Dirk Pitt’s first, most terrific adventure! Dirk Pitt, death-defying adventurer and deep-sea expert, is out to the ultimate test as he plunges into the perilous waters of the Pacific Vortex — a fog-shrouded sea zone where dozens of ships have vanished without a trace. The latest victim is the awesome superb Starbuck, America’s deep-diving nuclear arsenal. Its loss poses an unthinkable threat to national defense. Pitt’s job is to find it, salvage it, before the sea explodes. In a furious race against time, Pitt’s mission swirls him into a battle with underwater assassins-and traps him in the arms of Summer Moran, the most stunningly exotic and dangerous toward disaster, Clive Cussler plummets his hero onto an ancient sunken island-the astonishing setting for the explosive climax of Pacific Vortex!

This was the first Dirk Pitt story Clive Cussler wrote, though it wasn’t published until 8 years after the first book was published. Dirk is a little rough around the edges here, but he’s lacking a little of the machismo/misogyny that plagues him in the first few books in the series. This is a good thing.  In fact, Pitt uncharacteristically falls in love in this book, and you have to wonder if that puts his behavior in the next several stories in a different light.  Regardless of Pitt’s behavior with the ladies, this story gives you exactly what you expect from Clive Cussler — action, adventure, and a completely unbelievable plot, complete with pontificating bad guy. All things I love when Cussler is involved. Overall, this is a quick, fun read.

Page count: 288 | Approximate word count: 72,000

2009: Plum Spooky (Janet Evanovich)
2008: Gone (Lisa Gardner)
2007: The Dark Tower (Stephen King)
2006: Whiteout (Ken Follett)
2005: Twisted (Jonathan Kellerman)

Used in these Challenges: 2010 100+ Reading Challenge; Reading From My Shelves Project; Pages Read Challenge Season 2; TwentyTen Challenge; What’s in a Name? 3 Challenge;

I only reviewed 6 books this month, which makes my total seem low.  But it’s an artificial low! Let me explain.  First, here are the 6 I reviewed in January:

• 2010: #6 – Little Children (Tom Perrotta) 
• 2010: #5 – Bird by Bird (Anne Lamott) 
• 2010: #4 – Night Fire (Catherine Coulter) 
• 2010: #3 – Lamb (Christopher Moore) 
• 2010: #2 – Shogun (James Clavell) 
• 2010: #1 – The First Rule (Robert Crais) 

Technically, I read The First Rule in December, but wanted to wait to post my review when the book was released.  Then we have Shogun! This took me roughly 3 weeks to read, but it was totally worth it.  It’s been a long time since I’ve read a saga like that.  Since then, I’ve picked up the pace a little.  In fact, I have 4 books that I finished (the last of them this morning) that are in the queue to review.  So I think my January total is a little closer to 9 than 6. Not as high as I’d like it to be if I’m going to make 144 by the end of the year, but we have a long ways to go!

The end of the month also marks the end of my first month as a Kindle owner.  I’ve been pretty pleased with it so far.  I’ve been able to put all of the ebooks I already owned onto it (with the help of Calibre, a fantastic e-book management and conversion program), and my experience with purchasing has been flawless.  I also got a case for it that I’m really happy with… this one from M-Edge:

I *love* this case.  I got the synthetic leather, in red.  I can stand my Kindle up and read easily while I’m eating lunch, which is when I do most of my Kindle reading.  It’s also easy to hold on to if I’m not standing it up.  My birthday is tomorrow, and I’m planning to take some of my birthday money to buy the light that M-Edge sells that slides into the case and can be stored there.

Now for the Kindle itself.  The things I really like about it are how easy it is to read, how easy it is to load files onto it, and how light it is.  But, like most devices, there are some things that could be done better:

• The wireless settings.  I keep my wireless turned off most of the time, because the wireless networks I am in most often are protected networks, and it seems that the Kindle keeps trying to connect to them and in the process, drains the battery.  There’s no way to even put in a password.
• Folder management would be nice, but I’m pretty sure I can live without it.  Something I would like to be able to do is jump to a certain page in my table of contents.  The search feature does help if I’m looking for a particular book in my list.
• Sometimes, it freezes.  I’ll be reading a book and it won’t advance to the next page.  Most of the time I can unfreeze it by putting it into sleep mode and then turning it on again, but sometimes I have to reset it.  I don’t know if this is due to the sheer number of items on it (several hundred), but I’m nowhere close to filling it up so I hope that’s not it.

