Mailbox Monday, Meme

Mailbox Monday, January 28, 2013

Mailbox Monday time again! And January’s host is Lori’s Reading Corner.

Just one book this week (good thing after last week’s haul!) From my Paperbackswap Wish-List:

11th Hour

Lindsay Boxer is pregnant at last! But her work doesn’t slow for a second. When millionaire Chaz Smith is mercilessly gunned down, she discovers that the murder weapon is linked to the deaths of four of San Francisco’s most untouchable criminals. And it was taken from her own department’s evidence locker. Anyone could be the killer – even one of her closest friends.

Lindsay is called next to the most bizarre crime scene she’s ever witnessed: two bodiless heads elaborately displayed on the patio of a world-famous actor’s home. Five more heads are unearthed in his garden, and Lindsay realizes that the grounds may hold hundreds of victims.

A reporter launches a series of vicious articles about the cases, and Lindsay’s personal life is laid bare. But this time she has no one to turn to – especially not Joe, her husband. 11th Hour is the most shocking, most emotional, and most thrilling Women’s Murder Club novel ever.

First chapter, Meme

First Chapter, First Paragraph Tuesday Intros #4

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Diane over at Bibliophile by the Sea hosts this meme.

Wow, I haven’t participated in one of these since October! Whew! Time sure does fly by quickly. Anyway, I’m going to share the intro to a review book I’m reading right now.

A Murder at Rosamund's Gate

A great pounding at the door startled the chambermaid bending to light the morning hearth. Jerking upright, Lucy Campion swore softly as a bit of hot beeswax stung her wrist. Slapping the taper on the mantel, she sneaked a glance over her shoulder. She could hear Bessie and Cook rattling pots in the kitchen, but the rest of the magistrate’s household was still. Her muttered oath had not carried. Though theirs was not a stringent Puritan family, the magistrate frowned on ill language, and Lucy always took care not to annoy him.

I’m almost 100 pages into this book (publish date: April 23, 2013) and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I haven’t really gotten to the “murder mystery” part of the book yet, but Ms. Calkins is doing a great job setting the scene and I’m looking forward to watching the rest of the book unfold.

How about you – what are you reading this week? Jump on in and share the first bit of what you’re reading 🙂

Mailbox Monday, Meme

Mailbox Monday, January 21, 2013

Mailbox Monday time again! And January’s host is Lori’s Reading Corner.

I know better than to go to the library book sale … but I went 🙂 Got some good older books 🙂

Don't Say a Word  The Third Secret  The Pillars of the Earth  The Negotiator The Unspoken Hot Blooded Bonnie Eve Quinn The Sigma Protocol Obstruction of Justice Writ of Execution Undone All Fall Down


And I also got one review book:

Black Ops Section 8

Section 8: The Men and women called upon by The Organization to do the impossible. They are the soldiers who have nothing to lose. They make up a top-secret unit tasked with what others call suicide missions.

The Organization pulled strings long before the founding of the United States. It dates back to the destruction of the Knights Templar and even further in history. As secrets from the Golden Lilly Operation and the infamous Unit 731 from World War II become exposed, you have to wonder who the real enemy is.

Captain Jim Vaughn is an officer in disgrace. Commanding a Special Forces mission to rescue hostages in the Philippines, Vaughn’s team is destroyed, and when the smoke clears, he is the one made the scapegoat. Forced into the shadows by the scandal, Vaughn is offered a chance to redeem himself when he is approached by an enigmatic government agent working for The Organization looking for a few desperate men.

Vaughn is shocked to meet his new teammates, a group of men and women outside of the regular chain of command. These are soldiers who have used up all their second chances. These are men and women who have crossed the line one too many times. Drug users. Felons. The terminally ill. These are now the soldiers that Vaughn must trust with his life. Even with a traitor in their ranks. But is the traitor actually the patriot?

