Best Books of 2000

Fiction

Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin.
In a strikingly original, multi-layered narrative that contains a novel-within-a-novel, Atwood tells the story of two sisters, one of whom died a mysterious early death. Booker Prize winner.

Howard Bahr, The Year of Jubilo.
A Confederate soldier returns to his Mississippi hometown to find a megalomaniacal man attempting to impose his own brand of justice on the small post-Civil War community.

Charles Baxter, The Feast of Love.
A collection of vignettes set in a coffee shop explores the subtle movements of love between ordinary people.

Saul Bellow, Ravelstein.
As a man tries to write a memoir of his dying friend — a university professor and best-selling author — he discovers truths about mortality, friendship and himself.

Amy Bloom, A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You.
In this collection of eight short stories, characters confront compelling and difficult circumstances but learn to survive.

Carrie Brown, The Hatbox Baby.
A premature baby brought to an incubator exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair touches the lives of his spinster aunt, a doctor, a notorious fan dancer and a man whose own premature birth stunted his growth.

Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.
A Czech artist who needs money to bring his family out of Nazi-occupied Prague collaborates with his American cousin to create a comic book hero called The Escapist.

Tracy Chevalier, Girl with a Pearl Earring.
A servant girl in the household of the Dutch painter Vermeer becomes intimate with her master and poses for one of his most renowned paintings.

Jim Crace, Being Dead.
Beginning with the corpses of a murdered couple on a beach, the story moves back and forth in time to show why they came to be there and what happened to their bodies and their memory after their deaths.

Nomi Eve, The Family Orchard.
A family leaves Eastern Europe in 1837 and settles in Jerusalem, where each successive generation adds a unique chapter to their rich family history.

Charlotte Freeman, Place Last Seen.
A family is devastated when their six-year-daughter who has Down syndrome disappears in the
woods during a game of hide-and-seek.

Elizabeth Gilbert, Stern Men.
The story of a young woman who single-handedly ends a generations-long feud between the lobstermen on two islands off the coast of Maine.

Myla Goldberg, Bee Season.
A girl ignored by her family finds herself the center of attention when she starts winning spelling bees.

Jane Hamiltion, Disobedience.
A Chicago teenager who reads his mother’s e-mail learns that she’s having an affair.

Stephen Harrigan, Gates of the Alamo.
A huge, riveting, deeply imagined novel about the siege and fall of the Alamo, an event that formed the consciousness of Texas and that resonates through American history.

Seamus Heaney (trans.), Beowulf.
The thousand-year-old Anglo-Saxon epic of the warrior Beowulf’s battle with the monstrous Grendel is rendered in gripping and breathtaking language by Irish Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney.

Alice Hoffman, The River King.
The past and the present overlap in this lyrical, magical story of two tragedies decades apart that befall outsiders at an elite private school.

Sheri Holman, The Dress Lodger.
In England during the Industrial Revolution, a young woman who became a prostitute to support her deformed son strikes up an alliance with a doctor seeking corpses for his medical experiments.

Jonathan Hull, Losing Julia.
An elderly man in a nursing home recalls his experiences in World War I and a love he had and lost.

Thomas King, Truth and Bright Water.
A summer in the life of a Native American boy living on a reservation at the U.S.-Canadian border, as he explores family secrets, a woman’s strange disappearance off a cliff, & his place in tribal society.

Barbara Kingsolver, Prodigal Summer.
A connection to nature and the land is the thread that weaves together three stories of love and life in the Appalachian Mountains.

Matthew Kneale, English Passengers.
A vicar sets sail for Tasmania to prove that it was the site of the Garden of Eden, while a ruthless scientist hopes to prove him wrong and gain fame for himself.

Ivonne Lamazares, The Sugar Island.
During the Cuban revolution, a girl & her mother make a perilous midnight escape aboard a raft, but when they reach Florida, they learn that the American Dream may be harder to achieve than they thought.

Jeffrey Lent, In the Fall.
After the Civil War, a Union soldier brings home a new wife — a former slave with a secret that will affect subsequent generations of their family.

David Wong Louie, The Barbarians Are Coming.
A Chinese-American man who grew up behind his immigrant parents’ laundry disappoints his father by becoming a chef instead of a doctor and disappoints his employers by refusing to cook Chinese food.