Overall, I’ve been super happy with it.  I *thought* I was happy just reading on my iPhone (and I still read on it when the opportunity is right), but the Kindle has shown me that reading on my iPhone was straining my eyes more than I thought.  With the case on it, I’m not afraid to take it anywhere.  I even take it with me when I play league pool twice a week.

The real challenge? Making sure I don’t neglect all of my paper books!

TOM PERROTTA’s thirtyish parents of young children are a varied and surprising bunch.  There’s Todd, the handsome stay-at-home dad, dubbed “The Prom King” by the moms at the playground, and his wife, Kathy, a documentary filmmaker envious of the connection Todd has forged with their toddler son.  And there’s Sarah, a lapsed feminist surprised to find she’s become a typical wife in a traditional marriage, and her husband, Richard, who is becoming more and more involved with an internet fantasy life than with his own wife and child.

This is one of those books where not a whole lot *happens*.  You just sort of meander through the summer with Todd and Sarah as their relationship grows and other facets of their lives fall to the wayside. In the backdrop you have the saga of Ronald McGorvey and Larry Moon, a pedophile and the ex-cop who wants to drive him out of town. Mostly this book is about Todd and Sarah and their quest to figure out what they really want in life.  The ending wasn’t really what I expected, and it’s a little surprising which of the two actually figures it out first.  The title of this book is interesting, since the people who act most childlike are the adults — it seems that everyone is primarily concerned with instant gratification, not long-term consequences. I read this for my book group, and it was a much quicker read than I expected.  I enjoyed it, and I’m curious to see how the other people in my book club approach it.  Between the adultery, sexual fetishes, and somewhat misplaced feminism, I’m expecting it to be a lively discussion.

Other reviews:

Lotus Reads: "Little Children" by Tom Perrotta
[62] Little Children – Tom Perrotta « A Guy’s Moleskine Notebook

Page count: 355 | Word count: 97,342

2009: Summer (Edith Wharton)
2008: Dead Witch Walking (Kim Harrison)
2007: Between Friends (Debbie Macomber)
2006: The Rule of Four (Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason)
2005: D is for Deadbeat (Sue Grafton)

Used in these Challenges: Countdown Challenge 2010; 2010 100+ Reading Challenge; Reading From My Shelves Project; Pages Read Challenge Season 2; TwentyTen Challenge;

Some of these books don’t have full synopses out and about yet, so I’m posting the covers for those at the end.

April (cont.)

A River in the Sky by Elizabeth Peters

Archaeologist-sleuth Amelia Peabody leaves her beloved Egypt and travels to Palestine for the 19th installment of the series.

Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott

Rosie Ferguson is seventeen and ready to enjoy the summer before her senior year of high school. She’s intelligent-she aced AP physics; athletic-a former state-ranked tennis doubles champion; and beautiful. She is, in short, everything her mother, Elizabeth, hoped she could be. The family’s move to Landsdale, with stepfather James in tow, hadn’t been as bumpy as Elizabeth feared.

But as the school year draws to a close, there are disturbing signs that the life Rosie claims to be leading is a sham, and that Elizabeth’s hopes for her daughter to remain immune from the pull of the darker impulses of drugs and alcohol are dashed. Slowly and against their will, Elizabeth and James are forced to confront the fact that Rosie has been lying to them-and that her deceptions will have profound consequences.

This is Anne Lamott’s most honest and heartrending novel yet, exploring our human quest for connection and salvation as it reveals the traps that can befall all of us.

In the Shadow of the Cypress by Thomas Steinbeck

John Steinbeck’s son weaves a tale of Chinese immigrants in California at the turn of the 20th century.

Men and Dogs by Katie Crouch

When Hannah Legare was 11, her father went on a fishing trip in the Charleston harbor and never came back. And while most of the town and her family accepted Buzz’s disappearance, Hannah remained steadfastly convinced of his imminent return.

