Lay Down My Sword and Shield by James Lee Burke

The hero of James Lee Burke's recent bestseller Rain Gods, cousin to lawman Billy Bob Holland, and a genuine product of the South, both old and new, Hackberry Holland makes his first appearance in this early gem from "America's best novelist" (The Denver Post).

Against the backdrop of growing civil rights turmoil in a sultry border town, the hard-drinking ex-POW attorney yields to the myriad urgings of his wife, his brother, and his so-called friends to make a bid for a congressional seat -- and finds himself embroiled in the seamy world of Texas powerbrokers. And when Hack attempts to overturn an old army buddy's conviction, and crosses paths with a beautiful union organizer who speaks to his heart in a way no one else has, he finds both a new love and a new purpose as he breaks free from the shackles of wealth and expectation to bring justice to the undeserved.

Lay Down My Sword and Shield

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Pocket
• ISBN-10: 1439165459

Disclosure - This product was received for review/feature consideration. The synopsis/description was taken from the publisher's website.
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Heart of Stone by Jill Marie Landis

She had the darkest of pasts. And he had everything to lose by loving her. 

Laura Foster, free from the bondage of an unspeakable childhood, has struggled to make a new life for herself. Now the owner of an elegant boardinghouse in Glory, Texas, she is known as a wealthy, respectable widow. But Laura never forgets that she is always just one step ahead of her past.

When Reverend Brand McCormick comes calling, Laura does all she can to discourage him as a suitor. She knows that if her past were discovered, Brand’s reputation would be ruined. But it’s not only Laura’s past that threatens to bring Brand down—it’s also his own.

When a stranger in town threatens to reveal too many secrets, Laura is faced with a heartbreaking choice: Should she leave Glory forever and save Brand’s future? Or is it worth risking his name—and her heart—by telling him the truth?

Heart of Stone: A Novel (Irish Angel Series)

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Zondervan
• ISBN-10: 0310328721

Disclosure - This product was received for review/feature consideration. The synopsis/description was taken from the publisher's website.
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Highest Duty by Chesley B. Sullenberger

On January 15, 2009, the world witnessed one of the most remarkable  emergency landings in aviation history when Captain Chesley "Sully"  Sullenberger skillfully glided US Airways Flight 1549 onto the surface  of the Hudson River, saving the lives of all 155 aboard. His cool  actions not only averted tragedy but made him a hero and an inspiration  worldwide. To Sullenberger, a calm, steady pilot with forty years of  flying experience who is also a safety consulting expert, the landing  was not a miracle but rather the result of years of practice and  training-wisdom he gained in the cockpit of U.S. Air Force jets and in  his Texas boyhood.

Born to a World War II veteran and dentist  father and an elementary school teacher mother, Sully fell in love with  planes early. He learned to fly as an eager 16-year-old from a crop  duster, an older neighbor in north Texas, who took off and landed his  fragile plane on the grass field behind his house. While Sully′s father  encouraged his interest in flying, he also imparted stern advice he′d  learned from his Navy service during World War II: a commander is  responsible for everyone in his care-and those words have shaped Sully′s  life and work and continue to guide him today.

HIGHEST DUTY  reveals the important lessons Sully learned through childhood, in his  military service, and in his work as a commercial airline pilot. At  heart, it is a story of hope and preparedness-that life′s challenges can  be met if we′re ready for them-reminding us that, even in these days  filled with war, tragedy, and economic uncertainty, there are values  still worth fighting for.

A few weeks after the crash, Sully  discovered that he′d lost a library book about professional ethics, Just  Culture: Balancing Safety and Accountability, in the downed plane′s  cargo hold. When he called the library to notify them, they waived the  usual fees. Mayor Michael Bloomberg replaced the book when he gave Sully  the Key to the City in a New York ceremony.

Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow
• ISBN-10: 0061924687

Disclosure - This product was received for review/feature consideration. The synopsis/description was taken from Amazon or the back of the book.
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Do They Know I'm Running? by David Corbett

Do They Know I'm Running?: A Novel (Mortalis)

Roque Montalvo is wise beyond his eighteen years. Orphaned at birth, a gifted musician, he’s stuck in a California backwater, helping his Salvadoran aunt care for his damaged brother, an ex-marine badly wounded in Iraq. When immigration agents arrest his uncle, the family has nowhere else to turn. Roque, badgered by his street-hardened cousin, agrees to bring the old man back, relying on the criminal gangs that control the dangerous smuggling routes from El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, to the U.S. border.

