Novels Now

As long as he can create pictures from the words he reads—scenes filled with characters, conflict, good and evil—he can build a world that’s in many ways closer to the one other people inhabit. And this makes him feel less like an outsider. [pg 255]
First Daughter by Eric Van Lustbader
Forge, 2008
Crime Fiction (S/T); 400 pgs
The […]

Popularity: 39% [?]

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Fractured by Karen Slaughter
Special Agent Will Trent, Book 2
Pages: 388
Finished: Oct. 18, 2008
First Published: July 29, 2008
Genre: thriller, mystery
Rating: 3.5/5
Reason for Reading: received a review copy from Random House Canada. Plus I’ve read all the author’s books, this is her latest.
First sentence:
Abigail Campano sat in her car parked on the street outside her own house.
Comments: […]

Popularity: 23% [?]

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Faces of Fear by John Saul
Pages: 324
First Published: Aug. 12, 2008
Genre: psychological suspense, thriller
Rating: 3.5/5
First sentence:
He had to look.
Comments: A plastic surgeon’s wife, a famous model, kills herself because she was disfigured in an horrific accident. A year later plastic surgeon Conrad Dunn and divorced Risa Shaw are married. At the same time a serial […]

Popularity: 26% [?]

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Warning: Do not read this right before bed!
The year is 1837 and Liberty Lane, runs away from her overbearing aunt to meet up with her father in France. She receives an anonymous note telling her that her father was shot in a dual. She knows that this can’t be true, due to her father’s ethical […]

Popularity: 24% [?]

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Far World, Book 1: Water Keep
by J. Scott Savage
Shadow Mountain, September 2008 (ARE)
Fantasy (YA); 419 pgs
One of the first things I do when I crack open a book is to read the dedication. This one I read out loud to my husband and he immediately zeroed in on the mention of solving Ultima games. […]

Popularity: 25% [?]

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A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
I first heard of this big ole book when bookfool mentioned it, then kookiejar loved it. It’s big in size (531 pages) and ambition. Toltz covers a lot of material here, and I’ll try to summarize a bit.
Jasper Dean is writing his family’s colourful history in Australia, […]

Popularity: 25% [?]

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Chaz Wilmot is (by choice) an unsuccessful painter doing primarily commercial work. He obviously has more talent than what he’s using, and this fact is a constant source of frustration for his ex-wife and others around him. As part of a medical study, Chaz starts taking Salvinorin A, a drug being tested for its effects […]

Popularity: 15% [?]

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The Forgery of Venus by Michael Gruber

Pages: 318
Finished: Mar. 21, 2008
First Published: April, 2008
Genre: psychological suspense
Rating: 3.5/5
First Sentence:
Wilmot showed me that one, back in college; he’d written it out in his casually elegant calligraphy and had it up on the wall of his room.
Reason for Reading: I received this as an ARC.
Comments: Chaz Wilmot is […]

Popularity: 15% [?]

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A Foreign Affair by Caro Peacock
Pages: 331
Finished: Apr. 24, 2008
First Published: Apr. 2008
Genre: historical fiction
Rating: 3/5
First Sentence:
“Would you be kind enough to tell me where they keep people’s bodies,” I said.
Reason for Reading: Received this ARC from Harper Collins Canada
Comments: The year is 1837 and Liberty Lane receives a note informing her that her father […]

Popularity: 14% [?]

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Rating: 3.5 Stars (Good+)
First Sentence: In Provincetown, I felt enveloped in the shivery skin of a paranoid, all goose-bumps and heartbeat.
Comments: Mark Winslow, son of a jazz singer turned painter, gave up his day job to try his hand at acting. He takes his act to Cape Cod, settling into Provincetown where […]

Popularity: 14% [?]

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