It’s Contest Time Again!

Yes, indeed, it’s freebie time again! Leave a comment below and on as

many other posts as you want between now and the end of the

day next Wednesday, July 20th. Each comment will earn you

an entry into the random drawing for one of these

fine ARCs. Open to US and Canadian residents.

Winners will be announced on July 21st.

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Blasphemy by Douglas Preston (2008)—The world’s biggest supercollider, locked in an Arizona mountain, was built to reveal the secrets of the very moment of creation: the Big Bang itself. The Torus is the most expensive machine ever created by humankind, run by the world’s most powerful supercomputer. It is the brainchild of Nobel Laureate William North Hazelius. Will the Torus divulge the mysteries of the creation of the universe? Or will it, as some predict, suck the earth into a mini black hole? Or is the Torus a Satanic attempt, as a powerful televangelist decries, to challenge God Almighty on the very throne of Heaven? Twelve scientists under the leadership of Hazelius are sent to the remote mountain to turn it on, and what they discover must be hidden from the world at all costs. Wyman Ford, ex-monk and CIA operative, is tapped to wrest their secret, a secret that will either destroy the world…or save it. The countdown begins…

The Time Quake (The Gideon Trilogy #3) by Linda Buckley-Archer (2009)—kids—Time itself is splintering. If the catastrophic consequences of time travel are now impossible to ignore, Lord Luxon only has eyes for its awesome possibilities. He has his sights set on no lesser prize than America. Abducted to 1763, Peter and Kate begin to understand that history has arrived at its tipping point. Adrift in time, Kate transforms into an oracle, able to see the future as easily as the past. While Gideon does all he can to help, he is tormented by the knowledge that The Tar Man, his nemesis, is also his own brother. As they pursue him through the dark streets of eighteenth-century London, and the time quakes begin, Peter realises that this monster may hold the fate of all of us in his hands.

Angel with Two Faces by Nicola Upson (2010)—Exhausted and disillusioned with the world of theater in May 1935, Josephine Tey has traveled to Cornwall to spend the summer with her friends the Motleys at their run-down but beautiful country estate. Ready to begin work on her second mystery novel, Tey finds much to inspire her in the landscape and its legends. Meanwhile, the Motleys have become involved in an amateur production at the nearby Minack Theater. Detective Inspector Archie Penrose has returned to his roots in Cornwall to attend the funeral of a family friend, a young estate worker who died in a tragic riding accident. Penrose has a few questions about the circumstances surrounding the fatal occurrence. And when the Minack Theater proves to be the stage for a real-life tragedy, Penrose and Tey together must investigate an audacious murder and confront an evil suggesting that there are darker things than death.

Stork Raving Mad by Donna Andrews (2010)—Meg’s expecting twins—any minute!—in this next hilarious entry in the award-winning, “New York Times” bestselling series! Meg is eight and a half months pregnant with twins when Michael asks if she wouldn’t mind another houseguest. One of his doctoral students is directing his new translation of a play by a minor Spanish playwright, and the playwright has agreed to come to town for the production. Senor Mendoza turns out to be a drinker, a smoker, and an inveterate partygoer. Before long, Meg’s kitchen is filled with the smells of Spanish food and the voices of all the wilder souls in both the drama and Spanish departments. Into this chaos arrive two  prune-faced administrators, the dean of the English department and a man from the college president’s office, who say that the play must be canceled. When the dean is found murdered, Meg’s house becomes a crime scene, and the only way to restore peace is to help Chief Burke solve the murders—while rescuing the student’s dissertation and Michael’s tenure—all before dashing off to the hospital to give birth to her twins!

Enduring by Donald Harington (2009)—Forty years ago Donald Harington created the little town of Stay More, hidden away in the hills of the Ozarks. He populated it with generations of families that had escaped the Appalachians in search of more room, greener pastures, freedom from convention, sweeter air and water, or, simply, a world where time and history do not matter. In Enduring, Harington continues the themes of the Stay More series and reveals, for the first time, the mysteries of the life of Latha Bourne, the heroine and demigoddess of Lightning Bug, The Choiring of the Trees, and other Harington classics. Latha is set apart from her fellow Stay Morons, as Harington affectionately calls them, by her beauty, wit, mystery, and intense, unfullfilled sexuality.

Outside Valentine by Liza Ward (2004)—Many long years have passed since the winter of blinding white when Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate drove across the hushed midwestern landscape and left a trail of blood and pain. So why does Lowell, a Manhattan collector of antiquities, still dream of what happened, despite his wife’s best attempts to draw him back and offer comfort? And who is Susan, the teenager who appoints herself a detective, piecing together the story of the murders while wondering if she’ll ever be loved like Starkweather loved his girl? And then there’s Caril Ann herself, who takes us back to relive the ride she swears she could not control. It began on the day Charlie first saw her, dangling her bare legs off the edge of a tree house. It ended outside Valentine, Nebraska, on that night when she still believed that life could somehow go back to being normal . . . Every so often a novel comes along that is capable of redeeming the losses it so devastatingly conveys. Disturbing, bittersweet, and lyrical, Liza Ward’s Outside Valentine is a story of people torn apart by tragedy and yet, finally, transformed by love.

Blonde Bombshell by Tom Holt (2010)—The year is 2017. Lucy Pavlov is the CEO of PavSoft Industries, home of a revolutionary operating system that every computer in the world runs on. Her personal wealth is immeasurable, her intelligence is unfathomable, and she’s been voted World’s Most Beautiful Woman for three years running. To put it simply – she has it all. But not everything is quite right in Lucy’s life. For starters, she has no memories prior to 2015. She also keeps having run-ins with a unicorn. And to make matters even worse, a bomb is hurtling through interstellar space, headed straight for Lucy – and the planet known as Earth.

Soul Catcher by Leigh Bridger (2009)—From the gothic eccentricity of Asheville, North Carolina to the terrifying recesses of the Appalachian wilderness, from modern demonology to ancient Cherokee mythology, Soul Catcher follows the tormented journey of folk artist Livia Belane, who is a Soul Catcher, a soul dedicated to riding the world of evil beings through capturing and destroying their essence and who has been stalked through many lives by a sadistic and vengeful demon. Livia and her loved ones, including her frontier-era soulmate and husband, Ian, a Soul Hunter, have never beaten the demon before. Now, in this life, he’s found them again. The Soul Catcher by Leigh Bridger is dark urban fantasy that takes a walk on the wild side and is a quick read and a page turner.

The Unit by Terry DeHart (2010)—In a world gone mad, one ordinary, suburban family must find a way to survive. But each member of the Sharpe family must struggle in their own way.
The father: is an ex-marine and, for him, survival means protecting his family by any means necessary.
The mother: is learning just how much she will sacrifice for her children.
The daughter: was going to go to college. Now, her only hope is to hold on to what’s right.
The son: is discovering a brave new world – a world with only one choice to make: kill or be killed.
When survival is on the line, what wouldn’t you do for your family?

Liberating Paris by Linda Bloodworth Thomason (2004)—Woodrow McIlmore is leading the perfect life in Paris, Arkansas: married to his high school sweetheart, he has two wonderful children and a warm circle of family and friends. When Wood’s daughter announces that she wants to marry a college classmate, Wood is stunned. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg — her intended is the son of the woman who left Wood twenty years earlier, the free-spirited Duff. And so begins a tumultuous year in Paris, as Duff returns and familiar sparks fly with her old flame. Their rekindled passion affects not only Wood and Duff but also their good friends, as they must now all decide what in their lives is worth keeping and what needs to be thrown away.