My family and I stopped by #32 Dead to the World" href="http://wellreadreviews.com/review-32-dead-to-the-world">Books-a-million on the way home from a family lunch today. (Like I REALLY needed any more books?) It felt as if the whole store was on clearance (although it was not). So many great hardcover books were clearanced to an incredible low (some as low as $3-ish)! Yes – a lot of these books were less than $4, hardcover! *#Meme" href="http://wellreadreviews.com/wednesdays-a-z-meme">JACKPOT!!!!*

From the #28 High Five" href="http://wellreadreviews.com/review-28-high-five">Stephanie Plum series (Janet Evanovich):

• Eleven on top
• Twelve Sharp
• Lean Mean Thirteen
• Fearless Fourteen
• Plum Lovin’ (in between the numbers)
• Plum Lucky (in between the numbers)

I won’t give summaries of these Janet Evanovich novels because I don’t want to read them yet (personally). I’d rather wait until I get there! But holy Janet Evanovich jackpot! It’ll be a while yet until I get to them since they are the end of the series.. but – they are happily sitting on my bookshelf until then.

Here are a few others that I purchased:

Love Walked in – Marisa De Los Santos

Synopsis: (Taken from back of book)

When Marin Grace enters the hip Philadelphia coffee shop Cornelia Brown manages, her life changes forever. But little does she know that her newfound love is only the harbinger of greater changes to come. Meanwhile, across town, Clare Hobbs – eleven years old and abandoned by her erratic mother – goes looking for her lost father. She crosses paths with Cornelia while meeting with him at the cafe, and the two form an improbable friendship that carries them through the unpredictable currents of love and life. Invoking classic movies to illuminate the mystery and wonder of love in all its permutations, Love Walked In is an uplifting debut that marks the entrance of an enchanting literary voice.

The Abstinence Teacher – Tom Perrotta

Synopsis: (Taken from back of book)

Stonewood Heights is the perfect place to raise kids. It’s got the proverbial good schools, solid values, and a healthy real estate market. It’s the kind of all-American suburb where parents are involved in their children’s lives, where no opportunity for enrichment goes unexplored.

Ruth Ramsey is the human sexuality teacher at the local high school. She believes that “pleasure is good, shame is bad, and knowledge is power.” Ruth’s daughter’s socer coach is Tim Mason, a former stoner and rocker whose response to hitting rock bottom was to reach out and be saved. Tim belongs to the Tabernacle, an evangelical Christian church that doesn’t approve of Ruth’s style of teaching and makes her the focus of a very public crusade. And Ruth, in turn, doesn’t applaud the Tabernacle’s mission to take its message outside its doors. Adversaries in a small-town culture war, Ruth and Tim instinctively mistrust each other. But when a controversy on the soccer field pushes the two of them to actually talk, they are forced to look beyond their first impressions.

The Abstinence Teacher exposes the powerful emotions that run beneath the surface of modern American life and explores the complex spiritual and sexual lives of ordinary people. Elegantly written, it is characterized by the distinctive mix of satire and compassion that have animated Perrotta’s previous novels.

Grave Surprise – #meme" href="http://wellreadreviews.com/teaser-tuesdays-dead-until-dark-meme">Charlaine Harris

Synopsis: (Taken from book)

When I was fifteen, I was struck by a bolt of lightening through an open window of the trailer where we lived.. I recovered, mostly. I have a strange spiderweb pattern of red on my torso and right leg, which has episodes of weakness. Sometimes, my right hand shakes. I have headaches. I have many fears. And I can find dead people. That was the part that interested the professor….

At the request of anthropology professor Dr. Clyde Nunley, Harper Connelly and her stepbrother Tolliver come to Memphis to give a demonstration of Harper’s unique talent. And what better place to have that demonstration than in a very old cemetery?

Dr. Nunley doesn’t bother to hide his skepticism, especially when Harper stands atop a grave and senses two bodies beneath her – one of a centuries dead man and the other of a young girl, recently deceased. When the grave is opened, Harper’s claim is proven true. The dead girl is Tabitha Morgenstern, an eleven-year-old abducted from Nashville two years previously – a child whom Harper had tried, and failed, to find. The coincidence raises suspicions about her among the police – so she and Tolliver undertake their own hunt to find the killer. They make a nocturnal visit to the cemetery, hoping that Harper can sense something further about the murder.

And then , the next morning, a third dead body is found in the grave …