Although new isn’t exactly the right word, just lots of delicious looking old treasures to add to the ever-growing TBR pile. Here’s the most promising of the lot:
Chinaberry by William Lavender. The romance of GONE WITH THE WIND… the sweep of BEULAHLAND…the frankness of MANDINGO…a sprawling plantation on the Mississippi…lush with prosperity…grand in hospitality…smouldering with forbidden desire and scandalous family secrets…until the night of the party, the night the master’s daughter is discovered out back with her personal slave-boy. After that, CHINABERRY is never the same! Here is a saga of the old South in all its splendor and decadence…of a plantation rent by its loves and hates, ravaged by civil war and bloodthirsty vengeance, reborn in a bleak aftermath…but mostly of the people, white and black, who intermingled in one generation’s shame and another’s daring, tied forever to each other and to CHINABERRY.
That sounds so delightfully non PC 😀
Troubled Spring by John Brick. The stormy era that followed our Civil War was a time of great hope and great expansion; also it was a time when men tried desperately to find themselves in a strange new world where progress went hand in hand with ruthlessness and greed. This dramatic novel tells the story of one man’s search for his destiny in those turbulent days.
In the troubled spring of 1865, Sam Bellnap, haggard and exhausted from many months in Andersonville, most dreaded of Confederate prisons, returned to his home in Highland Landing, N.Y. He looked forward to resuming a way of life that had been a sustaining memory for four long years of war. But Sam did not know that the War Department had declared him dead over a year ago, and that Martha, the girl he loved, had taken the name Bellnap-Mrs. Robert Bellnap-as the wife of Sam’s elder brother.
I do so love Civil War stories, particularly when they focus on the people and not on the battles.
The Far Side of Home by Maggie Davis. 
In this extraordinary novel, Maggie Davis adds a new dimension to our understanding of the men and women who fought for the Confederacy.
The Cavaliers…the Sir Walter Scott characters who blaze through most of the fiction of the period…the pillared plantations…the gracious, mannered, romantic aristocracy are not to be found here.
The Far Side of Home portrays those rural, middle-class Southerners who had no slaves and wanted none, who stood to gain little whatever the outcome of the war. They were, nevertheless, the solid, tough backbone of the Confederacy. They fought for their homeland and brought an almost forgotten splendor to the story of Dixie. This is the story of one of them…
And look at what is on the inside cover (click to enlarge):
Deepwater by Pamela Jekel. From the first settlement on Roanoke Island and the birth of Virginia Dare through the revolution that created a new nation and the Civil War that tore it apart, Pamela Jekel weaves a vast, colorful tapestry, bursting with the tempestuous beauty of the land, surging with human drama, and peopled with courageous women and bold men whose joys and sorrows forged the triumphant history that is the glory of the Carolinas.
I love me those big fat sagas, although the font size in the paperback is pretty scary.
When Love Commands by Jennifer Wilde. As Marietta Danver’s conveyance sped across the wintry Russian landscape, not even her sumptuous furs could keep out the sudden chill of apprehension. Was she letting wounded vanity lead her into danger? Her heart had been broken…but could she really forget by running off to St. Petersburg with Count Gregory Orlov?
Soon it was too late for regrets. Gregory Orlov — the tall, broodingly handsome, wildly passionate Russian, notorious as Catherine the Great ‘s uncrowned emperor–revealed the violent nature which took pleasure in her torment. She was no more than his prisoner…snared in the intrigues of a glittering imperial court… pursued by the rage of a jealous empress…thrust into the savagery of revolution.
Defenseless and nearly broken, she resigned herself to death, or worse. Yet the man she had run from, trying to forget, had not forgotten her…or the dreams of love they once shared.
Erm, not sure what to make of that cover and I suspect this will be a bit sexed up, but how can I pass up Catherine the Great and Count Orlov?
San Antonio by Sara Orwig
. OK, here’s an interesting one and it appears the author has several titles in a similar vein. Memphis, Denver, Albuquerque and Atlanta. Anyone read these?
SAN ANTONIO, the untamed territory of Texas, where acres of wilderness were up for grabs and fortunes were waiting for every man who had fought for Texas.
SAN ANTONIO, where Luke Danby, growing up in this land of peril and promise was driven by a hunger for power and a lust to wreak vengeance on those who had destroyed his family.
SAN ANTONIO, where Catalina Piedra, the stunningly beautiful daughter of a ruthless, powerful man, displayed a will strong enough to defy her father, and used a sensual sorcery that made men her willing playthings.
SAN ANTONIO, a magnificent saga of a man who let nothing stand in his way…a woman who let no one rule her actions…and a love that broke through all barriers to bring them together – in a time of decision and a place where all things were possible for those who dared to believe their dreams…
Now to find time to read them all. BTW, a new to me thrift store is Deseret Industries. They’re only in the western states, and while the book selection wasn’t huge, there were some interesting finds there (du Maurier and Mary Stewart). Paperbacks were $.50, much cheaper than the $.99 at St. Vincent de Paul and the $1.99 charged at Goodwill.
At Home With A Good Book and the Cat 