March Blurbs 2015
Betts, Charlotte - Chateau On The Lake
After her English mother and French father are brutally murdered, bluestocking Madeleine Moreau travels to France in 1792 in search of relatives she hadn’t known existed. When France declares war on England it becomes unsafe to return and Comte Etienne d’Aubery offers her shelter in his chateau. Impulsive and sometimes self-opinionated, Madeleine favours the people’s revolution in France but her views are shaken after she witnesses Louis XVI’s death by the guillotine.The revolution gathers momentum and as passions of the populace are enflamed, Madeleine sets off on a dangerous race against time to save the man she loves.
Brown, Pierce - Red Rising
The Earth is dying. Darrow is a Red, a miner in the interior of Mars. His mission is to extract enough precious elements to one day tame the surface of the planet and allow humans to live on it. The Reds are humanity's last hope.
Or so it appears, until the day Darrow discovers it's all a lie. That Mars has been habitable - and inhabited - for generations, by a class of people calling themselves the Golds. A class of people who look down on Darrow and his fellows as slave labour, to be exploited and worked to death without a second thought.Until the day that Darrow, with the help of a mysterious group of rebels, disguises himself as a Gold and infiltrates their command school, intent on taking down his oppressors from the inside. But the command school is a battlefield - and Darrow isn't the only student with an agenda.
Betts, Charlotte - The Chateau On The Lake
After her English mother and French father are brutally murdered, bluestocking Madeleine Moreau travels to France in 1792 in search of relatives she hadn’t known existed. When France declares war on England it becomes unsafe to return and Comte Etienne d’Aubery offers her shelter in his chateau. Impulsive and sometimes self-opinionated, Madeleine favours the people’s revolution in France but her views are shaken after she witnesses Louis XVI’s death by the guillotine .The revolution gathers momentum and as passions of the populace are enflamed, Madeleine sets off on a dangerous race against time to save the man she loves.
Cashore, Kristin - Bitterblue
When Queen Bitterblue took the throne of Monsea, she was a child, and her advisers ran the kingdom for her. Now she is beginning to question their decisions, especially how they handle the legacy of her father Leck, who ruled through his Grace a special talent for mind-altering and his taste for darkness and violence. Bitterblue needs to know Monsea’s past to lead it into the future, so she begins exploring the city streets at night, disguised and alone. As she does, she meets two thieves, who hold a key to the truth of Leck's reign. And one of them, with a Grace that he hasn't yet identified, holds a key to her heart. Bitterblue is unforgettable a gateway to the Graceling Realm that braids together magic, memory, and romance.
Chicurel, Judy- If I Knew You Were Going To Be This Beautiful,I Never Would Have Let You Go
The shadow of the Vietnam War gives This Beautiful a darkness. As residents of Elephant Beach return from fighting, they bring with them economic problems, drug abuse and post traumatic stress. Mitch for example is particularly affecting. Having fought in the war and awarded a medal of honour he should be a hero. Instead he pays the price for the war with his health. An amputee and a drunk, he wastes the days away at the dingy bar in The Starlight Hotel waiting for his next disability to be paid. Across the street Katie pines for Luke, the boy she once loved. The war however has taken him from her, leaving just a shell of a man in his place.
Clark, Mary Higgins - The Cinderella Murder
When Susan Dempsey, a beautiful and multi-talented UCLA student, was found dead, her murder raised numerous questions. Why was her car parked miles from her body? Had she ever shown up for the acting audition she was due to attend at the home of an up-and-coming director? Why does Susan's boyfriend want to avoid questions about their relationship? Was her disappearance connected to a controversial church that was active on campus? Was she close to her computer science professor because of her technological brilliance, or something more? And why was Susan missing one of her shoes when her body was discovered?
Cole, Martina - The Good Life
Cain Moran wanted Jenny Riley more than he had ever wanted anyone or anything before in his life. But loving Jenny Riley was the easy part; it was telling his wife he wanted a divorce that was going to be the killer...Jenny is not just any girl. She cares nothing for Cain's hard-man reputation - she just wants to be with him. But Cain is not a free man. And he's about to find out that when his wife Caroline said 'til death us do part, she meant it. When Cain is sentenced to life in prison it seems that Caroline might have got her wish. All Cain and Jenny know is that if their love can survive such separation, then one day they will have a chance at the Good Life together again. But there are greater trials ahead than either can foresee. They're about to learn the hardest lesson of all: LIVE THE GOOD LIFE. PAY THE PRICE.
