . . surprises that will turn Renee's world upside down, and offer her a chance to re-live the choices of her past in a way she never dreamed possible.

by Kelly Long

Release Date: 2010-12-08

When Sarah realizes that she has fallen in love with an Englisch doctor, she must choose between loving a man and losing her family.

Deep in the heart of Pennsylvania's Allegheny Mountains, shy Sarah King is happiest when working in her vibrant Amish kitchen garden, but new family responsibilities lead her into the confusing world of the Englisch.

Sarah finds her life turned�around when she encounters�the community's new Englisch veterinarian, Grant Williams. His blue-gold eyes and his obvious concern for her people attract her immediately. Sarah seeks solace and direction from the Lord as she creates a quilt pattern which details her struggle between two worlds.

The Lord is guiding Sarah to follow His will, but will she listen?

by Lauraine Snelling

Release Date: 2010-12-08

Broken by life's disappointments, four women forge a friendship that leads in unexpected directions.

Hope Benson is determined to do all she can for the broken souls who come to Casa de Jesus, a women's shelter in the heart of San Francisco. When a difficult pregnancy forces her to relinquish control, she draws support and strength from an unlikely group of women, each struggling with her own heartbreak.

Andy Taylor, a reluctant transplant to California, was compelled to leave behind her lavender-growing business and her home of twenty-some years to support her workaholic husband's pursuit of career success. Attorney Julia Collins is searching for her teenage granddaughter, believed to be living on the streets. And Clarice Van Dam's life has been shattered by the disappearance of her husband, who appears to have relieved her of all earthly possessions except a fur coat and her overnight bag.

Drawn together at the weekend market held in the shelter's parking lot, the women pool their resources to fend off an unscrupulous conglomerate that threatens to replace the facility with a commercial development. As they fight to retain this haven for women in need, they find their own longings for home answered by the solace of faith and friendship.

by William W. Johnston

Release Date: 2010-10-06

by Lynne Griffin

Release Date: 2010-11-22

by Tatiana de Rosnay

Release Date: 2010-09-22

It all began with a simple seaside vacation, a brother and sister recapturing their childhood. Antoine thought he had the perfect surprise for his sister Melanie's birthday: a weekend by the sea at Noirmoutier Island, where the pair spent many happy childhood summers playing on the beach. But the island's haunting beauty triggers more than happy memories; it reminds Melanie of something unexpected and deeply disturbing about their last island summer. When, on the drive home to Paris, she finally summons the courage to reveal what she knows to Antoine, her emotions overcome her and she loses control of the car. Alone, waiting for news of Melanie, Antoine reflects on his life: his wife has left him, his teenage children are strangers to him, his job bores him, and his father is an ageing tyrant who still poisons every aspect of his life. How did he end up here? And, more importantly, what was the secret that his sister wanted to tell him? "A Secret Kept" plumbs the depths of complex family relationships and the power of a past secret to change everything in the present.

by Alan Furst

Release Date: 2010-07-28

�
Greece, 1940. Not sunny vacation Greece: northern Greece, Macedonian Greece, Balkan Greece'the city of Salonika. In that ancient port, with its wharves and warehouses, dark lanes and Turkish mansions, brothels and tavernas, a tense political drama is being played out. On the northern border, the Greek army has blocked Mussolini's invasion, pushing his divisions back to Albania'the first defeat suffered by the Nazis, who have conquered most of Europe. But Adolf Hitler cannot tolerate such freedom; the invasion is coming, it's only a matter of time, and the people of Salonika can only watch and wait.

At the center of this drama is Costa Zannis, a senior police official, head of an office that handles special political cases. As war approaches, the spies begin to circle, from the Turkish legation to the German secret service. There's a British travel writer, a Bulgarian undertaker, and more. Costa Zannis must deal with them all. And he is soon in the game, securing an escape route'from Berlin to Salonika, and then to a tenuous safety in Turkey, a route protected by German lawyers, Balkan detectives, and Hungarian gangsters. And hunted by the Gestapo.

