From Publishers Weekly

Clare’s lush historical romance takes readers to 1750s New York, where the three MacKinnon brothers, Jacobites sworn to free Scotland from British rule, have settled in exile. Iain MacKinnon and his two brothers, powerful Highland warriors trained in native American warfare, are falsely accused of murder and forced to take up the banner of their enemy King George in the French and Indian War. While on patrol, Iain rescues a Scots woman who calls herself Annie Burns from the French and Abenaki soldiers who raided her home. Annie, who hides a tragic past of family betrayal and indentured servitude, struggles with her newfound freedom and the mixed feelings she has for her saviors—so much like the Jacobite warriors who cut down her Loyalist father and brothers in battle. As Annie’s ambivalence gives way to love, Clare (Ride the Fire) explores 18th-century religious and political conflict on both a personal and international scale. While her prose s (more…)

From Publishers Weekly

As Daheim’s readers well know, Emma Lord (appearing in her 13th mystery) is a full-time journalist and part-time sleuth in the tiny Washington lumber town of Alpine. Persuaded by VidaAher gray-haired yet spunky house-and-home editor at The Alpine Advocate, who strongly proclaims the value of family tiesAEmma goes to Seattle to help a long-lost cousin who is accused of murdering Carol Stokes, his girlfriend and a former Alpine resident. Emma hasn’t seen cousin Ronnie since he was a kid, 25 years ago, and from what she can tell he’s an aimless loser who remembers little about the night of the murder except that he was out drinking. Thus, Emma and Vida shoulder the burden of clearing him and endure a busy week interviewing neighbors, a tangle of ex-girlfriends and boyfriends and both real and adoptive parents. Emma’s rather stiff performance is balanced by the colorful and resourceful Vida, who uses her age to great advantage in eliciting information (more…)

From Publishers Weekly

Is it too early to declare Finder’s fifth novel (after High Crimes) the most entertaining thriller of 2004? Probably, but it will be a surprise if another suspenser proves as much sheer fun as Finder’s robust tale of corporate espionage. Narrator Adam Cassidy’s trip to hell begins when he charges to the company an unauthorized, very expensive party for a retiring blue-collar laborer at their place of work, Wyatt Telecom. Caught, low-level staffer Adam is given an offer he can’t refuse by monstrously slick and wealthy CEO Nick Wyatt: penetrate rival high-tech giant Trion Systems and get the goods on Trion’s killer new products, or face a battery of felony charges. Adam accepts the deal, and days later he’s at Trion, along with false credentials that persuade Trion that he was a key player at Wyatt Telecom, rather than a cube-squatting shlub. Finder presents Adam’s thrust into Trion as the scary, grand adventure of a stranger in a strange land, as A (more…)

From Publishers Weekly

The distinctive voice of pseudonymous Riverbend shines through this continuation of her blog, from October 2004 through March 2006 (2005’s Baghdad Burning won a Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Literary Reportage). Now 27, she offers an invaluable description of life in a middle-class, secular, mixed Shia-Sunni family. Alternating reports of attacks seen on TV and raids in her neighborhood with the mundane details of fuel shortages and infrequent electricity and water, Riverbend also offers astute analysis of the Iraqi draft constitution and American media, widely available through Iraqi TV and the Internet (her suggestion for a reality show: “Take 15 Bush supporters and throw them in a house in Fallujah”). She emphasizes how gender has become an issue when it never was before, e.g., election forms are all stamped “male.” Riverbend’s dry wit leavens her anger: after watching the 2006 Oscar ceremonies on TV, she proposes Iraqi Oscars (”Ahmed Al- (more…)

From Publishers Weekly

This is a stellar version of the old story, newly alive in both the telling and in the hauntingly atmospheric pictures. Beauty, of course, is the good daughter of a man whose wealth is sunk with the ships that are carrying it. Beauty’s sisters are jealous of her, but her father and three brothers genuinely care for her. When her father tries to recover his wealth, he ends up at a castle where he is treated royally. Just as he cuts a rose from a bush to take home to Beauty, the Beast appears, demanding that one of the man’s daughters be brought there to die. Beauty chooses to go, while her sisters cut onions to look as if they’re mourning her loss. At the Beast’s castle, Beauty is given every comfort, and through the conversations she has with her host each night, sees Beast’s good heart and agrees to marry him. In the end, he is transformed into a handsome prince. The characters are fleshed out and so well drawn that the love Beauty has for Beast (more…)