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General Fiction . Mystery & Suspense . Romance . Science Fiction & Fantasy

General Fiction

American Wife
By Curtis Sittenfeld
When her husband is elected president of the United States, Alice Blackwell finds her new life as first lady increasingly tumultuous as she recalls her early life, her courtship and marriage, and the crisis that nearly destroyed their relationship.  As her private beliefs conflict with her public responsibilities, she also reflects on the privileges and difficulties of her position.

Anathem
By Neal Stephenson
Having lived since childhood in a monastery away from the violent upheavals of the outside world, Raz becomes one of a group of formerly cloistered scholars who are appointed by a fear-driven higher power to avert an impending catastrophe. 

Angel’s Tip
By Alafair Burke
In the aftermath of a college student’s murder during a spring party break, NYPD detective Ellie Hatcher builds a convincing case against a young man last seen with the victim, but doubts her original conclusions when she recognizes similarities between the killing and three deaths from a decade earlier.

The Army of the Republic
By Stuart Archer Cohen
Hiring a private intelligence firm to safeguard his interests from a shadowy vigilante organization that assassinated his partner as part of a plot to sever ties between the government and big business, billionaire James Sands incites the wrath of guerilla leader Lando, and finds his deepest beliefs are tested by subsequent violence.

The China Lover
By Ian Buruma
Hiding her Japanese identity in U.S.-occupied Tokyo while performing as a Chinese beauty in censor-approved films, Yamaguchi Yoshiko moves to America, where she eventually marries a promising Japanese diplomat and becomes an influential television personality and politician.

The Book of Lies
By Brad Meltzer
Unexpectedly meeting his long-lost father at the moment of a brutal attack by a would-be killer bearing the ancient mark of the biblical Cain, Cal Harper is unwittingly thrust into a high-stakes pursuit of a fortuitous enigmatic weapon that links him to the Bible’s first killing, as well as the murder that inspired the creation of the comic-book hero Superman.

City of Refuge
By Tom Piazza
Uprooted from their New Orleans homes by Hurricane Katrina, the Donaldson and Williams families – one black, the other white – make their way to Houston and share disparate experiences trying to rebuild their lives.

A Country Called Home
By Kim Barnes
Driven by youthful idealism, Thomas Deracotte and his pregnant wife, Helen, leave upper-crust Connecticut and a secure future for a utopian adventure in wilderness Idaho. Despite purchasing a dilapidated local farm and optimistically setting up housekeeping with the help of Manny, a local boy, unexpected trauma and tragedy shatter their family and provide a harsh legacy for their daughter.

A Cure for Night
By Justin Peacock
Taking a job with the Brooklyn Public Defender’s Office after being fired from his law firm following a drug-related scandal, Joel Devereux agrees to assist lead attorney Myra Goldstein in a high-profile murder case involving a black pot dealer accused of killing a white college student in a street shooting -- a case that could make or break his career.

The Darker Side
By Cody McFadyen
When a high-profile politician’s daughter is murdered during a flight to Washington, D.C., with the only clue being a silver cross left in her side, FBI agent Smoky Barrett and her team race against time as they take on a prolific serial killer who calls himself “The Preacher” and who targets anyone who has a secret to hide.

Downtown Owl
By Chuck Klosterman
A tale based on a deadly 1984 North Dakota blizzard follows the experiences of a small rural community devoted to its high-school athletics and its citizens’ minor scandals, until a dangerous storm impacts the town in unsettling and powerful ways.

Everything Under the Sky
By Matilde Asensi
Setting out for Shanghai to settle the affairs of her recently deceased husband, Spanish painter Elvira finds herself swept up in a centuries-old quest to find the lost treasure of China’s first emperor, in a tale peppered with maps, codes, and riddles.

Exit Music
By Ian Rankin
A final case for John Rebus finds the controversial Detective Inspector examining the murder of a dissident Russian poet and tracking the activities of an elite delegation of Russian businessmen whose seemingly professional endeavors are rocked by the brutal killing of a local gangster.

