Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman

This is a book by Austin Grossman for comic book lovers or those interested in superheoes and villans. The hero is named Fatale, a female hero who had an accident that has transformed her into a cybernetic superhero that has joined the team of superheroes called the New Champions. This team must put aside their differences to work on stopping Doctor Impossible, an evil genius who gained the powers of inhuman strength and hard skin in a lab accident. Just like every other villan in comic books his only problem is that he tells his evil plans before doing them and has had them stopped by members of the New Champions. The story is told from both sides and has lots of funny moments. You are also taken back into Doctor Impossible childhood years and explained how he became the man he is. Through Fatale you get to meet some of the superheroes that make up the New Champions. Heroes like Mister Mystic, a magician, Blackwolf, a former gymnast that uses his riches for good like Batman, Lily a woman from an alternate future that was once evil, but is now good, and others that are just like the heroes we see in comics. We also get a little insight on how they got their powers. The story contains a lot of humorous conversations between the characters and the story moves along pretty well, but gets a little slow somewhere in the middle. Its a good read for experiencing heroes with a little humor involved. So now Up, Up, and Away.

Troy – Rock Hill                           ISBN 9780375424861

Rules of Gentiltiy by Janet Mullany

Philomena Wellesley Clegg loves to speak her mind on two topics men and bonnets. On the former she has yet to meet a man she is willing to marry, until Indigo comes along. He causes her to question her very strong opionions on men and bonnets. Is he the man that will finally get her to marry? This laugh out loud funny book is a cross between Bridget Jone’s Diary and Pride and Prejudice and will have you contemplating your own fashion issues.

Bethany – Rock Hill                                        ISBN  9780061229831

Dear Miss Breed by Joanne Oppenheim

Author Joanne Oppenheim tells the riveting story of Clara Breed, the children’s librarian of the San Diego Public Library who befriended many of her Japanese American young patrons when war began with Imperial Japan in December of 1941.

Four months after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, all Americans of Japanese descent were forced to leave the lives they knew and go to internment camps. This was done despite their allegiance to America and their desire for American citizenship.

Clara Breed was strongly opposed to this action and put her personal and professional safety at risk by speaking out openly. She wrote several articles voicing her opinions in Horn Book Magazine. Miss Breed had developed strong friendships with “her children” and their families. They were heartbroken to leave behind their friends and homes. The San Diego librarian said her tearful goodbyes to the families as they were taken away by train to internment camps throughout the United States. But she also provided the children and young adults with her address and she promised to stay in touch with them.

Through their return letters, the children portrayed the experiences of the incarcerated. Oppenheim provides photographs of these same letters, journal entries, and propaganda used to incite fear of Japanese Americans. As examples of such propaganda, the author includes in her book a copy of a brochure entitled “How to Spot a Jap” and a political cartoon created by Ted Geisel, our beloved Dr. Seuss.

Even though the events in this book took place many decades ago, its message is an important one. After the tragedy that happened on September 11, 2001 we must not see someone as our enemy simply because of their heritage.

 

Abbie – Rock Hill                                  ISBN  0439569923

Heartsick by Chelsea Cain

Archie Sheridan is on a task force for ten years trying to catch a serial killer operating in Portland Oregon and the surrounding states.  He pays a visit to the home of Gretchen Lowell, a psychologist who has offered to help only to be drugged and secreted away by Gretchen who is not a psychologist but the killer.   All this has happened in the past as the book opens and we find Archie alive but severly changed by his experience.   He is chosen to head up another task force, to find a killer before anymore young girls are kidnapped and murdered.  Uncharacteristicly, Archie has invited a reporter to follow the him and the task force as they look for the killer.  The young reporter, Susan Ward, gets so involved she almost becomes a victim instead of an observer.  This is Chelsea Cain’s first mystery and she has created a novel with very interesting characters… characters I hope to see again in another book. 

Karen – Fort Mill                                   ISBN 9780312368463

Fiddle Dee Death by Caroline Cousins

For those of you who love a good mystery and southern fiction this book is for you!  Set in the low country near Edisto Island three cousins unravel the suspicious death of a man in their Great Aunt Augusta’s Plantation home.  Their aunt has opened her home to tours, but refuses to refer to people visiting as tourists, preferring instead to call them “guests”.  Was this “guest” pushed down the attic stairs or did he fall? Why is there a huge cage in the attic and is there really a ghost at Pinckney Plantation? Grab a glass of tea and this book to find out.

Caroline Cousins is actually a pseudonym for Nancy Pate and her two cousins, sisters Meg Herndon and Gail Greer. The cousins in real life mirror their fictional counterparts in being “one and a half times” first cousins. Their mothers are sisters and their fathers are first cousins. Gail is also a former plantation tour guide.

Karen – Bookmobile                                         ISBN  9780895873354

Up Close and Dangerous by Linda Howard

I was on a trip Labor Day weekend and settled myself in my seat on a fairly small airplane and opened the latest book by Linda Howard, only to find that I had chosen a book about a plane crash to keep me company on my trip home!

The owner of a transport company and his richest, snobbiest (he thought) customer were flying from Seattle to Colorado when the engines stopped and they went down in the mountains of Idaho.  They both survived but were hurt and sick and had no food and no way to communicate with the outside world.  The temperature was freezing and with layers of clothing from Bailey’s suitcase and anything she could use from the plane she keeps herself and Cam – the plane’s pilot – alive.   The story goes back and forth between the survivors and the people they left behind and everyone, including the reader is left to wonder who sabotaged the plane and almost killed Cam and Bailey.  As with any good romantic suspense book, the loose ends are resolved by the last page and the ending should satisfy anyone reading this book.

Karen – Fort Mill                                  ISBN 97803455486523