Jeffrey Archer
Archer presents 15 new stories in this anthology. Some of them will make you laugh, some will make you cry, but each one is a jewel. The stories are divided between tales of trickery, as with 'Stuck on You,' where an eager young man is played by a diamond thief, and sentimental stories, such as 'Members Only,' about a man who has wanted nothing more than to join a private golfing country club since the day when a golf ball fell out of a Christmas cracker. Ten of the stories are based on true incidents (these are marked by an asterisk). ‘Masterpiece’ is about a priceless oil painting that has remained in the same family for 200 years, and the title story is about a couple that falls in love while waiting for a traffic light. The totally fictional stories such as 'Politically Correct', and 'Better the Devil You Know,' (about an evil executive making a deal with the devil), are done with a light touch.

Sara Gruen
The Great Ape Language Lab is a university research center dedicated to the study of the communicative behavior of bonobo apes. The bonobo apes of the Language Lab are extraordinary; they can communicate with humans using sign language, which shows the use of reason and understanding. Shortly after allowing Philadelphia Inquirer reporter John Thigpen to ask questions of the bonobo apes in scientist Isabel Duncan’s care, the Lab is bombed. The blast terrorizes the apes and severely injures Isabel. Thigpen pursues the story of the apes and the explosions for a Los Angeles tabloid, encountering green-haired vegan protesters and taking in a burned-out meth lab's guard dog. Meanwhile, as Isabel recovers from her injuries, the bonobos are sold and moved to New Mexico, where they become a media sensation as the stars of a reality TV show. When Isabel reluctantly watches the show, she is surprised when the apes sign for her to rescue them. Isabel must overcome her own fears to save her simian ‘family”. A sweet and humane read.

Harlan Coben
Kidnappers have snatched the teenage son of super-star golfer Linda Coldren and her aging golf pro- husband, Jack while he makes a run at the U.S. Open Championship. To help get the boy back, sports agent Myron Bolitar and his office assistant, Esperanza, now his partner in his business, look for clues and suspects from the Main Line mansions to a downtown cheaters' motel. They have to pull all the skeletons from the Coldren family closet and learn about a U.S. Open twenty three years ago, when Jack Coldren should of won the U.S. Open, but didn’t; before they catch a break. The past and present collide with deadly results as he and Esperanza investigate. Suddenly they find themselves surrounded by blue bloods, criminals, and liars. And as the Coldren family’s secrets are revealed, murder occurs, and Myron finds out just how deadly this game can get.

John Sanford
One late fall Sunday in southern Minnesota, a farmer brings a load of soybeans to a local grain elevator - and a young man hits him on the head with a steel bar, drops him into the grain bin, waits until he's sure he's dead, and then calls the sheriff to report the "accident." Suspicious that one of her own staff might be involved, the sheriff calls in outside help; Virgil Flowers of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Virgil quickly breaks the kid down ... but the next day the boy's found hanging in his cell. Did he kill himself out of remorse? Virgil doesn’t think so, and as he investigates he begins to uncover a multigeneration, multifamily conspiracy - a series of crimes so monstrous that even he, with all his exposure to crime, has difficulty comprehending it...and in figuring out what to do next.

Debbie Macomber
Emily Merkle, aka Mrs. Miracle is working in the toy department of the last family-run department store in New York City for Christmas, where she meets Holly, who is searching for the perfect gift for her nephew. For Jake Finley, the son of the original owner, the whole idea of Christmas, holiday memories and presents, decorated trees and family, were destroyed in a Christmas Eve tragedy years ago. Now Christmas just means one thing to him – profit. Because only that will keep the store afloat. Holly is looking for some good luck too; she wants to give her nephew, Gabe, the holiday he deserves, as his father is in the army and won’t be home for Christmas. She wants to buy him a toy robot from Finley’s, if she can afford it. When Holly is helped by Mrs. Miracle at the store, Mrs. Miracle sees to it that Holly gets the robot for Gabe. And something else too; because Mrs. Miracle thinks Holly would be perfect for Jake; she does a little matchmaking as well. A lovely, feel good book to read not only during the Christmas holidays, but anytime!

Sue Henry
Champion musher Jessie Arnold's had a tough year, and fiancé Alex Jensen suggests a weekend of kayaking on Prince Island Sound; knowing that communing with the waves and the seals will be relaxing. Jessie agrees, but not long after arriving, she discovers a body and gets involved in the murder investigation. The search for the killer will take her and Alex from the glaciers of the Sound to the dangerous back alleys of Anchorage.

