The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • E6

Filename: E6-FEATUR-AJCD0718-AJCD DateTime created: Jul 15 2010 Username: SPEEDDRIVER05 Magenta Black 6E AJCD Sunday, Jul 18, 2010 FEATURES 6E E6 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Sunday, July 18, 2010 I Books Best-sellers Vigilantes in riding hoods Advice, how-to, and misc. (paperback) 1. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse MarkCottaVaz 2. What to Expect When You're Expecting Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel 3. The Five Love Languages Gary Chapman 4.

The Belly Fat Cure Jorge Cru ise 5. The Love Dare Stephen and Alex Kendrick with Lawrence Kimbrough NEW VORK-IOS ANGEIES-10ND0N PARIS In Jackson Pearce's "Sisters tale of Little Red Riding Hood is given the Contemporary treatment. Little Brown for Young Readers 'Sisters Red' updates a sinister classic tale. Siblings take on the big bad wolves preying in rural Georgia. ByGinaWebb FortheAJC In Atlanta author Jackson Pearce's updated, sinister take on the classic fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood," Scarlett March and her sister Rosie barely escaped with their lives seven years ago when a Fenris, as the sisters call werewolves, broke into their grandmother's cottage.

Ever since the terrifying incident, in which their grandmother was brutally murdered and Scarlett lost her right eye, the Fenris have been preying on the population of Ellison, the girls' hometown in rural Georgia. Scarlett, now 18, and Rosie, 16, armed with hatchets and knives and martial arts degrees, have been fighting back. They've become experts in hunting and killing the big bad wolves, who, by the way, could care less about grandma these days. Pretty young girls are what they're after, and in their human form, the Fenris are as handsome as rock stars and hard for a teenage girl to resist. At first, anyway.

"That's all part of the illusion, of course; it's hard to lure young girls to their doom if you look like a psychopath," Scarlett explains. Only when a Fenris has lured his prey into a deserted area can the transformation begin. Scarlett has seen it close to a hundred times. "I can hear the panting in his voice as his eyes run across the red cloak. I notice that the hair on his arms has started to grow; he's too hungry to totally control his transformation for long.

His voice is dark now, almost guttural as the mutation begins to overpower his vocal cords." Scarlett and Rosie know every nuance of the Fenris' transformations because to trap them, the sisters use themselves as bait. Their "hunt" begins when they apply vampy makeup and cloying perfume, then sashay around town in their bright red hoods, playing the part of naive young girls. When the wolves move in for the kill, the girls whip up a "Buffy the Vampire slaugh- The head of an investigation company pursues the murderer of his best friend's wife. Hardbackfiction 1. Private James Patterson and Maxine Paetro 2.

Sizzling Sixteen Janet Evanovich 3. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest Stieg Larsson 4. The Overton Window Glenn Beck 5. The Help Kathryn Stockett 6. Foreign Influence Brad Thor 7.

The Passage usti Cron i 8. The Lion Nelson DeMille 9. Family Ties Danielle Steel 10. Ice Cold TessGerritsen SEAN PAYTON The head coach of the New Orleans Sai nts descri bes the team's Super Bowl victory, which raised the city's spirits four years after Hurricane Katrina. Hardback nonfiction 1.

My Dad Says Justin Halpern 2. Medium Raw Anthony Bourdain 3. The BigShortMichael Lewis 4. Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang Chelsea Handler 5. Spoken From the Heart Laura Bush 6.

Empire of the Summer Moon S.C.Gwynne 7. War Sebastian Junger 8. Home Team Sean Payton and Ellis Henican 9. Outliers Malcolm Gladwell 10. The Last Stand Nathaniel Philbrick Advice, how-to, and misc.

hardback 1. Women Food andGodGeneen Roth 2. Delivering Happiness Tony Hsieh 3. The Last Lecture Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow 4. Switch Chip Heath and Dan Heath 5.

The Secret Rhonda Byrne senal. He soon becomes the object of Rosie's fantasies, and as the romance between the two heats up, Rosie conceals it from Scarlett, knowing she would never approve: "Scarlett has no time for love, so why should Poor Scarlett as much as she might yearn for a normal life, she is too "tied to the hunt" to do anything else. Watching her sister and Silas fall for each other stirs up complex regrets, but it also scares her: She needs Rosie and Silas as full-time allies in her crusade especially since more and more Fenris have been showing up in Ellison. Hoping to keep the local girls off the menu, Scarlett moves her band to Atlanta to cut the Fenris off at the source. There, the intrepid trio will fight the biggest battle of their lives and, in the process, discover that love and survival may not be such unlikely bedfellows after all.

"Sisters Red" makes sly use of its roots: Rosie takes cookies to Silas' house "in the middle of the forest," while Scarlett wanders through Piedmont Park at night. When they meet up with the wolves, they pretend to be lost, feigning the kind of fear that gets the Fenris' salivary glands working overtime. The biggest tease in "Sisters Red," however, isn't Scarlett or Rosie. It's the trail of crumbs to an enticing back story: the girls' German grandmother, who instantly recognized the clan tattoo on the wolf that killed her; Silas' uncle Jacob (any relation to a mysterious recluse now living in San Francisco; the girls' wayward mother, a "country girl from Georgia" who became a "star trapeze girl" with the circus. Star trapeze girl? We're starving for a prequel.

