Category: Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday has returned home to Mailbox Monday’s site this year.

I always tend to go a little book crazy around my birthday (hey, what book lover doesn’t?!). So I got four books from Paperbackswap, four from my grandmother and four at the bookstore!

From Paperbackswap:

From my grandmother:

Bought new (couldn’t resist the buy 2 get 3rd free sale!):

Mailbox Monday has returned home to Mailbox Monday’s site this year.

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks at my house. We went to the Dominican Republic for 4 days to see one of my very closest friends get married (she had a gorgeous ceremony!). When we got home we were immediately informed that my 77-year-old grandmother had been in the hospital with pneumonia since the day we left for the DR. So it’s been insane going back and forth between home and where she’s at (about an hour away). They cleared up the pneumonia but she’s too weak to take care of herself at home. So we had to put her in a nursing home rehab facility so she can get the help she needs in order to get her back to where she can live at home again. Needless to say, I’ve been slightly stressed out about everything going on. So my husband surprised me one day with a spontaneous trip to my absolute favorite used book store 2 hours away! And a little clothes shopping too 🙂 But here’s the five books I picked up (for $5.78 … see why it’s my favorite place!?!)

And then I got one book for review, from Blogging for Books:

Noa P. Singleton never spoke a word in her own defense throughout a brief trial that ended with a jury finding her guilty of first-degree murder. Ten years later, she sits on death row in a maximum-security penitentiary, just six months away from her execution date.

Meanwhile, Marlene Dixon, a high-powered Philadelphia attorney who is also the mother of the woman Noa was imprisoned for killing, shows up for a visit. She claims to have changed her mind about the death penalty and will do everything in her considerable power to convince the governor to commute Noa’s sentence in return for the one thing Noa can trade: her story. Marlene wants to understand the events that led to her daughter’s death – events that only Noa knows of and has never shared. Inextricably linked by murder but with very different goals, Noa and Marlene wrestle with the sentences life itself can impose while they confront the best and worst of what makes us human.

Mailbox Monday has returned home to Mailbox Monday’s site this year.

Two books in my mailbox this past week. One for review, one a wishlist book from Paperbackswap.

For review:

Though the message on the kitchen whiteboard is in fourteen-year-old Marley’s handwriting, her mother, Rachel, knows there has to be some other explanation. Marley would never run away.

Marley’s quiet. Innocent. Sheltered. Growing up in Northern California with all the privilege Rachel never had, what does Marley know about taking care of herself? About being okay?

Rachel might not know her daughter at all. But she does know that she needs to find Marley before someone else does. Someone dangerous.

The police have limited resources devoted to runaways. If Rachel and her husband, Paul, want their daughter back, they’ll have to find her themselves. Paul turns to Facebook and Twitter and launches FindMarley.com.

But Marley isn’t the only one with something to hide. Paul’s social media campaign generates national attention, and the public scrutiny could expose Rachel’s darkest secrets. When she blows a television interview, the dirty speculation begins.

The blogosphere is convinced Rachel is hiding something. It’s not what they think; Rachel would never hurt Marley. Not intentionally, anyway. But when it’s discovered that Rachel lied to the police, the devoted mother becomes the prime suspect in Marley’s disappearance.

Is Marley out there, somewhere, watching it all happen … or is the truth something far worse?

And from Paperbackswap:

When he resigned in June 2010, Justice John Paul Stevens was the third-longest-serving Supreme Court justice in American history. As a lawyer and on the Court, he worked with five chief justices – Fred Vinson, Earl Warren, Warren Burger, William Rehnquist, and John Roberts. Five Chiefs is his account of the workings of the Court from his personal experiences with these chief justices: as a law clerk during Vinson’s tenure, a practicing lawyer when Warren was chief, a circuit judge and junior justice during Burger’s term, a contemporary colleague of Rehnquist’s, and a colleague of the current chief justice, John Roberts.