Alistair MacLeod, No Great Mischief.
A man caring for his dying brother explores his family’s rich history and their deep connection to Scotland generations after their patriarch’s self-imposed exile to Canada.

Bernice McFadden, Sugar.
A churchgoing woman forms an unlikely bond with a prostitute who moves in next door when she sees a resemblance between her new neighbor and her own daughter, who was murdered 15 years before.

Tova Mirvis, The Ladies Auxiliary.
When the young people in the Orthodox community of Memphis begin to stray, a newly arrived convert to Judaism is blamed.

Deborah Moggach, Tulip Fever.
In Amsterdam in the 1630s, a young wife escapes her stifling marriage to an older man into the arms of the artist who is hired to paint their portrait.

T. R. Pearson, Blue Ridge.
The parallel stories of two cousins confronted with violent death: One, a rural deputy, investigates a skeleton found on the Appalachian Trail; the other is called to New York to identify a body presumed to be that of the son he barely knew.

Owen Parry, Shadows of Glory.
While the Civil War rages in the South, the Union sends Abel Jones to the Finger Lakes region of New York to investigate the deaths of several Federal agents & the possibility of an Irish immigrant uprising.

Steven Pressfield, Tides of War.
Vivid depictions of the land and sea battles of the Peloponnesian War highlight this tale of Alcibiades,who won many battles for Athens yet was assassinated because the city-state considered him a threat.

Lisa Reardon, Blameless.
A school bus driver discovers the body of one of her small charges, and as she waits to testify about what she witnessed she is haunted by a “Night Visitor” that seems to be trying to tell her something.

Frederick Reiken, The Lost Legends of New Jersey.
A beautifully written, humorous and moving story of an adolescent boy trying to make sense of life and love as his father’s adultery and his mother’s mood swings break their family apart.

Philip Roth, The Human Stain.
Sanctimony and self-righteousness are the target of Roth’s satirical pen in this tale of a professor accused of racism who is hiding a secret that would astonish his accusers.

Jose Saramago, All the Names.
When a worker in the Central Registry discovers a stray birth certificate, he decides to investigate the identity of the woman--the first step in an obsession that will lead him to her. Nobel prize winning author.

Christina Schwarz, Drowning Ruth.
After World War I, a nurse returns to her northern Wisconsin home and stays on to care for her niece after her sister drowns in mysterious circumstances.

Jane Smiley, Horse Heaven.
The world of horse racing is explored in this dryly comic, lavishly detailed novel filled with numerous unforgettable characters, both human and equine.

Zadie Smith, White Teeth.
An ambitious first novel that tackles race, class, history and gender politics through the story of an Englishman and his Pakistani friend.

David Wallace, Ray in Reverse.
A recently deceased man reviews his life in reverse, from his fatal bout with cancer back to the last innocent act of his childhood.

James Welch, The Heartsong of Charging Elk.
In 1889, a Sioux traveling through Europe with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show is left behind in a hospital in Marseille and finds himself adrift in a completely alien culture.

Sarah Willis, Some Things That Stay.
A girl who travels the country with her itinerant artist father struggles with her desire to settle down, the loss of her mother, and her resentment at being left in charge of her siblings while her father escapes into his art.

Thrillers

Ethan Black, Irresistible.
A New York sex crimes detective on the trail of a serial killer who leaves taunting clues discovers he may be the next target.

Gary Braver, Elixir.
A medicinal chemist for a pharmaceutical company becomes the target of a ruthless manhunt when he discovers a flower that can prolong life.

Dan Brown, Angels & Demons.
A Harvard professor & an Italian scientist are in a race against time when a secret society with a vendetta against the Catholic Church claims to have planted an explosive in Vatican City.

Michael Connelly, Void Moon.
A burglar on parole after a job that resulted in her lover’s death has a special reason for taking on one final heist but soon becomes entangled with an enemy from her past.

Robert Crais, Demolition Angel.
A bomb squad detective who is haunted by an explosion that maimed her and killed her lover is assigned to a case that appears to be the work of a serial bomber.

Nelson DeMille, The Lion’s Game.
A former cop attached to the Anti-Terrorism Task Force tracks a Libyan bent on avenging the 1986 raid on his country by the U.S.

Bill Eidson, One Bad Thing.
A man sailing his boat home from the Caribbean is drawn into a deadly game when he discovers that the crewman he hired is a conman and a thief.

