Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, by Beth HoffmanTwelve-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt is in trouble. For years, she has been the caretaker of her psychotic mother, Camille-the tiara-toting, lipstick-smeared laughing stock of an entire town - a woman trapped in her long-ago moment of glory as the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen. But when Camille is hit by a truck and killed, CeeCee is left to fend for herself. To the rescue comes her previously unknown great-aunt, Tootie Caldwell. In her vintage Packard convertible, Tootie whisks CeeCee away to Savannah's perfumed world of prosperity and Southern eccentricity, a world that seems to be run entirely by women. From the exotic Miz Thelma Rae Goodpepper, who bathes in her backyard bathtub and uses garden slugs as her secret weapons, to Tootie's all-knowing housekeeper, Oletta Jones, to Violene Hobbs, who entertains a local police officer in her canary-yellow peignoir, the women of Gaston Street keep CeCee entertained and enthralled for an entire summer. It is a novel that explores the indomitable strengths of female friendship and gives us the story of a young girl who loses one mother and finds many others.
Hardcover, Pub date 01/10, 320 pgs
The Negotiator, by Dee HendersonFBI Special Agent Dave Richman has spent his life protecting people; failure is not in his vocabulary. He'll figure out a way to protect Kate even if she is determined to make it difficult.
Kate O'Malley's specialty is hostage situations - defusing human time bombs before they go off. She will walk into the middle of a crisis if that's what is necessary to settle a situation. She's learned to let others see what she wants them to see. She's learned to depend on herself. Only herself. People die if she fails.
Kate is a target. Someone's been sending her black roses. Maybe the same person who just blew up an airplane.. and blamed Kate. Then the investigation brings up the one name Kate hoped never to hear again... and she's faced with the shocking evidence that the bomber may be someone she knows. Now she has to decide if Dave - and the God he trusts so implicitly - is all he's supposed to be. And Dave is about to discover that loving a hostage negotiator is one thing, but keeping her safe is another matter entirely.
Paperback, Pub date 2001, 304 pgs
Secret Daughter, by Shilpi Somaya Gowda
When her husband threatens to murder her newborn daughter, Kavita sends baby Asha off to a Mumbai orphanage where she is adopted by and Indian-born doctor now living in California with his American wife. The story eventually shifts perspective to the grown Asha who feels disconnected from her roots and travels to India on a scholarship in hopes of reuniting with her birth family. Using various narratives, settings, and time periods, The Secret Daughter creates a compelling look at how two families become interconnected across continents and gernerations through their link to Asha.
Hardcover, Pub date 3/10, 352 pgs