Fine Just the Way it Is, Volume Three (Wyoming Stories)
By Annie Proulx
A collection of nine western-themed tales by the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Brokeback Mountain features an array of pioneer country inhabitants from different backgrounds.

Germania
By Brendan McNally
A tale set during the final days of the Third Reich follows the efforts of a famous German cabaret act of Jewish quadruplets to apply the full range of their wits and talents when one of their number is targeted.  A first novel.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
By Stieg Larsson
Forty years after the disappearance of Harriet Vanger from the secluded island owned and inhabited by her powerful family, her octogenarian uncle, convinced that she had been murdered by someone from her own deeply dysfunctional clan, hires journalist Mikael Blonqvist and Lisbeth Salander, an unconventional young hacker, to investigate.

Goldengrove
By Francine Prose
Grieving independently after the drowning death of her sister, thirteen-year-old Nico falls into a seductive and dangerous relationship with her sister’s enigmatic boyfriend throughout the course of a summer during which she realizes that she has moved beyond the help of her parents.

Guernica
By Dave Boling
Fleeing his home in 1935 Basque after a conflict with a Spanish Civil Guard, Miguel Navarro attempts to make a new start in the culturally rich town of Guernica, where his shared love with charismatic dancer Miren Ansotegui is tested by the German Luftwaffe.

A Guide to  the Birds of East Africa
By Nicholas Drayson
Working up the nerve to invite Rose Mbikwa, the woman he has secretly loved for years, to the Nairobi Hunt Club Ball, Mr. Malik, a reserved, honorable widower, is suddenly confronted by the return of his school nemesis, the flashy Harry Kahn, who also sets his sights on Rose, and embarks on a bird identification competition for the prize of Rose’s company at the ball.

Heat Lightning
By John Sandford
Summoned by Lucas Davenport to investigate a pair of murders in which the victims are found with lemons in their mouths, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigator Virgil Flowers struggles to find a connection that could prevent additional killings.

The Heretic’s Daughter
By Kathleen Kent
A witchcraft accusation in their Salem, Massachusetts, home further complicates the challenging relationship between Martha Carrier and her equally willful daughter, Sarah, who are forced to stand together against the escalating hysteria and superstition of the trials that are threatening Martha’s life.  A first novel.

Home
By Marilynne Robinson
Returning to Gilead to care for her dying father, Glory Boughton, the daughter of John Ames’s closest friend, is joined by her long-absent brother, with whom she bonds throughout his struggles with alcoholism, unemployment, and their father’s traditionalist values. By the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gilead.

Hot Mahogany:  A Stone Barrington Novel
By Stuart Woods
Hired by his sometime ally and CIA boss to protect his older brother, an Army intelligence operative who is suffering from amnesia, Stone Barrington learns about his charge’s talent for restoring antiques and his links to a haunting event in Vietnam more than thirty years earlier.

Immunity:  An Alexandra Blake Novel
By Lori Andrews
When his partner collapses and dies during surveillance of a mobster, DEA agent Castro Baxter refuses to buy the DEA’s assumption that the death is the result of an overdose, a belief that is corroborated by geneticist Alexandra Blake’s tests, which turn up a deadly contamination that could cost the lives of thousands, if she cannot stop it in time.

In the Night of the Heat:  A Tennyson Hardwick Story
By Blair Underwood, with Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes
Hoping for a respite as his father slowly recovers and a runaway he rescued thrives in a stable home, Hollywood actor Tennyson Hardwick strives to land decent acting jobs and enjoys a relationship with his new girlfriend, circumstances that affect his perceptions about commitment and responsibility.

Indignation
By Philip Roth
In 1951 America, during the second year of the Korean War, Marcus Messner, a studious young man from Newark, New Jersey, escapes his butcher father’s fears about the potential dangers facing his beloved son, by attending college at Ohio’s pastoral, conservative Winesburg College, where he confronts the confusing customs and constrictions of a different world.

