Coming Soon: June 18

Taking place in the 17th century this novel by Jean Zimmerman is a murder mystery with a supernatural twist.

In the town of New Amsterdam orphan children are going missing. Two people rise to try to solve the mystery a trader named Blandine von Couvering and a British spy Edward Drummond.
The suspects are numerous, the governor's nephew, an aristocrat, the corrupt orphan master and an Algonquin trapper. Yet evidence is found near the body that points to an Algonquin demon. Blandine, an orphan herself, is determined to find out who has been doing the killing when it turns out more then one orphan has gone missing and the Dutch authorities fail to show any interest in the case because of the girls race.

The case is endangered when Blandine is accused of being a witch and Edward is sentenced for espionage.

Lizzy and her partner Diesel are on the search for a stone believed to be infused with the power of lust.

When English teacher Gilbery Reedy is murdered and thrown from his balcony Lizzy and Diesel continue his search for the Luxuria Stone. They tear their way thought Boston following the clues from 19th century writings. Through grave sites, government building, and mansions they try to stay a step ahead of Diesel's cousin Gerwulf Grimoire who wants the stone for his own reasons.

Lizzy must battle Gerwulf's growing interest in her, and her attractions towards Diesel. While staying ahead of another opponent Anarchy and his minion Hatchet, on this hide-and-seek adventure.

The Jane Austen Marrige Manual by Kim Izzo

I started reading this book after a friend recommended it. I have a goal of eventually reading all of Jane Austen's novels, and I thought a modern take on her stories could be interesting and funny. I was right :) I really enjoyed this book. It was about a women around the age of 40 who has spent her life in the background working in the shadows of other women who have fullfilled their dream of marrige and kids. When she looses everything, she is offered the opportunity to write an article for the modern girl, on how to land a rich husband. Upset and confused about where her life is going she takes the challange very seriously and sets out to find herself a rich husband. Kate tries to use all that she has learned for reading Austen, and apply it to today's world.

The book is full of women all at different points in their life. There is an older women right out of one of several relationships with rich men, who acts as an advisor to Kate, then there is the young beatuful women who uses her beauty and innocence to attach herself to a rich man, and a married women who has lost all her money, but still has love.

This book focuses alot on the relationship between love and money. Is it acceptable to give up on love in order for the comfort of money? Or is it possible to have both. Kate has to learn this lesson, and the best way to learn it is through experience. So we travel with her from California to Europe, while she risks her friendships, her job, and her savings to find the security that she is blindly searching for.

Coming Soon: June 11

Do you like spy novels? If you do, I have a new one for you that takes place in 1938.

For years the Nazi's have been waging political warfare against France. They are trying to weaken their spirts by bribery, corruption and intimidation, hoping their efforts will bring down the will of the people to defend themselves.

Fredric Stahl is a Hollywood actor, going to Paris to film a movie for Paramount France. He is horrified by the war and what the Nazi's are doing to the Jews so he decided to join a secret spy service being run out of the American embassy in France. But the Nazi's don't know this and attack Stahl, thinking he is a perfect agent of influence. When Stahl refuses the threats began, and he finds himself stuck between those who want to fight Germany and those who want to negotiate for peace.

This book has received many praises for its extraordinary characters, from assassins, to Russian actresses, German Baronoss' and Hungarian spies. It travels Europe in a time just before WWII when tension is tight.

A love story that travels time, starting in 1962 to our present day. The author takes a simple love story and turns into into a surprising story full of twists, that spans 50 years and the tangled lives of several people. It starts on an Italian coastline when a man lost in thought looks out over the waters of the Ligurian Sea and spots a woman in a boat approaching him. He soon learns she is an American actress, and she is dying.

Then today, a man goes to a movie studio back lot to find clues about a women he saw at his hotel decades earlier.

This book spans years, connecting dots, to teach the reader lessons about life. How life influences art, and how unplanned moments are usually the most memorable ones. Walter has created a novel that believes in destiny.

Coming Soon: June 4

The next Pretty Little Liars book is coming out. The four girls, Spencer, Aria, Hanna, and Emily, are still haunted by their past and the mysterious A who continues to dig up all their secrets.
Emily is reconnecting with an old flame, Spenser is learning about campus life at Princeton, Aria is seeing a new side of Noel' dad, and Emily is getting in touch with her inner A.
One by one the girls are getting caught up in the web created by A, as he starts to learn their secrets and lies little by little. Soon he will have enough to end the pretty little liars forever.

This next book is the kind you have to read twice. Once you learn the truth you want to go back to see all the little things you missed the first time. Nick was not the perfect husband. "What are you thinking, Amy" was the question he asked most frequently in their marriage. How can you ever really know the person you love, is the question Nick is asking now. On the morning of their fifth anniversary Amy disappears. When is revealed she must be dead the suspicion lands on Nick. Amy's friends say she was afraid of him and kept secrets all the time, but he swears it isn't true. The police find strange searches on his computer that he swears he didn't make. What really happened to his wife? And what was in the half wrapped box left so casually on their bed. In this book, marriage is war.

The Next Always by Nora Roberts

I was excited to start Nora Roberts Boonsboro trilogy. I read a past trilogy of hers called the Key Trilogy and I loved them. They had her regular romance theme but combined a supernatural spin. It made the books even better. So when I heard that this new trilogy also had a slight supernatural twist I was excited.

Unfortunately I was not very impressed with this book. It is about three brothers and their mother who bought an old historic building that had seen better days in the center of a small town. Together they are remolding it to be a romantic Inn. The beginning of the story focused a lot on the remodeling of the building into an Inn. The in depth descriptions of the Inn didst bother me, she did a very good job describing each room and how the decorating progressed. They sounded very romantic and I wouldn't mind staying in a Inn like that myself. The problem was that the story did not go back and forth between a romance and the Inn, for at least the first half of the book it was all she seemed to talk about. What type of tub was in the bathrooms, where the bed was going to go.

The romance between one of the brothers and one of the shop owners in the town did not get serious until very late in the story. Once it got going it was good, but considering I had to wait so long it wasn't an enjoyable read. I was excited about the ghost in the Inn too, but besides some occasional smells and doors opening by themselves, she didn't play much of a role in the book until the very end when everything picked up. I would have liked it if we learned a little bit about her and who she was. I am assuming that it will be discussed later on, but Roberts didn't give us any type of clue that may make the reader want to continue on with the trilogy to find out more.

For the moment I am not planning on reading the second book that just came out a few weeks back, The Last Boyfriend. Maybe later if I'm not interested anything else I might give it another chance.