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Nov 30, 2010
Nov 23, 2010
new fiction
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But the badlands are home to more than horses, cattle, and cowboys. Beneath the surface are dinosaur bones that could be worth a fortune. When a paleontologist arrives at the ranch to dig, Mike senses trouble. Once discovered, those bones won’t stay buried, and when a murderer begins to stalk the dinosaur hunting grounds, Mike will have to fight to protect the people and the land he has come to love.
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Annette is married to her mentor and personal champion, the much older Marius Remmington. For twenty years, Marius has groomed her into the international art star that she has become, not to mention saving her from a dark and gritty past. She is his pride and joy, and as her best advisor, it’s with great care that he hand picks only the best journalist possible to do a profile on his beloved wife in a popular London Sunday newspaper. Jack Chalmers is a bit of a celebrity himself, becoming one of the top journalists of his time. Marius believes only he will be able to capture the true brilliance of his lovely wife. But Marius never intends to put his marriage in jeopardy. How could he have known that the connection between Jack and Annette would ignite so many secrets? And how could he know that Jack would uncover a scandal that could ultimately destroy them all?
Barbara Taylor Bradford does it again in this epic novel of seduction, passion and international intrigue. Playing the game has never been so thrilling.
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Shock waves of alarm ripple through the clandestine agency when Washington, D.C., police detective Ryan Kessler inexplicably becomes the target of Henry Loving, a seasoned, ruthless “lifter” hired to obtain information using whatever means necessary. While Loving is deft at torture, his expertise lies in getting an “edge” on his victim—leverage—usually by kidnapping or threatening family until the “primary” caves under pressure.
The job of keeping the Kessler family alive falls to a man named Corte, a senior federal protection officer known as a “shepherd.” Uncompromising, relentlessly devoted to protecting those in his care and a passionate board game aficionado, he applies brilliant gaming strategy to his work. For Corte, the reappearance of Loving—the man who, six years earlier, had tortured and killed someone close to him—is also an opportunity to avenge his friend’s death. The assignment soon escalates into a fast-paced duel between Corte and Loving, a dangerous volley of wits and calculated risks.
As he shepherds the Kesslers to a concealed safe house, Corte must anticipate Loving’s every step as the lifter moves in on his prey, and with the help of razor-sharp investigator Claire DuBois and his longtime ally, FBI agent Paul Fredericks, pinpoint which of Kessler’s seemingly insignificant cases has triggered Loving’s return. As the team digs deeper, each of the Kesslers comes under close scrutiny, and in captivity their family bonds are stretched to the breaking point—as the lifter draws near, Corte must ultimately choose between protecting his charges and exposing them to a killer in the name of long-awaited revenge.
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Amanda McCready was four years old when she vanished from a Boston neighborhood twelve years ago. Desperate pleas for help from the child's aunt led investigators Kenzie and Gennaro to take on the case. The pair risked everything to find the young girl—only to orchestrate her return to a neglectful mother and a broken home.
Now Amanda is sixteen—and gone again. A stellar student, brilliant but aloof, she seemed destined to escape her upbringing. Yet Amanda's aunt is once more knocking on Patrick Kenzie's door, fearing the worst for the little girl who has blossomed into a striking, clever young woman—a woman who hasn't been seen in weeks.
Haunted by their consciences, Kenzie and Gennaro revisit the case that troubled them the most. Their search leads them into a world of identity thieves, methamphetamine dealers, a mentally unstable crime boss and his equally demented wife, a priceless, thousand-year-old cross, and a happily homicidal Russian gangster. It's a world in which motives and allegiances constantly shift and mistakes are fatal.
In their desperate fight to confront the past and find Amanda McCready, Kenzie and Gennaro will be forced to question if it's possible to do the wrong thing and still be right or to do the right thing and still be wrong. As they face an evil that goes beyond broken families and broken dreams, they discover that the sins of yesterday don't always stay buried and the crimes of today could end their lives.
Labels:
adult,
book reviews,
fiction,
new books,
reviews
new nonfiction
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Two weeks later, President Lincoln was assassinated, and the nation was convinced that Davis was involved in the conspiracy that led to the crime. Lincoln's murder, autopsy, and White House funeral transfixed the nation. His final journey began when soldiers placed his corpse aboard a special train that would carry him home on the 1,600-mile trip to Springfield. Along the way, more than a million Americans looked upon their martyr's face, and several million watched the funeral train roll by. It was the largest and most magnificent funeral pageant in American history.
