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New Arrivals

 

 

Sherman`s march through Georgia and the Carolinas produced hundreds of thousands of deaths and untold collateral damage. In this powerful novel, Doctorow gets deep inside the pillage, cruelty and destruction—as well as the care and burgeoning love that sprung up in their wake. William Tecumseh Sherman ("Uncle Billy" to his troops) is depicted as a man of complex moods and varying abilities, whose need for glory sometimes obscures his military acumen. Most of the many characters are equally well-drawn and psychologically deep, but the two most engaging are Pearl, a plantation owner`s despised daughter who is passing as a drummer boy, and Arly, a cocksure Reb soldier whose belief that God dictates the events in his life is combined with the cunning of a wily opportunist. Their lives provide irony, humor and strange coincidences. Though his lyrical prose sometimes shades into sentimentality when it strays from what people are feeling or saying, Doctorow`s gift for getting into the heads of a remarkable variety of characters, famous or ordinary, make this a kind of grim Civil War Canterbury Tales. On reaching the novel`s last pages, the reader feels wonder that this nation was ever able to heal after so brutal, and personal, a conflict.
Evans demonstrates the same intricacy of plot and depth of characterization that defined his international best-seller The Horse Whisperer (1995). When the frozen body of a young woman is discovered in a remote creek in the Rocky Mountains, the heartrending story of a family in crisis begins to unfold. Reaching back in time, members of the seemingly perfect Cooper family present their version of the events, emotions, and twists of fate that forever altered the benign course of their collective lives. After the unanticipated divorce of Sarah and Benjamin Cooper, their daughter, Abbie, becomes involved with a dangerous ecoterrorist group, while their son, Josh, drifts along in a marijuana-fueled haze. As they all move inexorably toward the ultimate tragedy, their individual perspectives coalesce, providing the reader with an opportunity to fully understand the toxic intersection of expectations, needs, and desires that inevitably caused their family unit to implode. Attempting to understand how and why Abbie wound up in the bottom of the creek, the Coopers are finally able to come to terms with the past and move toward the future. Sure to be a runaway success, this lyrical novel runs the gamut from devastation to despair to deliverance.
Any new installment in Parker`s long-running series starring tough, wisecracking Boston PI Spenser is a pleasure, and this time out high-maintenance girlfriend Susan Silverman is out of town, giving readers unfettered Spenser face time. The wealthy Lily Ellsworth hires Spenser to prove the innocence of her grandson, Jared Clark, accused of a Columbine High School–style shooting that has left five students and two teachers dead. Jared has confessed to the crime, and Spenser faces major opposition from local law enforcement officials, school authorities, dysfunctional parents, opposing lawyers and deadly gang-bangers. As always, Spenser solves the case in a surprising manner, shoots some bad guys and has several attractive women offer him sex, all of which he handles in his proficient, wisenheimer way. Susan`s German shorthaired pointer Pearl gets a lot of attentive babysitting, but longtime sidekick Hawk is nowhere in evidence. Those who have stuck with Spenser as Parker invented (and set loose) other case-crackers will be rewarded once again with another solid installment in this fine, enduring series.
Tim LaHaye has called Babylon Rising his most exciting series ever, and The Europa Conspiracy is the most thrilling and suspenseful installment yet. Reaching back to some of the most dramatic and prophetically significant stories of the Bible, and forward to the creation of ultimate evil in the modern world, the awe-inspiring revelations never let up. It begins when Michael Murphy heads to the ancient city of Babylon in pursuit of one of the most famous and mystifying of Biblical prophecies: The Handwriting on the Wall. But the closer he gets to deciphering the true meaning of Daniel’s ancient message for our troubled times, the closer Murphy comes to a shattering confrontation with the forces of darkness that will cause the earth itself to tremble. In The Europa Conspiracy, Tim LaHaye once again shows how his thrill-a-minute storytelling and deep understanding of the Bible have combined to make him one of today`s most popular and influential fiction authors.
Historian Erickson (Bloody Mary; To the Scaffold; etc.) makes her first foray into fiction with this invented journal kept by the notorious queen who was sent to the guillotine during the French Revolution in 1793. Recounting her childhood as Austrian Archduchess Maria Antonia, her marriage to feckless Frenchman Louis XVI and her naïve pangs of conscience about hungry peasants clamoring at the gates of Versailles, Erickson delivers a spirited blend of fiction and fact. While Marie Antoinette`s love affair with Swedish nobleman Axel Fersen is well-documented, other characters pivotal to Erickson`s plot are pure fabrication: swarthy servant Eric, his jealous wife, Amelie, and the queen`s confessor, Father Kuthibert. These inventions add color to the story of the ruler inaccurately linked to the phrase "Let them eat cake!" The novel`s narrative engagingly reflects Marie Antoinette`s progression from privileged adolescent to royal mother of four (though only one daughter and son survived into adulthood), and Erickson`s descriptions of pomp and circumstance lend flavor and flair. While France`s most infamous queen was clearly more sybarite than saint, Erickson`s lively account reveals a woman whose bravery and resilience seem as noteworthy as the bloody details of her demise.

Highlights of New Arrivals

Author

Title

Doctorow
Erdrich
Evans
Michaels
Parker
Brooks
McBain
Galbaldon
LaHaye
McCall Smith
Michaels
Mosley
Rendell
Jance
Kidder
Robb
Best
Billingham
Brown
Erickson
Gerritson
Guinness

March
Painted drum
Divide
Payback
School days
High druid of Shannara
Fiddlers
Breath of snow and ashes
Babylon rising
Friends lovers chocolate
Nosy neighbor
Cinnamin kiss
13 steps down
Long time gone
My detachment
Origin in death
Scrapbooking your family history
Burning girl
Hunt ball
Hidden diary of Marie Antoinette
Vanish
Guiness world records 2006

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