Just Jennifer

Losing Clementine by Ashley Ream (William Morrow, March 2012)


Clementine Pritchard is a talented artist who is about to have a show in a prestigious east coast gallery. Only problem is, she plans to kill herself before the show ends so decides to give the space to someone else. Clementine has been fighting mental illness, similar to that her mother fought and lost, for many years and has been on so many prescriptions that make her feel worse just to keep the dark days at bay that she decides the only way around the same fate as her mother is to kill herself now before she involves too many people in her personal version of hell. Clementine then sets about tidying up her affairs: she fires her assistant Jenny, her therapist Miles; she sleeps with her ex-husband Richard and her therapist Miles; she finds a home for her cat Chuckles who is as opinionated as she and crosses to Tijuana to secure some animal tranquilizers to assist her in her quest. She also has some of the best take out she has ever had as she eats her way through Los Angeles. Along the way, Clementine creates some of her best artwork ever, good stuff, she thinks, for her postmortem retrospective. Clementine also decides to look for the father who left her and her family and instead of a final good-bye, he sheds light on a secret that changes the way Clementine looks at her life and may even save it. A dark comedy, Clementine is the nonsense, practical person inside each of us, but also that person that wants to heal and forget the sadness in our lives, and even to forgive so that we are no longer afraid of just being. Clementine’s honesty is refreshing, if sometimes abrasive, toward others and especially toward herself.

New this Week

Rainshadow Road by Lisa Kleypas (St. Martin’s)


Embittered by her fiancé's abandonment for her sister, Washington state glass artist Lucy is unknowingly set up by her ex with his friend Sam, a relationship that is threatened by her ex's second thoughts and Lucy's discovery of the truth.

Bleed for Me by Michael Robotham (Mulholland)

A teenage girl--Sienna, a troubled friend of his daughter--comes to Joe O'Laughlin's door one night, covered in blood. The police find Sienna's father, a celebrated former cop, murdered. Tests confirm that it's his blood on Sienna. She says she remembers nothing. Investigators take aim at Sienna. O'Laughlin senses something different is happening.

Cinnamon Roll Murder by Joanne Fluke (Kensington)

When the keyboard player for the Cinnamon Roll Six jazz band is murdered after a tour bus accident on the way to Lake Eden, Minnesota, Hannah Swensen investigates and comes up with several local suspects.

Lone Wolf by Jodi Picoult (Atria)

When his father and sister are injured in an accident that has rendered his father comatose, estranged son Edward decides to stop his father's life support so that his organs can be donated, a choice his sister urges him to reconsider.

Victims by Jonathan Kellerman (Ballantine)

Unraveling the madness behind L.A.'s most baffling and brutal homicides is what sleuthing psychologist Alex Delaware does best. And putting the good doctor through his thrilling paces is what mystery fiction's bestselling master of psychological suspense Jonathan Kellerman does with incomparable brilliance.

Trail of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster)

The long awaited fifth installment in the "New York Times"-bestselling, Edgar- and Macavity-nominated series about an eccentric sleuthing family. For the first time in Spellman history, Isabel Spellman, P.I., might be the most normal member of her family. Yet as a number of cases pile, Izzy won't stop hunting for the answers--even when they threaten to shatter both the business and the family.

New This Week

Celebrity in Death by J.D. Robb (Putnam)


Lieutenant Eve Dallas is no party girl, but she's managing to have a reasonably good time at the celebrity-packed bash celebrating The Icove Agenda , a film based on one of her famous cases. It's a little spooky seeing the actress playing her, who looks almost like her long-lost twin. Not as unsettling, though, as seeing the actress who plays Peabody drowned in the lap pool on the roof of the director's luxury building. Now she's at the center of a crime scene-and Eve is more than ready to get out of her high heels and strap on her holster and step into the role she was born to play: cop.

A Perfect Blood by Kim Harrison (Harper Voyager)

When she discovers that a would-be creator is determined to make his (or her) own demons and needs her blood, former witch-turned-day-walking-demon Rachel Morgan, a bounty hunter, faces her toughest adversary yet --humanity.

