Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country
Founded 05-05-05
January 25, 2007 issue
Cozy Up with a Book
Winter Sets the Perfect Scene for Afternoon Reading
Story by Kathleen McFadden and Allison Peacock
Picture this: the roads are icy, the wind is howling, the snow is falling and you’ve settled down in a comfortable spot in front of the fire—or the space heater—with a great book. Add a hot cup of tea (or a glass of wine) and a cozy afghan and subtract all the guilt about the chores you should be doing. That vision is a perfect description of what many of us think of as pure bliss. Can you think of anything as wonderful?
Okay, we can think of at least a few things just as wonderful, but an afternoon of surrender to a compelling page-turner is definitely in the top three of our winter weekend pleasures, and judging by the traffic at the Watauga County Library, lots of folks feel the same way.
For people who can’t stay away from the new books shelf, the library has added a few armloads of new tomes lately to keep you coming back for more. Lovers of mysteries and thrillers are particular beneficiaries of the book bonanza.
Here are brief descriptions of the books the library added during January. Which ones will make it on to your list?
Dramas, Comedies & Romances
Sweet Potato Queens’ First Big Ass Novel by Jill Browne
Those who enjoyed Browne’s Sweet Potato Queen books about love, divorce and other topics—she has had five nonfiction bestsellers—are likely to appreciate the bawdy southern charm of her first novelistic effort tracing the lives and loves of the core members of the Sweet Potato Queens through two decades. The book received good reviews and sounds laugh-out-loud funny.
Ride a Painted Pony by Kathleen Eagle
In this romance following Eagle’s A View of the River, Nick Red Shield, who is Sioux, finds an injured white woman and offers her shelter at a local motel. The woman is searching for her son who was kidnapped by his father, but takes a bit of a detour at Nick's South Dakota ranch.
Skylight Confessions by Alice Hoffman
Hoffman's 19th novel tells the story of Arlyn Singer, a 17-year-old girl who decides on the day of her father’s funeral that the first man who walks down the street will be the one love of her life. A senior at Yale is the lucky man, and their subsequent marriage is marked by heartache and mutual betrayal. Arlyn dies when her second child is still young, and the story then follows her children. Supernatural imagery haunts this multigenerational melodrama.
White Lies by Jayne Ann Krentz
The latest paranormal romance in Krentz's Arcane Society series involves an association of parasensitives who study the paranormal, and Clare, whose extraordinary ability to tell if people are lying or telling the truth makes even other paranormals uneasy. The plot involves a sister’s troubled marriage, a plot to take over the society and unsolved murders.
Castle in the Forest by Norman Mailer
In this fictional chronicle of Hitler's boyhood, Mailer tells the story through the eyes of Dieter, a devil that Satan has ordered to nurture Hitler's evil against the backdrop of a dysfunctional 19th-century middle-class Austrian household. Adolph, the son of an incestuous marriage, develops a number of obsessions, and Dieter the devil marvels at those and at the future dictator's ability to sway minds.
You Suck by Christopher Moore
Young vampires in love are the subject of this ribald novel chronicling a new San Franciscan’s introduction into the world of the undead by his girlfriend, Jody. Other characters include Elijah, an ancient vampire who wants Jody back, and a band of Safeway stock boys who are amateur vampire hunters.
Killing Johnny Fry by Walter Mosley
In this "sexistential novel," the mild-mannered protagonist discovers that his girlfriend is having sex with another man and consequently sets out on his own sexual journey inspired by a porn movie and turns from nice guy to aggressor.
Borrow Trouble by Mary Monroe and Victor McGlothin
Both authors contribute a short novel to this book, with Monroe's Nightmare in Paradise featuring a second grade teacher who goes to the Caribbean with a wild friend to "get loose." She indeed gets loose and spends some time in jail where she makes some decisions about here life. McGlothin's Bad Luck Shadow is set in 1946 and tells the story of Baltimore Floyd, on the run from a gambling debt in Harlem and holed up in Kansas City, making plans for a big score.
Mysteries & Thrillers
Deeper Sleep by Dana Stabenow
The 15th entry of the Kate Shugak crime series opens with a brutal murder in Kate’s small Alaskan community, and private investigator Kate wants to find the evidence to ensure the conviction of a thoroughly unsavory and dangerous bad guy. Characters include natives, longtime settlers and newcomers, all with plenty of idiosyncrasies set against the harshness of Alaskan life.
Sliver of Truth by Lisa Unger
Building on her first thriller, Beautiful Lies, Unger brings back Ridley Jones, a freelance writer who learns some startling truths about her biological parents in the first book and learns more in this second thriller. FBI agent Dylan Grace also wants to know what Ridley knows, and the truth isn’t always pretty.
Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers by Lilian Jack Braun
Braun's 29th Cat Who... mystery features the series staples, journalist Jim "Qwill" Qwilleran and his cats, and the series setting, Moose County, Michigan, along with some dastardly deeds that need solving, including a possible murder, a residence fire and missing money.
Bad Blood by Linda Fairstein
In real life, Fairstein is the former chief of the Sex Crimes Unit in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, and her ninth legal thriller featuring prosecutor Alexandra Cooper involves a murder trial in which Alexandra’s prime witness is totally discredited on the stand. An explosion in a New York City third water tunnel puts a whole new twist on the plot.
