"Of Flesh and Blood"

New from Forge Books: Of Flesh and Blood by Daniel Kalla.

About the book, from the publisher:

A hundred years ago, Dr. Evan McGrath realized his dream of establishing a hospital in the Pacific Northwest, a hospital that would never turn away a patient in need. But the personal cost was steep: Evan lost the love of his life while making a powerful enemy of the hospital’s financier, Marshall Alfredson.

Today, the Alfredson Medical Center is internationally renowned for its care. The two founding families remain faithful to Evan’s vision, but their history is clouded by forbidden love, conflict, and betrayal. Crisis is besieging the Alfredson. A decision by Dr. Tyler McGrath, a child cancer specialist, leaves a young patient’s family shattered. Dr. Jill Laidlaw, Tyler’s wife, is a researcher poised to offer fresh hope to multiple sclerosis victims—including a former presidential frontrunner—until rumors of research fraud endanger her career. And in the face of temptation and career demands, Tyler and Jill are drifting apart.

Devastating family secrets, doomed relationships, and present-day medical disasters threaten not only the Alfredsons and McGraths but the legendary hospital itself.

Learn more about the novel and author at Dan Kalla's website.

Daniel Kalla is the international bestselling author of Pandemic, Resistance, Rage Therapy, Blood Lies, and Cold Plague.

Read January Magazine's "Author Snapshot: Daniel Kalla."

The Page 99 Test: Blood Lies.

The Page 69 Test: Cold Plague.

"WWW: Watch"

New from Ace: WWW: Watch by Robert J. Sawyer.

About the book, from the publisher:

Award-winning author Robert J. Sawyer continues his "wildly though- provoking" science fiction saga of a sentient World Wide Web.

Webmind is an emerging consciousness that has befriended Caitlin Decter and grown eager to learn about her world. But Webmind has also come to the attention of WATCH-the secret government agency that monitors the Internet for any threat to the United States-and they're fully aware of Caitlin's involvement in its awakening.

WATCH is convinced that Webmind represents a risk to national security and wants it purged from cyberspace. But Caitlin believes in Webmind's capacity for compassion-and she will do anything and everything necessary to protect her friend.

Learn more about the book and author at Robert J. Sawyer's website and blog.

Robert J. Sawyer has been called “the dean of Canadian science fiction” by The Ottawa Citizen. He is one of only seven writers in history to win all three of the world’s top awards for best science-fiction novel of the year: the Hugo (which he won in 2003 for Hominids), the Nebula (which he won in 1995 for The Terminal Experiment), and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award (which he won in 2005 for Mindscan).

See the entry for Sawyer's Rollback at "My Book, The Movie."

The Page 69 Test: Rollback.

The Page 69 Test: WWW: Wake.

--Marshal Zeringue

"Crimes by Moonlight"

New from Berkley: Crimes by Moonlight: Mysteries from the Dark Side edited by Charlaine Harris.

About the book, from the publisher:

An all-new mystery anthology edited and featuring a new story by #1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris

Nighttime is the perfect time for the perfect crime. #1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris edits and contributes an all-new story-set in her Sookie Stackhouse universe-to this anthology from the Mystery Writers of America. Other authors include:

Steve Brewer
Dana Cameron
Max Allan Collins and Mickey Spillane
Barbara D'Amato
Brendan DuBois
Terrie Farley Moran
Jack Fredrickson
Parnell Hall
Carolyn Hart
S. W. Hubbard
Toni L. P. Kelner
Lou Kemp
William Kent Kreuger
Harley Jane Kozak
Margaret Mahon
Martin Meyers
Jeffrey Somers
Elaine Viets
Mike Wiecek

Coffee with a Canine: Charlaine Harris & Scrunch, Rocky, and Oscar.

"In The Neighborhood"

New from Perigee: In The Neighborhood: The Search for Community on an American Street, One Sleepover at a Time by Peter Lovenheim.

About the book, from the publisher:

Based on a popular New York Times Op-Ed piece, this is the quirky, heartfelt account of one man's quest to meet his neighbors-and find a sense of community.

Journalist and author Peter Lovenheim has lived on the same street in suburban Rochester, NY, most of his life. But it was only after a brutal murder-suicide rocked the community that he was struck by a fact of modern life in this comfortable enclave: no one knew anyone else.

Thus begins Peter's search to meet and get to know his neighbors. An inquisitive person, he does more than just introduce himself. He asks, ever so politely, if he can sleep over.