Sonoma Rose by Jennifer Chiaverini (Dutton)

Struggling with a meager existence on a Prohibition-era farm in Southern California and devastated by the losses of four of her children to a wasting disease, Rosa flees with her surviving children after a shattering act of violence and is rescued by former love Lars, who helps her seek a cure and outmaneuver corrupt authorities.

The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott (Doubleday)

A spirited young maid on board the Titanic captures the attentions of two men including a kindhearted sailor and an enigmatic Chicago millionaire and barely escapes with her life before witnessing media scorn targeting her famous designer mistress.

Just Jennifer

Spin by Catherin McKenzie (William Morrow, February 2012)


Sometimes the chance of a lifetime comes along and we blow it. Sometimes we get a second chance at the gold ring, sometimes we don’t. Katie Sandford lands an interview at The Line, a music magazine, her dream job, and then promptly blows the interview by showing up still drunk from the previous night; to make matters worse, it is Katie’s thirtieth birthday, though most of her friends think she is a twenty-five year old graduate student, and this was the best prospect of a job she has had in a long time. And then she gets a second chance. The magazine’s more gossip driven sister publication contacts Katie and offers her a chance for a tell-all story on Hollywood starlet Amber, The Girl Next Door, who has just entered rehab---again. The only catch? Katie also has to enter rehab and go through the process as her cover. As Katie begins the detox process she begins to recognize that maybe she did have an alcohol problem and that maybe rehab isn’t all a waste of time. What she doesn’t expect is that she and Amber will become friends and when it is time to write the tell-all it somehow doesn’t see as great an idea as when it was first proposed to Katie.

Katie undertakes a journey of self-discovery in Spin and many readers will recognize something of themselves in Katie. The journey, however, is long, maybe fifty to one hundred pages too long. There is realness in Katie’s introspective reflection and realization that she may have a problem and the willingness to deal with and attempt to overcome it and the other patients in rehab with Katie put faces to the different forms addiction can take. There is a genuineness and compassion to Katie’s story that help move the narrative along even in some of the slower passges.

New This Week

Oath of Office by Michael Palmer (St. Martin’s Press)


Blamed for the murder-suicide rampage of a respected doctor and former client who previously struggled with drug addiction, counselor Lou Welcome investigates what went wrong and uncovers a terrifying political conspiracy with ties to the White House.

House I Love by Tatiana deRosnay (St. Martin’s Press)

Determined to protect her historical family home from Emperor Napoleon's orders to renovate 1860s Paris, Rose Bazelet establishes a defense in the basement of her house on rue Childebert and records her experiences in letters to her late husband.

Wolf Gift by Anne Rice (Knopf)

A young reporter on assignment is attacked and bitten by an unknown beast in rural Northern California and begins a terrifying but seductive transformation into a being with a dual nature, both man and wolf.

Private Games by James Patterson and Mark Sullivan (Little Brown)

Peter Knight and the rest of the Private investigation firm try to stop a madman bent on destroying the modern Olympic Games in London.

Just Jennifer

Juliette Gordon Low: The Remarkable Founder of the Girl Scouts by Stacy A. Cordery (Viking, February 2012)


Juliette “Daisy” Gordon Low founded the Girl Scouts of America one hundred years ago and though almost everyone has eaten a Girl Scout cookie (or a dozen) in their lifetime, many people know very little about the matriarch of this beloved organization. Born just prior to the Civil War, and unable to have children of her own, Juliette, known fondly to her family as Daisy, devoted much of her life to proclaiming that girls would benefit from, and deserved to have an active life, one that could be supported and nurtured by an organization such as the Boy Scouts after she met Robert Baden-Powell. Daisy came from a wealthy Southern family who weathered the Civil War making her self-reliant and independent. She was partially deaf after an ear infection was mistreated and married a scoundrel who brought her to the United Kingdom to live. Daisy never lost sight of her vision and preserved with a steadfastness that led to the creation of an organization that currently has over two million members and many more women who have been left with fond memories of their days in the Girl Scout, Brownie or Daisy troop. Girl Scouts past and present will enjoy the history of the organization’s founder, but readers who enjoy histories of strong, independent women will find much to admire in Daisy Low.

