Best Books of 2001

Fiction

Isabel Allende, Portrait in Sepia.
A richly imagined saga of a part-Chilean, part-Chinese woman who is forced to recognize her betrayal by the man she loves and to explore the mystery of her past.

Trezza Azzopardi, The Hiding Place.
A young girl in Wales and her five sisters watch as their mother goes into a decline and their father gambles away the family’s livelihood and, eventually, the family itself.

Maeve Binchy, Scarlet Feather.
Two friends from cooking school struggle with their new catering business while dealing with problems in their personal lives.

Sarah Bird, The Yokota Officers Club.
After a year at college, an American girl returns to the Japanese military base where her father is stationed and is struck by her family’s isolation.

Kathleen Cambor, In Sunlight, In a Beautiful Garden.
As the dam separating the lake resort from the town below begins to fail, the people of Johnstown, Pa., go about their lives unaware of the danger while the wealthy vacationers ignore the warning signs.

Peter Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang.
The tale of Australia’s most legendary outlaw Ned Kelly, whose life embodied tragedy, perseverance, and freedom. Booker Prize winner.

Dan Chaon, Among the Missing.
Twelve stories that explore the complicated geography of human relationships, from the unintentional failures and minute betrayals of daily existence to the numbing grief caused by abandonment, disappearance or death.

Jill Dawson, Fred & Edie.
Based on a true story of a love triangle turned deadly, this is a novel of passion, murder and a spectacular public trial at a time of momentous change in women’s rights.

Robb Forman Dew, The Evidence Against Her.
In a small Ohio town in the early 1900s, the bond between three close friends is threatened when one of them marries a woman who disrupts their lives and those of the townspeople.

Emma Donoghue, Slammerkin.
In 18th-century England, a young girl’s longing for the finer things leads her into prostitution, but when she tries to turn her life around she finds she can’t shake her dark ambitions.

Leif Enger, Peace Like a River.
A father takes his children on a cross-country search for his son, who escaped from prison after being charged with murder.

Louise Erdrich, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse.
A young priest is sent to an Ojibwa reservation in North Dakota to determine whether a nun deserves sainthood and discovers that an elderly priest there is hiding a secret of his own.

Loren Estleman, The Master Executioner.
An executioner in the Old West who spent 25 years perfecting his craft learns a devastating truth and knows himself for the first time.

Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections.
After 50 years as a wife and mother, a woman is ready to have some fun, but her husband’s health is deteriorating and their children have catastrophes in their own lives. National Book Award winner.

Patrick Gale, Rough Music.
Family secrets are revealed on a vacation to Cornwall that mirrors a tragic seaside holiday 30 years before.

Jane Gardam, The Flight of the Maidens.
In the summer of 1946, three Yorkshire girls of varying circumstances prepare to leave home for university.

Amitav Ghosh, The Glass Palace.
In 19th century Burma, a poor boy who becomes a wealthy man in the teak trade goes in search of the woman he loved in his youth.

Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil.
The remarkable exploits of Carter the Great, a magician who is under suspicion by the Secret Service when President Harding dies shortly after participating in one of the magician’s tricks.

Julian Gough, Juno and Juliet.
A lighthearted and intelligent tale of twin sisters who experience university life in Galway and the radiance of newfound love.

John Grisham, A Painted House.
A boy in rural Arkansas of the 1950s grows up fast one summer when his family’s cotton crop is threatened by floods & by rivalry between 2 groups hired as pickers.

Elizabeth Hay, A Student of Weather.
When two sisters growing up on a Saskatchewan farm during the 1930s drought both fall for a wandering botanist their relationship is forever changed.

Nick Hornby, How to Be Good.
A liberal urban mom finds her world turned upside down by the spiritual transformation of her husband.

James S. Houston, Snow Mountain Passage.
This searing portrait the Donner Party exemplifies the promises and the perils of the American dream & the ambition, courage & hubris of those who pursued it.

Allen Kurzweil, The Grand Complication.
A librarian is hired by an eccentric bibliophile to find an object missing from a case of curiosities.

Don Lee, Yellow.
A superb collection of stories about Asian-Americans living in a California coastal town who deal with their ethnic identity and universal concerns of love, failure and abandonment.

