Search this site    The Naked Heart Author: Briskin, Jacqueline ISBN: 0-385-29707-6 Pages: 552 Format: Hardcover Publisher: Delacorte Press Published: April 1, 1989 Condition: Price: USD $2.29 From Publishers Weekly: Briskin's 10th novel ( Dreams Are Not Enough ), a tale of romance and revenge set mostly in Paris during and after WW II, dishes up exciting action and steamy sex in ample plentitude to satisfy her fans' expectations. Betrayed to the Gestapo for Resistance activities, Gilberte de Permont's aristocratic parents are tortured before they are killed. Forced to witness her father's torture, Gilberte swears to him she will wreak revenge on the unknown informer. After being gang-raped repeatedly by the Nazis, Gilberte is eventually released into the custody of Field-Marshal Hocherer and unwillingly becomes his mistress. By the time the Allies liberate Paris, she has borne him a son. Forced to suffer abuse for "collaborating," she is found starving in a hovel by her former schoolmate, Ann Blakely. Ann had been whisked out of Paris during the Occupation by Gilberte's handsome American cousin, undercover agent Quent, and the pair has fallen in love. But Gilberte marries Quent to achieve security, and the two women are set in a conflict that turns even more vengeful when Gilberte discov ers how Ann's father was implicated in the de Permonts' fate. By novel's end, Gilberte finds the fruits of revenge bit ter indeed, but after putting her characters through incredible turns of fate, the author somehow pulls out the happy ending requisite to this emotion-wrought genre. Texas! Sage Author: Brown, Sandra ISBN: 0-385-41581-8 Pages: 343 Format: Hardcover Publisher: DoubleDay Published: July 1, 1991 Condition: Price: USD $2.29 From Publishers Weekly: This final novel in the Tyler trilogy (begun in Texas! Lucky ) is summer-reading fluff; a few interesting plot twists, stereotypical but amusing characters and situations, and the factory-made happy ending. Headstrong Sage Tyler expects an engagement ring for Christmas. Instead, she gets jilted: Sage is too flamboyant for her finance's straitlaced family. Home to recuperate over the holidays, Sage is stuck in her kid-sister role, with no definite career plans and no family to compare with her two brothers'. She's also attracted and annoyed by lanky blond cowboy-type Harlan Boyd, a drifter hired for a project to save the family's ailing oil company, Tyler Drilling. Harlan exudes the strength and sexual magnetism her ex-fiance lacked, but his keen perception of Sage's vulnerability unsettles her, whereas he's too independent to commit. Joining Tyler Drilling, Sage must work as Harlan's sales partner as both deny an irresistible chemistry. Their bond intensifies through many bedroom scenes, while business takes off and Harlan's past conflicts are resolved. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus Reviews:  Cowboys, horses and tough-talking blondes duke it out in this feisty conclusion to former television weatherperson Brown's lowbrow TEXAS! trilogy--this featuring the spoiled youngest daughter of the Dallas-like Tyler clan and her passionate search for love. She's young. She's headstrong. She's Texan, and she's blond. But she's also a virgin, and in this world where women like their men ``buck naked,'' inexperienced females like Sage Tyler can't be expected to know their own minds. Just graduated from the University of Texas with an MBA, this youngest heir of the temporarily-out-of-pocket Tyler oil family (little sister to the two previous books' male heroes, Chase and Lucky) is jilted by her snobbish upper-crust fianc‚ on Christmas Eve. Outraged, the family spitfire hides the news from her older brothers while she plots her revenge. But Harlan Boyd, the long, lean hired-hand-with-a- mysterious-past just taken on at Tyler Drilling, learns Sage's secret and can't resist teasing her about it now and then. Sage hates being teased. But she loves Harlan's blue eyes and the way his jeans fit just right. Hates his power over her. But loves him in bed. Hates him. Loves him. Hates him. Loves him. Through business crises, a family baby boomlet, and a desperate swing across Texas--in which Sage and Harlan try to sell remodeled oil- well pumps to farmers as irrigation pumps--Sage tussles with this smooth-talking inappropriate male until his past is exposed and Harlan is revealed to be ``loaded with a capital L''--rich enough to save Tyler Drilling and marry Sage--rhinestones, shoulder-pads, and all. Brown manages better with this female protagonist than with the male-animal lobotomy cases in TEXAS! CHASE, but bedroom dialogue that starts with ``Oh, what the hell?'' and culminates in ``Damn, Sage'' ain't for everyone. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. The Silken Web Author: Brown, Sandra ISBN: 0-446-51698-8 Pages: 291 Format: Hardcover Publisher: Warner Books Published: October 1992 Condition: Price: USD $1.99 From Kirkus Reviews: A first hardcover of a novel that was available for a short time ten years ago--published then, as Brown (French Silk, p. 267, etc.) tells us, under the pseudonym of Laura Jordan. Why a reissue? ``After rereading The Silken Web,'' the author herself ``found it so compelling that she decided to update the novel stylistically''- -i.e., to revise it for ``today's market.'' The story follows the loves and perils of nature-loving Kathleen, who, at the start, has given up her high-stress--plus sexually harassing--job as a fashion buyer in Atlanta to work as a counselor at a summer camp for orphans. The love interest/complication appears soon enough--here, in the form of ``blond hunk'' photographer Erik Gudjonsen. The result is totally predictable--as is the course of this novel in which ``none of the romance and sensuality that characterized [the] earlier work has been sacrificed.'' -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Gemini Author: Burns, Michael ISBN: 0-9701862-4-X Pages: 387 Format: Hardcover Publisher: Poncha Press Published: September 2001 Condition: Price: USD $1.99 Rosemary Mahoney, author of Whoredom in Kimmage "...a gritty, funny, sad, entertaining, and moving work, rich in detail, full of rancor and love, failure and wisdom..." Karen L. Rose, Fosters Daily Democrat "...Burns presents a believable, honest story full of irony and wit." Hollywood Tough A Shane Scully Novel Author: Cannell, Stephen J. ISBN: 0-312-29102-7 Pages: 352 Format: Hardcover Publisher: St. Martin's Press Published: January 17, 2003 Condition: Price: USD $1.99 From Publishers Weekly: It's tough to tell the hardened criminals from the corrupt Tinseltown players in Cannell's latest (after The Viking Funeral), an overplotted yet entertaining detective novel that follows L.A. gumshoe Shane Scully and his gorgeous wife, Alexa, as they try to trap a mobster by sponsoring a high-profile movie. The fun starts when Scully runs into a small-time hood he once busted, Nicky Marcella, who is running a film studio that turns out to be a thinly veiled scam to lure beautiful, scantily clad women into phony auditions. But Scully also discovers a link between Marcella and major mob player "Champagne" Dennis Valentine, and after digging around a bit Scully learns that Valentine is making a major push to take over the various low-level Hollywood unions. Scully uses his relationship with Marcella to cozy up to Valentine, then concocts a sting operation to bust the mobster by having the LAPD finance a phony film and catch Valentine in the act. The plotting gets too busy when Cannell introduces a gang war subplot that features Scully's adopted Hispanic son, Cooch, whose efforts to escape gang life fail when his girlfriend is kidnapped during a battle between several gangs over a major heroin shipment. Cannell, creator of such TV shows as The A Team, clearly knows the ins and outs of the entertainment industry, and the detective story, with its wry, subtle humor, doubles as a Hollywood satire. Most of the cops-and-robbers sequences hit the mark as well, and the well-drawn characters and keen observations on the similarities between Hollywood and the mafia make this a winner. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. The Night Manager Author: Carre, John Le ISBN: 0-679-42513-6 Pages: 429 Format: Hardcover Publisher: Knopf Published: June 20, 1993 Condition: Price: USD $2.29 From Kirkus Reviews: Le Carr‚ returns to the same subject as his disappointingly episodic The Secret Pilgrim--the fate of espionage in the new world order--but now looks forward instead of backward, showing a not-quite innocent mangled between that new order and the old one, whose course le Carr‚ has so peerlessly chronicled for 30 years. Jonathan Pine, night manager at a Cairo hotel, helps Arab playboy Freddie Hamid's mistress Madame Sophie photocopy papers linking him to arms mogul Richard Roper and, while he's at it, makes an extra copy to send to a friend in the Secret Service--only to find that the leak has gotten back to Freddie and that Jonathan's belated, guilty devotion to Sophie can't protect her from a fatal beating. Six months later, Jonathan, now working in Geneva, meets Roper in person and, vowing revenge, volunteers for Leonard Burr's fledgling government agency as the inside man who can supply actionable details of Roper's next arms- for-drugs deal. With the help of Whitehall mandarin Rex Goodhew, Burr sets up a plausibly shady dossier for Jonathan and stages the kidnapping of Roper's son so that Jonathan can foil the snatch and get invited aboard Roper's yacht. But even as Jonathan, still grieving for Sophie, finds himself attracted to Roper's bedmate Jed Marshall and overriding Burr's orders to stay out of Roper's papers, the boys in Whitehall--divided between independents like Goodhew, who want the old agencies broken up, and his cold-warrior nemesis Geoffrey Darker, who insists on maintaining centralized authority--are squabbling over control of the mission, with dire results for Jonathan, whose most dangerous enemies turn out to be his well-meaning masters back home. Despite the familiarity of the story's outlines, le Carr‚ shows his customary mastery in the details--from Jonathan's self-lacerating momentum to the intricacies of interagency turf wars--and reveals once again why nobody writes espionage fiction with his kind of authority. (First printing of 450,000; Book-of-the-Month Dual Selection for August) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Review "A brilliant performance." The New York Times Book Review: "Wonderful . . . beautifully done . . . compelling." The Wall Street Journal: "A beautifully polished, utterly knowing, and palpitating book." Time: "Intrigue of the highest order." -Chicago Sun-Times From the Paperback edition. Cleopatra Gold Author: Caunitz, William ISBN: 0-517-57498-5 Pages: 328 Format: Hardcover Publisher: Crown Published: July 27, 1993 Condition: Price: USD $1.99 From Kirkus Reviews: Another sprawling report from the NYPD, this one tracing the cross-plotted attempts of two divisions to infiltrate a world-class heroin gang. Intelligence's man on the inside is Irish/Mexican lounge-singer Alejandro Monahan, who's been spending most of the years since his cop father was gunned down cultivating dope king