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     Jess Walter's latest novel starts out on the sunny Italian riviera in 1962, as the young heir of his family's tiny hotel attempts to build a beach on the rocky coastline.  Pasquale Tursi daydreams of bringing success and tourism to his forgotten village, the poor cousin of the Cinque Terre towns nearby. When he sees a beautiful American in a boat heading toward his hotel, he's sure it's a mistake; visitors to his little pensione in Porto Vergogna are few and far between.  Yet the beautiful Dee Moray, an actress who's just finished filming Cleopatra with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, has indeed reserved a room at his hotel. 

      Thus begins the dreamlike meeting that changes Pasquale's life in Beautiful Ruins.  When Dee smiles at him, Pasquale falls in love, and "would remain in love for the rest of his life -- not so much with the woman, whom he didn't even know, but with the moment."  However, Dee has a mysterious illness that may doom her to an unknown fate, and Pasquale realizes that he must take another path to do what is right in his life. 

      We next jump to the present time, when Claire, assistant to Michael Deane, Hollywood director, puts up with crazy film proposals on "Wild Pitch Friday." Her latest wild pitch is for "Donner!" based on the Donner party's last days, with a young wannabe screenwriter.  In the middle of the meeting, an older Italian gentleman shows up looking for her boss, in hopes of finding a film star he met many years ago, named Dee Moray.  Michael's long-ago connection to her is revealed, and it's a rather shady one.  Is she still alive?  

      The two sagas, of Pasquale's life in Italy and of the fate of the American actress, thus become intertwined in chapters alternating between the two time periods. This book is full of stories, richly peopled by colorful characters, all striving to find love and success, despite their failures and missed chances.  Along the way, Walter skewers aspects of modern culture, the current rage of reality TV shows, and Hollywood vanity,

      The theme of loss of beauty with the passage of time flows through the book. The beautiful ruins of Roman civilization, the lost town of Porto Vergogna, the ruined lives of once-famous stars Burton and Taylor, all must pass. Set in Italy, Hollywood, and the Pacific Northwest, Walter meditates on what is still left in the end, in this tragic, comic, and yet ultimately romantic novel. 

 

 

 

Island Apart by Steven Raichlen

The author Steven Raichlen is an awarding winning cookbook author and cooking show host on public television.  Island Apart is his first novel and his love of cooking shows through loud and clear.  However don't worry that this is a thinly disguised cookbook masquerading as a novel.
It is a beautiful love story between a man and woman who both have been badly damaged by life.  It is also a love story about food. Make sure you have a snack before you start reading because the food and wine descriptions will make your taste buds eager to get to work!  Claire
Doheney is undergoing treatment and recovering from breast cancer.  Her thoughtless ex-husband left her the day she told him she had cancer.  Her daughter is "acting out" and only dates very unsuitable young men.  The Hermit, no one knows his name or where he came from, or for that matter where he now lives on Chappaquiddick; meets Claire when she falls off her bicycle and knocks herself out.  He rescues her and disappears.  She thanks him by making some cranberry bread and hanging it from a tree on a path she has seen him take.  He returns her pan filled with a wild nut bread.  She makes him some rose hip preserves, then he gives her some beach plum jam.  The courtship begins.   The two go from sharing their food by leaving it on the tree to having dinner together and outdoing each other with their tantalizing meals.

Mr. Raichlen describes the island beautifully with sunsets and walks in the woods; although there is a funny disclaimer in the afterward, warning his readers that the mosquitoes are really as big as hummingbirds and the natives are hostile.  He also apologizes to his Chappaquiddick neighbors for making the island so attractive to his readers.   I sat down and gobbled this book up in one day, and then I went back reread the funny and the sad parts.  I reread it again when I wrote this blog.  I hope you enjoy Island Apart as much as I did and still do.

William Blackshear has just returned from the Battle of Waterloo.  Though he escaped without physical wounds, he is tormented by a failed promise made to a fallen soldier.  Racked with guilt and desperate to help the dead man's widow and child, Will must come up with a large sum of money, and quickly.  Playing the card tables at London's gentleman's clubs is the fastest way to do it, but when he is bested by the very intriguing Lydia Slaughter, it is clear that her skills far surpass his own.  Lydia has her own reasons for gambling; her life as a mistress is constricting and tenuous and she hopes to win enough money to buy her independence.  Drawn together by the mutual need for quick cash, the two join forces but soon find themselves unable to deny the passion and desire growing between them.   

Clever dialogue, unusual characters and excellent writing set A Gentleman Undone apart from your typical romance novel.  I found myself immediately caught up in the lives of both Lydia and Will as they struggled to towards their goals while navigating the restricting upper-class rules of British Regency society.  Much attention is paid to the social and cultural details of the time period, giving the reader a bit of a history lesson along with an absorbing story.  Captivating, sensual and emotional, this one is a winner.