Fern Michaels
With a presidential pardon, the Sisterhood can now put their fugitive days behind them and live in peace. But things have become a little too calm, and their meeting to celebrate Kathryn’s birthday is something they all look forward to. However, the chance to capture Public Enemy #1, Hank Jellicoe, presents itself when President Connor requests that the Sisterhood do what the FBI, CIA and Homeland Security have not been able to do; capture him. She hopes that their blend of guts, imagination and friends will be able to pull off the impossible. To hunt this monster down and take him out once and for all …

Ken Follett
Follett gives us a new historical epic in Fall of Giants, the first novel in The Century Trilogy. It follows the fates of five families - American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh - as they live through the dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women's suffrage. Each of the main players are well drawn; young Billy Williams becomes a man in the Welsh mining pits; Gus Dewar, an American law student finds a new career in Woodrow Wilson's White House; two orphaned Russian brothers, Grigori and Lev Peshkov, embark on very different paths half a world apart when their plan to emigrate to America falls afoul of war, conscription, and revolution. Billy's sister, Ethel, a housekeeper for the aristocratic Fitzherberts, rises above her station, while Lady Maud Fitzherbert crosses into forbidden territory when she falls in love with Walter von Ulrich, a spy at the German embassy in London. These characters and others find their lives entwined in a story full of drama and complexity that moves from Washington to St. Petersburg, from the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty. Full of great historical detail, robust characters and full of action, this book is destined to become a classic.

Stephen W. Frey
Bruner, Wisconsin, is really two different towns. On one side are the magnificent summer estates of wealthy families who value their privacy and privilege. A few miles away are the homes of the working men and women who cook, clean, and tend to the needs of the summer visitors. Bruner is a place of steadfast loyalties and friendships, but the long and brutal winter can make even the most intimate friends turn on each other. Sheriff Paul Summers finds himself stunned when the unpredictable woman he loved years ago is discovered brutally murdered inside her family’s snowbound estate. As the last person to see her alive, and because he had a previous history with her, Paul is not only lead investigator on the case but, in the eyes of many townsfolk, the prime suspect in her killing. Struggling with rumors of an evil cult’s being formed outside of town, the disappearance of a citizen, and a wife whose grasp of reality is slipping away, Paul must find the true guilty party before a massive winter storm leaves them all cut off and at the mercy of a ruthless killer. As the approaching storm gathers in intensity, so do the events that bring Paul closer to unraveling the secrets that haunt this small town. In the climax, heaven’s fury deals its hand to bring this novel to electrifying conclusion.

Larry McMurtry
In this final installment of his memoir trilogy, McMurtry comments on his fascination with Hollywood. "One thing I’ve always liked about Hollywood is its zip, or speed. The whole industry depends to some extent on talent spotting. The hundreds of agents, studio executives, and producers who roam the streets of the city of Los Angeles let very little in the way of talent slip by”. As both the creator of many works adapted for film and television, and the author of screenplays including The Last Picture Show and the Oscar-winning Brokeback Mountain, McMurtry recounts many of his experiences of Tinseltown with wry humor. Beginning with his entrée into the world of film as the author of Horseman, Pass By, which was adapted into Hud, which starred Paul Newman in 1963—McMurtry tells of the time he held hands with young actress Cybill Shepherd at the screening of The Last Picture Show because she was so nervous, watching Jennifer Garner’s audition tape, and being grilled by Warren Beatty. There is much to enjoy in these pages, as McMurtry casts light on life behind the scenes.

Tess Gerritsen
Beryl Tavistock has always lived with the scandal that surrounded her parents’ deaths twenty years ago. A family secret revealed at a dinner party propels her to Paris, where they died, to look for answers. But what she finds out is deadly dangerous; that her parents were spies, and that her father might have killed her mother. Drawn into a world of espionage, Beryl realizes she’s out of her league. She turns to ex-CIA agent Richard Wolf, a man who knows how to play the dangerous game of spycraft. As they travel from Paris to Greece, Beryl can’t deny the attraction she feels for the suave agent. But she’s now in a world where trust doesn’t come easy, because friends can be enemies and enemies could become killers.