Twenty years later Hannah’s new life in San Francisco is unraveling. Her marriage is on the rocks, her business is bankrupt. After a disastrous attempt to win back her husband, she ends up back at her mother’s home to "rest up", where she is once again sucked into the mystery of her missing father. Suspecting that those closest are keeping secrets–including Palmer, her emotionally closed, well-mannered brother and Warren, the beautiful boyfriend she left behind–Hannah sets out on an uproarious, dangerous quest that will test the whole family’s concepts of loyalty and faith.

Deliver Us From Evil by David Baldacci

(no cover available)

In South America a wealthy ninety-six year old man reads a book late into the night. Within an hour, he is dead, the secrets of his past starkly revealed. Six months later, in Provence, Shaw – the shadowy operative from The Whole Truth – witnesses the murder of a mysterious man, his body left lifeless at the bottom of a pool. Shaw barely escapes the incident himself; and with a new partner in tow, begins to realise that there has to be another organization at work that rivals his own in secrecy …Meanwhile, half a world away, journalist Katie James is working on a story of international importance. But shortly after meeting with a potential inside source she is smuggled unconscious onto an aeroplane, headed to an undisclosed destination. In the days to come, Katie and Shaw will be reunited in a deadly dual of nerve and wits against a surprising, secretive enemy and lead around the world at a breakneck pace. Filled with the breathtaking plot turns and remarkable characters that only David Baldacci can deliver, this is the most explosive thriller of the year.

So what books are you excited about this spring?

"Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’"

Ask anyone who writes what books they would recommend, and this one is sure to be on the list. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I enjoyed On Writing.  I did think there was some good advice — taking things "bird by bird" and looking at the world through a 1-inch picture frame come to mind — and I appreciated her description of what it’s like to be published, but the rest of it just didn’t speak to me like I expected it to. I still would recommend it to those who want to write, and I’ll keep it on my bookshelf, but I don’t think it is a book I will refer back to over and over again.

Other reviews:

Book Review: *Bird by Bird* by Anne Lamott | She Is Too Fond Of Books

Page count: 239 | Word count: 59,933

2009: Five on a Treasure Island (Enid Blyton)
2008: I Heard That Song Before (Mary Higgins Clark)
2007: Up Island (Anne Rivers Siddons)
2006: The Big Love (Sarah Dunn)
2005: The Reptile Room (Lemony Snicket)

Used in these Challenges: 2010 100+ Reading Challenge; Reading From My Shelves Project; Pages Read Challenge Season 2;

Dear Reader:

Night Fire, the first of the Night Trilogy, was first published in early 1989. I haven’t rewritten it, just cleaned it up a bit and Avon books has given it a wonderful new cover.

Arielle Leslie is a sixteen-year-old girl forced to wed Paisley Cochrane, a sadistic old man who abuses her. When he dies, she believes herself free. But she’s not.

Burke Drummond, Earl of Ravensworth — a young man she’d worshipped three years before — is home from the wars, and he wants her. When he catches her, he’s in for an appalling surprise.

I hope Burke and Arielle are two people who will touch you as deeply as they touched me. They face problems and obstacles never spoken of in Regency times.

If you haven’t yet read Night Fire, do give it a try.

– Catherine Coulter

I have mixed feelings about this.  Arielle is horribly abused by her first husband, but frankly, Burke wasn’t much better for much of the book.  He decided that he wanted to have Arielle as his wife, and who cares what she thinks about it.  Surely, if she’s forced to spend all her time with him, she’ll come around eventually!  Burke may have never physically hurt her, but the beginning of their relationship was no less abusive.  That being said, I did like Arielle and Burke and I liked them together, in the end.  There’s some interesting conflict here, and a recurring theme of how husbands and wives relate to each other.  Her groom, Geordie, was also an interesting character — I wish he’d been used more in the story. I’ll read the rest of this trilogy, but I hope the subject matter isn’t so difficult in the others.

