Modern Nature-Inspired Quilts - Bernadette Mayr

Modern Nature-Inspired Quilts - Mayr, Bernadette

Summary: A full-color guide employs free-cutting techniques to teach readers how to make more than two dozen imaginative projects, including not just quilts, but also wall-hangings, cushions and a child's backpack.



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Crocheting Clothes Kids Love - Shelby Allaho

Crocheting Clothes Kids Love - Allaho, Shelby

Summary: Features twenty-five designs for garments and accessories for school-age children. Each stylish project for kids can be used with a variety of yarn types in easy-care fibers.



Library Journal Reviews
Most crochet books for children focus on babies and toddlers, so award-winning designer Allaho and crafter Gormley (Go Crochet! Afghan Design Workbook) decided to tackle clothes for a different group: children age six to 12. The collection features garments, including winter wear, and small accessories that take advantage of the lacy and whimsical motifs common in crochet. The projects are appropriate for crocheters of a variety of skill levels, and each one contains step-by-step written directions and full explanations of any special stitches used. Adults may even want some of the accessories for themselves, especially the pompom-studded caravan scarf, a cozy, shawl-like wrap that would suit grown-ups as well as it does youngsters. Allaho and Gormley include patterns for both boys and girls in the collection, and those aimed at boys are more than just token hats and scarves. VERDICT The unique emphasis will appeal to crocheters whose little ones have aged out of the baby and toddler patterns, and children in the target age group will enjoy wearing these designs.

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Trophy Cupcakes and Parties! - Jennifer Shea

Trophy Cupcakes and Parties!: Deliciously Fun Party Ideas and Recipes from Seattle's Prize-Winning Cupcake Bakery - Shea, Jennifer

Summary: A guide to hosting luxurious parties ranges from crafty kid bashes to sophisticated engagement celebrations and exotic themed gatherings, in a reference complemented by favorite recipes from the Seattle cupcake bakery.

Library Journal Reviews
Trophy Cupcakes & Party founder Shea shares how she designs inspired theme parties for children and adults (hint: worksheets and helpers are involved). Ambitious readers can dive straight into planning elaborate fêtes like Destination: Paris—complete with crème bruleé cupcakes, hand-dyed streamers, signature cocktails, and a French buffet—and novices can start with tips and tricks in Party Planning 101. Be sure to read the cupcake assembly instructions in each party-planning section; the batter recipes at the back of the book omit the accompanying frostings and decorations. VERDICT No detail is spared in this epic entertaining guide that can help readers learn to pipe perfect frosting ruffles and assemble a homemade piñata. Highly recommended.

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Percy Jackson's Greek Gods - Rick Riordan

Percy Jackson's Greek Gods - Riordan, Rick

Summary: Percy Jackson, a modern-day demigod, tells the origin stories of the gods of Olympus and provides an insider's point of view while offering a personal take on his ancient associates.



Kirkus Reviews
Percy Jackson takes a break from adventuring to serve up the Greek gods like flapjacks at a church breakfast.Percy is on form as he debriefs readers concerning Chaos, Gaea, Ouranos and Pontus, Dionysus, Ariadne and Persephone, all in his dude's patter: "He'd forgotten how beautiful Gaea could be when she wasn't all yelling up in his face." Here they are, all 12 Olympians, plus many various offspring and associates: the gold standard of dysfunctional families, whom Percy plays like a lute, sometimes lyrically, sometimes with a more sardonic air. Percy's gift, which is no great secret, is to breathe new life into the gods. Closest attention is paid to the Olympians, but Riordan has a sure touch when it comes to fitting much into a small space—as does Rocco's artwork, which smokes and writhes on the page as if hit by lightning—so readers will also meet Makaria, "goddess of blessed peaceful deaths," and the Theban Teiresias, who accidentally sees Athena bathing. She blinds him but also gives him the ability to understand the language of birds. The atmosphere crackles and then dissolves, again and again: "He could even send the Furies after living people if they committed a truly horrific crime—like killing a family member, desecrating a temple, or singing Journey songs on karaoke night."The inevitable go-to for Percy's legions of fans who want the stories behind his stories.

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Poppy Done to Death - Charlaine Harris

Poppy Done to Death (Aurora Teagarden Mysteries) - Harris, Charlaine

Summary: When her sister-in-law Poppy is found murdered, amateur sleuth Aurora Teagarden teams up with Poppy's boyfriend, a local police detective, to solve the case, in spite of complications caused by their own past relationship.




