Books for LDS Readers. Tips for LDS Writers.
New releases by LDS authors.
Title: Wordsmith, v.1: The Veil of Heaven
Author: Michael R. Collings
Publisher: Wildside Press
Release Date: March 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-1434402806
Size: 316 pages, 6×9, softcover
Genre: Speculative
This is Omne, a world of perpetual clouds without metals, machines, or technology, whose people harbor the secrets of an unimaginable power that can be used for destruction–or redemption!
Author: Liz Adair
Publisher: Inglestone Publishing
Release Date: January 30, 2009
ISBN: 978-0977881468
Size: 335 pages, 6×9, softcover
Genre: Romance
With strong characters, true-to-life emotion, gentle humor, meticulous attention to detail and historical accuracy, Liz Adair paints a passionate tale of love and learning, of romance and redemption.
Title: The Soul Alliance: The Thorn of Gooze
Author: Charles Streams
Publisher: Central Orb Publishing (self)
Release Date: March 11, 2009
ISBN: 978-0981881829
Size: 566 pages, 6×9, softcover
Genre: YA Fantasy
Series: Respites of Power (v1)
Roger Torrents, Israel Mckinley, and the Soul Alliance are on the search for the Ancient Treasures of Chanulville that have been scattered in different ruins throughout Mexico and protected by unknown dangers. In addition to the perils they will face abroad, secret plans are afoot on the home front in Utah and Chanulville. Blaine Warnock, Claudette Alberteau, and the other ex-Chosen Ones show up in Valley View to disrupt the everyday lives of the Chosen Ones, while Lord Rayo enlists the services of Gooze, a mysterious Soul Freezer that lives in the mountains of Chanulville. Will the Soul Alliance be able to recover the Ancient Treasures to move one step closer to healing the Central Orb? And when the prick of the Thorn of Gooze is felt throughout Chanulville, will they all survive until the next spring equinox?
Title: Taken by Storm
Author: Angela Morrison
Publisher: Penguin/Razorbill
Release Date: March 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-1595142382
Size: 292 pages, hardcover
Genre: YA, Romance
Leesie Hunt has many rules: No kissing. No sex. No dating outside the Mormon faith.
When Michael Walden—a deep-sea diver who lost his parents in a violent hurricane—arrives in town, Leesie sees someone who needs her. They fall for one another, even though his dreams are tied to the depths of the ocean and hers to salvation above.
Will their intense chemistry be too strong to resist?
Leesie and Michael must make the hardest choice of their lives: whether to follow their beliefs or their hearts.
Readers will be swept away by this tale of forbidden romance told in online chats, Leesie’s chapbook poems, and Michael’s dive log. It’s as steamy as Twilight and just as clean.
Title: Everything Is Fine
Author: Ann Dee Ellis
Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers
Release Date: March 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0316013642
Size: 160 pages, hardcover
Genre: Middle Grade
Stuck at home caring for her severely depressed mother and abandoned by her father, Mazzy has only the day-to-day dramas of her neighborhood to keep her busy. But between flirting with the boy next door and worrying about the fact that she’s flat-chested, Mazzy has to face the fact that her mom is emotionally paralyzed by a family tragedy. As readers delve into the story, they’ll eventually discover what it was that tore Mazzy’s family apart, and they’ll see what it takes to put it back together.
Despite its serious subject matter, Mazzy brings humor to the trying age of adolescence and gives readers just the kind of awkward, troubled, and endearing character they will gladly embrace.
Title: Amaranth Enchantment
Author: Julie Berry
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books
Release Date: March 3, 2009
ISBN: 978-1599903347
Size: 320 pages, hardcover
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy
When Lucinda Chapdelaine was a small child, her parents left for the royal ball and never returned. Ever since, Lucinda has been stuck in perpetual servitude at her evil aunt’s jewelry store. Then, on the very same day, a mysterious visitor and an even more bizarre piece of jewelry both enter the shop, setting in motion a string of twists and turns that will forever alter Lucinda’s path. In this magical story filled with delightful surprises, Lucinda will dance at the royal ball, fall under the Amaranth Witch’s spell, avenge her parents’ death, and maybe—just maybe—capture the heart of a prince.
Title: I Am Not a Serial Killer
Author: Dan Wells
Publisher: Headline
Release Date: March 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-0755348817
Size: 288 pages, 5.5×8.5, softcover
Genre: Speculative
I Am Not a Serial Killer is the story of John Cleaver, a 15-year-old sociopath who works in a mortuary, dreams about death, and thinks he might be turning into a serial killer. He sets strict rules to keep himself “good” and “normal,” but when a real monster shows up in his town he has to let his dark side out in order to stop it–but without his rules to keep him in check, he might be more dangerous than the monster he’s trying to kill.