Paul Eddy, Flint.
A detective seeking revenge on the man she blames for her injuries discovers a money laundering scheme that reaches the upper levels of British intelligence and goes on the run not knowing who to trust.

Joseph Flynn, The Next President.
A businessman who was a sniper in Vietnam is coerced by a blackmailer threatening his son into trying to assassinate the first African-American candidate for President of the United States.

J. F. Freedman, Above the Law.
A lawyer is asked to investigate when it appears that the DEA may have murdered a drug lord following a raid on his compound.

Brian Freemantle, Dead Men Living.
British agent Charlie Muffin and his ex-KGB agent lover Natalia unravel a World War II era secret that Britain, America and Russia are desperate to keep under wraps.

Paul Garrison, Red Sky at Morning.
During Fleet Week in New York Harbor, the Chinese mount a submarine attack on the city to distract the U.S. from a planned invasion of Taiwan.

John Gilstrap, Even Steven.
A couple desperate for a child rescue a terrified toddler from kidnappers and consider keeping the boy as their own, while the boy’s mother searches the criminal underworld for her child.

Nicholas Griffin, The Requiem Shark.
A swashbuckling tale of adventure on the high seas told from the point of view of an apprentice to a pirate captain seeking a fabulous treasure ship.

Steven Hartov, The Devil’s Shepherd.
Two Israeli intelligence agents go to Africa to rescue a defecting Czech colonel who knows the identity of the mole in Israel’s nuclear weapons facility.

Carl Hiaasen, Sick Puppy.
When a self-appointed savior of Florida’s wilderness sets out to teach a litterbug a lesson, the result is an outrageously wacky escapade that is pure Hiaasen.

William Hoffman, Blood and Guile.
A fatal shooting during a hunting trip appears to be an accident, but as one member of the hunting party is drawn into the investigation he discovers that his friends are hiding disastrous secrets.

Stephen Horn, In Her Defense.
A struggling attorney is hired by a glamorous socialite accused of killing a prominent politician.

Linda Howard, Mr. Perfect.
Four friends make up a list of requirements for the perfect man, but their joke turns deadly when one of them is murdered.

Stephen Hunter, Hot Springs.
A former Medal of Honor winner haunted by a violent past is asked to rid Hot Springs, Arkansas, of a crime lord who has the city in a stranglehold.

Gary Krist, Chaos Theory.
Two suburban teens who drive to the seedy side of Washington, D.C., to buy marijuana find themselves in the middle of a shootout that leaves an undercover cop dead and their own lives in danger.

J. Patrick Law, The Assistant.
A man discovers that his late father was a sayanim—an assistant to the Israeli government and the Mossad—when a dying man delivers a cryptic message that could bring the Middle East to a crisis point.

John Le Carre, The Constant Gardener.
A man tries to find out who killed his wife, who was trying to stop the testing of a drug on unsuspecting villagers in Kenya.

Elmore Leonard, Pagan Babies.
Nothing is as it seems when a priest raising money for Rwandan orphans and a woman seeking revenge on her former fiance join forces in a con game.

John Lescroart, Nothing but the Truth.
Defense attorney Dismas Hardy faces the most challenging case of his career when his wife is jailed for refusing to reveal information about a family friend accused of killing his wife.

Steve Martini, The Attorney.
An attorney’s client is the prime suspect in the murder of a militant feminist who may have kidnapped the client’s granddaughter on behalf of the child’s mother.

Brian McGrory, The Incumbent.
A Washington correspondent is invited to play golf with the President and finds himself in the middle of an assassination attempt, but though the shooter is killed his motive remains unclear.

Perri O’Shaughnessy, Move to Strike.
An attorney defending a teenage girl accused of murdering her uncle believes her client is innocent but is hiding something to protect someone else.

Richard North Patterson, Protect and Defend.
A nominee for Supreme Court Justice is drawn into the case of a teenage girl whose parents want to stop her from aborting a child with a severe birth defect.

Ridley Pearson, Middle of Nowhere.
When a fellow officer is gravely injured in an apparent burglary, Lou Boldt thinks there may be a connection to the police strike that has decimated the department.

George Pelecanos, Shame the Devil.
A gunman vows to avenge his brother, who was killed by police during a restaurant robbery gone awry.