Margot Livesey, Eva Moves the Furniture.
A Scottish girl whose mother died in childbirth has two ghostly companions throughout her life who meddle in her affairs but are ultimately unable to change the course of her future.

Elizabeth McCracken, Niagara Falls All Over Again.
In their 30-year partnership, a famous comedy team triumphs in vaudeville, film, radio, and TV, until one of them commits a desperate act of betrayal.

Terry McMillan, A Day Late and a Dollar Short.
When their mother becomes ill, four siblings find it hard to overcome their differences and pull together.

Donna Morrissey, Kit’s Law.
A young girl living with her mentally disabled mother in a ramshackle cottage on the coast of Newfoundland fights the townspeople’s efforts to remove her from her home and unravels the mystery of her birth.

V.S. Naipaul, Half a Life.
A man’s flight from the travails of his mixed birth takes him from India to London, where he realizes he can remake his past through his writing. Nobel Prize-winning author.

Ann Patchett, Bel Canto.
In an unnamed South American country, a world-renowned soprano is singing at a birthday party in honor of a visiting Japanese entrepreneur when a group of terrorists takes them hostage.

Richard Russo, Empire Falls.
In a fading New England town long abandoned by the industries that provided its citizens with their livelihoods, a man who left college to help his family observes the townspeople who frequent the local grill.

Jean Sasson, Ester’s Child.
In the decade between the end of WWII and the founding of Israel, three disparate families are bound together by the tragic disappearance of two children.

W. G. Sebald, Austerlitz.
An orphan who came to England in 1939 and was raised by a Welsh Methodist minister and his wife as their own has no conscious memory of where he came from and is constantly seeking his identity.

Jeff Shaara, Rise to Rebellion.
This masterful dramatization of the fateful escalation of the rebellion following the Boston Massacre moves from the battles of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill through the Continental Congress and the reading of the Declaration of Independence.

Amy Tan, The Bonesetter’s Daughter.
As she begins to lose her memory to Alzheimer’s, a woman writes down the story of her early life in China so that her daughter will know the truth, much as her own mother did before committing suicide.

Melanie Rae Thon, Sweet Hearts.
The searing story of a brother and sister in the wilds of Montana who are haunted by their family’s turmoil and half-forgotten Native American heritage.

Brady Udall, The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint.
After an accident that left him with a head injury, a boy is shunted between caretakers until he finally finds an unexpected home.

Mario Vargas Llosa, The Feast of the Goat.
A devastating look at end of Dominican dictator Trujillo’s regime & the terrible birth of a democracy.

Salley Vickers, Miss Garnet’s Angel.
After the death of her longtime companion, an English schoolteacher travels to Venice, where she opens her heart to love and faith for the first time.

Kate Walbert, The Gardens of Kyoto.
A woman reminisces about two men she lost to war: a beloved cousin killed at Iwo Jima and a lover who descended into madness after the Korean War.

Paul Watkins, The Forger.
An American painter who receives a scholarship to work in Paris under the tutelage of a mysterious and brilliant Russian artist realizes he is being trained to forge masterpieces to sell to Hitler.

Colson Whitehead, John Henry Days.
An African-American freelance journalist who roams the country seeking story ideas attends a festival honoring the folk hero John Henry.

Mark Winegardner, Crooked River Burning.
A turbulent relationship between a poor boy and rich girl in Cleveland is set against the backdrop of the decline of a great Midwestern city during the chaos of the ‘60s.

Thrillers

David Baldacci, Last Man Standing.
The last surviving member of an FBI Hostage Rescue Team tries to clear his name and figure out what went wrong during a botched raid.

David Benioff, The 25th Hour.
A charming young man who is about to go to prison for drug dealing has one final night on the town with his friends and concocts a shocking plan to top it off.

Sallie Bissell, In the Forest of Harm.
A district attorney and two friends take a hiking vacation that turns into a nightmare when a madman picks up their trail.

Ethan Black, All the Dead Were Strangers.
When Conrad Voort is given a list of people who have been dying in accidents by a friend who then disappears, he tracks down the only survivor on the list before she too is killed.

Henry Bromell, Little America.
A man tries to discover the truth about his father, who was CIA station chief in a small Middle Eastern country in the 1950s.

Dan Brown, Deception Point.
During a tense reelection campaign, the President sends a scientist — who happens to be his
opponent’s daughter — to the Arctic Circle to determine whether an object buried there contains
proof of extraterrestrial life.

