general fiction 

2010: #20 – Gossip of the Starlings (Nina de Gramont)

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When Catherine Morrow is admitted to the Esther Percy School for Girls, it’s on the condition that she reform her ways. But that’s before the charismatic and beautiful Skye Butterfield, daughter of the famous Senator Butterfield, chooses Catherine for her best friend. Skye is a young woman hell-bent on a trajectory of self-destruction, and she doesn’t care who is taken down with her. No matter the transgression—a stolen credit card, a cocaine binge, an affair with a teacher, an accident that precipitates the end of Catherine’s promising riding career—Catherine can neither resist Skye’s spell nor stop her downward spiral.

De Gramont’s chilling novel is a portrait of an adolescent girl so thoroughly seduced by a peer that she willingly follows her to ruin. Caught in a world that is both appealing and astonishing, these young women are sexual beings with the minds of teenagers: willful, selfish, daring, and cruel—all the while believing they’re utterly indestructible.

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thriller 

2010: #19 – London Bridges (James Patterson)

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Two of the greatest villains James Patterson has ever created in one book! Minutes after soldiers evacuate a Nevada town, a bomb completely destroys it. On vacation, FBI agent Alex Cross gets the call: the blast was perpetrated by the Wolf. A supercriminal and Cross’s deadliest nemesis, the Wolf threatens to obliterate major cities, including London, Paris, and New York. Then evidence reveals the involvement of a ruthless assassin known as the Weasel. Could these two dark geniuses be working together? Now with just four days to prevent an unimaginable cataclysm, Cross is catapulted into an international chase of astonishing danger – and toward the explosive truth about the Wolf’s identity, a revelation that Cross may not survive.

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science fiction 

2010: #18 – Anthem (Ayn Rand)

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Ayn Rand’s classic tale of a future dark age of the great “We”–in which individuals have no name, no independence, and no values–is a beautifully written, powerful novel that projects current social trends into the future, and anticipates such later Rand masterpieces as The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.

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romance 

2010: #17 – Outrageous (Christina Dodd)

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A woman banished

Griffith, battle-seasoned warrior and the king’s most trusted emissary, expected to find a shallow, vain, frivolous woman at Wenthaven Castle. After all, as lady-in-waiting to the queen, lovely Lady Marian had been in a position of privilege, yet she had been banished from the court. And the rumors were that she had given birth to an illegitimate child.

An outrageous offer

When he arrived, Griffith found Lady Marian to be strong, intelligent and fiercely protective of the young baby in her custody…. and very suspicious of him. If he were smart, the knight would just deliver the message with which he had been entrusted. Instead, he longs to linger to delve into the mystery that is Marian, to discover what she so desperately fears-and why he so improperly wants her.

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