Just Jennifer

What Happened to Hannah by Mary Kay McComas (William Morrow, February 2012)


Who among us hasn’t wanted to escape a situation in our life at one time or another? There are even those of us who wanted to escape our life entirely. Hannah Benson left her small Virginia town as a teenager and made a new life for herself, never calling to learn what happened to her mother or sister, or handsome Grady Steadman, knowing that the only way to save herself was to completely cut herself off. Now, twenty years later, the owner of a successful insurance business in Maryland, the call that she has always feared comes, but with news she never expected. Her sister Ruth has been dead for several years, Grady informs her, and her mother has just died this past weekend and now Hannah must return to Clearfield to take custody of the fifteen-year-old niece she never knew she had. Having no interest in returning to Clearfield or raising a young woman she never knew existed, Hannah girds herself and returns to a place of terrible memories, secrets and guilt. As isolated as she has made herself over the years and as tough a shell as she has developed, once back among familiar sights and sounds, memories flood back to Hannah, some elicit pleasant memories, much to her surprise, other memories are not so pleasant. As Hannah slowly works her way in Anna’s life, she begins to create new memoires with her niece, all the while conscious of the secrets she is keeping and the consequences should they come to light, and all the while trying to keep her distance from Grady for whom her attraction never died, and the feeling seems mutual.

Mary Kay McComas explores the things we leave behind and what never leaves us; what we leave unfinished and what finally undoes us. Hannah’s memories are vivid, but not everything is how we remember it and we don’t always know the entire story behind something. Everyone who ever wondered what they have left behind and how they can make reparations will find something familiar in Hannah as she gets not a second chance, but a chance for things to be as they should be.

New This Week

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
by Katherine Boo (Random House)


A first book by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist profiles everyday life in the settlement of Annawadi as experienced by a Muslim teen, an ambitious rural mother of a prospective female college student and a young scrap metal thief, in an account that illuminates how their efforts to build better lives are challenged by regional religious, caste and economic tensions.

Catch Me by Lisa Gardner (Dutton)

Approached by a young woman who claims her murder is imminent, detective D. D. Warren hears her chilling story about how all of her close childhood friends have been murdered on the anniversary of the same day and that she is the only one still alive, a case that is complicated by a vigilante shooter.

Stay Awake: Stories by Dan Chaon (Ballantine)

Presents a collection of suspenseful tales in which fragile and searching characters wander between ordinary life and a psychological shadowland after experiencing intense loss or displacement.

Girl Reading by Katie Ward (Scribner)

A kaleidoscopic tale follows the experiences of seven women models from different historical periods, the artists for whom they sit, the factors that shape the creations of their portraits, and the ties that connect them to each other.

Just Jennifer

Redwood Bend by Robyn Carr (Mira, March 2012)


Young widow Katie Malone has been in Vermont for the last year with her twin five year old boys, under the radar, while her brother Connor was preparing to testify in a murder trial that also included an arson charge stemming from a fire that burned Connor and Katie’s family’s hardware store to the ground. Now that the trial is over, Katie is making a cross country trip to reunite the boys with Uncle Connor who has been living in Virgin River in Northern California. Just miles from the mountainous town, Katie’s vehicle has a flat tire in the pouring rain, and although she is largely self-sufficient, machine tightened lug nuts are the slightly built young woman’s undoing. Assisted by a group of motorcyclists, Katie is immediately attracted to Dylan into whom she is sure she’ll never run again. She does, of course, in Virgin River and when she learns he is a former child star looking to get back into the movie business she swears she’s not going to get involved, a vow she quickly breaks, which sets into motion a series of life altering events for both Katie and Dylan.

Virgin River is a marvelous small town that Robyn Carr has built over the course of the series, family by family, including many veterans from the wars in Iraq. Jack’s bar with his cook Preacher remains the focal point of the community and though fewer of the now permanent residents are included in the book than usually are, Virgin River and the nearby Grace Valley remain an inviting place to visit, one readers will want to return to time and time again.

