From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Grade 8 Up—Blaise Fortune has gone by the name Koumaïl for most of his life with Gloria in the war-torn Republic of Georgia. Although he loves her like a mother, he enjoys hearing the story of how she rescued him from a train that had derailed and his French mother, a passenger, died, and he dreams of the day he will find his real family. When the Soviet Union collapses, Gloria and Koumaïl begin a long, perilous journey to France where she believes he can live the life he deserves, without the stress and strife of war. Readers follow them through refugee camps, alternating between times of more peaceful hardship and periods of danger and flight. When Gloria tells Koumaïl to hide in a truck, he makes it to France but she is left behind. As he grows from a child into an adolescent, Koumaïl begins to wonder more about his true identity, and the novel culminates nine years later with a heartbreaking realization. The story is written in beautiful, quiet prose and offers a touch of hope, along with tragedy. The characters and story are well formed, but young people unfamiliar with the circumstances of life behind the Iron Curtain and the collapse of the Soviet Union might be confused as much of the conflict and political situation isn't explained until near the end of the book. However, those who stay with it will be rewarded with an exceptional story.—Sharon Senser McKellar, Oakland Public Library, CA
(c) Copyright 2011.  Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

From Booklist

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, seven-year-old Koumaïl and his guardian, Gloria, flee violent unrest and begin an arduous journey across the Caucasus toward France. That’s where Koumaïl was born, according to Gloria, who describes how she found Koumaïl in the wreckage of a train accident that killed his French mother. Gloria became the boy’s devoted guardian, and Koumaïl recounts their inseparable bond as they risk everything, finding shelter in forests, camps, and gypsy settlements. Bondoux, author of the multi-award-winning The Killer’s Tears (2006), tells another unusual, wrenching story of a vulnerable child. Koumaïl’s first-person voice shifts uneasily between a young person’s naïveté and an adult’s acquired wisdom: “I’m in a rush to grow up. I sense that the world in which we live is hostile to children.” That may be a natural combination in an individual who has endured so much so young, though, and in potent details, Bondoux creates indelible scenes of resilient children who, like Koumaïl, find strength in painful memories: “To be less afraid of the darkness and the unknown, I call on my ghosts.” Grades 7-10. --Gillian Engberg

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From Publishers Weekly

Bradford's trilogy on "merchant prince" Emma Harte and her many heirs began with the runaway bestsellers A Woman of Substance and Hold the Dream. This final book picks up the story a decade after Emma's death, when the third generation has the thriving businesses she started well in hand. Heading up the family is Paula McGill O'Neill, who runs the luxurious department stores that anchor the Harte empire. Super-wife and mother Paula brings a whirlwind of energy to that exacting job; as a result of her near-perfect efficiency, the first half of the book seems rather saccharine. But Jonathan Ainsley, an unscrupulous cousin she had banished from the fold, is waiting to move in for the kill when Paula indulges her desire to carve out a fiefdom of her own, risking everything by overextending her resources. Although this lengthy battle for supremacy is the focal point, a host of dramatic subplots continues the amorous, sorrowful and shady doings of the O'Neills and the Kallinskis, two families whose fortunes are entwined with the Hartes. Despite constant jet-setting between glamorous watering places, these wealthy lifestyles are beginning to be awfully repetitious. Fans will welcome this new installment, but it's impossible not to agree with many of the characters who sigh about the drive and vigor lost along with that elegant pirate Emma Harte. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club dual main selections.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

