Lian Dolan delivers a juicy, witty, warmhearted family saga in her third novel, The Sweeney Sisters. Liza, Maggie and Tricia Sweeney shared a (mostly) idyllic childhood in a super-WASPy Connecticut town. But when their father, literary light William Sweeney, dies unexpectedly, they discover they have another (half) sister: their former neighbor, Serena Tucker. Now a journalist, Serena is grappling with the truth about her parentage as her new siblings try to reconcile their grief, shock and shame. During a summer spent sorting out William Sweeney's complicated estate, the sisters must also come to terms with their feelings about him--and each other.

Dolan (Elizabeth the First Wife) gives each "full" Sweeney sister a type: dutiful Liza, free-spirited artist Maggie, hyper-focused Tricia. Adding Serena to the mix jumbles things up: she shares Tricia's discipline, Maggie's warmth and Liza's determination, but is also definitely her own woman. As Serena tries to figure out her place in this new family, all four sisters are caught up in the search for a missing William Sweeney memoir, which may hold further surprises. Dolan shares the narration equally among the sisters, giving readers insight into each woman's personal and professional challenges, plus the sibling dynamics (heightened by grief). The novel tackles questions of identity, family roles and hierarchies and keeping up appearances, but Dolan handles these issues with a light touch, sprinkling in humor and a bit of romance. By summer's end, readers will join Serena in hoping for a seat at the Sweeney family table. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Who Speaks for the Damned, the 15th entry in the Sebastian St. Cyr mystery series by C.S. Harris (Who Slays the Wicked), is an excellent Regency mystery that can easily be read as a standalone. Glossing over events that happened in earlier books, Who Speaks for the Damned focuses on Sebastian's inexhaustible urge to right wrongs and to find justice for those who need it most. Sebastian, the younger son of the Earl of Hendon, nearly went awry in his youth, but has found contentment in marriage and in helping the local London magistrates. He finds himself strongly identifying with Nicholas Hayes, the third son of the Earl of Seaforth.

Hayes was convicted of murdering a countess and was transported to Botany Bay nearly 20 years earlier. Returning to England would have meant death if he'd been caught by authorities. But before the law found out that Hayes had escaped his imprisonment, someone else caught up with him, and stuck a scythe in his back in a public garden. Determined to find justice for Hayes, since he realizes Hayes's fate could have so easily been his own, Sebastian searches for the killer everywhere from the elegant drawing rooms of Mayfair to the squalid back alleys of Smithfield.

A gripping mystery that showcases the inequalities between the wealthy members of upper society and the desperate people who eke out a living on the streets, Who Speaks for the Damned is an atmospheric look at the grimmer aspects of Regency life, so often glossed over in fiction. Fans of Anne Perry or Julie McElwain are sure to enjoy C.S. Harris's writing. --Jessica Howard, bookseller at Bookmans, Tucson, Ariz.

Twenty million dollars in prize money disappears from a kickboxing tournament, and a forensic accountant has 72 hours to find it before all hell breaks loose in Mindy Mejia's vicious thriller Strike Me Down.

At the fitness empire Strike, champion kickboxer Logan Russo wrings blood, sweat and tears out of clients and her husband, Gregg, turns it into mega profits. The couple organizes an expensive three-day fighting competition in which the winner will receive $20 million in prize money--and inherit Strike so Logan can retire. Two days before the tournament starts, all the money goes missing. Canceling the event would ruin Strike, wreck Logan and Gregg's reputation and anger a lot of people who have been primed to fight. Gregg hires Nora Trier, a forensic accountant with an impeccable record for finding the truth behind the numbers, no matter who it hurts.

Nora's task is complicated enough because she worships Logan and recently slept with Gregg; then her job becomes even harder when she discovers Logan wanted her recently killed protégé to take over Strike and Gregg adamantly opposed the idea. The couple suspect each other of embezzlement, but neither wants Strike to fail. Meanwhile Nora zeroes in on the money, and whoever killed Logan's protégé zeroes in on Nora.