Page count: 400 | Word count: 99,867

2009: Kopek the Destroyer (Phil Owens)
2008: The Ice Queen (Alice Hoffman)
2007: Agnes of God (Leonore Fleisher)
2006: Postmortem (Patricia Cornwell)
2005: The Bad Beginning (Lemony Snicket)

Used in these Challenges: 2010 100+ Reading Challenge; Reading From My Shelves Project; 1st in a Series Challenge; Pages Read Challenge Season 2; Year of the Historical;

The birth of Jesus has been well chronicled, as have his glorious teachings, acts, and divine sacrifice after his thirtieth birthday. But no one knows about the early life of the Son of God, the missing years — except Biff, the Messiah’s best bud, who has been resurrected to tell the story in the divinely hilarious yet heartfelt work "reminiscent of Vonnegut and Douglas Adams" (Philadelphia Inquirer).

Verily, the story Biff has to tell is a miraculous one, filled with remarkable journeys, magic, healings, kung fu, corpse reanimations, demons, and hot babes. Even the considerable wiles and devotion of the Savior’s pal may not be enough to divert Joshua from his tragic destiny. But there’s no one who loves Josh more — except maybe "Maggie," Mary of Magdala — and Biff isn’t about to let his extraordinary pal suffer and ascend without a fight.

I thought this was pretty good, and not nearly as sacrilegious as I thought it might be. When we meet Joshua (Jesus) at a young age he is already quite aware of who he is and who his father is, amusing his younger brother by bringing dead lizards back to life (his ability to reanimate is a recurring theme). Biff is quite likeable, if misguided at times, and is thoroughly devoted to Josh — something that is readily apparent by the end of the story.  There’s no big surprise about how it ends, but the middle is wholly original. Josh and Biff’s journey to find the three wise men who witnessed his birth has a touch of The Christmas Carol in it, as Josh learns something new about himself with each adventure. This is definitely one of Moore’s stronger novels.

Other reviews:

an adventure in reading: BOOK: Lamb by Christopher Moore
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal
Look At That Book: Review: Lamb – Christopher Moore
A Hoyden’s Look at Literature: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff

Page count: 444 | Word count: 148,137

2009: Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade (Diana Gabaldon)
2008: Lord John and the Private Matter (Diana Gabaldon)
2007: No Second Chance (Harlan Coben)
2006: Lost Innocents (Patricia MacDonald)
2005: 3rd Degree (James Patterson)

Used in these Challenges: Countdown Challenge 2010; 2010 100+ Reading Challenge; Reading From My Shelves Project; Pages Read Challenge Season 2; TwentyTen Challenge;

March

So Much For That by Lionel Shriver

Shep Knacker has long saved for “The Afterlife”: an idyllic retirement on a tropical island in the Third World where his nest egg can last forever. Traffic jams on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway will be replaced with “talking, thinking, seeing, and being”—and enough sleep. When he sold his home repair business for a cool $1 million, his dream finally seemed within reach. Yet Glynis, his wife of twenty-six years, has concocted endless excuses why it’s never the right time to go. Sick of working as a peon for the company he founded, Shep announces that he’s leaving for what they’ve always tagged “The Afterlife,” with or without her.

Just returned from a doctor’s appointment, Glynis has some news of her own: Shep can’t go anywhere because she desperately needs his health insurance. It rapidly becomes clear that this “health insurance company from hell” only partially covers the staggering bills for her treatments, and Shep’s nest egg for The Afterlife soon cracks under the strain.

So Much for That follows the profound transformation of a marriage, for which grave illness proves an unexpected opportunity for tenderness, renewed intimacy, and dry humor, while also pressing the question: How much is one life worth?

A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks

London: the week before Christmas, 2007. Over seven days we follow the lives of seven major characters: a hedge fund manager trying to bring off the biggest trade of his career; a professional footballer recently arrived from Poland; a young lawyer with little work and too much time to speculate; a student who has been led astray by Islamist theory; a hack book reviewer; a schoolboy hooked on reality TV and genetically altered pot; and a Tube train driver whose Circle Line train joins these and countless other lives together in a daily loop.

With daring skill and savage humor, A Week in December explores the complex patterns and crossings of modern urban life; as the novel moves to its gripping climax, its characters are forced, one by one, to confront the true nature of the world they—and we all—inhabit.