To the Union, Davis was no longer merely a traitor. He became a murderer, a wanted man with a $100,000 bounty on his head. Davis was hunted down and placed in captivity, the beginning of an intense and dramatic odyssey that would transform him into a martyr of the South's Lost Cause.
The saga that began with Manhunt continues with the suspenseful and electrifying Bloody Crimes. James Swanson masterfully weaves together the stories of two fallen leaders as they made their last expeditions through the bloody landscape of a wounded nation.
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Labels:
adult,
book reviews,
new books,
nonfiction
Nov 18, 2010
GSF Book Review--My Life in Pink and Green
Name of reviewer: Adele
Age: 9
Overall Rating: 9
Brief Description: Lucy's family pharmacy is running out of money. She's in a group called "Earth Club", and she finds a Going Green grant in her town. She starts a Relaxation Room, and decides to have an eco-spa for the grant.
Would you be friends with the main character? Yes
Why or Why Not: Lucy is very creative like me. I could probably help her if I went to the pharmacy.
Favorite character: Lucy
Least Favorite character: Erica
Would you recommend this book to a friend: Yes
Why or why not: It was a really great book. I liked it a lot.
One word descriptions: Interesting, exciting.
Age: 9
Overall Rating: 9
Brief Description: Lucy's family pharmacy is running out of money. She's in a group called "Earth Club", and she finds a Going Green grant in her town. She starts a Relaxation Room, and decides to have an eco-spa for the grant.
Would you be friends with the main character? Yes
Why or Why Not: Lucy is very creative like me. I could probably help her if I went to the pharmacy.
Favorite character: Lucy
Least Favorite character: Erica
Would you recommend this book to a friend: Yes
Why or why not: It was a really great book. I liked it a lot.
One word descriptions: Interesting, exciting.
Nov 16, 2010
Max is Missing!
Max, the puppet on the far right, has disappeared. If you see him somewhere or if he snuck into your home somehow, could you please give him a good talking to and drag him back here by his wolf suit? The wild things and I miss him and we even have a new home for him (and the rest of the puppets).
new teen books
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But Evie’s about to realize that she may very well be at the center of a dark faerie prophecy promising destruction to all paranormal creatures.
So much for normal.
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18-year-old Jonathan Harker is diagnosed with a rare blood disorder after visiting a Romanian Count. His girlfriend Mina and a pre-med student named Van Helsing team up to investigate the source of the disease. The teenagers discover a horrifying truth: the Count is a vampire. The harrowing events unfold through emails, text messages, web pages, Twitter feeds, and instant messaging-the natural modernization of Bram Stoker's original Dracula, which was written in letters, diary entries, and news clippings.
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Blank Confession is a compelling mystery that will keep readers turning pages, from National Book Award-winning author Pete Hautman.
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As the Blue Blood enclave weakens yet further, fate leads Schuyler closer to a terrifying crossroads--and a choice that will determine the destiny of all vampires.
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If you do it right, it can be a life. The hothouse, the guys, the glory. But just like that, it can all go up in smoke.
In the beginning it was strange, ya know, because of all that we had lost. But there was something about it that felt so good and so right, too: "I'm so proud of you, Russ." "We'll always be here for you, man." "Heroes don't pay for nothin' in this town." It was nonstop. The mayor shook my hand. Ladies sent food. I've never eaten so much baked ham in my life.
And now? Now the phone won't stop ringing from the crazies ready to blame me. My mom has to cry herself to sleep. They take a firefighter, a man, and they pump him up so big. . . . But once they start taking it away from you, they don't stop until they leave nothing on the bones.
First they needed heroes, then they needed blood.
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Exhilarating, terrifying suspense is crossed with a thought-provoking examination of peer pressure in Richard PeckÕs return to his contemporary teen- and ghost-story roots. This is a master authorÕs gift to the Gossip Girl/Twilight generation: his own smart, stylish, and fun take on the paranormal
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So when she’s given the opportunity to leave the Cloisters and put her skills to use as part of a scientific quest to discover the Remedy, Astrid leaps at the chance. Finally, she can have exactly what she wants—or can she? At Gordian headquarters, deep in the French countryside, Astrid begins to question everything she thought she believed: her love for Giovanni, her loyalty to the Cloisters, and—most of all—her duty as a hunter. Should Astrid be saving the world from killer unicorns, or saving the unicorns from the world?
