Thursday, August 16, 2018

Reading Ahead: September 2018, part 4

History, the future, mystery, romance... Next month's new releases have it all!

Time's Convert, by Deborah Harkness. Harkness, author of A Discovery of Witches (2011), etc., returns fans to Matthew de Clermont's past, when he meets young surgeon Marcus MacNeil on the battlefields of the American Revolution. Eager at the promise of a new, immortal life free of the constraints of his Puritan upbringing, Marcus accepts Matthew's offer, only to find his transition to be difficult in many ways. Fast-forward to the present and a new transition, that of his beloved, Phoebe, to join him in immortality. While the process has been modernized in many ways, the difficulty in trading one's human existence for vampirism is still as pronounced as they were centuries earlier. It is equally troubling that shadows from Marcus's past still haunt him. Historian Harkness can be counted on to tell a great, well-researched tale.

Leverage in Death, by J.D. Robb. Eve Dallas knows who sent marketing VP Paul Rogan into a Wall Street mergers meeting with a bomb strapped to his chest, blowing the place sky-high. The culprits had forced him to do it by holding Rogan's family hostage. But why would someone take that kind of trouble to blow up a meeting room when the same thing could be accomplished by wiring the whole building, or just the floor itself. It's the why that catches Dallas, and then it's the mad chase to catch those responsible and bring them to justice. The series is endlessly entertaining.

A Willing Murder, by Jude Deveraux. Romance novelist Deveraux dips a toe in the mystery genre with her latest outing. When best-selling romance novelist Sara Medlar retires, she buys the mansion she admired as a child in her hometown of Lachlan, FL. It needs some work, so she hires a friend's grandson, Jack, to stay on the property and help her with the renovations. When her niece, Kate, gets a job in the area, Sara offers her a place to stay, too. The unlikely trio make for uneasy roommates, until they find the remains of two women on the property in the aftermath of a storm. United in the pursuit of justice for the women, who had disappeared 20 years earlier, it's now up to Sara, Jack and Kate to try and get to the bottom of things, but a small town never gives up its secrets without a fight.

Why Not Tonight, by Susan Mallery. Third in Mallery's recent Happily, Inc. series, Why Not Tonight (following 2017's Second-Chance Girl). Gallery owner Natalie Kaleta will do anything for her artists. So when she goes out to check on reclusive Ronan Mitchell during a downpour, Murphy's Law means that a mudslide cuts her off from her way home, forcing her to stay with the brooding glass artist. And of course, she kind of has a crush on him already. Is this really the perfect storm for them both? Mallery fans will be delighted.

In His Father's Footsteps, by Danielle Steel. Steel has been stepping outside of her comfort zone in the last few years, and fans have responded very positively. Following this trend, Steel's latest is the tale of two World War II concentration camp survivors, the life they build together, and the son who faces struggles of his own as a first generation American, determined to succeed and forge his own path.


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