Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

An orphan raised in Valparaíso, Chile, by a Victorian spinster and her rigid brother, young, vivacious Eliza Sommers follows her lover to California during the Gold Rush of 1849 -- a danger-filled quest that will become a momentous journey of transformation. In this rough-and-tumble world of panhandlers and prostitutes, immigrants and aristocrats, Eliza will discover a new life of freedom, independence, and a love... (more)

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency: Book 2

Tears of the Giraffe

by Alexander McCall Smith

Precious Ramotswe is the eminently sensible and cunning proprietor of the only ladies’ detective agency in Botswana. In Tears of the Giraffe she tracks a wayward wife, uncovers an unscrupulous maid, and searches for an American man who disappeared into the plains many years ago. In the midst of resolving uncertainties, pondering her impending marriage to a good, kind man, Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni, and the promotion... (more)

The Circle Trilogy: Book 3

Valley of Silence

by Nora Roberts

The battleground has been chosen for the final showdown between those selected by the gods and the minions of the vampire Lilith. But there is one vampire who dares stand against her. And his love for the scholarly queen of Geall will complete the circle of six-and change the face of eternity.

The Circle Trilogy: Book 1

Morrigan's Cross

by Nora Roberts

As a storm rages, the tale of a powerful vampire's lust for destruction-and of the circle of six charged by the goddess Morrigan to stop her-begins. One of the chosen is a medieval sorcerer whose quest will take him through time-and into the arms of a woman courageous enough to link her destiny to his own.

The Tales of Alvin Maker: Book 2

Red Prophet

by Orson Scott Card

Come here to the magical America that might have been, and marvel as the tale of Alvin Maker unfolds. The seventh son of a seventh son is a boy of mysterious powers, and he is waking to the mysteries of the land and its own chosen people.

Confessions of An Ugly Stepsister (Maguire, Gregory)

Confessions of An Ugly Stepsister (Maguire, Gregory)

by Gregory Maguire

Is this new land a place where magics really happen? From Gregory Maguire, the acclaimed author of Wicked, comes his much-anticipated second novel, a brilliant and provocative retelling of the timeless Cinderella tale. In the lives of children, pumpkins can turn into coaches, mice and rats into human beings.... When we grow up, we learn that it's far more common for human beings to turn into rats.... We... (more)

If Wishes Were Horses

by Anne McCaffrey

Young Tizra and her twin brother Tracell find their world abruptly changed when their father is unexpectedly called to fight in a war which promises to last much longer than the usual three-day skirmish. Their mother - the village healer - enlists her children to assist her in caring for the many refugees left wounded and homeless by the conflict. Inspired by her mother, Tizra learns never to surrender hope even... (more)

Gemma Doyle Trilogy: Book 1

A Great and Terrible Beauty

by Libba Bray

It’s 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma’s reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she’s been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her.... (more)

The Circle Trilogy: Book 2

Dance of the Gods

by Nora Roberts

Second in the new paranormal Circle Trilogy. With one vampire determined to rule the earth, the Circle of Six prepares to battle for their lives-and their hearts.

Doomsday Book

by Connie Willis

For Kivrin, preparing an on-site study of one of the deadliest eras in humanity's history was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a woman traveling alone. For her instructors in the twenty-first century, it meant painstaking calculations and careful monitoring of the rendezvous location where Kivrin would be received. But a crisis... (more)

Year of Wonders

by Geraldine Brooks

When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and superstition. As death reaches into every household and villagers turn from prayers to murderous witch-hunting, Anna must find... (more)

The Dress Lodger

by Sheri Holman

The Dress Lodger is engrossing historical fiction. As in the best of its genre, Sheri Holman's atmospheric, miasmic tale set in cholera-stricken Sunderland, England, circa 1831 is based on fact. Its epigraph from Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary --"Grave: A place where the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student"--casts the novel's thematic lodestone, steering the reader into a... (more)

