Three Rivers Public Library District
New Fiction List August 2009
(All titles have been received or are on order; any may be requested by asking any library clerk.)
Down in the Flood by Kenneth Abel
Danny Chaisson's latest case is bid-rigging. But as his investigation proceeds, a gathering storm
named Katrina blasts his world apart.
Surrounded by death and the destruction of the city he loves, Danny searches for one man who’d
trusted Chaisson to guard his identity when he agreed to testify before a federal grand jury
investigating corruption in the city’s construction industry. But someone has leaked the identity
of this crucial witness, and as the city begins to empty before the approaching storm, Danny
learns that a pair of corrupt policemen hired by the wealthy defendants in the case have begun
stalking his client.
Cut off from escape, and unsure whom he can trust, Chaisson’s client has gone into hiding in the
city’s Ninth Ward, where he grew up. Now Danny must race against time, a pair of relentless
professional killers, and the rising flood waters to save the man who’d counted on him.
But can Danny save one man as a whole city dies? [Coming early August]
Daughter of Kura by Debra Austin
On the parched African earth more than half a million years ago sits the village of Kura, a
matriarchal society of Homo erectus. Snap -- a young, passionate woman of Kura -- is destined
to lead her people, and this year she must select a mate for the first time. Will she choose
someone different each year, or will she find one mate she wants to pick over and over again,
like her mother, Whistle, the next leader of Kura? As the Bonding ceremony approaches, Snap's
future remains unknown. But Whistle, when her mate doesn't return, chooses a stranger with
ideas far more dangerous than the lions that kill with a single slash.
When Snap challenges the stranger's growing power one too many times, she is brutally cast out
to survive or perish. Abandoned and alone, she risks her life -- and the future of her people -- to
stand up against an unthinkable evil. Unknown to her, the same danger threatens other villages as
well. Soon, Snap and a new band of outcasts will face a force more terrifying -- and deadly --
than any of Africa's natural threats. [Coming early August]
Fear the Worst by Linwood Barclay
Tim is an average guy. He sells cars. He has an ex-wife. She’s moved in with a man whose
moody son spends more time online than he should. His girlfriend is turning out to be a bit of a
flake. It’s not a life without hassles, but nothing will prepare Tim for the nightmare that’s about
to begin.
Sydney vanishes into thin air. At the hotel where she supposedly worked, no one has ever heard
of her. Even her closest friends seem to be at a loss. Now, as the days pass without word, Tim
must face the fact that not only is Sydney missing, but that the daughter he’s loved and thought
he knew is a virtual stranger.
As he retraces Sydney’s steps, Tim discovers that the suburban Connecticut town he always
thought of as idyllic is anything but. What he doesn’t know is that his every move is being
watched. There are others who want to find Syd as much as Tim does.
But they’re not planning a Welcome Home party.
The closer Tim comes to the truth, the closer he comes to every parent’s worst nightmare—and
the kind of evil only a parent’s love has a chance in hell of stopping. [Coming mid August]
A Princess of Landover by Terry Brooks
Ben Holiday, Chicago lawyer and mere mortal turned monarch of enchanted Landover, has
grappled with scheming barons, fire-breathing beasts, diabolical conjurers, and extremely wicked
witches. None of whom have prepared him for the most daunting of challengers–a teenage
daughter. Sent by Ben and his beloved sylph bride, Willow, to an exclusive girls’ prep school,
headstrong (and half-magical) Mistaya Holiday has found life in the natural world a less than
perfect fit. And when her latest rebellious antics get her indefinitely suspended, she’s determined
to resume her real education–learning sorcery from court wizard Questor Thews–whether her
parents like it or not.
But back home in Landover, Mistaya’s frustrated father is just as determined that the precocious
princess learn some responsibility, and he declares her grounded until she successfully
refurbishes the long-forsaken royal library. Mortified by the prospect of salvaging a king’s
ransom in moldy books–and horrified by word that repulsive local nobleman Lord Laphroig
seeks to marry her–Mistaya decides that the only way to run her own life is to run away from
home.
