Archives for: April 2011
04/26/11
2011 RITA Nominees for Best First Book
Romance Writers of America® (RWA) is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2011 RITA Awards, honoring the best romance fiction published in 2010. Winners of the awards will be announced July 1st at the RITA and Golden Heart Awards Ceremony to be held at RWA’s 31st Annual National Conference in New York City.
Here are the nominees for Best First Book:
Enemy Within by Marcella Burnard
TITLE CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE. Please request through interlibrary loan.
Summary: After a stint in an alien prison, Captain Ari Rose wonders why she even bothered to survive. Stripped of her command and banished to her father's scientific expedition to finish a Ph.D. she doesn't want, Ari never planned to languish quietly behind a desk. But when pirates commandeer her father's ship, Ari once again becomes a prisoner. As far as pirate leader Cullin is concerned, Ari's past imprisonment puts her dead center in Cullin's sights. Cullin can't afford the desire she fires within him and he'll stop at nothing, including destroying her, to uncover the truth. |
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Firestorm by Kelly Ann Riley
Summary: Caring for his traumatized son is widowed FBI agent Luke Tanner's number one priority. But when he becomes temporary fire chief in a small mountain town, a case sparks out of his control. Luke suspects the late former chief of arson and murder—until the man's daughter returns to Pine Lake. Kitty McGuire is determined to prove her father was framed. As they work together, Kitty connects with Luke's troubled family in a way that surprises Luke—and fills him with hope. Maybe they have a chance at happiness after all... |
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I Now Pronounce You Someone Else by Erin McCahan
Summary: 18 year-old Bronwen Oliver has a secret: She's really Phoebe, the lost daughter of the loving Lilywhite family. That's the only way to explain her family. Bronwen knows she must have been switched at birth, and she can't wait to get away from her "family" for good. Then she meets Jared Sondervan. He's sweet, funny, everything she wants — and he has the family Bronwen has always wanted too. She falls head over heels in love, and when he proposes marriage, she joyfully accepts. But is Jared truly what she needs? And if he's not, she has to ask: What would Phoebe Lilywhite do? |
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The Iron King by Julie Kagawa
Summary: Meghan Chase has a secret destiny—one she could never have imagined…Something has always felt slightly off in Meghan's life, ever since her father disappeared before her eyes when she was six. But she could never have guessed the truth—that she is the daughter of a mythical faery king and is a pawn in a deadly war. Now Meghan will learn just how far she'll go to save someone she cares about, to stop a mysterious evil no faery creature dare face…and to find love with a young prince who might rather see her dead than let her touch his icy heart. |
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Pieces of Sky by Kaki Warner
Summary: On a stagecoach traveling through New Mexico Territory, Jessica Thornton is a long way from the cool mists and lush gardens of her native England. No one prepared Jessica for the heat and the hardships. And no one prepared her for a man like Brady Wilkins. For, despite the rancher's rough-hewn appearance and her own misgivings, Jessica must put her life in his hands after their stagecoach crashes. And she begins to see the man behind the callused hands and caustic wit. |
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The Summer of Skinny Dipping by Amanda Howells
Summary: Sometimes I still wake up shivering in the early hours of the morning, drowning in dreams of being out there in the ocean that summer, of looking up at the moon and feeling as invisible and free as a fish. But I'm jumping ahead, and to tell the story right I have to go back to the very beginning. To a place called Indigo Beach. To a boy with pale skin that glowed against the dark waves. To the start of something neither of us could have predicted, and which would mark us forever, making everything that came after and before seem like it belonged to another life. My name is Mia Gordon: I was sixteen years old, and I remember everything. |
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A Tailor-Made Bride by Karen Witemeyer
Summary: Jericho "J.T." Tucker wants nothing to do with the new dressmaker in Coventry, Texas. He's all too familiar with her kind--shallow women more devoted to fashion than true beauty. Yet, except for her well-tailored clothes, this seamstress is not at all what he expected. Hannah Richards is confounded by the man who runs the livery. The unsmiling fellow riles her with his arrogant assumptions and gruff manner, while at the same time stirring her heart with unexpected acts of kindness. Which side of Jericho Tucker reflects the real man? |
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Wanna Get Lucky? by Deborah Coonts
