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1. Nerd in Shining Armor by Vicki Lewis Thompson Cover Price: $5.99 Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.99 x 6.86 x 4.20
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Plot: Genevive's much-anticipated overnight business trip with her arrogantly sexy boss, Nick, has gone terribly wrong. Not only has Jack the computer nerd managed to tag along on the private plane to Maui, but Nick has turned out to be a corporate thief and a murderous psychopath who plans on killing off Jack and Genevive in a plane crash. Luckily, Jack has played enough flight-simulator computer games to crash-land the plane, leaving Genevive and himself alone on a desert island in the Pacific with only a guava tree and their soon-to-be-realized lust for each other to sustain them. Jack may be a nerd, but he has a great body and a real sense of chivalry. He's also an amazing lover, and the stranded couple's uninhibited desert-island sex scenes leave readers conflicted about whether to root for the rescue party or not. If they are rescued will the Nerd in Shining Armor go back to his mismatched clothes and computer games? Thompson's fun, sexy island adventure gets points for casting a nerd in place of a Fabio. Brendan Driscoll.
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2. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (Author) Cover Price: 13.95 Paperback: 336 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.82 x 8.06 x 5.32
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Plot: Readers curious about the emotional flow between hostages and their takers should cotton to this novel based on the 1996 Tupac Amaru takeover of the Japanese ambassadorial residence in Lima, Peru. It traces the hostages' adjusting attitudes during the torpor of a months-long siege. Relief from their tedium takes the form of luscious world-class soprano Roxane Coss, who had been entertaining an international assortment of diplomats and businesspersons when the terrorists took the Peruvian vice president's house. Everybody loves her, eventually--a Russian diplomat, the Japanese tycoon who paid for her performance, one of the teenage hostage-takers, and so on. The medium for all professions of admiration and love is polylingual Gen Watanabe. As Watanabe flits from conversation to conversation, Patchett develops the characters' thoughts. Watanabe, for example, takes a shine to a child-soldier terrorist, Carmen, who comes to share the fate of an operatic earlier bearer of her name. Unhurriedly, even languorously, Patchett brings readers into the minds of the characters. Gilbert Taylor
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3. Impetuous by Lori Foster (Author) Cover Price: $5.99 Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.88 x 6.80 x 4.18
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Plot: She was his obsession. When she was bad, she was better! On the outside, Carlie McDaniels was a shy, no-nonsense schoolteacher. But on the inside, there was another Carlie -- a sultry, sexy femme fatale -- burning to get out. One night, she did. And lady-killer Tyler Ramsay didn't know what -- or who -- hit him! Tyler had a problem. He was obsessed with a mystery woman -- and fascinated by prickly Carlie McDaniels. How could he desire two women at the same time? And what was he supposed to do when he found out they were one and the same?
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1. The Hazards of Good Breeding: A Novel by Jessica Shattuck Cover Price: $23.95 Hardcover: 288 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.01 x 8.30 x 5.78
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Plot: Caroline Dunlap has graduated college and returned to her father's house in the genteel upper-class world of suburban Boston for lack of a better option. Her sensitive, 10-year-old brother, Eliot, is quietly launching a search for his baby-sitter, Rosita, who his father, Jack, summarily fired six months ago. Faith, Jack's ex-wife, who is still in the process of recovering from the nervous breakdown that precipitated the end of her marriage, is in town to see a play Eliot is starring in and visit some friends. The characters are all stuck in a sense, in need of a push to disrupt their apathy. For Caroline, the push comes in the form of Stephan, a handsome documentary director whose intentions might not be so noble; for Eliot, it is his quest for Rosita; for Faith, it is a charming Frenchman who romances her; and for Jack, it is a startling revelation about Rosita that will cause him to reexamine his future.
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2. Princess in Love (The Princess Diaries, Vol. 3) by Meg Cabot (Author) Cover Price: $6.99 Paperback: 288 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.78 x 6.80 x 4.50
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Plot: It would seem that 14-year-old Mia Thermopolis ("five foot nine inches tall, with no visible breasts, feet the size of snowshoes") has the kind of life every Manhattan teenager could only dream of: She is, in her spare time, the princess of the European country of Genovia. Alas, the Royal Privilege is more like a Predicament. Not only does she have to endure daily princess lessons from her critical Grandmère ("It isn't as if I'm going to show up at the castle and start hurling olives at the ladies-in-waiting"), but her new stepfather is also her algebra teacher, her mother is pregnant and vomiting, she doesn't like her boyfriend very much, and she's convinced the real love of her life--her best friend's older brother--thinks of her as a kid.
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3. Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen Cover Price: $8.95 Paperback: 224 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.60 x 7.99 x 5.22
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Plot: Juli Baker devoutly believes in three things: the sanctity of trees (especially her beloved sycamore), the wholesomeness of the eggs she collects from her backyard flock of chickens, and that someday she will kiss Bryce Loski. Ever since she saw Bryce's baby blues back in second grade, Juli has been smitten. Unfortunately, Bryce has never felt the same. Frankly, he thinks Juli Baker is a little weird--after all, what kind of freak raises chickens and sits in trees for fun? Then, in eighth grade, everything changes. Bryce begins to see that Juli's unusual interests and pride in her family are, well, kind of cool. And Juli starts to think that maybe Bryce's brilliant blue eyes are as empty as the rest of Bryce seems to be. After all, what kind of jerk doesn't care about other people's feelings about chickens and trees? With Flipped, mystery author Wendelin Van Draanen has taken a break from her Sammy Keyes series, and the result is flipping fantastic. Bryce and Juli's rants and raves about each other ring so true that teen readers will quickly identify with at least one of these hilarious feuding egos, if not both. A perfect introduction to the adolescent war between the sexes. (Ages 12 to 14)
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Trouble by Mark Millar and Terry Dodson Cover Price: $2.99 Pamphlet: 32 pages ; Dimensions (in inches) 10.25 x 6.75
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Plot: All the details are not yet released, but what we do know is that it's about Spider-Man's Parents and Adopted Parents and in the end somebody will be pregnant with the future Spider-Man. Being sold as a "possible" origin of Spider-Man.
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Regards,