The chief justice of the United States has often been described as the “first among equals.” Known and deeply respected for his candor, Stevens discusses his views of these men and his own career, from his law school days until the moment he left the bench. He includes fascinating information about the Court and about many of the most complex and controversial decisions he was involved with – including cases dealing with freedom of speech, affirmative action, capital punishment, and sovereign immunity. And he explores the human side of life at the Court, along the way revealing, among other things, why having a good backhand might get someone a clerkship and the legal impact of moving a conference room table.

Written with humility and grace, Five Chiefs is an unprecedented and historically significant look at the highest court in the United States.

Mailbox Monday has returned home to Mailbox Monday’s site this year.

Only one book this week, one that I have received as part of a TLC Book tour in July.

Despite Maud’s growing anxiety about Elizabeth’s welfare, no one takes her concerns seriously – not her frustrated daughter, not her caretakers, not the police, and especially not Elizabeth’s mercurial son – because Maud suffers from dementia. But even as her memory disintegrates and she becomes increasingly dependent on the trail of handwritten notes she leaves for herself in her pockets and around her house, Maud cannot forget her best friend. Armed with only an overwhelming feeling that Elizabeth needs her help, Maud resolves to discover the truth – no matter what it takes.

As this singular obsession forms a cornerstone of Maud’s rapidly dissolving present, the clues she uncovers lead her deeper into her past, to another unsolved disappearance: that of her sister, Sukey, who vanished shortly after World War II. As vivid memories of a tragedy that occurred more than fifty years ago come flooding back, Maud’s search for Elizabeth develops a frantic momentum. Whom can she trust? Can she trust herself?

A page-turning novel of suspense, Elizabeth is Missing also hauntingly reminds us that we are all at the mercy of our memory. Always compelling, often poignant, and at times even blackly witty, this is an absolutely unforgettable novel.

I also purchased a book at Wal-Mart.

A family is wiped out after a burglary gone wrong. An executive accused of embezzling kills himself and his loved ones. A house fire claims the lives of all its inhabitants. Separate incidents with two common threads – a first wife who took her own life, and a secret the victims took to their graves…

Stephanie Coburn has barely recovered from her sister’s mysterious suicide before her brother-in-law and his new wife are murdered, her face disfigured beyond recognition. Stephanie never met the bride, has never even seen a clear photograph. But she knew her sister, and she knows something is desperately wrong…

The police won’t listen. Her only ally is another victim’s son. Step by step, they’re uncovering a trail of brutal vengeance and a killer who will never relent – and whose forgiveness can only be earned in death…

Mailbox Monday has returned home to Mailbox Monday’s site this year.

Happy Memorial Day for those of you in the United States! I hope you have a good holiday. Today we are going to St. Louis for the Cardinals vs. Yankees game.

Anyway, this past week I got three books in the mail. One for review, the other two I found on the Bargain Section at booksamillion.com (2 books for $5.95, with free shipping since I’m a member, sure!)

For review:

When Better Gardiner dies, leaving behind an unkempt country home, her grandson and his young wife take a break from city life to prepare the house for sale. Nowell Gardiner leaves first to begin work on his second mystery novel. By the time his wife Vivian joins him, a real mystery has begun: a local girl has been found dead in the woods behind the house. Even after the death is ruled an accident, Vivian can’t forget the girl, can’t ignore the strange behavior of her neighbors, or her husband. As Vivian attempts to put the house in order, all around her things begin to fall apart.

The Qualities of Wood is a novel about secrets. Family secrets. Community secrets. And secrets between lovers, past and present. And all of these secrets have their price.

And the two from Books-a-Million:

Meet Isabel “Izzy” Spellman, PI. This 28-year-old may have a checkered past littered with romantic mistakes, excessive drinking, and creative vandalism; she may be addicted to Get Smart reruns and prefer entering homes through windows rather than doors – but the upshot is she’s good at her job as a licensed PI with her family’s firm, Spellman Investigations. In fact, it comes all too naturally. To be a Spellman is to snoop on a Spellman; tail a Spellman; dig up dirt on, blackmail, and wiretap a Spellman. And when Izzy’s parents hire her little sister, Rae, to follow her, Izzy snaps and decides that the only way she will ever be normal is if she gets out of the family business. But there’s a hitch: she must take one last job before they’ll let her go. She accepts, only to be dealt a mystery far closer to home.

