Albert Lea Public Library

If You Like Downton Abbey . . .

If you like Downton Abbey, try:

• The American Heiress: A Novel by Daisy Goodwin. The story of a wealthy American heiress traveling abroad with her mother at the turn of the 20th century to seek a titled husband. A
• Bitter Truth by Charles Todd. A battlefield nurse during World War I, Bess Crawford, returning to London for a well-earned Christmas leave, finds her holiday fraught with mystery and murder when she agrees to help a bruised and battered woman return to her small village in Sussex.
• The Children's Book: A Novel by A.S. Byatt. The story of a friendship between a well-to-do author’s son and a runaway named Philip who he finds sketching in the basement of the new Victoria and Albert Museum.
• The Crimson Rooms by Katharine McMahon. A dramatic mystery about love, secrets and discovery in post-World War I London. Fall of Giants by Ken Follett. Follows the fates of five interrelated families -- American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh -- as they move through the dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution and the struggle for women's suffrage.
• Falling Angels by Tracy Chevalier. An exploration of social and political history that examines the prejudices and flaws of a changing time. The Colemans and the Waterhouses are divided by social class but forced to interact when their daughters become friends.
• The House at Riverton: A Novel by Kate Morton. A story set in England between the two world wars about an aristocratic family, a house, a mysterious death and a way of life that vanished forever, told in flashback by a woman who witnessed it all and kept a secret for decades.
• Maisie Dobbs: A Novel by Jacqueline Winspear. In the first installment of Winspear's Masie Dobbs series, private detective Maisie Dobbs must investigate the reappearance of a dead man who turns up at a cooperative farm called the Retreat that caters to men who are recovering their health after World War I.
• No Graves as Yet: A Novel of World War I by Anne Perry. The first installment in Perry’s World War I series sweeps readers into the golden summer of 1914, a time of brief enchantment when English men and women basked in the security of wealth and power, even as the last weeks of their privileged world were swiftly passing.
• To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 by Adam Hochschild. A riveting, suspenseful narrative with haunting echoes for our own time. Hochschild brings World War I to life as never before by focusing on the long-ignored moral drama of the war’s critics, alongside its generals and heroes.

Don't forget - Downton Abbey season 1 and season 2 are both available in DVD format at the library.

Play Nice by Gemma Halliday

From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Gemma Halliday, comes Play Nice, her most thrilling novel yet!

  

She faked her death to escape life as an assassin. But now her enemies have tracked her down, and this time they want her to stay dead.

 

Anya Danielovich was an assassin in her former life. But that was a long time ago. Today she’s just Anna Smith—a single, thirtysomething woman living in San Francisco with a simple desire to lead a better life. But she’s still haunted by her past—the people she killed, the mentor she betrayed, the woman she was. She’s taken care to cover her tracks, but she’s beginning to feel like she’s being watched…

 

Nick Dade is a hired gunman—the best of the best. He’s read Anya’s file and, after weeks of surveillance, he’s ready to pull the trigger…until someone else beats him to the punch. With his agenda shattered, Nick suddenly finds himself thrown together with the woman he’s been sent to eliminate. Who is she really? Who hired the second hit? And who can he trust? Together Nick and Anna find themselves embroiled in a web of deceit and desire as an unknown enemy closes in. To unravel the truth, Anna must face her past even if that means risking both Nick’s life and her own.

Helpless by Daniel Palmer

Nine years after he left Shilo, New Hampshire, former Navy Seal Tom Hawkins has returned to raise his teenage daughter, Jill, following the murder of his ex-wife, Kelly. Despite Tom's efforts to stay close to Jill by coaching her high school soccer team, Kelly's bitterness fractured their relationship. But life in Shilo is gradually shaping up into something approaching normal. Normal doesn't last long. Shilo's police sergeant makes it clear that Tom is his chief suspect in Kelly's death. Then an anonymous blog post alleges that Coach Hawkins is sleeping with one of his players. Internet rumours escalate, and incriminating evidence surfaces on Tom's own computer and mobile phone. To prove his innocence, Tom must unravel a tangle of lies about his past. For deep amid the secrets he's been keeping - from a troubled tour of duty to the reason for his ex-wife's death - is the truth that someone will gladly kill to protect...

Compulsively Mr. Darcy by Nina Benneton

For anyone obsessed with Pride & Prejudice, it's Darcy and Elizabeth like you've never see them before!