With this third volume of the cycle begun in 1979 with A Woman of Substance , Bradford continues the saga of Emma Harte, her descendants, and the far-flung business empire she founded. Now, some 11 years after Harte's death, the story revolves around Paula Amory O'Neill, Emma's granddaughter and principal heir, and the ups and downs faced by her family and friends. Readers will happily re-acquaint themselves with the sprawling Harte clan and their friends and associates, the O'Neills, and Kallinskis. A more than satisfactory sequel to the previous segments of this generational tale, with an ending that promises still more to come. Literary Guild Main Selection.Judith A. Gifford, Salve Regina Coll. Lib., Newport, R.I.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Moreen McGee is a perfect example of how poor decisions made in youthful rebellion can haunt someone for life. Now on probation for ten years, she serves her court-ordered community service at a center for troubled teens, in the hopes of stopping other kids from taking the wrong path. But when one of her young charges pickpockets a wallet from her high school nemesis, Aliya Baban, Moreen decides to put the illicit skills she learned as a teenager to good use... by breaking into Aliya's apartment to return the stolen wallet, thus keeping the kid who stole it out of trouble and out of jail. However, once she's in the opulent Manhattan flat, Moreen can't resist the urge to take one small token from the woman she still blames for her own downfall-an old, neglected oil lamp that she's sure Aliya will never miss. But when Moreen goes home to polish her newly acquired trinket, she summons a gorgeous demon-turned-pleasure djinni named Paran... and he's not too thrilled with the theft of his property. Moreen has rubbed his lamp, the contract is sealed. For the next thirty days, she belongs to him. And Paran intends to use this time to help his little felon learn some important lessons, including the true meaning of the words honor and obey.<

While Fallen Oak recovers from the Jenny pox, someone new is hunting Jenny. Like Jenny, Ashleigh Goodling belonged to a pair of opposites with powers that mirror each other. Now Jenny and Seth must face the opposite of love...<

SUMMARY: Dr. Bob Strong's GP surgery has being seeing a lot of coughs and colds recently - far more than is normal for the time of year. Bob contacts Owen Harper, an old student friend, who reluctantly agrees to look into it. Meanwhile, Toshiko and Gwen are investigating ghostly apparitions in the marshy areas of South Wales. It's been a dull month and they're just about to pack up when they discover a dead body. The Team find that there's been a massive spike in respiratory infections right across the UK. Captain Jack agrees that it's worth investigating, but at the moment his priority is Tosh and Gwen's work: they've brought the corpse back for examination. It's old, in an advanced state of decay...and still able to talk!<

SUMMARY:
The Beginning of an Epic Adventure
 One night in the city of Hearne, a young thief named Jute is instructed to break into a wizard's house and steal an old wooden box. It sounds like a straightforward job. Climb down the chimney, creep through the house, find the thing and get out fast. Unbeknownst to the boy, however, the box contains the knife that killed the Wind. Overcome with curiosity, Jute opens the box and sets off a chain of events that soon has him on the run from the wizard, his old masters in the Thieves Guild, and their client, who happens to be the Lord of Darkness himself. On his odyssey of escape, Jute is aided by an unlikely assortment of friends, including a guilt-ridden assassin, a reluctant wizard, and a hawk who just might be able to teach him how to fly. But the Darkness will do anything to find Jute, even if it means plunging the whole land into war.

The Hawk And His Boy is the first book of The Tormay Trilogy. The trilogy continues with The Shadow At The Gate, and concludes with The Wicked Day.
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SUMMARY:
The Epic Continues
 The second volume of the epic fantasy saga that began with The Hawk and His Boy takes us back to the story of the thief Jute. The emissaries of the Darkness have infiltrated the city of Hearne in search of him. Desperate to escape, the boy flees the city and heads into the wilderness of the north. But the ghosts of the past have other plans for him and, soon, Jute and his friends must choose between their own deaths or the destruction of the entire land. All the while, the mysterious lady Levoreth races against time in order to discover who is behind the schemes of the Darkness.
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The third volume of the epic fantasy trilogy that began with The Hawk and His Boy, and continued with The Shadow at the Gate, The Wicked Day concludes the story of Jute. Tracking the kidnappers of Giverny Farrow, Jute and his friends discover the Dark is on the march. Tormay teeters on the brink of war, and the duchies look to Jute as their last hope.

