A cassocked monk stands on a mountaintop. Arms outstretched, he forms a tau, the 19th letter of the Greek alphabet. Having escaped from within a cloistered Vatican-like chuch city compound called the Citadel, carved out of a mountain near the fictional Turkish city of Ruin, the escaped monk attracts media attention as he deliberately throws himself off the mountain. Brother Samuel, the escaped monk, knew a secret…a secret the monks of the Citadel have been protecting for thousands of years.

 After her father stakes (and loses) her tuition money on a dotcom startup, our heroine sheds her family name and takes to the blogosphere as Cassandra Devine. An aggressive, uber-caffeinated voice in the night, she unwittingly mobilizes her brethren into a battle with the “Ungreatest Generation” – their parents. The baby boomers are retiring en masse, buckling the social security system as they reach for their nine irons. Cassandra Devine is not prepared to foot the bill.

The long-awaited latest Sookie Stackhouse book was published early in May. In it, Sookie deals with the fallout from the fae war, has a big change in her relationship status, discovers great-uncle Dermot has a knack for home improvements, and is happy to see Bubba back from an extended trip.  Sookie’s friends and family never have a dull moment as excitement and trouble happen wherever Sookie goes. 

What can you say about a paranormal romance in which the love interest is a fallen angel?  Not only is he a fallen angel, but he’s an angel named Patch. It's really difficult to take the character seriously with a name like that.  Still, I persevered in reading this recent teen paranormal romance.

In Meldrum's first adult novel, an uncommunicative family moves to Africa to become medical missionaries because of a whim of the father, a pathologist.  When the family leaves Michigan for Africa in 1976, they have no idea what to expect and little knowledge of the area to which they are transported.