What's Hot for April!

 It's time to see what books top the reserve list at Bristol Public Library:

16. Miss Julia to the Rescue by Ann B. Ross is the thirteenth in the series and will be welcomed by fans of the feisty widow. 

15. Loving by Karen Kingsbury is the fourth and final book in the Bailey Flanigan series, about a young woman who leaves home to find a career and adventure.  The earlier titles are Leaving, Learning and Longing. 

14. The Lost Years by Mary Higgins Clark uses Biblical archaeology and lore in her newest mystery.  Biblical scholar Jonathan Lyons believes he’s found a letter written by Jesus, but before his discovery is confirmed Lyons is found murdered.  The police believe he was shot by his wife, an Alzheimer’s sufferer who knew he was having an affair.  It’s up to the couple’s daughter Mariah to uncover the truth.

13. The Innocent by David Baldacci is the Virginia author’s latest thriller.  Government hit man Will Robie has never refused an assignment—until now.  Soon he finds himself on the run with a young girl who may hold the key to a vast conspiracy.  The book will be published April 17.

12.  Home Front by Kristin Hannah is back on the list after dropping off for a month. This contemporary family story deals with a family’s struggle when the wife is deployed to Iraq. Hannah practiced law before becoming a full time writer and has won numerous romance writer awards.

11. Force of Nature by C.J. Box is the new mystery thriller with Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett.  This series is picking up fans very quickly! The first book in the series, Open Season, was a major award-winner, and Box has maintained a high standard.  He has also written several standalone novels.

10. Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James is the new digital phenomenon.  Originally available only as an ebook, it will be published as a traditional book in April with two sequels to follow.  The steamy plot concerns a young naïve college student who becomes attracted to an older, very wealthy and very worldly businessman.

9.What Doesn’t Kill You by Iris Johansen focuses on Catherine Ling, a character introduced in Chasing the Night, who embarks on a globe-trotting chase to find the creator of a very powerful and undetectable poison.

8. Unwritten Laws by Greg Iles has been delayed but should be published in 2012.  This is the long-awaited first part of his newest thriller, delayed when Iles was severely injured in a car wreck.

7. Rainshadow Road by Lisa Kleypas is the book in a trilogy by this increasingly popular contemporary romance writer.  Betrayed by her fiancé, glass artist Lucy finds herself being romanced by a new man—but is it love or a set-up?

6.  Unnatural Acts by Stuart Woods is the latest entry in his very popular and long running Stone Barrington series.   What appears at first to be an easy assignment— to show a billionaire’s son the error of his ways—becomes very complicated when an old case intervenes.

5.  The Shoemaker’s Wife by Adriana Trigiani is not only a love story of two people, but a love story for two countries as well.  It’s also a very personal story for Trigiani: she based part of the book on her grandparents’ courtship.

4. Eleventh Hour by James Patterson is the new entry in the Women’s Murder Club series.  It will be published May 7, 2012.

3. Stay Close by Harlan Coben begins seventeen years earlier, when a husband and father failed to return home and hasn’t been heard from since. Old cases never go away; and soon a detective, a soccer mom and a down on his luck photographer will find the past can sometimes destroy the present.

2.  Lone Wolf by Jodi Picoult examines the question of end of life issues as a divided family tries to decide what to do after a terrible accident leaves the father in a coma.  Picoult is wonderful at humanizing difficult moral questions, leaving readers both thoughtful and haunted.

And the number one reserve book is:

1.  Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris, the penultimate “Southern Vampires” novel. Fans are eager to see what’s in store for our favorite psychic waitress, Sookie Stackhouse.  Harris has said that she intends to end the series with book 13, so there should be only one more after this one.  If you want to start at the beginning, read Dead Until Dark.

See a book you'd like?  You can add your name to reserve list by logging into your library account or by calling the library to do it for you.

Caught is Captivating!

Reviewed by Doris

Caught by Harlan Coben (F COB Main; SSB F COB Main; and CD F COB Main)
Harlan Coben creates plots that twist, turn, take your around corners, and drop you on your head. His stories tend to dash along, pulling you head over heels with them and leaving you a bit breathless at the ending. Caught certainly lives up to that pattern.

Do you ever watch that MSNBC series where the sexual predators are caught when they respond to emails from what they believe are underage girls? Coben takes that premise and develops it into a story that grips you from the beginning. Haley McWaid is a great kid. She has a great family and parents who are involved and devoted. She disappears one night, and three months later no one still has a clue what happened to her. Wendy Tynes is the TV host of “Caught in the Act,” and she is driven to bring down the predators who feast on the kids in her community. Dan Mercer is a youth counselor who works with troubled kids, but he may not be the caring, outstanding citizen he seems. Is Dan connected to Haley somehow? Is Wendy doing the right thing setting up the predators and outing them to the public? What if she is wrong and the “predator” is really innocent? Coben puts all the possibilities into play, and you question every move made by every character.

Dan Mercer shows up at the house where Wendy and her film crew wait for him. There have been a series of emails to Wendy from an anonymous source accusing Dan of being a predator. When taken down by the police Dan says he came to the house to help a troubled young woman who approached him at the youth center where he counsels teens. He denies he has done anything wrong, but there is evidence to the contrary. Wendy has to go by the evidence as do the police, but Wendy’s gut is telling her something just doesn’t click. The more she investigates, the more she questions. Cyber sabotage, old grudges, new methods of tracking predators, a grieving father bent on “justice,” and threats on Wendy’s life and that of her son all factor in to the mix.

Harlan Coben is one of the best of the contemporary thriller authors at creating tension and Caught builds tension with each chapter. It will have you questioning everything. His characters are engaging—some good, some nasty—but all of them keep you tied in knots. Who are the good guys? Are the bad guys even scarier than you thought? Is there a conspiracy? Has Wendy brought a predator and possible murderer to justice or destroyed the life of a good man? You will not know until the very last page of the book, so don’t read ahead! This one is a winner—my favorite so far of the new books from late summer and early fall.