We’re With Nobody: Two Insiders Reveal the Dark Side of American Politics by Alan Huffman and Michael Rejebian (William Morrow, January 2012)


Told in alternating chapters between two partners in a political research firm and journalists, Huffman, a former farmer and aide to Mississippi elected officials, and Rejebian, a reporter in Texas and Mississippi and political advisor in Mississippi, shed light on opposition research. As many voters have long suspected, there is a trend among candidates, from local school boards to federal officials, to expose the weaknesses and faults of their opponents rather than highlight one’s strengths and accomplishments. Some of the stories are as simple as speaking to an ex-wife in an attempt to impeach an opponent’s character and morals, and some are very complicated and involve unnamed sources in dark allies. This book is a lot of fun to read for any political junky, especially if for leisure reading. If considered closely, this book offers an interesting view of how some things are not always what they appear on the surface. If this is what Huffman and Rejebian are willing to share, imagine what they’ve left out!

Just Jennifer

Agorafabulous! Dispatches from My Bedroom by Sara Benincasa (William Morrow, February 2012)


Comedian, blogger and writer Sara Benincasa (who grew up in Flemington) also suffered from panic attacks, anxiety and agoraphobia from the time she was in high school. While in Boston at Emerson College, she sinks to the depths of depression and her illness, afraid of everything from riding in a car to using the bathroom. Her parents brought her back to New Jersey where she began the slow process of learning to live with and manage her illnesses. Along the way she spends time in an Ashville (NC) rehab center, time at a spiritual healing house outside of New Hope, PA, teaches in a Texas school for the arts, and learns not to take things so seriously and that it is okay to laugh at yourself. Bold, brash, at times completely uncensored but always honest, Sara learns she is not alone in her feelings or in her fight to survive and will remind us that we are not alone. Living in Manhattan, Sara is offered a chance to try being a stand-up comedian and finds comedy a good outlet for her anxieties and fears and a useful tool in dealing with them. Sara’s journey from agoraphobic to fabulous isdisturbing, funny and familiar, all at once.

New This Week

Defending Jacob by William Landay (Delacorte)


His happy life and long-time respectability as a suburban Massachusetts assistant district attorney shattered when his 14-year-old son is charged with the murder of a fellow student, Andy Barber faces a wrenching decision about family loyalty when the facts increasingly suggest that the boy is guilty.

Home Front by Kristin Hannah (St. Martin’s)

From a distance, Michael and Joleen Zarkades seem to have it all: a solid marriage, two exciting careers, and children they adore. But after twelve years together, the couple has lost their way; they are unhappy and edging toward divorce. Then the Iraq war starts. An unexpected deployment will tear their already fragile family apart, sending one of them deep into harm's way and leaving the other at home, waiting for news. When the worst happens, each must face their darkest fear and fight for the future of their family.

The Fear Index by Robert Harris (Knopf)

An intensely suspenseful thriller set at the nexus of high finance and sophisticated computer programming--a searing glimpse into an all-too-recognizable world of greed and fear, a novel that forces readers to confront the deepest questions about what it means to be human.

No One is Hear Except All of Us by Ramona Ausubel (Riverhead)

In 1939, the families in a remote Jewish village in Romania feel the war close in on them. Their tribe has moved and escaped for thousands of years- across oceans, deserts, and mountains-but now, it seems, there is nowhere else to go. Danger is imminent in every direction, yet the territory of imagination and belief is limitless. At the suggestion of an eleven-year-old girl and a mysterious stranger who has washed up on the riverbank, the villagers decide to reinvent the world: deny any relationship with the known and start over from scratch. Destiny is unwritten. Time and history are forgotten. Jobs, husbands, a child, are reassigned. And for years, there is boundless hope. But the real world continues to unfold alongside the imagined one, eventually overtaking it, and soon our narrator-the girl, grown into a young mother-must flee her village, move from one world to the next, to find her husband and save her children, and propel them toward a real and hopeful future.