Enter a world upended by the repercussions of a single impulsive action.

At an exclusive New England boarding school, a sex scandal unleashes a storm of shame and recrimination. The men, women, and teenagers affected – among them the headmaster, struggling to contain the scandal before it destroys the school; a well-liked scholarship student and star basketball player, grappling with the consequences of his mistakes; his mother confronting her own forbidden temptations; and a troubled teenage girl eager to put the past behind her – speak out to relate the events of one fateful nigh and its aftermath.

Writing with a pace and intensity surpassing even her greatest work, Anita Shreve explores the impulses that drive ordinary people into intolerable dilemmas.

Also I purchased one book at Kroger (on sale for $5.99)

Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon awakens in an Italian hospital, disoriented and with no recollection of the past thirty-six hours, including the origin of the macabre object hidden in his belongings. With a relentless female assassin trailing them through Florence, he and his resourceful doctor, Sienna Brooks, are forced to flee. Embarking on a harrowing journey, they must unravel a series of codes, which are the work of a brilliant scientist whose obsession with the end of the world is matched only by his passion for one of the most influential masterpieces ever written, Dante Alighieri’s The Inferno.

Dan Brown has raised the bar yet again, combining classical Italian art, history, and literature with cutting-edge science in this captivating thriller.

Mailbox Monday has returned home to Mailbox Monday’s site this year.

Two books this week. One is a review book:

After losing her on-air job two years ago, the television host Robin Trainer has fought her way back and is now hotter than ever. With her new show climbing in the ratings and her first book a bestseller, she’s being dubbed a media double threat.

But things begin to go wrong. Small incidents at first: a nasty note left in her purse; her photo shredded. But the obnoxious quickly becomes threatening when the foundation used by her makeup artist burns Robin’s face. It wasn’t an accident – someone deliberately doctored the product.

An adversary with a dark agenda wants to hurt Robin, and the clues point to someone she works with every day. While she frantically tries to put the pieces together and unmask this hidden foe, it becomes terrifyingly clear that the person responsible isn’t going to stop until Robin loses everything that matters to her … including her life.

And one book from a Paperbackswap box of books trade:

Somewhere … deep inside the United States government is a closely guarded list. Once your name is on the list, it doesn’t come off … until you’re dead.

Someone … has just added counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath’s name.

Somehow … Harvath must evade assassination long enough to untangle who has targeted him and why.

Somewhere, someone, somehow … can put all the pieces together. But Harvath must get to that person before the United States suffers the most withering terrorist attack ever conceived.

Mailbox Monday has returned home to Mailbox Monday’s site this year.

No physical books this week, but I did get approved for an e-galley that I’m super excited about!! I read and reviewed the first book in the Lucy Black series, Little Girl Lost, earlier this year and was beyond excited to get the chance to read the next one!!

On the outskirts of a picturesque Arcadian city, just before Christmas, a 16-year-old-girl is found dead on the train tracks. Detective Lucy Black is called to identify the body. The only clues to the teenager’s last hours are stored in her mobile phone and on social media – and it soon becomes clear that some of her friends may have been her worst enemies.

This second book is another e-galley I had signed up for a chance to review through a Shelf Awareness ad.

Four simultaneous plane crashes. Three child survivors. A religious fanatic who insists the three are harbingers of the apocalypse. What if he’s right?

The world is stunned when four commuter planes crash within hours of each other on different continents. Facing global panic, officials are under pressure to find the causes. With terrorist attacks and environmental factors ruled out, there doesn’t appear to be a correlation between the crashes, except that in three of the four air disasters a child survivor is found in the wreckage.

