Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Popular Authors I've Never Read

 

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This week's prompt from the lovelies over at The Broke and the Bookish asks us to bare our souls and be shamed and list ten popular authors we have not read. Please don't judge me.

Top Ten Tuesday: ten book blogging tools I use the most

 

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First of all, this blog wouldn't be crap without you, my lovely readers. I appreciate and love you all, from the bottom of my heart for stopping by. But following are some tools that I use for my (often sporadic) posting.

1. Kindle app - I don't have a dedicated e-reader, but have downloaded the free Kindle app onto my phone for reading ebooks. I used to use the free Aldiko app as well, but with one of their updates they did away with the ability to highlight and write notes. The feature is available with the paid app, but I'm all about free.

2. Twitter - It's easy to get sucked into the Twitterverse rabbit hole, but it sure is a great place to talk books with both readers and authors.
Follow @AJArndt


3. Blog it! app - For writing on the fly, I like the Blog it! app. Do you use an app for Blogger? Love it or hate it, I'd love to know of some other choices. Please share.


4. Bloglovin' -  (with the demise of Google Friend Connect) I follow a lot of blogs written by more experienced and brilliant bloggers than myself, and love to read them all. The authors all bring a little something different to the table, and I learn so much from them.

4. Memes - This comes from number 4. I didn't know what the hell a meme even was until I started reading blogs. I try and not go crazy with them and don't hold myself to a strict schedule. I love Top Ten Tuesdays hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, Oh, How Pinteresting! hosted by The Vintage Apple, and Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads.

5. Challenges - This is the first year I've participated in any challenges and am loving it. I only chose two, Where are you reading? hosted by Book Journey and the Foodies Read challenge. They have both have been a blessing in helping to decide what to read and review next.

6. Stats - I'm a slave to my stats. I know I shouldn't be, but how else am I supposed to know what people want to read? At least that's how I justify it in my head. UGH!

7. A notebook - I have a notebook that I jot down ideas, book review notes, etc. in. It fits in my purse, and I would be lost without it. It's raggedy as all get-out, but I love it. It's my Woobie.

8. Panera - My internet connection is often sketchy to say the very least, so I started packing up and going to my local Panera. Dude, What's not to love? coffee. Good. Free wi-fi. very good. And the staff has NEVER made me feel like a moocher. Quite the contrary, I always have felt very welcome. It's all good!

9. Wikipedia - I use Wikipedia A LOT! I know, not all is true on wiki, but it is still a FANTASTIC resource.

10. HTML - I've learned so much (from zero) HTML since I started blogging, and so many kind people are willing to help with their tutorials on the interweb. I'm not near my laptop bookmarked will all of my faves, but I will have to make a note to share in my notebook.

My heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you for accompanying me on this blogging journey.

All my love,
Angela

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten (or eight) of my my favorite opening lines

 

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An author hopes that his/her book will suck you in with the opening line. It is the holy grail of sentences for every writer. The first sentence. No pressure. Think of something amazing.
I did a post awhile back about first lines of Jane Austen's works, but this one includes a bunch of random faves.
Well, here are (only) ten eight of my favorite openers (in no particular order).

1. "Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much." ~ Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling

2. "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it if you want to know the truth." The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

3. "Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board." Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

4. “My name is India Opal Buloni, and last summer my daddy, the preacher, sent me to the store for a box of macaroni-and-cheese, some white rice, and two tomatoes and I came back with a dog.” Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo

5. "When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow." To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (you didn't think I wouldn't sneak this one in, did you?)

6. "If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book." The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket
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7. "Call me Ishmael." Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (with a bossy first sentence like that, how could you stop reading?)

8. "You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly." The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (what can I say? still a very funny man, that Mark Twain...)


There you have it. What is one of your fave opening lines? Do share.
Thank you a million for stopping by.
Angela

Top Ten Tuesday: Spring 2013 releases that I can't wait to read

 

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Yes, I realize that by the time I hit "publish" it will be Wednesday. I beg of you to cut me some slack as I've been sick with the nastiest of colds for the past week. I blame it on the weather.