Leonard Chang, Over the Shoulder.
When his partner is killed on a routine assignment, a security specialist joins forces with an
ambitious reporter to uncover a web of intrigue that turns out to be related to his own father’s death 20 years ago.

Suzanne Chazin, The Fourth Angel.
A fire marshal who blames herself for her partner’s death thinks a serial arsonist is responsible for
several devastating blazes.

Lee Child, Echo Burning.
Jack Reacher turns down a woman who tries to hire him to kill her abusive husband, and when the man turns up dead he tries to help her even though she refuses to defend herself.

David Czuchlewski, The Muse Asylum.
From the confines of a psychiatric ward, a troubled young genius is obsessed with a reclusive writer & spins conspiratorial tales that threaten to overwhelm his world.

John Colapinto, About the Author.
A bookstore clerk discovers a brilliant manuscript among his dead roommate’s effects and publishes it as his own, but soon learns someone is on to him.

Sarah Dunant, Mapping the Edge.
When a woman disappears while on vacation in Italy, two possible scenarios of what may have happened are mapped out.

John Connolly, Dark Hollow.
A deadbeat dad seems the obvious suspect in the deaths of a mother and child, but the real culprit may be a serial killer who hasn’t been seen in years.

John Dunning, Two O’Clock Eastern Wartime.
During World War II, a man who works at a New Jersey radio station helps his girlfriend seek her missing father and uncovers a nest of spies.

James Ellroy, The Cold Six Thousand.
A young Vegas cop arrives in Dallas after the Kennedy assassination with $6,000 and no idea that he’s about to plunge into a cover-up conspiracy.

Linda Fairstein, The Deadhouse.
The murder of an archeologist leads a cop & a D.A. to a macabre old house on Roosevelt Island.

Robert Ferrigno, Flinch.
Sibling rivalry intensifies when a tabloid journalist learns his brother has married his ex-girlfriend and then discovers photos of a serial killer’s victims in his brother’s possession.

Clare Francis, Deceit.
When a woman whose husband is missing and presumed dead meets a stranger at the funeral who claims to have known him, she fears that learning the truth will threaten all she holds dear.

Stephen Frey, Trust Fund.
The black sheep of a high-powered family finds himself being shut out of the family’s business empire and is determined to learn why.

Alan Furst, Kingdom of Shadows.
In 1930s Paris, a Hungarian aristocrat becomes embroiled in espionage and intrigue as Europe moves inexorably toward war.

Tess Gerritsen, The Surgeon.
Cops tracking a serial killer who kills with medical precision learn that the only survivor of a similar killing spree is a surgeon at a Boston hospital.

James Grippando, A King’s Ransom.
A Miami attorney learns that the FBI won’t help free his kidnapped father from Colombian revolutionaries because they suspect him of drug smuggling.

Stephen Hunter, Pale Horse Coming.
An Arkansas cop in the 1950s takes on a gang of redneck thugs conducting horrific scientific research on African-American prisoners.

Greg Iles, Dead Sleep.
A woman is shocked to see a painting of her missing sister’s lifeless body at an art exhibit and is determined to track down the artist.

Gordon Kent, Peacemaker.
A naval intelligence officer leaves his boring desk job to rescue his best friend, a CIA agent, who has been kidnapped in central Africa.

Dennis Lehane, Mystic River.
A cop investigating the murder of a teenage girl discovers that the victim’s father is a childhood friend of his and that the main suspect is another friend who had been abducted as a boy.

John Martel, Billy Strobe.
A law student imprisoned for insider trading finishes his degree by correspondence course and devotes himself to proving the innocence of a fellow inmate.

Brad Meltzer, First Counsel.
While on a date with the President’s daughter, a White House lawyer sees his boss making a money drop and is drawn into a dangerous scheme.

John Nance, Headwind.
A pilot tries to find a safe place to land when an international arrest warrant is issued for one of his passengers — a former US President accused of sponsoring torture during his term.

Jonathan Nasaw, The Girls He Adored.
An FBI agent who has spent years tracking a serial killer gets a break when the suspect is arrested during a routine traffic stop, but the killer soon escapes, taking an expert psychologist with him.

