An accomplished, hard-hitting debut novel that marries a page-turning plot with the stories of three women, each of whom is struggling with decisions that will change the course of her life. The violent death of a Canadian water company executive in a black township of Johannesburg throws together a South African anti-privatization activist and the water executive's daughter, Claire, who arrives suddenly from Canada desperate to understand her father's death.
Set in 1876, Cox's gripping second gothic thriller (after The Meaning of Night) follows the fortunes of 19-year-old orphan Esperanza Gorst, whose guardian charges her to go undercover as a lady's maid. Without knowing precisely why she's doing so, Gorst insinuates herself into the inner circle of Baroness Tansor, the fiancée of the preceding volume's villain, Phoebus Daunt. The fake maid soon learns that her mistress has many secrets, and may, in fact, have been complicit in the death of a former servant. Cox excels at conveying his heroine's conflict over deceiving her employer, especially after learning the role the lady played in her own difficult personal history.
After the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina, and the manmade horror of the explosion at the vampire summit, Sookie Stackhouse is safe but dazed, yearning for things to get back to normal. But her boyfriend Quinn is among the missing. And things are changing, whether the weres and vamps in her corner of Louisiana like it or not. In the ensuing battles, Sookie faces danger, death…and once more, betrayal by someone she loves. And when the fur has finished flying and the cold blood ceases flowing, her world will be forever altered.
Meghan o' the Beasts and her young charge Isabeau are outcasts in a land where magic has been outlawed. But the pair is soon separated, and Isabeau is wounded by witchfinders, and saved by a group of Samaritans. Meghan sets out to find Isabeau's warrior-trained twin, Iseult, and a missing prince living under an ancient curse. Separately, the two parties must make their way through a land where magic is punished by death, seeking allies to spread the news--that the Witches are returning, and the Queen and her evil must fall.
The year is 1943, and Argentina is officially neutral, but crawling with every kind of spy, sympathizer, and military official imaginable. The hero is Cletus Frade, a Marine pilot recruited by the OSS, with strong family ties to Argentina, and in Death and Honor - Griffin's fourth book in the series and the first since 1999 - he's got a lot on his hands.