Connelly,Michael - The Burning Room
In the LAPD's Open-Unsolved Unit, not many murder victims die a decade after the crime. So when a man succumbs to complications from being shot by a stray bullet ten years earlier, Bosch catches a case in which the body is still fresh, but any other clues are virtually nonexistent. Even a veteran cop would find this one tough going, but Bosch's new partner, Detective Lucia Soto, has no homicide experience. A young star in the department, Soto has been assigned to Bosch so that he can pass on to her his hard-won expertise.
Now Bosch and Soto are tasked with solving a murder that turns out to be highly charged and politically sensitive. Beginning with the bullet that has been lodged for years in the victim's spine, they must pull new leads from years-old evidence, and these soon reveal that the shooting was anything but random.
Costello, Mary - Academy Street
Growing up in the west of Ireland in the 1940s, Tess is a shy introverted child. But beneath her quiet exterior lies a heart of fire. A fire that will later drive her to make her home among the hurly burly of 1960s New York. Over four decades and a life lived with quiet intensity on Academy Street in upper Manhattan, Tess encounters ferocious love and calamitous loss. But what endures is her bravery and fortitude, and her striking insights even as she is floating close to hazard. Joyous and heart-breaking, restrained but sweeping, this is a profoundly moving story that charts one woman’s quest for belonging amid the dazzle and tumult of America s greatest city
Dashner, James - The Kill Order
Before WICKED was formed, before the Glade was built, before Thomas entered the Maze, sun flares hit the earth, killing most of the population. The worst is yet to come.
Mark and Trina were there when it happened. They survived. But now a virus is spreading. A virus that fills humans with murderous rage.
There is no cure. No escape. They’re convinced that there’s a way to save those who are left—if they can stay alive. Because in this new, devastated world, every life has a price. And to some you’re worth more dead than alive.
Donoghue,Emma - Frog Music
Summer of 1876: San Francisco is in the fierce grip of a record-breaking heat wave and a smallpox epidemic. Through the window of a railroad saloon, a young woman named Jenny Bonnet is shot dead.
The survivor, her friend Blanche Beunon, is a French burlesque dancer. Over the next three days, she will risk everything to bring Jenny's murderer to justice--if he doesn't track her down first. , Emma
Edwards, Russell - Naming Jack The Ripper
After 125 years of theorizing and speculation regarding the identity of Jack the Ripper, Russell Edwards is in the unique position of owning the first physical evidence relating to the crimes to have emerged since 1888. This evidence is from one of the crime scenes, and has now been rigorously examined by some of the most highly-qualified forensic scientists in the country who have ascertained its true provenance. With the help of modern forensic techniques, Russell's ground-breaking discoveries provide conclusive answers to many of the most challenging mysterious surrounding the case.
Feehan, Christine - Dark Lycan
Tatijana of the Dragon seekers spent centuries encased in ice with her sister, trapped in limbo between life and death , never speaking to a soul other than those who tormented her. Now she has been freed from her frozen prison by an unknown descendent. Awakened in human form, Tatijana yearns to explore the modern world in which she now lives - a world with more mysteries than she is prepared for.
French, Tana - Secret Place
The photo on the card shows a boy who was found murdered, a year ago, on the grounds of a girls’ boarding school in the leafy suburbs of Dublin. The caption says, I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM.
Detective Stephen Moran has been waiting for his chance to get a foot in the door of Dublin’s Murder Squad—and one morning, sixteen-year-old Holly Mackey brings him this photo. The Secret Place, a board where the girls at St. Kilda’s School can pin up their secrets anonymously, is normally a mishmash of gossip and covert cruelty, but today someone has used it to reignite the stalled investigation into the murder of handsome, popular Chris Harper.Stephen joins forces with the abrasive Detective Antoinette Conway to find out who and why.
Grass,Tom - Twist
Eighteen-year-old Twist doesn't have much. No money, no home and no family. All he has is his reputation as one of the most daring street artists in London - whose unique skills are matched only by his infamous talent as a climber and freerunner.
But when he finds himself on the run from the police, he knows that he could be about to lose the last thing he has left - his freedom.Until he is saved by the mysterious Dodge. When Dodge introduces him to con artist and art 'collector' Cornelius Faginescu, Twist realises that he finally has the chance to be part of something. All that he has to do is put aside his moral objections and learn to steal...
