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 | The Immaculate Complexion "...Marnie Mann is your basic Everywoman — she likes her desserts, her big sweaters, and even the occasional frown line doesn't phase her. But when she takes a temp job at the biggest cosmetic firm in Manhattan, she finds herself hip deep in size zero princesses. Will she be able to resist the allure of Botox and free samples? (I know I couldn't.)...."
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 | Immortal "...Confession time — I just got home from my honeymoon in Italy (the food, oh my God. I'll never eat gnocchi again!) and we spent a few days in Florence, where this book takes place. I spent my time in the present day, while the narrator lives mainly in the 14th century, but when the whole city is a treasure house of lovingly preserved antiquity, I walked on the same streets, looked at the same art, and breathed the same flower-scented air. (Did I mention that I loved Italy?) he author describes this book as 'rags to riches to burnt at the stake' and that puts it in a nice nutshell. Luca is an orphan, his parents a mystery, his future decidedly uncertain. Luca has a big secret — he's immortal, and that eventually comes to the attention of the Inquisition (no one expects — I'll stop.). Even though this is clearly a fantasy (particularly the ending), Luca lives a real-feeling life, rubbing elbows with artists, Medicis, Jews (in the 14th century, we always got our own catagory!), evil priests, alchemists, even a bad tempered donkey. I can tell you for a fact that Florence is indeed, as a long-departed Pope called it, The Fifth Element of the Universe. The book and the city are both recommended...."
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 | In Case We're Separated "...Compare and contrasts Alice Munro's Runaway and Alice Mattison's In Case We're Separated, two short story collections. One deals with repressed families in the upper Midwest and Canada, the other with loud, demonstrative families in Manhattan. Guess who has the Seder?..."
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 | In Lucia's Eyes "...File this one under 'really depressing but in a good way'. In Lucia's Eyes by noted Dutch author Arthur Japin. 15-year old Lucia has it all — a beautiful estate in Italy, and a hot boyfriend (Casanova himself, beat that if you can.) It all goes wrong when she is disfigured by the pox and runs away from home. (You will be very grateful for modern medicine.) Her options at that point are limited to how skanky of a streetwalker she'll become. Lucia is made of sterner stuff and rises above her unfortunate circumstance, and even gets a second chance at her old flame...."
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 | In the Company of the Courtesan "...It's hard out here for a pimp. No, seriously, it is. Espcially if you're a dwarf in 16th century Venice, and people expect you to, like, juggle or something, when you only want to be respected as a businessman; plus you're in love with your boss, the lovely Fiametta; plus you're afraid of water and it's Venice!...."
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 | Innocent Traitor: A Novel of Lady Jane Grey "...Jane was a distant relation of Henry VIII and that made her ripe for the picking of every social climber and ambition hound at the Tudor court, up to and most definitely including her parents. Even though you really do feel sorry for this poorly treated young lady, turns out Jane was a bit of a pill and as stubborn and pouty as any teenager who ever lived. She did have a good nine day run as queen before she lost her head...."
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 | Intoxicated "...We're inventing things this week. Intoxicated by John Barlow is sort of about the invention of the world's first soft drink (Rhubarbilla!) but it's also about the rise of industrialism in England, fathers and sons, the tension between the working and lesiure class, and dwarves. The author has been compared to Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and it does have that oddball feel to it...."
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 | It's About Your Husband "...the debut novel by Lauren Lipton. Iris is recently separated, recently transplanted from California to Manhattan, and very recently fired. Instead of cutting and running, she takes a job as a private eye, spying on the possibly cheating spouse of a wealthy socialite. I am not kidding when I tell you this woman is the worst detective who ever lived. The fun of this book is following Iris's adventures in New York, as she gets the right shoes and a decent haircut from her obligatory hairdresser/wacky neighbor (that was a stroke of luck! My wacky neighbor is...um, I guess I'm the wacky neighbor. Never mind.). The plot is a little contrived but it did keep me guessing. Recommended for plane rides and trips home...."
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 | Jonathan Strange & Mr Norell "...The rather prissy Mr Norell becomes an unlikely celebrity for bringing old-fashioned magic back to the fore. But his protégé and rival, Jonathan Strange, wants to open the gates of Fairy and bring back the mysterious Raven King. We spend some time in Fairy, and it's no Magic Kingdom. Imagine instead endlessly and joylessly dancing the night away with dead-eyed strangers in a series of crumbling ruins — I know! Just like college!..."