Barbara Parker, Suspicion of Vengeance.
Miami attorney Gail Connor is convinced by a family friend to take on the death row appeal of a convicted killer, & soon comes to believe her client is innocent.

T. Jefferson Parker, Silent Joe.
A deputy investigates the murder of his adoptive father who was killed trying to retrieve a missing girl.

George Pelecanos, Right as Rain.
A private detective asked to look into the shooting of a black cop by a white cop joins forces with the cop who pulled the trigger to uncover a web of corruption.

Thomas Perry, Death Benefits.
An actuary becomes involved in a fraud investigation that may involve his former girlfriend, who has since disappeared.

Tim Powers, Declare.
A professor is called back into the British Secret Service when various forces converge on Mount Ararat seeking the power of the biblical Ark.

Greg Rucka, Critical Space.
Bodyguard Atticus Kodiak is asked for help by a beautiful but deadly assassin who has become the target of an elite killer herself.

Lisa Scottoline, The Vendetta Defense.
A lawyer takes on the defense of an elderly pigeon racer accused of murdering his lifelong enemy as the result of a 50-year-old vendetta.

Daniel Silva, The Kill Artist.
An assassin for the Mossad who retired to become an art restorer after terrorists murdered his family is called back into action to confront his nemesis.

Les Standiford, Deal with the Dead.
Building contractor John Deal is thrilled to win a new contract until he learns he’s really been hired to find the treasure a gangster entrusted to his late father.

Carsten Stroud, Black Water Transit.
To get a deal for his imprisoned son, a man turns in a customer who’s shipping weapons illegally, but when the sting goes bad he finds he’s being framed.

Whitney Terrell, The Huntsman.
A black ex-con who’s the prime suspect in the murder of a white woman with whom he had an affair uncovers the truth and an old scandal.

James Thayer, Force 12.
A software magnate builds the world’s first fully automated yacht and challenges the world’s best mariners to a race, but things don’t go as planned.

James Webb, Lost Soldiers.
A former marine returns to Vietnam seeking the remains of MIAs and uncovers the trail of a deserter who led an ambush against his platoon.

Amy Wilentz, Martyrs’ Crossing.
A guard at a military checkpoint in Jerusalem sets off an explosive chain of events when he refuses to let a dying Palestine boy pass to a hospital.

Robert Wilson, The Company of Strangers.
A British woman recruited by the SIS is sent to Lisbon where she disappears under a new identity when her cover is blown.

Mystery

Bruce Alexander, Smuggler’s Moon.
Sir John Fielding, a blind 18th century judge, and his assistant Jeremy visit the smuggler's haven of Deal in order to check on a supposedly crooked magistrate.

Robert Andrews, A Murder of Honor.
Two homicide detectives in DC who are considered troublemakers by the top brass are assigned to investigate the drive-by shooting of an activist priest.

Giles Blunt, Forty Words for Sorrow.
A detective in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police tracks a serial killer of children not realizing that his new partner is investigating him for graft.

C.J. Box, Open Season.
Joe Pickett, the new game warden of Twelve Sleep, Wyoming, finds it hard enough filling his predecessor’s shoes without having to deal with a dead poacher in his woodpile.

Marshall Browne, The Wooden Leg of Inspector Anders.
A decorated Italian police inspector who is nearing retirement is expected to rubber-stamp a case involving the assassination of a judge, but he finds himself digging for answers.

Edna Buchanan, You Only Die Twice.
The fresh corpse of a woman whose husband has served 10 years on death row for her murder washes up on the beach at Miami reporter Britt Montero’s feet.

Jan Burke, Flight.
When the wreckage of a small plane is found, Detective Frank Harriman finds himself investigating a 10-year-old crime that may link a local crime boss to someone in the police department.

Harlan Coben, Tell No One.
When a man whose wife was murdered receives an
e-mail suggesting she may still be alive, he will stop at nothing to learn the truth.

Tim Cockey, A Hearse of a Different Color.
When a dead waitress is dumped on his funeral parlor’s doorstep during the wake of a prominent surgeon, undertaker Hitchcock Sewell finds himself drawn into the investigation by the woman’s sister.

Michael Connelly, A Darkness More Than Night.
Former FBI agent Terry McCaleb fears that the clues in a bizarre murder point to the LAPD’s Harry Bosch.