Jodi Picoult, Plain Truth.
An attorney dissatisfied with her career agrees to defend an unmarried Amish teenager accused of killing her newborn baby.

Andrew Pyper, Lost Girls.
A Toronto lawyer who is sent to a small lakeside town to defend a teacher accused of murdering two students begins to experience strange visions that seem related to a tragic incident in the town’s past.

Steve Samuel, Rock, Paper, Scissors.
A Secret Service agent charged with protecting the Secretary of State discovers that a high-level conspiracy has been hatched in the most secret recesses of the government.

Gerald Seymour, A Line in the Sand.
A former spy who is being hunted by a vengeful assassin refuses to leave the sleepy Suffolk village where he has made a new home and life even after his community turns against him.

Sheldon Siegel, Special Circumstances.
An attorney starting his own practice after being fired agrees to defend a colleague from his old firm who is accused of murdering a senior partner.

Edward Simmons, Dog Company Six.
A man who answers the call to arms during the Korean War journeys from a private school in Baltimore to lead a group of Marines in a series of battles from the mud flats of Inchon to the frozen wasteland of the Chosin reservoir.

Robert Tanenbaum, True Justice.
As Butch Karp finds his office is determined to prosecute a Hispanic teen for infanticide, his wife Marlene agrees to defend a suburban teen accused of the same crime.

Marianne Wesson, A Suggestion of Death.
When the daughter of a senatorial candidate comes to her with vague recollections of sexual abuse, an attorney is troubled by the issue of recovered memory and by the woman’s apparent ties to a neo-Nazi militia.

Donald Westlake, The Hook.
Bryce Proctor, a bestselling author with writer’s block who is going through a messy divorce, offers has-been writer Wayne Prentice half his advance for a manuscript on the condition that Prentice murder Proctor’s estranged wife.

Charles Wilson, Game Plan.
A government experiment to enhance human intelligence with implanted microchips goes awry when the test subjects—all convicted criminals—escape and plot world domination.

Robert Wilson, A Small Death in Lisbon.
The investigation of a teenage girl’s death in modern-day Lisbon is paralleled with the business and personal dealings of an SS officer in Portugal during World War II.

Mystery

Nevada Barr, Deep South.
When park ranger Anna Pigeon accepts a promotion to district ranger on Mississippi’s Natchez Trace Parkway, she encounters resentment from her male colleagues and a murder with racial overtones.

Gerry Boyle, Cover Story.
A reporter returns to his roots at the New York Times and must uncover a web of corruption when he and an old friend are suspected of assassinating the mayor.

James Lee Burke, Purple Cane Road.
While helping a girl on death row for killing the man who molested her, Louisiana cop Dave Robicheaux discovers a clue to his own mother’s mysterious death 30 years earlier.

Sarah Caudwell, The Sibyl in Her Grave.
A group of barristers call on Oxford fellow Hilary Tamar to help untangle a mystery involving insider trading and a dead psychic.

Harlan Coben, Darkest Fear.
An old flame turns up on sports agent & sleuth Myron Bolitar’s doorstep with a boy she claims is his son and asks him to track down a bone-marrow donor who could save the child’s life.

Tim Cockey, The Hearse You Came in On.
Baltimore mortician Hitchcock Sewell reluctantly turns sleuth when a body delivered to his mortuary bears the same name—but not the same face—as a woman who had recently inquired about the cost of her own burial.

K. C. Constantine, Grievance.
A cop in a blue-collar Pennsylvania town struggles to balance the investigation of a steel magnate’s death with taking care of his mentally ill mother.

Colin Dexter, The Remorseful Day.
In this final installment of a much-loved series, Inspector Morse seems strangely reluctant to investigate a recently reopened unsolved murder.

Michael Dibdin, Blood Rain.
Italian cop Aurelio Zen has been exiled to Sicily to spy on an anti-Mafia task force and blunders into a lethal crossfire of power-hungry politicians and crime bosses.

Tim Dorsey, Hammerhead Ranch Motel.
A man seeking a briefcase filled with $5 million in drug money ends up at a Florida motel populated by a wacky cast of characters as a hurricane nears.

Carola Dunn, Rattle His Bones.
Freelancer Daisy Dalrymple is writing an article on the British Museum of Natural History when a jewel theft is discovered and a murder is committed.

