For Love of Evil by Piers Anthony, 330 pages

The Man Who Would Be Satan

Parry was a gifted musician and an apprentice in the arts of White Magic. But his life of sweet promise went disastrously awry following the sudden, violent death of his beloved Jolie.

Led down the twisted path of wickedness and depravity by Lilah the harlot demoness, Parry thrived--first as a sorcerer, then as a monk, and finally as a feared inquisitor.

But it wasn't until his mortal flame was extinguished that Parry found his true calling--as the Incarnation of Evil. And, at the gates of Hell, he prepared to wage war on the master himself--Lucifer, the dark lord - with dominion over the infernal realms the ultimate prize!

Weird History 101 by John Richard Stephens, 321 pages

f you've ever wondered what it was really like on the sinking Titanic, or how it felt to be shipped across the Atlantic on a slave ship, or how easy it was to sell CIA secrets to the KGB, then this is your chance to find out! Wierd History 101 contains dozens of new twists on dusty old histories, including: The flip side of "official" history! Experience the true stories behind the history you learned in school: Native American witnesses's bloody descriptions of Custer's Last Stand The destruction of The White House by foreign invaders Actual government documents revealed! See how close we've come to nuclear annihilation: In 1957, the U.S. Air Force accidentally dropped a hydrogen bomb on Arizona! Official government pamphlets that claim a nuclear attack wouldn't ruin your whole day! Bizarre medical remedies! Discover hair-raising treatments including: Taking "mummy powder" for migraines Eating live millipedes to aid the digestion Weird History 101 is the ultimate historical reference, bursting with fascinating, entertaining, and sometimes bloodcurdling tales from around the world. Imagine learning this in school: Unbelievable tales of animal prosecutions! Learn how a French lawyer successfully defended a group of rats Witness a Church's excommunication of a swarm of insects Houdini's secrets revealed! Read how the greatest escape artist of all time: Survived being buried alive Escaped being submerged under water for 93 minutes You'll wish this book had been your history class textbook!

Big Cherry Holler by Adriana Trigiani, 272 pages

BIG CHERRY HOLLER, the extraordinary sequel to BIG STONE GAP, takes us back to the mountain life that enchanted us in Adriana Trigiani’s best selling debut novel. It’s been eight years since the town pharmacist and long time spinster Ave Maria Mulligan married coal miner Jack MacChesney. With her new found belief in love and its possibilities, Ave Maria makes a life for herself and her growing family, hoping that her fearless leap into commitment will make happiness stay. What she didn’t count on was that fate, life, and the ghosts of the past would come to haunt her and, eventually, test the love she has for her husband. The mountain walls that have protected her all of her life can not spare Ave Maria the life lessons she must learn.

BIG CHERRY HOLLER is the story of a marriage, revealing the deep secrets, the power struggle, the betrayal and the unmet expectations that exist between husband and wife. It is the story of a community that must reinvent itself as it comes to grips with the decline of the coal mining industry. It is the story of an extended family, the people of Big Stone Gap, who are there for one another especially when times are tough—including bookmobile librarian and sexpert Iva Lou Wade Makin, savvy businesswoman Pearl Grimes, crusty cashier Fleeta Mullins, and Rescue Squad captain Spec Broadwater, who faces the complications of his double life. Ave Maria’s best friend Theodore Tipton, now band director at the University of Tennessee, continues to be her chief counselor and conscience as he reaches the pinnacle of marching band success.

When Ave Maria takes her daughter to Italy for the summer, she meets a handsome stranger who offers her a life beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains. Ave Maria is forced to confront what is truly important: to her, to her marriage, and to her family. Brimming with humor, wisdom, honesty, and the drama and local color of mountain life from Virginia to Italy, BIG CHERRY HOLLER is a deeply felt, brilliantly evoked story of two lovers who have lost their way and their struggle to find one another again.