Danielle Steel
This novel interweaves the lives of two women—a writer working in modern academia and a daring young Sioux Indian in the eighteenth century. At the age of thirty-eight, Brigitte Nicholson has a job she likes, a man she loves, and a book on the women’s suffrage movement that she plans to finish—someday. Someday is the word that rules her life. Then, on a snowy day in Boston, Brigitte’s life is turned upside down. Suddenly everything she counted on has changed. As she struggles to plot a new course for her life, Brigitte agrees to help her mother on a family genealogy project. In Salt Lake City at the Family History Library, she makes a surprising discovery that reaches back to the French aristocracy. Brigitte’s ancestor Wachiwi, a Dakota Sioux, traveled from the Great Plains to the French court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and married a French marquis. How did she come to marry into Brigitte’s family? Following the threads of Wachiwi’s life, Brigitte travels to South Dakota, then on to Paris, drawn to this brave young woman who dared to face the unknown. And as she comes closer to solving the puzzle of Wachiwi’s journey, her previously safe, quiet life becomes an adventure of its own. A unexpected meeting with a writer of historical fiction, a new opportunity, and a difficult choice put Brigitte at last in the forefront of her own story. With a complex family legacy coming to life around her, someday is no longer in the future. Instead someday is now.

Sophie Kinsella
Nothing comes between Becky Brandon (née Bloomwood) and her retail therapy. But now she faces her greatest challenge yet: her two-year-old daughter, Minnie. Being a mother is everything that Becky dreamed of, but Minnie is too much a chip off the old block. Wherever she goes, whatever she sees, she uses her favorite word “MINE!”, and Becky cannot help but indulge her, whatever the cost. Becky and husband Luke are still living with her parents, but finally they purchase a house. But then a financial crisis causes panic; and nobody wants to shop. Luke becomes despondent, and Becky decides to cheer him up with a surprise birthday party (on a budget, of course). But things quickly get out of hand, what with plans for jugglers, fire-eaters and acrobats! Will Becky be able to keep the party a surprise? Will Luke like it? And will she be able to convince Minnie to buy things at a 60% discount? Only a committed shopper like Becky could possibly accomplish all of this, and how she does it is hilarious!

Nancy Rosenberg
Lily Forrester is a tough judge in Ventura County, California, who has overcome adversity and heartache to achieve a position of power to help those who can’t help themselves. Several years earlier, Lily and her daughter, Shana, were raped and their attacker eluded capture. This and subsequent traumas have left Shana in a precarious emotional state. When Shana has a meltdown after her boyfriend dumps her, Lily picks Whitehall, a private psychiatric hospital outside San Francisco, out of a phone book. Without referrals or further investigation, Lily takes her daughter to Whitehall, where Shana voluntarily commits herself. Unfortunately, Whitehall is run by a greedy doctor who is more interested in landing insured patients and then bilking their insurance companies than in treating his charges; and its halls are is ruled by a wealthy and handsome inmate, who's is also a sociopathic killer. Discovering the truth, Lily will have to summon all her intelligence and street smarts to find a way to free Shana before the suave killer zones in on her.

Rita Mae Brown
A new tail wagging series from cat lover Rita Mae Brown. Thirty two year old Mags flees her former high powered Wall Street job for her aunt Jeep’s Nevada ranch; hoping to put her life back together. In the passenger seat is her wirehaired dachshund, Baxter. Mags, (named for her feisty great aunt Magdalena – now known as Jeep) has to learn how to fit in on the Ranch, much as the urban Baxter must learn to deal with Jeep’s German Shepherd mix, King; who considers Baxter to be a “fuzzy sausage”. Jeep has had an exciting, productive life and intends to keep on going. And both ladies are definitely in for excitement, as someone pipe bombs the pumping station, thereby endangering the water supply. The sabotage is linked to a series of murders, but Deputy Pete Meadows doesn’t know if its eco-terrorism or something else. When human bones are found in Jeep’s barn, they are identified as those of an elite Russian military officer from the late 1800’s who was knifed to death. Mags and Pete team together to solve the mystery of the bones and murders. They discover corporate sneaks that want to divert the water supply to Reno and shortly thereafter, someone shows up dead much too close to home. Baxter and King must come to a truce in order to investigate and protect their humans when the inevitable confrontation occurs. With interesting characters, an irresistible wiener of a dog, and witty dialogue, this is a fun beginning to a new series by Rita Mae Brown.