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SUMMARY: Colleagues, friends, and lovers know Dodge Hanley as a private investigator who doesn't let rules get in his way in his private life as well as his professional one. If he breaks a heart, or bends the law in order to catch a criminal, he does so without hesitation or apology. That's why he's the first person Caroline King who after a thirty-year separation continues to haunt his dreams asks for help when a deranged stalker attempts to murder their daughter . . . the daughter Dodge has never met. He has a whole bagful of grudging excuses for wishing to ignore Caroline's call, and one compelling reason to drop everything and fly down to Texas: Dodge's mind may be a haze of disturbing memories and bad decisions, but he arrives in Houston knowing with perfect clarity that his daughter, Berry, is in danger. She has become the object of desire of a co-worker, a madman and genius with a penchant for puzzles and games who has spent the past year making Berry's life hell, and who now has vowed to kill her. Dodge joins forces with local deputy sheriff Ski Nyland, but the alarming situation goes from bad to worse when the stalker begins to claim other victims and leaves an ominous trail of clues as he lethally works his way toward Berry. Sensing the killer drawing nearer, Dodge, who's survived vicious criminals and his own self-destructive impulses, realizes that this time he's in for the fight of his life.From acclaimed best-selling author Sandra Brown,Tough Customeris a heart-pounding tale about obsession and murder, the fragile nature of relationships, and, possibly, second chances.<

The gray, icy city of Trowth is hollowed out by war, and now haunted by the degenerate spawn of a monstrous science. Only a drug-addicted detective and a young man with a gift for mathematics have the means to solve an enigmatic murder--a murder that may be the key to saving Trowth from certain destruction. Featuring three new stories, including one never-before-published!<

From Publishers Weekly

Box's riveting fourth Joe Pickett adventure (after 2003's Winterkill) opens on a disturbing note, with the Wyoming game warden's chance discovery of the oddly mutilated body of a moose near his favorite fishing hole. When several mangled cows and two grisly human corpses are added to the macabre menagerie, Joe reluctantly joins a task force to investigate. Bud Barnum, the corrupt sheriff of Twelve Sleep County, attributes the mutilations to birds or a notorious grizzly bear from Joe's jurisdiction, but Joe isn't convinced. Enter paranormal expert Cleve Garrett, who zealously follows mutilation and alien sightings in his recreational vehicle laboratory. Despite ridicule from the task force, Joe interviews Garrett, who supplies little fresh information but gives off creepy vibes. The clues that the quietly heroic Joe gathers from many disparate witnesses, including his own young daughters and a mentally incapacitated fisherman, may point to the otherworldly, but readers will be well satisfied with the all-too-earthly solution to the bizarre crimes. With its credible and sensitively drawn characters, loads of interesting tidbits about the natural world and timely plot, this skillfully crafted page-turner should have wide appeal.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Box, whose superb Joe Pickett series has nailed some great western issues (ecoterrorism, endangered species, survivalists), here draws a bead on one out in left field: cattle mutilations. When the Wyoming game warden finds a mysteriously mangled moose, he is unnerved. When cows and even humans turn up the same, he finds himself a reluctant member of a special task force. County residents think aliens are responsible and start wearing aluminum-foil hats and finding crop circles in their backyards; Pickett calls the theory "woo-woo crap." This has all the elements that made the first three Picketts so pleasurable: Pickett himself, a bad shot but a good man; a strong supporting cast, especially his family; an inventive plot; and Box's own well-reasoned grasp of the issues. If this one works a hair less well, it may be because of the woo-woo crap itself. Although there's a believable motive behind some of it, there's also a touch of the supernatural that doesn't quite fit. Still, there's nothing wrong with being merely excellent instead of state-of-the-art once in a while. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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SUMMARY: A mysterious high-profile homicide in the nation's capital collides with the dark side of national security in David Baldacci's new, heart-stopping thriller. TRUE BLUE Mason "Mace" Perry was a firebrand cop on the D.C. police force until she was kidnapped and framed for a crime. She lost everything-her badge, her career, her freedom-and spent two years in prison. Now she's back on the outside and focused on one mission: to be a cop once more. Her only shot to be a true blue again is to solve a major case on her own, and prove she has the right to wear the uniform. But even with her police chief sister on her side, she has to work in the shadows: A vindictive U.S. attorney is looking for any reason to send Mace back behind bars. Then Roy Kingman enters her life. Roy is a young lawyer who aided the poor until he took a high-paying job at a law firm in Washington. Mace and Roy meet after he discovers the dead body of a female partner at the firm. As they investigate the death, they start uncovering surprising secrets from both the private and public world of the nation's capital. Soon, what began as a fairly routine homicide takes a terrifying and unexpected turn-into something complex, diabolical, and possibly lethal.<

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