This modern take introduces us to the wealthy philanthropist Fitzwilliam Darcy, a handsome and brooding bachelor who yearns for love but doubts any woman could handle his obsessive tendencies. Meanwhile, Dr. Elizabeth Bennet has her own intimacy issues that ensure her terrible luck with men.

When the two meet up in the emergency room after Darcy's best friend, Charles Bingley, gets into an accident, Elizabeth thinks the two men are a couple. As Darcy and Elizabeth unravel their misconceptions about each other, they have to decide just how far they're willing to go to accept each other's quirky ways...

The Spy Who Jumped Off The Screen by Thomas Caplan

A former soldier turned movie star turned spy must stop a catastrophic nuclear weapons deal.

This gripping thriller from Thomas Caplan propels readers around the globe-from Hollywood to Rome, the Black Sea to the Mediterranean-and to the very brink of nuclear abyss.

The novel's charismatic hero, former covert operative Ty Hunter, has become, almost by accident, the number one film star in the world. When he is recruited on a clandestine mission to thwart the transfer of nuclear warheads into rogue hands, he must deploy every skill he has as an actor, soldier, and spy. Donning his fame as a disguise, Ty matches wits and muscle with the enigmatic billionaire Ian Santal and his nefarious protégé Philip Frost-two supremely sophisticated adversaries- even as he falls in love with the entrancing young woman closest to them both, the jewelry designer Isabella Cavill.

In prose that is both elegant and powerful, The Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen gives us a breakneck parable of good and evil-and a hero in the tradition of James Bond and Jason Bourne, who is sure to become an icon of the genre.

Sticks and Stones by K. J. Larsen

What does a woman do when she discovers her husband is an incurable cheater? If she's Cat DeLuca she launches the Pants On Fire Detective Agency. Now Cat does what two years of unholy matrimony taught her. She catches cheaters.When a client (Cleo Jones) shoots her cheating husband's bum full of buckshot, he disappears, taking her money, dog, and sister with him. Private Investigator Cat DeLuca promises to return the dog and money if her client stops shooting at Walter. Cleo agrees. The detective finds the dog and a mysterious bag chuck-full of cash. And then she finds Walter. His very dead body is still warm. The case is a slam dunk for the cops who arrest Cleo for the murder of her husband. She had motive and opportunity and a dozen witnesses heard her scream bloody murder. One made a video. Cat DeLuca is determined to prove her client's innocence and it's not an easy sell. Walter was an unsavory character with enemies. To find his killer, Cat will have to sift through the ones who didn't pull the trigger. Her investigation leads to four players with secrets: a childhood friend, a gambler, a construction tycoon, and a legendary Chicago designer. When forensic evidence suggests the detective knows more about the murder than she's telling, Cat faces the certain loss of her agency. Cat DeLuca is smart and charming. She's an unlikely heroine and her partner, a beagle named Inga, is quite likely to eat the evidence.Sticks and Stonesdelivers steamy romance, intrigue and laugh out loud humor for a wickedly delicious read.

The Innocent by Taylor Stevens

With The Innocent, Taylor Stevens, the bestselling author of The Informationist, returns with another blockbuster thriller featuring the fearless Vanessa Michael Munroe.
 
Eight years ago, a man walked five-year-old Hannah out the front doors of her school and spirited her over the Mexican border, taking her into the world of a cult known as The Chosen. For eight years, followers of The Prophet have hidden the child, moving her from country to country, shielding the man who stole her. Now, those who’ve searched the longest know where to find her. They are childhood survivors of The Chosen, thirty-somethings born and raised inside the cult who’ve managed to make lives for themselves on the outside. They understand the mindset, the culture within that world, and turn to Vanessa Michael Munroe for help, knowing that the only possibility of stealing Hannah back and getting her safely out of Argentina is to trust someone who doesn’t trust them, and get Munroe on the inside.
 
Tautly written, brilliantly paced, and with the same evocation of the exotic combined with chilling violence that made The Informationist such a success, The Innocent confirms Taylor Stevens’ reputation as a thriller writer of the first rank.

Season of Darkness by Maureen Jennings

The creator of the acclaimed Detective Murdoch Mysteries turns her exceptional storytelling skills to a murder mystery set in rural Shropshire, England, in the darkest days of the Second World War.

Following the disastrous retreat of the British army from Dunkirk in 1940, England is plunged into a state of fear. The threat of a German invasion is real, and many German Nationals are interned in camps across the country. One such camp is on the ancient moor land of Prees Heath, near the small town of Whitchurch in Shropshire, where Tom Tyler is the sole detective inspector.