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Ann Putnam Jr. plays the queen bee. When her father suggests that a spate of illnesses within the village is the result of witchcraft, Ann grasps her opportunity. She puts in motion a chain of events that will change the lives of the people around her forever.
Mercy Lewis, the beautiful servant in Ann's house, inspires adulation in some and envy in others. With a troubled past, she seizes her only chance at safety.
Margaret Walcott, Ann's cousin, is desperately in love and consumed with fiery jealousy. She is torn between staying loyal to her friends and pursuing the life she dreams of with her betrothed.
With new accusations mounting daily against the men and women of the community, the girls will have to decide: Is it too late to tell the truth?
A Printz Honor winner for Your Own, sylvia, Stephanie Hemphill uses evocative verse to weave a nuanced portrait of one of the most chilling and fascinating times in our nation's history.
Labels:
book reviews,
new books,
teen books,
teens
new biographies
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Janis Joplin includes more than sixty photographs, and an assortment of anecdotes from Janis’s friends and band mates. This thoroughly researched and well-illustrated biography is a must-have for all young artists, music lovers, and pop-culture enthusiasts.
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Meticulously reported and elegantly written, The Last Boy is a baseball tapestry that weaves together episodes from the author's weekend with The Mick in Atlantic City, where she interviewed her hero in 1983, after he was banned from baseball, with reminiscences from friends and family of the boy from Commerce, Oklahoma, who would lead the Yankees to seven world championships, be voted the American League's Most Valuable Player three times, win the Triple Crown in 1956, and duel teammate Roger Maris for Babe Ruth's home run crown in the summer of 1961—the same boy who would never grow up.
As she did so memorably in her biography of Sandy Koufax, Jane Leavy transcends the hyperbole of hero worship to reveal the man behind the coast-to-coast smile, who grappled with a wrenching childhood, crippling injuries, and a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. In The Last Boy she chronicles her search to find out more about the person he was and, given what she discovers, to explain his mystifying hold on a generation of baseball fans, who were seduced by that lopsided, gap-toothed grin. It is an uncommon biography, with literary overtones: not only a portrait of an icon, but an investigation of memory itself. How long was the Tape Measure Home Run? Did Mantle swing the same way right-handed and left-handed? What really happened to his knee in the 1951 World Series? What happened to the red-haired, freckle-faced boy known back home as Mickey Charles?
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Nov 15, 2010
Great Week for Kids!
Wednesday, 6pm--Family Thanksgiving Story Time. This is an all ages drop in story time. We'll read Thanksgiving stories and make a fun Thanksgiving craft for you to take home.
Thursday, 6pm--Great Stone Face and Pizza. 4th, 5th, and 6th graders are invited back to talk about the GSF books they've read, pick up pins, write reviews and eat pizza!
Friday, 3:30pm--Ladybug Combo! Check out the Ladybug website for a more detailedexplanation. These are awesome picture books targeted towards K-3rd grade. We're going to read a few (mini story time), then we'll have a Skype author visit with Chris Van Dusen, the multiple-award-winning author of "Circus Ship"! He will read his book to us and talk to the kids and answer questions! After that, we'll have ladybug cookies and the kids can vote for their favorite.
Aspen and Ursula will be back next week on Monday--please email, call or come in to sign up for a time to read!
Thursday, 6pm--Great Stone Face and Pizza. 4th, 5th, and 6th graders are invited back to talk about the GSF books they've read, pick up pins, write reviews and eat pizza!
Friday, 3:30pm--Ladybug Combo! Check out the Ladybug website for a more detailedexplanation. These are awesome picture books targeted towards K-3rd grade. We're going to read a few (mini story time), then we'll have a Skype author visit with Chris Van Dusen, the multiple-award-winning author of "Circus Ship"! He will read his book to us and talk to the kids and answer questions! After that, we'll have ladybug cookies and the kids can vote for their favorite.
Aspen and Ursula will be back next week on Monday--please email, call or come in to sign up for a time to read!
Labels:
author visit,
childrens',
events,
Great Stone Face,
Kids,
story time
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