Che-Che Morales--so successfully that Che-Che, who considers himself both his patron and his blood brother, doesn't see anything suspect about Alejandro's plan to airlift drug shipments over New York using the state-of-the-art Parapoint delivery system. Meanwhile, though, the boys in Narcotics, who have no idea that Intelligence has its own man in Morales's gang, pluck rookie Fiona Lee from the ranks and send her for a crash- training course at the Hacienda, a training facility in the Blue Ridge where, identifying herself as Belle Starr, she meets Alejandro, calling himself Jesse James. After Alejandro's been flown down to his Mexican hometown so that he can demonstrate the Parapoint system while Che-Che's intimidating his family, it's back to the Big Apple, where the two undercover cops will inevitably meet again and pursue a chaste romance as their apoplectic division chiefs take turns pulling out the rug from under each other to the accompaniment of falling bodies, many shot by sexy, uninhibited mob assassin Judith Stern, code-named Cleopatra. It's that kind of book. Under layers of procedural detail and telling anecdotes, the story is both overgalvanized and meandering--a far cry from One Police Plaza (1984). But Caunitz's novel view that druglords are only the triggermen for the Man's interdepartmental squabbles could sell big copies. (First printing of 75,000) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Tom Clancy's "Op-Center" Author: Clancy, Tom / Pieczenik, Steve /  Rovin, Jeff ISBN: 0-425-18005-0 Pages: 384 Format: Paperback Publisher: Berkley Published: May 8, 2001 Condition: Price: USD $1.99 It's a mission that only Striker -- the military arm of Op-Center -- can handle: capture an Islamic cleric who is stirring up a rebellion against the Indian government. But when the border between India and Pakistan erupts, the Striker team gets caught in the crossfire. Now America's most proficient covert team is trapped in a full-fledged war. Their fate rests in the hands of a devious double agent whose own agenda is unknown -- a man who could just as easily sell them out as set them free.... A powerful profile of America's defense, intelligence, and crisis management technology, Tom Clancy's Op-Center is the creation of Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik No Place Like Home Author: Clark, Mary Higgins ISBN: 0-7432-6489-4 Pages: 368 Format: Hardcover Publisher: Simon & Schuster Published: April 5, 2005 Condition: Price: USD $2.29 From Publishers Weekly:  Clark's clever use of a bit of New Jersey real estate code fits perfectly into her usual formula for minting bestsellers in a novel about past deadly secrets coming to haunt the present. At One Old Mill Lane, in Mendham, N.J., 10-year-old Liza Barton wakes to find her stepfather, Ted Cartwright, attacking her mother, Audrey. Liza grabs a gun in defense, but in the ensuing melee Audrey is killed and Ted is wounded. Dubbed "Little Lizzie Borden," Liza is taken away and almost convicted of murdering her mother and attempting to kill the lying, scheming Ted. Twenty-four years later, Liza, now known as Celia Foster Nolan, has just been presented with a surprise birthday present from her new husband, Alex: the house at One Old Mill Lane. Alex doesn't know Celia is really Liza, and he doesn't know the house's grim past--but thanks to a real estate code obligating agents to notify prospective buyers if a house could be considered "stigmatized property," he's about to find out about the latter at least. As Celia fights to keep her dark secret hidden, their real estate agent turns up dead. More folks are killed and Celia comes under suspicion. But in typical Clark style, most of the characters look a little guilty. Some readers will get annoyed by Celia's tendency to do things that reinforce the cops' suspicions, but Clark's steadfast fans will suspend all necessary disbelief and play along. Remember Me Author: Clark, Mary Higgins ISBN: 0-671-86708-3 Pages: 304 Format: Hardcover Publisher: Simon & Schuster Published: May 2, 1994 Condition: Price: USD $1.99 From Publishers Weekly:A tinge of the supernatural flavors the latest entry from our leading practitioner of the damsel-in-distress school of suspense. Just what is the mysterious presence that seems to haunt Menley Nichols and baby Hannah in their spectacular rented Cape Cod mansion. Menley is still trying to recover from the horror of her two-year-old son Bobby's death on the railroad crossing. Lawyer husband Adam is too busy dashing to and from New York, and defending a local hunk suspected of doing away with his wealthy bride, to be much help. And so the presence moves in on Menley, Rebecca style, with eerie middle-of-the-night sound effects and rocking cradles. As always with Clark, there are several plots going on at once, which are miraculously blended and resolved in the finale; people to watch out for here include a pretty waitress in a local inn and a real estate lady who is an old flame of Adam's. Clark opens herself to charges of excessive authorial legerdemain by employing many narrative points of view, including those of at least two guilty parties (without ever offering a clue as to their guilt), but that's a quibble. The denouement is reasonably pulse-pounding, if a little strained. All in all, it's a reliable enough outing for the countless Clark aficionados, though it seems, perhaps in sync with its historic setting, rather more old-fashioned than usual. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Silent Night Author: Clark, Mary Higgins ISBN: 0-684-81545-1 Pages: 154 Format: Hardcover Publisher: Simon & Schuster Published: October 16, 1995 Condition: Price: USD $1.69 From Publishers Weekly: Clark's favored theme of endangered kids (Where Are the Children?, etc.) meshes here with a parable of faith; but, despite swift pacing, the predictability of the story line undercuts the suspense. Catherine Dornan is in Manhattan with her two sons because her husband, Tom, an Omaha pediatrician, is hospitalized there for leukemia and has just had his spleen removed. When a troubled stranger, Cally Hunter, makes off with Catherine's wallet, seven-year-old Brian Dornan doggedly pursues her because the wallet contains a St. Christopher medal that saved the life of his grandfather in WWII, by deflecting a bullet. Brian believes that the medal will save his dad's life, too, as his grandmother has predicted, and he is determined to get it back. Enter Jimmy Siddons, Cally's brother, a cop killer escaped from Riker's Island prison, who abducts Brian, holding him hostage at gunpoint as he heads for Canada in a stolen car. In the finale, as Catherine prays during Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, the cops and Siddons, Brian at his side, engage in a high-speed chase, in which the St. Christopher medal becomes vital to the boy's safety. Clark blatantly, if cleverly, pulls all the sentimental strings here, but most readers will find this a heartwarming, affirmative tale of the power of faith. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. From School Library Journal:  It is Christmas Eve in New York City when Brian, a determined seven year old, follows the thief who took his mother's wallet, hoping to retrieve the St. Christopher's medal that he believes will save his father, who has leukemia, just as it saved his grandfather in World War II. However, the child is kidnapped by a vicious escaped convict who needs a hostage. The central characters come to life rapidly as the fast-moving story quickly builds suspense. Teens will appreciate the realistic, paradoxical description of the relationship between Brian and his older brother: caring, concerned, and name-calling at the same time. Although readers know that the ending will be a happy one, they won't expect the coincidences and the touching holiday details. Claudia Moore,W.T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. Two Little Girls in Blue Author: Clark, Mary Higgins ISBN: 0-7432-6490-8 Pages: 336 Format: Hardcover Publisher: Simon & Schuster Published: April 4, 2006 Condition: Price: USD $1.99 From Publishers Weekly: Bestseller Clark is at her best when writing of crime against children, as shown in this chilling tale of kidnapping, murder and telepathy. Before leaving for a black-tie affair in New York City, Margaret and Steve Frawley celebrate the third birthday of their twin girls, Kathy and Kelly, with a party at their new home in Ridgefield, Conn. Later that night, when Margaret can't reach the babysitter, she contacts the Ridgefield police. The frantic couple return home to find the children missing and a ransom note demanding $8 million. Though the Frawleys meet all the conditions, only Kelly turns up in a car along with a dead driver and a suicide note saying that Kathy has died. But Kelly's telepathic messages from her sister keep telling her differently, and Margaret won't give up hope. Even the most skeptical law enforcement officers and the FBI, who pursue suspects from New York to Cape Cod, begin to believe Kelly is on to something. Clues from ordinary people lead to a riveting conclusion. Rivaling Clark's debut--Where Are the Children?--this suspense thriller is certain to send terror into the heart of any parent. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist: Clark's thirty-third book revisits the subject matter of her first (Where Are the Children? 1975), addressing every parent's worst nightmare, the abduction of children. Steve and Margaret Frawley return to their new house after a night out on the town to discover that their three-year-old twins, Kelly and Kathy, have been kidnapped. The kidnappers are demanding an $8 million ransom. As the executives at the company where Steve works debate paying the ransom, the three kidnappers, Lucas, Clint, and Clint's unstable girlfriend, Angie, wait for instructions from the plot's mastermind, who identifies himself only as the Pied Piper. Steve's company agrees to pay the ransom, but the Pied Piper's plan goes awry when Angie decides she wants to keep Kathy and shoots Lucas, leaving a fake suicide note claiming he accidentally killed Kathy. Although she is grateful to be reunited with Kelly, Margaret can't accept the loss of Kathy and clings to Kelly's assertion that she is in psychic communication with her twin. Clark's latest novel lacks the nail-biting suspense of some of her previous ones, but given how the subject matter dovetails with that of her first popular novel, expect interest. Kristine Huntley Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Hollywood Husbands Author: Collins, Jackie ISBN: 0-671-52500-X Pages: 543 Format: Hardcover Publisher: Simon & Schuster Published: October 1986 Condition: Price: USD $2.49 From Publishers Weekly: As in Hollywood Wives, Collins (Lucky colorfully depicts the brash hedonists of Tinseltown, most of whom are motivated by avarice, lust and conceit. The central trio in this lengthy saga consists of movie star Mannon Cable, studio executive Howard Soloman and TV talk-show host Jack Python. Although Mannon has married compliant young Melanie-Shanna, he vows to win back his ex-wife, Whitney. Cocaine addict Howard pursues Whitney though he is wed to a gossipy society gadabout. Jack courts an illustrious actress, but he becomes infatuated with Jade Johnson, a willowy, self-possessed model. Jack's sister, imperious soap-opera star Silver Anderson, doesn't know that her lover is desperately trying to extricate himself from a potentially lethal business deal. While these escapades unfold, we must guess which female was a sexually abused arsonist in the 1970s. Collins's devotees will probably relish the snappy dialogue, whirlwind pacing, irreverent humor and opulent locales that are her trademarks. Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. Book Description: Hollywood Husbands are hot...Hollywood Husbands are dynamic...Hollywood Husbands are sexy... Jack Python is the hottest Hollywood Husband of all. He rules nighttime T.V. and his controversial talk show burns up the ratings, while the women he encounters melt. With one expensive divorce behind him, and involved in a highly erotic affair with Oscar-winning actress Clarissa Browning, Jack Python has power, charisma, success, and money. But sometimes everything isn't enough. Howard Soloman, head of Orpheus Studios, is the man, the Hollywood King. Anything Howard wants, he gets. Including women. The sweet smell of power and Howard's street-smart style reels them in. Working for billionaire studio owner Zachary Klinger, a man with a whim of iron, Howard has problems enough. And if Howard can't deliver daytime soap megastar Silver Anderson at Klinger's command, he may lose his footing at the top of the heap. Though in Hollywood it's said that when you fall, you fall up -- from the top Howard has nowhere to go but down. Mannon Cable is a superstar. With great looks and a body to match, he is full of self-deprecating charm. Married briefly to gorgeous Whitney Valentine, who left him to become a television superstar, he was hit by the divorce where it really hurts -- his giant ego. Jack Python, Howard Soloman, and Mannon Cable have been competitive friends for years. Yet when Jade Johnson enters their lives, the least-expected one of the self-styled "Three Comers" may have finally met his match. Jade Johnson is a woman of the eighties. Strong, independent, a top New York model, she comes to L.A. for a series of million-dollar TV commercials. Jade is a dangerously beautiful woman with personal integrity and a mind of her own. The Hollywood game fails to impress her, but slowly, surely, she is sucked in. And, high roller that she is, if she must play, Jade will play to win. HOLLYWOOD WIVES,with its ten-million copy sales, and its spectacular success as a television mini-series, left Jackie Collins' devoted audience avid for the other side of the story. NOW HOLLYWOOD HUSBANDS GO ALL THE WAY! The Rag Nymph Author: Cookson, Catherine ISBN: 0-671-86477-7 Pages: Format: Hardcover Publisher: Simon & Schuster Published: December 1993 Condition: Price: USD $1.99 From Kirkus Reviews: Another fairy tale for grown-ups fond of Victorian waif-to- well-being tales featuring the deserving poor and plain, the beautiful, rich, and wicked, and other lurking ogres. This time out, the ever popular Cookson (My Beloved Son; The Love Child, etc.) offers the saga of a wee lass headed for trouble--all beginning in an 1854 English mill village. Millie Forester, first seen here at seven when her poor mother is forced to streetwalk for food, finds a reluctant protector in Agnes Winkowski, aka ``Raggie Aggie,'' a Tugboat Annie type who peddles rags from the remains of the old family farmhouse, which also shelters Ben, 17, taken in when he was a small lad. Millie's Ma commits suicide, and a brothel owner is after the beautiful child, so it's off to a convent school--an education finished when Millie kicks a virulent nun in the shins. Then when Millie is 16, she's happily working as a nursemaid nearby--until at a servants' party, the wife of a mill owner directs some terrible sexual antics. So it's home again and a rich suitor--in spite of the objections of sturdy and saintly Ben, possessor of all the manly virtues if physically a bit short. Two monster men will then rustle the grass--a long-lost father and that old devil brothel procurer- -but there's that Cookson specialty on the way: the last-minute rescue. With dialogue ripe and rugged: a grand groaner for the faithful. In the heat of a late June afternoon in 1854, abandoned by her panic-stricken mother in an all-too-obvious flight from the law, Millie Forester burst into Aggie Winkowski's life like a bolt from the blue.  Aggie who was known hereabouts as 'Raggie Aggie', for trading in rags and old clothes was her long-established business, knew only too well the dangers waiting for such a strikingly pretty girl left alone in this rough and vice-ridden quarter, and knew she must take her in. But what began as compassionate expediency led to the establishment of a new relationship that would grow and deepen, moulding Millie's destiny and giving new meaning to the life of Aggie Winkowski. Millie Forester's advance through the coming years to the threshold of womanhood is the core of -THE RAG NYMPH- is gripping and socially concerned an historical novel as Catherine Cookson has ever written.  