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 | Kiss Her Goodbye "...Two genres in one this week — it's a hard boiled crime drama as a bank heist goes terribly wrong, and FBI agent Jack Donovan has to track down the cult leader who has kidnapped his daughter. Along the way, the bad guy (who is really bad) takes Donovan on a trippy, scary visit to The Great Beyond. Half the battle is fought on solid ground, with the life of a young girl in the balance, and half is fought on the Other Side, where the rules are unwritten. With a background in screenwriting and a great ear for dialogue, it's no surprise that Robert Gregory Browne's debut is fast paced, twisty and cinematic...."
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 | The Last of Her Kind "...You know the kind of friend you make when you go to college? You two are like sisters. (Guys, get your minds out of the gutter. Pervs.) No matter how many years go by or where life takes you, you always have each other. This book is not about that kind of friend. Set in the middle of the counter-revolutionary 60's, this novel is narrated by George, who grows up poor, and only wants a real family. Her college roommate Ann grows up despising her wealthy family, and devotes herself to bringing down The Man (they did that, I hear). Surprising, honest, and both intimate and grand in scope — a serious and excellent book...."
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 | The Liar's Diary "...Ah, suburbia. You can count on those manicured lawns and lovely McMansions to hide all sorts of deviant behavior. Why would you live anywhere else? In this particular picture-perfect town, the arrival of the hot new music teacher is the catalyst for events including (but not limited to) adultery, voyeurism, abuse and murder. Our narrator, Jeanne, is a dowdy mouse with a lousy marriage and some pretty big secrets of her own. Who is the Liar of the title? That's a tough call...."
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 | Lifelines "...The debut novel by doctor-turned-novelist Lyons races along breathlessly as we follow brand new chief attending doctor Lydia Fiore as she attempts to survive her first shift at Angels of Mercy hospital in Piitsburgh. This mix of medicine, action and (a little) romance will call to mind ER when it was good, but with more strong female characters, something I will always welcome. This is the first book in an intended series; each will put the focus on one of a team of four women who work together saving lives while trying to have lives outside of the hospital...."
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 | The Little Balloonist "...The Little Balloonist by Linda Donn is the amazing and true story of a tiny little peasant girl (she totally would be played by an Olsen) who became the chief aeronaut to the court of Napoleon. Refreshingly, a woman of accomplishment and no one calls her a witch!..."
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 | London is the Best City in America "...So Emmy's been living in a ratty seaside town in Rhode Island for three years to practice the art of documentary film making — running out on her fiancee exactly three years ago? Must be a bizarre coincidence. Now her brother is getting seriously cold feet two days before his wedding, and you know the caterer is not going to give the deposit back. No villians in this one, just a loving look at brothers and sisters, and finally making up your mind..."
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 | Lost Dog "...have a few things in common...they're both printed on paper in English. Oh, and they're both mysteries released under the blog/banner of The Killer Year. It's a group of established writers who mentor some up and comers. I'll be talking to Bill, who sets his grim, violent thriller full of fascinatingly damaged people under the grey skies of Portland Oregon. I'll also talk to his blog mate Toni, who has created a human stick of dynamite named Bobbie Faye and plunked her into the swamps of Lake Charles Louisiana during the Contraband Days Pirate Festival. We'll talk about the mentoring process and about just what it takes to create a mystery...."
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 | Love Walked In "...For a serious wallow in chick-lit, Marisa de los Santos' debut novel, Love Walked In with: references to classic films (check) gorgeously decorated yet affordable apartments (check) quirky yet loveable families (check) and of course True Love Against All Obstacles (double check). By the way, look for this movie starring Sarah Jessica Parker, probably this time next year. You heard it here first..."
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 | The Madonnas of Leningrad "...Did you know that during the WWII German seige of Leningrad, thousands of people lived in the basement of the Hermitage museum? This is very serious book that shifts back and forth between that time and the mind of an elderly Russian woman who lived through it. Sad, but hopeful. Sapful?..."