Cloud of Unknowing by Thomas Cook
Edgar Award-winning author Cook has crafted a psychological mystery surrounding the drowning of a schizophrenic child. The boy’s mother, convinced the boy was murdered, corresponds with her brother, and readers learn the story of their childhood dominated by a paranoid schizophrenic father. The brother thinks his sister is going insane; she is convinced her son’s death was not an accident.
Plum Lovin’ by Janet Evanovich
Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum has three guys in her life and a large cast of characters involved in her latest case. She’s looking for a relationship coach who has run away from a charge for a robbery she didn’t commit. The relationship coach has lots of clients, and one of Stephanie’s guys wants to make a deal with her about the fugitive.
Hide by Lisa Gardner
Police detective Bobby Dodge is called to a crime scene in the middle of the night: an underground chamber on the property of an abandoned mental hospital containing six small naked mummified female bodies in clear garbage bags. A silver locket with one of the corpses is engraved with the name Annabelle Granger, and a woman later shows up at the homicide offices claiming to be Annabelle. The suspense builds as the police uncover links between patients at the hospital and long-ago criminal activities.
The Hunters by WEB Griffin
Griffin's third presidential agent novel picks up where the previous entry, The Hostage, left off, following U.S. Army Maj. Carlos "Charley" Castillo. Castillo and his crew are trying to figure out who ordered the murder of an American diplomat shot to death in Uruguay.
When Darkness Falls by James Grippando
Grippando's sixth thriller involves a hostage crisis in Miami, criminal defense lawyer Jack Swyteck, an armed homeless man and connections to Argentina's dirty war in which 30,000-plus Argentineans vanished between 1975 and 1983 because of their opposition to the military regime.
Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris
This novel promises to reveal the "evolution of Hannibal Lecter's evil." Harris first introduced readers to Hannibal Lecter in Red Dragon, followed that book with The Silence of the Lambs and then wrote Hannibal, but the author never revealed the source of the doctor's cannibalistic tendencies. Harris fans have been waiting a long time to find out the rest of the Lecter story.
The Successor by Stephen Frey
Financier Christian Gillette becomes involved in political intrigue when rumors start flying that Castro's death may result in Cuba becoming the next addition to the global market.
Web of Evil by J.A. Jance
In this second Ali Reynolds thriller, Ali's husband is killed by a train on the eve of their divorce and Ali becomes the chief murder suspect. She’s a blogger and former Los Angeles TV news anchor and initiates her own investigation into the death, assisted by her mom, her son and an old high school friend who is—conveniently—a homicide detective.
Trouble by Jesse Kellerman
Kellerman, the son of bestsellers Faye and Jonathan Kellerman, has written a psychological thriller that one reviewer likened to “the best of Hitchcock.” A young medical resident helps a woman fleeing from a knife-wielding assailant and kills the man in self-defense. His subsequent relationship with the woman he helped is life altering—and not in a good way.
The Suspect by John Lescroart
In this legal thriller, an outdoor author is the prime suspect in his wife’s murder. Investigator Wyatt Hunt and police detective Devin Juhle from Lescroat’s The Hunt Club make an appearance in this novel, along with series regular Dismas Hardy, but Gina Roake, an attorney in Hardy's firm is the suspect’s defense attorney and—surprise!—begins to fall for the accused.
Baltimore Blues by Lara Lippman
Ex-reporter Tess Monaghan works part time at her aunt’s bookstore and goes rowing with a buddy in her free time. When her rowing buddy becomes the prime suspect in a murder, Tess goes to work investigating the victim.
Exile by Richard Patterson
Patterson's new thriller—his 14th—focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Attorney David Wolfe’s congressional campaign plans are derailed when his law school classmate Palestinian Hana Arif asks him to defend her from charges that she led a conspiracy that assassinated the dovish Israeli leader.
Science Fiction
Deep Storm by Lincoln Child
In this sci-fi thriller, a former naval doctor investigating a mysterious illness on a North Atlantic oil rig is transported to an undersea habitat run by the military that's apparently pursuing evidence that Atlantis exists. Could the excavation threaten life on earth? You have to read it to find out.
Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber
To avoid broadcasting the signals of an industrial civilization to the enemy, the human rulers of Safehold have built a religion—with mind control and hidden high technology—designed to keep Safehold society medieval forever. Dissenters to the plan were eliminated and centuries have passed. Now, the only remaining humans have their last chance to learn the truth and rejoin the universe.
Allegiance (Star Wars) by Timothy Zahn
In an early-years Star Wars adventure, five idealistic but fed-up Imperial storm troopers share the stage with young Rebel Alliance crusaders Han Solo, Princess Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker and Chewbacca. Star Wars fans who have wondered about events between the first and second movies in the original Star Wars trilogy should enjoy this book.
Nonfiction
Dancing in the Streets by Barbara Ehrenreich
The author of Nickel and Dimed looks at the ritual of public celebration, from antiquity to the present, and explores what causes societies to both enjoy and fear such revelries. Ehrenreich posits that festivities and ecstatic rituals have been a way throughout history to address both personal and social problems.
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