Her superb skills of narrative and characterisation provide a spectrum of the good and evil of the Victorian era, frankly confronting the terrible menace of child corruption, which remains a constant issue in our own time. Chocolate Star Author: Copeland, Sheila ISBN: 0-312-15493-3 Pages: 422 Format: Hardcover Publisher: St. Martin's Press Published: August 1997 Condition: Price: USD $2.29 From Booklist: Copeland's publicists are promoting her as a "young black Jackie Collins," and this first novel may well reach the best-seller ranks. The three main characters, Topaz Black, Gunther Lawrence, and Sean Ross, all have one thing in common--they strive to be "stars." Topaz Black, a stunning young model, becomes a recording artist and tries to live the good life. Gunther Lawrence, a nerd from South Central Los Angeles, becomes a talented film director and is determined to distance himself from everything black. Sean "Sylk" Ross, an extremely handsome college basketball star, turns pro and simply wants to live life as upstandingly as he can. Topaz's romantic relationships with these men are based on the fact that they are both wealthy and smitten with her beauty and success. The characters all "make it" and join the ranks of the rich and famous, yet each must deal with their membership in unique ways based on their backgrounds and self-perceptions. A captivating story with the makings for a great made-for-TV movie. Lillian Lewis From Kirkus Reviews: Copeland debuts with three rags-to-riches journeys that even when combined make up little more than a Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous episode. All three of the African-American protagonists here are flawed. Singer Topaz Black, who began as a model, is vain, rude, and greedy--not to mention having abandoned a hardworking husband and infant son in the blink of an eye for Hollywood and the high life. Film director Gunther Lawrence started out as a self-loathing black kid in a lily-white prep school; when he strikes it rich in Hollywood, he immediately makes a point of forgetting everyone who helped him along the way. NBA star Sean ``Sylk'' Ross, meanwhile, is meant to be the good guy, but his constant praying, do-gooding, and holier-than-thou moralizing make him, if anything, even less palatable than his co-stars, who are at least frank about their selfish and ruthless behavior. Eventually, the three come together. Topaz ends up married to Gunther (who's become involved with a heavy drug scene). Before marrying, though, she'd dated Sean, whom she had hoped would introduce her to the ``right people'' (read: celebrities). Of the three, one finally dies, another is miserable and alone, the third is happier than most people have a right to be. It's all too easy, in accordance with Copeland's moral scale, to guess the outcomes--more suspense and less predictability could have offered the novel some much needed energy. The story is lacking, too, in good old-fashioned campy fun--the most important factor, after all, in any sort of Jackie Collins page-turner. The mean-spirited Topaz and Gunther are unpleasant, but not even the goody-goody Sean is appealing: in all, just plenty of glitz and three rich, unlikable people. Different Kind of Rain Author: Copp, DeWitt S. ISBN: 0-393-08818-9 Pages: 224 Format: Hardcover Publisher: W W Norton & Co Ltd Published: 1978 Condition: Price: USD $1.69 Black Notice Author: Cornwell, Patricia ISBN: 0-399-14508-7 Pages: 415 Format: Hardcover Publisher: Putnam Adult Published: July 31, 1999 Condition: Price: USD $2.29 Amazon.com: The postmortem is in--Black Notice, the 10th in Patricia Cornwell's Scarpetta series, is a gore-splattered, intensely exciting read. As winter grips Richmond, Virginia, an air of somberness pervades chief medical examiner Kay Scarpetta's world. Her beloved niece Lucy is involved in a dangerous undercover police operation in Miami, and auntie fears for her life. A tyrannical new deputy chief, Diane Bray, wants to get Kay's department under her jurisdiction. Meanwhile, back at the office, someone has tinkered with the e-mail system, stealing Kay's identity, and sending off slanderous and hurtful messages. Emotionally battered, Scarpetta fears she is going insane. Or, could it be that someone is deliberately sowing this harvest of sorrow? Despite her personal problems, Scarpetta is still the reigning diva at the department of death. She is sent to investigate the putrefied remains of a man found inside a container ship, "eyes bulged froglike, and the scalp and beard were sloughing off with the outer layer of darkening skin." Kay finds strange, animal-like hairs on the man's clothing--the same hairs that she discovers on a murdered store clerk a few days later. In actuality, the bizarre killings extend well beyond Virginia; whoever killed the Richmond victims also butchered people in France. Kay and police captain Pete Marino are whisked off to Paris where they must collect top-secret information from a Paris morgue, and avoid becoming victims themselves. This macabre tome is the stuff that classic Scarpetta tales are made of: creepy but compulsive autopsy scenes, plentiful plot twists, and the compelling, if slightly more vulnerable chief medical examiner herself. --Naomi Gesinger  --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Body Farm Author: Cornwell, Patricia ISBN: 0-684-19597-6 Pages: 320 Format: Hardcover Publisher: Scribner Published: September 12, 1994 Condition: Price: USD $2.29 Amazon.com: New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell brings back Kay Scarpetta, consulting forensic pathologist for the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, in her grittiest and most compelling novel. In rural North Carolina, the brutal murder of eleven-year-old Emily Steiner has shaken a small town. But more disturbing are the details of the crimes, chillingly reminiscent of the handiwork of a serial killer who has eluded the unit for years. Into this volatile atmosphere comes Scarpetta's ingenious, rebellious niece Lucy, an FBI intern with a promising future in