Young women from all walks of life have joined the Land Army, to help desperate farmers keep the country fed. When one of these young women is found murdered on a desolate country road, Tyler is almost glad for the challenge; he has been fretting for some time about the dullness of policing in a rural community. In addition, a former lover has reappeared and turned his emotions upside down; his soldier son seems utterly changed by his experience at Dunkirk; and his sixteen year old daughter is unhappy. As he pursues the murderer, Tyler finds himself drawn into an uneasy alliance with one of the Prees Heath internees, a psychiatrist, who claims to be an expert on the criminal mind.

Catherine the Great by Robert K. Massie

e Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and The Romanovs returns with another masterpiece of narrative biography, the extraordinary story of an obscure young German princess who traveled to Russia at fourteen and rose to become one of the most remarkable, powerful, and captivating women in history.

Born into a minor noble family, Catherine transformed herself into Empress of Russia by sheer determination. Possessing a brilliant mind and an insatiable curiosity as a young woman, she devoured the works of Enlightenment philosophers and, when she reached the throne, attempted to use their principles to guide her rule of the vast and backward Russian empire. She knew or corresponded with the preeminent historical figures of her time: Voltaire, Diderot, Frederick the Great, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, Marie Antoinette, and, surprisingly, the American naval hero, John Paul Jones.

Reaching the throne fired by Enlightenment philosophy and determined to become the embodiment of the “benevolent despot” idealized by Montesquieu, she found herself always contending with the deeply ingrained realities of Russian life, including serfdom. She persevered, and for thirty-four years the government, foreign policy, cultural development, and welfare of the Russian people were in her hands. She dealt with domestic rebellion, foreign wars, and the tidal wave of political change and violence churned up by the French Revolution that swept across Europe. Her reputation depended entirely on the perspective of the speaker. She was praised by Voltaire as the equal of the greatest of classical philosophers; she was condemned by her enemies, mostly foreign, as “the Messalina of the north.”

Catherine’s family, friends, ministers, generals, lovers, and enemies—all are here, vividly described. These included her ambitious, perpetually scheming mother; her weak, bullying husband, Peter (who left her lying untouched beside him for nine years after their marriage); her unhappy son and heir, Paul; her beloved grandchildren; and her “favorites”—the parade of young men from whom she sought companionship and the recapture of youth as well as sex. Here, too, is the giant figure of Gregory Potemkin, her most significant lover and possible husband, with whom she shared a passionate correspondence of love and separation, followed by seventeen years of unparalleled mutual achievement.

The story is superbly told. All the special qualities that Robert K. Massie brought to Nicholas and Alexandra and Peter the Great are present here: historical accuracy, depth of understanding, felicity of style, mastery of detail, ability to shatter myth, and a rare genius for finding and expressing the human drama in extraordinary lives.

History offers few stories richer in drama than that of Catherine the Great. In this book, this eternally fascinating woman is returned to life.

The Litigators by John Grisham

The partners at Finley & Figg—all two of them—often refer to themselves as “a boutique law firm.” Boutique, as in chic, selective, and prosperous. They are, of course, none of these things. What they are is a two-bit operation always in search of their big break, ambulance chasers who’ve been in the trenches much too long making way too little. Their specialties, so to speak, are quickie divorces and DUIs, with the occasional jackpot of an actual car wreck thrown in. After twenty plus years together, Oscar Finley and Wally Figg bicker like an old married couple but somehow continue to scratch out a half-decent living from their seedy bungalow offices in southwest Chicago.

And then change comes their way. More accurately, it stumbles in. David Zinc, a young but already burned-out attorney, walks away from his fast-track career at a fancy downtown firm, goes on a serious bender, and finds himself literally at the doorstep of our boutique firm. Once David sobers up and comes to grips with the fact that he’s suddenly unemployed, any job—even one with Finley & Figg—looks okay to him.

With their new associate on board, F&F is ready to tackle a really big case, a case that could make the partners rich without requiring them to actually practice much law. An extremely popular drug, Krayoxx, the number one cholesterol reducer for the dangerously overweight, produced by Varrick Labs, a giant pharmaceutical company with annual sales of $25 billion, has recently come under fire after several patients taking it have suffered heart attacks. Wally smells money.

A little online research confirms Wally’s suspicions—a huge plaintiffs’ firm in Florida is putting together a class action suit against Varrick. All Finley & Figg has to do is find a handful of people who have had heart attacks while taking Krayoxx, convince them to become clients, join the class action, and ride along to fame and fortune. With any luck, they won’t even have to enter a courtroom!

It almost seems too good to be true.