Just Jennifer

The Starboard Sea by Amber Dermont (St. Martin’s Press, February 2012)


Jason Prosper has left his prep school with one year left and is going to finish out his high school career at Bellingham Prep in Massachusetts, the school of last resort for many damaged teens. Jason is mourning the loss of his best friend and sailing partner Cal. Once on campus, Jason meets Race, against whom he and Cal once sailed, and nearly causes Race to drown their first time out on the water. Laying low and hoping to get out of Bellingham alive and with a diploma, Jason strikes up a tentative and unusual relationship with Aidan, a girl who is very damaged, leaving her last school, if rumors are to be believed, for attacking the female art teacher with whom she was having a relationship when the woman broke it off. Together, the two navigate their senior year until a tragedy occurs that makes Jason take a look at everything he thought he knew, things he doesn’t want to see and things he must face if he ever hopes to heal and move on with his life.

An insightful first novel taking a look into life at a privileged prep school, A Starboard Sea should easily stand the test of time and take its place with similar novels, such as A Separate Peace. There are many metaphors, and clichés, about the sea and wind that come quickly to mind, but Amber Dermont has managed to avoid them, instead creating a story whose gentle pull and angst and trouble underneath mimic the ebb and flow of the tide and the dangerous currents just below the surface. With a great deal of insight she explores the relationships of the students to each other, to their teachers at school and to their families. As the water takes life, so does it infuse Jason with life and the will to continue, even in the face of absence and great loss.

Just Jennifer

Leela’s Book by Alice Albinia (W.W. Norton, January 2012)


Leela immigrated to America over twenty years ago with her husband and the agreement between the two that she would never return to her native Delhi. Now, she finds herself returning to her homeland as she and her husband Hari prepare for his niece’s wedding to the son of Sanskrit scholar Vyasa, a man who, unbeknownst to Hari, is the husband of Leela’s late sister and part of the puzzle that is the reason that Leela refuses to return to India. Leela’s arrival surprises everyone and knocks everything out of kilter as a poem purported to be that of her late sister, discovered two decades after her death, surfaces, causing great debate among scholars, as the bride’s sister who has been exiled from the family for marrying a Muslim, faces the consequences of her choice; Ash, the groom, is coveting a secret of his own that also has a strange familial twist, and Hari prepares to bring his brother’s son Ram into his business as his heir. Soon everything in Leela’s carefully constructed life begins to fall apart, along with the lives of her family, in-laws and their new families. Facing her past head on, Leela realizes is the only way to cure a broken heart and begin to forgive so she can live life in the present.

Leela’s Book is a lyrical family saga, overseen, and perhaps orchestrated by Ganesh, the elephant-headed scribe of the Mahabhrata. Ganesh, turning human and playing a part in the drama narrates the story from his point of view, describing how he is controlling the events. He is, according to his narrative, the only person who will be able to save Leela from Vyasa from whom she has been running for over twenty years and whom she blames for all that is not right with her life, but who she comes to realize, only has the power over her she allows him to have. Mystical and romantic, Leela and Hari’s family will resonate with readers and stay with them past the final page.

New This Week

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Cannot Stop Talking by Susan Cain (Crown)

Susan Cain demonstrates how introverted people are misunderstood and undervalued in modern culture, charting the rise of extrovert ideology while sharing anecdotal examples of how to use introvert talents to adapt to various situations. 

The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey (Harper)

Overcoming a life of hardship and loneliness, Gemma Hardy, a brilliant and determined young woman, accepts a position as an au pair on the remote Orkney Islands where she faces her biggest challenge yet.  

Available Man by Hilma Wolitzer (Ballantine)

Inadvertently attracting several single women while mourning the death of his adored wife, 62-year-old Edward Schuyler is profiled in a singles ad by his stepchildren and goes on several unsettling dates before a chance encounter leads to a promising new relationship.   

Heft by Liz Moore (W.W. Norton)

Former academic Arthur Opp weighs 550 pounds and hasn't left his rambling Brooklyn home in a decade. Twenty miles away, in Yonkers, seventeen-year-old Kel Keller navigates life as the poor kid in a rich school and pins his hopes on what seems like a promising baseball career-if he can untangle himself from his family drama. The link between this unlikely pair is Kel's mother, Charlene, a former student of Arthur's. After nearly two decades of silence, it is Charlene's unexpected phone call to Arthur-a plea for help-that jostles them into action. Through Arthur and Kel's own quirky and lovable voices, Heft tells the winning story of two improbable heroes whose sudden connection transforms both their lives.

