BOOK SPOTLIGHT: The Last Armada

The Last Armada: Queen Elizabeth, Juan Del Águila, and the 100-Day Invasion of England

by Des Ekin 

Ireland: Christmas Eve, 1601.

As thunder crashes and lightning rakes the sky, three very different commanders line up for a battle that will decide the fate of a nation. General Juan del Águila has been sprung from a prison cell to command the last great Spanish armada. His mission: to seize a bridgehead in Queen Elizabeth's England and hold it.

Facing him is Charles Blount, a brilliant English strategist whose career is also under a cloud. His affair with a married woman edged him into a treasonous conspiracy, and brought him to within a hair's breadth of the gallows.

Meanwhile, Irish insurgent Hugh O'Neill knows that this is his final chance to drive the English out of Ireland.

For each man, this is the last throw of the dice. Tomorrow they will be either heroes or failures. These colorful commanders come alive in this true story of courage and endurance, of bitterness and betrayal, and of drama and intrigue at the highest levels in the courts of England and Spain.  

The story of the last great naval battle between England and Spain, evoking a number of colorful and dangerous personalities who fought in the climactic conclusion to these two countries’ great rivalry on the sea.

Tyson

YOUNG ADULT BOOK SPOTLIGHT: UNBOUND

Unbound 
By: Neal Shusterman

Find out what happens to Connor, Risa, and Lev now that they've finally destroyed the Proactive Citizenry in this collection of short stories set in the world of the New York Times bestselling Unwind Dystology by Neal Shusterman. Connor Lassiter's fight to bring down Proactive Citizenry and find a suitable alternative to unwinding concluded in UnDivided . Now Connor, Risa, and Lev are free to live in a peaceful future--or are they? Neal Shusterman brings back his beloved Unwind characters for his fans to see what's left for those who were destined to be unwound.


Shared by: Cara

CAREER BOOK SPOTLIGHT: THE SOCIAL MEDIA JOB SEARCH WORKBOOK

The Social Media Job Search Workbook: Your Step-By-Step Guide to Finding Work in the Age of Social Media 

By: Joshua Waldman, MBA

You've probably heard that social media can make or break your search for a job. But exactly how do you conduct an effective social media job search? Where do you turn for the best job search advice? What does it take to find a job today?Joshua Waldman knows. He wrote the popular book Job Searching with Social Media For Dummies. And now he has created this workbook, The Social Media Job Search Workbook. What can this workbook help you accomplish? - Get interviews faster- Attract recruiters- Increase your chances of finding meaningful work in record timeWhy a workbook? Because landing your dream job takes more than knowledge--it takes action. This workbook's friendly format helps you translate valuable knowledge into invaluable action based on your unique skills, interests, and appeal to employers. Waldman takes the worry out of the process as he guides you through the right steps in the right order, from positioning to polishing to publishing. He shares his proven process for crafting a job-attracting message that works for the online audience you want to reach. Waldman's tips on using today's tools--especially LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter--will give you the confidence and clarity you need to fine-tune your own powerful social media job search.

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: EISENHOWER'S ARMIES

Eisenhower's Armies: The American-British Alliance During World War II

by Niall Barr
This dynamic new history provides a fresh perspective on many of the controversies and critical strategic decisions of World War II. 

The Anglo-American relationship from 1941-1945 proved to be the most effective military alliance in history. Yet there were also constant tensions and disagreements that threatened to pull the alliance apart. This book highlights why the unprecedented level of cooperation between the very different American and British forces eventually led to victory but also emphasizes the tensions and controversies which inevitably arose. 

Based on considerable archival research, this work considers the breadth and depth of the relationship from high-level strategic decisions, the rivalries and personalities of the commanders to the ordinary British and American soldiers who fought alongside one another. 

The book also looks back and demonstrates how the legacy of previous experience shaped the decisions of the war.  Eisenhower's Armies is the story of two very different armies learning to live, work, and fight together even in the face of serious strategic disagreements. 

In highlighting the cooperation, tensions, and disagreements inherent in this military alliance, this work shows that Allied victory was far from pre-ordained and proves that the business of making this alliance work was vital for eventual success.  
 
Eisenhower's Armies is a very human story about the efforts of many individuals, famous or otherwise, who worked and argued together to defeat Hitler's Germany.

