Carol's Notebook

Vicki of Reading At The Beach hosts A-Z Wednesday. Today's letter is D. I hosted a guest post by David Liss back in July. I've had this book sitting on my shelf since then, but I want to get caught up on the series first.   The Devil's Company by David Liss From the acclaimed author of The Whiskey Rebels and A Conspiracy of Paper comes a superb new historical thriller set in the splendor and squalor of eighteenth-century London.This is the third thriller to feature the estimable Benjamin Weaver, one of fiction’s most enthralling characters.   The year is 1722. Thief-taker, ex-boxer, “ruffian for hire,” and master of disguise, Weaver finds himself caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse, pitted against Jerome Cobb, a wealthy and mysterious schemer who needs Weaver’s strength and guile for his own dark purposes. Weaver is blackmailed into stealing documents from England’s most heavily guarded estate, the headquarters of the ruthless British East India Company, but the theft of corporate...

Congratulations to the winners of Dark Hunger by Rita Herron! elaing Jake Lsewhere Aaron Freda Mans Lisa Richardson I'll be e-mailing you all tomorrow. I just need your addresses to pass on to Hachette books....

Grab your current read. Let the book fall open to a random page. Share with us two (2) "teaser" sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12. You also need to share the title of the book that you're getting your "teaser" from...that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given. Please avoid spoilers! My teaser: I didn't mean to scream, but when you turn around and see your boyfriend's ex-wife floating toward you in a giant transparent bubble, screaming seems like a pretty reasonable option. "Don't panic!" I ordered her even though I was doing a pretty good job of panicking myself. -pg. 140, Laced with Magic by Barbara Bretton Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Play along....

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson About the book: In this electrifying follow-up to the phenomenal best seller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, it is Lisbeth Salander, the troubled, wise-beyond-her-years genius hacker, who is the focus and fierce heart of the story. Mikael Blomkvist—crusading journalist and publisher of the magazine Millennium—has decided to publish a story exposing an extensive sex trafficking operation between Eastern Europe and Sweden, implicating well-known and highly placed members of Swedish society, business, and government. On the eve of publication, the two reporters responsible for the story are brutally murdered. But perhaps more shocking for Blomkvist: the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to Lisbeth Salander. Now, as Blomkvist—alone in his belief in her innocence—plunges into his own investigation of the slayings, Salander is drawn into a murderous hunt in which she is the prey, and which compels her to revisit her dark past in an effort to settle with it once and for all. The giveaway: This is a...

Casting Spells by Barbara Bretton Do you believe in the magic of true love? Chloe Hobbs lives in Sugar Maple, Vermont, a picture perfect village, and owns Sticks & Strings, a mecca for knitting tourists. Sugar Maple has a secret, though, that is hidden from the outside by a protective spell put in place hundreds of years ago. All the inhabitants are magical beings - vampire, witches, sprites, selkie, etc, but they all get along for the most part. The spell protects the town, allowing outsiders to see it only as a beautiful town filled with normal, although slightly quirky people. Well, not all of them are magical. Chloe may be the daughter of a sorceress, but her father was a human, and up to now, she has no magical abilities whatsoever. The problem is the town's future is in her hands.  Only she can keep the protective spell intact. Enter Luke MacKenzie. When he and Chloe touch, sparks literally fly. They are meant for...

Thanks to Marcia at The Printed Page for hosting Mailbox Monday. I got a couple in the mail this week.       City of Refuge by Valerie Farber Received from publicist for review. Bat-Shachar, a teenaged girl gifted with beauty and intellect, languishes in the household of her father, a prominent Israelite scholar. Intimidated by Bat-Shachar's coming of age, her father grows aloof. He scrutinizes her actions, and his discipline is heavy-handed. Her father's rages drive Bat-Shachar from home. In the company of the family's Canaanite maidservant, Bat-Shachar happens upon pagan rituals. The visions she sees shake her to the core of her existence. Tzuriel is a metalworking apprentice. Upon seeing the agony of his people butchered by marauders, he vows to equip his nation for battle. After infiltrating enemy territory to acquire the forbidden skills of crafting iron weapons, Tzuriel faces an awesom fate, borne of a fleeting indiscretion. The paths of Bat-Shachar and Tzuriel intertwine when they are expelled from their tribal villages. They race towards...