Yesterday I started reading The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. What I find so interesting about the book is the amount of research that has gone into the story. The author spent 10 years working on this, her first novel. The story revolves around a group of people who are studying Vlad the Impailer aka Dracula. Much of the information is given to the readers in the form of letters written by various researchers, from primary and secondary sources. As I've been going through the story I keep asking myself how much of the information is real and how much the author invented. Some people may find the amount of detail slows the story down. I found it provides added depth to the story, making it more real. I hope you enjoy it.

Inspired by the 1922 sensational case of Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters, the British couple who were executed for the murder of Thompson’s husband, Percy, Leslie Margolin’s fiction debut The adulteress is “unusually sensitive and judicious”.

Young Alma was smitten when the much-older, world renowned architect Francis "Rats" Rattenbury left his wife to marry her. Soon they were forced to leave their comfortable lifestyle in Canada for Bournsmouth, England under a cloud of rumors. After Alma’s senseless automobile wreck that seriously injured their son, Rats hired 17 year-old Percy Stoner who could barely drive, to chauffeur her around. Before long, Alma has taken the good-looking and sulky Percy to bed. Rats, forever condescending, goaded Percy into retaliation and Alma found herself pregnant and at a crossroad.

Margolin, author of a true-crime study of the Snyder-Gray case Murderess! The Chilling True Story of the Most Infamous Woman Ever Electrocuted traces each stage of the adulterous couple's eventual descent into murder with surgical precision and Alma's turbulent emotions with understanding and compassion.

For readers of true crime and psychological thriller.

Starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Library Journal, “this brilliant debut is a must read”.

Set in Chicago, The Blade Itself opens with a botched pawnshop robbery that would send young Evan to prison while Danny, his partner and childhood friend walks away and builds himself a respectable life. Seven years later, Evan is out and looking for payback. In an attempt to outwit Evan without succumbing to his past life, Danny devises a kidnap/ransom scheme that would bring on escalating collateral damage.

The Song is You* by Megan Abbott.
Noir crime fiction by an Edgar Award nominee. "Shiz-bang adventure through Tinseltown's underbelly" when two starlets gone missing. A retro thrill ride.

The Sidewalk Artist (FFF) by Gina Buonaguro and Janice Kirk.
Alternating between contemporary Paris and Renaissance Italy this debut novel follows two parallel, intertwined romances. Novelist Tulia Rose comes to Europe looking for inspiration but unexpectedly finds romance with a mysterious, talented sidewalk artist while researching the story of Renaissance painter Raphael and his secret lover. A touch of magic and plenty of cappuccino.

Arlington Park* by Rachel Cusk.
Over the course of one rainy day, the Whitbread Award-winner plumbs the extraordinary inner nature of the ordinary suburban English life. “Darkly comic, deeply affecting and wise”.

The Bastard of Istanbul* by Elif Shafak
Turkish author recently cleared by the government of “denigrating Turkishness” because of her frank look at Turkish-Armenian antipathy, gives us this enlightening and entertaining novel of 4 generations of the Kazanci women, set in Istanbul.

The Terror* by Dan Simmons.
Scurvy, frostbite, botulism, and an enomous THING out on the ice plagued Sir John Franklin’s failed 1840 mission to find the Northwest Passage. A spellbinding sea story with grisly details.

Red River* by Lalita Tademy
A follow-up to her 2001 Oprah sensation Cane River – this time the repercussions of the Colfax Riot of 1873 – an engrossing and eye-opening emotional family saga.

* = Starred Review(s)

Iggy gets kicked out of high school and there’s no one at home for him to tell. His mother has been gone for days, his father is stoned on the couch and the phone’s been disconnected, so even his social worker can’t get through.

Walking away from his public housing, Iggy sets out to make something of his life. Not an easy task when he has no skills and his only friend is mixed up with the dealer who got his mom hooked.

Iggy’s got problems galore, but Iggy also has the kind of wisdom that lets him see what no one else can. Try Saint Iggy.

