We were excited to see so many good new choices this time: here are six great reads for the start of the New Year!

Publisher: Bethany House
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 11/01/2011
ISBN-13: 9780764206221
ISBN-10: 0764206222

Historical Romance. In 1866, artist Claire Laurent flees her shady past forging paintings for her father in New Orleans and goes to Nashville. There she finds work with the richest woman in America, Mrs. Adelicia Acklen. She also meets lawyer Sutton Monroe, who is determined to reclaim his family's property and heritage after the Civil War. Sutton is attracted to Claire, but she fears her reputation will be lost if he reveals her secrets. To assure her future, Claire must learn to trust in the God she has only recently found. This is the 1st in the planned Belmont Mansion series.

Publisher: Bethany House
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 10/01/2011
ISBN-13: 9780764204982
ISBN-10: 076420498X

Historical Fiction. Librarian Alice Grace Ripley finds herself without a job in the midst of the Great Depression, and her boyfriend has dumped her. She decides to try something different: delivering books to a rural Kentucky library. After she gets to Acorn with the books, Alice stays to help the librarian there and then settles in as a member of the community. Set in 1936, this novel vividly portrays the Great Depression and the New Deal, as Alice learns to live "a godly life in an ungodly world" (Booklist). Try Elizabeth Musser's The Sweetest Thing for another inspirational coming-of-age story set in the 1930s.

Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 10/04/2011
ISBN-13: 9781595547521
ISBN-10: 1595547525

Suspense. After the Reverend Geoff Bofinger loses his congregation due to a scandal, he and his wife start over in the bakery business, hoping to restore their reputation. Then Geoff's wife Audrey hits a scooter while she's driving to work -- and the scooter's driver disappears. To make matters worse, the missing woman is married to the police sergeant who exposed the scandal in Bofinger's church. The sergeant thinks Audrey has kidnapped her, so he takes Geoff hostage in the bakery and demands that Audrey produce his missing wife. For another action-packed hostage-taking, read Brandilyn Collins' inspirational Amber Morn.

First Chapter  

Publisher: WaterBrook Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 09/06/2011
ISBN-13: 9781400073030
ISBN-10: 1400073030

Mystery. Ten years ago, an unknown gunman opened fire on a school activity bus in Texas, killing the cheerleading coach and delivering a devastating wound to the star of the football team. Claudia Campbell, who was a cheerleader traveling on the bus, is tormented by her memories of that event, as is Casio Hightower, the injured football player. Claudia's husband Vic, the assistant district attorney, decides to open this cold case and track down the killer, but healing the post-traumatic anguish through God's grace may be more important than solving the crime. Read Refuge on Crescent Hill by Melanie Dobson for another suspenseful tale about secrets from the past.

First Chapter  

Publisher: WaterBrook Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 10/04/2011
ISBN-13: 9780307458858
ISBN-10: 0307458857

General Fiction. When Marielle Bishop moves with her new husband, Carson, to his late wife's ancestral home in Fredericksburg, Virginia, she finds more than a stately Southern mansion. Carson's in-laws believe a malevolent spirit lurks behind the tragedies that have occurred there over the years, and that perhaps the ghost of Susannah Page has been haunting the place since the Civil War. In this "delightful page-turner" (Publishers Weekly), Marielle relies on God for courage to face the mansion's secrets and Susannah Page's story.

First Chapter  

Publisher: Bethany House
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 09/01/2011
ISBN-13: 9780764207853
ISBN-10: 0764207857

Historical Romance. In 1898, Lizzie Dawson lives alone in Alaska in the cabin her white father built for her Athabascan mother. When missionary Clay Selby meets this native woman with piercing blue eyes, he loses his heart to her. But the Athabascan tribe Lizzie's mother belonged to wants nothing to do with either Lizzie or the Christian message -- and if Clay follows his heart, he risks alienating the tribe even further. Meanwhile, Lizzie dreams of being welcomed back into her mother's tribe, and if she falls in love with a white man, that may never happen.