Loren Estleman, Smile on the Face of a Tiger.
P.I. Amos Walker is asked to track down a missing author, whose book about a 1943 race riot may hold secrets that powerful people in Detroit don’t want revealed.

Janet Evanovich, Hot Six.
When her fellow bounty hunter Ranger is suspected of murder, everyone hopes Stephanie Plum will lead them to him.

Earlene Fowler, Seven Sisters.
Quilt-making sleuth Benni Harper investigates her future in-laws when a member of the prominent California ranching family is murdered.

Anne George, Murder Carries a Torch.
The southern sisters agree to help their cousin track down his errant wife, who ran off with an itinerant preacher.

Stephen Greenleaf, Ellipsis.
San Francisco P.I. John Marshall Tanner thinks the threats to a romance novelist he’s been hired to protect are a publicity stunt until her car explodes.

Jane Haddam, Skeleton Key.
FBI-agent-turned-sleuth Gregor Demarkian is dragged out to a wealthy Connecticut town when his lover discovers the body of a dead debutante.

Steve Hamilton, Winter of the Wolf Moon.
Alex McKnight, a P.I. on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, searches for a missing woman who came to him asking for protection against her abusive boyfriend.

Jamie Harrison, Blue Deer Thaw.
When the spring thaw reveals several corpses around his small town, Montana sheriff Jules Clement must find the link.

Lynn Hightower, The Debt Collector.
At the scene of a slaughter, a dying woman found under a bed with her unharmed baby claims that an angel saved them, but was it a heavenly messenger or a more sinister visitor?

Corson Hirschfeld, Aloha, Mr. Lucky.
A debt-ridden but carefree freelance writer in Hawaii is working on a story involving personal ads when a woman who answered his ad turns up dead.

Michael Kahn, Bearing Witness.
Attorney Rachel Gold files an age-discrimination lawsuit against a large corporation and uncovers a trail of dirty money going back to the Nazi era.

Joe Lansdale, The Bottoms.
In East Texas during the Depression, two children discover the mutilated body of a black woman and when their father, the town constable, tries to do his duty he is warned off by the Ku Klux Klan.

Michael Leahey, Broken Machines.
Private eye J. J. Donovan goes undercover at a factory in Brooklyn to help find the killer of a little boy’s drug-addicted mother.

Laura Lippman, The Sugar House.
Baltimore journalist Tess Monaghan reluctantly agrees to investigate the death of a prison inmate, but to do so she must first understand his crime.

David Liss, A Conspiracy of Paper.
In 18th century London, a thief-taker is hired to investigate a murder that may be related to his own father’s death.

Peter Lovesey, The Vault.
Detective Peter Diamond is ready to dismiss the discovery of skeletal remains in the cellar of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley’s house as ancient history until there appears to be a link to a modern-day death and disappearance.

Henning Mankell, The Fifth Woman.
Swedish cop Kurt Wallander hunts for a motive behind a series of grisly killings in a small town and discovers a connection to the slayings of four nuns and a fifth woman in an African convent.

Val McDermid, A Place of Execution.
DI George Bennett arrests a missing girl’s stepfather for her murder, but 30 years after the man was executed a journalist discovers that he may not have killed her.

Michael McGarrity, The Judas Judge.
Kevin Kerney of the New Mexico State Police realizes that a string of campground murders were intended to distract from the murder of a prominent judge with a dark family history.

Iain Pears, The Immaculate Deception.
Flavia di Stefano of Italy’s Art Theft Squad is given cryptic instructions by the Prime Minister when a painting on loan from a foreign museum is stolen, while her husband Jonathan Argyll unravels the provenance of an Immaculate Conception painting.

Nancy Pickard, The Whole Truth.
A true-crime writer working on a book about an accused child-killer who escaped from custody must uncover the truth about his past to stop him from killing again.

Ian Rankin, Set in Darkness.
DI Rebus and his team hunt for a connection between the discovery of a skeleton on the construction site of the new Scottish Parliament, the murder of a parliamentary candidate, and the suicide of a tramp with a large bank account.

Rick Riordan, The Last King of Texas.
When two University of Texas professors die after receiving threats, P.I. Tres Navarre agrees to take a teaching position at the San Antonio campus to investigate.

Peter Robinson, Cold Is the Grave.
DCI Alan Banks is surprised when the Chief Constable with whom he has tangled in the past asks for his help in locating his runaway daughter.