Anyway, I couldn't pass on this week's topic. There are so many great sounding books being released this Spring!

Top Ten Tuesday: Settings I'd like to see more of

 

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This week's Top Ten is kind of a bust for me. Top Ten settings I'd like to see more of? Right now, it would be anywhere warm. The temperature outside is FRIGID. It's -1, with a wind chill of -16. We're expecting the wind chill to get down to -25. Who EXPECTS the temperature to get down that low? Polar bears, that's who. It's freaking cold for people.

Top Ten Tuesday: More 2013 Debut Fiction to Look Forward To

 

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I say more because I wrote about some other choices back in November. Can you ever have too many choices? I don't think so.

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Goals for 2013

 

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1. I hope to successfully complete the challenges I've signed up for. Together they total 62 books. Sounds doable right now, but we'll see once summer and gardening comes around again :)

Did you read about Slate writer, Jeff Ryan, who resolved to a book a day in 2012? He did it. He has the same plan for 2013.

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Debut Novel Selections to Look Forward to in 2013

 

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I've chosen to list some debut fiction that's being released in the early part of 2013 for this week's Top Ten. Picking only ten has proven to be quite a challenge.



A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea by Dina Nayeri

Genre: Literary
Release: January 31

A magical novel about a young Iranian woman lifted from grief by her powerful imagination and love of Western culture. Growing up in a small rice-farming village in 1980s Iran, eleven-year-old Saba Hafezi and her twin sister, Mahtab, are captivated by America. They keep lists of English words and collect illegal Life magazines, television shows, and rock music. So when her mother and sister disappear, leaving Saba and her father alone in Iran, Saba is certain that they have moved to America without her. But her parents have taught her that “all fate is written in the blood,” and that twins will live the same life, even if separated by land and sea. As she grows up in the warmth and community of her local village, falls in and out of love, and struggles with the limited possibilities in post-revolutionary Iran, Saba envisions that there is another way for her story to unfold. Somewhere, it must be that her sister is living the Western version of this life. And where Saba’s world has all the grit and brutality of real life under the new Islamic regime, her sister’s experience gives her a freedom and control that Saba can only dream of. Filled with a colorful cast of characters and presented in a bewitching voice that mingles the rhythms of Eastern storytelling with modern Western prose, A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea is a tale about memory and the importance of controlling one’s own fate.

Me, Him, Them, and It by Caela Carter

Genre: Young Adult
Release: February 5 (per the publisher's website; Amazon says March 5)

When Evelyn decided to piss off her parents with a bad reputation, she wasn't planning to ruin her valedictorian status. She also wasn't planning to fall for Todd-the guy she was just using for sex. And she definitely wasn't planning on getting pregnant. When Todd turns his back on her, Evelyn's not sure where to go. Can a distant mother, a cheating father, an angry best friend, and a (thankfully) loving aunt with adopted daughters of her own help Evelyn make the heart-wrenching decisions that follow? With the popularity of Juno, Teen Mom, and The Secret Life of the American Teenager, this novel has a built-in audience. Gripping, heartfelt, and responsible, Me, Him, Them, and It is not to be missed!

Wash by Margaret Wrinkle

Genre: Historical
Release: February 5

Margaret Wrinkle’s luminous, affecting debut novel is the impassioned story of two men and a woman joined by slave breeding in early-nineteenth-century Tennessee. Written as an accusation, a revelation, and a prayer, Wash challenges contemporary assumptions as it transcends time, revealing anew this explosive shard of national history. Richardson, a troubled Revolutionary War veteran, responds to the pressures of debt and westward expansion by setting Washington, a young man he owns, to work as his breeding sire. As Wash gets drawn into a power struggle with Richardson, he fights to hold onto his West African spiritual legacy. Despair and disease lead him to a potent enslaved healer named Pallas. While their delicate love unfolds, she inspires Wash to forge a new understanding of his heritage and his place in it. As these three lives intertwine, the stories they tell allow them to find solace and mastery. By turns haunting, tender, and redemptive, this boundary-crossing novel carries the reader from the heart of whiteness into the center of ancestral African spirituality until these two contrasting ways of seeing shimmer together. Questioning differences of blood and belief, erasing the line between the living and dead, Wash offers new insights into current racial dilemmas.