Library Journal Reviews
Librarian/sleuth Aurora ("Roe") Teagarden (Last Scene Alive) has problems: after discovering the dead body of her sister-in-law, she tracks down the woman's "missing" husband at his current girlfriend's house, shelters her own teenaged runaway half-brother, and juggles both a successful writer/boyfriend and several would-be love interests. But all this pressure seems to sharpen her sleuthing, for Aurora is nothing if not organized-she even finds a stray (but crucial) gas receipt in her kitchen. Well-established characters, family concerns, wry humor, and small-town busybodies solidify the plot of this delightful cozy.

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Danubia - Simon Winder

Danubia: A Personal History of Habsburg Europe - Winder, Simon

Summary: A lively, informative chronicle of the influential Habsburg family from the end of the Middle Ages to World War I traces their role in a colorful range of traditions, horrors, and curiosities.




Booklist Reviews
The Habsburg Empire was a ramshackle, lumbering old giant centered in the Danube Valley that held a central place in European politics from the Middle Ages to the end of WWI, ruled by the dominant dynasty of Europe for four centuries, the Habsburg family. Winder set out to wander through the lands that used to constitute the empire, describing and reflecting on what he sees now, particularly in terms of the appearance of villages, towns, and cities, and what he knows through his research as to how things used to look when the Habsburgs held sway. The sentiment around which he builds his colorful narrative is that the longevity of the Habsburg dynasty was due to a mix of cunning, dimness, luck and brilliance. (About one particular archduke, Winder says, he was one of the Habsburgs who make the family worthwhile, who make up for all the pious timeservers who congest the family tree.) This personalized, almost you-are-there view of history results in an arresting combination of anecdote and scholarly examination, where the interests of serious armchair travelers and devoted students of European history meet.

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Danger Goes Berserk - Mac Barnett

Danger Goes Berserk - Barnett, Mac

Summary: As soon as twelve-year-old Steve Brixton opens a detective office in his backyard, he and his best friend Dana are caught up in a tangle of cases, from breaking up a ring of piratical smugglers, to recovering a stolen surfboard, to tracking down a fifth-grader's missing gym shorts.



Booklist Reviews
After converting an abandoned doghouse into his office, 12-year-old detective Steve Brixton accepts a new case: finding a stolen surfboard. Steve and his chum Dana rent boards, don wetsuits, and (with no relevant experience) try to infiltrate the local surfer scene. Disaster ensues, but the intrepid sleuth perseveres. Like the three earlier volumes of the Brixton Brothers series, this chapter book takes the adventure and plotting of an old-school (think Hardy Boys) series mystery and overlays it with deadpan, offbeat humor. The occasional full-page drawings help define the characters, settings, and tone of the story. Wildly improbable and reliably entertaining.

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The Case of the Deadly Desperados - Caroline Lawrence

The Case of the Deadly Desperados - Lawrence, Caroline

Summary: In 1862 Nevada Territory, after finding his foster parents murdered and scalped, twelve-year-old Pinky Pinkerton, son of a railroad detective and a Sioux Indian, inherits a valuable deed and must hide from dangerous Whittlin Walt and his gang of desperados.



Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* The year is 1862, and P. K. Pinkerton, on his twelfth birthday, finds his stepparents brutally scalped. He realizes that vicious outlaw Whittlin' Walt and his two henchmen now have their sights set on him. Seems P. K. has something they want: a mysterious deed, which is a legacy from his railroad-detective birth father. So P. K. takes off running, with the terrible trio in relentless pursuit, from tiny Temperance to the lawless silver-mining town of Virginia City. As things intensify, P. K. must use his wits (and occasional disguises) to survive. A winning blend of Wild West and classic detective lore, this first book in the Western Mysteries series is a fast-paced, engrossing read, from beginning to end. P. K. is a wonderfully drawn, engaging protagonist—half Sioux, half white, and a self-proclaimed misfit—who has difficulty reading others and expressing emotion. But he also has gifts, like exceptional memory, keen observational powers, and resourcefulness. His vernacular, colloquial first-person account vividly brings characters to life, from cunning Belle Donne to slick, unexpectedly kind gambler Jace. Both settings and events—including exciting, occasionally gory, confrontations—are filled with droll touches, period details, and poignant moments. Though literary allusions (including Charles Dickens and Mark Twain) sprinkled throughout may elude some readers, it doesn't matter; they'll cheer P. K. on and anticipate his next adventure. An appended glossary includes referenced real-life people and details.

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Blackberry Pie Murder - Joanna Fluke

Blackberry Pie Murder - Fluke, Joanna

Summary: Hannah Swensen thinks she killed a former high school football hero with her car, until an autopsy reveals the victim was dead before Hannah even hit him, his shirt covered in stains from a blackberry pie.