Jane Rubino, Plot Twist.
A film crew comes to Atlantic City to make a TV show about a crime that reporter-sleuth Cat Austin solved, but when a prop gun turns out to have real bullets she has another mystery on her hands.

Steven Saylor, Last Seen in Massilia.
Investigating a rumor that his son was killed in Massilia, Gordianus the Finder travels to that city besieged by Julius Caesar and meets a man intended as a human sacrifice.

Rosemary Stevens, Death on a Silver Tray.
Beau Brummell agrees to help his friend the Duchess of York when a ladies’ companion recommended by the duchess is accused of poisoning her employer.

Virginia Swift, Brown-Eyed Girl.
A former country-western bar singer returns to her hometown in Wyoming as a university professor and begins researching the life of a local poet who was hiding secrets someone doesn’t want revealed.

Andrew Taylor, The Office of the Dead.
A woman staying with an old school friend sees hints of disturbing behavior in her friend’s family that may be linked to the mystery surrounding a mad poet-priest who once lived in their house.

Victoria Thompson, Murder on St Mark’s Place.
In early 20th century New York, midwife Sarah Brandt and Sergeant Frank Malloy investigate the beating death of an immigrant girl who had turned to prostitution to earn a living.

Randy Wayne White, Ten Thousand Islands.
Florida sleuth Doc Ford investigates when grave robbers exhume the body of a girl who died 15 years ago after she discovered a Native American artifact said to have strange powers.

Romance

Contemporary:

Susan Andersen, Baby, Don’t Go.
A security expert is hired as a bodyguard by the man who once jilted her.

Stephanie Bond, Our Husband.
Three women discover they’re all married to the same man, & when he dies the police suspect them.

Stella Cameron, Glass Houses.
An NYPD detective joins forces with a British photographer who’s being threatened by a bad cop.

Chris Gilson, Crazy for Cornelia.
A doorman falls for a New York socialite who’s being pressured into marriage by a man who wants a share of her father’s company.

Dee Henderson, The Negotiator.
An FBI agent is attracted to a hostage negotiator, but issues of work and faith threaten to keep them apart.

Sandra Kitt, Close Encounters.
A black art teacher wounded by crossfire and a white cop who may have been the shooter find themselves drawn together by a common trauma.

Jayne Ann Krentz, Eclipse Bay.
When a woman inherits a house with a man she saved from prison, they must solve an old crime.

Debbie Macomber, Dakota Home.
A North Dakota farmer who has chosen a solitary life after the accident that cost him a leg tries to reject the friendly overtures of a new neighbor.

Marilyn Pappano, First Kiss.
A successful man who’s ready to settle down meets a single woman who’s only looking for a fling.

Jeanne Ray, Julie and Romeo.
When a couple in their sixties begin dating, they are thwarted by an old family feud.

JoAnn Ross, Far Harbor.
A recently divorced woman returns home to the Olympic Peninsula to turn a lighthouse into an inn and meets a man from her past.

Ruth Wind, In the Midnight Rain.
A biographer researching the disappearance of a blues singer travels to a small Texas town that may hold the key to her own fragmented past.


Historical:

Shana Abe, Intimate Enemies.
A Scotswoman and an Englishman join forces to protect an island claimed by both their families from their common enemy the Vikings.

Adele Ashworth, Winter Garden.
In 1849, a celebrated French beauty who spies for the British risks her life to expose an opium ring with the help of a dashing earl.

Liz Carlyle, A Woman Scorned.
A woman suspected of murdering her husband doesn’t realize that her sons’ new tutor was asked to spy on her by her scheming brother-in-law.

Christina Dodd, Rules of Engagement.
An earl striving for respectability decides to sponsor an orphan and hires a governess who loathes rakes and hides her beauty but not her sharp tongue.

Dorothy Garlock, After the Parade.
A soldier returns from World War II to a hero’s welcome but finds his wife distant and grieving for the loss of their infant daughter.

Lorraine Heath, Never Love a Cowboy.
The son of an earl whose father sent him to America to clean up his act meets a feisty saloon keeper’s daughter who refuses to succumb to his charms.

Madeleine Hunter, By Possession.
A knight presumed dead in the Crusades returns home to find his lands usurped and his son hidden away in a in a hovel by his late wife’s bondswoman.