Cecilia Grant is a newcomer to the romance world, but if this book and her previous title, A Lady Awakened, are any indication of things to come, I think we'll be hearing plenty about her in the future!

Nine Coaches Waiting

Mary Stewart  

Linda Martin lied to her new boss on her job interview. It's the kind of thing that can get most people fired. For Linda, it's the kind of thing that could get her killed.

 

It's the late 1950s, just after World War II, and Linda is a lovely young woman--only 19--and getting worried about her future. Since her parents died when she was a girl, she's been raised in an orphanage. With no family, and no money for college, Linda had to take whatever work she could get: taking care of other people's children; cleaning houses. So when a friend of a friend of a patron of the orphanage arranges a job interview with the Countess de Valmy, Linda jumps at the chance. It seemed like a romantic adventure, living in a French chateau, working as the nanny and teacher to the future heir of the estate, the Countess de Valmy's 6-year-old nephew.

 

Only... Mme. Le Comtesse seemed to have such a thing about hiring an English girl, that Linda felt she had to lie about her mother--a French woman--and about the fact that Linda spent the first 10 years of her life in Paris. Instead, Linda pretends she can barely speak French at all.

 

At first, when she arrives in the isolated mountain valley of Valmy, Linda is glad she lied. The chateau is a mansion, and Linda's "servant" quarters are like a 4-star hotel room. And even though they're intimidating, M'sieur Le Compte and his wife are always polite to Linda, even kind, and their nephew is really nice kid: sweet and funny and bright. Then when the Count and Countess' son Raoul drives up in his Rolls Royce, Linda feels as if she's truly landed in a fairy tale: Raoul is so handsome. And he seems to like Linda, even though she's just the nanny.

 

So it's really a shame when the murder attempts begin. First on the little boy, and then on her. And Linda is alone in a strange country, with no family, no friends: no one she can trust. And there's a sweet little boy who's counting on her to stay alive.

 

Mary Stewart is one of the all-time great writers of romantic thrillers: Nine Coaches Waiting is one of her best novels. Check it out at a library near you.

Everything I Know About Love I Learned From Romance Novels by Sarah Wendell

As self-proclaimed Romance Queen of the King County Library System, (ya know if you say something often enough people start to believe), I grabbed this book off of the new book shelf the second I saw it.  I read it one gulp.  This book is funny, profound, silly and truthful.  It also comes with a few lists, such as the top romantic heroes, you can even go online and argue with the author.

Everything I Know About Love I learned From Romance Novels works on many levels.  First it is an explanation on why Romance novels are so popular.  Second it can show how romance, love and marriage should work.  And no I don't mean that a gal has to find an excruciatingly handsome billionaire duke who can leap tall buildings in a single bound before she will fall in love and live happily ever after.  The book emphatically states that this isn't so and romance readers know it.  Third it can also be a manual on how to write romance novels.  The book doesn't discuss bad romance novels, but does acknowledge that there are many of them.  Some are bad just because times have changed; others are bad because they are badly written with lousy stories of stupid people, which of course isn't just the domain of romance novels.

Read Everything I Know...... to improve the romance in your life, find a romance author that you will enjoy (Sarah quotes many authors), or read it to discover why romance novels are the single biggest selling genre in the United States, the world!  You'll learn something, I did and I am the Romance Novel expert, just ask me.

Restoree by Anne McCaffrey

I was saddened to hear of Anne McCaffrey's death on the 21st of November this year. I stopped to think about all her books and the ones that I liked the most--very hard to do; she has written nearly 100 books, 21 Pern novels alone! I have read and enjoyed almost all of her books--so I have decided to talk about her first book, Restoree. Anne had been heard to say she was so tired of reading about female twits cowering and screaming during alien invasions and the men were out there fighting and saving the world (or words to that effect). Anne decided to write a tongue-in-cheek story that challenged all those weak crybaby female clichés. I missed that the first time I read Restoree. I thought it was a great Cinderella story about a downtrodden plump gal from earth harvested by evil aliens (for dinner) but the aliens were attacked and she was saved, to become a slave feeding a heavily drugged guy in a hospital on another planet outside the earth's solar system. She was a librarian on earth and so she knows a little bit of everything, just like all good librarians (okay I am editorializing), but she just happened to know things that helped with the escape plan and she could think on her feet. The heavily drugged guy turned out to be the Regent of the planet and he was drugged so the bad guys could take over the planet, typical bad guy behavior. The second time, okay maybe the third time I read Restoree I saw the author's satire. Still I like the Cinderella aspect of the story, and I can appreciate the triumph of beautiful girl finally admired for her brain. I wish I could say that it happens to me all the time, oh well. Restoree is a wonderful fantasy on many levels, with a greatromance included. Also availablefor your ereader.

