August Big Books

Summary by Jeanne

The summer book season is still going strong!  Here are some August highlights:

•    Debbie Macomber new series continues with Rose Harbor in Bloom, a spin-off from her popular Cedar Cove books

•    Kelley Armstrong, best known for her Otherworld novels, starts a new fantasy series with Omens. Olivia Taylor Jones has lived a papered life as the only child of wealthy parents, not knowing that she was adopted and her birth parents are serving life sentences for serial murders.  Now she’s out to uncover the truth about her family, which may include some supernatural connections.

•    J.A. Jance has Second Watch, a J.P. Beaumont mystery

•    Thomas Keneally, best known for Schindler’s List, returns with an engrossing story set in World War I.  Sisters Sally and Naomi are serving as nurses and facing horribly injured soldiers even as they struggle with personal traumas.  Reviewers say that once again Keneally has humanized a sweeping and complex historical event in The Daughters of Mars.

•    Readers who enjoyed Gap Creek by Robert Morgan will be glad to know that there’s a sequel, Road from Gap Creek, which continues the story of the Richards family as told by their youngest daughter, Annie.

•    James Patterson and David Ellis (Guilty Wives) re-team in Mistress, a standalone novel about a man with obsessive tendencies determined to find out who murdered the love of his life.  (Note that Ellis has a new book of his own out this month.)

•    And while it may not be a “Big Book,” I’m looking forward to Love Potion #10 by Betsy Woodman, which is the second in the Jana Bibi series. Jana is a Scotswoman by heritage who has lived in India for years.  I found it to be utterly charming.  My review of the first book is here.

More highly anticipated books:

Bowen, Rhys  Heirs and Graces  (Her Royal Spyness series)
Box, C. J.  The Highway (Cody Hoyt)
Cain, Chelsea Let Me Go (Archie and Gretchen)
Cook, Thomas Sandrine’s Case
Doiron, Paul  Massacre Pond (Mike Bowditch mystery)
Ellis, David  Last Alibi (Jason Kolarich)
Fairstein, Linda Death’s Angel (Alex Cooper)
Fisher, Suzanne Woods The Letters
Garwood, Julie  Hotshot (Buchanan-Renard)
Gregory, Philippa White Princess (The Cousins’ War series)
Hurwitz, Gregg  Tell No Lies
Jance, J.A.  Second Watch (Beaumont)
Kellerman, Faye  Beast (Peter Decker & Rina Lazarus)
Penny, Louise  How the Light Gets In (Inspector Gamache)
Reichs, Kathy  Bones of the Past (Temperance Brennan)
Robards, Karen  Last Kiss Goodbye (Charlotte Stone)

Next August will have another long awaited book: Anne Rivers Siddons returns with Girls of August, the story of a group of friends who get together at the beach each August, starting when they are in their twenties and ending after one of the group dies.  Now they’ve reunited and are about to make some startling discoveries about each other—and themselves. (

Paranormal Fiction Stars: Kim Harrison & Kelley Armstrong

The supernatural/paranormal genre has really taken off in the last few years, fueled in part by the success of Stephenie Meyers' Twilight series.  We have some brochures at reference with suggestions of other authors and series you might enjoy.  Here are two:

 Kim Harrison

Harrison's best known work is  "The Hollows," an urban fantasy series.  Detective and  witch Rachel Morgan solves mysteries with the help of Ivy, a vampire, and Jenks, a pixie. Elves, demons, trolls, and other supernatural beings appear as well.


“Rachel Morgan/The Hollows”

• • Dead Witch Walking
• • The Good, the Bad, and the Undead
• • Every Which Way But Dead
• • A Fistful of Charms
• • For a Few Demons More
• • The Outlaw Demon Wails
• • White Witch, Black Curse
• • Black Magic Sanction
• • Pale Demon

She has a young adult series starring Madison Avery whose high school years are made a little more difficult once she's dead.

• Once Dead, Twice Shy
• Early to Death, Early to Rise

Note:  Harrison's real name is Dawn Cook.  She began her writing career under that name, writing romance books.

Kelley Armstrong

Armstrong is a Canadian writer, best known for her "Women of Otherworld" series. She began writing at and early age, and her stories had a fantasy twist even then.  She has also written mysteries and is doing a teen paranormal series.

"Women of the Otherworld"
The stories are narrated by different characters, including a werewolf, a witch and a ghost.  Armstrong has been praised for her characterizations and imaginative backgrounds for her characters.

• • Bitten
• • Stolen
• • Dime Store Magic
• • Industrial Magic
• • Haunted
• • Broken
• • No Humans Involved
• • Personal Demon
• • Living With the Dead
• • Frostbitten
• • Waking the Witch
• • Spellbound

"Darkest Powers"
This series revolves around Chloe, a fifteen year old who is able to communicate with the dead.  Her claims get her institutionalized, but it seems that the other teen inmates also have unusual powers.

• The Summoning
• The Awakening
• The Reckoning