Tyson

 

 

GRAPHIC NOVEL BOOK SPOTLIGHT: WALKING WOUNDED

Walking Wounded: Uncut Stories from Iraq
Written by: Olivier Morel
Art by: Maël
Translated by: Edward Gauvin

For thousands of young Americans, after the shock of 9/11, there was Ar Ramadi, Baghdad, Abu Ghraib and then the war in Iraq. Then came the trauma. Olivier Morel gave them a voice in his compelling documentary On the Bridge. Walking Wounded is the story of Morel getting close to the young vets, their troubled experience and their lives after the war. He and artist Mael relate through these veterans the impossible return of those who aspire to get back to a normal life.

A graphic novel illustrating the challenges and victories of Iraq War veterans. A new addition to our graphic novel section. On display on the second floor at the main library. 

Shared by: Cara

YA BOOK SPOTLIGHT: NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES

Never Always Sometimes
By: Adi Alsaid

Best friends Dave and Julia were determined to never be cliche high school kids--the ones who sit at the same lunch table every day, dissecting the drama from homeroom and plotting their campaigns for prom king and queen. They even wrote their own Never List of everything they vowed they'd never, ever do in high school. Some of the rules have been easy to follow, like #5, never die your hair a color of the rainbow, or #7, never hook up with a teacher. But Dave has a secret: he's broken rule #8, never pine silently after someone for the entirety of high school. It's either that or break rule #10, never date your best friend. Dave has loved Julia for as long as he can remember. Julia is beautiful, wild and impetuous. So when she suggests they do every Never on the list, Dave is happy to play along. He even dyes his hair an unfortunate shade of green. It starts as a joke, but then a funny thing happens: Dave and Julia discover that by skipping the clichés, they've actually been missing out on high school. And maybe even on love. 

Watch the book trailer! 

Shared by: Cara

YA BOOK SPOTLIGHT: THE STRANGE AND BEAUTIFUL SORROWS OF AVA LAVENDER

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
By: Leslye Walton 

Named a 2015 Morris Award finalist by YALSA, which "honors a debut book published by a first-time author writing for teens and celebrating impressive new voices in young adult literature."

Born with bird wings, Ava Lavender is well aware that love has long made fools of her family. When pious Nathanial Sorrows mistakes her bird wings for angel wings, 16-year-old Ava faces the man's growing obsession, which comes to a head with the rain and feathers that fly through the air during a nighttime summer solstice celebration.

"Magical realism, lyrical prose, and the pain and passion of human love haunt this hypnotic generational saga."

Watch the book trailer!

Shared by: Cara

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: THE INTIMATE BOND

The Intimate Bond: How Animals Shaped Human History
by Brian Fagan

New York Times bestselling author Brian Fagan shows how the powerful bond between Homo sapiens and other species has determined the course of civilizations and even shaped human character. 

Animals, and our ever-changing relationship with them, have left an indelible mark on human history. From the dawn of our existence, animals and humans have been constantly redefining their relationship with one another, and entire civilizations have risen and fallen upon this curious bond we share with our fellow fauna. 

Brian Fagan unfolds this fascinating story from the first wolf who wandered into our prehistoric ancestors' camp and found companionship, to empires built on the backs of horses, donkeys, and camels, to the industrial age when some animals became commodities, often brutally exploited, and others became pets, nurtured and pampered, sometimes to absurd extremes. 

Through an in-depth analysis of six truly trans-formative human-animal relationships, Fagan shows how our habits and our very way of life were considerably and irreversibly altered by our intimate bond with animals. 

With characteristic care and penetrating insight, Fagan reveals the profound influence that animals have exercised on human history and how, in fact, they often drove it.

Tyson

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: TEN BILLION TOMORROWS

Ten Billion Tomorrows: How Science Fiction Technology Became Reality and Shapes the Future

 
by Brian Clegg 

Science fiction is a vital part of popular culture, influencing the way we all look at the world. TV shows like Star Trek and movies from Forbidden Planet to Inception have influenced scientists to enter the profession and have shaped our futures. 

Science fiction doesn't set out to predict what will happen, it's far more about how human beings react to "What if'..." but, it is fascinating to see how science fiction and reality sometimes converge, and also sometimes take extraordinarily different paths. 

Ten Billion Tomorrows sorts through many familiar SF devices and looks at contemporary scientific research to determine their feasibility.  Although some scientific concepts like quantum tunneling are complicated the book is very accessible to the general reader.

Mixing remarkable science with the imagination of our greatest science fiction writers, Ten Billion Tomorrows will delight science fiction lovers and popular science devotees alike.