Robert Crais, Hostage.
A former SWAT negotiator who blames himself for the death of a hostage must call on his negotiating skills once again when a family is taken hostage.

Frances Fyfield, Undercurrents.
A man travels to England seeking the lover he lost 20 years earlier and finds she has been imprisoned for the murder of her disabled son.

Bartholomew Gill, Death of an Irish Sinner.
While investigating the death of a prominent biographer, Dublin detective Peter McGarr uncovers a link to a secret Catholic organization.

Joe Gores, Cons, Scams and Grifts.
Madcap capers ensue when the DKA gang are hired by a local gypsy clan to help clear one of their own of a murder charge — and to help them rob a millionaire’s fortress while they’re at it.

Jane Haddam, True Believers.
A nun asks Gregor Demarkian to investigate the death of a woman whom police believe was poisoned by her husband.

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, Blood Sinister.
DI Bill Slider and his crew try to discover who murdered a notoriously outspoken journalist.

Jonnie Jacobs, Witness for the Defense.
Kali O’Brien takes on a seemly simple adoption case that turns deadly when a man claiming to be the baby’s father demands custody.

P. D. James, Death in Holy Orders.
Scotland Yard’s Commander Adam Dalgliesh uncovers buried secrets when he’s called to investigate the death of a theological student found at the bottom of a cliff.

J. A. Jance, Birds of Prey.
Retired Seattle cop J.P. Beaumont reluctantly agrees to accompany his grandparents on a cruise to Alaska and finds himself investigating a plot to kill doctors.

Susanna Jones, The Earthquake Bird. Fiction
An Englishwoman working as a translator in Tokyo is arrested for the murder of another Englishwoman, and during her interrogation she slowly reveals herself and what she knows.

William Kent Krueger, Purgatory Ridge.
Ex-sheriff Cork O’Connor is drawn into the investigation of a lumber mill explosion that killed an Ojibwe elder.

Laura Lippman, In a Strange City.
Baltimore P.I. Tess Monaghan investigates the murder of a mystery man who leaves a yearly tribute on Edgar Allan Poe’s grave.

Michael Malone, First Lady.
Police team Cuddy Magnum and Justin Savile look into a series of killings involving an Irish rock singer and the First Lady of North Carolina.

Ed McBain, Money, Money, Money.
At Christmas in the 87th precinct, a Gulf War pilot turned drug smuggler is found dead in the lion’s den of the local zoo.

Jill McGown, Scene of Crime.
Judy Hill drags her partner Inspector Lloyd to an amateur drama society hoping for a part in Cinderella, not knowing murder lurks in the wings.

Denise Mina, Exile.
Maureen O’Donnell tries to discover why a woman who visited her office at a Glasgow shelter for battered women turned up dead in the Thames.

Marcia Muller, Point Deception.
Haunted by the memory of the massacre of a family that she investigated as a rookie, Deputy Sheriff Rhoda Swift fears the killer has returned.

Orhan Pamuk, My Name Is Red. Fiction
In 16th century Istanbul, a sultan commissions an illuminated manuscript celebrating himself, but one of the artists disappears leaving behind only half-finished illustrations as clues.

Owen Parry, Call Each River Jordan.
Abel Jones, an agent for the Lincoln Administration, is sent to uncover the truth behind the massacre of 40 runaway slaves.

Eliot Pattison, Water Touching Stone.
Former Tibetan political prisoner Shan Tao Yun tries to discover who killed a teacher and is stalking the orphans she cared for.

Arturo Perez-Reverte, The Nautical Chart.
A sailor and a museum curator using a 17th century atlas to seek a sunken treasure must evade the pursuit of crooked salvagers.

Anne Perry, The Whitechapel Conspiracy.
When Inspector Pitt angers the Inner Circle by arresting one of their own for murder, he is demoted and sent to the East End where one of the most renowned killers of all time lurks.

Elizabeth Peters, Lord of the Silent.
While Amelia & Emerson contend with a corpse in Cairo, Ramses & Nefret head to Luxor to investigate tomb robberies with a familiar modus operandi.

Nancy Pickard, Ring of Truth.
True crime writer Marie Lightfoot finds something amiss when an anti-death penalty crusader accused of murdering his wife ends up on death row next to a man he was trying to free.