Summary: A young woman plunges from a Las Vegas sightseeing helicopter, landing in the Pirate’s lagoon in front of the Treasure Island Hotel in the middle of the 8:30 Pirate Show. Almost everyone writes her off as another Vegas victim. But Lucky O’Toole smells a rat. She’s head of Customer Relations at The Babylon, the newest, most opulent mega-casino and resort on the Strip, so she’s got a lot on her plate: the Adult Film industry’s annual awards banquet, a spouse-swapping convention, sex toy purveyors preying on the pocket-protector crowd attending ElectroniCon. Still, Lucky can’t resist turning over a few stones. |
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When Harry Met Molly by Kieran Kramer
Summary: Dashing Lord Harry Traemore is perfectly content to live out his days in the pursuit of pleasure. But when he's named by the Prince regent as one of society's 'Impossible bachelors', Harry is drafted into a ribald romantic wager. The rules of engagement are scandalously simple: the bachelor whose mistress wins the title of 'Most Delectable Companion' gets to remain unmarried. Harry is utterly unconcerned about his status...until his latest lightskirt abandons him. Enter Lady Molly Fairbanks. Harry's childhood friend - actually, 'foe' is more like it - is the most unlikely companion of all. |
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04/19/11
The Forbidden Rose by Joanna Bourne
May's Review: Picked by Publishers' Weekly and Library Journal as one of the best romance books of 2010, I thought I would give this book a try even though I generally find spy stories set in the past to be somewhat of a miss for me. Story starts out simple enough. British spy William Doyle meets French aristocrat Marguerite de Fleurignac in a burned out chateau and escorts her back to Paris with the hopes of finding her father, whom he suspects of selling out British agents. Marguerite or Maggie has her own secrets as she has been secretly saving and planning the escape of aristocratic families fated for the guillotine.
Like many books in this genre, this story contained plenty of action with good pacing. The main leads are amply supported by an intriguing cast of secondary characters. Yet somehow, I still felt underwhelmed by this book. Perhaps as some book reviewers have suggested, it may have something to do with some of the secondary characters upstaging Doyle and Maggie so they could be set up as main characters for the next book in Bourne's spy series. Hmm, it's a possibility but I think the problem may lie in the fact that I didn't particularly find the main characters all that engaging. I understand their immense physical attraction to one another but not their love, which just seems forced. Still the book was interesting enough for me to finish although I am not really sure I would give it the "Best of 2010" honours.
04/08/11
BOOKSALE
Stock up on your summer reading!
Saturday, April 30, 2011
10 am - 4 pm
George Bothwell Branch
Southland Mall
Hardcovers $1
Paperbacks 50¢
Spoken Word $1
Movies $1
DVDs/CDs $1
No taxes, GST exempt.
Save even more when you fill up a RPL bag for $10.
For more details, visit www.reginalibrary.ca or call 777-6000.
Payment by cash or cheque only.
04/01/11
New Paranormal Romance Novels this Spring
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This Side of the Grave by Jeaniene Frost
Summary: Half-vampire Cat Crawfield and her vampire husband Bones have fought for their lives, as well as for their relationship. But just when they've triumphed over the latest battle, Cat's new and unexpected abilities threaten to upset a long-standing balance . . . |
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Moon Cursed by Lore Handeland
Summary: Kristin Daniels is a passionate in her pursuit of the truth. As the host of the television show Hoax Hunters, she’s traveled to the ends of the earth to explore-and expose-life’s most enduring myths. Her latest undertaking is no exception: Kris is bound for Scotland, where she intends to get to the bottom of the Loch Ness Monster legend once and for all. Instead, Kris encounters something far more mysterious...for in the ruins of the lake’s Urquhart Castle lies a heavenly creature-a sleek, muscled man with a seductive brogue named Liam Grant. One look into his eyes and Kris is already in danger of falling in too deep. Is Liam for real? Or has the spell of the moon touched them both? |
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How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf by Molly Harper
Summary: Even in Grundy, Alaska, it’s unusual to find a naked guy with a bear trap clamped to his ankle on your porch. But when said guy turns into a wolf, recent southern transplant Mo Wenstein has no difficulty identifying the problem. Her surly neighbor Cooper Graham—who has been openly critical of Mo’s ability to adapt to life in Alaska—has trouble of his own. Werewolf trouble. |
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Thief of Light by Denise Rosetti
Summary: When Prue McGuire is kidnapped by the Necromancer-an evil entity that feasts on souls-Erik the Golden must harness his air Magick to recover the woman he has come to love more than life itself. |
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