Booklist Reviews
Hannah Swensen, owner of the Cookie Jar in Lake Eden, Minnesota, and her family are trying to plan Hannah's mother's upcoming nuptials despite the fact that the bride is constantly changing her mind over the details. Hannah becomes further distracted after she hits a man with her car while driving in a storm and causes his death. Research into the mystery man uncovers an insidious criminal who was a threat to a local family and who had been beaten before Hannah hit him. She still does not let herself escape responsibility and tries to figure out who the man was and his purpose for being in Lake Eden. Fluke offers a new twist to the series with Hannah's upcoming trial for vehicular homicide planned for a future book. The cookie-shop owner's character gains depth with her acceptance of responsibility for a man's death, making this fifteenth in the popular series an emotionally weighty entry. But there's still room for recipes and for Hannah to move toward an overdue decision on the question of which of her two boyfriends she prefers. Readers will be eager for the next installment.

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Midnight Crossroad - Charlaine Harris

Midnight Crossroad - Harris, Charlaine

Summary: The first book in a new trilogy describes what happens in Midnight, Texas, a dried-up, one traffic light town, when a mysterious new resident, Manfred Bernardo, moves in.




Publishers Weekly Reviews
Bestseller Harris (the Southern Vampire Mysteries, which spawned the HBO series True Blood) introduces the small town of Midnight, Tex., where the locals can all take a day off for a picnic by the river—and discover a corpse. Residents of Midnight include a practicing witch, a telephone "psychic" who has true visions, a minister who tends a pet cemetery, and a vampire who works the night shift at the pawn shop. Even the witch's house cat has his secrets. With polished ease, Harris brings her cast on stage, pairs them off to reveal character through conversation, and ambles the mystery along, as the residents of Midnight tend to their chores and run errands to the big towns of Marthasville and Davy. While not ignoring the downsides of smalltown life, with too-knowing neighbors and teens desperate to get out, Harris also works in its joys and comforts. This is a solid entry in Harris's catalogue and will do very well with her fans.

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The Penderwicks - Jeanne Birdsall

The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy - Birdsall, Jeanne

Summary: While vacationing with their widowed father in the Berkshire Mountains, four lovable sisters, ages four through twelve, share adventures with a local boy, much to the dismay of his snobbish mother.




Horn Book Guide Reviews
Along with their loving but preoccupied botanist father and a clumsy dog, the motherless Penderwick sisters spend their summer holiday in the Massachusetts Berkshires in a rose-covered cottage on the grounds of a mansion. Suffused with affectionate humor, this charming, old-fashioned story feels familiar in the way the best books seem like old friends.

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The hypnotist's love story - Liane Moriarty

The hypnotist's love story - Moriarty, Liane

Summary: "A novel about a hypnotherapist who falls in love with a man whose ex-girlfriend is stalking him"-- Provided by publisher.



Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Ellen O'Farrell is a successful hypnotherapist with a thriving practice; a new boyfriend, Patrick; and a newly found emotional distance from her unconventional upbringing. Content for the first time in recent memory, Ellen realizes how tenuous her happiness is when Patrick lets her know that his ex-girlfriend, Saskia, has been stalking him ever since they broke up. As a mental-health professional, Ellen realizes that Saskia isn't a violent stalker who needs a restraining order but a jilted former lover who probably just needs a listening ear. But when Saskia's methods of surveillance become more extreme, Ellen has to decide how much longer she's willing to put up with Patrick's former life if she wants to be a part of his future. A witty modern love story in the age of cohabitation, blended families, and second chances, this is a compassionate, absorbing tale. Moriarty (What Alice Forgot, 2011) has crafted an incredibly likable heroine in Ellen, the hypnotherapist who can solve her clients' problems but can't seem to keep her own life from spiraling into soap opera. Readers who enjoy Jennifer Close and Marian Keyes will adore Moriarty's wit and warmth. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

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Language of flowers - Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Language of flowers - Diffenbaugh, Vanessa

Summary: "The story of a woman whose gift for flowers helps her change the lives of others even as she struggles to overcome her own past"-- Provided by publisher.



Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Abandoned as an infant, Victoria grew up as a ward of the California foster-care system and, abused and neglected, turned into an angry, uncontrollable child. Deemed "unadoptable," she gets one final chance at a home life when she is placed with Elizabeth, a single woman running her family's vineyard in the verdant hills outside San Francisco. Days before Victoria is scheduled to be officially adopted by Elizabeth, a terrible misunderstanding violently tears them apart, and she is sent back into the system. Though the emotional damage seems insurmountable, Victoria's time on the farm taught her that there were other ways of getting her message across. Finally forced to support herself, Victoria lands a job with a florist and uses her knowledge of the hidden meaning of flowers to gradually and fitfully make her way back into the world—one that will include a career, motherhood, and the personal forgiveness necessary for her to love and be loved in return. Enchanting, ennobling, and powerfully engaging, Diffenbaugh's artfully accomplished debut novel lends poignant testimony to the multitude of mysteries held in the human heart. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

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Big year - Mark Obmascik

Big year - Obmascik, Mark

Summary: Follows the 1998 Big Year competition between Sandy Komito, Al Levantin, and Greg Miller, during which the three rivals risked their lives to set a new North American birding record. - (Baker & Taylor)



Booklist Reviews
There is a well-known competition among birders called the Big Year, in which one abandons one's regular life for one whole year in order to see more species of birds in a geographic area than one's competitors. Environmental journalist Obmascik follows the 1998 Big Year's three main competitors--a New Jersey roofing contractor, a corporate executive, and a software engineer--as they crisscross the country in search of birds. Whether looking for flamingos in the Everglades, great grey owls in the frozen bogs near Duluth, or Asian rarities on the Aleutian island of Attu, these obsessed birders not only faced seasickness, insects, altitude sickness, and going into debt, they also faced each other. Their drive to win propelled all three past the rarified count of 700 species seen, and the winner saw an extraordinary 745 species--a number that will probably never be equaled. With a blend of humor and awe, Obmascik takes the reader into the heart of competitive birding, and in the process turns everyone into birders. ((Reviewed January 1 & 15, 2004)) Copyright 2004 Booklist Reviews.

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Assault with a deadly glue gun - Lois Winston

Assault with a deadly glue gun - Winston, Lois

Summary: When Anastasia Pollack's gambling-addicted husband permanently cashes in his chips in Vegas, her life craps out. Anastasia's job as crafts editor at American woman magazine makes life even stickier when she discovers the dead body of über-ambitious fashion editor Marlys Vandenburg hot-glued to Anastasia's office chair. When evidence surfaces of an illicit affair between Marlys and Anastasia's husband, Anastasia becomes the prime suspect. Can she sew up the case and keep herself out of jail before the real killer puts a permanent end to her investigation?

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Anastasia Pollack has more problems in a matter of days than most people have in two or three lifetimes. First, her husband Karl, a secret gambling addict, dies at a Las Vegas roulette table; his "loan" from the Mob is due, and a thug named Ricardo will stop at nothing to collect it. Then Karl's militantly Marxist mother Lucille's house is torched while she and her evil bulldog, Manifesto, recuperate at Anastasia's home after being hit by a car. Suddenly widowed, Anastasia's DAR mother, Flora Sudberry Periwinkle Ramirez Scoffield Goldberg O'Keefe, shows up with her persnickety Persian cat, Catherine the Great. Naturally, Lucille and Flora and their pets all hate one another. Things are even worse at work. The crafts editor for a popular woman's magazine, Anastasia becomes a prime murder suspect when the most hated staff member is killed. Winston has hit a home run with this hilarious, laugh-until-your-sides-hurt tale. Oddball characters, uproariously funny situations, and a heroine with a strong sense of irony will delight fans of Janet Evanovich, Jess Lourey, and Kathleen Bacus. May this be the first of many in Winston's Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.

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The Duggars - Michelle Duggar

The Duggars: 20 and counting!: raising one of America's largest families--how they do it - Duggar, Michelle

Summary: A behind-the-scenes look at this supersize, faith-filled family from Arkansas that's full of entertaining and enlightening stories, photos, recipes, tips, traditions, and practical ideas for rearing happy children.



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Secret daughter - Shilpi Somaya Gowda

Secret daughter - Gowda, Shilpi Somaya

Summary: Interweaves the stories of a baby girl in India, the American doctor who adopted her, and the Indian mother who gave her up in favor of a son, as two families--one in India, the other in the United States--are changed by the child that connects them.



