Oh! The Mountain of TBRs!

In Potosí, the richest city in the Western Hemisphere, Inez de la Morada, the bewitching, cherished daughter of the rich and powerful Mayor, mysteriously dies at the convent of Santa Isabella de los Santos Milagros, where she had fled in defiance of her father. It looks as though the girl committed suicide, but Mother Abbess Maria Santa Hilda believes her innocent and has her buried at the convent in sacred ground. Fray Ubaldo DaTriesta, local Commissioner of the Inquisition, has been keeping an eye on the Abbess, who is too “Protestant” for his tastes, and this action may be just what he needs to convince the lazy, cowardly Bishop to punish her. At the same time, Potosí finds its prosperity threatened. The King of Spain has discovered that the coins the city has been circulating throughout the world are not pure silver and is sending his top prosecutor and the Grand Inquisitor to mete out punishment. With the imminent arrival of the Spanish officials, many have reason to prove their loyalty, and keep hidden the crimes and sins they’ve committed. With her life at stake, Maria Santa Hilda finds herself in a race against time to prove the true cause of Inez’s death, aided by her fellow sisters, a Jesuit priest with a dark secret from his past, and a tomboyish girl who’s run to the convent to avoid an unwanted marriage. Together they will discover that Inez was not the girl she seemed, and that greed has no limits. Annamaria Alfieri writes with astounding detail, showing an appreciation for the complexities and social nuances of this intriguing time in Latin American history when politicians, religious leaders, and an indigenous people all competed for power and survival in the thin mountain air of the Andes.

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.
Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.
Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode.

Product Description
A brutal sea captain, an inhuman chief mate, and an indignant crew set out to sea together-an obvious equation for disaster. The Wreck of the Grosvenor is the gripping tale of this voyage, and of Mr. Royle, the mild second mate who rises to the occasion, overcoming mutiny and shipwreck in an attempt to save the lives of two innocent civilians.

Product Description
Handsome Alexander MacLean enjoyed his intoxicating flirtation with lovely Caitlyn Hurst...until she embarrassed him in front of the entire ton. Orchestrating Caitlyn's attendance at a fashionable house party, Alexander plots her downfall. But to his fury, her charm and wit thwart his plan to ruin her.Her disastrous London season left Caitlyn filled with regret and determined to make things right with Alexander. She's delighted to find him at the house party to which she's unexpectedly invited -- but it's clear that the sexy, arrogant Highlander hasn't forgiven her. So Caitlyn comes up with a bold scheme, proposing an unusual contest drawn from legend: each must complete a set of "mythic" tasks. If Caitlyn succeeds, Alexander promises to relent and forgive her previous rash behavior; if he succeeds, she will join him in his bed! But can Caitlyn force Alexander to give up his quest for vengeance without giving up her heart in return?

Product Description

How will Audrey and her fellow schoolmarms stay afloat when a flood threatens their small Texas town?

Typically, Thunder Ridge, Texas, is dry as a bone. But Audrey Pride has arrived under a storm cloud, one that is deluging the shocked community with weeks of relentless, drenching rain. With travel in and out of town rendered impossible, there is much important work for her to do—especially when an epidemic of violent illness, originating from a stranded wagon train, spreads rapidly throughout Thunder Ridge. Caring for the sick is consuming Audrey's every waking hour...yet her thoughts keep returning to the attractive widower Eli Gray.

Eli has long been haunted by the fact that he was away at war when his beloved wife died in childbirth. Little by little, however, he is opening his heart again. Now, as their town sags under the crushing weight of water and disease, Audrey and Eli will need to depend on each other in ways they never imagined possible.

Product Description
A lady can be certain
of only one thing…
All Men Are Rogues

When Evelyn Amherst agrees to her father's dying request that she complete his final mission for His Majesty, she can scarcely imagine the world of infamy and danger she is about to enter -- or that it will bring her tantalizingly close to Lord Justin Barclay. Here is a man to turn a young lady's head -- strong, fearless, dashing, and devilishly good-looking. But Evelyn is determined to unravel the mystery behind her father's death and she must not be diverted, especially not by this passionate yearning for Lord Justin's embrace.

Never has Justin had a more agreeable assignment! Evelyn Amherst is beautiful, fiery, utterly alluring, and he is to divine from her the details of her late father's service -- without revealing that Justin is, himself, a spy. Never mind he has no intention of marrying her; he uses all his roguish charms to win her confidence, knowing he must betray her for King and Country. But the lady's sensuous enchantment disarms him -- tempting the deceiving scoundrel to trust her with his secrets and his heart. . .which could place both their lives in mortal peril.

Product Description
Falling in love with a mysterious stranger despite her belief that he is a Yankee spy, Silky Shanahan takes the man prisoner and fears that her feelings for him will force her to betray her people. Original.