Ghostman by Roger Hobbs

Genre: Thriller
Release: February 12

The sensation of the 2011 Frankfurt Book Fair: a stunningly dark first novel that is sure to become a major publishing event. When a casino robbery in Atlantic City goes horribly awry the man who orchestrated it is obliged to call in a favor from "Jack." Only thirty or so people are sure this man exists, some believe he's dead, and none know anything at all about his true identity. Those are closely guarded trade secrets, to say the least, for an exceptionally trained, experienced, and talented criminal. But as he struggles to clean up the mess left in the wake of the bungled Atlantic City heist, he finds himself increasingly more visible as he's pursued simultaneously by the FBI and other interested, if mysteriously elusive, parties--a situation that requires every gram of his skill, ingenuity, and self-protective instincts, especially when offense and defense become meaningless terms. From its opening pages, Ghostman effortlessly pulls the reader into Jack's refined and peculiar world--and the sophisticated shadowboxing only grows more powerfully intense as the novel moves toward its inexorable conclusion.

The House Girl by Tara Conklin

Genre: Literary
Release: February 12

Virginia, 1852. Seventeen-year-old Josephine Bell decides to run from the failing tobacco farm where she is a slave and nurse to her ailing mistress, the aspiring artist Lu Anne Bell.

New York City, 2004. Lina Sparrow, an ambitious first-year associate in an elite law firm, is given a difficult, highly sensitive assignment that could make her career: she must find the “perfect plaintiff” to lead a historic class-action lawsuit worth trillions of dollars in reparations for descendants of American slaves. It is through her father, the renowned artist Oscar Sparrow, that Lina discovers Josephine Bell and a controversy roiling the art world: are the iconic paintings long ascribed to Lu Anne Bell really the work of her house slave, Josephine? A descendant of Josephine’s would be the perfect face for the reparations lawsuit—if Lina can find one. While following the runaway girl’s faint trail through old letters and plantation records, Lina finds herself questioning her own family history and the secrets that her father has never revealed: How did Lina’s mother die? And why will he never speak about her? Moving between antebellum Virginia and modern-day New York, this searing, suspenseful and heartbreaking tale of art and history, love and secrets, explores what it means to repair a wrong and asks whether truth is sometimes more important than justice.

The Office of Mercy by Ariel Djanikian

Genre: Dystopian
Release: February 21

A thrilling debut of a postapocalyptic world for fans of The Hunger Games Weaving philosophy and science together into a riveting, dystopian story of love and adventure, The Office of Mercy illuminates an all-too-real future imagined by a phenomenal new voice in fiction. Twenty-four-year-old Natasha Wiley lives in America-Five—a high-tech, underground, utopian settlement where hunger and money do not exist, everyone has a job, and all basic needs are met. But when her mentor and colleague, Jeffrey, selects her to join a special team to venture Outside for the first time, Natasha’s allegiances to home, society, and above all to Jeffrey are tested. She is forced to make a choice that may put the people she loves most in grave danger and change the world as she knows it. The Office of Mercy is speculative fiction at its best with a deeply imagined, lush world, high-stakes adventure, and romance that will thrill fans of Suzanne Collins, Margaret Atwood, Justin Cronin, and Kazuo Ishiguro.

In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters

Genre: Young Adult
Release: April 2

In 1918, the world seems on the verge of apocalypse. Americans roam the streets in gauze masks to ward off the deadly Spanish influenza, and the government ships young men to the front lines of a brutal war, creating an atmosphere of fear and confusion. Sixteen-year-old Mary Shelley Black watches as desperate mourners flock to séances and spirit photographers for comfort, but she herself has never believed in ghosts. During her bleakest moment, however, she’s forced to rethink her entire way of looking at life and death, for her first love—a boy who died in battle—returns in spirit form. But what does he want from her? Featuring haunting archival early-twentieth-century photographs, this is a tense, romantic story set in a past that is eerily like our own time.