The Keepsake
By Tess Gerritsen
Invited to witness the x-ray scanning of a mummy, medical examiner Dr. Maura Isles is shocked to discover that the mummy is not centuries old, but rather is a recent murder victim.  Isles joins forces with Boston PD detective Jane Rizzoli in an investigation that uncovers other similar crimes tied to a diabolical predator who has already targeted his next victim.

The King’s Gold (The Adventures of Captain Alatriste)
By Arturo Perez-Reverte
Upon returning to Spain from Flanders in 1626, Captain Alatriste and his young protégé, Inigo Balboa, are sent to Seville to find out who is smuggling contraband gold from the Indies, and there they meet danger, betrayal, and old friends and enemies, including the poet Francisco de Quevedo.

The Letters
By Luanne Rice and Joseph Monninger
The emotional odyssey and evolution of one couple’s relationship as they fall in love, confront the loss of an adult child, and struggle to rediscover who they each are and what they mean to each other in the wake of the tragedy, are revealed through a series of letters, in a poignant epistolary novel by the author of Light of the Moon and the author of Home Waters.

Liberty:  A Lake Wobegon Novel
By Garrison Keillor
Having transformed the annual Fourth of July parade into a Lake Wobegon extravaganza, steadfast mechanic Clint Bunsen attracts the attention of the governor and the media before announcing his intention to run for Congress, an endeavor that is compromised by his drinking and rumors about an affair with a young woman.

Lost Girls:  A Sherry Moore Novel
By George D. Shuman
Summoned to the Caribbean by a mysterious philanthropist to solve the mystery of a murdered woman whose body had been branded with a hunting tattoo, blind psychic Sherry Moore unveils key information about a human trafficking network and meets a legendary voodoo priest with powers like her own.

The Lucky One
By Nicholas Sparks
Coming into the possession of a photograph of a smiling woman he has never met, a man experiences a chain of fortuitous events that cause him to regard the photograph as a lucky charm, a belief that prompts a heartfelt search for the woman in person. By the author of The Choice.

Ms. Hempel Chronicles
By Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum
Ms. Beatrice Hempel, new to teaching, new to the school, newly engaged, and newly bereft of her idiosyncratic father, struggles to figure out what is expected of her in life and at work. By the critically acclaimed author of Madeleine Is Sleeping.

The Million Dollar Deception
By R.M. Johnson
A sequel to The Million Dollar Divorce finds wealthy entrepreneur Nate Kenny setting out to destroy a rival he originally had hired to seduce his wife, an endeavor with unforeseen deadly consequences.

The Night Stalker
By James Swain
A specialist in finding missing persons, ex-cop Jack Carpenter is stunned when he is hired by notorious serial killer Abb Smith, on Florida’s death row, to find Smith’s grandson, only to discover that the case involves Heather Rinker, a childhood friend of Jack’s own daughter, who is desperate to save herself and her young son from a murderer.

The Other Queen
By Philippa Gregory
The best-selling author of The Other Boleyn Girl presents a tale inspired by the story of Mary, Queen of Scots, in a work that follows the doomed monarch’s long imprisonment in the household of the Earl of Shrewsbury and his spying wife, Bess.

Pecking Order
By Omar Tyree
Entertaining the high-stakes business of celebrity party promotions in southern California, an ambitious young accountant finds the highly charged industry significantly shaped by big money influences, race factors, and sex.

Ritual
By Mo Hayder
Police diver Flea Marley’s discovery of a human hand underwater, as well as evidence that it had been recently amputated while the victim had been still alive, sends Flea and DI Jack Caffery on a search for a young man who recently vanished, following the trail of a kidnapper into the dark depths of Bristol’s drug and sex underworld.  By the author of The Devil of Nanking.

Rough & Tumble
By Mark Bavaro
A tale by a forefront NFL tight end, inspired by “North Dallas Forty,” follows the story of Giants player Dominic Fucillo, a deeply religious athlete who struggles with rage, a complicated love life, and devastating injuries that give way to scandal when he is nearly beaten to death for his unethical nightlife activities.

The Sealed Letter
By Emma Donoghue
Emily “Fido” Faithfull, a spinster pioneer in the British women’s movement, is distracted from her cause by the details of her friend’s failing marriage and affair with a young army officer, in this drama of friends, lovers, and divorce, Victorian style. By the author of Slammerkin.

