Vote for the November BOTM

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Here are the choices:

The Night Villa by Carol Goodman

From Publishers Weekly
In this complex and lyrical literary thriller from Goodman (The Sonnet Lover), University of Texas classics professor Sophie Chase, after barely surviving a gunman with ties to a sinister cult, joins an expedition to Capri.

A donor has funded both the exact reconstruction of a Roman villa destroyed when Mount Vesuvius buried nearby Herculaneum in A.D. 79, and a computer system that can decipher the charred scrolls being excavated from the villa's ruins. Sophie's hopes for a recuperative idyll fade after her old boyfriend, who disappeared years before into the same cult as the campus gunman, appears in the area, implicating the cult in a criminal conspiracy.

Meanwhile, extracts from the scrolls—the journals of a Roman visiting the villa just before the volcano erupted—shade toward bloodshed and betrayal. The scrolls' oddly modern tone aside, Goodman deftly mixes cultural and religious history, geography, myth, personal memory, dream and even portent without sacrificing narrative drive, against the beautiful backdrop of the locale with its echoes of unimaginable loss.

Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill

tarred Review. Stunning, wrenching and inspiring, the fourth novel by Canadian novelist Hill (Any Known Blood) spans the life of Aminata Diallo, born in Bayo, West Africa, in 1745.

The novel opens in 1802, as Aminata is wooed in London to the cause of British abolitionists, and begins reflecting on her life.

Kidnapped at the age of 11 by British slavers, Aminata survives the Middle Passage and is reunited in South Carolina with Chekura, a boy from a village near hers. Her story gets entwined with his, and with those of her owners: nasty indigo producer Robinson Appleby and, later, Jewish duty inspector Solomon Lindo.

During her long life of struggle, she does what she can to free herself and others from slavery, including learning to read and teaching others to, and befriending anyone who can help her, black or white. Hill handles the pacing and tension masterfully, particularly during the beginnings of the American revolution, when the British promise to free Blacks who fight for the British: Aminata's related, eventful travels to Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone follow.

In depicting a woman who survives history's most trying conditions through force of intelligence and personality, Hill's book is a harrowing, breathtaking tour de force

The Trouble with Magic - Madelyn Alt

Antiques-shop clerk Maggie O'Neill was a little weirded out when she discovered her new boss Felicity was a witch. But when Felicity becomes the suspect in a local murder, Maggie must enlist Felicity's wiccan friends for help--and discover her own spellbinding talent.

Morrigan's Cross by Nora Roberts

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Romance institution Roberts dives into her first paranormal series with the first book in the Circle Trilogy. In 12th-century Ireland, sorcerer Hoyt Mac Cionaoith does battle with a centuries-old vampire named Lilith, who has turned Hoyt's twin brother, Cian, into a fellow bloodsucker. Unable to defeat her, Hoyt is visited by the goddess of battle, Morrigan, who charges him with the task of leading a battle, "the greatest ever waged," against Lilith and her demons. Hoyt must gather five others to fight alongside him: "the witch, the warrior, the scholar, the one of many forms, and the one you've lost." He travels in time to present-day New York, where he encounters his vampire brother, Cian, and Glenna, a beautiful red-haired witch. Two more warriors, Moira and Larkin, join them back in the Mac Cionaoith ancestral home. Romance ignites between Hoyt and Glenna as enemies emerge from the shadows, and the "circle of six" prepare for the big showdown with Lilith. This well-plotted, finely detailed paranormal adventure is driven by richly developed characters, making it a cut above others in this subgenre, and among Roberts's best.

Mr. Perfect - Linda Howard

Jaine Bright and three close friends share dinner one night and during casual conversation, create a list of qualifications for the perfect man--some logical, some hilariously funny, some racy. Within days, their tongue-in-cheek wish list of attributes for Mr. Perfect has been leaked to the press and the resultant publicity is overwhelming. Coworkers, TV crews, and reporters barrage the quartet with comments and criticism.

As if Jaine doesn't have enough to cope with, she has a new neighbor who she suspects is a criminal. She's relieved to learn that her neighbor is really an undercover cop, but she's still wary--because smart, sexy Sam Donovan handles her sharp witticisms with easy humor, and Jaine suspects that he may threaten her heart. What Jaine doesn't know is that she's about to need Sam desperately for something other than romance because her circle of friends is in big trouble. Unfortunately, that list of qualifications for Mr. Perfect has touched off a madman's rage. All of their lives are threatened and some of them are going to die, maybe all of them, if Sam can't stop the unknown killer.

1st to Die - James Patterson

The Women's Murder Club pits four San Francisco women professionals against a serial killer who's stalking and murdering newlyweds in bestselling author James Patterson's newest thriller. Lindsay Boxer is a homicide inspector who's just gotten some very bad news. She deals with it by immersing herself in her newest case and soliciting the personal as well as professional support of her closest friend, who happens to be the city's medical examiner. The two women, along with an ambitious and sympathetic reporter and an assistant DA, form an unlikely alliance, pooling their information and bypassing the chain of command in an engaging, suspenseful story whose gruesome setup is vintage Patterson.

"What is the worst thing anyone has ever done?" the killer muses to himself early in the narrative. "Am I capable of doing it? Do I have what it takes?" Answering his own question, he embarks on a murderous spree that takes him from the bridal suite in a Nob Hill hotel to a honeymoon destination in the Napa Valley and thence to a wedding reception at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio. Dispatching his victims on the happiest day of their lives, he purposefully leaves enough clues for his distaff trackers to discover his identity and put him behind bars. But just when the women think they've got the case all wrapped up, the killer turns the tables on them in a bloody denouement that even the most discerning reader won't see coming. Patterson, author of the popular Alex Cross mysteries, promises future adventures for the Women's Murder Club, which may give him an opportunity to develop his heroines' characters more completely and win new fans among those who prefer their detectives in high heels and lipstick.