Dubbed ‘The Three’ by the international press, the children all exhibit disturbing behavioural problems, presumably caused by the horror they lived through and the unrelenting press attention. This attention becomes more than just intrusive when a rapture cult led by a charismatic evangelical minister insists that the survivors are three of the four harbingers of the apocalypse. The Three are forced to go into hiding, but as the children’s behaviour becomes increasingly disturbing, even their guardians begin to question their miraculous survival…

Mailbox Monday has returned home to Mailbox Monday’s site this year.

Just two books this week, both for review.

Born to slave-holding aristocracy in Richmond, Virginia, and educated by Northern Quakers, Elizabeth Van Lew was a paradox of her time. When her native state seceded in April 1861, Van Lew’s convictions compelled her to defy the new Confederate regime. Pledging her loyalty to the Lincoln White House, her courage would never waver, even as her wartime actions threatened not only her reputation, but also her life.

Van Lew helped to construct the Richmond Underground and orchestrated escapes from the infamous Confederate Libby Prison under the guise of humanitarian aid. Her spy ring’s reach was vast, from clerks in the Confederate War and Navy departments to the very home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. In Chiaverini’s riveting tale of high-stakes espionage, a great heroine of the Civil War finally gets her due.

In 1947, a young unknown Norma Jean meets a mysterious man in Los Angeles who transforms her into Marilyn the worldwide star. Twelve years later, he comes back for his repayment, and Marilyn is given her first assignment from the KGB: Uncover something about JFK that no one else knows.

But what begins as a simple job turns complicated when Marilyn falls in love with the bright young President, and learns of plans to assassinate Kennedy. Now the most famous woman on the planet will do anything to save her man, the leader of the free world. Part biography, part love story and part thriller, The Blonde is a vivid tableau of American celebrity, sex, love, violence, power, and paranoia.

Mailbox Monday has returned home to Mailbox Monday’s site this year.

So um, my mailbox *might* have been overflowing this week. I will start with some new-to-me goodies I found in my local used book store and then move on to the ones I received in my mailbox and finish up with the ones I received for review.

I made one last trip to my local used book store before it closes. It technically doesn’t close  until April 26th, but their inventory is already reduced dramatically and there isn’t much else left there that would compel me to go back. I’m still super sad about this store closing. I didn’t go there nearly as often as I should have during the years I’ve been living here. Anyway, I picked up 5 more books this last trip. They were ones I’d had my eye on during previous trips, but it was  the 30% off that made me finally pick them up.

I went kind of crazy on Paperbackswap the last few weeks and ordered these books:

And one from my grandmother:

And finally I received a couple of review books in the mail as well:

Now … I need to start reading!!!

Mailbox Monday has returned home to Mailbox Monday’s site this year.

Quite a few this week. Two new purchases, four from a Paperbackswap box-of-books trade and one ARC for review!

I’ll start with the ARC, sent from the publisher after requesting it through an ad in Shelf Awareness:

On scholarship at a prestigious East Coast college, ordinary Mabel Dagmar is surprised to befriend her roommate, the beautiful blue-blooded Genevra Winslow. Ev invites Mabel to spend the summer at Bittersweet, a cottage on the Vermont estate where her family has been holding court for more than a century; it’s the kind of place where children twirl sparklers across the lawn during cocktail hour. Mabel falls in love with the midnight skinny-dips, the wet-dog smell lingering in the air, the moneyed laughter carrying across the still lake, and before she knows it, she has everything she’s ever wanted: wealth, friendship, a boyfriend, and, most of all, the sense, for the first time in her life, that she belongs.

But as Mabel becomes an insider, she makes a terrible discovery that leads to shocking violence and the revelation of the true source of the Winslows’ fortune. Mabel must choose: either expose the ugliness surrounding her and face expulsion from paradise, or keep the family’s dark secrets and redefine what is good and what is evil, in the interest of what can be hers.

Then I purchased these two new (hey, they were both on sale!)

And these four came from a PBS Box-of-Books swap. I have a feeling a couple of them will get traded again pretty soon (unread, too)…