She Had It Coming
By Mary Monroe
Dolores Reese, a master at keeping secrets, attempts to pull off the ultimate deception as she juggles two husbands – one in prison, and one at home – and becomes trapped in a web of love, dishonesty, and jealousy, when her first husband is set free due to new evidence.

The Shiksa Syndrome
By Laurie Graff
Upset when her stand-up comedian boyfriend dumps her on Christmas, Jewish Manhattan publicist Aimee Albert sets out to seek companionship with a nice Jewish man, only to find herself falling for Josh Hirsch, a gorgeous – and Jewish – man who mistakes her for a shiksa and who has a different attitude toward Judaism than she does.

Supreme Courtship
By Christopher Buckley
Frustrated by the Senate’s rejections of his Supreme Court nominees for reasons of elitism and pettiness, the president of the United States brashly nominates a beloved reality-show judge, an appointment that thrusts the judge into a heated confirmation battle and compromises her personal life.

Sweetheart
By Chelsea Cain
In the sequel to Heartsick, Portland detective Archie Sheridan’s investigation into the murder of a young woman, whose body is discovered in Portland’s Forest Park, is compromised by his continuing obsession with serial murderer Gretchen Lowell, the so-called Beauty Killer, who has escaped from prison, especially since he is probably the only one who can catch her.

Sweetsmoke
By David Fuller
Compromising his position as a favored slave in 1862 Virginia, talented carpenter Cassius investigates the murder of a close friend and finds an unexpected ally in field worker Quashee, an effort that earns the enmity of his master. A first novel.

Tethered
By Amy MacKinnon
Discovering a neglected little girl, Trecie, playing in the funeral parlor where she works, Clara Marsh, a young mortician, finds her solitary world unraveling as she becomes involved in a three-year-old cold case involving the murder of an unidentified young girl whose unclaimed body had been found nearby, a case that may have a strange link to Trecie. A first novel.

Too Close to Home
By Linwood Barclay
Using his neighbor’s house to spend some private time with his girlfriend while the Barclays are on vacation, Derek Cutter suddenly becomes the prime suspect in a small-town murder case when the Barclays return home early and are unexpectedly killed – with Derek still hiding in their basement.

Tsar: A Thriller
By Ted Bell
When a vastly powerful new Russian tsar threatens America not to interfere with plans to reintegrate Russia’s rogue states, espionage agent Alex Hawke investigates the disturbingly related work of a brutal serial killer who targets an innocent family and blows up their small Midwestern community.

Wedding Belles
By Haywood Smith
When Georgia’s daughter announces her plan to marry a notorious family friend, her four best friends investigate his past only to find a slew of unanswered questions and surprises, while Georgia herself struggles to change their minds and tackles her imminent status as a mother-in-law to a man older than herself.

When Will There Be Good News?
By Kate Atkinson
The author of One Good Turn presents a tale involving the unexpected intersection of three lives including a woman whose life had been shattered thirty years earlier, an ex-detective on crowded train, and a teenage girl who is called upon to test her preparedness.

The Whiskey Rebels
By David Liss
Hired by his one-time fiancée to find her missing husband, Ethan Saunders, a former spy for General Washington during the Revolution, follows a trail that leads him to Alexander Hamilton, who is engaged in a struggle to build the new country’s first real financial institution, and to rebellious whiskey-makers fiercely opposed to an onerous tax on their products.

Yesterday’s Weather:  Stories
By Anne Enright
A new collection of short fiction by the author of The Gathering, winner of the 2007 Man Booker Prize, chronicles the lives of ordinary men and women struggling to cope with the bonds of love, family, and community, in an increasingly disconnected, transient, and changing Ireland.

Mystery & Suspense
(some titles may also be found in General Fiction)

Black Ship:  A Daisy Dalrymple Mystery
By Carola Dunn
Inheriting a home on the outskirts of London from Alec’s late uncle, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher, her Scotland Yard detective husband Alec Fletcher, and their infant twins are delighted to move into a larger house, until a corpse turns up their garden bushes and rumors abound about bootleggers, American gangsters, and an international liquor smuggling ring.