The Look of Love by Mary Jane Clark (William Morrow, January 2012)


Piper Donovan, aspiring actress, has moved home to New Jersey after her broken engagement and lack of long-term jobs left her in a precarious housing situation. Her mother, owner of Icing on the Cake bakery, has been diagnosed with macular degeneration, and Piper has been helping out, learning she has a flair for designing and decorating wedding cakes. Her first creation for a soap opera star was on the Internet so much that it has come to the attention of Jillian Abernathy, director of upscale Hollywood spa and “rejuvenation” center, Elysium who is to be married and wants Piper to design and make her wedding cake out in California. Thrilled at a chance to be on the west coast again, even if only for a week, Piper jumps at the chance; it will also give her time away from hunky FBI agent Jack who wants to take their relationship to the next level, though Piper is skittish after her recently failed relationship. Jillian’s maid Esperanza has acid thrown in her face; acid most likely meant for Jillian, postpones and scales back the wedding. When Piper arrives at Elysium, she learns it is not a place of rest for everyone, that Jillian’s father Dr. Abernathy may not be quite the skilled plastic surgeon he is purported to be and that someone is either trying to stop Jillian from walking down the aisle, ruin the reputation of Elysium or both.

The Look of Love is a well-paced mystery that is a bit more sophisticated than the average themed cozy; short chapters told from many points of view offer many suspects with many motives. Piper is an enthusiastic young woman who is sympathetic and clever, making people trust her so she is able to learn many things that help her to solve who is trying to hurt Jillian. A quick, enjoyable read, Piper will quickly win over many fans.

Just Jennifer

American Dervish by Ayad Akhtar (Little Brown, January 2012)


Hayat Shah is a Pakistani Muslim growing up in Wisconsin in the late 1970’s. Up until his pre-teen years, his religion, that his family does not practice regularly, hasn’t been a big deal. When his mother’s best friend Mina, whose husband has just divorced her, comes to live with the Shahs with her young son, new worlds are opened up to Hayat, first love, a more scholarly approach to the Quran and his religion, stirrings of his sexuality and learning about his family, his parents and their relationships with each other. Hayat becomes very close to Mina, but America begins to work its magic on Mina, and she begins to drift away from him, creating her own life. Things begin to spiral out of control for Mina and Hayat sees everything he once held dear falling apart and soon realizes an act he committed out of jealousy was the impetus for these events, events that will change everything for everyone, but for none more than his beloved Mina

American Dervish, set prior to September 11, is a wonderfully complex coming-of-age story. It gracefully weaves in the religious journey of a young, Muslim-American boy and those around him. Hayat learns kindness and tolerance in unusually places and sees the religion he has come to worship and adore be used as the root of hatred and intolerance. Even in his struggle, Hayat will be a much loved character who will stay with readers long after the final chapter. The novel has the intimate feel of a memoir and will strike a chord with most readers as they find something familiar in Hayat’s struggle to become a man.

Just Jennifer

All the Flowers in Shanghai by Duncan Jepson (William Morrow, January 2012)


With the feel of a novel by Lisa See, All the Flowers in Shanghai, tells the story of 17-year-old Xiao Feng who mostly doesn’t mind be in the shadow of her older sister whom her mother is grooming to marry into a good family. When Feng is forced to marry the man chosen for her sister, she finds herself thrust into a world with which she is entirely unfamiliar and unprepared. Taken away from her family and her beloved grandfather with whom Feng would spend hours walking in the public gardens, Feng quickly learns that the only way to live through what she considers the ordeal of her new family, is to harden herself and become powerful and controlling. Her first act is to give away her newborn daughter to a poor family rather than subjecting her to the same life in the future, a rash decision she grows to regret and one that colors and influences the rest of her days.

