New Additions To The TBR Pile In October

October can be a scary month. Monsters, Ghoulies, things that go bump in the night and my ever expanding "to be read" pile...

Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich
Description: Trenton, New Jersey, bounty hunter Stephanie Plum has inherited a “lucky” bottle from her Uncle Pip. Problem is, Uncle Pip didn’t specify if the bottle brought good luck or bad luck. . . .

BAD LUCK:

Vinnie, of Vincent Plum Bail Bonds, has run up a gambling debt of $786,000 with mobster Bobby Sunflower and is being held until the cash can be produced. Nobody else will pay to get Vinnie back, leaving it up to Stephanie, office manager Connie, and file clerk Lula to raise the money if they want to save their jobs.

GOOD LUCK:

Being in the business of tracking down people, Stephanie, Lula, and Connie have an advantage in finding Vinnie. If they can rescue him, it will buy them some time to raise the cash.

BAD LUCK:

Finding a safe place to hide Vinnie turns out to be harder than raising $786,000. Vinnie’s messing up Mooner’s vibe, running up pay-per-view porn charges in Ranger’s apartment, and making Stephanie question genetics.

GOOD LUCK:

Between a bonds office yard sale that has the entire Burg turning out, Mooner’s Hobbit-Con charity event, and Uncle Pip’s lucky bottle, they just might raise enough money to save the business, and Vinnie, from ruin.

BAD LUCK:

Saving Vincent Plum Bail Bonds means Stephanie can keep being a bounty hunter. In Trenton, this involves hunting down a man wanted for polygamy, a turnpike toilet paper bandit, and a drug dealer with a pet alligator named Mr. Jingles.

GOOD LUCK:

The job of bounty hunter comes with perks in the guise of Trenton’s hottest cop, Joe Morelli, and the dark and dangerous security expert, Ranger. With any luck at all, Uncle Pip’s lucky bottle will have Stephanie getting lucky---the only question is . . . with whom?

Sizzling Sixteen . . . so hot, the pages might spontaneously combust!


Promises In Death by J.D. Robb
Description: Amarylis Coltraine may have recently transferred to the New York City police force from Atlanta, but she’s been a cop long enough to know how to defend herself against an assailant. When she’s taken down just steps away from her apartment, killed with her own weapon, for Eve the victim isn’t just “one of us.”

Dallas’s friend Chief Medical Examiner Morris and Coltraine had started a serious relationship, and from all accounts the two were headed for a happy future together. But someone has put an end to all that. After breaking the news to Morris, Eve starts questioning everyone from Coltraine’s squad, informants, and neighbors, while Eve’s husband, Roarke, digs into computer data on Coltraine’s life back in Atlanta. To their shock, they discover a connection between this case and their own painful, shadowy pasts.

The truth will need to be uncovered one layer at a time, starting with the box that arrives at Cop Central addressed to Eve containing Coltraine’s guns, badge, and a note from her killer: “You can have them back. Maybe someday soon, I’ll be sending yours to somebody else.”

But Eve Dallas doesn’t take too kindly to personal threats, and she is going to break this case, whatever it takes. And that’s a promise.


Murderers Prefer Blondes by Amanda Matetsky
Description: The year is 1954, and Paige Turner is a feisty young widow with Brenda Starr bravado and a fixation with following in Agatha Christie's footsteps. Trouble is, she works like a dog at Daring Detective magazine and her lousy pun of a name has made her the butt of all office jokes. All she wants is to pen a memorable mystery, but first she needs a good story. Enter the corpse of twenty-four-year-old beauty Babs Comstock who'd had high hopes for the big screen --- until she was found with a Hopalong Cassidy jump rope wrapped around her neck. Now, Paige has to find a murderer and tell the tale that could make her writing career --- or cut short her life....



In Stereo Where Available by Becky Anderson
Description: Phoebe Kassner didn't set out to become a 29-year-old virgin, but she is, and, having just been dumped by her boyfriend, she doesn't see that situation changing anytime soon. Meanwhile, her twin sister Madison—aspiring actress, small-time model, and queen of the short attention span—has just been eliminated on the first round of Singing Sensation.

Things aren't looking so great for either of them, but when Phoebe, victim of a fake phone number written on a cocktail napkin, receives a surprise voice mail from a guy named Jerry, she takes pity on him and calls, setting in motion a serendipitous love story neither of them saw coming. And suddenly Madison has a romance of her own, as one of 12 women competing for two men on a ruthless, over-the-top reality show. As Phoebe falls in love with the jilted high school English teacher who never intended to call her in the first place, Madison's falling in love, too, clawing and fighting her way through a tide of adorable blondes.