The book is currently available in the UK. It comes out in Germany this fall, and launches in the US in the Spring of 2010. You can buy it on amazon.co.uk, borders.co.uk, waterstones.com, and play.com. For overseas orders I recommend bookdepository.co.uk, which ships for free anywhere in the world.
Kindle version of book available in US.
US edition to be published by TOR; available March 30, 2010.
Title: Just One Wish
Author: Janette Rallison
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile
Release Date: March 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-0399246180
Size: 272 pages, hardcover
Genre: YA, Romance
Seventeen-year-old Annika Truman knows about the power of positive thinking. With a little brother who has cancer, it’s all she ever hears about. And in order to help Jeremy, she will go to the ends of the earth (or at least as far as Hollywood) to help him believe he can survive his upcoming surgery.
But Annika’s plan to convince Jeremy that a magic genie will grant him any wish throws her a curveball when he unexpectedly wishes that his television idol would visit him. Annika suddenly fi nds herself in the desperate predicament of getting access to a hunky star actor and convincing him to come home with her. Piece of cake, right?
Title: Lockdown
Author: Tracy Hunter Abramson
Publisher: Covenant Communications
Release Date: March, 2008
ISBN:
Size: 6×9, softcover
Genre: Suspense
Only twice had she set foot inside the building since the massacre. The first time had been just a month after the tragedy .. . . The second time she had returned to the scene of the crime had been two days ago when she forced herself to enter the building to check on the temporary office for the SEAL team. The counselor she had seen in the months after the shooting had encouraged her to face her fears, but now . . . Riley wasn’t sure she was ready to face them after all.
Caught up in a hostage situation that is hauntingly familiar, Riley Palmetta once more finds her life hanging in the balance. What starts out as a well-organized and highly intensive training course for the prevention of random acts of terror quickly turns into a real-life nightmare of suspense and intrigue that will test the faith and finely honed skills of Tristan Crowther and his elite group of LDS Navy SEALS. For Tristan, this is not only a race to save lives; it is a deeply personal mission that moves relentlessly toward an irreversible crisis. And life—as well as love—is on the line.
Title: The Hunt for Dark Infinity (The 13th Reality, vol 2)
Author: James Dashner
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Release Date: March 4, 2009
ISBN: 978-1606410349
Size: 464 pages, hardback
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy
Series: The Journal of Curious Letters
It’s been a quiet summer for Tick, Paul, and Sofia, but the latest message from Master George changes everything. The Realities are in danger and from something more terrible than Mistress Jane and the mutated Chi karda of the Thirteenth Reality. People from all Realities are unexplainably going insane. Worse, some Realities are fragmenting, disintegrating into nothingness. Master George has learned that Mr. Chu from the Fourth Reality is working on a mysterious new weapon called Dark Infinity. But no one has any idea how to stop the weapon or even if it can be stopped. To make matters worse, Tick and his friends have been kidnapped, forced to wink from Reality to Reality, solving impossible riddles in order to survive the deadly traps surrounding them. Mistress Jane and Tick find themselves in a race to reach the weapon first but who will destroy it and who will become its master?
Title: Missing Pieces
Author: Jeni Grossman
Publisher: Covenant Communications, Inc.
Release Date:
ISBN: 978-1598116434
Size: 6×9, softcover
Genre: Mystery/Suspense
CNN reporter Dulcey Moore kisses her children goodbye and flies to the Middle East to document history in the making: the excavation of a magnificent golden goddess statue in the fallen city of Zeugma, Turkey. Yet when terrorists attack her entourage, a perilous political plot is revealed. Al Qaeda henchman Aboud is hunting the statue to fulfill an ancient prophecy that would grant the extremists ultimate power over Islam. The CIA has gone undercover in Zeugma to prevent this coup. The safety of the free world now hinges on the fate of the golden goddess-and the excavation hinges on the cooperation of Americans and Turks. With the help of native guide Asena, Dulcey navigates the power struggles and cultural clashes that arise as the dig progresses. But as tensions mount outside and inside the excavation camp, she struggles to distinguish friends from enemies. In a pulse-pounding race to secure the goddess, Dulcey learns the value of honor, family, and heritage as she risks her life to preserve her most precious treasures.
Title: Winds of Hope
Author: Anita Stansfield
Publisher: Covenant Communications, Inc.