So begins an eventful odyssey peppered with a formidable dragon, recalcitrant gnomes, an
inscrutable magic cat, a handsome librarian, a sinister sorcerer, and more than a few narrow
escapes as fate draws Landover’s intrepid princess to the last place she expected to go, and into
the thick of a mystery that will put her mettle to the test–and might bring the kingdom to its
knees. [Coming mid August]
Smash Cut by Sandra Brown
THE PRINCIPALS
Paul Wheeler. CEO of the Wheeler Enterprises empire. At age fifty-two, he's a pillar of
Atlanta society and a brilliant businessman. But Paul is out of the picture even before the
opening credits -- shot dead during an armed robbery.
Julie Rutledge. A savvy, cultured, and attractive Southern woman, seasoned by a stint of study
and romance in Paris. She owns the city's most successful and sophisticated art gallery on
Peachtree Street. She was also Paul Wheeler's weekly companion at the hotel where he was
murdered and was hand in hand with him at the time of his death.
Derek Mitchell. A defense lawyer of renown. Successful, handsome, and despised by the
Atlanta PD for his courtroom victories, he goes to the mat to make a case for every client - and
headlines for himself. A guilty verdict is not an option. Yet he's not entirely without a
conscience, as proven when his life takes a terrible turn toward the cinematic.
Creighton Wheeler. The prodigal nephew of Paul. With movie-star looks and guileless blue
eyes, the twenty-eight-year-old playboy has a penchant for call girls, fast cars, and designer
clothes. But his passion is movies. He studies them, quotes them...and lives them. Even those
closest to Creighton can't be sure when he exits reality and enters the fantasy world of films.
STORYBOARD
The murder of Paul Wheeler has all the elements of a blockbuster: family rivalries, incalculable
wealth, and a prominent man dying in the arms of his beautiful mistress. It's a case that could
earn Derek Mitchell even greater star power. When the Wheeler family approaches him about
defending Creighton for his uncle's murder -- even before he's charged -- he jumps at the
chance.
But Derek soon discovers that Julie will stop at nothing to secure justice for Paul -- and that
includes preventing Derek from defending Creighton. Infuriated, Derek realizes that his hands
have been tied in a way that could not only cost him the case, but ruin his entire career.
Although Creighton has a rock-solid alibi, Julie is convinced that he is responsible for Paul's
murder. But the homicide detectives have another theory. Caught in several lies, and keeping
secrets from Derek and the police, Julie is suspected of casting blame on Creighton to cover
her own crime. Meanwhile, Derek fears he's once again being duped...yet he burns with
jealousy when he thinks of Julie with her late lover.
But the more Derek learns about Creighton and his darker side, the more he doubts the young
man's innocence.
And hiding in a squalid motel under an assumed name is the one man, a career criminal, a
killer, who knows the truth.
The clock ticks down toward a shocking ending as Derek and Julie seek to learn whether
Creighton's fascination with movie murders is merely a bizarre hobby or depravity. Has he
begun reenacting cinema's goriest scenes...and, if so, who will be his unwitting costars? They
won't know until the final SMASH CUT. [Coming mid August]
Dying for Mercy by Mary Jane Clark
When death shatters the serenity of the exclusive moneyed enclave of Tuxedo Park, New York,
Eliza Blake, cohost of the country's premier morning television show KEY to America, is on the
scene. While attending a lavish gala at her friends' newly renovated estate, Pentimento, Eliza's
host is found dead—a grotesque suicide that is the first act in a macabre and intricately
conceived plan to expose the sins of the past involving some of the town's most revered citizens.
Determined to find out the truth, Eliza and her KEY News colleagues—producer Annabelle
Murphy, cameraman B.J. D'Elia, and psychiatrist Margo Gonzalez—discover that Pentimento
holds the key. Nestled in the park's sprawling architectural masterpieces, picturesque gardeners'
cottages, and lush, rolling landscape, the glorious mansion is actually a giant "puzzle house,"
filled with ingenious clues hidden in its fireplaces, fountains, and frescoes that lead them from
one suspicious locale to another—and, one by one, to the victims of a fiendish killer.