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 | Man Camp "...Does your man spend more than you at Sephora? Can he tell voile from moiré? Maybe he could use a week at Man Camp. Two New York women, fed up with the dainty little hothouse flowers they've been dating, come up with a clever scheme to get their men back to the land. Whether a New Yorker really needs to know how to change a tire or milk a cow I guess is missing the point of this quick, funny novel..."
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 | Map of Ireland "...What were you doing in 1974? Up in Boston, Ann Ahern was not going to her first week of junior high — it was the start of The Bussing, you remember. When Ann finally gets to class, there are 'black girls' on her basketball team and a new and beautiful French teacher, Senegalese Mme. Eugenie, who captured her imagination. Stephanie Grant set out to write a female version of Huck Finn, a coming of age story set not in the kitchen or bedroom (although Ann visits both) but against the backdrop of a pivotal time in history. Ann is changing, growing, painfully but inevitably — and so was the rest of the country...."
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 | Mark of the Lion "...Mark of the Lion by Suzanne Arruda, is the first in a mystery series featuring an Indiana Jones style adventuress named Jade Del Cameron. It's set in British Colonial East Africa in 1919, so there's lots of big-game hunting, social climbing, tea drinking and general derring-do. Oh, and there are man-eating dreadlock-wearing hyenas!..."
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 | Midori by Moonlight "...Midori has it all — overbearing parents who keep asking why she isn't married yet, and an American ex-fiancé who dumps her like day-old sushi the day after their engagement party. She's also got no visa, little money, fewer contacts and even less English. Welcome to San Francisco! Midori may be sweet and delicate as the pastries she loves to bake, but girlfriend also has nerves of steel and will not be going back to Japan, thank you. It was great fun watching her figure out whether the country she'd dreamed of all her life was also actually meant to be her home...."
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 | Misrepresented "...When Harianne DeCanter agrees to represent her old mortal arch enemy, lawyer Matthew Daytona, she may be in over her head — did he actually murder Harianne's best friend? It's all so dramatic. This is one for lovers of CSI, as the author has a great eye for procedurals, and she's created a fine heroine in Harriane...."
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 | Monkey Love "... Who's up for a lighthearted romp through Manhattan? Monkey Love is by Brenda Scott Royce, who went from zookeeper to author. It's the fast and funny tale of how multi-tasker, multi-careerist Holly finds love and purpose with the help of a Regis Philbin-loving monkey named Talullah. Be prepared for slapstick, celebrity cameos, and cravings for a big Italian dinner..."
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 | Monkey Star "...It's an anniversary of sorts as Fiction Nation welcomes back its very first author! Brenda is back with the sequel to Monkey Love. This time our gal Holly Heckerling (whose luck has not improved) packs her bags and heads for Hollywood. She attracts the attention of a charming and persistent actor and finds gainful employment (at last) as the animal wrangler on a movie set. The comedy is balanced a bit by some serious discussion of what happens to animal actors after they retire...."
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 | Murder at the Bad Girl's Bar & Grill "...I fell in love with Nicole's writing a few years back when I got a copy of Whale Season, and she's just gotten better. When you find out someone's a South Florida mystery writer you come to a book with a certain set of expectations — you want your wacky tempered with pathos, you want heinous crime balanced against lovely supporting characters, and you've got to have the backdrop of sea and sky. In Murder at the Bad Girl's Bar and Grill, as in so many books set down there in the swamps, the battle to protect a tiny bit of wildness against development is right there next to a (fairly convoluted) murder mystery. Every word matters and every character comes with a cockeyed dignity, right down to the vultures...."
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 | Names My Sisters Call Me "...When youngest sister Courtney gets engaged, she thinks it's the perfect time to re-connect with her wild-child troublemaking sister Raine, last seen ruining oldest sisters Nora's wedding several years earlier. You're right Cort, weddings aren't stressful enough!..."
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 | Nature Girl "...Oh, those wacky South Florida mystery writers. If someone isn't getting attacked by eagle poop, they're being assaulted by the guitar of noted musician Mark Knopfler. Nature Girl doesn't stray from Hiaasen's proven formula, and in this case it's just right. Honey Santana is just crazy enough to be an engaging heroine, and her son Fry is a good hearted and well written kid. The villains — well, no one has a weed whacker for a hand, but they're pretty vile anyway...."