Ruth Rendell
London's Portobello Road, a street fabled for its shops and outdoor market, provides the backdrop for this superlative suspense novel, which features a cast of colorful characters from varied classes and walks of life. Their lives are tied together by the chance discovery of an envelope full of cash dropped by Joel Roseman, who had just withdrawn it from a Portobello Road ATM, but then was felled by a heart attack. Sent to the hospital, his physician is Ella Cotswold. In an odd coincidence, her boyfriend, gallery owner Eugene Wren, finds the envelope of cash. His decision to advertise for its owner alerts Lance Platt, a petty crook who has been casing the neighborhood for homes to break into, and sets in motion a series of events that prove dangerous. Lance seethes under the thumb of his great-uncle Gilbert Gibson, a former burglar that is more dangerous now that he preaches the gospel; and is threatened by Dwayne Wilson, the brother of his former girlfriend, who got rid of Lance after he beat her up. In a comic sendup; Eugene Wren dithers about asking Ella Cotswold to marry him, and struggles with his addiction to sugar free lozenges. Rendell has woven a tapestry of characters, some of which are only a dole check away from homelessness, and all the anxiety that that engenders, and juxtapositioned them against the callousness of the book’s more upper class characters.

Nicholas Sparks
Renee and Audrey have been best friends for twenty five years, since they were college students. As students, they went together to Italy for a summer to study. There they spent an idyllic summer, and Renee met a handsome local, falling deeply in love. But like all summer romances, the affair came to an end when she returned to North Carolina. Back home, Renee fulfills everyone's expectations - by marrying her longtime college boyfriend. Over the next two decades, she raised a family and lived a predictable, if in some ways unfulfilling life. But when Audrey announces that she's dying of cancer, Renee drops everything to spend Audrey's last days by her side, unaware that her 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.

Stuart Woods
This novel is less about superstar lawyer Ed than it is about his nefarious ex-wife, Barbara, who manages to escape from a Mexican prison and head back to the States with murder on her mind. Her targets are Ed and his new wife, Susannah. But Barbara isn't the only fugitive on the lam. Teddy Fay, a notorious ex-CIA operative, has arrived in Santa Fe, hoping to start a new life with his girlfriend, Lauren. But young CIA recruit Todd Bacon is hot on his trail. Ed's latest client, golf pro Tip Hanks, who is under suspicion for the murder of his wife, might be able to shed some light on Ed’s past, but this information might also place him in danger. Those familiar with the series will enjoy the frequent murders and sexual escapades that enliven the tale. Lots of fun for those who Woods' entertaining fare.

Joyce Carol Oates
Oates is a master of the dark tale, stories of the hunted and the hunter, of violence, trauma, and deep psychic wounds. With her keen understanding of the workings of minds under threat, Oates possesses a heightened sense of the body’s expressiveness, from the threatening walk of a man’s gait to the sour smell of his breath, all telegraphing danger. Her latest stories of sexual mayhem, family crisis, and shattered identity are fraught with menace and peril. Adult males preying on innocent girls, the vicious former model full of poisonous narcissism in Bonobo Momma; or the young, disabled, and dangerous librarian in Amputee. There is also the shocked widow, women who feel fragile after their male protectors abruptly die, as in Probate, a stinging story of sorrow, absurdity, and breakdown, and Pumpkin-Head and the title story Sourland, tales of bloodlust and the ecstasy and agony of terror and submission. This is a caustic book of cruel fairy stories in which people are tested, punished, and tragically transformed.

Diana Gabaldon
A fresh look at the original Outlander from Jamie Fraser’s point of view, in a striking graphical format. Jamie Fraser is coming home to Scotland — but not without great trepidation. Though his beloved godfather, Murtagh, promised Jamie’s late parents he’d watch over their son, making good on that vow will not be easy. There’s already a bounty on the young exile’s head by order of Captain Black Jack Randall, the sadistic British officer who’s crossed paths, and swords, with Jamie in the past. And in the court of the mighty MacKenzie clan, Jamie is a pawn in the power struggle between his uncles: aging chieftain Colum, who demands his nephew’s loyalty — or his life — and Dougal, war chieftain of Clan MacKenzie, who’d sooner see Jamie put to the sword than anointed Colum’s heir. And then there is Claire Randall — mysterious, beautiful, and strong-willed, who stirs his compassion . . . and also arouses his desire. But even as Jamie’s heart draws him to Claire, Murtagh is certain she’s been sent by the Old Ones, and Captain Randall accuses her of being a spy. Claire clearly has something to hide, though Jamie can’t believe she could pose him any danger. Still, he knows she is torn between two choices — a life with him, and whatever it is that draws her thoughts so often elsewhere.