As Pentimento gives up its secrets, it becomes clear that no amount of wealth or privilege will
keep the residents of Tuxedo Park safe. But just when Eliza unearths one final surprise, she
comes face-to-face with a murderer who believes that some puzzles should never be solved.
Lonestar Secrets by Colleen Coble
Shannon Astor returns to southwest Texas to serve as the town's veterinarian, believing she's
finally found the space to get her life back on track.
Then she catches a glimpse of Jack MacGowan, the man who ruined her life years before. But
even more shocking is the sight of Jack's five-year-old daughter Faith, who bears an uncanny
resemblance to Shannon's own daughter Kylie. Is it possible that their similarities could be more
than just coincidence? Could Faith be the daughter that Shannon has believed to be dead for all
these years?
As the truth emerges, everyone is forced to take sides--in a story with a heart as big as Texas.
Intervention by Robin Cook
It’s been more than thirty years since New York City medical examiner Jack Stapleton’s college
graduation and almost as long since he’d been in touch with former classmates Shawn Doherty
and Kevin Murray. Once a highly regarded ophthalmologist, Jack’s career took a dramatic turn
after a tragic accident that destroyed his family. But that, too, is very much in the past: Jack has
remarried—to longtime colleague and fellow medical examiner Laurie Montgomery—and is the
father of a young child. But his renegade, activist personality can’t rest, and after performing a
postmortem on a young college student who had recently been treated by a chiropractor, Jack
decides to explore alternative medicine. What makes some people step outside the medical
establishment to seek care from practitioners of Eastern philosophies and even faith healers?
Jack’s classmate Shawn Doherty is now a renowned archeologist and biblical scholar at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, whose taste for good wine and generally deteriorating health are
taking a toll on his career. He has recently obtained permission for a final dig beneath Saint
Peter’s, and despite his long-standing grudge against the Catholic Church, begins his research—
which eventually takes him to Jerusalem and Venice —only to make a startling discovery with
ecclesiastical and medical implications. And when Kevin Murray, now Bishop of the
Archdiocese of New York, gets wind of Shawn’s findings, he’s desperate to keep them from the
public. Kevin has strong political ambitions within the Church, but his association with Shawn
threatens to undermine them. Kevin turns to his old friend Jack to help protect an explosive
secret—one with the power to change lives forever. [Coming mid August]
A Piggly Wiggly Wedding by Robert Dalby
Weddings are big news in the small Delta town of Second Creek, Mississippi. Especially when
the wedding is that of the town’s new mayor: the seventy-one-year-young Hale “Mr. Choppy”
Dunbar, about to tie the knot with Gaylie Lyons, to whom he’d first lost his heart back in the
1940s. Hale, of course, used to be a butcher and proprietor of Second Creek’s Piggly Wiggly
supermarket, which closed its doors a few years back, but not until after hosting the wedding of
Laurie Lepanto and her ballroom-dancing husband, Powell Hampton.
Unfortunately, Hale and Gaylie’s wedding plans are not going smoothly. Gaylie’s grown
children, both spoiled by their late father’s money, are determined to second-guess their mother’s
move to this small Southern town—no matter how lovely the neighbors or pretty the scenery. It
falls to the town’s indefatigable army of matrons—the Nitwitts—to plan the kind of welcome for
Gaylie’s children that will get them on board for the wedding, and make way for more than one
new beginning in Second Creek. [Coming early August]
Vanished by Joseph Finder
Nick Heller is tough, smart, and stubborn. And in his line of work, it's essential. Trained in the
Special Forces, Nick is a high-powered intelligence investigator--exposing secrets that powerful
people would rather keep hidden. He's a guy you don't want to mess with. He's also the man
you call when you need a problem fixed.
Desperate, with nowhere else to run, Nick's nephew, Gabe makes that call one night. After being
attacked in Georgetown, his mother, Lauren, lies in a coma, and his step-dad, Roger, Nick's
brother, has vanished without a trace.