Emma Jensen, A Grand Design.
A marquess hires a pair of architects to renovate his London townhouse not realizing that the firm is actually being run by their niece.

Maggie Osborne, I Do, I Do, I Do.
Three women who head to the Yukon to find the scoundrel who married each of them for money find friendship and love along the way.

Andrea Pickens, A Lady of Letters.
An earl corresponds with a reformer called the Firebrand not realizing she’s a woman.

Susan Wiggs, The Mistress.
An Irish maid posing as a lady and a con artist posing as a gentleman wed impulsively during the Chicago Fire then learn the truth about each other.


Science Fiction & Fantasy

Kage Baker, Mendoza in Hollywood.
Sent to 1862 California along with other time-traveling members of the Company, cyborg botanist Mendoza discovers the dangers & pleasures of the American West. Book 3 of The Company series.

Terry Brooks, Ilse Witch.
When a mad elf is discovered adrift at sea with a map to another continent, a group of misfits race the forces of evil to find the magic he’d been seeking. Book 1 of The Voyage of Jerle Shannara.

John Crowley, Daemonomania.
A historian, his lover, and a woman whose daughter seems to be possessed by a Renaissance magician are drawn into a struggle between the forces of good and evil that may signal the end of the world.

Mark Danielewski, House of Leaves.
A tattoo artist’s life changes when he discovers a manuscript about a film made by a photojournalist living in a house with supernatural, surreal qualities.

Charles De Lint, Forests of the Heart.
A part-Mexican, part-Indian healer moves to an art colony near Newford, an area beset by a conflict between Celtic spirits from the Old World and the spirits native to the New World. Part of a series.

Kathleen Goonan, Crescent City Rhapsody.
The Earth is on the verge of a biotech revolution when an astrophysicist discovers that the periodic electromagnetic pulses disrupting the planet’s communication and technology are alien in origin. Third in the Nanotech Cycle.

Elizabeth Haydon, Prophecy: Child of Earth.
A healer, an assassin and a giant learn that they are the Three who are prophesied to defeat the demon that plans to waken the primal wyrm that will devour Earth. Sequel to Rhapsody: Child of
Blood.

Robin Hobb, Ship of Destiny.
A matriarch tries to clear her family of charges of treason, while her daughter sails the seas trying to recover a prized liveship from a pirate. Book 3 of The Liveship Traders.

Guy Gavriel Kay, Lord of Emperors.
In a fantasy world based on ancient Byzantium, Crispin, the emperor’s mosaic-maker, wants to concentrate on his art but cannot help but be drawn into the intrigues at court. Sarantine Mosaic,
Book 2.

Ursula Le Guin, The Telling.
Assigned to a world where a ruthless Corporation has outlawed ancient beliefs, a woman travels deep into the mountains where she discovers the old faith of the planet’s inhabitants and learns about herself.

George R. R. Martin, A Storm of Swords.
As contenders vie for the throne of the bitterly divided Seven Kingdoms, the future of the land is threatened by an invasion by a supernatural army of the living dead. Book 3 of A Song of Ice and Fire.

Wil McCarthy, The Collapsium.
Two rival scientists must join forces to prevent the destruction of the solar system when a saboteur sends a ring of collapsium toward the sun.

Jack McDevitt, Infinity Beach.
After centuries of searching unsuccessfully for life in the universe, humans decide that they are alone, until a woman goes in search of her sister who disappeared while on an exploratory mission.

Patricia McKillip, The Tower at Stony Wood.
A knight learns that his king’s new bride is an impostor, while the real queen is trapped in a tower with a magic mirror as her only contact with the outside world.

Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant.
Samuel Vimes becomes ambassador of Uberwald, where civil war is brewing and the dwarfs face a succession crisis after the theft of the Scone of Stone. Part of the Discworld series.

Sean Stewart, Galveston.
Magic floods the streets of Galveston during Mardi Gras, leaving half the population trapped in an everlasting carnival and the other half trapped in a world where technology and products become unreliable and scarce.

Paula Volsky, The Grand Ellipse.
A woman must undergo an extraordinary test of endurance and ingenuity to obtain an audience with a king who controls a weapon that could save her people from an invading force.

David Weber, Ashes of Victory.
Honor Harrington of the Manticoran Navy returns from the dead heading a fleet of liberated POWs and is promoted to admiral as the Alliance continues to be threatened by political plots and war. Part of a series.