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Turbulence,by Giles Foden. A different kind of WWII novel. The fate of 2.5 million men, three thousand landing craft and the entire future of Europe depended on the right weather conditions on the English Channel on a single day. A team of Allied scientists is charged with agreeing on an accurate forecast five days in advance. But is it even possible to predict the weather so far ahead? And what is the relationship between predictability and turbulence, one of the last great mysteries of modern physics? Wallace Ryman has devised a system that comprehends all of this—but he is a reclusive pacifist who stubbornly refuses to divulge his secrets. Henry Meadows, a young math prodigy from the Met Office, is sent to Scotland to uncover Ryman’s system and apply it to the Normandy landings. But turbulence proves more elusive than anyone could have imagined. When Henry meets Gill, Ryman’s beautiful wife, events, like the weather, begin to spiral out of control. A book about war inside and outside us. (1/29/12) 


Rope, by Nevada Barr. Literally, a cliff-hanger. Every time you think Anna's adventure is ending, it starts all over again. This is an exciting prequel to Barr's series, about how Anna gets into the park service. In 1995 and 35 years old, fresh off the bus from New York City and nursing a broken heart, Anna Pigeon takes a decidedly unglamorous job as a seasonal employee of the Glen Canyon National Recreational Area. On her day off, Anna goes hiking into the park never to return. Her co-workers think she’s simply moved on—her cabin is cleaned out and her things gone. But Anna herself wakes up, trapped at the bottom of a dry natural well, naked, without supplies and no clear memory of how she found herself in this situation.
Plunged into a landscape and a plot she is unfit and untrained as of yet to handle, Anna Pigeon must muster the courage and  determination that she shows so often through the whole series. And though Barr's previous book, Burn, was darker than her early ones, it's timely in that it takes place in a still troubled post-Katrina New Orleans, where Anna must battle human carnivores instead of mountain lions and bears. Barr reminds us that there are many levels of wilderness. Try both if you want suspense and human drama. (1/29/12)
Nanjing Requiem, by Ha Jin.If you enjoy a book about individuals trapped in pivotal moments of history, try this one.  In 1937, with the Japanese poised to invade Nanjing, Minnie Vautrin—an American missionary and the dean of Jinling Women’s College—decides to remain at the school, convinced that her American citizenship will help her safeguard the welfare of the Chinese men and women who work there. She is painfully mistaken. In the aftermath of the invasion, the school becomes a refugee camp for more than ten thousand homeless women and children, and Vautrin must struggle, day after day, to intercede on behalf of the hapless victims. Even when order and civility are eventually restored, this brave woman is haunted by the lives she could not save. (1/29/12)
Lantern, by Deborah Lawrenson. A seductive, modern gothic novel of love, secrets, and murder—set against the lush backdrop of Provence. When Eve falls for the secretive, charming Dom in Switzerland, their whirlwind relationship leads them to an abandoned house set among the fragrant lavender fields of the South of France. Deeply in love and surrounded by music, books, and a lush French summer, Eve has never felt more alive. But then Dom starts to cool, and Eve grows obsessed with finding out about the mysterious ex-wife whose memory seems to be keeping them apart. The house has its own mysteries-- secret passages, an ancient lantern, and the ghosts of a family once known for creating magical perfumes. You won't be able to stop reading. (1/29/12)Mary and O'Neill, by Justin Cronin. Sometimes it's interesting to go back to a now well-known writer's first work.       Cronin’s poignant debut traces the lives of Mary Olson and O’Neil Burke, two vulnerable young teachers who rediscover in each other a world alive with promise and hope. From the formative experiences of their early adulthood to marriage, parenthood, and beyond, this novel in stories illuminates the moments of grace that enable Mary and O’Neil to make peace with the curves their lives have thrown them: the sudden, mysterious death of O’Neil’s parents, Mary’s long-ago decision to end a pregnancy, O’Neil’s sister’s battle with illness and a troubled marriage. Alive with magical nuance and unexpected encounters, Mary and O’Neil celebrates the uncommon in common lives, and the redemptive power of love. This novel is gentle without being gushy, romantic but realistic. (1/29/12)


Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, by Sharyn McCrumb. A haunting story for a cold January night. Edgar Award winner McCrumb weaves Appalachian folklore into a story that wanders intriguingly before rushing to its turbulent conclusion.  Ret. Maj. Paul Underhill, his wife and two of his four children are dead, shot apparently by one of the sons, who took his own life after killing the others. The Sheriff asks Laura, wife of a Baptist minister away overseas, to act as advocate for the surviving children, Maggie and Mark, who want to remain in the house so they can continue  school. But when deputy Joe LeDonne discovers that the two have disinterred their father's body from its grave, he wants to know what really happened on the night of the shooting. Meanwhile, local farmer Tavy Annis is diagnosed with cancer, brought on by a chemical spill in the Little Dove River, which he's determined will not hurt anyone else. And a mysterious old mountain seer understands more about both events than anyone else. (1/2/12) 

The Spanish Bow, by Andromeda Romano-Lax. Winter's a great time for historical fiction. And there's still time to read this one before his next one comes out in February.The accidental bequest of a cello bow from his dead father sets Feliu, a young Spaniard, toward becoming a musician, unlikely given his small village background. When he is forced to flee to anarchist Barcelona, his education in music, life, and politics begins. But it isn’t until he arrives at the court of the embattled monarchy in Madrid that he finds passion with Aviva, a virtuoso violinist with a haunted past. A powerful blend of music, drama, and human interest in a journey from the tail end of the nineteenth century up through the Spanish Civil War and World War II. (1/2/12)

Angle of Impact, by Bonnie MacDougal. One you may have missed. Dana Svenssen, a brilliant, overworked Philadelphia lawyer, is on her way to a routine business meeting when the helicopter carrying her client collides with an airplane directly over the amusement park where Dana's two daughters are spending the day on a class trip. As fiery debris rains down, Dana desperately races to the scene to find her children. But it isn't an accident. Trying to find out what really happened threatens everything she cares about as she's dragged into a deadly conspiracy. (1/2/12)

Wreckage, by Michael Robotham. In the mood for a timely thriller? Billions of dollars are missing from Iraqi banks, and journalist Luca Terracini will risk everything to discover where it is. His Iraqi-American background enables him to infiltrate the darkest corners of the war, but the death of his beloved Nicola in a suicide bombing means he has nothing left to lose. When he teams up with a UN representative, Daniela, their actions begin to make waves around the world and put them both in grave danger. (1/2/12) 

Ice Margin, by Marcia Woodruff Dalton.  Taking its title from geology, The Ice Margin is a novel of landscape and boundary, both inner and outer. Dalton captures Cape Cod tides, creatures, vegetation, and weather perfectly in this story of three generations of women who come from elsewhere to love this particular meeting of land and sea. A book engaging both heart and mind, it has much important to say about how to find optimism amid obligation, how to balance the needs of others with our own, how to figure out where-- and with whom-- we really belong. It's a hard one to put down. (1/2/12) 

When the Killing's Done, by T.C Boyle. Substance plus a good story. Principally set on the wild and sparsely inhabited Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara, T.C. Boyle's powerful new novel combines pulse-pounding adventure with a socially conscious, richly humane tale regarding the dominion we attempt to exert, for better or worse, over the natural world. Alma Boyd Takesue is a National Park Service biologist who is spearheading the efforts to save the island's endangered native creatures from invasive species like rats and feral pigs. Her antagonist, Dave LaJoy, is a dreadlocked local businessman who, along with his lover, the folksinger Anise Reed, is fiercely opposed to the killing of any species whatsoever and will go to any lengths to subvert the plans of Alma and her colleagues. Their confrontation plays out in a series of escalating scenes in which these characters violently confront one another, and tempt the awesome destructive power of nature itself. (11/29/11)