Mejia (Everything You Want Me to Be) tells each chapter from a different point of view, which propels the plot at a breakneck speed while doling out brief flashbacks of much-needed exposition. Forensic accounting isn't commonly known for excitement, but Mejia adds kickboxing and homicide to ratchet up the tension in this hard-to-put-down thriller. --Paul Dinh-McCrillis, freelance reviewer

Creatures of Charm and Hunger by Molly Tanzer (Creatures of Want and Ruin) combines a dark, gothic adventure with a moving and often humorous story of relationships. In northern England, near the end of World War II, two young women face a test to become diabolists, studying in order to make a pact with a demon in exchange for power. The test itself is only the beginning of their trials. One, Miriam Cantor, a Jewish German refugee, learns that her parents, still in Germany, are suspected of betraying the Société des Éclairées to the Nazis. Meanwhile, Jane Blackwood, the daughter of Miriam's guardian in England, faces the possibility that she may not succeed as a diabolist. The Société has too many secrets to let failed students go their own way, and Jane takes increasingly drastic measures to ensure her future.

Miriam and Jane were dear friends when they were young, but as they grew, their relationship became more strained and, of the two, Miriam followed more closely in Jane's mother's footsteps. As Miriam's search for her parents leads her to a Nazi diabolist plot, she takes greater and greater risks to defeat it, and as Jane's dangerous methods jeopardize her own mother, the two together will need to face what they were taught in order to defeat evils both human and supernatural. For a diabolist there are no shortcuts, only sacrifices. Tanzer's third in the Diabolist's Library series will delight and captivate new readers and series fans alike. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library

J.R. Ward (The Angels' Share) returns to the fascinating, dangerous vampire world with the riveting story of Syn, a mercenary and assassin for hire. This 18th novel in the series can be read as a standalone, although readers will surely want to read earlier books as well.

Reporter Jo Early is unaware her biological father was a vampire. Syn is fully aware Jo is about to transition to non-human, however, and despite believing he's the last thing she should want, he's compelled to save her. Unfortunately, pulling Jo into Syn's world has the potential to destroy her, for the ongoing war with the Lessening Society, an undead enemy determined to destroy both vampire and human society, has reached a pivotal moment. Threading the fine line between good and evil, keeping Jo safe, and retaining what little is left of his own scarred soul is complicated for Syn. What his actions mean to the Black Dagger Brotherhood warriors and their families could change their lives forever. With Brotherhood vampire ally Butch O'Neal, Syn may save the world or destroy it and the odds against them winning are high. In the final battle, neither Butch, Syn or Jo can be certain they will endure despite an unexpected intercession.

This novel's gritty plot, with multiple actors, moves at lightning speed to reach an excellent and surprising ending. Several long-running mysteries are resolved while new possibilities arise, and the steamy romance doesn't disappoint. --Lois Faye Dyer, writer and reviewer

Iconoclastic auteur film director Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause; In a Lonely Place; Johnny Guitar) led a troubled life, plagued with schizophrenia and decades-long addictions to alcohol and drugs. By the early 1960s, his addictions and public breakdowns made him uninsurable within the film industry. His daughter Nicca writes he was "a man riddled with torment who lashed out at those he loved with crushing results." Nicca's blisteringly candid memoir, Ray by Ray, chronicles her search for the father who abandoned her at the age of three when he divorced her mother (third of his four wives) and who died when she was 17. Her memoir also details her sexual molestation by a stepbrother that led to numbing herself with alcohol and drugs, selling herself sexually to strangers and her eventual recovery.

"I come from a long line of alcoholics and drug addicts," writes Nicca. She also notes that her family life "should have been something out of Greek mythology, not everyday life." Ray's second marriage to actress Gloria Grahame broke up after he discovered she was having sex with his then-13-year-old son, Tony (from his first marriage). A decade later, Grahame married Tony--making him Nicca's half-brother and stepfather. Muddying the waters even further, Nicca's mother later had an affair with Tony that led to a pregnancy and abortion. "That child would have been my brother and my nephew," writes Nicca.

Nicca Ray's original search to understand her troubled father expands into a shocking, intimate and gripping tale of family secrets and addictions. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant

Since 1966, Foxfire has been educating and working to preserve local heritage in Georgia's Rabun County. The organization has published the Foxfire magazine for over 50 years, and more than 20 books. But Foxfire's archives are still rich and deep enough to furnish mostly never-before-published material in Foxfire Story: Oral Tradition in Southern Appalachia, a collection of folktales, stories, mountain speech, pranks, jests and much more gathered over the decades.

