The Printed Page

The Coral Thief by Rebecca Stott

Paris, 1815. Napoleon has just surrendered at Waterloo and is on his way to the island of St. Helena to begin his exile. Meanwhile, Daniel Connor, a young medical student from Edinburgh, has just arrived in Paris to study anatomy at the Jardin des Plantes-only to realize that his letters of introduction and a gift of precious coral specimens, on which his tenure with the legendary Dr. Cuvier depends, have been stolen by the beautiful woman with whom he shared a stagecoach.

In the fervor and tumult of post revolutionary Paris, nothing is quite as it seems. In trying to recover his lost valuables, Daniel discovers that his beautiful adversary is in fact a philosopher-thief who lives in a shadowy world of outlaws and émigrés. Daniel’s fall into this underworld is also a flight, for as he falls in love with the mysterious coral thief and she draws him into an audacious plot that will leave him with a future very different from the one he has envisioned for himself, Daniel discovers a radical theory of evolution and mutability that irrevocably changes his conception of the world in which he lives.

Married by Morning (Hathaways, book #4) by Lisa Kleypas

Leo Hathaway must marry and produce an heir within a year to save his family home. Catherine Marks is intriguing and infernally tempting but hides a secret that could utterly destroy her. Can two wary lovers find a way to banish the shadows and give in to their desires?

Beyond the Blossoming Fields by Jun’Ichi Watanabe

As a young girl, Ginko Ogino seems set for a conventional life, cushioned by the male-dominated society of nineteenth-century Japan. But when she contracts gonorrhoea from her husband – an illness then thought to be incurable – she is divorced and disowned by her own family. Unable to bear the humiliation of being treated by a male doctor, she resolves to become a doctor herself. As more and more obstacles are placed before her, will she give in to social pressure or continue to fight against her world and her times A huge bestseller in Japan, where it sold over three million copies, “Beyond the Blossoming Fields” is the real-life story of Japan’s first female physician and a timeless parable on the power of love and idealism.

The Cat, the professor and the poison (Cats in Trouble, book #2) by Leann Sweeney

Between her kitty quilt-making business and her three beloved cats, Jill has her hands full. That doesn’t stop her from wanting to solve the mystery of the milk cow that’s gone missing from her friend’s farm. But imagine her surprise when a stolen cow leads to the discovery of fifty stray cats and one dead body-a victim of cold-blooded murder…

The King James Conspiracy by Phillip Depoy

‘The turning of the wheel by the tilling of the wheat.’

With these cryptic words, a conspiracy is set into motion that threatens the new translation of the Bible ordered by King James I, and the lives of the scholars working on it.

In 1605, in Cambridge England, one of the groups of scholars brought together to create a definitive English translation of the Bible finds one of its members savagely murdered by unknown hands. Deacon Marbury, the man in charge of this group, seeks outside help to find the murderer, to protect the innocents and their work. But the people who offer to help are not who they claim to be and the man they send to Marbury – Brother Timon – has a secret past, much blood on his hands, and is an agent for those forces that wish to halt the translation itself. But as the hidden killer continues his gruesome work, the body count among the scholars continues to rise. Brother Timon is torn between his loyalties and believes, an even greater crisis looms as ancient and alarming secrets are revealed – secrets dating back to the earliest days of Christianity that threaten the most basic of its closely held beliefs.