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Previous Staff Picks
Staff Picks for
July/August 2008
Lelia's Staff Picks
The Host by Stephenie Meyer
"Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. The earth has been invaded by a species that take over the minds of their human hosts while leaving their bodies intact, and most of humanity has succumbed.
Wanderer, the invading "soul" who has been given Melanie's body, knew about the challenges of living inside a human: the overwhelming emotions, the too vivid memories. But there was one difficulty Wanderer didn't expect: the former tenant of her body refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.
Melanie fills Wanderer's thoughts with visions of the man Melanie loves-Jared, a human who still lives in hiding. Unable to separate herself from her body's desires, Wanderer yearns for a man she's never met. As outside forces make Wanderer and Melanie unwilling allies, they set off to search for the man they both love."
$25.99 prior to new hardcover discount
Blood Memory by Greg Iles
"Forensic expert 'Cat' Ferry is suspended from an FBI task force when the world-class odontologist is inexplicably stricken with panic attacks and blackouts while investigating a chain of brutal murders. Returning to her Mississippi hometown, Cat finds herself battling with alcohol, plagued by nightmares, and entangled with a married detective. Then, in her childhood bedroom, some spilled chemicals reveal two bloody footprints...and the trauma of her father's murder years earlier comes flooding back. Facing the secrets of her past, Cat races to connect them to a killer's present-day violence. But what emerges is the frightening possibility that Cat herself has blood on her hands...."
$9.99
Artifacts by Mary Anna Evans
"Faye Longchamp has lost nearly everything except for her quick mind and a grim determination to hang onto her ancestral home, Joyeuse, a moldering plantation hidden along the Florida coast. No one knows how Faye's great-great-grandmother Cally, a newly freed slave barely out of her teens, came to own Joyeuse in the aftermath of the Civil War. No one knows how her descendants hung onto it through Reconstruction, world wars, the Depression, and Jim Crow, but Faye has inherited the island plantation--and the family tenacity. When the property taxes rise beyond her means, she sets out to save Joyeuse by digging for artifacts on her property and the surrounding National Wildlife Refuge and selling them on the black market. A tiny bit of that dead glory would pay a year's taxes. A big valuable chunk of the past would save her home forever.
But instead of potsherds and arrowheads, she uncovers a woman's shattered skull, a Jackie Kennedy-style earring nestled against its bony cheek. Faye is torn. If she reports the forty-year-old murder, she'll reveal her illegal livelihood, thus risking jail and the lose of Joyeuse. She doesn't intend to let that happen, so she probes into the dead woman's history, unaware that the past is rushing up on her like a hurricane across deceptively calm Gulf waters..."
$14.95
Something from the Nightside by Simon R. Green
"John Taylor is not a private detective "per se," but he has a knack for finding lost things. That's why he's been hired to descend into the Nightside, an otherworldly realm in the center of London where fantasy and reality share renting space and the sun never shines.
For John Taylor, there's no place like home..."
$6.99
The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett
"Armed only with a frying pan and her common sense, Tiffany Aching, a young witch-to-be, is all that stands between the monsters of Fairyland and the warm, green Chalk country that is her home. Forced into Fairyland to seek her kidnaped brother, Tiffany allies herself with the Chalk's local Nac Mac Feegle -- aka the Wee Free Men -- a clan of sheep-stealing, sword-wielding, six-inch-high blue men who are as fierce as they are funny. Together they battle through an eerie and ever-shifting landscape, fighting brutal flying fairies, dream-spinning dromes, and grimhounds -- black dogs with eyes of fire and teeth of razors -- before ultimately confronting the Queen of the Elves, absolute ruler of a world in which reality intertwines with nightmare. And in the final showdown, Tiffany must face her cruel power alone....
In a riveting narrative that is equal parts suspense and humor, Carnegie Medalist Terry Pratchett returns to his internationally popular Discworld with a breathtaking tale certain to leave fans, new and old, enthralled."
$6.99
Sam's Staff Picks
Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
"The independent princess has been well established in modern children's books, but there can't be a dandier example than Princess Cimorene. Rangy, curious, energetic, matter-of-fact, she rolls up her sleeves and gets the job done with a happy disregard for the traditions of her role. Although her parents want her to stifle her improper interests in fencing, Latin, and cooking, the princess is not about to be forced into marriage with the vapid prince they have chosen. She throws herself wholeheartedly into a career as a dragon's princess, a respectable role, although not one for which one usually volunteers. As she fends off nosy wizards, helps out hysterical princesses, and turns away determined rescuers, Cimorene makes a firm place for herself in the dragon world. The story is full of excitement, sly references to the staples of fantasy and fairy tales, and good humor. Cimorene is of a sisterhood that includes Menolly, the dragonsinger of Anne McCaffrey's Dragonsong (Atheneum, 1976); and Avi's Morwenna of Bright Shadow (Bradbury, 1985), but Wrede's delightful voice is all her own."---School Library Journal
$5.95
By the Sword by Mercedes Lackey
"When an attack on her home leaves her father slain, her brother wounded, and her brother's fiancee kidnapped, Kerowyn prepares to face the enemy who has shattered her family's dreams."
$7.99
Watchers by Dean Koontz
"On his thirty-sixth birthday, Travis Cornell hikes into the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains. But his path is soon blocked by a bedraggled Golden Retriever, who will let him go no further into the dark woods.
