The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Authur Cohan Doyle. Penguin

 

More unforgettable Sherlock Holmes mysteries for fans of the hit movies.

 

 

 

Sherlock Holmes, the world's best-known and most-loved fictional detective, is more popular today than ever. This collection presents many of the most familiar cases Holmes and his assistant, Dr. Watson, ever solve, including 'Silver Blaze,' 'The Greek Interpreter,' and 'The Musgrave Ritual.' As Holmes's fame grows, it brings him notoriety that piques the ire of London's criminal underworld, who begin to scheme against him. It is in 'The Final Problem' that Dr. Watson relates the grisly, fatal, and shocking tale of how Holmes finally meets his match, encountering the diabolical Professor Moriarty in a terrible struggle at Reichenbach Falls.  

 

 

 

   

Heroes of Olympus Book 2: The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan. Hyperion

 

 

 

In The Lost Hero the world must fall. An oath to keep with a final breath, And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death.

Who are the other four mentioned in the prophesy? The answer may lie in another camp miles away, where a new camper has shown up and appears to be the son of Neptune, god of the sea.  

 

 

With an ever-expanding cast of brave-hearted heroes and formidable foes, this second book in The Heroes of Olympus series offers all of the action, pathos, and humor that Rick Riordan fans crave.

 

  

 

 

 

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan. Algonquin

 

From the author whose international bestseller, Mudbound, so hauntingly re-created America's past comes a stunning creation of America in the near future, where faith, love, and sexuality have fallen prey to politics.

Hannah Payne's life has been devoted to church and family, but after her arrest, she awakens to a nightmare: she is lying on a table in a bare room, covered only by a paper gown, and cameras are broadcasting her every move to millions at home, for home observing new Chromes-criminals whose skin color has been genetically altered to match the class of their crime-is a new and sinister form of entertainment. Hannah is a Red; her crime is murder. The victim, says the state of Texas, was her unborn child, and Hannah is determined to protect the identity of the father-a public figure with whom she's shared a fierce and forbidden love.

 

When She Woke is a stunning story about a stigmatized woman struggling to navigate an America of a not-too-distant future, where the line between church and state has been eradicated and convicted felons are released back into the population after being "chromed." In seeking a path to safety in an alien and hostile world, Hannah unknowingly embarks on a path of self-discovery that forces her to question the values she has held true and the righteousness of a country that politicizes the personal.

 

 

 

 

The Dovekeepers  by Alice Hoffman. Scribner

 

 Over five years in the writing, Alice Hoffman's most ambitious and mesmerizing novel ever, a triumph of imagination and research set in ancient Israel.

 

 

In 70 CE, nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on a mountain in the Judean desert, Masada. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic historical event, Hoffman weaves a spellbinding tale of four extraordinary, bold, resourceful, and sensuous women, each of whom has come to Masada by a different path. Yael's mother died in childbirth, and her father never forgave her for that death. Revka, a village baker's wife, watched the horrifically brutal murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers; she brings to Masada her twin grandsons, rendered mute by their own witness. Aziza is a warrior's daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless rider and expert marksman, who finds passion with another soldier. Shirah is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with uncanny insight and power. The lives of these four complex and fiercely independent women intersect in the desperate days of the siege, as the Romans draw near. All are dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets-about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love.

 

  

 

Nightwoods by Charles Frasier. Random House

 

(He's back!!  I loved this.  Great story-telling. EAF)

 

 

 The extraordinary author of Cold Mountain and Thirteen Moons returns with a dazzling new novel of suspense and love set in small-town North Carolina in the early 1960s.
 

 Charles Frazier puts his remarkable gifts in the service of a lean, taut narrative while losing none of the transcendent prose, virtuosic storytelling, and insight into human nature that have made him one of the most beloved and celebrated authors in the world. Now, with his brilliant portrait of Luce, a young woman who inherits her murdered sister's troubled twins, Frazier has created his most memorable heroine.  