Product Description
To escape an unwanted marriage, Lady Viola Gambol flees to London and poses as a maid in a boarding house. Little does she know that the 'boarding house' is actually a brothel - until the owner auctions Viola off to the highest bidder! Viola vows to fight off the auction's winner, Julian Devize - but her immense attraction to the scoundrel is making that very hard to do...Julian was hired to find missing heiress Viola Gambol, but first he must rescue his brother from a house of ill repute. When Julian sees the alluring maid being sold like a slave he impulsively makes a bid to protect her honour. Julian has no idea that the woman he saved is the one he's been hired to find. But his honourable intentions take a scandalous turn as temptation leads to unrelenting pleasure.

Book Description:
1854…. Captain Alex Sheridan, hero of the series that bears his name, commands a unit of the East India Company in the heat of the deadly battles of the Crimean War. Despised by the aristocratic generals of the regular army, Sheridan and his corps of volunteers must face both the rigors of combat and the treachery of men who should be allies. In the end, both the Light and the Heavy Brigades must charge into the arms of the enemy and win the day – or die trying. This thrilling first installment of the Sheridan series combines history and supposition in a deft interweaving of fact and fiction.

Book Description:
What do you do when love gives you a second chance at life? Book 2 of the Malloy family series. Jack Malloy is haunted. Haunted by memories, he tries to escape the dreams that have stolen his sleep for six months by agreeing to help out his sister Nicky. Unfortunately, time at her ranch offers him no escape when he's confronted by Rebecca Connor's beautiful gray eyes. For unbeknownst to her, she is a participant in his nightmares every night. Rebecca Connor is haunted. Haunted by memories she's trying to escape that have stolen her future. Her attraction to Jack is unsettling for a woman that has sworn off men. But something keeps drawing her closer to him, and she can't help but wonder what his hands would feel like on her skin. Fate pushes them together when they become stranded, snowbound, on a lonely Wyoming ranch. There they rediscover what living is all about. With passion hotter than the sun, they learn to feel pleasure together, how to trust again, and how to love. But is it enough to face the demons of their past, or will they forever be haunted? Warning, this title contains the following: explicit sex, graphic language, some violence.

Book Description:
Set in colonial Australia, this romantic novel explores love, hardship, and the strength of the human spirit. Dorothea Brande leaves the quiet harmony of her English home to accompany her soldier husband to rough-and-tumble Sydney in 1814. To soften the harshness of their life there, she begins cultivating an English garden with the help of her convict manservant, Daniel. Together, in the creation of this garden, Dorothea and Daniel find a new strength and a special kind of refuge, both in the garden and with each other. Dorothea begins to adapt to her unforgiving new environment, but her husband is steadily destroyed by it. Written in the spirit of the works of Jane Austen and George Eliot, the novel is set against a vivid backdrop of the political events of the time while the public and personal gossip of the day weave in and out of the storyline.

Book Description:
A marriage has been arranged...

After a disastrous marriage, Alex, Duke of Delahaye, is determined that his younger brother Philip will be the one to marry and provide the necessary heir. Unfortunately the chosen bride is less than willing. Miss Jane Verey has a mind of her own and does not care for her boorish suitor. But when she meets Alex, the sparks fly...

Traditional Regency!

Book Description:
"The Year 1000 is a vivid and surprising portrait of life in England a thousand years ago. A world that already knew brain surgeons and property developers and, yes, even the occasional gossip columnist. Uncovering such wonderfully unexpected details, authors Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger bring this distant world closer than it has ever been before. How did people survive without sugar? How did monks communicate if they were not allowed to speak? Why was July called "the hungry month"? The Year 1000 answers these questions and reveals such secrets as the recipe for a medieval form of Viagra and a hallucinogenic treat called "crazy bread." In the spirit of modern investigative journalism, Lacey and Danziger interviewed the top historians and archaeologists in the field. Their research led them to an ancient and little-known document of the period, the Julius Work Calendar, a sharply observed guide that takes us back in time to a charming and very human world of kings and revelers, saints and slave laborers, lingering paganism and profound Christian faith. This exuberant and informative book concludes as the shadow of the millennium descends across England and Christendom. While prophets of doom predict the end of the world, A.D. 1000 sees the arrival of such bewildering concepts as infinity and zero, along with the abacus-the medieval calculating machine. These are portents of the future, and The Year 1000 finishes by examining the human and social ingredients that were to make for success and achievement in the next thousand years."

Book Description:
“What girl can’t identify with Never the Bride? This is a fabulously funny novel with deep truths embedded in its pages.” –Kristin Billerbeck, author of What a Girl Wants

“I admire writers who employ words to paint touchable pictures, likable characters, introducing us to instant friends who lead us to unexpected endings. That’s why I love Never The Bride.” –SQuire Rushnell, author of the When GOD Winks books

Book Description:
A brilliant and breathtaking debut that captivated readers and garnered critical acclaim in the United Kingdom, The Tenderness of Wolves was long-listed for the Orange Prize in fiction and won the Costa Award (formerly the Whitbread) Book of the Year.