But his cousin has told Roque only so much. In reality, he will have to transport not just his uncle but two others: an Arab whose intentions are disturbingly vague and a young beauty promised to a Mexican crime lord. Roque discovers that his journey involves crossing more than one kind of border, and he will be asked time and again to choose between survival and betrayal—of his country, his family, his heart.


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Term Limits by Vince Flynn

In one bloody night, three of Washington’s most powerful politicians are executed with surgical precision. Their assassins then deliver a shocking ultimatum to the American government: set aside partisan politics and restore power to the people. No one, they warn, is out of their reach—not even the president.

A joint FBI-CIA task force reveals the killers are elite military commandos, but no one knows exactly who they are or when they will strike next. Only Michael O’Rourke, a former U.S. Marine and freshman congressman, holds a clue to the violence: a haunting incident in his own past with explosive implications for his country’s future.

Term Limits

• Paperback: 640 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Star; Reissue edition
• ISBN-10: 1439148104

Disclosure - This product was received for review/feature consideration. The synopsis/description was taken from Amazon or the back of the book.
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One Day at a Time By Danielle Steel

Danielle Steel celebrates families of every stripe in her compelling new novel—a tale of three very different couples who struggle and survive, love, laugh, and learn to take life…

Coco Barrington was born into a legendary Hollywood family, her last name loaded with expectations. Her mother is a mega-bestselling author who writes under the name of Florence Flowers—and her sister, Jane, is one of Hollywood’s top producers. They’re not your typical family by any means.…Jane has lived with her partner, Liz, for ten years, in a solid, loving relationship. Florence, widowed but still radiant, has just begun a secret romance with a man twenty-four years her junior. And Coco, a law school dropout and the family black sheep, works as a dog walker, having fled life in the spotlight for the artsy northern California beach town of Bolinas.

But when Coco reluctantly agrees to dog-sit in Jane’s luxurious home, she soon discovers how much things can change in just a matter of days.…It turns out Jane’s house comes complete with an unexpected houseguest: Leslie Baxter, a dashing but down-to-earth British actor who’s fleeing a psycho ex-girlfriend. Their worlds couldn’t be more different. The attraction couldn’t be more immediate.

Suddenly Coco is seeing things differently: Leslie is not just a celebrity, he’s a single dad to an adorable six-year-old girl. Her mother is not just a self-centered walking advertisement for great cosmetic surgery, she’s a woman in love, with vulnerability and new insight. And Jane and Liz are about to take the bravest plunge of all—into parenthood. As Coco contemplates a future with one of Hollywood’s hottest stars, as her mother and sister settle into their lives, old wounds are healed and new familes are formed—some traditional, some not so traditional, but all bonded by love.

With wit and intelligence, Danielle Steel’s new novel explores love in all its guises, taking us into the lives of three unusual but wonderfully real couples. Funny, sexy, and wise, One Day at a Time is at once moving, thought provoking, and utterly impossible to put down.

One Day at a Time

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Delacorte Press
• ISBN-10: 038534029X

Disclosure - This product was received for review/feature consideration. The synopsis/description was taken from Amazon or the back of the book.
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The Heavenstone Secrets by V.C. Andrews

SECRETS ARE AT HOME HERE . . .

The Heavenstone sisters live with their mother and father in a grand old mansion in bluegrass Kentucky. Semantha, the younger and prettier one, is afraid of so many things— darkness, strange noises, mysterious whispers in the night. But nothing frightens her more than her sister, Cassie. She is older and wiser, and always telling Semantha what to do, what to wear, and how to behave around those wicked boys at school. Semantha has her eye on one special guy—but Cassie has other plans for her. In the Heavenstone house, big sister knows best.

. . . AND THERE’S NO ESCAPE.

When tragedy strikes like a lightning bolt from heaven, Semantha’s life becomes a living hell. Under Cassie’s constant, watchful eye, she feels like a prisoner—a helpless pawn in her sister’s cruel game. When Cassie begins wearing their mother’s clothes and vying for their father’s affections, Semantha realizes she must bring their twisted sibling rivalry to an end . . . before a new generation is born.