Kirkus Reviews
Fiction with a conscience, as two couples worlds apart are linked by an adopted child.Gowda's debut opens in 1984 with poor Indian village-dweller Kavita giving birth to a second daughter. When her first was born, husband Jasu immediately arranged the child's death. Girls are a luxury the couple can't afford; they need boys, who don't require dowries and can help with the labor of surviving. This time around, Kavita stands up to Jasu, names the baby Usha and takes her to an orphanage. Adopted and renamed Asha, she becomes the only child of Krishnan, scion of a wealthy Bombay family, who is now a neurosurgeon in San Francisco, and his American wife Somer. Asha's arrival assuages some of Somer's pain over her infertility but brings its own cultural problems. Asha grows up feeling incomplete, cut off from half her heritage by her mother's fears and neediness. As a college student, her flair for journalism leads to a fellowship, and she chooses to spend the year in Bombay (now Mumbai), giving Gowda further opportunity to describe India, mainly its gender imbalance and the social divide between the wealthy and the grindingly impoverished. Somer and Krishnan's marriage goes through a rocky phase, and Kavita and Jasu have problems too, but Asha's visit inevitably provides the opportunity to connect some, if not all, of the loose ends.A lightweight fable of family division and reconciliation, gaining intensity and depth from the author's sharp social observations. Copyright Kirkus 2009 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.

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The girl in the garden - Kamala Nair

The girl in the garden - Nair, Kamala

Summary: A conflicted young woman seeks clarity about her impending marriage by remembering a childhood summer when she discovered a long-hidden secret while visiting her mother's ancestral home in an Indian village outside a mysterious jungle. 40,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)



Booklist Reviews
On the verge of marriage, Rakhee Singh must return to India to rectify childhood notions of marriage and love that were shattered during an adolescent summer spent in India. Just as Rakhee's adolescence was beginning, her Indian immigrant mother, facing deep depression and unhappiness in Minnesota, decided to bring her to India for the summer. There, Rakhee built strong friendships with her cousins, met her dying grandmother, and found her once-rich family struggling to stay afloat. She discovered as the summer unfolded that the financial hardship was deeply involved in her mother's affair with an old friend and with a mysterious garden deep in the forest behind the family home. What Rakhee discovered within the walls of the garden changed her life forever. A daring fairy tale of a story, Nair's first novel audaciously tackles issues ranging from puberty to friendship to abuse, providing plenty of adventure as well. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

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Save me - Lisa Scottoline

Save me - Scottoline, Lisa

Summary: When an explosion rips through the nearly empty cafeteria of a Reesburgh (Pa.) Elementary School, lunch mother Rose McKenna leads two girls to safety before racing to rescue her own daughter, Melly. But Rose soon learns that she may face both civil and criminal charges for her heroics because one of the girls she saved was seriously injured in the resulting fire that killed three school staff members.

Booklist Reviews
Suburban mom Susan Pressman is forced to make a split-second decision after an explosion goes off in the school cafeteria in which she volunteers. Should she rescue her own daughter, Melly, trapped in the bathroom, or lead the girls standing in front of her, who constantly bully her daughter, to safety? Her choice reverberates throughout the little town of Reesburgh, Pennsylvania, as she is cast as the villain by the local news anchor, parents, and the school. While her attorney and husband construct a defense plan that includes filing a lawsuit against the school, Susan sets out to seek the truth behind this mysterious, accidental fire. With the help of a construction worker who may know the cause of the explosion as well as an incognito visit to a local factory, Susan slowly unravels the truth and along with it some hidden secrets in Reesburgh's dark past, including one horrifying buried memory of her own. At the quick pace of a thriller, Scottoline masterfully fits every detail into a tight plot chock-full of real characters, real issues, and real thrills. A story anchored by the impenetrable power of a mother's love, it begs the question, just how far would you go to save your child? Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

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The devotion of suspect X - Keigo Higashino

The devotion of suspect X - Higashino, Keigo

Summary: Yasuko Hanaoka thought she had escaped her abusive ex-husband Togashi. When he shows up one day, the situation quickly escalates and Togashi ends up dead. Yasuko's next-door-neighbor Ishigami offers his help, not only disposing of the body, but plotting the cover-up as well.



Booklist Reviews
One of Japan's best-selling crime novelists makes his American debut in an atmospheric thriller about a desperate woman, Yasuko, who, craving a peacefull life with her daughter, Misato, kills her abusive lout of an ex-husband. The next-door neighbor, Ishigami, helps hide the body and improvises a cover-up. When the body is eventually found, however, determined investigator Kusanagi, with the help of Dr. Yukawa, a physicist who knew Ishigami in college, senses that something is amiss with Yasuko's story. A cat-and-mouse, Dostoevsky-like investigation ensues. Higashino explores just how far a relationship built on a terrible event can last. Suggest to readers familiar with Natsuo Kirino (Real World, 2008), another Japanese master of psychological crime fiction, and Karin Fossum, whose Norway-set thrillers are also drenched in psychological terror. Copyright 2011 Booklist Reviews.

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