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight

Genre: Contemporary
Release: April 2

In Reconstructing Amelia, the stunning debut novel from Kimberly McCreight, Kate's in the middle of the biggest meeting of her career when she gets the telephone call from Grace Hall, her daughter’s exclusive private school in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Amelia has been suspended, effective immediately, and Kate must come get her daughter—now. But Kate’s stress over leaving work quickly turns to panic when she arrives at the school and finds it surrounded by police officers, fire trucks, and an ambulance. By then it’s already too late for Amelia. And for Kate. An academic overachiever despondent over getting caught cheating has jumped to her death. At least that’s the story Grace Hall tells Kate. And clouded as she is by her guilt and grief, it is the one she forces herself to believe. Until she gets an anonymous text: She didn’t jump. Reconstructing Amelia is about secret first loves, old friendships, and an all-girls club steeped in tradition. But, most of all, it’s the story of how far a mother will go to vindicate the memory of a daughter whose life she couldn’t save.

Amity and Sorrow by Peggy Riley

Genre: Contemporary
Release: April 16

A mother and her daughters drive for days without sleep until they crash their car in rural Oklahoma. The mother, Amaranth, is desperate to get away from someone she's convinced will follow them wherever they go--her husband. The girls, Amity and Sorrow, can't imagine what the world holds outside their father's polygamous compound. Rescue comes in the unlikely form of Bradley, a farmer grieving the loss of his wife. At first unwelcoming to these strange, prayerful women, Bradley's abiding tolerance gets the best of him, and they become a new kind of family. An unforgettable story of belief and redemption, Amity and Sorrow is about the influence of community and learning to stand on your own.

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

Genre: Historical/ Magical
Release: April 23

A marvelous and absorbing debut novel, an enchanting combination of vivid historical fiction and magical fable about two supernatural creatures in turn-of-the-century immigrant New York. An immigrant tale that combines elements of Jewish and Arab folk mythology, Helene Wecker's dazzling debut novel tells the story of two supernatural creatures who arrive separately in New York in 1899. Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life to by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic. When her master-the husband who commissioned her-dies at sea on the voyage from Poland, she is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York harbor in 1899. Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire, born in the ancient Syrian desert. Trapped in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard centuries ago, he is released accidentally by a tinsmith in a Lower Manhattan shop. Though he is no longer imprisoned, Ahmad is not entirely free-an unbreakable band of iron around his wrist binds him to the physical world. Meeting by chance, Chava and Ahmad become unlikely friends whose tenuous attachment challenges their opposing nature-until the night a terrifying incident drives them back into their separate worlds. But a powerful threat will soon bring the Golem and the Jinni together again, challenging their existence and forcing them to make a fateful choice. Marvelous and compulsively readable, The Golem and the Jinni weaves strands of Yiddish and Middle Eastern literature, historical fiction and magical fable into a wondrously inventive and unforgettable tale.

What books are you most eagerly anticipating in 2013? I'd love to hear about them.
Thank you so much for stopping by.

Angela

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books Set in Autumn

 

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This week the topic for Top Ten Tuesday is a freebie, and as the air is getting colder I'd thought I'd go with books set in the Fall.

 Autumn is my Baby Girl's favorite season. But who can blame her? The leaves seem to change from green of summer to fiery shades of red, yellow, and orange seemingly overnight, setting the landscape on fire. Absolutely stunning. You have to catch it quick, though. When the leaves have exuded all the beauty they can muster, they fall off. Which adds a bit to the season actually. Fall wouldn't be fall without the crunchy, dry leaves underfoot. Remember as a kid, trying to rake up the biggest pile of leaves you could...and then just launching your body full force into it. Ahhh. Good times.

And...Watching all the little kids dressed up as their favorite characters for trick-or-treating is so darn cute! I tried, for years, to talk either one of my kids as going as a leftover. I said that I would wrap them up real cute in aluminum foil. It was a no-go. Dang. I tried so hard.Really, how cute would that be? My daughter would have made a terrific meatball too. That year... Also a no-go. Damn Disney Princesses! My baby could have been the CUTEST meatball on the block...