The Black Tower
By Louis Bayard
Having used his mastery of disguise and surveillance to nab some of France’s most notorious criminals, early nineteenth-century detective Vidocq teams up with obscure medical student Hector to track down the most challenging adversary of his career, a case with ties to the missing son of Marie Antoinette.

Blood Memory
By Margaret Coel
Targeted for assassination after doing a story on an attempt on the part of the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes to file a claim on their ancestral lands, Denver investigative reporter Catherine McLeod uncovers a dangerous conspiracy involving her ex-husband’s wealthy family and state politicians, as well as some startling facts about her own heritage.

The Borrowed and Blue Murders
By Merry Jones
As Zoe Hayes prepares for her wedding to Detective Nick Stiles, the festivities are threatened when a jogger turns up dead on her back patio, a coworker from the Psychiatric Institute is run down, her wedding planner is attacked, and she uncovers evidence that at least one of her future in-laws is not who he seems to be.

Cat in a Sapphire Slipper:  A Midnight Louie Mystery
By Carole Nelson Douglas
When Aunt Kit’s fiancé and Temple Barr’s boyfriend Matt are kidnapped from a bachelor party and taken to a remote Nevada ranch, Matt discovers a murdered young woman and suspects the fiance’s notorious family, while feline sleuth Louie, who managed to attend the kidnapping, endeavors to bail out his human friends.

Cold in Hand
By John Harvey
When the Serious and Organized Crime Agency shows an interest in one of Detective Inspector Lynn Kellogg’s murder cases, she is drawn into a web of deceit that puts both her and her partner, Charlie Resnick, in mortal danger as they deal with a conspiracy involving human and weapons trafficking.

The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday:  An Isabel Dalhousie Novel
By Alexander McCall Smith
Isabel Dalhousie comes to the aid of a renowned, much respected doctor whose reputation is at stake following the death of a patient because of allegations of scientific fraud in respect to a newly marketed drug.

Death Swatch:  A Scrapbooking Mystery
By Laura Childs
When float designer Archie Baudier turns up dead, strangled with a barbed wire garrote, during a Mardi Gras party at Jeckl Hardy’s French Quarter apartment, scrapbook store owner Carmela Bertrand, a guest at the party, races against time to find the killer before she becomes the next victim.

Doggie Day Care Murder:  A Melanie Travis Mystery
By Laurien Berenson
Melanie Travis’s new case is truly for the dogs when Steve Pine, the co-owner of the Pine Ridge Canine Care Center, is found murdered, and she is faced with a wealth of suspects, including his sister, his neighbor, and a disgruntled client.

The Draining Lake: A Thriller
By Arnaldur Indridason
When the water level of an Icelandic lake suddenly falls following an earthquake, a skeleton is discovered half-buried in its sandy bed. It is clear that the body has been there for many years, and the course of their investigation takes Inspector Erlendur, Elinborg, and Sigurdur Oli back to the Cold War era to look into the long unsolved disappearance of a young, left-wing student.

The Green Revolution:  A Mystery Set at the University of Notre Dame
By Ralph McInerny
With alumni in an uproar over Notre Dame’s disastrous football season and the school in turmoil over what to do about the situation, Roger Knight, professor of Catholic Studies at the university, finds himself a marked man as he and his P.I. brother Philip launch separate investigations to put a stop to a campus conspiracy.

The Matters at Mansfield, or, The Crawford Affair: A Mr. & Mrs. Darcy Mystery
By Carrie Bebris
A new installment in a series that includes North by Northanger and Suspense and Sensibility finds Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy’s delight over the birth of their first child overshadowed by a family crisis involving marriage machinations, star-crossed lovers, and mistaken identity.

