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"Definition of a babe: 1. Resourceful female. 2. Strong feminine spirit. 3. A woman with a beautiful soul.   You&amp;#039;ll find these 10 &amp;quot;babes&amp;quot; in newly released novels that will make great reading when warm breezes rock the hammock -- or any time, for that matter.  1. Precious Ramotswe in In the Company of Cheerful Ladies, by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon). The sensible -- and full-figured -- No. 1 lady detective in Botswana is back, along with her new husband, master mechanic Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, and her faithful assistant, Grace Makutsi. Grab a cup of bush tea and enjoy this latest caper, which begins with an intruder who flees without his pants and a pumpkin left mysteriously on Madame Ramotswe&amp;#039;s doorstep.   2. Hortense Joseph in Small Island, by Andrea Levy (Picador). A pouty, independent Jamaican bride joins her new husband, the bumbling Gilbert Joseph, in war-torn London. Their lives collide with Queenie and Bernard Bligh, their English landlords, who have very different reactions to these new immigrants. Winner of Britain&amp;#039;s Orange Prize and named Whitbread Book of the Year, this pitch-perfect tale mirrors the struggles of all strangers in strange land.   3. Lavinia Gibbs in Twilight, by Katherine Mosby (HarperCollins). A socialite in the 1930s prefers passion to a proper marriage. Her parents ship Gibbs to Paris, and against a darkening backdrop as war approaches, she falls in love with a married man. Mosby should get a prize for nuance with the way she beautifully evokes both the twilight atmosphere of an illicit romance and a world fast disappearing.   4. Sophie Applebaum in The Wonder Spot, by Melissa Bank (Viking). A wisecracking Jewish middle child survives on her wit after her father&amp;#039;s death leaves the family without an anchor. Drifting from job to job and boyfriend to boyfriend, Applebaum is a delightful follow-up to Jane Rosenal, the protagonist of Bank&amp;#039;s hilarious first novel, The Girls&amp;#039; Guide to Hunting and Fishing.   5. Lynn Fleming in The Missing Person, by Alix Ohlin (Knopf). A grad student is called home from New York to Arizona and sent looking for her counterculture brother. The odyssey links her up with his band of bungling ecoterrorists in a story that&amp;#039;s smart and witty and avoids grinding a political ax.   6. Alma in The History of Love, by Nicole Krauss (Norton). A teenage girl named after the heroine of a novel her father gave her mother tries to find the real Alma who inspired the story. Worried about her lonely widowed mother and her brother, who&amp;#039;s convinced he&amp;#039;s the Messiah, the young Alma eventually intersects with the author of The History of Love, a Holocaust survivor, in this touching tale of converging lives.   7. Catalina Ortiz Midori in Mambo Peligroso, by Patricia Chao (HarperCollins). A Japanese-Cuban immigrant raised in Boston rediscovers the Latin rhythms of her native Cuba when she learns how to dance the &amp;quot;dangerous mambo&amp;quot; from El Tuerto, a one-eyed dance master in Spanish Harlem. This sensuous and sometimes violent tale is filled with sexy foot-stomping scenes -- and an assassination plot to boot.   8. Lily in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, by Lisa See (Random House). Based on the true story of how women shared their lives and a secret language in China during the 1800s, this is a life story told by a Chinese lady with a sturdy and loving heart. Think of it as a 19th-century Chinese version of The Stone Diaries.   9. The daughter in The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova (Little, Brown). This is a story about two people: the father, who picked up the trail after his academic adviser disappeared researching Dracula, and his daughter, who joins the pursuit. This is a big, engrossing story that moves from one European location to another and is told through letters and memories.   10. Keri Whitemore in 72 Hour Hold, by Bebe Moore Campbell (Knopf). A fierce mother fights to save her child, who suffers from bipolar disorder, in this gripping indictment of society&amp;#039;s negligence of the mentally ill. To save the 18-year-old Trina, who is increasingly turning to nonprescription drugs and violent behavior, Keri seeks the aid of a clandestine and radical group whose interventions are modeled after the Underground Railroad. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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