The air gets a crispness to it. You can actually SMELL winter coming. And pumpkins. I would be very remiss without mentioning pumpkins. Everything is pumpkin-flavored this time of year. But that's ok with me, it's a cozy flavor. And who in the heck doesn't love pumpkin pie? I personally love pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting. I'll have to make a batch soon come to think of it.

Alright, enough already. Here's a list of ten books set during this glorious season. I've chosen from a number of genres, not just the scary, Halloween-y type of story.

1. The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury

From the Inside Flap

"A fast-moving, eerie...tale set on Halloween night. Eight costumed boys running to meet their friend Pipkin at the haunted house outside town encounter instead the huge and cadaverous Mr. Moundshroud. As Pipkin scrambles to join them, he is swept away by a dark Something, and Moundshroud leads the boys on the tail of a kite through time and space to search the past for their friend and the meaning of Halloween. After witnessing a funeral procession in ancient Egypt, cavemen discovering fire, Druid rites, the persecution of witches in the Dark Ages, and the gargoyles of Notre Dame, they catch up with the elusive Pipkin in the catacombs of Mexico, where each boy gives one year from the end of his life to save Pipkin's. Enhanced by appropriately haunting black-and-white drawings."--Booklist

 2. Grace In Autumn  (Heavenly Daze series, #2) by Lori Copeland; Angela Hunt

It's November, and as the island residents prepare for the coming months of cold and snow, they are surprised by God's unexpected lessons of humility, trust, and hope. Authors Lori Copeland and Angela Hunt revisit the Island of Heavenly Daze in the second book of the highly acclaimed series about a small town where angelic intervention is commonplace and the Thanksgiving feast a community affair.

3.  Bitter Harvest by Ann Rule

In this harrowing New York Times bestseller, Ann Rule is at her masterful best as she winnows horrific truths from the ashes of what seemed like paradise in Prairie Village, Kansas. Rule probes the case of Debora Green, a doctor and a loving mother who seemed to epitomize the dreams of the American heartland. A small-town girl with a genius IQ, she achieved an enviable life: her own medical practice, a handsome physician husband, three perfect children, and an opulent home in an exclusive Kansas City suburb. But when a raging fire destroyed that home and took two lives, the trail of clues led investigators to a stunning conclusion. Piece by piece, Ann Rule digs beneath this placid Midwestern facade to unveil a disturbing portrait of strangely troubled marriages, infidelity, desperation, suicide, and escalating acts of revenge that forever changed dozens of lives.

4.  October by Richard B. Wright  

Visiting his gravely ill daughter, James Hillyer encounters by chance Gabriel Fontaine, whom he met as a boy while on holiday in Gaspé. At the time, the boys had competed for the love of a French-Canadian girl from the village. Now, over six decades later and faced with the terrible possibility of outliving his own daughter, James is asked by Gabriel to accompany him on a final, unthinkable journey.

With superb storytelling, spare writing and characters who feel as real and familiar as old friends, Richard B. Wright weaves a haunting classic of a man searching for answers in the autumn of his life.

 5. 11/22/63: A Novel by Stephen King

Dallas, 11/22/63: Three shots ring out.

President John F. Kennedy is dead.

Life can turn on a dime—or stumble into the extraordinary, as it does for Jake Epping, a high school English teacher in a Maine town. While grading essays by his GED students, Jake reads a gruesome, enthralling piece penned by janitor Harry Dunning: fifty years ago, Harry somehow survived his father’s sledgehammer slaughter of his entire family. Jake is blown away . . . but an even more bizarre secret comes to light when Jake’s friend Al, owner of the local diner, enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession—to prevent the Kennedy assassination. How? By stepping through a portal in the diner’s storeroom, and into the era of Ike and Elvis, of big American cars, sock hops, and cigarette smoke. . . . Finding himself in warmhearted Jolie, Texas, Jake begins a new life. But all turns in the road lead to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald. The course of history is about to be rewritten . . . and become heart-stoppingly suspenseful.