Red Knife:  A Cork O’Connor Mystery
By William Kent Krueger
Settling into a part-time investigating stint in the off-season, Corcoran O’Connor is caught in the middle of a gang dispute between the Aurora Anglos and the Ojibwe Reservation Red Boyz, a situation that turns deadly when the Red Boyz leader and his wife are found murdered.

Romance

Dark Curse:  A Carpathian Novel
By Christine Feehan
Escaping the clutches of her evil father to pursue her Carpathian destiny as a Dragonseeker, Lara Calladine is tormented by nightmares that may hold the key to the dark secrets of her childhood and joins forces with the arrogant and dangerously seductive Nicolas de la Cruz to uncover the truth about both of their pasts.

Just Breathe
By Susan Wiggs
When cartoonist Sarah Moon is faced with the unthinkable infidelity of her cancer survivor husband, she embraces her cartoon alter ego, Shirl, and returns home to Chicago, where she discovers that unexpected change and an old flame can be like a breath of fresh air for both her body and soul.

Science Fiction & Fantasy
(some titles may also be found in General Fiction)

The Bell at Sealey Head
By Patricia A. McKillip
On the outskirts of Sealey Head, a small ocean-side town haunted by the ringing of a bell that no one can see, is Aislinn House, a large estate whose elderly owner, Lady Eglantyne, is on her deathbed, and where mysterious doors sometimes open to reveal a colorful fantasy castle populated by  knights and princesses.

A Dance with Dragons
By George R. R. Martin
The fifth installment in the blockbuster A Song of Ice and Fire saga journeys to the north of the Seven Kingdoms to chronicle the events and personalities that led to the stories of the south from A Feast of Crows, in preparation for the greatest showdown of all time.

Faefever
By Karen Marie Moning
In the sequel to Darkfever and Bloodfever, sidhe-seer MacKayla Lane finds that time is running out as All Hallows’ Eve approaches and she struggles to keep the “Sinsar Dubh,” an ancient book of dark magic that only she knows how to find, out of the hands of Fae and human alike.

An Evil Guest
By Gene Wolfe
A tale set a century into the future finds an actress confronting ancient and supernatural forces while struggling to choose between her two lovers, a sorcerer private detective who launches her career and a mysterious man of wealth who appears with her in a play.

The Gone-Away World
By Nick Harkaway
With a fire burning along the Jorgmund Pipe, a vital protection from the bandits, monsters, and nightmares left in the wake of the Go-Away War, Gonzo Lubitsch and his troubleshooting colleagues at the Laulage and HazMat Emergency Civil Freebooting Company are hired to put it out – and to save humankind in the process – in a zany tale of a futuristic world. A first novel.

Order 66 (Star Wars:  Republic Commando)
By Karen Traviss
When the ruthless Emperor Palpatine issues his nefarious Order 66, which calls for the extermination of the Jedi, the members of the Omega and Delta squads are faced with a desperate choice between the Order and their loyalty to their Jedi allies, in the epic conclusion of the Republic Commando series.

Paul of Dune
By Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
A tale set between the events of Dune and Dune Messiah traces Paul Muad’Dib’s successful conquest of the galaxy and the formation of his empire, during a period marked by dangerous adversaries and Paul’s ascent to the status of a prophet.

The Phoenix Endangered
By Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory
A second installment of a trilogy that began with The Phoenix Unchanged finds aspiring High Mage Tiercel and reluctant Knight-Mage Harrier working on their powers while witnessing devastating attacks by the Wild Mage Bisochim, and while young Shaira leads the desert tribe toward a legendary oasis.

The Scourge of God: A Novel of the Change
By S. M. Stirling
To forge new allies in the continuing battle against The Prophet, who seeks the destruction of the remnants of all technology, Rudi MacKenzie makes his way across the country to Nantucket, hoping to uncover the truth behind The Change, unaware that a fanatical officer in the Sword of The Prophet has been sent to stop him, by any means necessary.  The sequel to The Sunrise Lands.

The Wyrmling Horde
By David Farland
Imprisoned on the fantastical world that he himself created when he combined two alternate realities, Fallion Orden, the only person capable of saving the worlds from dark magic and monstrous armies, awaits rescue by his allies.