Eat! Read! Party!

In "Time After Time," H.G. Wells used his time machine to chase after Jack the Ripper who was on a killing spree in 1979 San Francisco. After H.G. met Amy Catherine Robbins, the love of his life, and banished the serial killer to the indefinite future, H.G. and Amy returned to 1893 London, believing they could live happily ever after. But that wasn't the end of the story. In "Jaclyn the Ripper, "Amy returns to the present to tell her parents what happened to their missing daughter, accidentally freeing Jack from his prison in the far future while also transforming Jack into a woman. Jaclyn the Ripper sets out on a new killing spree in 2010 Los Angeles, vowing revenge on H.G. and Amy. H.G. follows Amy to modern L.A., but neither he nor Amy knows Jaclyn is on their trail. In the brave new world of the new millennium, H.G. must navigate a world of cell phones, the internet, and identity theft and find his wayward wife . . . before the Ripper slays her. With the panache, excitement, and thrills that made "Time After Time" so popular, Karl Alexander has penned another winning tale of Wells: author, inventor, and unlikely hero.

Cozy mystery author Emily Brightwell helps set the holiday tone of our event with her first appearance at MG and her hardcover series debut with Mrs. Jeffries and the Yuletide Weddings. The best-selling Victorian Era London Murder Mysteries feature the detective team of housekeeper Mrs. Jeffries and Scotland Yard Inspector Gerald Witherspoon. Between the Inspector's formal detecting and Mrs. Jeffries' ability to be privy to the secrets that servants often have access to, the duo is up to solving any mystery, even when a murder disrupts two sets of upcoming nuptials. With twenty-six books in the series, we hope to see both fans who have been reading since it began with The Inspector & Mrs. Jeffries, and mystery fans who are new to the series.

The Master of Alternate History, Harry Turtledove, returns to MG after too long an absence. Harry launched his Atlantis series a couple of years ago, with Opening Atlantis, setting the mythic continent between Europe and "Terranova," and applying his usual meticulous imagination based on historical facts to describe the battles for territory that would occur. In Liberating Atlantis, the struggle continues between the forces of England, and Victor Radcliff and his American revolutionaries. The Golden Shrine, the latest in his alternate Bronze Age epic, just hit the shelves recently as well, as well as this summer's Hitler's War.

E. Van Lowe is all about the Zombie Love, and will join us to explain how his love of zombies and work in television, including on Disney's hit show "Even Stevens," combined to produce his teen novel, Never Slow Dance with a Zombie. (See Suzanne's Holiday Picks.) Despite her best intentions and creating a "high school manifesto" at the end of middle school, Margot Jean Johnson has not had the high school experience she hoped for. However, when a significant portion of the student body is zombified, new horizons open up – if she and her best friend can survive long enough to change their course.

At the 2008 Holiday Party, attendees were treated to a tease by Tim Maleeny for Jump. His standalone novel was called "a perfectly blended cocktail of escapism, with or without the beach towel," by Publishers Weekly, and The Boston Globe says, "If you threw in the air the pages of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express and Elmore Leonard's Get Shorty, and then invited Monty Python to stitch them back together, you might end up with something like Jump, Tim Maleeny's hilarious novel." Really, how could anyone resist that description? Tim's various Cape Weathers novels are also readily available again. But ex-cop Sam McGowan knows it was murder. He also knows that anyone living on the top floor of the building should be a suspect, including himself. So Sam decides to get to know his neighbors: A lonely jazz singer more than willing to confess to any crime, past or present; Two young women paying for graduate school by operating a website that reveals a lot more than their SAT scores; The B-movie producer with a swollen prostate and shrinking bank balance; And the brothers at the end of the hall, who just quit their day jobs to sell marijuana for the Mexican mob. The only thing they have in common is a general agreement that their dead landlord got what he deserved -- and that one of them is probably responsible. As more bodies surface and alliances shift, Sam finds himself jumping back and forth between his old life as a cop and his new one as a murder suspect, unable to decide where he really belongs.

We can only hope to aspire to the culinary heights experienced in local author Elle Newmark's The Book of Unholy Mischief. This delectable historical mystery made it onto both Linda Tonnesen and Suzanne's Picks. Luciano, our hero, is a poor street urchin with quick hands and a quick mind. It's 1498 Venice, and dangerous times, whether you live on the streets or in the palace of the doge, the most powerful man of Venice. Luciano is chosen as kitchen apprentice by the doge's chef. The city is abuzz over rumors of a book, a very powerful book, containing magical potions for eternal life, love spells, alchemy, and who knows what else. When Luciano learns that the book contains love spells, his interest grows, for he is a boy caught in the web of unrequited love.