The Devil’s Star by Jo Nesbo

A young woman is murdered in her Oslo flat. One finger has been severed from her left hand, and behind her eyelid is secreted a tiny red diamond in the shape of a five-pointed star — a pentagram, the devil’s star.

Detective Harry Hole is assigned to the case with his long-time adversary Tom Waaler and initially wants no part in it. But Harry is already on notice to quit the force and is left with little alternative but to drag himself out of his alcoholic stupor and get to work.

A wave of similar murders is on the horizon. An emerging pattern suggests that Oslo has a serial killer on its hands, and the five-pointed devil’s star is key to solving the riddle.

The Sheen on the Silk by Anne Perry

New York Times bestselling novelist Anne Perry, the undisputed Queen of Victorian mysteries and the author of an acclaimed series set during World War I, now broadens her canvas with her first major stand-alone book—an epic historical novel set in thirteenth-century Constantinople, where a woman must live a lie in her quest to uncover the truth.

Arriving in the ancient Byzantine city in the year 1273, Anna Zarides has only one mission: to prove the innocence of her twin brother, Justinian, who has been exiled to the desert for conspiring to kill Bessarion, a nobleman.

Disguising herself as a eunuch named Anastasius, Anna moves freely about in society, using her skills as a physician to manoeuver close to the key players involved in her brother’s fate. With her medical practice thriving, Anna crosses paths with Zoe Chrysaphes, a devious noblewoman with her own hidden agenda, and Giuiliano Dandolo, a ship’s captain conflicted not only by his mixed Venetian-Byzantine heritage but by his growing feelings for Anastasius.

Trying to clear her brother’s name, Anna learns more about Justinian’s life and reputation—including his peculiar ties to Bessarion’s beautiful widow and his possible role in a plot to overthrow the emperor. This leaves Anna with more questions than answer, and time is running out. For an even greater threat lies on the horizon: Another Crusade to capture the Holy Land is brewing, and leaders in Rome and Venice have set their sights on Constantinople for what is sure to be a brutal invasion. Anna’s discoveries draw her inextricably closer to the dangers of the emperor’streacherous court—where it seems that no one is exactly who he or she appears to be.

Caught by Harlan Coben

Wendy is a reporter on a mission: She’s chasing down the lowest of the low-sexual predators-and exposing them on national television. Her big break comes when she nails a child advocate who works with abused and underserved children. She’s there, cameras rolling, when the cops cuff him and the guy realizes his life is well and truly over.

Three months later, the perp is off the grid, missing and presumed dead after the father of a victim claims to have killed him. Wendy, proud to have taken the man down in front of a shocked television audience, has moved on to the story of a missing girl, Erin, in a nearby suburb. The whole country is obsessed with finding this child, and Wendy should be well on her way to journalistic superstardom.

Then is all comes unhinged: Wendy gets a phone call that changes everything. A group of local fathers, out of work and not above vigilante justice, begins to take matters into their own hands on Erin’s behalf. Secrets long-buried rise to the surface and Wendy begins to wonder if her assumptions that fateful night three months ago were based on solid investigative journalism-or if she has unwittingly been part of a grand manipulation aiming to destroy and innocent man.

April

The Mapping of Love & Death by Jacqueline Winspear

Maisie Dobbs is retained by an American couple to find a nurse whose love letters were discovered among their dead son’s belongings.

to be continued…

A bold English adventurer. An invincible Japanese warlord. A beautiful woman torn between two ways of life, two ways of love. All brought together in a mighty saga of a time and place aflame with conflict, passion, ambition, lust and the struggle for power.

If you’ve never read this, I highly recommend it.  It’s definitely a major time-investment (it took me over 3 weeks to read), but well worth it.  Clavell has created an intricate portrait of early 17th century Japan, from the perspective of both insiders and outsiders. And you learn almost immediately that the man could certainly write an action scene.  I know very little about ships, but I could picture this perfectly:

He exerted all his strength as the rudder bit into the torrent.  The whole ship shuddered.  Then the prow began to swing with increasing velocity as the wind bore down and soon they were broadside to the sea and the wind. The storm tops’ls bellied and gamely tried to carry the weight of the ship and all the ropes took the strain, howling.  The following sea towered above them and they were making way, parallel to the reef, when he saw the great wave.  He shouted a warning at the men who were coming from the fo’c’sle, and hung on for his life.