This group of misfits has been assembled for two reasons – they are skilled, and they are expendable. These are the kinds of men and women who are needed to attempt missions the government can’t acknowledge, the country can’t condone, and the team cannot fail. But the deeper Vaughn gets into the unique group, the more he realizes that The Organization may be concealing more than the rap sheets of its most unusual operators. A team of such unique properties is the perfect tool to use against America’s enemies … and possibly America itself.

Mailbox Monday, Meme

Mailbox Monday, January 14, 2013

Mailbox Monday time again! And January’s host is Lori’s Reading Corner.

Got some goodies this week 🙂

From NetGalley:

A Murder at Rosamund's Gate

Susanna Calkins’s atmospheric debut novel, a chambermaid must uncover a murderer in seventeenth-century plague-ridden London

For Lucy Campion, a seventeenth-century English chambermaid serving in the household of the local magistrate, life is an endless repetition of polishing pewter, emptying chamber pots, and dealing with other household chores until a fellow servant is ruthlessly killed, and Lucy’s brother is wrongly arrested for the crime. In a time where the accused are presumed guilty until proven innocent, lawyers aren’t permitted to defend their clients, and—if the plague doesn’t kill them first—public executions draw a large crowd of spectators, Lucy knows she may never see her brother alive again. Unless, that is, she can identify the true murderer.

Determined to do just that, Lucy finds herself venturing out of her expected station and into raucous printers’ shops, secretive gypsy camps, the foul streets of London, and even the bowels of Newgate prison on a trail that might lead her straight into the arms of the killer.

In her debut novel, Susanna Calkins seamlessly blends historical detail, romance, and mystery into a moving and highly entertaining tale.


From Edelweiss:

The Boleyn King

Laura Andersen brings us the first book in an enthralling trilogy set in the dramatic, turbulent, world-altering years of Tudor England. What if Anne did not miscarry her son in January 1536, but instead gave birth to a healthy royal boy? Perfect for fans of Philipa Gregory and Allison Weir.

Henry IX, known as William, is a 17-year-old king struggling at the restraints of the regency and anxious to prove himself. With the French threatening battle and the Catholics plotting at home, Will trusts only three people: his older sister, Elizabeth; his best friend and loyal counselor, Dominic; and Minuette, a young orphan raised as a royal ward by Anne Boleyn. Against an undercurrent of secret documents, conflicting intelligence operations, and private murder, William fights a foreign war and domestic rebellion with equal resolve. But when he and Dominic both fall in love with Minuette, romantic obsession menaces a new generation of Tudors. Battlefields and council chambers, trials and executions, the blindness of first love and the betrayal of true friendship…How far will William go to get what he wants? Who will pay the price for a king’s revenge? And what twists of fate will set Elizabeth on the path to her destiny as England’s queen?


From the author for a Pump Up Your Book blog tour (My stop is scheduled for 2/26!):

The Man From 2063

I knew it. I knew it, he repeated to himself. A conspiracy. But who had planned the murder? Was Lee Harvey Oswald even involved? If only one could go back in time and solve the mystery. I have to pursue this, he told himself. Someone has to find out the truth once and for all.

On November 22, 2063 a new film finally proves a conspiracy was involved in the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Sean Zumwalt dares to go back in time to alter the course of world history and save JFK. But he soon finds that the truth is much more complicated than he ever could have imagined.

Based on actual events and forty years of research, The Man From 2063 will take you through the folds of time and historical conspiracies, leaving you wondering ‘What if?’


From LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer program:

The Cornerstone

How do you catch a banshee? But more importantly, if you succeed, how can you hope to survive the ordeal? The consequences of such dark magic are high, and if you try to let go once you’ve got that tiger by the tail, it may cost your very soul!

Atlanta is a cosmopolitan, theater-going city that supports its fair share of the arts.  But when a small theatrical company takes on the production of Christopher Marlowe’s famous play, Dr. Faustus, in the century-old Janus Theater, things don’t go as planned. Unexplained stage effects appear as cast members disappear, accidents seem more than coincidence, and an earthquake splits a busy downtown thoroughfare.  Oh, and did we mention the rumored ghost in the basement?