Tyson

See Also Michio Kaku Video on the Physics of the Future

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: Searching for the Oldest Stars

Searching for the Oldest Stars: Ancient Relics from the Early Universe

by Anna Frebel 
 
Astronomers study the oldest observable stars in the universe in much the same way that archaeologists study ancient artifacts on Earth. Here, Anna Frebel, who is credited with discovering several of the oldest and most primitive stars using the world's largest telescopes, takes readers into the far-flung depths of space and time to provide a gripping firsthand account of the cutting-edge science of stellar archaeology. 

Weaving the latest findings in astronomy with her own compelling insights as one of the world's leading researchers in the field, Frebel explains how sections of the night sky are "excavated" in the hunt for these extremely rare relic stars, some of which have been shining for more than 13 billion years.  

This astonishing quest to find the oldest stars is revealing tantalizing new details about the earliest times in the universe. Frebel vividly describes how the very first stars formed soon after the big bang and then exploded as supernovae, leaving behind chemical fingerprints that were incorporated into the ancient stars we can still observe today. She shows how these fingerprints provide clues to the cosmic origin of the elements, early star and galaxy formation, and the assembly process of the Milky Way. 

Along the way, Frebel recounts her own stories of discovery, offering an insider's perspective on this exciting frontier of science. Packed with great diagrams this book sheds vital new light on the origins and evolution of the cosmos while providing a unique look into scientific discovery and life as an astronomer. 

Tyson

Anna Frebel about the oldest star yet discovered. (Youtube)

 

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: SPQR

S. P. Q. R. : A History of Ancient Rome

by Mary Beard 

In S.P.Q.R., world renowned classicist Mary Beard narrates the unprecedented rise of a civilization that even two thousand years later still shapes many of our most fundamental assumptions about power, citizenship, responsibility, political violence, empire, luxury, and beauty. 

S.P.Q.R. (the abbreviation of "The Senate and People of Rome") examines not just how we think of ancient Rome but challenges the comfortable historical perspectives that have existed for centuries by exploring how the Romans thought of themselves: how they challenged the idea of imperial rule, how they responded to terrorism and revolution, and how they invented a new idea of citizenship and nation.

Illustrating how a classical democracy yielded to a self-confident and self-critical empire, S.P.Q.R. reintroduces us, though in a wholly different way, to famous and familiar characters, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Augustus, and Nero, among others, while expanding the historical aperture to include those overlooked in traditional histories: the women, the slaves and ex-slaves, conspirators, and those on the losing side of Rome's glorious conquests.  

Like the best detectives, Beard sifts fact from fiction, myth and propaganda from historical record, refusing either simple admiration or blanket condemnation. Far from being frozen in marble, Roman history, she shows, is constantly being revised and rewritten as our knowledge expands. 

Indeed, our perceptions of ancient Rome have changed dramatically over the last fifty years, and S.P.Q.R., with its nuanced attention to class inequality, democratic struggles, and the lives of entire groups of people omitted from the historical narrative for centuries, promises to reshape our view of Roman history. 

Tyson

 Mary Beard on S.P.Q.R.

What's new in Fiction and Mystery for November?

Wondering what's coming out in Fiction and Mystery for November?  Here are a few titles:

Tricky Twenty-Two by Janet Evanovich

Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum is back!

The Crossing by Michael Connelly

Harry Bosch is retired, but he is still on the case.  His defense attorney half-brother now needs his help.

The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende

Alma Belasco is in a nursing home but her affair with a Japanese gardener continues over the years.

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: ARDENNES 1944

Ardennes 1944: The Battle of the Bulge

by Antony Beevor



The prizewinning historian and bestselling author of D-Day and Stalingrad reconstructs the Battle of the Bulge in this riveting new account.

On December 16, 1944, Hitler launched his 'last gamble' in the snow-covered forests and gorges of the Ardennes in Belgium, believing he could split the Allies by driving all the way to Antwerp and forcing the Canadians and the British out of the war. Although his generals were doubtful of success, younger officers and NCOs were desperate to believe that their homes and families could be saved from the vengeful Red Army approaching from the east.

Many were exultant at the prospect of striking back. The allies, taken by surprise, found themselves fighting two panzer armies. Belgian civilians abandoned their homes, justifiably afraid of German revenge. Panic spread even to Paris. While some American soldiers, overwhelmed by the German onslaught, fled or surrendered, others held on heroically, creating breakwaters which slowed the German advance.