Nick and Roger have been on the outs since the arrest, trial, and conviction of their father, the
notorious "fugitive financier," Victor Heller. Where Nick strayed from the path, Roger followed
their father's footsteps into the corporate world. Now, as Nick searches for his brother, he's on a
collision course with one of the most powerful corporations in the world--and they will stop at
nothing to protect their secrets. [Coming mid August]
Hell’s Gate by Stephen Frey
When thirty-five-year-old lawyer Hunter Lee decides to turn his back on the New York City rat
race that has made him rich but cost him his marriage, he takes his brother's advice and sets out
to build a new life in the beautiful but isolated town of Fort Mason, Montana. However, escape is
hardly what he finds there.
Hunter befriends Paul Brule, a Fire Jumper -- one of an elite corps of firefighters who parachute
into remote wilderness areas to put out blazes before they become infernos -- and gets a
terrifying firsthand look at the reality of vast tracts of forest being reduced to ash in seconds by
hundred-foot walls of flame. In this tiny town where everyone seems to have a secret, Hunter
comes to suspect that this particular rash of summer fires is anything but accidental and could, in
fact, be serving a more sinister purpose.
As Hunter follows his instincts, Montana becomes a crucible where good and evil collide -- and
where one man, running from his past, takes on the burden of exposing the guilty while saving
himself and those he cares about most from the greatest danger they have ever faced. [Coming
mid August]
Mr. Monk and the Dirty Cop by Lee Goldberg
Leland Stottlemeyer is used to obsessive- compulsive genius Adrian Monk getting all the praise
and attention. But the police captain is feeling a little hostile after taking a lot of ribbing about
his reliance on his star consultant. Is it possible he’s used the latest round of budget cuts as an
excuse to cut Monk loose?
But Monk is much too compulsive to stop investigating, even without pay. Soon he’s calling in
tips under assumed names to help solve cases. (Who would ever guess the real identity of
“Adrian Smith” and “Adrian Jones?”) Then Stottlemeyer is framed for the murder of another
cop—and only one detective in San Francisco can save him...
The White Queen by Philippa Gregory
Brother turns on brother to win the ultimate prize, the throne of England, in this dazzling account
of the wars of the Plantagenets. They are the claimants and kings who ruled England before the
Tudors, and now Philippa Gregory brings them to life through the dramatic and intimate stories
of the secret players: the indomitable women, starting with Elizabeth Woodville, the White
Queen.
The White Queen tells the story of a woman of extraordinary beauty and ambition who, catching
the eye of the newly crowned boy king, marries him in secret and ascends to royalty. While
Elizabeth rises to the demands of her exalted position and fights for the success of her family, her
two sons become central figures in a mystery that has confounded historians for centuries: the
missing princes in the Tower of London whose fate is still unknown. [Coming mid August]
The Winds of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Paul has walked off into the sand, blind, and is presumed dead. Jessica and Gurney are on
Caladan; Alia is trying to hold the Imperial government together with Duncan; Mohiam dead at
the hands of Stilgar; Irulan imprisoned. Paul’s former friend, Bronso of Ix, now seems to be
leading opposition to the House of Atreides. Herbert and Anderson’s newest book in this
landmark series will concentrate on these characters as well the growing battle between Jessica,
and her daughter, Alia. [Coming early August]
Fire and Ice by J.A. Jance
Seattle investigator J. P. Beaumont is working a series of murders in which six young women
have been wrapped in tarps, doused with gasoline, and set on fire. Their charred remains have
been scattered around various dump sites, creating a grisly pattern of death across western
Washington.
At the same time, thousands of miles away in the Arizona desert, Cochise County sheriff Joanna
Brady is looking into a homicide in which the elderly caretaker of an ATV park was run over and
left to die. All the man has left behind is his dog, who is the improbable witness to some kind of
turf warfare—or possibly something more sinister.