Quantico's computer engineering facility--until she is accused of a shocking security violation. While coming to terms with Lucy, Kay must conduct a grisly forensic investigation at a clandestine research facility in Tennessee known as the Body Farm. There she will find more answers to Emily Steiner's murder--and evidence that paints a picture of a crime more horrifying than she imagined . . . --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Publishers Weekly: Cornwell ( Body of Evidence ; All That Remains ) casts a wider, surer narrative net in the latest case set for her increasingly complex heroine, Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia. As an FBI consultant, Scarpetta investigates the North Carolina murder of 11-year-old Emily Steiner, whose mutilation suggests the M.O. of an escaped killer met previously in Cruel and Unusual. Forensic clues from the body's second autopsy prompt Scarpetta to request that certain experiments be made at the University of Tennessee's Decay Research Facility, known as the Body Farm. Meanwhile, she, Pete Marino of the Richmond, Va., police, and her new love interest, FBI Unit Chief Benton Wesley investigate the apparent suicide (from autoerotic asphyxiation) of the local FBI agent in charge of the case. Then, Scarpetta's computer-whiz niece Lucy, working at FBI headquarters at Quantico, is charged with violating security. During her travels between North Carolina and Virginia, Scarpetta worries about both the less-than-forthcoming Lucy and Marino, who becomes emotionally entangled with Emily's beautiful stricken mother. Results at the Body Farm lead her to a convincing, if abrupt, resolution. Deeper characterization and a more intricate plot mark this fifth in a consistently compelling series. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. Point of Origin Author: Cornwell, Patricia Segal ISBN: 0-399-14394-7 Pages: 368 Format: Hardcover Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Published: July 1998 Condition: Price: USD $2.29 From Our Editors: The Barnes & Noble Review Cornwell is back, and in a big way! Kay Scarpetta has never been so sharp and on top of things, and murder has never been more foul. Patricia Cornwell returns to familiar ground with another Kay Scarpetta novel, sure to delight fans of her previous novels as well as to draw in a whole slew of new readers. This is top-notch blockbuster fiction, wrapped up with strong character development and superb suspense. A treat for readers, Cornwell's fiction manages to combine the best of both the thriller and mystery genres, and here, with "Point of Origin" she rockets into the stratosphere with her best work yet. Kay Scarpetta, to those unfamiliar with Cornwell's most complex and intriguing character, is the Chief Medical Examiner for the state of Virginia. Operating out of Richmond, Scarpetta receives an extremely threatening letter from a disturbed woman named Carrie Grethen. Readers familiar with Scarpetta's previous dealings in Cornwell novels will recognize Carrie from THE BODY FARM. Carrie Grethen is currently in a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. In her letter, she indicates that both Kay Scarpetta and possibly her niece Lucy are somehow bound up in one of Carrie's twisted schemes. To recap for Scarpetta newcomers, Lucy was Carrie's lover before Carrie's true psychopathic nature reared its ugly head. Kay ended up killing Carrie's partner-in-crime, Temple Gault, and not a night goes by that she doesn't relive that moment. Carrie may be incarcerated, but she has managed to touch Scarpetta's life in a creepy way, and Carrie's threatening letter only adds to herdistress,arriving right before Kay and her lover Benton Wesley are due to go off for their first vacation together in more than a year. Benton knows it spells trouble, but Kay ignores the implication of the letter. Just before she's about to take off with Wesley to Hilton Head, Kay is called in on an emergency case. Up north, in Warrenton, Virginia, a horse farm has just burned to the ground. Racehorses worth millions died in the blaze, and the media mogul Kenneth Sparke also may have perished in the fire. But when Kay arrives, joined by Lucy, there is more at the scene of the crime than dead animals. Someone was burned, fully clothed, in the shower of the rich man's house. A young woman, glass seared into her flesh, is the only human corpse recovered. But as the story progresses, other surprises are in store for Kay. Kenneth Sparke is alive and well, apparently having no knowledge of why anyone would destroy his ranch, although he suspects it was a racially motivated attack. After the arson investigation is under way, Kay hears the news that Carrie has escaped from the psychiatric hospital. Kay's first concern is for her lover. She reaches Wesley by phone on Hilton Head Island, worried that Carrie will try to hunt him down there because of his involvement in bringing her to justice. As the plot twists tighter and tighter, terrifying and shattering secrets are revealed, and Kay finds herself on the trail of a truly nightmarish psychopathic killer. Patricia Cornwell is at the top of her form with POINT OF ORIGIN. The suspense is high wire, a taut, haunting story of family, love, and murder. No one does it better than Cornwell in the thrills department, and Kay Scarpetta proves, once again, to be the smartest, classiest woman in fiction. Patricia Cornwell has another hit on her hands. -Douglas Clegg From the Publisher: From the author of Unnatural Exposure and Cause of Death comes a new Kay Scarpetta novel that pits Virginia's chief medical examiner