If you just cannot get enough of the religious suspense genre, here is another one for you.
Oh yes, the Knights Templars are again in the thick of things.

In Julia Navarro’s Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud, when the unidentified body of a tongue-less man turns up in the ashes of a suspicious fire in the Turin Cathedral, home of the Holy Shroud of Turin, Marco Valoni, Director of the Italian Art Crimes Department, investigates.

Soon he is sure several shadowy, anonymous groups of powerful and wealthy men with ties to Legend of the Knights Templars are somehow involved, while his only suspect is already in the Turin prison. More importantly, a far more shocking crime is about to happen. It is up to Valoni and his crack team of investigators to stop it.

Julia Navarro is a well-known Madrid-based journalist who is currently a political analyst for Agencia OTR/Europa Press and a correspondent for other prominent Spanish radio and television networks. Her second novel is due out in 2008. Brotherhood is already a bestseller in Europe.

The seven-year-old Jesus relates his life in Alexandria and the return of his family to Nazareth. Spare and lean, lyrical and reverent, vivid and riveting, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt is "a mystery story, of the child grappling to understand his miraculous gifts and numinous birth" (Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2005).

Anne Rice's act of faith in writing this novel is detailed in her author's note where she describes her research and her journey back to the Catholic Church.

Just in time for short days and long to-do lists, these little books are great excuses to take a break and enjoy a bit of solitude, in the best company – yours.
They are quick reads – no more than 100 pages or so, and tuck nicely into your coat pocket. Next time you find yourself standing in line; or being put on hold, listening to elevator music, you will have the perfect distraction.

Mademoiselle Benoir by Christine Conrad.
May-Dec. romance in the French countryside sets off family wars across the Atlantic.

An Afternoon with Rock Hudson by Mercedes Deambrosis; translated from Spanish by Mike Mitchell.
Chance encounter between two old friends triggers off some self-destructive behavior, including anonymous sex with a man sitting at the next café table. Amusing.

Mercedes-Benz: From Letters to Hrabal by Paweł Huelle; translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.
Narrator Pawel tells of the driving lessons he took in the early 1990s around Gdansk, Poland, all the while entertaining his instructor Miss Ciwle with stories of his family’s ownership of Mercedes-Benz cars. Great storytelling.

The Bird is a Raven by Benjamin Lebert; translated from the original German by Peter Constantine.
Two strangers share a sleeping compartment on a night train bound for Berlin. Throughout the hours of darkness secrets are revealed and lives changed. You won't be able to put this one down!

Music from Big Pink: A Novella by John Niven.
Born in Scotland, John Niven toured and recorded as guitarist with The Wishing Stones, and co-wrote/directed the award winning (British) short film ‘Tethered’.
This tragic, beautiful… "factional book is a heartbroken rock'n'roll postcard from a past" where fictional characters rub shoulders with real people.

The Scent of Your Breath by Melissa P; translated from Italian by Shaun Whiteside.
A breathless autobiographical second novel by this bright young Sicilian writer - a smoldering tale of sexual obsession, plumbed deeply from the disturbing mind of a teenage girl terrorized by love.

Followers of Ian Rankin’s Inspector John Rebus series might want to consider this one…

Bleeding Hearts is a first U.S. edition of a stand-alone, originally published in the U.K.(1994) under his pseudonym - Jack Harvey.

Michael Weston is a highly-paid and seasoned assassin, famed for his long-distant shot through the heart. Things did not go well with the last job – it was a set-up. Now he must find his double-crossing employer and at the same time, stay a step ahead of his archnemesis - an American PI named Hoffer.

Reviewers expect the nonstop action, copious violence and arcane details about weaponry and forensics will please thriller junkies, but it’s also "smart and inventive” enough to engage fans of the Rebus series.

Are you stumped on what to get your family members for the holidays? Try giving someone a book! NPR's All Things Considered has several recommendations here in the article "Book Selections to Nourish the Mind at the Holidays."

And while you're on NPR's website, check out their page of holiday recipes too!