The harsh winter conditions and the savagery of the battle became comparable to the Eastern Front. In fact the Ardennes became the Western Front's counterpart to Stalingrad. There was terrible ferocity on both sides, driven by desperation and revenge, in which the normal rules of combat were breached.

In this deeply researched work, with striking insights into the major players on both sides, Antony Beevor gives us the definitive account of the Ardennes offensive, which was to become the battle which finally broke the back of the Wehrmacht.

Tyson

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: Science of the Magical

Science of the Magical: From the Holy Grail to Love Potions to Superpowers

by Matt Kaplan

From a noted science journalist, this engaging scientific inquiry provides a definitive look into the elements of mystical places and magical objects, from the philosopher's stone, to love potions, to the oracles, from ancient history, mythology, and contemporary culture. 

Can migrations of birds foretell our future? Do phases of the moon hold sway over our lives? Are there sacred springs that cure the ill? What is the best way to brew a love potion? How do we create mutant humans who regenerate like Wolverine? 

Matt Kaplan plumbs the rich, lively, and surprising history of the magical objects, places, and rituals that infuse ancient and contemporary myth. Ranging across cultures and time periods, Kaplan points out that there is often much more to these enduring magical narratives than mere fantasy.

Informative and entertaining, Science of the Magical explores our world through the compelling scope of natural and human history and cutting-edge science.

Tyson

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: The Secret of Our Success

The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter

by Joseph Henrich 

Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often failing to overcome even basic challenges, like obtaining food, building shelters, or avoiding predators. 

On the other hand, human groups have produced ingenious technologies, sophisticated languages, and complex institutions that have permitted us to successfully expand into a vast range of diverse environments. What has enabled us to dominate the globe, more than any other species, while remaining virtually helpless as lone individuals?

 This book shows that the secret of our success lies not in our innate intelligence, but in our collective brains, on the ability of human groups to socially interconnect and learn from one another over generations. Drawing insights from lost European explorers, clever chimpanzees, mobile hunter-gatherers, neuro-scientific findings, ancient bones, and the human genome, Joseph Henrich demonstrates how our collective brains have propelled our species' genetic evolution and shaped our biology.

Henrich shows how our genetics and biology are inextricably interwoven with cultural evolution, and how culture-gene interactions launched our species on an extraordinary evolutionary trajectory. 

 

Tyson

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: The Witches: Salem 1692

The Witches: Salem 1692

by Stacy Schiff


The Pulitzer Prize winning author of Cleopatra, unpacks the mystery of the Salem Witch Trials. 

It began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister's daughter began to scream and convulse. It ended less than a year later, but not before 19 men and women had been hanged and an elderly man crushed to death. 

The panic spread quickly, involving the most educated men and prominent politicians in the colony. Neighbors accused neighbors, parents and children each other. Aside from suffrage, the Salem Witch Trials represent the only moment when women played the central role in American history. 

In curious ways, the trials would shape the future republic. As psychologically thrilling as it is historically seminal, The Witches is Stacy Schiff's account of this fantastical story. The first great American mystery unveiled fully for the first time by one of our most acclaimed historians. A fascinating narrative of one of the most infamous trials in American history.

Tyson

       Stacy Schiff Interview 

What's New in Mystery and Fiction for October

Wondering what's coming out in mystery and fiction for October?  Here are a few titles:

Woman Who Walked in Sunshine:  No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

All the Stars in the Heavens by Adriana Trigiani


City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: HISTORY'S PEOPLE

History's People: Personalities and the Past
 
by Margaret MacMillan
In History's People internationally acclaimed historian Margaret MacMillan, author of Paris 1919, gives her own personal selection of figures of the past. 

She selects the women and men, some famous and some little-known, who stand out for her. Some have changed the course of history and even directed the currents of their times. Others are memorable for being risk-takers, adventurers, or observers. 

She looks at the concept of leadership through Bismarck and the unification of Germany; William Lyon MacKenzie King and the preservation of the Canadian Federation; Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the bringing of a unified United States into the Second World War. 

She also notes how leaders can make huge and often destructive mistakes, as in the cases of Hitler, Stalin, and Thatcher. Richard Nixon and Samuel de Champlain are examples of daring risk-takers who stubbornly went their own ways, often in defiance of their own societies. 

Then there are the dreamers, explorers, and adventurers, individuals like Fanny Parkes and Elizabeth Simcoe who manage to defy or ignore the constraints of their own societies. 

Finally, there are the observers, such as Babur, the first Mughal emperor of India, and Victor Klemperer, a Holocaust survivor, who kept the notes and diaries that bring the past to life.
 