against an audacious and wily killer who uses fire to mask his crimes. And when Scarpetta learns that her old nemesis, Carrie Grethen, is somehow involved, the investigation gets personal and tragedy strikes closer to home. From The Critics Publishers Weekly: Cornwell fans who relish her Kay Scarpetta stories for the postmortem findings will welcome this tale of twisted minds and the gory havoc they cause. Acronym fans will also be pleased. Unnatural Exposure Author: Cornwell, Patricia ISBN: 0-399-14285-1 Pages: 338 Format: Hardcover Publisher: Putnam Adult Published: July 14, 1997 Condition: Price: USD $2.29 Amazon.com: Virginia Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta has a bloody puzzle on her hands: five headless, limbless cadavers in Ireland, plus four similar victims in a landfill back home. Is a serial butcher loose in Virginia? That's what the panicked public thinks, thanks to a local TV reporter who got the leaked news from her boyfriend, Scarpetta's vile rival, Investigator Percy Ring. But the butchered bodies are so many red herrings intended to throw idiots like Ring off the track. Instead of a run-of-the-mill serial killer, we're dealing with a shadowy figure who has plans involving mutant smallpox, mass murder, and messing with Scarpetta's mind by e-mailing her gory photos of the murder scenes, along with cryptic AOL chat-room messages. The coolest innovation: Scarpetta's gorgeous genius niece, Lucy, equips her with a DataGlove and a VPL Eyephone, and she takes a creepy virtual tour of the e-mailed crime scene. Unnatural Exposure boasts brisk storytelling, crackling dialogue, evocative prose about forensic-science sleuthing, and crisp character sketches, both of familiar characters like Scarpetta's gruff partner Pete Marino and bit players like the landfill employee falsely accused by Ring. Plus, let's face it: serial killers are old hat. Cornwell's most vivid villains are highly plausible backstabbing colleagues like Ring, who plots to destroy Lucy's FBI career by outing her as a lesbian. Some readers object to the rather abrupt ending, but, hey, it's less jarring than Hannibal's, and it's the logical culmination of Cornwell's philosophy about human nature. To illuminate the novel's finale, read Cornwell's remarks on paranoia in her Amazon.com interview. --Tim Appelo From Library Journal: Kay Scarpetta grapples with a serial killer who contacts her via the Internet in this latest from crime novelist Cornwell, who is involved in some headline-making scandal of her own: In a recent trial, she was named as the former lover of a woman whose husband attempted to murder her in a rage over the affair. Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. Girlfriend in a Coma Author: Coupland, Douglas ISBN: 0-06-039178-2 Pages: 284 Format: Hardcover Publisher: ReganBooks Published: February 1998 Condition: Price: USD $1.99 In this latest novel from the poet laureate of Gen X--who is himself now a dangerously mature 36--boy does indeed meet girl. The year is 1979, and the lovers get right down to business in a very Couplandian bit of plein air intercourse: "Karen and I deflowered each other atop Grouse Mountain, among the cedars beside a ski slope, atop crystal snow shards beneath penlight stars. It was a December night so cold and clear that the air felt like the air of the Moon--lung-burning; mentholated and pure; hint of ozone, zinc, ski wax, and Karen's strawberry shampoo." Are we in for an archetypal '80s romance, played out against a pop-cultural backdrop? Nope. Only hours after losing her virginity, Karen loses consciousness as well--for almost two decades. The narrator and his circle soldier on, making the slow progression from debauched Vancouver youths to semiresponsible adults. Several end up working on a television series that bears a suspicious resemblance to The X-Files (surely a self-referential wink on the author's part). And then ... Karen wakes up. Her astonishment--which suggests a 20th-century, substance-abusing Rip Van Winkle--dominates the second half of the novel, and gives Coupland free reign to muse about time, identity, and the meaning (if any) of the impending millennium. Alas, he also slaps a concluding apocalypse onto the novel. As sleeping sickness overwhelms the populace, the world ends with neither a bang nor a whimper, but a universal yawn--which doesn't, fortunately, outweigh the sweetness, oddity, and ironic smarts of everything that has preceded it. From Library Journal: A high school senior makes love on a ski slope, then mixes drinks and drugs at a wild party and falls into a 17-year coma. She wakes up to find she has a daughter, delivered nine months into her coma. Her friends all seem diminished by the passage of time. Her boyfriend laments, "What evidence have we ever given of inner lives?" Not long after, a plague kills off everyone on Earth but her friends. Even more bizarre happenings follow, leading to an unconvincing denouement. For the most part, however, Coupland (Generation X, LJ 10/1/91) has crafted a moving chronicle of the impoverished inner lives of a circle of materially rich young adults of the Nineties. Using punchy sentences filled with hip names and brand labels, he succeeds in capturing the weak sense of identity exhibited by a generation that has defined itself in terms of what it consumes and not what it could achieve. David Keymer, California State Univ., Stanislaus Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. Arcadia Author: Crace, Jim ISBN: 0-02-019200-2 Pages: 311 Format: Paperback Publisher: Collier Books Published: October 1993 Condition: Price: USD $1.69