Then a breakthrough in Beaumont's case leads him directly to the Southwest and into Brady's
jurisdiction. When the two met on a joint investigation years earlier, sparks flew. Under different
circumstances, both of them admit, even more could have happened.
But here, as the threads of their two seemingly separate cases wind together, Beaumont and
Brady must put aside echoes of their shared past as they are once again drawn into an orbit of
deception. Except this time it's not just their own lives that are in danger but those of the people
closest to them as well.
Blindman’s Bluff by Faye Kellerman
As a lieutenant in the LAPD, homicide detective Peter Decker doesn't get many calls at 3 a.m.
unless a case is nasty, sensational—or both. Someone has broken into the exclusive Coyote
Ranch compound of billionaire developer Guy Kaffey and viciously gunned him down, along
with his wife and four employees.
A well-known figure on both the business and society pages, Kaffey, with his sons and his
younger brother, Mace, built most of the shopping malls in Southern California and earned a
reputation for philanthropy, donating millions to worthy causes. It doesn't take long for Peter, his
trusted detectives Scott Oliver and Marge Dunn, and the rest of his homicide team to figure out
that the gruesome killings must be an inside job. Things become even more entangled when they
discover that Kaffey's largesse had included organizations that extended second chances to
delinquents, many of whom Kaffey had hired for his personal security. But was the job pure
murder/robbery or something even more twisted? A developer of Kaffey's magnitude doesn't
make billions without making more enemies with blood grudges.
With leads taking the team across L.A., up and down the Golden State, and into Mexico, Decker
is plenty busy—and plenty thankful not to have to worry about his wife, Rina Lazarus, getting
caught up in this deadly case. Rina is out of harm's way, serving on a jury at the courthouse.
But then a chance encounter with a court translator who needs her help leads Rina into the
terrifying heart of her husband's murder investigations—and straight into the path of a gang of
ruthless killers. To protect Rina, Decker must find his prey before death unites his two worlds.
[Coming mid August]
Alex Cross’s Trial by James Patterson
From his grandmother, Alex Cross has heard the story of his great uncle Abraham and his
struggles for survival in the era of the Ku Klux Klan. Now, Alex passes the family tale along to
his own children in a novel he's written-a novel called Trial.
As a lawyer in turn-of-the-century Washington D.C., Ben Corbett represents the toughest cases.
Fighting against oppression and racism, he risks his family and his life in the process. When
President Roosevelt asks Ben to return to his home town to investigate rumors of the resurgence
of the Ku Klux Klan there, he cannot refuse.
When he arrives in Eudora, Mississippi, Ben meets the wise Abraham Cross and his beautiful
daughter, Moody. Ben enlists their help, and the two Crosses introduce him to the hidden side of
the idyllic Southern town. Lynchings have become commonplace and residents of the town's
black quarter live in constant fear. Ben aims to break the reign of terror--but the truth of who is
really behind it could break his heart. Written in the fearless voice of Detective Alex Cross, Alex
Cross's Trial is a gripping story of murder, love, and, above all, bravery. [Coming late August]
A Surrendered Heart by Tracie Peterson
When cholera strikes Rochester, NY, most of the members of the Broadmoor family flee to their
castle home in the Thousand Islands. But Amanda Broadmoor resolves to remain in Rochester to
help control the spread of the dreaded disease. However, much more than Amanda's health hangs
in the balance. Mishandling of the family fortune threatens to leave the Broadmoor family
penniless and scorned by society unless Amanda is willing to sacrifice her future. Will she be
forced to marry a man she disdains in order to save the Broadmoor legacy?
Rules of Vengeance by Christopher Reich
Months after foiling an attack on a commercial jetliner, Doctors Without Borders physician
Jonathan Ransom is working under an assumed name in a remote corner of Africa while his
wife, Emma, desperate to escape the wrath of Division, the secret American intelligence agency
she betrayed, has vanished into the netherworld of international espionage. Both look forward to
sharing a stolen weekend in London—until an ambush on a convoy of limousines turns their
romantic rendezvous into a terrorist bloodbath.