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 | Nefertiti "...Did you know that the kings and queens of ancient Egypt were exactly as spoiled and bad tempered as your average high school student? It's true! The big difference is the pharaohs had nearly unlimited wealth and power and didn't have to work at the Gap...."
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 | Off the Page: Writers Talk About Beginnings, Endings, and Everything In Between "...a book of quotes by writers about writing...about the business of fiction, how you know when you're done writing, and where all those ideas come from in the first place. (Hint: not The Idea Store, although man, wouldn't that be more convenient?)..."
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 | On Agate Hill "...Told entirely in diary and journal entries, the story of orphaned Molly Petree, brave and clever, who grows up just after the Civil War in the ruins of a grand North Carolina estate, was moving and beautifully written. Not a period of history I normally reach for, but this one put a very human and appealing face on what happens to people after the shooting stops. (Like Deadwood without the swearing! Like Ken Burns but I sat through the whole thing!)..."
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 | Oryx and Crake "...Falling in love with a girl you see on the Web sounds great — what happens when she shows up on your doorstep? Crossing pigs and baboons is all in good fun, until they escape from the lab. You may have the world's worst mother, but at least she's not a terrorist — you hope. And you may be the smartest genetics engineer ever, but unleashing a world ending plague because your girlfriend cheats? Now, how smart is that? This is a love story between two uber-geeky young men..."
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 | People of the Book "...Pulitzer Prize-winner Geraldine Brooks takes the remarkable true story of the Sarajevo Haggadah, a priceless medieval Jewish manuscript, and follows it back and forth through the centuries — from 14th century Seville to the Inquisition's Venice to contemporary Bosnia, where rare book expert Hanna Heath is charged with its restoration. Hanna gets more than she bargained for as the ancient pages start to reveal their secrets in wine stains, salt and a mysterious white hair. (Hanna also unearths some of her own family's secrets.) The wandering timeline and Hanna's clear and vibrant voice made for both a rousing adventure and an elegant meditation on art and survival...."
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 | A Poisoned Season "...In which I peer through my lorgnette: "I say, my dears — hurry up and tighten your corsets! All this dallying and we shall miss the ball tonight — it's said to be the very best of the London Season! Perhaps that scandalous Lady Emily Ashton will be there — if anyone can figure out who's behind the theft of all those jewels, I wager she can. I wouldn't mind having a peek at that pink diamond myself — it belonged to Marie Antoinette, you know..." Lady Emily Ashton, detective and gadfly is back! Diamonds, corsets, and parties — it's all in good fun until characters start getting whacked. Tasha Alexander will be my guest this weekend to talk about how women in Victorian England managed to party all night and not go to rehab...."
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 | PopCo "...I grew up and entered the working world. At last, I could relax, and feel truly free to express myself... No more backstabbing, no more gossip or head games, and no more cliques of cool kids whispering behind their hands pointing and laughing. Come on, either you were a laugher or a laughee. Yeah, imagine my surprise when I finally got a real job. Corporate culture...either you're an insider, or you're on the sidelines at the holiday party, watching your boss dance and rolling your eyes...."
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 | Princess of Park Avenue "...Take the bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan and go way uptown with Princess of Park Avenue by Daniella Brodsky. (By the way, I did some research in the city during the holidays and Bergdorf Goodman has the best window displays. Also, I picked out a very nice diamond and emerald necklace at Cartier. And yes, you now can buy a tiny bathrobe for your tiny dog.)..."
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 | Queen of the Underworld "...Take a trip to Miami Beach in the late 1950's in Queen of the Underworld by Gail Godwin, a semi-autobiographical look back on Castro, poetry, newspaper reporting, and the invincible power of the Daiquiri. I know this sounds like it might be yet another vampire book, but the Queen of the Underworld is actually a high society madam..."
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 | Quicksilver "...in reading this book I have learned about the succession of kings and queens in Restoration England, the difference between Puritans and Protestants, how to smelt silver — hint: camel pee — how to cure the French Pox and how to smuggle ostrich plumes, along with a very great many other things. In fact, there is so much plot and so many characters that you need a scorecard, which the author thoughtfully provides...."
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