That morning, Travis had been desperate to find some happiness in his lonely, seemingly cursed life. What he finds is a friend, a dog of alarming intelligence, and a threat that could only have come from the darkest corners of man's imagination."
$7.99
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
"Isabella Swan's move to Forks, a perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. When she meets the mysterious, alluring Edward Cullen--a vampire--her life takes a thrilling and terrifying romantic turn."
$10.99
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
"Max, a wild and naughty boy, is sent to bed without his supper by his exhausted mother. In his room, he imagines sailing far away to a land of Wild Things. Instead of eating him, the Wild Things make Max their king."
$17.95
Andrew's Staff Picks
The Family Trade by Charles Stross
"Miriam Beckstein is happy in her life. She's a successful reporter for a hi-tech magazine in Boston, making good money doing what she loves. When her researcher brings her iron-clad evidence of a money-laundering scheme, Miriam thinks she's found the story of the year. But when she takes it to her editor, she's fired on the spot and gets a death threat from the criminals she has uncovered.
Before the day is over, she's received a locket left by the mother she never knew-the mother who was murdered when she was an infant. Within is a knotwork pattern, which has a hypnotic effect on her. Before she knows it, she's transported herself to a parallel Earth, a world where knights on horseback chase their prey with automatic weapons, and where world-skipping assassins lurk just on the other side of reality - a world where her true family runs things.
The six families of the Clan rule the kingdom of Gruinmarkt from behind the scenes, a mixture of nobility and criminal conspirators whose power to walk between the worlds makes them rich in both. Braids of family loyalty and intermarriage provide a fragile guarantee of peace, but a recently-ended civil war has left the families shaken and suspicious.
Taken in by her mother's people, she becomes the star of the story of the century-as Cinderella without a fairy godmother. As her mother's heir, Miriam is hailed as the prodigal countess Helge Thorold-Hjorth, and feted and feasted. Caught up in schemes and plots centuries in the making, Miriam is surrounded by unlikelyallies, forbidden loves, lethal contraband, and, most dangerous of all, her family. Her unexpected return will supercede the claims of other clan members to her mother's fortune and power, and whoever killed her mother will be happy to see her dead, too.
Behind all this lie deeper secrets still, which threaten everyone and everything she has ever known. Patterns of deception and interlocking lies, as intricate as the knotwork between the universes. But Miriam is no one's pawn, and is determined to conquer her new home on her own terms."
$6.99
Life Sucks by Jessica Abel, Gabe Soria, and Warren Pleece
"Life sucks when you're a baby-faced kid in LA -- broke, girlfriendless, and stuck in a dead-end job. And when we're talking about Dave Miller, we really mean dead-end. Life sucks harder when that job is night manager at the Last Stop, LA's finest vampire-owned 24-hour convenience store, and you're facing an eternity of restocking beef jerky and blood brew for Radu, your crappy boss and Vampire Master. It's bad enough that Dave pines for his days as a vegetarian, but when he finds himself competing with psychotic surfer-vamp Wes for the affections of Rosa, a beautiful mortal with a romantic fixation on the dark side, unlife really gets complicated."
$19.95
Promises To Keep by Charles De Lint
"On Halloween night, 1973, in the town of Newford, Jilly Coppercorn ("Widdershins") meets an old friend from her days in the Home for Wayward Girls. Like Jilly, Donna has put her life back together and is eager to show Jilly her rockabilly band and her new home. With the ease of walking through the door of a club on All Hallows Eve, Jilly finds herself in a strange "between world" where the lines between the dead and the living are blurred and the temptation to stay is almost more than she can handle. Returning to one of his most beloved characters, de Lint brings to light another tale of enchantment and mystery, one that explores the choices people make and the promises they choose to keep."
$35.00
Severance Package by Duane Swierczynski
"Jamie DeBroux's boss has called a special meeting for all "key personnel" at 9: 00 a.m. on a hot Saturday in August.
When Jamie arrives, the conference room is stocked with cookies and champagne. His boss smiles and tells his employees, "We're a cover for a branch of the intelligence community. And we're being shut down." Jamie's boss then tells everyone to drink some champagne, and in a few seconds they'll fall asleep---for good. If they refuse, they'll be shot in the head.
Escape is not an option. Jamie's boss has shut down the elevators and rigged the fire towers with chemical bombs. Panic sets in, chaos erupts, and no one is sure whom to trust. Jamie quickly realizes that there's only one way he's ever going to see his family again: the hard way."
$13.95
Shriek: An Afterword by Jeff VanderMeer
"An epic yet personal look at several decades of life, love, and death in the imaginary city of Ambergris--previously chronicled in Jeff VanderMeer's acclaimed "City of Saints & Madmen"--"Shriek: An Afterword" relates the scandalous, heartbreaking, and horrifying secret history of two squabbling siblings and their confidantes, protectors, and enemies.
Narrated with flamboyant intensity and under increasingly urgent conditions by ex-society figure Janice Shriek, this afterword presents a vivid gallery of characters and events, emphasizing the adventures of Janice's brother Duncan, a historian obsessed with a doomed love affair and a secret that may kill or transform him; a war between rival publishing houses that will change Ambergris forever; and the gray caps, a marginalized people armed with advanced fungal technologies who have been waiting underground for their chance to mold the future of the city.
Part academic treatise, part tell-all biography, after this introduction to the Family Shriek, you'll never look at history in quite the same way again."
$14.95
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