In the aftermath, Emma disappears and Jonathan is apprehended by the police and threatened
with life imprisonment unless he helps secure his wife’s capture. Faced with an impossible
decision, Jonathan makes a daring escape. On the run, herealizes that his only option is to
become a spy himself in order to track down Emma and discover the true nature of the
conspiracy she appears to be masterminding. In the process, Jonathan begins to realize that all
along he’s been a pawn in a high-stakes game of international intrigue and one-upsmanship far
beyond his imagining. [Coming early August]
206 Bones by Kathy Reichs
There are 206 bones in the human body. Forensic anthropologists know them intimately, can
read in them stories of brief or long lives, and use them to reconstruct every kind of violent end.
The twelfth Temperance Brennan novel from Kathy Reichs, 206 Bones opens with Tempe
regaining consciousness and discovering that she is in some kind of very small, very dark, very
cold enclosed space. She is bound, hands to feet. Is she buried alive? In some kind of cell? Who
wants Tempe dead, or at least out of the way, and why? Tempe begins slowly to reconstruct...
Tempe and Lieutenant Ryan had accompanied the recently discovered remains of a missing
heiress from Montreal to the Chicago morgue. Suddenly, Tempe was accused of mishandling the
autopsy -- and the case. Someone made an incriminating phone call. Within hours, the one man
with information about the call was dead. Back in Montreal, the corpse of a second elderly
woman was found in the woods, and then a third.
Seamlessly weaving between Tempe's present-tense terror and her memory of the cases of these
murdered women, Reichs conveys the incredible devastation that would occur if a forensic
colleague sabotaged work in the lab. The chemistry between Tempe and Ryan intensifies as this
complex, riveting tale unfolds. [Coming late August]
The French Mistress by Susan Scott
The daughter of a poor nobleman, Louise leaves the French countryside for the court of King
Charles II, where she must not only please the tastes of the jaded king, but serve as a spy for
France. With few friends, many rivals, and ever-shifting loyalties, Louise learns the perils of her
new role. Yet she is too ambitious to be a pawn in the intrigues of others. With the promise of
riches, power, and even the love of a king, Louise creates her own destiny in a dance of intrigue
between two monarchs—and two countries.
Mistress of the Game by Sidney Sheldon
Sidney Sheldon introduced the glamorous, scheming Blackwell family and its unforgettable
matriarch, Kate Blackwell, in his worldwide bestseller Master of the Game. Now a generation
has passed, and as the world has changed, so too has America's own royal family.
Yet the intervening years have not lessened the Blackwells' drama or talent for manipulation,
domination, and passion. Though Kate is long gone, the children of her beloved granddaughters,
Eve and Alexandra, battle to carry on her powerful legacy. Each is determined to control Kruger-
Brent, Ltd., the multibillion-dollar international corporation with holdings in diverse industries
around the globe. But only one can reign supreme. . . .
Lexi Templeton is a ruthless competitor with the brains and beauty to match. Raised by her
psychiatrist father, Lexi burns to follow in her great-grandmother's footsteps and become her
own Mistress of the Game.
She is not alone in her ambitions. Her handsome and nefarious cousin, Max Webster, the son of
Eve, will stop at nothing to own the prize of Kruger-Brent. Driven by hatred, jealousy, and
blinding devotion to his bitter and twisted mother, he will seduce, betray, and even kill to
succeed.
And there is another player with plans of his own: a little-known descendant of Kate's great-
grandfather. Growing up in poverty in Aberdeen, Scotland, handsome and cunning Gabriel
McGregor is determined to fulfill his destiny . . a quest that will lead him deep into the heart of
the Kruger-Brent empire.
In a family rife with secrets—murder, hidden identities, perversions—and a depraved sense of
honor, the player who wins the game may be the only one who will survive. [Coming early
August]
Once On a Moonless Night by Dai Sijie
When Puyi, the last emperor, was exiled to Manchuria in the early 1930s, it is said that he carried
an eight-hundred-year-old silk scroll inscribed with a lost sutra composed by the Buddha.
