Barbara Taylor Bradford brings her Harte family saga to a close with “Just Rewards” – or does she? This newest centers on four of Emma Harte’s great-granddaughters. In nonfiction, look for the story of the creation of the leper colony on Molokai in “The Colony,” by John Tayman. Just out in paperback is Jonathan Lowy’s “The Temple of Music.” And, in April, look for another Stone Barrington novel from Stuart Woods, “Dark Harbor.”
FICTION
Just Rewards, by Barbara Taylor Bradford, St. Martin, 480 pages, $24.95|In this so-called final installment (Bradford leaves the door open for another chapter) of the Harte family chronicles, Emma Harte’s great-granddaughter battles to modernize the family’s business.
The Sacred Cut, by David Hewson, Delacorte, 352 pages, $22|A young Iraqi refugee witnesses a murder in Rome’s Pantheon and is taken under the wing of Hewson’s continuing characters, police detectives Gianni Peroni and Nic
Costa.
Queen of the Underworld, by Gail Godwin, Random House, 352 pages, $24.95|The story opens in 1959 when Emma Grant runs from her North Carolina home to become a fledgling reporter in Miami who befriends a family of Cubans recently fled from Castro’s Havana.
NONFICTION
The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai, by John Tayman, Scribner, 352 pages, $27.95|Beginning in the mid-19th century, the Hawaiian and American governments sent more than 9,000 people to exile in the harsh conditions on the island of Molokai. Over the years the dire conditions improved, but not without a battle.
Men of Salt: Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold, by Michael Benanav, Lyons Press, 240 pages, $23.95|Benanav rides camels in a caravan on the same route nomads have been taking for centuries to reach the salt quarries at Taoudenni. This is the account of that journey.
Nothing but an Unfinished Song: Bobby Sands, the Irish Hunger Striker Who Ignited a Generation, by Denis O’Hearn, Nation, $400 pages, $28|Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands died in 1981 after 66 days of a hunger strike. Sands spent most of his adult life in prison, and his death inspired Catholics in Northern Ireland.
PAPERBACKS
The Temple of Music, by Jonathan Lowy, Crown, 416 pages, $13.95|Not many people know much about Leon Czolgosz who assassinated President William
McKinley in 1901 Buffalo, N.Y. Lowy tries to fill in some blanks in this historical novel.
Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America’s First Civil Rights Movement, by Fergus M. Bordewich, Amistad, 576 pages, $14.95|The story of how abolitionists in America over six decades attempted to remove slavery from the nascent country.
Sight Hound, by Pam Houston, Norton, 288 pages, $13.95|Houston’s novel is about a Colorado playwright and the Irish wolfhound she adores. Never all that lucky with men, Rae puts her energies into the saving the dog’s life after it is diagnosed with cancer.
COMING UP
Dark Harbor, by Stuart Woods, Putnam, 304 pages, $25.95, April|In another of Woods’ Stone Barrington novels, the 12th, Stone works to find out if his cousin, Dick, a former CIA operative, really killed himself and his family.
Challenger Park, by Stephen Harrigan, Knopf, 416 pages, $24.95, April|The author of the best-selling “Gates of the Alamo” is back with another historical fiction centering on what it’s like to journey into space as one of today’s astronauts.
Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life, by Erica Jong, Tarcher/Penguin, 304 pages, $22.95, March|What started out as a guide for aspiring writers turned instead into a salacious and brutally honest memoir.