Before the children, Luce was content with the reimbursements of the rich Appalachian landscape, choosing to live apart from the small community around her. But the coming of the children changes everything, cracking open her solitary life in difficult, hopeful, dangerous ways. 

The Best of Me by Nicholas Sparks. Hachette

 

 

The Best of Me is the heart-rending story of two small-town former high school sweethearts from opposite sides of the tracks. Now middle-aged, they've taken wildly divergent paths, but neither has lived the life they imagined . . . and neither can forget the passionate first love that forever altered their world. When they are both called back to their hometown for the funeral of the mentor who once gave them shelter, they will be forced to confront the choices each has made, and ask whether love can truly rewrite the past.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Christmas Wedding by James Patterson. Hachette

 

The tree is decorated, the cookies are baked, and the packages are wrapped, but the biggest celebration this Christmas is Gaby Summerhill's wedding. Since her husband died three years ago, Gaby's four children have drifted apart, each consumed by the turbulence of their own lives. They haven't celebrated Christmas together since their father's death, but when Gaby announces that she's getting married--and that the groom will remain a secret until the wedding day--she may finally be able to bring them home for the holidays.

 

 

 

 

 

Coming October 25

 

 

The Litigators by John Grisham. Random House

   

The partners at Finley & Figg-all two of them-often refer to themselves as "a boutique law firm." Boutique, as in chic, selective, and prosperous. They are, of course, none of these things. What they are is a two-bit operation always in search of their big break, ambulance chasers who've been in the trenches much too long making way too little. Their specialties, so to speak, are quickie divorces and DUIs, with the occasional jackpot of an actual car wreck thrown in. After twenty plus years together, Oscar Finley and Wally Figg bicker like an old married couple but somehow continue to scratch out a half-decent living from their seedy bungalow offices in southwest Chicago.

 

And then change comes their way. It almost seems too good to be true.   And it is.

 

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Looking for some early Christmas presents to tuck away for that special someone? Here are three suggestions. 

 

 

A Mind of Winter: Poems for a Snowy Season by Robert Atwan. Random House

 

 

Winter has been a powerful muse for many of America's best loved poets. The elegant patterns of frost on a windowpane, a child on a sled, a lone fox foraging for food on a desolate landscape, the comic smile of a snowman, the sobering sight of an unkempt man huddled against the cold, or a pair of red slippers glimpsed in a shop window in a gray, windy sleet have all provided inspiration for poems.  

 

A Mind of Winter collects thirty-two poems on the experience of winter. Illustrated throughout with elegant period woodcuts by Thomas Nason. 

 

A Christmas Blizzard by Garrison Keillor. Penguin

 

Snow is falling all across the Midwest as James Sparrow, a country- bumpkin-turned-energy-drink-tycoon, and his wife awaken in their sky- rise apartment overlooking Chicago. Even down with the stomach bug, Mrs. Sparrow yearns to see The Nutcracker while James yearns only to escape-the faux-cheer, the bitter cold, the whole Christmas season. An urgent phone call from his hometown of Looseleaf, North Dakota, sends James into the midst of his lunatic relatives and a historic blizzard. As he hunkers weather the storm, the electricity goes out and James is visited by a parade of figures who deliver him an epiphany worthy of the season, just in time to receive Mrs. Sparrow's wonderful Christmas gift. Garrison Keillor's holiday farce is the perfect gift for the millions of fans who tune into A Prairie Home Companion every week.

 

 

 

 The Onion Presents: Christmas Exposed. Random House

 

 

 Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without impulse-priced holiday gift books-and now The Onion has unleashed its award-winning team of investigative journalists upon the genre. Christmas Exposed features more than one hundred shocking tales of Secret Santas, shopping mall mayhem, dysfunctional family dinners, and much, much more.

 

Perfect for that too-smart-for-their-own-good, joke cracking, world-weary cynic or your favorite nephew, cousin (You know, the ones your not sure what to get them but whatever it is they probably won't like it.)