Last Summer of the World, by Emily Mitchell. An absorbing debut novel.In the summer of 1918, with the Germans threatening Paris, Edward Steichen arrives in France to photograph the war for the American army. France is full of memories: his early artistic successes, his marriage, the births of his two daughters. But as he takes up his first command, he learns that his wife Clara has filed suit against her friend, the painter Marion Beckett, charging that she was Steichen's lover in the summer before the war. Flying over the fields of France, Steichen struggles to understand what went wrong in his seemingly idyllic life. His search for answers takes him into his own complex past, toward a painful self-understanding and the discovery of new ways of seeing the world. (11/29/11)

Philosopher's Kiss, by Peter Prange. An intriguing piece of historical fiction, set in Paris, 1747. Betrayed by God and humanity, Sophie moves to the seething capital of the kingdom. To survive, she works at Café Procope, the meeting place for freethinkers and revolutionaries.Against her will she falls deeply in love with one of the regular customers: Denis Diderot, the famed philosopher and a married man. He and his colleagues are planning the most dangerous book in the world since the appearance of the Bible: an encyclopedia. Even more explosive are the covert references in the Encyclopedia that threaten to undermine both the monarchy and the church. But Sophie soon realizes that the stakes are even higher for her personally. At risk are her right to freedom, love, and happiness. (11/29/11)

The Peachkeeper, by Sarah Addison Allen. The New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Chased the Moon welcomes you to her newest locale: Walls of Water, North Carolina.. The Blue Ridge Madam—built by Willa’s great-great-grandfather during Walls of Water’s heyday, and once the town’s grandest home—has stood for years as a lonely monument to misfortune and scandal. And Willa herself has long strived to build a life beyond the brooding Jackson family shadow. No easy task in a town shaped by years of tradition and the well-marked boundaries of the haves and have-nots. 
But Willa has lately learned that an old classmate—socialite do-gooder Paxton Osgood—of the very prominent Osgood family, has restored the Blue Ridge Madam to her former glory, with plans to open a top-flight inn. Maybe, at last, the troubled past can be laid to rest while something new and wonderful rises from its ashes. But what rises instead is a skeleton, found buried beneath the property’s lone peach tree and which drags up dire consequences along with it. Allen's books are quirky and satisfyingly human. (11/29/11)


Skorpion Directive, by David Stone. In Vienna for a top-secret meeting with an ex-Mossad agent , Micah Dalton realizes something is very wrong on the streets of the Ring District. Dalton's aggressive response to enemy surveillance makes him the target of a complex plot with the potential to shatter America's strategic alliances with the rest of the civilized world. Planned by an unknown foreign power and executed by a scarred Serbian killer known only as Smoke, the conspiracy pits Dalton against an ultrasecret U.S. agency and a cadre of trained KGB killers. In a blistering trajectory of events that takes him from Venice to the Balkans and the barren shoreline of North Africa, Dalton pushes himself to the edge of sanity in a desperate attempt to save his honor-and his life. (11/29/11)

Provence Cure for the Broken-Hearted, by Bridget Asher. “Every good love story has another love hiding within it.”
 Still mourning the loss of her husband, Heidi travels with Abbott, her obsessive-compulsive seven-year-old son, and Charlotte, her jaded sixteen-year-old niece, to the small village of Puyloubier in the south of France, where a crumbling stone house may be responsible for mending hearts since before World War II.There, Charlotte confesses a shocking secret, and Heidi learns the truth about her mother’s “lost summer” when Heidi was a child. As three generations collide with one another and with an enigmatic Frenchman, Heidi, Charlotte, and Abbot journey through love, loss, and healing amid the vineyards, warm winds and delicious food of Provence. Great read for a rainy winter day. (11/29/11)