Told from a woman’s point of view, written by a man, All the Flowers of Shanghai lacks and intimacy and subtleness of Feng that might make her a more empathetic character. The change in her personality, while entirely understandable, comes about so quickly it feels forced. There is much detail written about the social strata in pre-World War II China giving the plot a very authentic feel. The gardens Feng spends time in with her grandfather and the descriptions of the flora are lovely and provided a metaphor to Feng’s life as she slowly withers away. Definitely worth a look for fans of historical novels, especially those set in exotic locations.

Just Jennifer

The Darlings by Cristina Alger (Pamela Dorman Books, February 2012)


It is the week before Thanksgiving and the Darlings are preparing to go out to the east end of Long Island for their annual Thanksgiving celebration. Work at Carter’s firm, Delphic, is wrapping up when news of the suicide of longtime family friend and the firm’s most successful funds manager reaches the family as does word of an SEC investigation targeting Mary’s hedge funds. Carter’s daughter Merrill is an accomplished attorney on her own; when her husband loses his job, he cautiously takes a job with his father-in-law’s firm and now finds himself thrown to the wolves to save the rest of the Darling’s and their empire. Many different pieces of the story, told from Delphic’s secretary to the SEC investigators to the investigative reporters working on the story, begin to emerge and readers get the feeling there is more going on than meets the eye. Even if they are able to guess how the book will end (and they will be partly correct), there is one final scene that may not surprise at first, but an “aha” moment will shortly follow.

The Darlings explores many layers of life and relationships, personal and professional in a very subtle way. Cristina Alger writes with the assuredness of a seasoned author and an elegance not often found in a first novel. The plot moves forward as Tuesday through Sunday of Thanksgiving week unfold hour by hour, quickly shifting characters, revealing their part in the plot, creating a very complex story. Even the most flawed and seemingly unappealing characters, among them Merrill’s brother-in-law, are written in such a way that we understand why they are the way they are even if we don’t like them. A compulsive read, perhaps a little long on the financial jargon and details, written with the feel of an insider’s eye.

New This Week

The Odds by Stewart O’Nan (Viking)


In the new novel from the author of Last Night at the Lobster, a middle-age couple goes all in for love at a Niagara Falls casino. Valentine's weekend, Art and Marion Fowler flee their Cleveland suburb for Niagara Falls, desperate to recoup their losses. Jobless, with their home approaching foreclosure and their marriage on the brink of collapse, Art and Marion liquidate their savings account and book a bridal suite at the Falls' ritziest casino for a second honeymoon. While they sightsee like tourists during the day, at night they risk it all at the roulette wheel to fix their finances-and save their marriage. A tender yet honest exploration of faith, forgiveness and last chances, The Odds is a reminder that love, like life, is always a gamble.

Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell (Harper Collins)

The story of Saxon claimants to the throne during the forming of England at the end of the ninth century continues as Alfred the Great lays dying and the fate of the Angles, Saxons, and Vikings hangs in the balance.

Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card (Tor)

Bean moves with three of his children into a derelict space colony ship where they hope for a cure to engineered genes that give them high intelligence and short lives, a situation that is complicated when space-time distortions cause them to be forgotten by humanity.

The Rope by Nevada Barr (Minotaur)

In The Rope, Nevada Barr gathers together the many strings of Anna Pigeon's past and finally reveals the story that her many fans have been long asking for. In 1995 and 35 years old, fresh off the bus from New York City and nursing a broken heart, Anna takes a decidedly unglamorous job as a seasonal employee of the Glen Canyon National Recreational Area. On her day off, Anna goes hiking into the park never to return. Her co-workers think she's simply moved on--her cabin is cleaned out and her things gone. But Anna herself wakes up, trapped at the bottom of a dry natural well, naked, without supplies and no clear memory of how she found herself in this situation. As she slowly pieces together her memory, it soon becomes clear that some one has trapped her there, in an inescapable prison, and no one knows that she is even missing. Plunged into a landscape and a plot she is unfit and untrained to handle, Anna Pigeon must muster the courage, determination and will to live that she didn't even know she still possessed to survive, outwit and triumph. This is where it all began.