Tyson

 

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: BLACK FLAGS

Black Flags: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of the Islamic State
 
by Joby Warrick


In a thrilling dramatic narrative, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Joby Warrick traces how the strain of militant Islam behind ISIS first arose in a remote Jordanian prison and spread with the unwitting aid of two American presidents.

When the government of Jordan granted amnesty to a group of political prisoners in 1999, it little realized that among them was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist mastermind and soon the architect of an Islamist movement bent on dominating the Middle East. Joby Warrick shows how the zeal of this one man and the strategic mistakes of Presidents Bush and Obama led to the banner of ISIS being raised over huge swaths of Syria and Iraq. 

Zarqawi began by directing terror attacks from a base in northern Iraq, but it was the American invasion in 2003 that catapulted him to the head of a vast insurgency. By falsely identifying him as the link between Saddam and bin Laden, U.S. officials inadvertently spurred like-minded radicals to rally to his cause. Their wave of brutal beheadings and suicide bombings persisted until American and Jordanian intelligence discovered clues that led to a lethal airstrike on Zarqawi's hideout in 2006. 

His movement, however, endured. First calling themselves al-Qaeda in Iraq, then Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, his followers sought refuge in unstable, ungoverned pockets on the Iraq-Syria border. When the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, and as the U.S. largely stood by, ISIS seized its chance to pursue Zarqawi's dream of an ultra-conservative Islamic caliphate. 

Drawing on unique high-level access to CIA and Jordanian sources, Warrick weaves gripping, moment-by-moment operational details with the perspectives of diplomats and spies, generals and heads of state, many of whom foresaw a menace worse than al Qaeda and tried desperately to stop it. Black Flags is a brilliant and definitive history that reveals the long arc of today's most dangerous extremist threat. 

Tyson

Joby Warrick on MSNBC

Book Spotlight: Operation Long Jump

 Operation Long Jump: Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill, and the Greatest Assassination Plot in History

by Bill Yenne

In the middle of World War II, Nazi military intelligence discovered a seemingly easy way to win the war for Adolf Hitler. The three heads of the Allied forces, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Josef Stalin, were planning to meet in Tehran in October, 1943. 

Under Hitler's personal direction, the Nazis launched "Operation Long Jump," an intricate plan to track the Allied leaders in Tehran and assassinate all three men at the same time. "I suppose it would make a pretty good haul if they could get all three of us," Roosevelt later said. 

Historian Bill Yenne retells the incredible, globe-spanning story of the most ambitious assassination plot ever thwarted in Operation Long Jump.

Tyson

 

 

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: GENGHIS KHAN

Genghis Khan: His Conquests, His Empire, His Legacy

by Frank McLynn 
 
Mongol leader Genghis Khan was by far the greatest conqueror the world has ever known. His empire stretched from the Pacific Ocean to central Europe, including all of China, the Middle East, and Russia.

So how did an illiterate nomad rise to such colossal power and subdue most of the known world, eclipsing Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Napoleon? Credited by some with paving the way for the Renaissance, condemned by others for being the most heinous murderer in history, who was Genghis Khan? 

His actual name was Temujin, and the story of his success is that of the Mongol people: a loose collection of fractious tribes who tended livestock, considered bathing taboo, and possessed an unparalleled genius for horseback warfare. United under Genghis, a strategist of astonishing cunning and versatility, they could dominate any sedentary society they chose. 

Combining fast-paced accounts of battles with rich cultural background and the latest scholarship, Frank McLynn brings vividly to life the strange world of the Mongols. The most accurate and absorbing account yet of one of the most powerful men ever to have lived.

Frank McLynn has written an informative general account of Genghis Khan and his times.  An ambitious task given the lack of reliable sources however, McLynn pulls it of with an intriguing look into Mongol society.

Tyson

 

MOVIE SPOTLIGHT - Love Is Strange

When George (Alfred Molina) loses his job teaching music at a Roman Catholic school because of his sexuality, his husband Ben (John Lithgow) and he can no longer afford their mortgage, must sell their co-op, and move in with family.  Director Ira Sachs' unsentimental and graceful portrayal of family dynamics, well meaning but somewhat clueless relatives and George and Ben, the "old married couple", is one of intimacy, tragedy and resilience.

Come to the Wellesley Friday Morning Book/Movie Group this Friday, September 18 at 10AM to join in our discussion of the movie. Copies of the movie are available at the Reference Desk on the 2nd floor.