A Small Death in the Great Glen, by A.D Scott. A small Scottish village in 1956, still recovering from the war. Striking Scottish Highland landscape. A little boy found dead. A crusading journalist and a part-time typist, herself a victim of violence, determined to find out why. This engaging mystery debut has it all--- and the next in the series has just come out. (9/22/11)

The Katyn Order, by Douglas W. Jacobson. Great WWII novel with just the right blend of suspense and human drama. The German war machine is in retreat as the Russians advance. In Warsaw, Resistance fighters rise up, but the Germans retaliate, destroying the once-beautiful city. American Adam Nowak has been dropped into Poland by British intelligence as an assassin and Resistance fighter. During the Warsaw Uprising he meets Natalia, a covert operative who has lost everything—just as he has. Amid the Allied power struggle left by Germany’s defeat, Adam and Natalia join in a desperate hunt for the 1940 Soviet order authorizing the murders of 20,000 Polish army officers and civilians. If they can find the Katyn Order before the Russians do, they just might change the fate of Poland. (9/22/11)

House of Daughters, by Sarah-Kate Lynch. The patriarch of the House of Peine has left the once-renowned French champagne house in shambles. His daughter Clementine, who lovingly mothered the grapevines her whole life, learns she must share the vineyard with her estranged half sisters—Mathilde, her sworn enemy over a long ago romance, and Sophie, a total stranger. But when a disaster threatens their legacy, the sisters learn to put their differences aside. As In her debut novel, Blessed Are the Cheesemakers (2003), Lynch takes you behind-the-scenes again- this time in how to make the best 'bubbly'! (9/22/11)

Medusa Amulet, by Robert Masello. If you enjoy Dan Brown and Lincoln Child--and adventure laced with a bit of the supernatural--try this one. To save his sister dying of breast cancer, a young scholar faces danger when he sets out to find a lost mirror rumored to possess strange powers. The book is exciting, well-written, and full of Renaissance atmosphere, art and history. (9/22/11)

Moon Tide, by Dawn Clifton Tripp. This beautifully written first novel is set in Westport on the Massachusetts coast in the years leading up to the 1938 hurricane, which ultimately transforms the lives of Elizabeth, the  widow of an explorer killed during an Arctic expedition; her vulnerable granddaughter, Eve, who escapes into art after witnessing the death of her mother; and mysterious Maggie, who has the gift of clairvoyance and falls hard for a s rum smuggler. This is a great book for Cape readers since it is rich with nature, salt air, sea and storms-- but it's not a book to rush through. (9/22/11)

Abyss, by David Hagberg. One summer day in the Gulf Stream, on an island off Florida's east coast, scientist Dr. Eve Larsen is about to prove she has the answers to global warming and the solution to stopping killer storms across the planet. But her science intersects with terrorism, when killer Brian DeCamp walks into the Hutchinson Island Nuclear Power Station, planning a meltdown so catastrophic it'll make Chernobyl seem like nothing. Legendary former CIA director Kirk McGarvey intervenes, but terrifying events are set into motion as the greed of the oil industry spars with the security of the world.  (9/22/11)

Labyrinth, by Kate Mosse. Alice, a contemporary young woman helping on an archeological dig in Southern France, discovers a hidden cave, two skeletons, and a strange drawing. Then start the haunting, puzzling visions of a distant past that link her with Alais, a medieval noblewoman, who must take her father's place to fulfill an ancient and sacret vow. Both women, hundreds of years apart, end up in danger from those who want the treasures of the cave for their own ends. The novel shifts intruigingly between past and present, myth and reality, in a story about the now familiar Holy Grail, yes, but even more about what people might be willing to do if there was a chance for them to live forever. This is for both readers who enjoy time travel to the Middle Ages and those who like a story that takes time to unfold. (5/1/11)  