Heavenstone Secrets

• Mass Market Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Pocket
• ISBN-10: 1439154953

Disclosure - This product was received for review/feature consideration. The synopsis/description was taken from Amazon or the back of the book.
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The Battle Sylph by L. J. McDonald

The Battle SylphThe Battle Sylph
336p, Leisure Book, Isbn-084396300X

In a world where Elemental Sylphs are used for slave labour, Solie thought her biggest problem in life was avoiding an arranged marriage with an older man. That is, until she finds herself kidnapped for use as a human sacrifice in the luring and binding of a Battler, the most dangerous kind of Sylph there is. Terrified but determined not to die, Solie fights back and finds herself suddenly the master of an immensely powerful, shape-changing creature who can take on any form she wishes.

Heyou, however, isn't the only Battle Sylph around, and the two of them are forced to run, pursued by men determined to destroy them both. With no other options left to her, Solie flees with her newfound allies to the only source of sanctuary left to them, but death is tracking them down and Heyou is filling her with desires that threaten to change the world.

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Review - Crossroads by Belva Plain

Cassie Wright never saw it coming. As the owner of thriving Wright Glassworks, Cassie’s life was quiet, well-ordered . . . until a tragic accident forces her to take in a one-year-old child who has no one else to care for her. As the years pass, Cassie will raise young Gwen as her own, and the girl will flourish in a world of privilege and opportunity. Enter Jewel Fairbanks. Beautiful and conniving, Jewel will touch the lives of both Cassie and Gwen in powerful ways.

Both Gwen and Jewel will marry; Gwen will fall for honest, hardworking Stan. And Jewel will marry Jeff, a businessman who owns the company where Stan works. But when Stan makes a shocking discovery on the job, a tangled drama of greed, jealousy, and betrayal will encircle both couples, changing four lives forever—in ways they never could have foreseen.

My thoughts: I can only sum it up by saying this - My mother loved this book. I didn't.

The story is highly predictable and the journey there isn't the most scintillating. While I love historicals, this certainly can't be termed as one even though the overall feel of the novel is sort of dated. The gentle pace and the meandering story were what most appealed to my mom and what she considers its strong points.

So, as always, read a book for yourself before making up your mind about it.

Crossroads

• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Dell; Reprint edition
• ISBN-10: 0440241251

Disclosure - This product was received for review/feature consideration. The synopsis/description was taken from Amazon or the back of the book.
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The Elusive Bride by Stephanie Laurens

New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens takes a bold turn in her exciting new series.

A second battle-hardened, completely unstoppable, all-male hero, an ex-officer of the Crown, confronts the deadly enemy known only as the Black Cobra.

He's focused on his mission, then sees a lady he never dreamed he'd see again—with an assassin on her heels.

She secretly followed him, unaware her path is deadly—or that she'll join him to battle a treacherous foe.

Through ever-present peril, through passion, desire, and ecstasy, they race to reach England—and their destiny.

The Elusive Bride (The Black Cobra Quartet)

• Mass Market Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Avon
• ISBN-10: 0061795151

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The Devil's Punchbowl by Greg Iles

From New York Times bestselling author Greg Iles comes his most electrifying thriller yet. The Devil's Punchbowl reveals a world of depravity, sex, violence, and the corruption of a Southern town.

As a prosecuting attorney in Houston, Penn Cage sent hardened killers to death row. But it is as mayor of his hometown -- Natchez, Mississippi -- that Penn will face his most dangerous threat. Urged by old friends to try to restore this fading jewel of the Old South, Penn has ridden into office on a tide of support for change. But in its quest for new jobs and fresh money, Natchez, like other Mississippi towns, has turned to casino gambling, and now five fantastical steamboats float on the river beside the old slave market at Natchez like props from Gone With the Wind.

But one boat isn't like the others.

Rumor has it that the Magnolia Queen has found a way to pull the big players from Las Vegas to its Mississippi backwater. And with them -- on sleek private jets that slip in and out of town like whispers in the night -- come pro football players, rap stars, and international gamblers, all sharing an unquenchable taste for one thing: blood sport -- and the dark vices that go with it. When a childhood friend of Penn's who brings him evidence of these crimes is brutally murdered, the full weight of Penn's failure to protect his city hits home. So begins his quest to find the men responsible. But it's a hunt he begins alone, for the local authorities have been corrupted by the money and power of his hidden enemy. With his family's lives at stake, Penn realizes his only allies in his one-man war are those bound to him by blood or honor:

# Caitlin Masters, the lover Penn found in The Quiet Can Game and lost in Turning Angel
# Danny McDavitt, the heroic helicopter pilot from Third Degree
# Tom Cage, Penn's father and legendary local family physician
# Walt Garrity, a retired Texas Ranger who served with Penn's father during the Korean War

Together they must defeat a sophisticated killer who has an almost preternatural ability to anticipate -- and counter -- their every move. Ultimately, victory will depend on a bold stroke that will leave one of Penn's allies dead -- and Natchez changed forever.