Ian Rankin, The Falls.
When a student disappears & a coffin containing a doll is found, Edinburgh cop John Rebus finds a pattern of similar memento mori dating to the 19th century.

Kathy Reichs, Fatal Voyage.
At the scene of a plane crash, forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan finds body parts that don’t belong, yet the bodies of two passengers — a cop and the criminal he was escorting — are nowhere to be found.

Rick Riordan, The Devil Went Down to Austin.
San Antonio P.I. Tres Navarre tries to clear his computer-genius brother of a murder charge.

Peter Robinson, Aftermath.
Yorkshire DCI Alan Banks is called in when a domestic disturbance call reveals a horrifying crime.

S. J. Rozan, Reflecting the Sky.
Lydia Chin and Bill Smith are hired to deliver a legacy to a boy in Hong Kong, but when they arrive they find that the boy has been kidnapped.

Kate Sedley, The Weaver’s Inheritance.
Fifteenth-century sleuth Roger the Chapman investigates a man who claims to be the supposedly dead son of a rich Bristol weaver.

Richard Stark, Firebreak.
Parker is busy killing a would-be assassin when he gets a call from some old friends asking him to help steal a millionaire’s illegally obtained art collection.

Betsy Tobin, Bone House. Fiction
When a woman who entertained the men of a 17th century English village dies in a fall, a midwife’s daughter is drawn to investigate the woman’s past.

Charles Todd, Watchers of Time.
Scotland Yard’s Ian Rutledge investigates the death of a Catholic priest who was murdered weeks after a disturbing deathbed visit to a staunch Protestant.

Minette Walters, The Shape of Snakes.
A woman spends 20 years amassing evidence that the death of a neighbor who was tormented because of her skin color & Tourette’s syndrome was no accident.

Donald Westlake, Bad News.
Professional thief John Dortmunder finds himself robbing graves in an effort to prove that a Vegas showgirl is the heir to a casino fortune.

Romance

Contemporary:

Susan Andersen, All Shook Up.
A man who inherits a share in a resort lodge expects trouble from the other owners but finds himself warmly welcomed into their family instead.

Sandra Brown, Envy.
An editor is so intrigued by an anonymous manuscript she receives that she tracks down the author not realizing he has a hidden agenda.

Sue Civil-Brown, Next Stop, Paradise.
A police officer instantly dislikes an investigative journalist who has come to Paradise Beach to debunk reports of dinosaur footprints on the beach.

Millie Criswell, What to do about Annie?
A skeptical lady is courted by the man who broke their engagement 15 years ago to join the priesthood.

Jennifer Crusie, Fast Women.
A private investigator is displeased when his new office manager starts reorganizing his firm, but he soon learns that his life will never be the same.

Barbara Freethy, Some Kind of Wonderful.
A journalist who discovers a baby on his doorstep seeks the help of his neighbor, a bridal shop owner.

Julie Garwood, Mercy.
An attorney from the Justice Department tracks down the doctor who saved his life and discovers that she’s being stalked by someone who thinks she has dangerous information.

Mike Gayle, Mr. Commitment.
A London man panics when his girlfriend wants to get married.

Rachel Gibson, True Confessions.
The sheriff of a small Idaho town takes one look at a newly arrived city girl and decides she won’t last a week, but she soon makes an indelible impression on the local population — and on him.

Dee Henderson, The Protector.
A firefighter tracks a serial arsonist while protecting the only witness, a female firefighter injured a blaze.

Wendy Holden, Bad Heir Day.
Crazy goings-on at a Scottish castle involve the harried assistant of an ill-tempered author, a socialite who’s really a nanny, and a waiter who’s really a laird.

Susan Ledbetter, South of Sanity.
The manager of a retirement home is helped by her senior residents when her sheriff boyfriend is accused of shooting an unarmed suspect.

Meagan McKinney, Still of the Night.
A doctor takes a sabbatical to help save her family’s cane plantation and discovers a drug smuggling operation with the help of an undercover fed.

Linda Lael Miller, Springwater Wedding.
A woman returns to her hometown to recover from a divorce and finds her high school sweetheart has also returned to recover from the horrors he witnessed as a child and as an NYPD cop.

Emilie Richards, Fox River.
A woman who lost her sight helps the man she once loved solve a murder for which he was wrongly imprisoned and uncovers a long-forgotten secret that may be the cause of her blindness.