Paramedic Claire Porter thinks her volunteer prompter’s job with the company will give her some relief from her stressful day job, and it is fun, at first. But as they say, the Devil is in the details.

Mailbox Monday, Meme

Mailbox Monday, Nov. 12, 2012

November’s host is Bermudaonion’s Weblog.

Just a one-book mailbox this week (much needed – I can’t read hardly at all anymore!)

For review:

For Lela White, a Houston sleep lab technician, sleep doesn’t come easy – there’s a price to be paid for a poor night’s sleep, and she’s the judge, jury, and executioner.

Everyone around Lela considers her a private woman with a passion for her lab work. But nighttime reveals her for what she is: a woman on a critical secret mission. Lela lives in the grip of a mental disorder that compels her to break into astronauts’ homes to ensure they can sleep well and believes that by doing so, she keeps the revitalized U.S. space program safe from fatal accidents. What began at the age of ten when her mother confessed to blowing up the space shuttle has evolved into Lela’s life’s work. She dreads the day when an astronaut doesn’t pass her testing, but she’s prepared to kill for the greater good.

When Zory Korchagin, a Russian cosmonaut on loan to the U.S. shuttle program, finds himself drawn to Lela, he puts her carefully constructed world at risk of an explosion as surely as he does his own upcoming launch. As Lela’s universe unravels, no one is safe.

Meme, Musing Mondays

Musing Mondays, Nov. 11, 2012

Thought I would jump in on this question 🙂

What is the most recent book you purchased, or brought home from the local library? What made you pick it? Have you started reading it, right away, or will you wait for a bit?

Oh my answer to this is so, so sad. I was in CVS on Friday evening. And I made the mistake of going down the aisle with the books – hey, it couldn’t be helped, I had to buy a birthday card and it’s in the same aisle!

I had to buy Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. *Sigh* Please, someone – anyone – hit me upside the head. You may not recall – but I actually DNF the first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I put it back on my shelf because I intended one day to go back to it. If I’m not mistaken, I believe this happened in 2010. (Yeah, I jus checked – it was 2010). Not to state the obvious – but if I haven’t picked the first book back up again, why on earth would I need the third book in the series? Because I am insane, that’s why. I just keep telling myself “maybe one day….” Yeah, and maybe one day I will win the lottery, never have to work another day in my life and live out my remaining days in my dream house with an awesome ocean view. Hey, a girl can dream, right?

I would like to say that I will get to this book soon. But obviously I have to read the first two in the series. And every review book that I’ve accepted. And anything else I can squeeze in before I get to this one….. see the pattern? Oh well, at least it’s there when I’m ready for it 🙂

Mailbox Monday, Meme

Mailbox Monday, October 29, 2012

Mailbox Monday is being hosted at the Mailbox Monday site for October.

Got another huge mailbox this week. I really need to stop this!

Okay … so Murder at the Lanterne Rouge and The Stranger You Seek are wins from Stacy’s Books

Father Night is a review book.

The other books are all from a Paperbackswap Box-of-Books swap.

 

 

Mailbox Monday, Meme

Mailbox Monday, October 22, 2012

Mailbox Monday is being hosted at the Mailbox Monday site for October.

I really need to stop bringing books into this house! It’s getting a little bit out of hand. The top four came from my grandmother; the Dick Wolf book is an ARC I received after seeing it on Shelf Awareness Pro; the two books on Anna Nicole Smith are from PBS.

[Hello, my name is Tara, and I am a book-a-holic.]

Mailbox Monday, Meme

Mailbox Monday, October 15, 2012

Mailbox Monday is being hosted at the Mailbox Monday site for October.

This past week I got 6 books in the mail – a trade from one of my Yahoo! groups 🙂

I’m super excited about these! Too bad it will be forever before I will be able to get to any of them, lol. I really need to cut back on my acceptance of review books – it’s killing my time spent with my own books!