Fiction, March 2004

General Fiction |Mysteries |Horror/Science Fiction/Fantasy

General Fiction

Adler, Warren: The Children of the Roses (April 2004)

This sequel to Adler'sThe War of the Roses reveals what happened to the children affected by one of fiction's nastiest divorces.
Alexander, Alma: The Secrets of Jin-Shei (May 2004)

This is the epic story of seven women in an ancient Chinese kingdom and their loyal bond of sisterhood called "jin shei."
Berlin, Adam: Belmondo Style (March 2004)

A father and son with an unusually close relationship wrestle with a hardscrabble life in Manhattan and the consequences of crime.
Boylan, Clare: Emma Brown (April 2004)

Irish author Boylan completes a story begun by Bronte about efforts to uncover the past of a young girl abandoned at a boarding school.
Carter, Alden R.: Bright Starry Banner: A Novel of the Civil War (March 2004)

In December 1862, outside Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the 43,000 men of General Rosencrans' Army of the Cumberland faced the 38,000 Confederate soldiers of General Bragg's Army. In arenas dubbed "the Slaughter Pen" and "Hell's Half Acre," the Blue and Gray collide.
Ceely, Jonatha: Mina (March 2004)

Mina places readers in the vividly rendered below-stairs world of a 19th-century English country manor house where a young Irish immigrant may briefly hide from the chaos and careless brutality of life in the servant class.
Child, Lincoln: Death Match (May 2004)

When Lewis and Lindy Thorpe are found dead in their tasteful Flagstaff living room, alarms go off in the towering Manhattan offices of Eden Incorporated, a matchmaking company whose spectacular success has inspired awe around the world.
Chiaverini, Jennifer: The Master Quilter: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel (April 2004)

In this sixth volume of the popular Elm Creek Quilts series, certain members weigh the comfort of the present against dreams of a future far from Elm Creek Manor.
Cline, Rachel: What to Keep (April 2004)

This novel looks into the lives of Denny Roman and her family, all attempting variations on the theme "parent."
Coelho, Paulo: Eleven Minutes (April 2004)

This new novel by the author of the bestsellerThe Alchemist explores the sacred nature of sex and love and invites readers to confront their own prejudices and demons.
Dalessandro, James: 1906 (April 2004)

Set during the great San Francisco earthquake and fire, this tale of political corruption, vendettas, romance, rescue and murder is based on recently uncovered facts that will forever change the public's understanding of what really happened.
Doctorow, E. L.: Sweet Land Stories (May 2004)

The author of Ragtime, Billy Bathgate and The Book of Danielranges over the American continent, from Alaska to Washington D.C., in fiction that illuminates the heart of modern life.
Ellis, David: Jury of One (April 2004)

Shelly Trotter, the daughter of the state's governor and a children's-rights advocate, is thrust into the world of the criminal court.
Farah, Nuruddin: Links (April 2004)

Jeebleh is returning to Mogadishu from New York for the first time in 20 years. It is not a nostalgia trip. His last residence here was a jail cell.
Freud, Esther: The Sea House (April 2004)

Exploring the twisting paths people take,The Sea House is the story of one generation living in the footprints of another.
Harington, Donald: With (April 2004)

During World War II, real news is a rare commodity in the hamlet of Stay More, Arkansas. But 12-year-old Dawny finds enough local color to keep the townsfolk reading his weekly newspaper, the Stay Morning Star. When soldiers come to occupy the remote hills of Stay More in training for an invasion of Japan, the world's war is brought closer to home and the texture of rural life is irrevocably changed.
McCabe, John: Herding Cats (May 2004)

In a small town in the southwest of England, rivals of a large business are being brutally dealt with one by one. Enter Tim Power, hotshot advertiser, whose girlfriend has placed him on a strict 12-month relationship test.
McFarland, Dennis: Prince Edward (May 2004)

In August of 1959, Benjamin Rome is 10 years old, and his hometown of Farmville, in Prince Edward County, Virginia, is immersed in a frenzy of activity. The Supreme Court has ordered the state to desegregate its public schools; on the heels of the failed "massive resistance" movement, the county has instead voted to close them.
McMurtry, Larry: Folly and Glory (May 2004)

