Featured New Bestsellers

The Atlantis Code by: Charles Brokaw

Kirkus Reviews –

Word that the lost continent of Atlantis may have been found sends a professor, a reporter, a cardinal, a Russian police officer and many others sprinting across the globe. At the center of this debut thriller stands Thomas Lourds, a Harvard linguistics professor who knows his ancient artifacts. Thomas speaks as if he's lecturing, but he's enough of a hunk to set two women sniping at each other as they vie for him. In Egypt with TV reporter Leslie Crane, he discovers an ancient bell with an inscription written in a language he can't decipher. During an interview with Leslie, terrorists break onto the set, murder a producer and make off with the bell. It winds up with Stefano Murani, a cardinal at the Vatican desperate to overthrow the Pope. The bell, Stefano believes, is one of five ancient instruments from Atlantis that in concert hold the power to destroy the world. If he controls the instruments, he rules the world.

Meanwhile in Russia, someone stalks and kills archeologist Yuliya Hapaev, an acquaintance of Thomas, as she examines an ancient cymbal inscribed with mysterious writing. Her sister Natashya, a tough police inspector with the body of an Amazon and the face of a model, determines to avenge Yuliya's death and teams with Thomas after he arrives in Moscow to read the archeologist's notes about the instrument. Leslie follows, sensing the story of the century when it appears that the instruments come from a dig in Cadiz where archeologists may be about to uncover Atlantis. After several narrow escapes and some nights with both Leslie and Natashya, Thomas arrives in Cadiz to learn the meaning of the artifacts. Like the code in a certain mega-bestseller about the work of an Italian artist, this involves a major revision to one of the Bible's central stories. Despite the lumbering pace, by-the-numbers descriptions and a surfeit of chase scenes, Brokaw holds readers until the last stone is turned.

Bearers of the Black Staff by: Terry Brooks

Publishers Weekly –

The horrors of a war-ravaged world again invade a hard-won peace in Brooks's intense follow-up to 2008's The Gypsy Morph. Five hundred years have passed since Hawk led a tattered band of survivors into a valley protected by a magical barrier. Now the wall has been breached by demons. The last known Knight of the Word, Sider Ament, wields a powerful black staff that he hopes to pass to a new leader. After rescuing talented teen Trackers Panterra Qu and Prue Liss, Sider asks them to warn the Children of Hawk. Unfortunately, their council leaders don't share Sider's certainty of an impending invasion. While Sider explores the other side of the barrier, the young Trackers find help from Arborlon Elves in this superlative Tolkien-style fantasy tweaked with a contemporary vibe.

The Black Prism by: Brent Weeks

Publishers Weekly –

With this complicated fantasy about family politics, bestseller Weeks (The Way of Shadows) moves into familiar territory. An unloved, orphaned boy is the offspring of someone important; twins assume each other's identities; an aged ruler clings to power. Weeks manages to ring new tunes on these old bells, letting a deep background slowly reveal its secrets and presenting his characters in a realistically flawed and human way. Gavin Guile is facing his final five years as leader of a magical college whose members turn colors of light into various materials. Seeking to rectify the lingering wrongs from the war against his twin, Dazen, he is instead forced to acknowledge a bastard son, face down a corrupt governor, and stop a challenge to the state religion. Frequent perspective shifts keep the reader guessing as to who is heretic and who is hero.

Demon from the Dark by: Kresley Cole

From the Publisher -

From New York Times bestselling author Kresley Cole comes this scorching tale of a demon outcast poisoned with vampire blood and the vulnerable young witch he vows to protect—even from himself.

A DANGEROUS DEMON SHE CAN’T RESIST . . .

Malkom Slaine: tormented by his sordid past and racked by vampiric hungers, he’s pushed to the brink by the green-eyed beauty under his guard.

A MADDENING WITCH HE ACHES TO CLAIM . . .

Carrow Graie: hiding her own sorrows, she lives only for the next party or prank. Until she meets a tortured warrior worth saving.

TRAPPED TOGETHER IN A SAVAGE PRISON . . .

In order for Malkom and Carrow to survive, he must unleash both the demon and vampire inside him. When Malkom becomes the nightmare his own people feared, will he lose the woman he craves body and soul?

A Dog's Purpose by: W. Bruce Cameron

“The book doesn’t really start to take off until we get to the second lifetime. Our narrator is reincarnated not once, but multiple times, and when it dawns on him that “wait, I’ve done this before,” he starts to wonder why he’s doing it again. At that point, in the middle of the story where he finds the boy he’s meant to live with and love forever, everything starts to sharpen into focus, and Cameron’s story hits a whole new gear. I won’t give away any details, twists and turns, except to say that by turns “A Dog’s Purpose” is both laugh-out-loud funny and grab-a-box-of-tissues heartbreaking. It paints portraits of man at his best and worst, and hints at the spectrum of our relationships with our pets that some of us know all too well.”

Read the rest of the Petconection.com review by David S. Greene

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