For me, the real meat of the story isn’t all of the Japanese political intrigue (you almost need a flowchart to keep track of who is backstabbing who), or even the (somewhat predictable) love story between Blackthorne and Mariko, but Blackthorne’s transformation.  In the beginning, he is an Englishman, through and through, but by the end of the story even his personal thoughts are more Japanese than English. Believe it or not, I actually wish the story had gone on a bit longer… I wanted to know Blackthorne’s story to its conclusion.  Will he ever be completely happy in his new home?  Will he find love?  Does he survive Toranaga’s war?  So many questions!

Page count: 1210 | Word count: 428,978

2009: Skin Tight (Carl Hiaasen)
2008: The Indictment (Barry Reed)
2007: True Colors (Doris Mortman)
2006: Cyclops (Clive Cussler)
2005: Naked in Death (J.D. Robb)

Used in these Challenges: Random Reading Challenge; 2010 100+ Reading Challenge; Reading From My Shelves Project; 1st in a Series Challenge; Historical Fiction Reading Challenge; New Author Challenge 2010; Pages Read Challenge Season 2; TwentyTen Challenge; What’s in a Name 3 Challenge; Year of the Historical;

So anyway, I look forward every quarter to seeing USA Today’s Book Calendar. I like how you can easily browse through books being released in the next four months, and a quick little summary of each. It used to look a little snazzier, but we can’t have everything I spent a chunk of time yesterday clicking through, and found a lot of books to add to my wishlist.  There’s *so* many, I’m going to spread it out over three Fridays.

January

Not My Daughter by Barbara Delinsky

A pregnancy pact between three teenaged girls puts their mothers’ love to the ultimate test in this explosive new novel from Barbara Delinsky, “a first-rate storyteller who creates characters as familiar as your neighbors.” (Boston Globe)

When Susan Tate’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Lily, announces she is pregnant, Susan is stunned. A single mother, she has struggled to do everything right. She sees the pregnancy as an unimaginable tragedy for both Lily and herself.

Then comes word of two more pregnancies among high school juniors who happen to be Lily’s best friends-and the town turns to talk of a pact. As fingers start pointing, the most ardent criticism is directed at Susan. As principal of the high school, she has always been held up as a role model of hard work and core values. Now her detractors accuse her of being a lax mother, perhaps not worthy of the job of shepherding impressionable students. As Susan struggles with the implications of her daughter’s pregnancy, her job, financial independence, and long-fought-for dreams are all at risk.

The emotional ties between mothers and daughters are stretched to breaking in this emotionally wrenching story of love and forgiveness. Once again, Barbara Delinsky has given us a powerful novel, one that asks a central question: What does it take to be a good mother?

February

Secrets of Eden by Chris Bohjalian 

From the bestselling author of The Double Bind, Midwives, and Skeletons at the Feast comes a novel of shattered faith, intimate secrets, and the delicate nature of sacrifice.

"There," says Alice Hayward to Reverend Stephen Drew, just after her baptism, and just before going home to the husband who will kill her that evening and then shoot himself. Drew, tortured by the cryptic finality of that short utterance, feels his faith in God slipping away and is saved from despair only by a meeting with Heather Laurent, the author of wildly successful, inspirational books about . . . angels.

Heather survived a childhood that culminated in her own parents’ murder-suicide, so she identifies deeply with Alice’s daughter, Katie, offering herself as a mentor to the girl and a shoulder for Stephen – who flees the pulpit to be with Heather and see if there is anything to be salvaged from the spiritual wreckage around him. But then the State’s Attorney begins to suspect that Alice’s husband may not have killed himself. . .and finds out that Alice had secrets only her minister knew.