As the finale to McMurtry's Berrybender trilogy opens, Tasmin and her family are under irksome, though comfortable, arrest in Mexican Sante Fe. As the Berrybenders adapt to life in Sante Fe, Tasmin's husband Jim Snow, accompanied by Kit Carson, journeys to New Orleans, where he meets one of Lord Berrybender's many illegitimate children. But they are unable to prevent the Mexicans from carrying the Berrybender family on the terrible "Dead Man's Walk" across the desert to Vera Cruz.
Margolin, Phillip: Sleeping Beauty (May 2004)

When a serial killer escapes, a high school soccer star is on the run.
Marshall, Bev: Right as Rain (March 2004)

In the tradition of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe and The Secret Life of Bees, this heartfelt novel explores the tragedies and triumphs, the pleasures and sorrows of two women, Tee Wee and Icey, their families and the white family that employs them as cook and housekeeper on a tenant farm in rural Mississippi.
Martinez, Nina Marie: Caramba!: A Tale Told in Turns of the Card (April 2004)

This manic first novel, about the wacky goings-on in small Lava Landing, California, is written in the form of la loteria, a Mexican version of bingo. Each chapter represents a turn of the cards, in which characters play out their destinies against the backdrop of a dormant volcano.
Mirvis, Tova: The Outside World (April 2004)

From the author of the The Ladies Auxiliary comes a hilarious comedy of manners about two Orthodox Jewish families brought together by the marriage of their children.
O'Farrell, John: This Is Your Life (May 2004)

Following the death of a national celebrity, Jimmy convinces a naive journalist that he is the latest comedy phenomenon. He then embarks on a series of misadventures, bluffing and stumbling his way up the celebrity ladder, discovering as he goes that in their desperation to be associated with the next big thing, nobody has bothered to check his credentials.
Paddock, Jennifer: A Secret Word (April 2004)

Jennifer Paddock's debut novel spans 15 years in the lives of friends Leigh, Sarah and Chandler, beginning one fateful day in high school that forever connects them.
Pearson, Ridley: The Body of David Hayes (April 2004)

Years ago, Lou Boldt's wife Liz had an affair with David Hayes, a young computer specialist at the bank where she is an executive. When Liz ended the relationship after reconciling with Lou, Hayes partook of a daring embezzlement scheme which, years later, results in Liz being blackmailed.
Redfern, Elizabeth: Auriel Rising (March 2004)

Since the night that young Ned Warriner set upon the guards escorting a Catholic prisoner to the Tower of London, allowing the accused spy to escape a brutal death, he has been in self-imposed exile, supporting himself as a mercenary soldier in the bloody battles between the Dutch and the Spanish. Now, in spite of the danger, he has returned to his native land, where he discovers that the woman he left behind has married a Catholic-hunter.
Ruiz Zafon, Carlos: The Shadow of the Wind (April 2004)

This international literary sensation is about a boy's quest through the secrets and shadows of postwar Barcelona for a mysterious author whose book has proved as dangerous to own as it is impossible to forget.
Sims, Stacy: Swimming Naked (March 2004)

In this novel about growth and transformation, Lucy, a hard-living, droll and self-aware young woman, finds herself in strange, new emotional territory and begins sizing up her life by setting the past against the present.
Stephenson, Neal: The Confusion: Volume Two of the Baroque Cycle (April 2004)

In this compelling adventure, Stephenson brings to life a cast of unforgettable characters in the late 1600s on the high seas. It is a time of breathtaking genius and discovery for men and women whose exploits define an age known as Baroque.
Talarigo, Jeff: The Pearl Diver (April 2004)

In 1948, a 19-year-old Japanese pearl diver is in her fourth season of working hard to perfect the techniques of her age-old occupation. But her dreams of spending her life diving in the waters of the Seto Inland Sea are shattered when she discovers that she has leprosy.
Trollope, Joanna: Brother and Sister (April 2004)

We all need to know where we come from and where we belong. But for David and Natalie, this need to know is even more urgent, since they are adopted. Brought up by the same parents but born to two different mothers, they have grown up as brother and sister and share a fierce loyalty as well as a desire to know their birth mothers.
Wouk, Herman: A Hole in Texas (April 2004)

From the legendary bestselling author comes a rollicking Washington novel about a media firestorm swirling around a vast hole in Texas and one obscure NASA scientist who gets swept up in the vortex and becomes a national figure overnight.