Memoirs Of a Bow Street Runner The Thief Taker by T. F. Banks, 276 pages

June 1815. When Henry Morton is called to the scene at Portman House in Claridge Square, the Bow Street constable finds a man dead in a hackney coach--ostensibly of asphyxiation. He was Halbert Glendinning, a gentleman of unsullied character. Then why was he seen frequenting one of London’s most notorious dens of iniquity? And why has the driver of the coach vanished into the night?

While Sir Nathaniel Conant, the chief magistrate at Number 4 Bow Street, accepts the official verdict of accidental death, Morton is certain that Glendinning was a victim of foul play. With the help of actress Arabella Malibrant, one of London’s most celebrated beauties, he embarks on his own discreet inquiry. And as the upper circles of London society close ranks against him, Morton races to unmask a killer whose motives are as complex and unfathomable as the passions that rule the human heart.

Big Stone Gap by Adrianea Trigiani, 272 pages

Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, the tiny town of Big Stone Gap is home to some of the most charming eccentrics in the state. Ave Maria Mulligan is the town's self-proclaimed spinster, a thirty-five year old pharmacist with a "mountain girl's body and a flat behind." She lives an amiable life with good friends and lots of hobbies until the fateful day in 1978 when she suddenly discovers that she's not who she always thought she was. Before she can blink, Ave's fielding marriage proposals, fighting off greedy family members, organizing a celebration for visiting celebrities, and planning the trip of a lifetime-a trip that could change her view of the world and her own place in it forever. 

I really enjoyed this book. It was sweet and entertaining, and book 2 is already on my shelf ready to be read.

Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 147 pages

From the Nobel Prize-winning author of Love in the Time of Cholera, a startling new novel — the story of a doomed love affair between an unruly copper-haired girl and the bookish priest sent to oversee her exorcism.
Of Love and Other Demons is set in a South American seaport in the colonial era, a time of viceroys and bishops, enlightened men and Inquisitors, saints and lepers and pirates. Sierva Maria, only child of a decaying noble family, has been raised in the slaves' courtyard of her father's cobwebbed mansion while her mother succumbs to fermented honey and cacao on a faraway plantation. On her twelfth birthday the girl is bitten by a rabid dog, and even as the wound is healing she is made to endure therapies indistinguishable from tortures. Believed, finally, to be possessed, she is brought to a convent for observation. And into her cell stumbles Father Cayetano Delaura, the Bishop's protege, who has already dreamed about a girl with hair trailing after her like a bridal train; who is already moved by this kicking, spitting, emaciated creature strapped to a stone bed. As he tends to her with holy water and sacramental oils, Delaura feels "something immense and irreparable" happening to him. It is love, "the most terrible demon of all." And it is not long before Sierra Maria joins him in his fevered misery.
Unsettling and indelible, Of Love and Other Demons haunts us with its evocation of an exotic world while it treats, majestically the most universal experiences known to woman and man.

Ugh, this was not a read I would ever repeat and I don't plan on reading more by this author. It was dark, unenjoyable, and just depressing.

X Marks the Scot by Kaitlyn Dunnett, 278 pages

The old Chadwick mansion on the edge of Moosetookalook, Maine, has been shrouded in mystery for generations—until Scottish Emporium owner Liss MacCrimmon uncovers a forgotten family secret. But she never imagined that a little curiosity would lead her into such deadly territory . . .
 
While perusing auction items from the Chadwick estate, Liss purchases a painting of a bagpiper to add to her collection. Her interest shifts from art to sleuthing upon a strange discovery—what appears to be a treasure map tucked behind the canvas. She’s even more intrigued when she links the scroll to an early Chadwick who smuggled goods across the Canadian border.

So during a business trip to Canada, Liss arranges a meeting with an archivist in hopes of pinning down the truth about the map and the Chadwick bloodline. Before her quest moves forward, however, she finds the archivist’s murdered body at a local genealogical society. One thing is certain—Liss isn’t alone on this treasure hunt . . .

Liss returns to Moosetookalook, terrified that the killer may have followed her home. With her life in real peril and the map at risk of being stolen, she launches into full-scale investigation mode. But as she deciphers clues and inches toward the dangerous culprit, Liss quickly realizes she’s only a step away from ending up like the Chadwick clan—permanently wiped out