Nora Roberts, Dance upon the Air.
A woman fleeing an abusive husband is drawn to an island that was founded by three sisters escaping the Salem Witch Hunts.

Deborah Smith, On Bear Mountain.
A man heads to rural Georgia to try to buy one of his father’s sculptures that’s worth millions from a woman who has it in her backyard.

Katherine Sutcliffe, Darkling I Listen.
A Hollywood badboy recently released from prison seeks refuge on a farm but learns he can’t escape the ghosts of his past.

Nicholas Weinstock, As Long as She Needs Me.
A publisher’s assistant who is instructed to organize his boss’s wedding finds help — and romance — with a woman who writes a wedding column.

Susan Wiggs, The You I Never Knew.
A woman returns home with her troubled teenaged son to the town where the boy’s father lives in order to save her own father’s life.

Sherryl Woods, About That Man.
A Sunday school teacher defies her father by taking in a delinquent boy whose only relative is a D.C. cop.


Historical:

Shana Abe, The Secret Swan.
A young girl in medieval England is wedded to a knight who leaves her to fight in France for 8 years and returns to find his bride a changed woman.

Jill Barnett, Sentimental Journey.
During World War II, an Army officer is sent to North Africa to rescue a blind woman while a Texan falls in love with a female pilot who in turn loves an RAF officer grieving for the family he lost in the Blitz.

Connie Brockway, The Bridal Season.
A music hall performer is mistaken for the coordinator of a high-society wedding on an estate, where she encounters a handsome magistrate.

Catherine Coulter, The Scottish Bride.
A widower with 3 children inherits property in Scotland and becomes embroiled with his feisty neighbor.

Patricia Cabot, Lady of Skye.
A London doctor thinks he can cope on the wild Isle of Skye, but the lady who has been acting as the local doctor in her father’s place is another matter.

Susan Carroll, Midnight Bride.
A doctor who is able to relieve his patients’ pain by absorbing it into himself is loved by a lady willing to risk a family curse to be with him.

Suzanne Enoch, A Matter of Scandal.
The headmistress of an Academy for Young Ladies defies a duke who threatens to shut down the school.

Jane Feather, Widow’s Kiss.
King Henry VIII sends a soldier to investigate the land holdings of a young woman dubbed the Black Widow because she has survived four rich husbands.

Dorothy Garlock, The Edge of Town.
In a small Missouri town in the 1920s, a young woman drops out of school to care for her siblings and falls in love with a World War I veteran on the neighboring farm.

Stef Ann Holm, Hearts.
A teacher who was suspended for teaching sex education travels to a small Montana town where she meets a former strongman who owns a gym.

Judith Ivory, Indiscretion.
A coach accident on a desolate English moor throws together an sheltered lady and a wealthy Texan who is late for his own wedding.

Eloisa James, Enchanting Pleasures.
A lady returns from India to England to marry a man she’s never met, but finds herself drawn to his older brother who is harboring a secret.

Dara Joy, Ritual of Proof.
A woman in a society where females rule does the unthinkable when she treats her husband as an equal.

Carla Kelly, One Good Turn.
A duke saddled with a niece who has chicken pox hires a mysterious Spanish lady to care for her.

Susan King, The Sword Maiden.
A lady desperate to be rid of her betrothed & reclaim her fortress turns to the only man she ever loved.

Lisa Kleypas, Suddenly You.
A writer who plans to lose her virginity on her 30th birthday mistakes a publisher for the lover she hired.

Lynn Kurland, My Heart Stood Still.
An American businessman inherits a Scottish castle and finds it haunted by the ghost of a woman betrayed by her English husband 600 years ago.

Allison Lane, The Rake & the Wallflower.
A shy, plain lady forced to share a Season with her cruel, beautiful sister is intrigued by a man she believes is unjustly shunned by society.

Stephanie Laurens, Promise in a Kiss.
A duke who stole a kiss from a young woman in a French convent meets her again 7 years later.

Linda Francis Lee, Nightingale’s Gate.
In 19th century Boston, an attorney is hired to defend a nightclub owner accused of killing a prostitute.

Teresa Medeiros, A Kiss to Remember.
A devilish duke loses his memory after a fall from a horse and awakes to the kiss of a lady who must marry before she turns 21.