Mysteries

Daheim, Mary: The Alpine Pursuit (April 2004)

The 16th novel in the landmark Pacific Northwest mystery series starring newspaper publisher Emma Lord. It's up to Emma and Sheriff Milo Dodge to discover who murdered the villain on stage in a theater company's melodrama.
Davis, Lindsey: The Accusers (April 2004)

The 15th novel in the popular series finds Sam Spade confronting forces that threaten him and his family's financial safety.
Hamilton, Denise: Last Lullaby: An Eve Diamond Novel (April 2004)

This is a tale of schemers smuggling drugs and parents desperate for the children they can never protect from the treacheries of the world.
Hewson, David: A Season for the Dead (April 2004)

The first in a new crime series set in contemporary Rome, A Season for the Dead features enigmatic Detective Nic Costa as he tracks down a relentless killer who bases his murders on martyrs of the Church.
King, Jonathon: Shadow Men: A Max Freeman Novel (April 2004)

Three men vanished while working as laborers on a dangerous project to build the first road through the Florida Everglades. Now, years later, a series of letters are unexpectedly discovered by a descendent of these men. Driven by the need to know what happened to these lost members of the family, he starts asking questions and is quickly stonewalled.
Leon, Donna: Doctored Evidence: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery (April 2004)

When a miserly spinster is found brutally murdered in her Venice apartment, police immediately suspect her Romanian housekeeper. They are certain their job is done after the immigrant dies while fleeing arrest but weeks later a neighbor comes forward to defend the innocence of the accused. The only investigator who believes the alibi is Commissario Guido Brunetti, who will have to go behind the backs of his superiors to vindicate the Romanian and find her employer's actual killer.
McCall, Alexander Smith: The Full Cupboard of Life: More From the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (April 2004)

Mma Holonga, founder of a chain of hairdressing salons and inventor of the Special Girl Hair Braiding Preparation, has narrowed the list of applicants for marriage to a wealthy woman down to four and asks Mma Ramotswe to investigate their intentions toward her client.
Pickens, Cathy: Southern Fried (April 2004)

This year's winner of the Malice Domestic Award for Best First Novel introduces a lawyer who has gotten bounced from her big-city firm back to her small, hometown in South Carolina.
Spencer-Fleming, Julia: Out of the Deep I Cry: A Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mystery (April 2004)

The Lenten season, coupled with a dose of local history, brings new trials for Reverend Claire Fergusson and her rumored lover, police chief Russ Van Alstyne.
Vachss, Andrew: Down Here: A Burke Novel (April 2004)

When a former sex crimes prosecutor is arrested for attempted murder, Burke knows something is wrong and deals himself in.

Horror/Science Fiction/Fantasy

Hendrix, Howard V.: The Labyrinth Key (March 2004)

In a secret war waged in worlds both virtual and real, the fates of nations depend on the definitive weapon.
Lansdale, Joe R.: Bumper Crop (April 2004)

This collection of 26 stories contains some of Joe R. Lansdale's favorite and most violent, dark, horror tales.
McMullen, Sean: Glass Dragons (March 2004)

Glass Dragons continues the tale of Laron, the chivalrous 700-year-old vampire, the appallingly dangerous and beautiful Velander, and the long-suffering Terikel, as they investigate a secret project of arcane magic so dangerous it could destroy their world.
Stevermer, Caroline: A Scholar of Magics (April 2004)

This sequel to College of Magics is a whirlwind of secret weapons, motor cars, mysterious assaults and abductions, thugs in bowler hats and a mild-mannered don who is heir to a magical power greater than all Glasscastle.
Turtledove, Harry: Out of the Darkness: Book 6 of the Darkness Series (March 2004)

Turtledove's rousing saga of a fantastic world at war, which began in Into the Darkness and continued through Darkness Descending, Through the Darkness, Rulers of the Darkness, and Jaws of Darkness, draws to its climactic conclusion.
Van Lustbader, Eric: Mistress of the Pearl (March 2004)

This sequel to The Ring of Five Dragons and The Veil of a Thousand Tears is the third volume of the towering fantasy epic, The Pearl.