Editor T.J. Smith--Georgia mountain native, Ph.D, folklorist and Foxfire's executive director--groups these materials into categories: anecdotes come from personal experience and often contain a punch line; folk beliefs connect us to cultural or religious communities and are sometimes known by the pejorative "superstition." Proverbs and sayin's include colloquial comparisons: sharp as a tack, a needle, a briar, a pegging awl. Legends include ghost stories and tales of treasure hunts. In a second, shorter section, Smith organizes additional storytelling by the teller. Here, Ronda Reno recounts the tradition in her family of the "granny witch," or herbalist/midwife/community healer. Cherokee storyteller Lloyd Arneach describes his art form and how it grew, almost by accident, into a career.

The legends, folktales, songs and stories in this collection are often unsophisticated, portraying ways of life that are dying out or already gone. They shed light on endangered occupations, economies and ecological niches. With Smith's commentary, these unaffected narratives and usages (git-fiddle: "term for guitar in the context of old-time string music") offer a glimpse of a world otherwise unavailable to many readers. --Julia Kastner, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

"Euthanasia" means dying well ("eu" means "well," "thanatos" means "death"). Although assisted death is controversial, Margaret Rice believes we can still strive for a "good death" with proper planning and care. Rice, an Australian journalist who has written for Australian Associated Press and been a medical writer for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian, realized how many questions she had while sitting at her mother's deathbed. Preparing for death as we are trying to live seems difficult and somewhat counterintuitive, but information and a little groundwork can make the transition easier for the dying and for those left behind.

To assist in the endeavor, Rice has written a "gentle, practical guide for dying." In straightforward but sensitive prose, A Good Death suggests an 11-step guide to death, based on an ancient Latin text and associated woodcut pictures (the ars moriendi) kept at the British Museum. Rice guides readers through each step, whether attending to someone who is dying or preparing for one's own death. The steps are both practical (i.e., the "housework" of planning ahead, dealing with medical staff, pain relief) and spiritual (learning how to say goodbye and talking about how we will die).

Rice presses for change in perceptions about death--which for many is a taboo topic--in order to ease the literal and emotional pain that surrounds it. A Good Death offers a compassionate and valuable set of tools that can help us face and embrace the inevitable. --Lauren O'Brien of Malcolm Avenue Review

It's tempting to leaf through Cultivated from one color portrait of a floral design to the next, but Christin Geall entices readers into the text, where she earnestly describes how they, too, might savor the art of creation and the pride of display.

Geall, "like a magpie drawn to one shiny object after another," earned degrees in anthropology and environmental studies, and trained in herbalism and horticulture. Writing, painting and art history studies followed. Floral design and photography, plus her lifelong passion for plants, led to a position as florist-in-residence at a Scottish estate, where she created and photographed an arrangement every day. Geall's years of study and experience allow readers to move directly to the fun: arranging flowers and every "weed, seedpod or leaf that speaks to you."

While insisting this is not a "how to" book, Geall offers detailed tips. She simplifies choosing flowers and containers, optimum handling, designing color schemes (red is tricky!), considers shape (height is important for dinner arrangements) and more. Geall shares her love of history in "Learning from the Past," one of seven sections, and the photographs here require close inspection: Is that a Baroque painting? A Dutch masterpiece? Styles changed with culture and political movements (Marie Antoinette's hair "pouf" was imitated in arrangements), and floral design often spoke to current philosophies.

Cultivated, an excellent resource for the backyard gardener or the professional florist, is also an exquisite photography book for anyone who appreciates the art of floral design. --Cheryl McKeon, bookseller, Market Block Books, Troy, N.Y.

In Savannah Brown's riveting The Truth About Keeping Secrets, high school junior Sydney Whitaker struggles to deal with her father's sudden death in a car crash. The loss causes Sydney to experience a near-constant combination of crushing numbness and disturbing, invasive thoughts about death and dying. Visceral fear is added to the mix when Sydney begins receiving unsettling anonymous text messages shortly after her father's funeral. When she discovers that her father was homecoming queen June Copeland's therapist, and that June is struggling with her own hidden problems, Sydney reaches out to her classmate. The two young women form a bond and Sydney soon finds herself falling in love with June. But are the secrets June is keeping dangerous?

Brown (Graffiti [and other poems]) effectively depicts genuine, raw feelings in her main character as she experiences despairing grief, a fear of dying and the unknown, and the relief and happiness that come from spending time with a crush and making a new friend. Savannah's fluctuating emotions feel authentic, her responses to trauma leading to a range of intense highs and lows. Brown's plotting is steady as she ratchets up the suspense, making The Truth About Keeping Secrets an enthralling novel sure to keep readers hooked. --Rachel Firman, 18