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: FALL OF THE OTTOMANS

The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East

by Eugene Rogan

In 1914 the Ottoman Empire was depleted of men and resources after years of war against Balkan nationalist and Italian forces. But in the aftermath of the assassination in Sarajevo, the powers of Europe were sliding inexorably toward war, and not even the Middle East could escape the vast and enduring consequences of one of the most destructive conflicts in human history. 

The Great War spelled the end of the Ottomans, unleashing powerful forces that

would forever change the face of the Middle East. In The Fall of the Ottomans , award-winning historian Eugene Rogan brings the First World War and its immediate aftermath in the Middle East to vivid life, uncovering the often ignored story of the region's crucial role in the conflict.

Bolstered by German money, arms, and military advisers, the Ottomans took on the Russian, British, and French forces, and tried to provoke Jihad against the Allies in their Muslim colonies. Unlike the static killing fields of the Western Front, the war in the Middle East was fast-moving and unpredictable, with the Turks inflicting decisive defeats on the Entente in Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and Gaza before the tide of battle turned in the Allies' favor. The great cities of Baghdad, Jerusalem, and, finally, Damascus fell to invading armies before the Ottomans agreed to an armistice in 1918. 

The postwar settlement led to the partition of Ottoman lands between the victorious powers, and laid the groundwork for the ongoing conflicts that continue to plague the modern Arab world. A sweeping narrative of battles and political intrigue from Gallipoli to Arabia, The Fall of the Ottomans is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the Great War and the making of the modern Middle East.

Tyson

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: DRAGON HEART

Dragon Heart

by Cecelia Holland
 
   Where the Cape of the Winds juts into the endless sea, there is Castle Ocean, and therein dwells the royal family that has ruled it from time immemorial. But there is an Empire growing in the east, and its forces have reached the castle. 

King Reymarro is dead in battle, and by the new treaty, Queen Marioza must marry one of the Emperor's brothers. She loathes the idea, and has already killed the first brother, but a second arrives, escorted by more soldiers. While Marioza delays, her youngest son, Jeon, goes on a journey in search of his mute twin, Tirza, who needs to be present for the wedding. 

As Jeon and Tirza return by sea, their ship is attacked by a shocking and powerful dragon, red as blood and big as the ship. Thrown into the water, Tirza clings to the dragon, and after an underwater journey, finds herself alone with the creature in an inland sea pool. Surprisingly, she is able to talk to the beast, and understand it.

Cecelia Holland is a distinguished writer of historical fiction. Many of her books take place during the middle ages, including her first book, the Firedrake about William the conqueror. Holland incorporates her knowledge of medieval times and uses it in her world building. Her abbots, princesses, and  knights act as their medieval counterparts might have.

Dragon Heart is full of political plotting, violence, destruction, and death, by a seasoned author known for her character building and attention to historical detail.

Tyson

epic violence, intense battle, deep love

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: ZERO NIGHT

Zero Night: The Untold Story of World War Two's Greatest Escape
 
by Mark Felton 

On August 30, 1942 - 'Zero Night' - 40 Allied officers staged the most audacious mass escape of World War II. Months of meticulous planning and secret training hung in the balance during three minutes of mayhem as the officers boldly stormed the huge double fences at Oflag Prison. 

Employing wooden ladders and bridges previously disguised as bookshelves, the highly coordinated effort succeeded and set 36 men free into the German countryside. Later known as the 'Warburg Wire Job', fellow prisoner and fighter ace Douglas Bader once described the attempt as 'the most brilliant escape conception of this war'. 

The first author to tackle this remarkable story in detail, historian Mark Felton brilliantly evokes the suspense of the escape and the adventures of those escapees who managed to elude the Germans, as well as the courage of the civilians who risked their lives to help them in enemy territory. Told with a novelist's eye for drama and detail, this rip-roaring adventure is all the more thrilling because it really happened. 

Tyson

What's New in Fiction and Mystery for September?

Wondering what's coming out in fiction and mystery for September?  Here are a few titles:

The Last Midwife by Sandra Dallas
It's 1880 and Gracy Brookens is the only midwife in a small mining town in Colorado.

Come Rain or Come Shine by Jan Karon
Dooley Kavanagh, Father Tim's adopted son, has graduated from veterinary school and is planning his wedding.

After You by JoJo Moyes
The sequel to the best-seller Me Before You.

The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny
The latest book in the Chief Inspector Gamache series.

maf