A Modern Faerie Tale: Book 1

Tithe

A Modern Faerie Tale

by Holly Black

Welcome to the realm of very scary faeries! Sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce and independent, she travels from city to city with her mother's rock band until an ominous attack forces Kaye back to her childhood home. There, amid the industrial, blue-collar New Jersey backdrop, Kaye soon finds herself an unwilling pawn in an ancient power struggle between two rival faerie kingdoms -- a struggle... (more)

Beloved Exile

by Parke Godwin

King Arthur is dead. Surrounded by traitors and usurpers, Guinevere must defend the empire she struggled so desperately to help forge. Aided by the loyalty of Bedivere, Gareth, Lancelot, and others from Arthur’s reign, she works toward settling her uneasy nation. But when faced with unthinkable treachery, Guinevere is swept into a life she never understood, driven to the depths of servitude to a bold Saxon who is... (more)

Gemma Doyle Trilogy: Book 2

Rebel Angels

by Libba Bray

Gemma Doyle is looking forward to a holiday from Spence Academy—spending time with her friends in the city, attending balls in fancy gowns with plunging necklines, and dallying with the handsome Lord Denby. Yet amid these distractions, her visions intensify—visions of three girls dressed in white, to whom something horrific has happened that only the realms can explain. The lure is strong, and soon Gemma,... (more)

Time Windows

by Kathryn Reiss

When Miranda moves with her family to a new house in a small Massachusetts town, she discovers a mysterious antique--a dollhouse. Through the windows, she is shocked to find what seem to be living people in the tiny rooms, and gradually she realizes that scenes from the lives of the big house’s past inhabitants are being replayed there.

The Bridei Chronicles: Book 1

The Dark Mirror

by Juliet Marillier

THE DARK MIRROR is the first book in Juliet Marillier's Bridei Chronicles. Bridei is a young nobleman fostered at the home of Broichan, one of the most powerful druids in the land. His earliest memories are not of hearth and kin but of this dark stranger who while not unkind is mysterious in his ways. The tasks that he sets Bridei appear to have one goal-to make him a vessel for some distant purpose. What that... (more)

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel: Book 1

The Alchemyst

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel

by Michael Scott

He holds the secret that can end the world. The truth: Nicholas Flamel was born in Paris on September 28, 1330. Nearly 700 years later, he is acknowledged as the greatest Alchemyst of his day. It is said that he discovered the secret of eternal life. The records show that he died in 1418. But his tomb is empty. The legend: Nicholas Flamel lives. But only because he has been making the elixir of life for... (more)

To Dance with Kings: A Novel

by Rosalind Laker

On a May morning in 1664, in the small village of Versailles, as hundreds of young aristocrats are coming to pay court to King Louis XIV, a peasant fan-maker gives birth to her first and only child, Marguerite. Determined to give her daughter a better life than the one she herself has lived, the young mother vows to break the newborn’s bonds of poverty and ensure that she fulfills her destiny—to dance with kings.... (more)

Gemma Doyle Trilogy: Book 3

The Sweet Far Thing

by Libba Bray

IT HAS BEEN A YEAR OF CHANGE since Gemma Doyle arrived at the foreboding Spence Academy. Her mother murdered, her father a laudanum addict, Gemma has relied on an unsuspected strength and has discovered an ability to travel to an enchanted world called the realms, where dark magic runs wild. Despite certain peril, Gemma has bound the magic to herself and forged unlikely new alliances. Now, as Gemma approaches her... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: candace_redinger

by Isabel Allende

by Alexander McCall Smith

by Nora Roberts

by Nora Roberts

by Orson Scott Card

by Gregory Maguire

by Anne McCaffrey

by Libba Bray

by Nora Roberts

by Connie Willis

by Geraldine Brooks

by Sheri Holman

A Modern Faerie Tale

by Holly Black

by Parke Godwin

by Libba Bray

by Kathryn Reiss

by Juliet Marillier

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel

by Michael Scott

by Rosalind Laker

by Libba Bray