Now That The Book Is Done…
January 5th, 2009I tend to dive into a stack of books as soon as I turn in a book. Now that my novella is safely in the hands of my editor..or at least in her email inbox…it’s time to race through some books. Here’s what my first few look like:
The Lost Receipe for Happiness by Barbara O’Neal
It’s the opportunity Elena Alvarez has been waiting for–the challenge of running her own kitchen in a world-class restaurant. Haunted by an accident of which she was the lone survivor, Elena knows better than anyone how to survive the odds. With her faithful dog, Alvin, and her grandmother’s recipes, Elena arrives in Colorado to find a restaurant in as desperate need of a fresh start as she is–and a man whose passionate approach to food and life rivals her own. Owner Julian Liswood is a name many people know but a man few do. He’s come to Aspen with a troubled teenage daughter and a dream of the kind of stability and love only a family can provide. But for Elena, old ghosts don’t die quietly, yet a chance to find happiness at last is worth the risk.
Running Hot by Jayne Ann Krentz
Ex-cop Luther Malone, lifelong member of the secretive paranormal organization known as the Arcane Society, is waiting to meet Grace Renquist. Hired as an aura-reading consultant in the quest for a murder suspect, she’s got zero field experience. She’s from tiny Eclipse Bay, Oregon. She’s a librarian, for heaven’s sake.
As for Grace, she’s not expecting much either from Malone, who walks with a cane and isn’t so good with a gun. Nice résumé for a bodyguard . . .
But even before they reach their hotel in Maui-where they’ll be posing as honeymooners-Grace and Luther feel the electric charge between them. Problem is, they need to remain vigilant day and night, because it soon becomes clear there’s more going on here. Rogue sensitives-operatives for the underground group Nightshade-are pouring into the luxury resort like there’s a convention. Grace recognizes those dark spikes in their auras. She saw the same pattern in someone else in another life-a life she hasn’t revealed to Luther or anyone else. And she understands how dangerous these people can be . . . especially with those para-hunters at their sides.
While the pair’s employers at Jones & Jones scramble to get them backup, Luther and Grace have to think on their feet. The criminals in their midst aren’t just high-level sensitives: They’ve enhanced their talents with a potent-and unpredictable- drug. And as Grace knows all too well, if you don’t control your powers, your powers will control you. . . .
Super In The City by Daphne Uviller
In this off-the-beaten-sidewalk debut, native New Yorker Daphne Uviller reveals the secrets of a sexy, story-filled Big Apple, where a mystery lurks behind every apartment door—and a savvy but slightly lost young woman unexpectedly finds herself holding the keys.
In a city brimming with opportunities for heroism, twenty-seven-year-old Zephyr Zuckerman has often fantasized about committing acts of bravery that would make front-page news. Now she may get her big break—though it may require plunging a few toilets. When the superintendent of her parents’ Greenwich Village brownstone is led away in handcuffs, unemployed Zephyr takes over his post and unleashes her inner sleuth: discovering titillating secrets about her tenants—from a smoky-voiced Frenchwoman who entertains throngs of unsavory visitors to a moody musician who just has to be hiding something—and realizing that her new reality is far more intriguing than her imagination.
Soon Zephyr has sussed out wrongs that stretch from losers on the Internet to art fraud and an international crime ring. The mob thinks she’s in the FBI, and the FBI thinks she’s in the mob—a predicament she needs to clear up fast. But perhaps not before the cute, surly exterminator helps her solve the mystery of what to do with the rest of her life….
Crash Into Me by Jill Sorenson
Though he’d gone into virtual seclusion, Ben Fortune was still the world’s most famous surfer, known as much for his good looks as for his skill. He’s also a suspect in a series of brutal murders that may have begun with his late wife. Now FBI Special Agent Sonora “Sonny” Vasquez has been sent undercover to the elite beach community of La Jolla to make friends with Fortune. With her fierce beauty and take-no-prisoners attitude, she’s more than equipped for the job, and soon she and Ben have collided in an affair that is both intense and irresistible. But for the first—and worst—time in Sonny’s career, her emotions are threatening to get the better of her. Could this sensual, wounded man, who is genuinely anguished over his troubled daughter, really be a killer? And could falling in love blind Sonny to the greatest danger of all?
What’s on the top of everyone else’s TBR stack?