The Wrecker, by Clive Cussler. If you've only tried his Dirk Pitt novels, it's time to get to know detective Isaac Bell. It's 1907 and someone is wrecking trains--he'll stop at nothing to keep the Southern Pacific Company from putting in a new railway line between San Francisco and northern California. The trains are fire-breathing dragons, there's lots of action, and you'll know exactly who to root for since Bell's a fine hero. As one reviewer mentioned, this one is like the old-time movies where you wanted to shout to the good guy to turn around---the villain was right behind him! This series is a fun blend of Americana and adventure. (5/1/11)

Owl & Moon Cafe, by Jo-ann Mapson. A quirky, touching story about four generations of strong women living under the same roof. When Mariah loses her university teaching job, she's forced, along with her science-whiz daughter Lindsay, to move back in with her hippie mother and formidable grandmother, who run a family restaurant. It's just supposed to be temporary, but that's not the way it turns out. Watching them interact, and change, and love, and adapt will have you wishing the book were twice as long. But take heart---Mapson's new one, Solomon's Oak, about a too-young widow who takes in 'last chance' dogs, starts a wedding business, adopts a troubled but irresistible teen, and finds new happiness, is every bit as good. (5/1/2011) 

Pacific Glory, by Peter T. Deutermann. Written by a former destroyer captain, this novel is a riveting look at the Pacific conflict through the eyes of two Annapolis classmates and the woman, a Navy nurse, they both love. Beginning with Guadacanal and Midway and ending with Leyte Gulf, this is the perfect choice for someone interested in WWII but who hasn't--until now--liked fiction. Plenty of history, plenty of realism, but plenty of drama, too. The safest way to be in the middle of a naval battle. Another good WWII novel for the same audience is Leon Uris's Battle Cry.  (5/1/11)  

Witch Doctor's Wife, by Tamar Myers. A young missionary, Amanda Brown, comes to the Belgian Congo in the late 1950's to run a guesthouse. Or so she thinks. After the plane she arrives on crashes, she finds herself saddled with a cranky housekeeper named Protruding Navel and a decidedly colorful village population. The local witch doctor, named 'Their Death', finds his baby son sucking on a huge rock, but not just any rock. It's a diamond. Being caught with it--or trying to return it- would mean dire punishment. The white Colonialists think of African diamonds as all theirs. So now what? Everybody gets into the act--from Their Death's two wives,one of whom works for Amanda, to the local Postmaster. Though it has some darker corners than Alexander McCall's Botswana series, the witch doctor's wife of the title has some of the same wisdom and humor as McCall's No. 1 lady detective, the encounters between Europeans and Africans are often hilarious, and it's a great way to learn about another part of a vast continent most of us will never have a chance to visit. If you like it, Myers has just come out with a sequel called The Headhunter's Daughter. (5/1/11)

The Judas Gate, by Jack Higgins. Feisty, intrepid Sean Dillon is in Afghanistan, sent there after the ambush of a unit of American soldiers and British medicos. Some of the attackers were, bad enough, British-born Muslims but even worse, for Dillon, their leader may be a renegade Irishman. The situation breeds bizarre bedfellows as Sean is forced to consult with an assassin who once almost killed him. Lots of fast dialogue between two strong characters as the action moves all over the globe. (3/11/2011)

Wife of Moon, by Margaret Coel. The latest in her popular Wind River Series, this is a fascinating and fast-moving mystery both present and past. The museum on the reservation mounts an exhibit of photographs of early 20th century Plains Indians, then one of their 21st century descendents is killed and the curator disappears. Something terrible happened 100 years ago, and it hasn't been forgotten. Arapaho lawyer Vicky Holden and Father John O'Malley team up again to answer the questions in a story that has it all: an ingenious plot, murder, buried secrets, flashbacks, and the rich Arapaho culture. By the way, Tony Hillerman loved Coel's books. (3/11/2011) 