James Ellroy
Ellroy gives us a raw and candid memoir about his obsessive search for “atonement”. In 1958, his mother gave ten year old Ellroy a choice between living with her and the hustler husband she had just divorced -- and walloped him when he chose his dad. He both hated and lusted after his mother, and “summoned her dead”. Three months later she was murdered. Now the master of high-end noir offers a memoir of his life after her death; a life shaped relentlessly by his guilt. By 13, he was dysfunctional, drinking cheap wine, peeping into windows and reading warlock literature that allowed him to “lie still and conjure women”. Women like Susan, with whom he drank cough syrup and downed stolen pills, and Helen and Charlotte, both of whom didn’t quite fit into the 1950’s mold of womanhood. He describes his childhood, his delinquent teens, and what finally saved him, his writing life; and the beginning of a relationship with an extraordinary woman who just might be the one. The Hilliker Curse is a scorching, soul-baring revelation of the self, and will be unlike any other memoir you’ve ever read.

William Kent Krueger
Mining heir Max Cavanagh hires PI Cork O’Connor as a security consultant to trace his missing sister, Lauren, founder of an artists' retreat - and to try to identify the sender of threatening letters to people connected with Vermilion One, a Cavanaugh family iron mine. The U.S. Department of Energy has put Vermilion One on a short list of sites being considered for long-term nuclear waste storage, which has lead to a storm of protest from Tamarck County residents. When Cork and a mine official descend into Vermilion One, they discover six bodies, five of them skeletal, which may be connected with a series of unsolved crimes from 1964 known as "the Vanishings," which Cork's father looked into when he was sheriff. The sixth corpse, that of a well-dressed woman, appears to have been in the mine less than a week. Problem is, the most recent victim, as well as one of the other’s, was killed with Cork’s own gun. This well written and thrilling read will grab you from page one and won’t let go.

Fern Michaels
Photographer Samantha Blakely is stunned when her friend Gemini Delaney leaves her the controlling interest in her family business, a magazine conglomerate. This is the same conglomerate that owns Daylight Magazine, the same magazine that Sam has just landed her dream job as a photojournalist. Then she meets her new boss, Christian Delaney, and his gaze leaves her wanting more. But how can she tell him that she’s ‘the’ Sam Blakely who inherited the legacy he had thought would be his? If he discovers the truth, he’ll have every reason to hate her and make her job miserable. A delightfully romantic story of love gone wrong . . . and right again!

Janet Evanovich
Evanovich introduces a new supernatural series with Wicked Appetie. Pastry chef Elizabeth Tucker recently relocated to Marblehead, Massachusetts and now bakes cupcakes for Dazzle's Bakery. Life goes smoothly in Marblehead for Lizzy until Diesel arrives. Lizzy gets involved with the slightly dangerous Diesel, who is tracking down SALIGA Stones, each one representing one of the Seven Deadly Sins. But also looking is Gerwulf Grimoire, Diesel's cousin, a criminal mastermind and denizen of the dark side who's determined to get the Stones first in order 'to unleash their power and create hell on earth.' Wulf's first target is the Gluttony Stone, which has long been guarded by members of the More family. In order to gain access to the Stone, the seeker has to find three keys held by different members of the More family. These apparently normal trinkets can be identified by Unmentionables with uncanny powers, like Steven Hatchet, the former military paramedic now working as Wulf's vassal - or like Lizzy, who suddenly discovers she has powers she's never dreamed of. You don't need to be an Unmentionable to see that Shirley More, who eats three-dozen cupcakes every day, probably has one of the keys. Unfortunately, it won't be easy to get much information out of Shirley, because Gloria, attempting to cast a truth spell over her, has accidentally turned her speech into gobbledygook. Together Lizzy and Diesel battle Wulf for possession of the Gluttony Stone, and soon learn that more is not necessarily better. A fun beginning to a new series.