Earth Abides [AUDIOBOOK] [CD] [UNABRIDGED]

Earth Abides [AUDIOBOOK] [CD] [UNABRIDGED] Author: Stewart, George R. Davis, Jonathan Davis, Jonathan (Narrated by) ISBN: 1-4418-0614-8

Category: American Science Fiction And Fantasy

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 An instant classic upon its original publication in 1949 and winner of the first International Fantasy Award, Earth Abides ranks with On the Beach and Riddley Walker as one of our most provocative and finely wrought post-apocalyptic works of literature. Its impact is still fresh, its lessons timeless. When a plague of unprecedented virulence sweeps the globe, the human race is all but wiped out. In the aftermath, as the great machine of civilization slowly, inexorably, breaks down, only a few shattered survivors remain to struggle against the slide into barbarism . . . or extinction. This is the story of one such survivor, Isherwood “Ish” Williams, an intellectual loner who embraces the grim duty of bearing witness to what may be humanity's final days. But then he finds Em, a wise and courageous woman who coaxes his stunned heart back to life and teaches him to hope again. Together, they will face unimaginable challenges as they sow the seeds of a new beginning. “One of the finest of all post-holocaust novels.”

Bed of Roses

Bed of Roses (Bride Author: Roberts, Nora Dawe, Angela ISBN: 1-4233-6878-9

Category: American Light Romantic Fiction

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 In her second bridal-themed romance about four friends who run Vows, a Greenwich, Conn., wedding planning business, Roberts focuses on Emma Grant while her partners, MacKensie, Parker and Laurel, play supporting roles. In the first installment of this planned quartet, Vows' bridal photographer got engaged, and now florist Emma wonders if she can find true love with old friend Jack Cooke, who is also very close to Emma's associates. When Emma kisses Jack, her spark-o-meter melts from the blazing heat, but their romance's setbacks are smoothed out with a little help from their friends. Though there are few surprises in this cute courtship, those with a TiVo full of Bridezillas should enjoy it, thanks largely to Roberts's effortless wit.

The Blue Hour

The Blue Hour Author: Parker, T. Jefferson Gilbert, Tavia ISBN: 1-4233-5567-9

Category: American Mystery & Suspense Fiction

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 The plot may sound familiar, but surehanded thriller writer Parker (Where Serpents Dance) proves ever-surprising in his latest novel, the story of an unusual pair of police protagonists and a serial killer stalking beautiful women in California's Laguna County. Tim Hess is a retired cop, fighting lung cancer, who's called back to active duty to find the diabolical killer who "signs" his murders by eviscerating his victims. His boss and partner in the investigation is an attractive, brusque detective named Merci Rayborn, who quickly dismisses the lone suspect in the case, a paroled, chemically castrated Romanian rapist living under virtual house arrest in an apartment complex near the latest crime scene. Hess stays on the rapist's trail, though, tracking an embalming machine that may be part of the killer's bizarre m.o., but by the time the clues come together, Merci is in murderous hands. Parker places his building blocks with meticulous precision, balancing the feisty yet somewhat melancholic interaction between Hess and Rayborn with a terrifying portrait of a psychopath, although the physical relationship between the two cops does seem a bit forced. The details of the crime are presented with judicious authority as Parker consistently underplays the more sensational aspects of the homicides to keep the narrative unpredictable and dynamic, making it far more gripping than the average serial-killer thriller.