Hislop,Victoria- The Sunrise
In the summer of 1972, Famagusta in Cyprus is the most desirable resort in the Mediterranean, a city bathed in the glow of good fortune. An ambitious couple are about to open the island's most spectacular hotel, where Greek and Turkish Cypriots work in harmony. Two neighbouring families, the Georgious and the Özkans, are among many who moved to Famagusta to escape the years of unrest and ethnic violence elsewhere on the island. But beneath the city's façade of glamour and success, tension is building.
When a Greek coup plunges the island into chaos, Cyprus faces a disastrous conflict. Turkey invades to protect the Turkish Cypriot minority, and Famagusta is shelled. Forty thousand people seize their most precious possessions and flee from the advancing soldiers. In the desertedcity, just two families remain. This is their story.
Hodgkinson, Amanda - Spilt Milk
Unmarried sisters Nellie and Vivian Marsh live an impoverished existence in a tiny cottage on the banks of the Little River in Suffolk. Their life is quiet and predictable, until a sudden flood throws up a strange fish on their doorstep and a travelling man who will change them forever. 1939. Eighteen-year-old Birdie Farr is working as a barmaid in the family pub in London. When she realises she is pregnant she turns to her mother Nellie, who asks her sister to arrange an adoption for Birdie's new born daughter. But as the years pass Birdie discovers she cannot escape the Marsh sisters' shadowy past - and her own troubling obsession with finding her lost daughter will have deep consequences for all of them . . . 'This is a story that explores motherhood and sisterhood with great subtlety and power . . . with its strong storytelling, haunting characters and beautiful, supple prose.
Holt, Anne -The Lion’s Mouth
Less than six months after taking office, the Norwegian Prime Minister is found dead. She has been shot in the head. But was it a politically motivated assassination or personal revenge? The death shakes the country to its core. The hunt for her killer is complicated, intense and gruelling. Hanne Wilhelmsen must contain the scandal before a private tragedy becomes a public outrage, in what will become the most sensitive case of her career...This is a story of lies, intrigue and politics. The Lion's Mouth questions who holds the power in Norway, and how far they will go to use it.
Joubert,Elsa - The Hunchback Missionary
At a prayer meeting on a cold Rotterdam night, the young clerk Aart Anthonij van der Lingen – a pale, sickly, hunchbacked ‘fish from the North’ – is held in the charismatic Reverend Johannes Kicherer’s thrall. Lured by Kicherer’s passion, he leaves his grey and loveless life to land at the Cape of Good Hope as a lay missionary in 1800.
But when the Missionary Society draws lots to determine where to send the new arrivals, Van der Lingen is sent east and Kicherer north. The hunchback missionary must make his own way in a place that, on the surface, God has forsaken – until, as the pitiless landscape and the blank faces of his would-be congregants strip Van der Lingen incrementally of his pride, he learns that he has nothing to give to the Africa that is ultimately his salvation.
Keyes,Marian - The Woman Who Stole My Life
Stella Sweeny is back in Dublin. After living the dream in New York for a year - touring her self-help book, appearing on talk shows all over the USA and living it up in her 10-room duplex on the Upper West Side - she's back to normality with a bang. And she's got writer's block. Stella wants a clean break as she didn't exactly leave New York on a high. Why isshe back in Ireland so soon? Who is it who keeps calling? Stella wants to get back to being the woman she used to be. But can she? And should she?
King, Stephen - Revival
In a small New England town, over half a century ago, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church. The men and boys are all a bit in love with Mrs. Jacobs; the women and girls feel the same about Reverend Jacobs—including Jamie’s mother and beloved sister, Claire. With Jamie, the Reverend shares a deeper bond based on a secret obsession. When tragedy strikes the Jacobs family, this charismatic preacher curses God, mocks all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town.
Jamie has demons of his own. Wed to his guitar from the age of thirteen, he plays in bands across the country, living the nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll while fleeing from his family’s horrific loss. In his mid-thirties—addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate—Jamie meets Charles Jacobs again, with profound consequences for both men. Their bond becomes a pact beyond even the Devil’s devising, and Jamie discovers that revival has many meanings.
Kinney, Jeff - Diary Of A Wimpy Kid:The Third Wheel
Greg Heffley is not willing to be the odd man out.A dance at Greg's middle school has everyone scrambling to find a partner, and Greg is determined not to be left by the wayside. So he concocts a desperate plan to find someone—anyone!—to go with on the big night.
But Greg's schemes go hilariously awry, and his only option is to attend the dance with his best friend, Rowley Jefferson, and a female classmate as a "group of friends." But the night is long, and anything can happen along the way. Who will arrive at the dance triumphantly, and who will end up being the third wheel?