Date: February 2009
ISBN: 978-1598117288
Size: 360 pages, 6×9, softcover
Genre: Romance
Series: The Sound of Rain, A Distant Thunder
When it came time for Will and Elizabeth to leave, Jayson felt like a lost child, alone and terrified. Elizabeth whispered near his ear, “I will be praying for you constantly. God will get you through this, Jayson. Nobody else can. He will give you the peace and the strength you need.” Jayson nodded but couldn’t speak. He turned and walked away, feeling as if he were about to literally descend into the depths of hell. And nobody could spare him from the inevitable consequences of the choices he’d made to bring himself to this point. Not even God could do that. With all the pain and loss he has suffered over the last twenty years, does Jayson have the courage to trust the healing power of the Atonement? To allow his spirit to be touched by a child’s testimony? To replace doubt and skepticism with love and forgiveness?
In this third chapter of the Jayson Wolfe story, best-selling LDS author Anita Stansfield once again demonstrates her profound understanding of human nature. As the resilience of family relationships are put to the ultimate test, Winds of Hope gently yet powerfully carries the reader through the pages of this exceptionally heartfelt and moving love story.
Title: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Author: Jamie Ford
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Date: January 27, 2009
ISBN: 978-0345505330
Size: 304 pages, hardcover
Genre: General, Historical
Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle’s Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, the owner opens a Japanese parasol.
This simple act takes old Henry Lee back to the 1940s, at the height of the war, when young Henry’s world is a jumble of confusion and excitement, and to his father, who is obsessed with the war in China and having Henry grow up American. While “scholarshipping” at the exclusive Rainier Elementary, where the white kids ignore him, Henry meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American student. Amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, Henry and Keiko forge a bond of friendship–and innocent love–that transcends the long-standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. And after Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end, and that their promise to each other will be kept.
Forty years later, Henry Lee is certain that the parasol belonged to Keiko. In the hotel’s dark dusty basement he begins looking for signs of the Okabe family’s belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot begin to measure. Now a widower, Henry is still trying to find his voice–words that might explain the actions of his nationalistic father; words that might bridge the gap between him and his modern, Chinese American son; words that might help him confront the choices he made many years ago.
Set during one of the most conflicted and volatile times in American history, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an extraordinary story of commitment and enduring hope. In Henry and Keiko, Jamie Ford has created an unforgettable duo whose story teaches us of the power of forgiveness and the human heart.
Title: Torn Apart
Author: Diony George
Publisher: Cedar Fort/Bonneville Books
Release Date: February 10, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-59955-244-6
Size: 256 pages, 6×9, softcover
Genre: General
Alyson thinks her life is perfect. Hectic and tiring, of course, but no more so than any other wife and mother of four boys. But with her husband becoming increasingly distant, Alyson wonders if there s something she s doing wrong. Little does she know that the actions of someone she loves dearly are about to change her life forever.
Alyson never imagined it could happen to her, and when it did, she realized it could happen to anyone . . .
Based on a true story, Torn Apart is a heartrending inside look at how pornography can rip families apart and shatter the lives of everyone involved. This growing problem can infect any family and often goes unnoticed for years.
Full of heartache and courage, Torn Apart provides hope for those affected by pornography by showing that, through God s love, even this devastating addiction can be overcome.
Title: Having Hope
Author: Terri Ferran
Publisher: Cedar Fort
Release Date: February 9, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-59955-233-0
Size: 282 pages, 6×9 softcover
Genre: YA
Series: Finding Faith
Kit Matthews has waited for her missionary, Adam Bridger, for two long years. Just as they are getting to know each other again, Kit experiences feelings that she cannot ignore promptings that take her halfway around the world.
Kit s soul is stirred by the plight of the orphans of Romania, and the connection she feels is compounded by her own abandonment at birth. Kit meets a charismatic Romanian medical student, Marcel, who shares her desire to help the children. When she challenges Marcel to learn about the gospel, she has no idea of the doors she s opened.
As she deals with turmoil in Romania, Kit receives disturbing news from home: Adam is involved with someone else, and her own family is disintegrating! Kit begins to fear that she will never be part of an eternal family.
Kit struggles to have hope that God is mindful of His children, especially her, and she must make a choice of creating a new life in Romania, or returning to America to pick up the pieces of her old one.
Author: R.D. Henham (Rebecca Shelley)
Publisher: Mirrorstone
Release Date: February 10, 2008
ISBN: 978-0786951086
Size: 256 pages; Trade hardcover
I’m not absolutely certain that my list of fiction titles by LDS authors published in 2008 is complete. If you find that I have missed some, please e-mail the information to me and I will update the list and the LDS Fiction site.
