51. This Book Will Save Your Life, A.M.Homes

372 páginas

Since her debut in 1989, A. M. Homes has been among the boldest and most original voices of her generation, acclaimed for the psychological accuracy and unnerving emotional intensity of her storytelling. Her keen ability to explore how extraordinary the ordinary can be is at the heart of her touching and funny new novel, her first in six years.

Richard Novak is a modern-day Everyman, a middle-aged divorcé trading stocks out of his home. He has done such a good job getting his life under control that he needs no one--except his trainer, nutritionist, and housekeeper. He is functionally dead and doesn't even notice until two incidents--an attack of intense pain that lands him in the emergency room, and the discovery of an expanding sinkhole outside his house--conspire to hurl him back into the world. On his way home from the hospital, Richard forms the first of many new relationships: He meets Anhil, the doughnut shop owner, an immigrant who dreams big. He finds a weeping housewife in the produce section of the supermarket, helps save a horse that has fallen into the sinkhole, daringly rescues a woman from the trunk of her kidnapper's car, and, after the sinkhole claims his house and he has to relocate to a Malibu rental, he befriends a reluctant counterculture icon. In the end, Richard is also brought back in closer touch with his family--his aging parents, his brilliant brother, the beloved ex-wife whom he still desires, and finally, before the story's breathtaking finale, with his estranged son Ben.

The promised land of Los Angeles--a surreal city of earthquakes, wildfires, mudslides, and feral Chihuahuas--is also very much a character in This Book Will Save Your Life. A vivid, revealing novel about compassion, transformation, and what can happen if you are willing to lose yourself and open up to the world around you, it should significantly broaden Homes's already substantial audience.

50. Judge & Jury, James Patterson

341 páginas

And still they come, the James Patterson novels written in tandem with Andrew Gross--the latter a writer we’ve only heard of because... he writes novels in tandem with James Patterson. But as Judge and Jury proves, this is a team that breaks all the rules of these double novels (in which a top writer’s synopsis is worked up by another writer lower down the feeding chain). The Patterson/Gross books are often as compulsive reads as Patterson's solo efforts, and while the tagline of this one ('the ultimate legal thriller') may be optimistic, it's still a pretty pacy piece of work, with a strong central premise. Struggling actress Andie DeGrasse is finding her acting career in low gear as she copes with the demands of being a single mother. When she finds herself on jury duty, she hopes that she can shuck her responsibilities by telling the judge that she's played a stripper in The Sopranos. But she still finds herself as juror number 11 in a highly important trial involving a mob boss with a really nasty reputation. Bringing Mafia Don Dominic Cavello to trial has been the crowning achievement of senior FBI agent Nick Pellisante, who has been on Cavello's tale for years. The Don, known as ‘The Electrician’, is famous for his many grisly crimes, but this time it looks like he's about to go down for good. But as the jury moves towards a verdict, the Don does something that throws everything into chaos--including the life of actress and reluctant juror Andie. A bitter battle ensues, in which Andie and Nick Pellisante are obliged to form a partnership that will either save both their lives--or end them.

What makes this one particularly diverting is the canny juggling of a variety of elements, all of which are granted equal emphasis by Patterson and Gross. As always with the team, no effort is wasted on elegant writing--this is rigorously functional stuff, designed with one purpose: to keep us reading. And that task the authors pull off with very little effort.

49. Segredos de Família, Kim Edwards

411 páginas

Numa noite de Inverno de 1964, quando uma tempestade de neve obriga o Dr. David Henry a fazer o parto dos seus filhos gémeos. O filho, o primogénito, é perfeitamente saudável, mas David apercebe-se de imediato de que a filha é portadora de síndrome de Down. Convencido de que está a fazer o que está correcto, David toma uma decisão precipitada que irá ensombrar as suas vidas para sempre. Pede a Caroline, a enfermeira, que leve a bebé para uma instituição, mas ela acaba por fugir para outra cidade,onde irá criar a bebé como sua própria filha. Segredos de Família foi seleccionado para o Barnes and Noble Discovery Award e ganhou o Kentucky Literary Award for Fiction em 2005. Foi o número 1 no New York Times Best Seller e vai ser publicado em Itália, no Japão, Brasil, Dinamarca, Noruega, Suécia, França, Espanha, Polónia, China, Taiwan, Israel, Turquia e Reino Unido.

48. The Clinic, Jonathan Kellerman

465 páginas

She was found stabbed to death on a quiet, shaded street in one of Los Angeles' safest neighbourhoods. For three months the police have found no clues to the murder of Hope Devane, psychology professor and controversial author of a pop-psych bestseller, and angry indictment of men. Now homicide detective Milo Sturgis, newly assigned to the case, turns to his friend, psychologist Dr Alex Delaware, looking for insights into Devane's life. To both men the cold stalking of Hope Devane suggests calculation fuelled by hate - an execution. They discover why as they unlock, one by one, the very private compartments of her life: her marriage, her shadowy work for a Beverly Hills clinic, the Conduct Committee she ran with an iron hand at the University, and her baffling link to another murder victim. But it is when Alex delves into her childhood that he begins to understand the formidable woman she was - and the ties that entangled her life until the horrifying act of betrayal that ended it.

47. Just Between Us, Cathy Kelly

634 páginas

From the bestselling author of SOMEONE LIKE YOU and WHAT SHE WANTS an uplifiting novel about how three very different women cope with the complexities of their lives -- relationships, careers, and families -- to find fulfilment. Full of Cathy Kelly's trademark warmth, romance, optimism and wit. In the Irish country town of Kinvara, the fabulous MIller girls are generally reckoned to have it all... There's Stella with the looks of a Renaissance Madonna and a brilliant lawyer's mind. A single mum who has combined work and raising her daughter with aplomb, the only thing missing from her life is the right mam. Now, at last, she's going to get a second chance... Tara is the sharp, cool one. At the top of her TV career, she's recently married the love of her life, the charming Finn, after a whirlwind romance of just six months. And shy beautiful Holly is living a bohemian life that all her old classmates envy, with artistic friends and a beautiful apartment where her creative talents find an outlet. At the centre of the family is their mother, Rose, calm elegant and about to celebrate her fortieth wedding. But nothing in the lives of Rose and her daughters is as it seems, and as plans are made for the party of the decade, the secret heartaches the four women have kept hidden, even from the each other, begin to emerge. Are they strong enough to deal with the truth about their golden lives?