Check our contest site regularly for chances to win four page-turning novels from Simon and Schuster, sure to keep you reading through the night. An $80 value. From Simonsays.com.
Looks to Die For, by Janice Kaplan
From Publishers Weekly
Having collaborated on three books with Lynn Schnurnberger (The Men I Didn’t Marry, etc.), Kaplan flies solo in this zany crime novel introducing ace amateur sleuth Lacy Fields. A well-heeled Los Angeles matron and celebrity interior designer giddy about clothes, furniture and keeping up with the Joneses, Lacy adores her children and her glamorous hubby, Dr. Dan, a popular plastic surgeon known as the “Saint of Hollywood.” When Dan’s arrested for the murder of Tasha Barlow, a young actress, and the police and even Dan’s attorney believe he’s guilty, the devastated Lacy launches her own no-holds barred investigation. Lacy survives tangling with an ex-con, arriving at George Clooney’s movie-set trailer in nothing but La Perla lingerie, finding a dead body in the trunk of her Lexus and wrestling with a crazed commercial producer. Name-dropping, price-quoting Lacy is a hoot as she makes the best of many tight situations, like the time she wore “that size 6 Dolce & Gabbana gown to a charity ball.” Suspense fans looking for frothy, wacky fun will be well rewarded. 8-city author tour.
The Boleyn Inheritance, by Phillipa Gregory
From Publishers Weekly
Returning to the scene of The Other Boleyn Girl, historical powerhouse Gregory again brings the women of Henry VIII’s court vividly to life. Among the cast, who alternately narrate: Henry’s fourth wife, Bavarian-born Anne of Cleves; his fifth wife, English teenager Katherine Howard; and Lady Rochford (Jane Boleyn), the jealous spouse whose testimony helped send her husband, Thomas, and sister-in-law Anne Boleyn to their execution. Attended by Lady Rochford, 24-year-old Anne of Cleves endures a disastrous first encounter with the twice-her-age king—an occasion where Henry takes notice of Katherine Howard. Gregory beautifully explains Anne of Cleves’s decision to stay in England after her divorce, and offers contemporary descriptions of Lady Rochford’s madness. While Gregory renders Lady Rochford with great emotion, and Anne of Cleves with sympathy, her most captivating portrayal is Katherine, the clever yet naïve 16th-century adolescent counting her gowns and trinkets. Male characters are not nearly as endearing. Gregory’s accounts of events are accurate enough to be persuasive, her characterizations modern enough to be convincing. Rich in intrigue and irony, this is a tale where readers will already know who was divorced, beheaded or survived, but will savor Gregory’s sharp staging of how and why.
The Limehouse Text, by Will Thomas
From Publishers Weekly
Convincing period detail and memorable characters lift Thomas’s fast and furious third Victorian whodunit (after 2005’s To Kingdom Come) to feature enquiry agent Cyrus Barker and his callow assistant, Thomas Llewelyn. A pawn ticket found among the effects of Barker’s previous sidekick, Quong, leads the pair to Limehouse, London’s Chinatown, where they discover an ancient Chinese book on martial arts. A number of parties seek the book, including someone willing to kill to gain its secrets. Barker draws on his encyclopedic knowledge of the London underworld and his extensive network of allies to advance the investigation. While the murderer’s identity won’t surprise many, and Barker’s talents, which include mastery of the martial arts, border on the superhuman, Sherlock Holmes fans in particular will be pleased by how well Thomas evokes the Baker Street sleuth and the spirit of Conan Doyle’s stories.
At the start of bestseller Jance’s uninspired second Ali Reynolds thriller (after Edge of Evil), Ali’s husband, Paul Grayson, is killed on the eve of their divorce—by a train that hits the car where he’s tied up in the trunk somewhere near Palm Springs, Calif. Ali, Paul’s legal beneficiary, becomes the chief murder suspect. A popular blogger and former Los Angeles TV news anchor who’s suing the station where she used to work for wrongful dismissal, Ali initiates her own investigation, enlisting the help of her mother, grown son Chris and high school friend Dave Holman, a homicide detective in Sedona, Ariz., where Ali now lives. In a series of clumsy plot developments involving Paul’s fiancée, April Gaddis, and April’s greedy mother, Monique Ragsdale, Ali learns that Paul was financing a performance variety of the sumo sudoku puzzle fad. Full of endless blogs and superficial characters, this one will disappoint fans of Jance’s expertly written and paced Joanna Brady and J.P. Beaumont mysteries.