The year is 1867. Winter has just tightened its grip on Dove River, a tiny isolated settlement in the Northern Territory, when a man is brutally murdered. Laurent Jammett had been a voyageur for the Hudson Bay Company before an accident lamed him four years earlier. The same accident afforded him the little parcel of land in Dove River, land that the locals called unlucky due to the untimely death of the previous owner.

A local woman, Mrs. Ross, stumbles upon the crime scene and sees the tracks leading from the dead man's cabin north toward the forest and the tundra beyond. It is Mrs. Ross's knock on the door of the largest house in Caulfield that launches the investigation. Within hours she will regret that knock with a mother's love -- for soon she makes another discovery: her seventeen-year-old son Francis has disappeared and is now considered a prime suspect.

In the wake of such violence, people are drawn to the crime and to the township -- Andrew Knox, Dove River's elder statesman; Thomas Sturrock, a wily American itinerant trader; Donald Moody, the clumsy young Company representative; William Parker, a half-breed Native American and trapper who was briefly detained for Jammett's murder before becoming Mrs. Ross's guide. But the question remains: do these men want to solve the crime or exploit it?

One by one, the searchers set out from Dove River following the tracks across a desolate landscape -- home to only wild animals, madmen, and fugitives -- variously seeking a murderer, a son, two sisters missing for seventeen years, and a forgotten Native American culture before the snows settle and cover the tracks of the past for good.

In an astonishingly assured debut, Stef Penney deftly weaves adventure, suspense, revelation, and humor into an exhilarating thriller; a panoramic historical romance; a gripping murder mystery; and, ultimately, with the sheer scope and quality of her storytelling, an epic for the ages.

Book Description:
Evocative and compelling, rich in imagination and atmosphere, Under This Unbroken Sky is a beautifully wrought debut from a gifted new novelist.

Spring 1938. After nearly two years in prison for the crime of stealing his own grain, Ukrainian immigrant Teodor Mykolayenko is a free man. While he was gone, his wife, Maria; their five children; and his sister, Anna, struggled to survive on the harsh northern Canadian prairie, but now Teodor—a man who has overcome drought, starvation, and Stalin's purges—is determined to make a better life for them. As he tirelessly clears the untamed land, Teodor begins to heal himself and his children. But the family's hopes and newfound happiness are short-lived. Anna's rogue husband, the arrogant and scheming Stefan, unexpectedly returns, stirring up rancor and discord that will end in violence and tragedy.

Under This Unbroken Sky is a mesmerizing tale of love and greed, pride and desperation, that will resonate long after the last page is turned. Shandi Mitchell has woven an unbearably suspenseful story, written in a language of luminous beauty and clarity. Rich with fiery conflict and culminating in a gut-wrenching climax, this is an unforgettably powerful novel from a passionate new voice in contemporary literature.

Book Description:
Although it is not entirely to her liking, grief-stricken Satha, a dark-skinned woman from a poor Theseni clan weds young Loic, the wealthy Doreni son of the king's First Captain. Loic, graced with ability to see into the hearts and minds of others, begins to help Satha overcome her sorrows. Despite coming from different tribes, they begin to forge a life together. But when Satha's own compassion is used against her and a treacherous enemy contrives to dishonor her in Loic's absence, Loic's love turns to anger and disgust. Embittered, Loic must still avenge his honor and Satha's and he sets out on a journey that brings despair as well as spiritual discovery. Battling him are the Arkhai, the spirits of the land who know his quest will lead him toward the God whom they have usurped. After his departure, Satha is kidnapped, sold into slavery and learns, first hand, how cruel the pioneering Angleni tribe can be. Both face great hardship, danger and anguish apart, but with the Creator's aid there remains hope they will be reunited and heal the love the world has torn asunder.

Book Description:
Robin Hood

The Legend Begins Anew

For centuries, the legend of Robin Hood and his band of thieves has captivated the imagination. Now the familiar tale takes on new life, fresh meaning, and an unexpected setting.

Steeped in Celtic mythology and the political intrigue of medieval Britain, Stephen R. Lawhead's latest work conjures up an ancient past and holds a mirror to contemporary realities. Prepare yourself for an epic tale that dares to shatter everything you thought you knew about Robin Hood.

Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother’s death in childbirth and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Yet it will be love, not politics—their passion for the same woman—that will tear them apart and force Marion, fresh out of medical school, to flee his homeland. He makes his way to America, finding refuge in his work as an intern at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him—nearly destroying him—Marion must entrust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him