And it is.

The Litigators is a tremendously entertaining romp, filled with the kind of courtroom strategies, theatrics, and suspense that have made John Grisham America’s favorite storyteller.

A Crimson Warning by Tasha Alexander

Secrets prove deadly in this new novel from Tasha Alexander featuring Lady Emily Hargreaves. Some very prominent people in London are waking up to find their doorsteps smeared with red paint, the precursor to the revelation of a dark secret – and worse – by someone who enjoys destroying lives

Newly returned to her home in Mayfair, Lady Emily Hargreaves is looking forward to enjoying the delights of the season. The delights, that is, as defined by her own eccentricities—reading The Aeneid, waltzing with her dashing husband, and joining the Women’s Liberal Federation in the early stages of its campaign to win the vote for women. But an audacious vandal disturbs the peace in the capital city, splashing red paint on the neat edifices of the homes of London’s elite. This mark, impossible to hide, presages the revelation of scandalous secrets, driving the hapless victims into disgrace, despair and even death. Soon, all of London high society is living in fear of learning who will be the next target, and Lady Emily and her husband, Colin, favorite agent of the crown, must uncover the identity and reveal the motives of the twisted mind behind it all before another innocent life is lost.

 

Devil in Disguise by Stefanie Sloane

Filled with espionage and intrigue, Stefanie Sloane’s witty and sexy debut is a Regency historical—the first novel in a back-to-back Regency Rogues trilogy that features seductive spies and the ladies they must protect.

Lord William Randall, the Duke of Clairemont, is a rake with little regard for society—a most unlikely suitor for Lady Lucinda Grey. But his latest assignment for the Young Corinthians, an elite spy organization, involves protecting her from a kidnapping plot. To do this, the notorious “Iron Will” must use his devilish charm to seduce Lucinda and convince her he’s worthy of her attention. William never planned to become enthralled by the lovely Lady Grey—or to lose his own heart in the bargain.

Beautiful and fiercely intelligent, Lucinda has managed to gracefully sidestep even the most persistent suitors. Until the Duke of Clairemont, that is. She’s tempted by his sinfully sensuous mouth and piercing eyes, and finds it hard to resist the champion thoroughbred he offers her in exchange for the honor of courting her. Can she keep him at arm’s length when his touch begs her to let him so much closer?

Betrayal of Trust by Susan Hill

Susan Hill's readers met the enigmatic and brooding Simon Serrailler in The Various Haunts of Men and got to know him better in the four mysteries that followed. In The Betrayal of Trust, she has written the most chilling and unputdownable book yet. Freak weather and flash floods have hit southern England. The small cathedral town of Lafferton is underwater, and a landslip on the moor has closed the roads. As the rain slowly drains away, a shallow grave––and a skeleton––are exposed; twenty years on, the remains of missing teenager Joanne Lowther have finally been uncovered. The case is reopened and Simon Serrailler is called in as Senior Investigating Officer. Joanne, an only child, had been on her way home from a friend's house that night. She was the daughter of a prominent local businessman, and her mother had killed herself two years after she disappeared, unable to cope. Cold cases are always tough, and in this latest mystery in the acclaimed series from Susan Hill, Simon Serrailler is forced to confront his most grisly, dangerous, and complex case yet.

Till Death Do Us Bark by Judi McCoy

Professional dog walker Ellie Engleman may have a psychic connection with dogs, but she was hoping she would not get roped into dealing with the wet-nosed guests at the Hamptons wedding she's been invited to. But soon she's chasing her tail over trouble of the two-legged variety. Before the bride can say, "I do," someone is murdered. And Ellie and her yorkiepoo Rudy must put their noses to the ground to sniff out the killer.

My Heart is Like a Zoo by Michael Hall

The bold digital collages of zoo animals in this debut picture book are clear and bright, and the simple rhymes about feelings will have preschoolers savoring the words, joining in, and pointing at every playful zoo scene, each featuring one animal per page. Even toddlers will enjoy talking about the scenarios, especially after they see the final spread with the small “zookeeper” asleep in his bed, his beloved animal toys snuggled around him. Kids will easily recognize the emotions in the words—“Snappy as a crab, / angry as a bear, / bothered as a bull / with a hornet in its hair”—as well as the more positive feelings—“Brave as a lion, / thoughtful as an owl, / peaceful as a portly walrus / lounging on a towel.” A final note points out that all the collage pictures are made up of heart-shaped pieces, more than 300 in all, and older kids might want to count them. Preschool. --Hazel Rochman