In this smart, engaging, and deeply felt book, Lovenheim takes readers inside the homes, minds, and hearts of his neighbors and asks a thought-provoking question: do neighborhoods matter-and is something lost when we live among strangers?

Visit Peter Lovenheim's website.

"I Was the Jukebox"

New from W.W. Norton: I Was the Jukebox: Poems by Sandra Beasley.

About the book, from the publisher:

The winner of the 2009 Barnard Women Poets Prize—“fresh, crisp, and muscular.”

“These poems are fresh, crisp, and muscular. They are decisive and fearless. Every object, icon, or historical moment has a soul with a voice. In these poems these soulful ones elbow their way to the surface of the page, smartly into the contemporary now.”—Joy Harjo, prize citation

from “The Piano Speaks”
For an hour I forgot my fat self,
my neurotic innards, my addiction to alignment.
For an hour I forgot my fear of rain.
For an hour I was a salamander
shimmying through the kelp in search of shore,
and under his fingers the notes slid loose
from my belly in a long jellyrope of eggs
that took root in the mud.

Learn more about Sandra Beasley and her work at her website and her blog, Chicks Dig Poetry.

Writers Read: Sandra Beasley.

"Nothing Happened and Then It Did"

New from W.W. Norton: Nothing Happened and Then It Did: A Chronicle in Fact and Fiction by Jake Silverstein.

About the book, from the publisher:

Fact and fiction vie to tell the story of a young journalist bedeviled by the devil and seeking greater truth.

The timing couldn’t be better—as scandals erupt over journalists and memoirists who’ve cooked their books—for a work that explores our difficulty in separating fact and fiction, while explicitly demonstrating how they differ and what they share.

In prose so fine and wry it makes the back of your neck prickle, Jake Silverstein narrates a journey he undertook through the American Southwest and Mexico, looking to become a journalist. His picaresque travels are filled with beguiling and hilarious characters: nineteenth-century author Ambrose Bierce; an unknown group of famous poets; a twenty-first-century treasure hunter in the Gulf of Mexico; an ex-Nazi mechanic shepherding an old Mexican road race; a stenographer who records every passing moment; and various incarnations of the trickster devil.

As bold, ambitious, and funny as it is unconventional, Nothing Happened and Then It Did is a deep and lasting pleasure.

Visit Jake Silverstein's website.

"Elegy for April"

New from Holt, Henry & Company: Elegy for April by Benjamin Black.

About the book, from the publisher:

Quirke—the hard-drinking, insatiably curious Dublin pathologist—is back, and he's determined to find his daughter's best friend, a well-connected young doctor

April Latimer has vanished. A junior doctor at a local hospital, she is something of a scandal in the conservative and highly patriarchal society of 1950s Dublin. Though her family is one of the most respected in the city, she is known for being independent-minded; her taste in men, for instance, is decidedly unconventional.

Now April has disappeared, and her friend Phoebe Griffin suspects the worst. Frantic, Phoebe seeks out Quirke, her brilliant but erratic father, and asks him for help. Sober again after intensive treatment for alcoholism, Quirke enlists his old sparring partner, Detective Inspector Hackett, in the search for the missing young woman. In their separate ways the two men follow April's trail through some of the darker byways of the city to uncover crucial information on her whereabouts. And as Quirke becomes deeply involved in April's murky story, he encounters complicated and ugly truths about family savagery, Catholic ruthlessness, and race hatred.

Both an absorbing crime novel and a brilliant portrait of the difficult and relentless love between a father and his daughter, this is Benjamin Black at his sparkling best.

Visit the official Benjamin Black website.

"Claude & Camille"

New from Crown: Claude & Camille by Stephanie Cowell.

About the book, from the publisher:

Sometimes he dreamt he held her; that he would turn in bed and she would be there. But she was gone and he was old. Nearly seventy. Only cool paint met his fingers. “Ma très chère...” Darkness started to fall, dimming the paintings. He felt the crumpled letter in his pocket. “I loved you so,” he said. “I never would have had it turn out as it did. You were with all of us when we began, you gave us courage. These gardens at Giverny are for you but I’m old and you’re forever young and will never see them....”

In the mid-nineteenth century, a young man named Claude Monet decided that he would rather endure a difficult life painting landscapes than take over his father’s nautical supplies business in a French seaside town. Against his father’s will, and with nothing but a dream and an insatiable urge to create a new style of art that repudiated the Classical Realism of the time, he set off for Paris.