Checking in year by year on the confused, halting romance of two children of the '80s. Paperbackfiction 1 The irl With the Dragon Tattoo Stieg Larsson 2. The Girl Who Played With Fire Stieg Larsson 3. Little Bee Chris Cleave 4. One Day David Nicholls 5.Swimsuit James Patterson and Maxine Paetro 6.

Best Friends Forever Jennifer Weiner 7. Cutting for Stone Abraham Verghese 8. The Art of Racing in the Rain Garth Stein 9. A Reliable Wife Robert Goolrick 10. Sarah's Key Tatiana de Rosnay A poet's memoir of motherhood, troubled marriage, alcoholism and depression; a sequel to "The Liars' Club." Paperback nonfiction 1.

Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert 2. Three Cups of Tea Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin 3. My Horizontal Life Chelsea Handler 4. Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea Chelsea Handler 5. Resilience Elizabeth Edwards 6.

The Glass Castle Jeannette Walls 7. Mennonite in a Little Black Dress Rhoda Janzen 8. Lit Mary Karr 9. Blink Malcolm Gladwell 10. Freakonomics Steven D.

Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner NewYorkTimes Kathryn Stockettjoin them by phone to discuss'The Help." And once a neighbor provided context Michael Dobbs, about eight German saboteurs who invaded the U.S. in 1942.The neighbor's fatherwasan FBI agent involved in the Germans' capture. Recently read: Hillary Jordan What it's about: A family lives on a desolate farm in Mississippi after World War 1 1. What members led to a very spirited conversation about some of the horrific events says.

They dined on vegetable soup, corn bread and Mississippi mud pie. Next assignment: "The School of Essential Ingredients" by Erica Bauermeister PattiGhezzi.fortheAJC Tell us what your club is reading. Contact Ghezzi at ajcbookclubsyahoo.com. lt TIIF- U.WVUjJ' trk XATHIXAL tSrSEI.l.EX mary karr Fiction Sisters Red By Jackson Pearce Little Brown; 336 pages; $16.99 Author appearance 7:15 p.m. July 26.

Decatur Library Auditorium, 215 Sycamore Decatur. 404-370-8450, Ext. 2225, www. georgiacenterforthebook.org terfest. If you're wondering why in order to appear innocent the sisters have to look slutty, or why the Fenris masquerade as models from Gap ads, or why Scarlett's such an avenging angel, well, these are only a few of the hints the author drops about the deeper significance lurking behind this oft-told children's story.

Don't bother your pretty little head about it. Just keep walking toward that vacant alley, please. Strong enough for werewolf-vampire fiction addicts, but written for young adults, "Sisters Red" wouldn't be complete without a woodcutter: Silas, Scarlett's hunting partner before Rosie, who has returned from San Francisco to add his ax to the sisters' ar NITER MASC1 A Nonfiction "NeverTell Our Business to Strangers" By Jennifer Mascia Villard; 383 pages; $26 Jennifer Mascia lived a mostly happy childhood, filled with dance recitals and drama classes. But the family suffered drastic swings in fortune; there were extravagant A daughter's tale of life What we are reading on the lam shopping trips, and they made abrupt cross-country moves. When Jennifer Mascia was 22 and her father had lung cancer, she decided to look up his prison records.

She discovered that he served almost 12 years for killing a stool pigeon. Johnny Mascia died in 2001 at 64; Jennifer's mother, Eleanor, died in 2006 at age 71. Just weeks before she died, Eleanor Mascia told Jennifer that her father had committed another "four, maybe five" murders with impunity. After her parents' deaths, Mascia started reporting her bizarre family story. A forensic psychologist concluded that her father was probably a psychopath and her mother an en-abler who craved excitement.

So, where does that leave Jennifer Mascia, now 32, and a news assistant at The New York Times? What disturbs her most is that she has lost the two people she cared about most in the world. "And if we could choose our parents, I still would have chosen them," she writes. And she really means it. A hit man, an enabler but she'd still choose them to be her parents. By Robin D.

Schatz Bloomberg News NEW YORK Jennifer Mascia was 5 when the FBI came for her father. The feds couldn't arrest him because they didn't want to leave her alone in the Irvine, condo. "Are they arresting my daddy?" Jennifer Mascia asked when her mother sped home with a friend. "No, honey," the friend replied. "It's not real.

They're making a movie." It's an engaging start to Mascia's stranger-than-fiction memoir, "Never Tell Our Business to Strangers." You'll have to wait a while before learning the nature of Johnny Mascia's crimes, and about his infidelities and addictions. After the arrest that opens the book, Johnny Mascia spent five months in jail before being reunited with his family. The Sou per P's Ly udge Roswe 1 1 How often they meet: Monthly About this club: Three years ago a group of friends got to talking abouf'Skeletons at the Feast" by Chris decided to have a casual dinner of soup and discuss the was such a huge success that we decided to continue having soup each month and basing our dinner on the theme of the hostess makes the soup, and others contribute appetizers, salad, dessert and wine. Members recently read "Olive Elizabeth Strout and enjoyed lobster bisque. When they read "Julia's Choco lates" by Cathy Lam th ey had Polish cherry soup.

Cups of Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin What they liked: They were thrilled to have Atlanta author Magenta Black 6E AJCD File name: E6-FEATUR-AJCD0718-AJCD DateTime created: Jul 15 2010 Username:.