The circus always comes unannounced. No one knows it has arrived until someone sees the black and white striped tents set up on the edge of town and then word spreads like wildfire. By nightfall people are crowded in front of the gates, waiting to be let in. Once inside, they marvel at all the wonders the circus has to offer; there are so many tents, each filled with many wonderful things to see, and people often return night after night, drawn in by the myriad of sights. If you thought to look closer, you might be surprised at some of the things you see. But Le Cirque des Reves is careful to keep things hidden, for it is not just a circus, but also a contest between two students of rival magicians.

The Night Circus is full of compelling and intriguing characters, but I think my favorite might be the circus itself. Drawn with incredible detail, it is impossible to read this book without being transported into the magical black and white world contained in its tents. It's hard to say whether or not The Night Circus is a romance tinged with magic, or a book about magic that happens to have a romance as well.Either way, debut author ErinMorgenstern has meticulously crafted a story that is as magical as it is engrossing. The constant flow of lushly drawn scenes that are full of tension and mystery makes this one an obvious choice for fans of Audrey Niffenegger.

I have no idea how I came acrossA Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness because I am a mystery series reader! This story, however, does involve a mystery and is left open for a book to follow, so I started to read it and couldn't put it down.The author, Deborah Harkness, is a historian and her scholarly efforts are reflected in this book.

A Yale Professor,Diana Bishop, is a history scholar and a witch who does not want to acknowledge herpowerful magical talents. She is researching the early beginnings of a scientific study in Oxford's Bodleian Library, and accidently discovers an ancient manuscript of alchemy. Suddenly, she finds herself attracting a lot of unwanted attention from various typesof deamons, witches, and other supernatural beings. One of them is Matthew Clairmont, the brilliant and very attractive vampire geneticist. (The story gets a little steamy)

Even though I wasn't completely grabbed by the characters and the setting, Idid find myselfplunged into Diana's efforts tounlocking the secrets of the manuscript before any of the "bad guys". This book (and I think soon to be a series) has been called an adult version of theStephanie Meyers' Twilight series, and that's a pretty good description, except this is definitely a step or two or three above.

This title is available in the KCLS catalog in the following formats: Book, Large Print, Book on CD, and a Listening Device (Player) that you can checkout.

New York Blades veteran Adam Perry plays old-school hockey. He's the defender who guards the goal and makes sure nobody gets near the goalie. Sometimes that means knocking his opponents flat on the ice or slamming them up against the boards. That's just the way he plays the game.

When Adam's style of play is called into question by the execs in the NHL, who want hockey to cultivate a more family-friendly image, the team calls on Sinead O'Brien. Sinead is beautiful, but she is all business when it comes to her career as a lawyer. Her first impression of Adam is that he's a dumb jock with a violent streak. His first impression of her is that she's an ice princess with no life outside her law books.

As the playoffs for the Stanley Cup quickly approach, Sinead must work hard to get Adam to reveal anything to her that will help her defend him from a suit brought by the league. Adam meanwhile ducks the limelight and tries to hide many of the charitable causes he's championed.

You might not think sparks could fly on ice, but they certainly do in Deirdre Martin's book Icebreaker. Hockey-based romances were not really something I expected to enjoy, but I've gone back and read some of Martin's older titles about the Blades players and really enjoyed their fast-paced, high energy action. For a fun, quick read, aim your puck at Icebreaker.

Mr. Perfect by Linda Howard

Jaine Bright and three of her friends have had it with men. During their regular "girls' night out" the foursome make a tongue-in-cheek list of the perfect man. One of the gals puts the ten item list on paper, just to keep things straight. Number one on the list is faithful, number two is nice; number three dependable; number four is having a steady job; you will have to read the book to see the naughty items on the list. Anyway, the gals all have a big laugh and then go home. Within the week, the list is everywhere--the TV networks and newspapers are calling. Jaine believes it was a slow news week to make their funny list a national event. And all this attention is blowing her resolve to quit swearing; it costs her a quarter for each bad word she says! However someone out there does not think that this list is funny. And that person decides to stop the laughter. The "real" Mr. Perfect is angry!

If you like a funny book with a dark edge this is just for you. If'in you like a sexy book with some really great steamy parts this is for you too. I loved the story of the women's friendships and of course for Jaine's "Mr. Perfect for me" guy with whom she falls in love.Mr. Perfect is a funny book with a scary edge, just perfect for a rainy afternoon or a sunny beach read.