But assuming the list is complete, here’s a run-down of the numbers. Pretty impressive, I think.
Titles published: 136
Authors publishing: 109
Authors publishing four titles: 2
(Anita Stansfield, Orson Scott Card)
Authors publishing three titles: 5
(Christine Feehan, Marcia Lynn McClure, Brenda Novak, Chris Stewart, RaeAnne Thayne,
Authors publishing two titles: 19
(Traci Abramson Hunter, Amanda Ashley, Michele Ashman Bell, Allyson Condie, Wendie L. Edwards, W. Dave Free, Jessica Day George, Betsy Brannon Green, Jennie Hansen, Christy Hardman, Lynn Kurland, Stephenie Meyer, Rachel Ann Nunes, James A. Owen, Anne Perry, Leora Potter, Brandon Sanderson, Obert Skye, G.G. Vandagriff)
By LDS Publisher
Covenant: 34
Deseret Book/Shadow Mountain: 20
Cedar Fort: 16
Leatherwood Press: 3
Parables: 1
Spring Creek: 1
Zarahemla: 1
National Publishers: 39
Small Press/Self-Publishers: 16
(Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference, so I lumped these two together. Best guess: equal split.)
By Genre
(Some books are included in two categories.)
Romance: 41
(including Romantic Suspense, Historical Romance, Paranormal Romance)
Speculative: 41
(Fantasy/SciFi/Paranormal Romance/YA & MG)
Mystery/Suspense: 23
(including Romantic Suspense)
Middle Grade: 18
(all genres)
Historical: 16
(including Historical Romances)
General: 14
Young Adult: 13
(all genres)
Christmas: 6
Sports: 1
[I don’t usually post the same thing on both the LDS Publisher and LDS Fiction sites, but sometimes the info is of interest to both groups of readers.]
Title: Slathbog’s Gold (Adventurers Wanted, Bk 1)
Author: M.L. Forman
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Release Date: February 4, 2009
ISBN: 978-1606410295
Size: 432 pages, hardback
Genre: YA Fantasy
Do you have the courage, the wits, and the skill to claim a dragon’s hoard? If so, apply within …
The sign is small, tucked into the corner of Mr. Clutter’s bookshop window: “Adventurers Wanted. Apply Within.” No one but fifteen-year-old Alex Taylor even seems to notice it is there. And for Alex, who has wished for a change in his life, it is an irresistible invitation.
Upon entering Mr. Clutter’s shop, Alex is swept away on an incredible adventure to a faraway land filled with heroic warriors, mysterious elves, and hard-working dwarves. Alex becomes the eigth man in a band of adventurers seeking the lair of Slathbog the Red – and evil dragon with a legendary treasure. Along the way, Alex and his new friends must battle dangerous trolls and bandits, face undead wraiths, and seek the wisdom of the Oracle in her White Tower. Alex’s adventure takes him to distant and exotic lands where he learns about courage, integrity, honor, and, most importantly, friendship.
Title: Bright Blue Miracle
Author: Becca Wilhite
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Release Date: February 4, 2009
ISBN: 978-1606410318
Size: 176 pages, 5×8 softcover
Genre: YA
Seventeen-year-old Leigh Mason is not sure she is ready to share her mom, her bedroom, and her little sisters with her new stepsister, Betsy. And she’s definitely not ready to share her best friend, who happens to be a boy!
Coping with a blended family is not easy for either Leigh or Betsy, especially during their senior year in high school. Each step brings them nearer to a crisis that will either send them running in different directions or bind them firmly together (which, let s face it, would take a miracle).
Bright Blue Miracle is a new young adult novel that has everything a girl wants: a hero (more specifically, a really cute boy), a villain (who happens to be a stepsister), comedy, despair, pedicures, ice cream, love, hate, tennis, revenge, and, of course, a couple of surprises that might send you for some tissues.
Title: Night’s Pleasure
Author: Amanda Ashley
Publisher: Zebra
Release Date: February 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0821780626
Size: 384 pages, mass market paperback
Genre: Speculative; Paranormal Romance
Series: Night’s Kiss (v 1), Night’s Touch (v 2), Night’s Master (v 3)
(Caution: May contain objectionable content)
Savanah Gentry’s life was so much simpler when she was a reporter for the local newspaper. That was before her father’s sudden death drew her into a mysterious new world she was just beginning to understand. A Vampire hunter by birth, Savanah has been entrusted with a legacy that puts everyone she cares for in danger—including the seductive, sensual Vampire who unleashes her most primal desires.Rane Cordova has always been alone, half hating himself for his dark gift even as he relishes its extraordinary power. But one look at Savanah fills him with the need to take everything she has to give and carry her to heights of unimagined ecstasy. And though he never intended their relationship to go this far, now Savanah is in more danger than she knows—and facing a relentless enemy determined to eliminate Rane and all his kind.