Abandoned: A Thriller

Abandoned: A Thriller Author: McFadyen, Cody Bean, Joyce ISBN: 1-4418-0265-7

Category: American Mystery & Suspense Fiction

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Cody McFadyen on Abandoned I build my books around the bad guy. I have from the first. I remember making a conscious decision to build my bad guys a little bit outside the box--the box being the firm reality we all know and agree to be. Why? Because it's a lot more fun to write about serial killers that way. Think about it. Hannibal Lecter is a lot more interesting than Son of Sam. Hannibal is brilliant, complex, unclassifiable. He kills with finesse and precision. Son of Sam was an unhinged lunatic, blowing people away at random. As a character, Hannibal is much more interesting to write about (and read). Because true serial killers aren't super villains. They're disturbed, sordid individuals, driven by hungers and needs that usually destroy them from the inside out. A lot of the time, they're socially inept, and not very smart. Their depravity is most often senseless. Writing about what they do would be like writing about a great white shark: it eats because it is hungry and it has such big sharp teeth... you can't sustain an entire novel on pure savagery. So I like for my bad guys to have a reason for what they do, some guiding purpose. Otherwise, all I'm doing is asking you to pull up a chair and watch the feast--and while something in our reptile brains might enjoy seeing a little bit of the feast, we shy away from the full truth of it. So when I started thinking about Abandoned, the fourth book in my series, I started by thinking about my killer. I wanted to do something different, but what? The killers in the books earlier in the series had all been pretty "hungry;" in other words, they were appetite driven. "So what," I thought, "about a killer with no appetite at all?" I actually rejected it at first, but the idea kept swimming back to the forefront. There was something terrifying about the idea of someone operating with such cold clarity. It was haunting me--which is always a good sign! I thought about it a lot and finally realized what (for me at least) makes such a killer so chilling: that kind of coldness relegates us to nothing, nothing at all. The killer who is purposefully cruel, the killer who drools with excitement, still needs our humanity, at whatever level. There is a validation of our value as sentient, emotional beings, even if that only means they need our fear and our horror. It's a terrible kind of "mattering," but still, we matter. In the world of the killer I envisaged, we don't matter at all. There's no intentional cruelty, no enjoyment of our suffering, no acknowledgement of the value of our existence. He assigns his victims numbers, because it's a more economical use of oxygen than saying their names. I saw him, he terrified me, and then I wrote him. He lies within the pages of Abandoned. It's my hope he'll terrify you as well.--Cody McFadyen

Black Friday

Black Friday Author: Kava, Alex Eby, Tanya ISBN: 1-4233-4446-4

Category: American Mystery & Suspense Fiction

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 Bestseller Kava's superb Maggie O'Dell thriller (after Exposed) features a particularly memorable villain, the Project Manager (aka Robert Asante), the third party behind 1995's horrifying Oklahoma City bombing, along with real-life terrorists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Now Asante has directed an attack on Minnesota's Mall of America during Black Friday, the big retailing day after Thanksgiving, that kills 32 people, including two students who were duped into carrying devices that they believed would just create an electronic blackout. FBI profiler O'Dell, still recovering from the death of her boss, must work with her new superior, hypercritical Raymond Kunze, as well as her ex-boyfriend, security consultant Nick Morrelli, to prevent a second major terrorist outrage Asante has planned to follow shortly after the first. Kava peppers the breathless action with enough intel to make the premise scarily real.

Black Cross [AUDIOBOOK] [CD] [UNABRIDGED]

Black Cross [AUDIOBOOK] [CD] [UNABRIDGED] Author: Iles, Greg Hill, Dick ISBN: 1-4418-1140-0

Category: American Historical Fiction

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Iles's WWII thriller portrays a commando raid on a Nazi concentration camp that is developing poison gases to be used against the Allied forces.

The Rules of Attraction

The Rules of Attraction Author: Ellis, Bret Easton Gerard, Jonathan Davis Lauren Fortgang and Danny Gerard, Danny (Read by) Fortgang, Lauren (Read by) ISBN: 1-4418-0619-9

Category: American Contemporary Fiction - Individual Authors +

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 This tale of privileged college students at their self- absorbed and childish worst is the very book that countless students have dreamed of writing at their most self-absorbed and childish moments. With one bestseller to his credit, Less Than Zero author and recent Bennington College graduate Ellis has had the unique opportunity of seeing his dream become a realityand all those other once-and-future students can breathe a sigh of relief that it didn't happen to them. Through a series of brief first-person accounts, the novel chronicles one term at a fictional New England college, with particular emphasis on a decidedly contemporary love triangle (one woman and two men) in which all possible combinations have been explored, and each pines after the one who's pining after the other. Theirs is a world of physical, chemical and emotional excess an adolescent fantasy of sex, drugs and strum und drang wherein characters are distinguished only by the respective means by which they squander their health, wealth and youth.

The Prince of Tides [AUDIOBOOK] [CD] [UNABRIDGED]

The Prince of Tides [AUDIOBOOK] [CD] [UNABRIDGED] Author: Conroy, Pat Muller, Frank ISBN: 1-4418-0791-8

Category: American Contemporary Fiction - Individual Authors +

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For sheer storytelling finesse, Conroy will have few rivals this season. His fourth novel is a seductive narrative, told with bravado flourishes, portentous foreshadowing, sardonic humor and eloquent turns of phrase. Like The Great Santini, it is the story of a destructive family relationship wherein a violent father abuses his wife and children. Henry Wingo is a shrimper who fishes the seas off the South Carolina coast and regularly squanders what little money he amasses in farcical business schemes; his beautiful wife, Lila, is both his victim and a manipulative and guilt-inflicting mother.