6. November Hunt (Murder-by-Month mystery series, #7) by Jess Lourey

November in Battle Lake, Minnesota, is cold enough to freeze the balls off a pool table. lt's also deer hunting season. When Tom Kicker is killed in a hunting accident, Mira James is hired to investigate—a job that brings her closer to a P.I. license. Braving subzero temps and shrieking blizzards, Mira uncovers a decades-old scandal that has never quite died, unlike the cold stiffs who are piling up in the town morgue. As she pieces together the clues, Mira discovers that Battle Lake's good-old boys have been up to some bad business. But with threats and enemies around every icy corner, she may not live long enough to expose the truth.

7. November by J. William English

Jumping back into an old life is hard, something Liam O'Callaghan speedily finds out. Author J. William English's November takes readers to St. Dunstans, Scotland, a tiny coastal village where nothing ever happens--at least, it didn't. A struggling writer and recent graduate of the University of Dublin, Liam tries to settle back into life at home but finds that something is missing. A reprobate of faith since his late teens, he rebels against the pressure from his friends to return to church. Heart-wrenching challenges face the young, would-be writer, as well as dangerous and difficult choices. When a ruthless murderer arrives in the village and makes Liam his target of persecution, Liam and his friends are driven to take matters into their own hands. Life is fast going downhill, and meanwhile, he may be losing the girl he's loved most of his life. A contemporary tale of conflicted love, bitterness, and raw emotion, November is a bleak, at times dark story, but it is shrouded with the light of hope. As readers learn, there is always a way out, even when things are at their worst. The question is: will Liam November O'Callaghan be wise enough to choose it?

8. The Cold November Son by Kielden Cundiff

 Manhood, it is that imaginary line that every teenage boy must cross but when a teenage boy in a small town in South Dakota takes what he believes is a first step out of adolescence he has no idea how close to the line of adulthood he is stepping. The summer of 1983 starts innocently enough for thirteen year old Tommy with the gift of a shotgun, and an invitation to join his father in the upcoming pheasant hunting season. However, the innocence of that moment quickly evaporates as the son learns that life isn’t as perfect as it may once have appeared to be. As the days of summer pass, the complexities of life reveal themselves and Tommy soon learns a dark secret that his father has held closely. With a decaying relationship with his mother growing and a father who is trying to fit a lifetime of lessons into one summer, Tommy is about to come face to face with a decision that no teenager should ever have to make. The Cold November Son takes the reader on a voyage that explores the boundaries of love and mercy. It is a love story unlike any you have read before. Will the son honor his father's wishes? What secrets will be revealed? Those questions will be answered as Tommy is about to partake in one final and violent act of kindness? Come along on the journey and see for yourself.

9. October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard by Leslea Newman

 On the night of October 6, 1998, a gay twenty-one-year-old college student named Matthew Shepard was lured from a Wyoming bar by two young men, savagely beaten, tied to a remote fence, and left to die. Gay Awareness Week was beginning at the University of Wyoming, and the keynote speaker was Lesléa Newman, discussing her book Heather Has Two Mommies. Shaken, the author addressed the large audience that gathered, but she remained haunted by Matthew’s murder. October Mourning, a novel in verse, is her deeply felt response to the events of that tragic day. Using her poetic imagination, the author creates fictitious monologues from various points of view, including the fence Matthew was tied to, the stars that watched over him, the deer that kept him company, and Matthew himself. More than a decade later, this stunning cycle of sixty-eight poems serves as an illumination for readers too young to remember, and as a powerful, enduring tribute to Matthew Shepard’s life.

10.  Nine Days in October by Ron Terpening

 Richard Donovan, a professor of art history from Arizona, has come to Italy on sabbatical, bringing his two girls with him--Pam, eleven years old, and Claudia, just turned sixteen. While shopping in Rome, the family falls victim to a botched heist and Claudia is taken hostage. Working with Renzo Feroni, Italy's top cop, and Sandra Patrizi, a journalist, Donovan learns that the heist is part of a much vaster conspiracy. At stake is the fate of the world's major powers and--what matters most to Donovan--his daughter's life.

That's all I have for now. Do you have a favorite book set in the fall? I'd love to hear about it.

Have a terrific week, and thanks a million for stopping by.
Talk to you soon,
Angela