Winter in Madrid, by C.J. Sansom. A runaway bestseller in London, this takes places in post Civil-War Spain, where reluctant agent Harry Brett is sent to spy on an old friend turned shady businessman. It's both a familiar landscape to Harry, one where he'd once been on holiday, then years later tried to find out what happened to another friend who'd disappeared during the war, and an unfamiliar, troubling Spain, where the idealism of the war has degenerated into fascism and political chaos and hopelessness. It's exciting, with a stunning ending, and it will leave you wishing Spain had gone down a different path. (3/11/2011)  

Let's Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell. This is a warm, forthright memoir about a close friendship between two writers, both talented and independent and survivors, one of polio, the other of anorexia. They meet over their dogs, they trade swimming and rowing lessons, share their recovery from alcoholism, and become sisters of the heart. They are flawed, but this only makes them easier to identify with. This is a story about how friendship starts and grows, how it blesses and costs. (3/11/2011) 

Acts of Faith, by Philip Caputo. An adventure story that builds slowly into an explosion, this is about a group of several aid workers at the height of the Sudanese civil war. You'll meet an American 'mercenary with a conscience,' who spearheads a charter carrying relief supplies, a former soccer star, a Texas bush pilot, and a shady Somali financier. Pulitzer-prize winning reporter Caputo weaves together everything: idealism and corruption, romance and religion, trade in weapons and slaves, missionary and military in a multi-ethnic maelstrom. You'll like some of these characters and hate othes--but you'll remember all of them. (3/11/2011)  

Language of Sand, by Ellen Block. When Abigail loses both husband and son in a fire, she heads for a place her husband treasured and had planned to share with her, Chapel Isle, NC. As a lexicographer, she knows plenty of words, some of which begin the chapters, but none of them can help her heal. Anyone who has ever lived by the sea will feel at home in this island community...and anyone who has ever wondered how to live past terrible loss will be rooting for her as she makes her peace both with her memories and a presence that lingers in the old lighthouse she now cares for. But this isn't a ghost story--it's very much about finding a way back to life. (1/7/11)

Cobra, by Frederick Forsyth. The US President in this racing political thriller, disgusted as we all are by the human damage done by drug trafficking, decides to launch the full weight of the federal government against the international cocaine trade. Sounds like an idea long overdue, yes? But watching it unfold under the helm of an ex-CIA director once known for good reason as 'Cobra' reminds us that force costs as much as it buys.(1/7/2011)
 
The Turquoise Ledge, by Leslie Marmon Silko. A great memoir to escape winter in New England. Writer Silko, whose ancestry is part Cherokee, part Mexican, part Laguna Pueblo, and part European, takes us on a meandering journey both physical and mental, through the Sonoran desert and the mountains around Tucson, into her musings about racism, about war, about the devastation left behind by uranium mining and bomb testing, and back to her own back yard, where she respects nature enough to co-exist with everything from macaws to resident rattlesnakes. Reading this is like taking a long, unhurried walk with someone both restful and interesting. (1/7/2011)

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell. An interesting, complex historical romance set in 19th century Japan, about a Dutchman who is posted to a small island with a Dutch trading station plagued by corruption and falls in love with Orito, a local midwife. Their courtship is strained at best: he's a foreigner, so hated and not permitted on the mainland. An honorable man, he refuses to sign off on a bogus shipping manifest and, demoted, must now serve under a vengeful former clerk, then Orito's grandmother sells her into service at a mountaintop shrine where her skills are needed for mysterious rituals. Whether she can be rescued is only part of the rest of the story: it's also about whether two such different cultures can ever find common ground. (1/7/2011)

Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, by Michele Young-Stone. A fascinating story about Becca, who survives being hit by lightning when she is 8, and Buckley, who loses his mother to lightning when he is 13. Buckley becomes obsessed with learning about lightning and what he discovers will change forever your thoughts during thunderstorms, while Becca turns to art to escape her parents' broken marriage and to work through a sense of otherness she's had ever since she woke up after being struck. Reading this novel is to feel part of destiny as Becca's and Buckley's lives move toward each other. (1/7/2011)