After appearing in two of Iles's most popular novels, Penn Cage makes his triumphant return as a brilliant, honorable, and courageous hero. Rich with Southern atmosphere and marked by one jaw-dropping plot turn after another, The Devil's Punchbowl confirms that Greg Iles is America's master of suspense.

The Devil's Punchbowl

• Paperback: 736 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Star
• ISBN-10: 141652455X

Disclosure - This product was received for review/feature consideration. The synopsis/description was taken from Amazon or the back of the book.
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Brigid of Kildare by Heather Terrell

Rich in historical detail, Heather Terrell’s mesmerizing novel Brigid of Kildare is the story of the revolutionary Saint Brigid and the discovery of the oldest illuminated manuscript in the annals of the Church, a manuscript that contains an astonishing secret history.

Fifth-century Ireland: Brigid is Ireland’s first and only female priest and bishop. Followers flock to her Kildare abbey and scriptorium. Hearing accounts of Brigid’s power, the Church deems her a threat and sends Decius, a Roman priest and scribe, on a secret mission to collect proof of Brigid’s heresy.

As Decius records the unorthodox practices of Brigid and her abbey, he becomes intrigued by her. When Brigid assigns Decius a holy task—to create the most important and sacred manuscript ever made—he finds himself at odds with his original mission and faces the most difficult decision of his life.

Modern day: Alexandra Patterson, an appraiser of medieval relics, has been summoned to Kildare to examine a reliquary box believed to belong to Saint Brigid. Hidden within the sacred box is the most beautiful illuminated manuscript Alex has ever seen. But even more extraordinary is the contents of the manuscript’s vellum pages, which may have dire repercussions for the Catholic Church and could very well rewrite the origins of Christianity.

Brigid of Kildare

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• ISBN-10: 0345505123

Disclosure - This product was received for review/feature consideration. The synopsis/description was taken from Amazon or the back of the book.
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Worst Case by James Patterson

Best case: survival

The son of one of New York's wealthiest families is snatched off the street and held hostage. His parents can't save him, because this kidnapper isn't demanding money. Instead, he quizzes his prisoner on the price others pay for his life of luxury. In this exam, wrong answers are fatal.

Worst case: death

Detective Michael Bennett leads the investigation. With ten kids of his own, he can't begin to understand what could lead someone to target anyone's children. As another student disappears, one powerful family after another uses their leverage and connections to turn the heat up on the mayor, the press--anyone who will listen--to stop this killer. Their reach extends all the way to the FBI, who send their top Abduction Specialist, Agent Emily Parker. Bennett's life--and love life--suddenly get even more complicated.

Worst Case

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
• ISBN-10: 0316036226

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The Overnight Socialite by Bridie Clark

From Publishers Weekly: Clark moves the Pygmalion myth to Manhattan, adds a dash of Thelma and Louise and proves what goes around, comes around to those born to the manor or trailer park. Professor Higgins is recast as suave bachelor Wyatt Hayes IV, the sleekest lion in the pride, who picks down-on-her-luck fashion designer wannabe Lucy Jo Ellis to make over into the toast of the town.

The deal is eventually struck—makeover and a shot at well-born fashion contacts for a gentleman's bet that masks a lucrative and career-saving book deal. Along the way, these perfectly matched antagonists battle mean-as-a-snake society snoots and their own misguided ambitions to find happiness and each other. (And, it should be said, the Rain in Spain remix is pretty great: The snow in Gstaad puts Aspen's to shame! the newly svelte and prepped Lucy proclaims.) Yes, of course the ending's no surprise, but the rollicking, smart-aleck fun along the way is worth the price of admission.

The Overnight Socialite

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Weinstein Books
• ISBN-10: 1602860823

Disclosure - This product was received for review/feature consideration. The synopsis/description was taken from Amazon or the back of the book.
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