Title: Lemon Tart
Author: Josi S. Kilpack
Publisher: Deseret Book
Release Date: January 29, 2009
ISBN: 978-1606410509
Size: 368 pages, 6×9, softcover
Genre: Mystery
A Recipe for Murder: 5 families living on Peregrine Circle, 1 flowered curtain tieback, 1 missing child, 1 body in th field. Mix with a long list of suspects and top with two very different detectives. Increase heat until only the truth remains.
Cooking aficionado turned amateur detective Sadie Hoffmiller tries to solve the murder of Anne Lemmon, her beautiful young neighbor–a single mother who was mysteriously killed while a lemon tart was baking in her oven. At the heart of Sadie’s search is the woman’s missing two year-old son, Trevor. Whoever took the child must be the murderer, but Sadie is certain that the police are looking at all the wrong suspects—including her!
Armed with a handful of her very best culinary masterpieces, Sadie is determined to bake her way to proving her innocence, rescuing Trevor, and finding out exactly who had a motive for murder.
Title: On the Road to Jericho
Author: K.L. Morgan
Publisher: TriQuest Publishing
Release Date: January, 2009
ISBN: 978-583081341
Size: 378 pages, 6×9, trade paperback
Genre: Historical
Jethen has lost his faith. Raised a devout Samaritan, he was taken from Samaria in his teens when his father moved their family to King Herod’s Jericho. In the hustle and bustle of his family’s trade, their yearly pilgrimages and Sabbath worship waned. Even though Jethen became acquainted with the ways of the world, he was still a Samaritan despised by the Jews.
Sherai, his childhood friend, took a different path. Married off to a prosperous family in Sychar, she found solace in her beliefs. When her husband proved to be cold and distant, her reliance on God warmed her. Jethen, stopping each year on his travels to sell in Sychar, found himself admiring her devout convictions and gentle goodness.
Years later, at the death of his father, Jethen returns to Sychar, heart-sore and confused. There he discovers Sherai has been unjustly disgraced and has fled from home. Jethen begins a search for Sherai, realizing that without her, his return to Sychar would have no meaning. Will he find her? If he does, will she be able to restore life’s purpose and help him recapture his once simple faith in God?
On the Jericho Road is a powerful biblical novel that ignites deep emotion and offers a new understanding of love, loyalty, and human relationships. A story unfolding over 2000 years ago reveals the impact Christ had on the people he lived among and taught.
Title: Princess of the Midnight Ball
Author: Jessica Day George
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books
Release Date: January 20, 2009
ISBN: 978-1599903224
Size: 288 pages, hardcover
Genre: YA Fantasy
A tale of twelve princesses doomed to dance until dawn… Galen is a young soldier returning from war; Rose is one of twelve princesses condemned to dance each night for the King Under Stone. Together Galen and Rose will search for a way to break the curse that forces the princesses to dance at the midnight balls. All they need is one invisibility cloak, a black wool chain knit with enchanted silver needles, and that most critical ingredient of all—true love—to conquer their foes in the dark halls below. But malevolent forces are working against them above ground as well, and as cruel as the King Under Stone has seemed, his wrath is mere irritation compared to the evil that awaits Galen and Rose in the brighter world above.
This book includes knitting patterns for a shawl and a chain of black wool that are key to the plot.
Title: The Forgotten Warrior
Author: Kathi Oram Peterson
Publisher: Covenant
Release Date: January 2009
ISBN: 978-1598115512
Size: 6×9, softcover
Genre: YA Speculative; Romance
Sydney Morgan is no wimp. A black belt in karate, her defensive moves help keep her tough even when her mom is diagnosed with cancer and her long-lost dad shows up to play nice guy. But when an unexpected gift transports her through space and time to the land of Zarahemla, Syd just might be in over her head.
Accused of being a spy, she has to prove she’s no threat to the locals — including Captain Helaman himself! As war quickly approaches, Helaman calls upon Syd to help his stripling warriors prepare to fight.
Torn between concern for her family and for her new friends, Syd muster her wits, strength, and faith to face the coming battle — but her feelings for chief warrior Tarik put her heart on the line. Who will survive the Lamanites’ fierce onslaught? And will Syd ever make it home again?