But once there he is confronted with obstacles: an art world that refused to validate his style, extreme poverty, and a war that led him away from his home and friends. But there were bright spots as well: his deep, enduring friendships with men named Renoir, Cézanne, Pissarro, Manet – a group that together would come to be known as the Impressionists, and that supported each other through the difficult years. But even more illuminating was his lifelong love, Camille Doncieux, a beautiful, upper-class Parisian girl who threw away her privileged life to be by the side of the defiant painter and embrace the lively Bohemian life of their time.

His muse, his best friend, his passionate lover, and the mother to his two children, Camille stayed with Monet—and believed in his work—even as they lived in wretched rooms, were sometimes kicked out of those, and often suffered the indignities of destitution. She comforted him during his frequent emotional torments, even when he would leave her for long periods to go off on his own to paint in the countryside.

But Camille had her own demons – secrets that Monet could never penetrate, including one that when eventually revealed would pain him so deeply that he would never fully recover from its impact. For though Camille never once stopped loving the painter with her entire being, she was not immune to the loneliness that often came with being his partner.

A vividly-rendered portrait of both the rise of Impressionism and of the artist at the center of the movement, Claude and Camille is above all a love story of the highest romantic order.

Visit Stephanie Cowell's website and blog.

"Beautiful Assassin"

New from William Morrow: Beautiful Assassin by Michael C. White.

About the book, from the publisher:

A breathtaking tale of love, loyalty, and intrigue set in the early days of World War II from the acclaimed New York Times Notable Book author of Soul Catcher, which USA Today hailed as "a marvelous historical novel"

World War II threatens to engulf the globe. The beleaguered Soviets, struggling to hold back the rising German tide, face despair and defeat daily. Yet just as all seems lost, a fearless female sniper named Tat'yana Levchenko gains fame in the Battle of Sevastopol with her remarkable composure and stunning skill. Offering hope in her nation's darkest moments, she becomes a Soviet hero, and word of her beauty and prowess eventually reaches Washington, D.C. Soon, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt invites Tat'yana to visit America and tour the country with her.

For the Soviets, Tat'yana's newfound friendship with the wife of the most powerful man in the world is an opportunity to garner public support for a much-needed second front in the war—but it's also a chance to gather information about President Roosevelt's plans. Surrounded by those who would exploit her position, Tat'yana becomes a pawn in a battle for information, and she is forced to question the motivations of everyone she knows, including the American captain who has been assigned as her translator. But as quickly as she rises to fame, Tat'yana vanishes. Did she defect? Was she silenced—and if so, by whom? Decades later, a clever journalist will discover Tat'yana's story ... and reveal the truth.

In Beautiful Assassin, Michael White delivers a heartrending story of war, betrayal, and a mother's love that can never be extinguished. Lyrical, evocative, and powerfully moving, this is a tale you will not soon forget.

Visit Michael C. White's website and blog.

"Love in a Time of Homeschooling"

New from Harper: Love in a Time of Homeschooling by Laura Brodie.

About the book, from the publisher:

"I had always thought of homeschooling as a drastic measure.... But when my daughter decided that she would rather hide in a closet than complete her homework, I knew that it was time for me to become a schoolteacher, if only for a little while."

After years of watching her eldest daughter, Julia, struggle in a highly regimented public school system, Laura Brodie determined to teach her ten-year-old at home for a year. Although friends were skeptical and her husband predicted disaster—"You can't be serious"—Brodie had visions of one ideal year of learning. The monotony of fill-in-the-blank history and math worksheets would be replaced with studying dinosaurs and Mayan hieroglyphics, conversational French, violin lessons, and field trips to art museums, science fairs, bookstores, and concerts.

But can one year of homeschooling make a difference? And what happens to the love between mother and daughter when fractions and spelling enter the relationship?

Love in a Time of Homeschooling is a funny and inspiring story of human foibles and human potential, in which love, anger, and hope mingle with reading, math, and American history. As today's parents ponder their children's educations, wondering how to respond to everything from homework overload to bullying to the boredom of excessive test preparations, homeschooling has become a popular alternative embraced by millions. Short-term homeschooling is the latest trend in this growing movement.

Brodie gave her daughter a sabbatical to explore, learn, create, and grow—a year of independent research and writing to rejuvenate Julia's love of learning. The experiment brought out the best and worst in the pair, but they worked through their frustrations to forge an invaluable bond. Theirs is a wonderful story no parent should miss.

Visit Laura Brodie's website.