Eventually the scroll would be sold illicitly to an eccentric French linguist named Paul
d’Ampere, in a transaction that would land him in prison, where he would devote his life to
studying the ineffably beautiful ancient language of the forgotten text.
Our unnamed narrator, a Western student in China in the 1970s, hears this story from the
greengrocer Tumchooq—his name the same as that of the language in which the scroll is
written—who has recently returned from three years of reeducation. She will come again and
again to Tumchooq’s shop near the gates of the Forbidden City, drawn by the young man and his
stories of an estranged father. But when d’Ampere is killed in prison, Tumchooq disappears,
abandoning the narrator, now pregnant with his child. And it is she, going in search of her lost
love, who will at last find the missing scroll and discover the truth of the Buddha’s lesson that
begins “Once on a moonless night . . .” in this story that carries us across the breadth of China’s
past, the myth and the reality. [Coming mid August]
Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Abyss by Troy Denning
Following a trail of clues across the galaxy, Luke Skywalker continues his quest to find the
reasons behind Jacen Solo’s dark downfall and to win redemption for the Jedi Order. Sojourning
among the mysterious Aing-Tii monks has left Luke and his son Ben with no real answers, only
the suspicion that the revelations they seek lie in the forbidden reaches of the distant Maw
Cluster. There, hidden from the galaxy in a labyrinth of black holes, dwell the Mind Walkers:
those whose power to transcend their bodies and be one with the Force is as seductive and
intoxicating as it is potentially fatal. But it may be Luke’s only path to the truth.
Meanwhile, on Coruscant, the war of wills between Galactic Alliance Chief of State Natasi
Daala and the Jedi Order is escalating. Outraged over the carbonite freezing of young Jedi
Knights Valin and Jysella Horn after their inexplicable mental breakdowns, the Jedi are
determined to defy Daala’s martial tactics, override Council Master Kenth Hamner’s wavering
leadership, and deal on their own terms with the epidemic of madness preying on their ranks. As
Han and Leia Solo, along with their daughter Jaina, join the fight to protect more stricken
Knights from arrest, Jedi healers race to find a cure for the rapidly spreading affliction. But none
of them realize the blaster barrel is already swinging in their direction–and Chief Daala is about
to pull the trigger.
Nor do Luke and Ben, deep in the Maw Cluster and pushing their Force abilities beyond known
limits, realize how close they are–to the Sith strike squad bent on exterminating the Skywalkers,
to a nexus of dark-side energy unprecedented in its power and its hunger, and to an explosive
confrontation between opposing wielders of the Force from which only one Master–good or
evil–can emerge alive. [Coming mid August]
The Corner Book Chronicles by Mimi Thebo
As summer descends on Eudora, tempers rise with the scorching sun. The romance of Janey
Lane and Mark Ramirez is a perfect example of how the town has resolved its racial tensions, but
misunderstandings (compounded by a late-night discovery of beautiful Kylie Requena in Mark’s
living room) lead Janey and Mark to call it off. And theirs is not the only split. Patti and Phil
Walker, with three mischievous boys and another baby on the way, have not been seen together
in weeks. Now Phil has moved in with Chuck from the Beer and Bowl, and the two seem to be
plotting something with retiring wheat farmer Jim Evans. It’s suspected that Jim Flory (the
town’s confirmed bachelor) might be in on it, but nobody’s sure what “it” might be.
The over-the-hedge talk ignites as Mark fumbles his attempt to re-woo Janey (honestly, a ring
and a wedding date would have sealed the deal). Toss in mounting pressure on the farming
community, political conflicts (local and beyond), some strange crops growing in a certain
backyard, and even more babies–now that herbalist and part-time spell maker Lottie, who is
conspiring to save Patti’s and Janey’s romances, is herself pregnant–and Eudora must take
collective cover as sparks fly.
Happily, the town is quick to forgive its all-too-human citizenry, as profound questions of
existence take comic and heartfelt turns in a place where nothing much ever happens–except life.
[Coming mid July]