One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Late afternoon sun sneaks through the windows of a passport and visa office in an unnamed American city. Most customers and even most office workers have come and gone, but nine people remain. A punky teenager with an unexpected gift. An upper-class Caucasian couple whose relationship is disintegrating. A young Muslim-American man struggling with the fallout of 9/11. A graduate student haunted by a question about love. An African-American ex-soldier searching for redemption. A Chinese grandmother with a secret past. And two visa office workers on the verge of an adulterous affair.

When an earthquake rips through the afternoon lull, trapping these nine characters together, their focus first jolts to their collective struggle to survive. There’s little food. The office begins to flood. Then, at a moment when the psychological and emotional stress seems nearly too much for them to bear, the young graduate student suggests that each tell a personal tale, "one amazing thing" from their lives, which they have never told anyone before. And as their surprising stories of romance, marriage, family, political upheaval, and self- discovery unfold against the urgency of their life-or-death circumstances, the novel proves the transcendent power of stories and the meaningfulness of human expression itself. From Chitra Divakaruni, author of such finely wrought, bestselling novels as Sister of My Heart, The Palace of Illusions, and The Mistress of Spices, comes her most compelling and transporting story to date. One Amazing Thing is a passionate creation about survival-and about the reasons to survive.

Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah

From the author of the smash-hit bestseller Firefly Lane and True Colors comes a powerful, heartbreaking novel that illuminates the intricate mother-daughter bond and explores the enduring links between the present and the past.

Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard: the other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But when their beloved father fails ill, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters. As children, the only connection between them was the Russian fairy tale Anya sometimes told the girls at night. On his deathbed, their father extracts a promise from the women in his life: the fairy tale will be told one last time – and all the way to the end. Thus begins an unexpected journey into the truth of Anya’s life in war-torn Leningrad, more than five decades ago. Alternating between the past and present, Meredith and Nina will finally hear the singular, harrowing story of their mother’s life, and what they learn is a secret so terrible and terrifying that it will shake the very foundation of their family and change who they believe they are.

House Rules by Jodi Picoult

Jacob Hunt is a teenage boy with Asperger’s syndrome. He’s hopeless at reading social cues or expressing himself well to others, and like many kids with AS, Jacob has a special focus on one subject — in his case, forensic analysis. He’s always showing up at crime scenes, thanks to the police scanner he keeps in his room, and telling the cops what they need to do…and he’s usually right. But then his town is rocked by a terrible murder and, for a change, the police come to Jacob with questions. All of the hallmark behaviors of Asperger’s — not looking someone in the eye, stimulatory tics and twitches, flat affect — can look a lot like guilt to law enforcement personnel. Suddenly, Jacob and his family, who only want to fit in, feel the spotlight shining directly on them. For his mother, Emma, it’s a brutal reminder of the intolerance and misunderstanding that always threaten her family. For his brother, Theo, it’s another indication of why nothing is normal because of Jacob. And over this small family the soul-searing question looms: Did Jacob commit murder?

Emotionally powerful from beginning to end, House Rules looks at what it means to be different in our society, how autism affects a family, and how our legal system works well for people who communicate a certain way — and fails those who don’t.

The Heights by Peter Hedges

Tim Welch is a popular history teacher at the Montague Academy, an exclusive private school in Brooklyn Heights. As he says, "I was an odd-looking, gawky kid but I like to think my rocky start forced me to develop empathy, kindness, and a tendency to be enthusiastic. All of this, I’m now convinced, helped in my quest to be worthy of Kate Oliver." Now, Kate is not inherently ordinary. But she aspires to be. She stays home with their two young sons in a modest apartment trying desperately to become the parent she never had. They are seemingly the last middle-class family in the Heights, whose world is turned upside down by Anna Brody, the new neighbor who moves into the most expensive brownstone in Brooklyn, sending the local society into a tailspin.

Anna is not only beautiful and wealthy; she’s also mysterious. And for reasons Kate doesn’t quite understand, even as all the Range Rover- driving moms jockey for invitations into Anna’s circle, Anna sets her sights on Kate and Tim and brings them into her world.

Like Tom Perrotta, Peter Hedges has a keen eye for the surprising truths of daily life. The Heights is at once light of touch and packed with emotion and depth of character.

To be continued…