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Monday, October 8, 2012

Romantics rejoice! New bestsellers are @ your library


The Inn at Rose Harbor by Debbie Macomber

From Publisher –

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber comes a heartwarming new series based in the Pacific Northwest town of Cedar Cove, where a charming cast of characters finds love, forgiveness, and renewal behind the doors of the cozy Rose Harbor Inn.

Jo Marie Rose first arrives in Cedar Cove seeking a sense of peace and a fresh start. Coping with the death of her husband, she purchases a local bed-and-breakfast—the newly christened Rose Harbor Inn—ready to begin her life anew. Yet the inn holds more surprises than Jo Marie can imagine.

Her first guest is Joshua Weaver, who has come home to care for his ailing stepfather. The two have never seen eye to eye, and Joshua has little hope that they can reconcile their differences. But a long-lost acquaintance from Joshua's high school days proves to him that forgiveness is never out of reach and love can bloom even where it's least expected.

The other guest is Abby Kincaid, who has returned to Cedar Cove to attend her brother's wedding. Back for the first time in twenty years, she almost wishes she hadn't come, the picturesque town harboring painful memories from her past. And while Abby reconnects with family and old friends, she realizes she can only move on if she truly allows herself to let go.
A touching novel of life's grand possibilities and the heart's ability to heal, The Inn at Rose Harbor is a welcome introduction to an unforgettable set of friends.




The Kingmaker's Daughter by Philippa Gregory

Kirkus Reviews –

The latest of Gregory's Cousins' War series debunks--mostly--the disparaging myths surrounding Richard III and his marriage to Anne Neville. Anne and her sister Isabel are both used without hesitation as political bargaining chips by their father, Richard, Earl of Warwick. True to his sobriquet, "Kingmaker," Warwick engineered the downfall of the Lancastrian King Henry VI after Henry succumbed to mental illness and supplanted him with Edward IV, scion of the Yorkist-Plantagenet claims to the English succession. Increasingly disenchanted by the degree to which Edward is allowing his queen, Elizabeth Woodville, to dole out favors to her large family, Warwick marries Isabel off to George, Duke of Clarence, Edward's brother, on the theory that George, next in line for the throne, can dislodge his older brother. When George fails at this, Warwick gives Anne, barely 14, in marriage to Henry's son, Edward and, together with his former enemy, Margaret of Anjou (Henry's exiled consort), attempts a coup that fails miserably, bringing us to the time period chronicled in Shakespeare's Tudor/Lancaster-biased take on events. With her father and new husband slain in battle and mother and mother-in-law either in prison or otherwise defanged, Anne is left penniless. Her brother-in-law, George, and her own sister have taken her inheritance and are keeping her a virtual servant. King Edward's youngest brother, Richard, rescues Anne, marries her and uses some unorthodox means to regain her inheritance (while ensuring that it all belongs to him). The marriage, unlike the sinister seduction depicted by Shakespeare, is presented as a genuine love match (aside from some doubt about that tricky prenup). The chief threat to the realm is not Richard but Queen Elizabeth: A reputed witch with a grudge against Warwick's daughters (Warwick killed her father and brother), she will not be happy until Isabel, Anne and their progeny (and if necessary her brothers-in-law) are dead. Although their fates are known, Gregory creates suspense by raising intriguing questions about whether her characters will transcend their historical reputations.




The Next Best Thing by Jennifer Weiner

Kirkus Reviews –

A sitcom showrunner finds the road to her first series launch much rockier than expected. When Ruth Saunders gets "the call" from the network telling her that her original series, The Next Best Thing, is a go, at first she is incredulous. Although she's served her time in a writers' room, she never expected to sell her autobiographical concept about a young woman, Daphne, and her grandmother, Nanna Trudy, who move to Miami to seek their fortunes. Ruth moved to Hollywood with her grandmother, Rae, and they've both enjoyed success, Ruth as a comedy writer and Rae as an extra. Rae raised Ruth from toddlerhood after a car crash killed her parents and disfigured Ruth. (Even after multiple surgeries, one side of Ruth's face is badly scarred.) After Ruth is hired as an assistant to two writer-producers, Big Dave and Little Dave, they help her develop and pitch her own show. The process of bringing the series to air is sardonically chronicled by Weiner, herself a TV veteran. Ruth's hopes for Next are systematically dashed. The network suits insist on a terrible rewrite of a critical scene, and now Nanna has morphed from Golden Girls ditzy sophisticate to randy, superannuated cougar. (So shocked is Rae by her raunchy doppelganger, that her relationship with her granddaughter is sorely tested for the first time.) The zaftig leading lady (Daphne is insecure about her weight) shrinks down to a wraith of bulimic proportions, while shilling for a new diet. The seasoned character actress playing Nanna is replaced because the suits want a name, and the bimbo who caused Ruth's departure from her last writing gig is hired as Daphne's sidekick. Worse, Ruth has, for once, gotten what she wished for in the romance department--her first requited love, yet she pushes Little Dave away. The plot, exposition and flashback, heavy at first, pick up speed as complications multiply. Spares no bon mot in exposing Hollywood's sexism, ageism and incurable penchant for extravagant silliness.




Sweet Talk by Julie Garwood

Kirkus Reviews –

An IRS officer and an FBI agent find love while following the money. Olivia MacKenzie meets Grayson Kincaid when the FBI agent interrupts her job-interview lunch (she fears impending IRS layoffs) with financier Eric Jorguson. Technically, the interview had already ended when Jorguson, who knows the Feds are after him for money laundering, ripped Olivia's dress, looking for a wire. Olivia and Grayson soon find they have more in common than government employment. Both are attorneys, both have trust funds, and both have dedicated themselves to aiding children. Olivia rescues abused youngsters, and Grayson has all but adopted his 9-year-old nephew, Henry, whose father prefers the jet-set life. Before the requisite sexual pyrotechnics occur, Grayson must sort out the many miscreants out to get Olivia, most of whom are her relatives. Her father, Robert MacKenzie, is running a Ponzi scheme of Madoff-ian proportions, the Trinity Fund, but Olivia alone suspects financial malfeasance. Her sister, Natalie, is pressuring her to persuade Aunt Emma, the only relation who was there for Olivia during her childhood bout with a rare cancer, to invest in Trinity. Natalie, whose own money is tied up with Trinity, doesn't know that her husband, George, owes a loan shark a small fortune. George is trying to get his hands on Olivia's trust, and MacKenzie and his crooked attorney know she's looking for the smoking gun to bring Trinity down. Then there is Jorguson's irate bodyguard, fired over the FBI fracas. All the above are suspect when Olivia is wounded in a drive-by shooting. Meanwhile, Olivia is worried about Jane, one of three women who underwent experimental protocols for childhood cancer along with Olivia, and who now, except for Emma, constitute her family. Is Jane suffering a relapse, and is her addict brother, Logan, really in recovery? The evil characters lack any semblance of humanity, and the good characters, including the Fed-crossed lovers, are perfect and unbecomingly smug about it. A standard melodrama with occasional flashes of originality.


Where We Belong by Emily Giffin

Library Journal –

Mid-thirties Marian Caldwell has a happy relationship and a terrific career as a television producer in New York. Then the past literally comes knocking as Marian finds 18-year-old Kirby Rose on her doorstep. The author of five blockbusters (e.g., Something Borrowed), Giffin should revitalize this standard pop plot—or so the 1000-plus Goodreads folks already hankering to read this book clearly expect.




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