Julia Quinn, An Offer from a Gentleman.
An earl’s illegitimate daughter who is forced to be a servant by her father’s new wife sneaks into a masquerade ball where she falls in love with a man but must flee from him, leaving behind a glove.

Lauren Royal, Amber.
A lady’s brothers hustle her into marriage with a notorious highwayman who may be an aristocrat.

Patricia Veryan, The Riddle of the Shipwrecked Spinster.
A lady runs away from a forced engagement, is allegedly shipwrecked among savages for a year, and returns home to yet more marital machinations.

Susan Wiggs, The Firebrand.
A woman who runs a bookstore for suffragettes learns that the child she saved during the Great Chicago Fire is the daughter of a conservative banker.


Science Fiction & Fantasy

Kage Baker, The Graveyard Game.
Dedicated to saving the future by preserving the past, the cyborgs of the Company now wonder if they must save themselves. The Company, book 4.

Iain Banks, Look to Windward.
An emissary from a war-ravaged world is sent to bring home a famous dissident, but his true mission is so secret that even he cannot remember it. The Culture, book 7.

Ray Bradbury, From the Dust Returned.
The delightful story of the Elliots, a family of outlandish creatures living on an Illinois farm who await the gathering of spirits on All Hallows Eve.

Terry Brooks, Antrax.
A Druid and his companions search for Antrax — a powerful, malevolent technological guardian. Voyage of Jerle Shannara, book 2.

Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion.
Betrayed by an unknown enemy into slavery, a former soldier escapes and returns to the royal household he once served, where he finds himself drawn into a tangled web of politics and dark magic.

Tony Daniel, Metaplanetary.
In a future where humans construct artificial beings to house their consciousnesses, war develops between the dictatorship of the inner planets and the freedom-seeking colonists of the outer planets.

Neil Gaiman, American Gods.
An ex-con hired as a bodyguard for a mysterious man soon learns his job is more dark and dangerous than he could ever have imagined.

Brian Herbert & Kevin Anderson, Dune: House Corinno.
The Emperor hopes to produce a synthetic spice on Ix, but Duke Leto Atreides has other plans for that world. “House” series (prequel to Dune), book 3.

Stephen King & Peter Straub, Black House.
A retired homicide detective is drawn back into a parallel universe where he must summon the courage to enter a terrifying house and confront the evil within. Sequel to The Talisman.

Ursula Le Guin, The Other Wind.
A sorcerer makes a desperate last stand against the land of the dead when he begins having dreams of an imminent invasion. Earthsea series, book 5.

Maureen McHugh, Nekropolis.
A slave who has undergone a medical procedure to ensure her loyalty to her master nevertheless defies the rigid conventions of her world by running away with a fellow servant.

Sean McMullen, Eyes of the Calculor.
Two thousand years in the future, the Dragon Librarians of Australica must rebuild their human-powered computer the Calculor in order to hold their world togther. Greatwinter trilogy, book 3.

Michael Moorcock, The Dreamthief’s Daughter.
Elric and Ulric, two heroes who are the same man in parallel universes, struggle to destroy an evil being with many incarnations. Elric of Melnibone series, book 9; Count Ulric von Bek series, book 3.

Karl Schroeder, Ventus.
A man is thrust in the middle of an ancient galactic conflict when he discovers he is the only one who can locate the threat facing the delicate ecological balance of his terraformed world.

Tad Williams, Sea of Silver Light.
A group of adventurers seeking a cure for comatose children are trapped in a sequence of virtual worlds and are forced to make an uneasy alliance with their former enemy against his treacherous sidekick. Otherworld series, book 4.

Jack Williamson, Terraforming Earth.
A group of clones descended from the last humans to survive a cataclysmic asteroid impact that destroyed life on Earth set out to reinhabit and revive their devastated homeworld.

Connie Willis, Passage.
A researcher in near-death experiences decides to become a test subject herself and becomes obsessed with solving the mystery of what she finds on the other side.

Robert Wilson, The Chronoliths.
It’s a race against time to change the course of the future when chronoliths commemorating victories over Earth begin appearing from 20 years in the future.

Sarah Zettel, Kingdom of Cages.
Two sisters think they are lucky when they are allowed to move from an overcrowded space station to a colony on the planet Pandora, but they soon find themselves hunted for their genetic material.