Meanwhile, as war threatens, the erotic life of the city grows passionate. For Zannis, that means a British expatriate who owns the local ballet academy, a woman from the dark side of Salonika society, and the wife of a local shipping magnate.
�
Declared an incomparable expert at his game by The New York Times, Alan Furst outdoes even his own finest novels in this thrilling new book. With extraordinary authenticity, a superb cast of characters, and heart-stopping tension as it moves from Salonika to Paris to Berlin and back, Spies of the Balkans is a stunning novel about a man who risks everything to right'in many small ways'the world's evil.
�

by Karen Kingsbury

Release Date: 2010-07-28

In Take Four, the final book in the Above the Line Series by New York Times bestselling author Karen Kingsbury, filmmakers Keith Ellison and Dayne Matthews have finally inked a deal to have the nation's top young actor star in their current film. But the actor takes a public fall that threatens his reputation. Now the producers must act as missionaries to save the film, their families, and the young movie star.

by Beth Harbison

Release Date: 2010-10-22

by Beverly Lewis

Release Date: 2010-10-22

Lancaster County, with its rolling meadows and secret byways, may seem idyllic, but it is not without its thorns. THE ROSE TRILOGY is the stirring saga of two Amish sisters on the fringes of the church, and the unforeseen discoveries that change their lives. Rose Kauffman, a spirited young woman, has a close friendship with the bishop's foster son. Nick dresses Plain and works hard but stirs up plenty of trouble too. Rose's sister cautions her against becoming too involved, but Rose is being courted by a good, Amish fellow, so dismisses the warnings. Meanwhile, Rose keeps house for an English widower but is startled when he forbids her to ever go upstairs. What is the man hiding? Rose's older sister, Hen, knows more than she should about falling for the wrong man. Unable to abandon her Amish ways, Hen is soon separated from her very modern husband. Mattie, their young daughter, must visit her father regularly, but Hen demands she wear Amish attire--and speak Pennsylvania Dutch, despite her husband's wishes. Will Hen be able to reestablish her place among the People she abandoned? And will she be able to convince Rose to steer clear of rogue neighbor Nick?

by Karen Kingsbury

Release Date: 2010-11-22

Before You Take a Stand ... You Got to Take a Chance. Holden Harris is an eighteen-year-old locked in a prison of autism. Despite his quiet ways and quirky behaviors, Holden is very happy and socially normal---on the inside, in a private world all his own. In reality, he is bullied at school by kids who only see that he is very different. Ella Reynolds is part of the 'in' crowd. A cheerleader and star of the high school drama production, her life seems perfect. When she catches Holden listening to her rehearse for the school play, she is drawn to him ... the way he is drawn to the music. Then, Ella makes a dramatic discovery---she and Holden were best friends as children. Frustrated by the way Holden is bullied, and horrified at the indifference of her peers, Ella decides to take a stand against the most privileged and popular kids at school. Including her boyfriend, Jake. Ella believes miracles can happen in the unlikeliest places, and that just maybe an entire community might celebrate from the sidelines. But will Holden's praying mother and the efforts of Ella and a cast of theater kids be enough to unlock the prison that contains Holden? This time, friendship, faith, and the power of a song must be strong enough to open the doors to the miracle Holden needs.

by Peter Pezzelli

Release Date: 2010-07-01

by Lynne Hinton

Release Date: 2010-10-01

It has been a difficult year for the ladies of Hope Springs, North Carolina, who bid a final farewell to a good friend. But Beatrice Newgarden Witherspoon, Jessie Jenkins, and Louise Fisher are ready to take on a new project: find a husband for their young, single pastor friend Charlotte Stewart, who is too busy running a shelter in New Mexico to look for a suitable companion herself. The search for Charlotte's perfect lifemate is turning up many unexpected things'Beatrice's daughter has special news, the last person Louise would ever expect to see turns up on her doorstep, and Jessie's husband wishes to recommit to her forever. So one way or another, there will be a wedding, and perhaps more than one . . . with cake!

by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Release Date: 2010-11-22

An ambitious and startling debut novel that follows the lives of four women at a resort popular among slaveholders who bring their enslaved mistresses

wench 'wench n. from Middle English "wenchel," 1 a: a girl, maid, young woman; a female child.

Tawawa House in many respects is like any other American resort before the Civil War. Situated in Ohio, this idyllic retreat is particularly nice in the summer when the Southern humidity is too much to bear. The main building, with its luxurious finishes, is loftier than the white cottages that flank it, but then again, the smaller structures are better positioned to catch any breeze that may come off the pond. And they provide more privacy, which best suits the needs of the Southern white men who vacation there every summer with their black, enslaved mistresses. It's their open secret.

Lizzie, Reenie, and Sweet are regulars at Tawawa House. They have become friends over the years as they reunite and share developments in their own lives and on their respective plantations. They don't bother too much with questions of freedom, though the resort is situated in free territory but when truth-telling Mawu comes to the resort and starts talking of running away, things change.

To run is to leave behind everything these women value most friends and families still down South and for some it also means escaping from the emotional and psychological bonds that bind them to their masters. When a fire on the resort sets off a string of tragedies, the women of Tawawa House soon learn that triumph and dehumanization are inseparable and that love exists even in the most inhuman, brutal of circumstances all while they are bearing witness to the end of an era.

An engaging, page-turning, and wholly original novel, Wench explores, with an unflinching eye, the moral complexities of slavery.

by Johnny D. Boggs

Release Date: 2010-10-06

by Neta Jackson

Release Date: 2010-07-01

You can only walk forward when you learn how to lean.

Just months after her husband threw her out of their penthouse and sent their two sons away, Gabrielle Fairbanks is finally getting back on her feet. She has a job she loves at the homeless shelter, an apartment for her and the boys, caring friends, and even a new love interest. Best of all, an unexpected windfall has given her a brand-new dream--a House of Hope for homeless mothers and their children.

Piece by piece, Gabby's new life is coming together--but the old one keeps dragging her back. First her husband Philip hints at a reconciliation...then hits her up for a loan to pay his gambling debts. And when Gabby tells him no, he makes a desperate move that puts them all in harm's way. How can she even think of embarking on a new venture when so much is up in the air?

Gabby is realizing that she needs something far greater than her own strength or even that of her friends. That to move forward, she must first lean on the only One who knows what the future holds.

by Julia Glass

Release Date: 2010-11-07

In a historic farmhouse outside Boston, seventy-year-old Percy Darling is settling happily into retirement: reading novels, watching old movies, and swimming naked in his pond. His routines are disrupted, however, when he is persuaded to let a locally beloved preschool take over his barn. As Percy sees his rural refuge overrun by children, parents, and teachers, he must reexamine the solitary life he has made in the three decades since the sudden death of his wife. No longer can he remain aloof from his community, his two grown daughters, or, to his shock, the precarious joy of falling in love.
�
One relationship Percy treasures is the bond with his oldest grandchild, Robert, a premed student at Harvard. Robert has long assumed he will follow in the footsteps of his mother, a prominent physician, but he begins to question his ambitions when confronted by a charismatic roommate who preaches'and begins to practice'an extreme form of ecological activism, targeting Boston's most affluent suburbs.
�
Meanwhile, two other men become fatefully involved with Percy and Robert: Ira, a gay teacher at the preschool, and Celestino, a Guatemalan gardener who works for Percy's neighbor, each one striving to overcome a sense of personal exile. Choices made by all four men, as well as by the women around them, collide forcefully on one lovely spring evening, upending everyone's lives, but none more radically than Percy's.
�
With equal parts affection and satire, Julia Glass spins a captivating tale about the loyalties, rivalries, and secrets of a very particular family. Yet again, she plumbs the human heart brilliantly, dramatically, and movingly.

by

Release Date: