Mailbox Monday 4-6-2009

It is time for another edition of Mailbox Monday hosted by The Printed Page or In Your Mailbox hosted by The Story Siren. I am trying to get caught up on books that I have received in the mail, but have not featured here yet - so here are all the books that I received in February and March from blogger giveaways!

Speaking of giveaways - be sure to check my right sidebar for current giveaways - there will be more added throughout the month of April!






The Suburban Dragon by Garasamo Maccagnone was won from Shannon at Confuzzled Books. I got to choose which book I wanted from Shannon's books. I chose this one for my 4 year old son. He was so excited when I told him that he had gotten a book in the mail. Now when the UPS man comes, he always asks me where his book his! (Hint, hint to any children's book publishers who would like book reviews! (: ) This book is about 3 children whose mother is kidnapped by a dragon on a boring, rainy day.







Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson was won from In Bed With Books.

From Fantastic Fiction: Lia and Cassie are best friends, wintergirls frozen in matchstick bodies, competitors in a deadly contest to see who can be the skinniest. But what comes after size zero and size double-zero? When Cassie succumbs to the demons within, Lia feels she is being haunted by her friend's restless spirit.

In her most emotionally wrenching, lyrically written book since the multiple-award-winning Speak, best-selling author Laurie Halse Anderson explores Lia's descent into the powerful vortex of anorexia, and her painful path toward recovery.

Sway by Zachary Lazar was won from Wendy at Wendy's Minding Spot.

From the back cover: At the razor's edge of an era, the worlds of the Rolling Stones and Charles Manson accidentally converged. Sway is the story of those two forces and how they became entwined in the last days of the 1960s. It is the story of the young Rolling Stones - beating out their new sound and their new identities in freezing apartments and tiny clubs - and it is the story of Bobby Beausoleil, a handsome drifter under a dangerous influence. With uncanny artistry, Zachary Lazar weaves scenes from these real lives into a true but heightened reality, making superstars human and demons palpable and restoring mythic events to the scale of daily life.

Skeleton Creek by Patrick Carman was won from Mari at Mari Reads.

From the back cover: Something mysterious is happening in Skeleton Creek. Something scary. Something sinister.

Ryan came close to it . . . and nearly died. Now he's trapped in his house. He can't trust anyone -- not even himself.

He is forbidden from seeing his best friend, Sarah. So while Ryan is isolated and alone, she plunges back into the mystery, putting her life on the line to get to the truth.

Ryan is desperately trying to write down the full story. And while he does, Sarah takes videos of what she finds, then sends him the links so he can watch.

Together, they discover: The past is dangerous. The present is haunted. And the future is deadly.

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld was won from Lisa at Books on the Brain.

From the back cover: A kind, bookish only child born in the 1940s, Alice Lindgren has no idea she will one day end up in the White House, married to the president. In her small Wisconsin hometown she learns the virtues of politeness, but a tragic accident when she is seventeen shatters her identity and changes the trajectory of her life. More than a decade later, when the charismatic son of a powerful Republican family sweeps her off her feet, she is surprised to find herself admitted into a world of privilege. And when her husband unexpectedly becomes governor and then president, she discovers that she is married to a man she both loves and fundamentally disagrees with - and that her private beliefs increasingly run against her public persona. As er husband's presidency enters its second term, Alice must confront contradictions years in the making and face questions nearly impossible to answer.

Drood by Dan Simmons was won from Carey at The Tome Traveller's Weblog.

From the inside cover: Drood is the name and nightmare that obsesses Charles Dickens for the last five years of his life.

On June 9, 1865, Dickens and his mistress are secretly returning to London, when their express train hurtles over a gap in a trestle. All of the first-class carriages except the one carrying Dickens are smashed to bits in the valley below. When Dickens descends into that valley to confront the dad and dying, his life will e changed forever. And at the core of that ensuing five-year nightmare is. . .

Drood. . .the name that Dickens whispers to his friend Wilkie Collins A laudanum addict and lesser novelist, Collins flouts Victorian sensibilities by living with one mistress while having a child with another, but he may be the only man on Earth with whom Dickens can share the secret of . . .

Drood. Increasingly obsessed with crypts, cemeteries, and the precise length of time it would take for a corpse to dissolve in a lime pit, Dickens ceases writing for four years and wanders the worst slums and catacombs of London at night while staging public readings during the day, gruesome readings that leave his audiences horrified. Finally he begins writing what would have been the world's first great mystery masterpiece, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, only to be interrupted forever by. . .

Drood.

Based on actual biographical events, Drood explores the still-unresolved mysteries of one of our greatest writer's dark final days in a profoundly original tale that confirms Lincoln Child's assessment of New York Times bestselling author Dan Simmons as "a giant among novelists."

The Terror by Dan Simmons was won from Kalea at Enroute to Life.

From the back cover: The men on board the HMS Terror - part of the ill-fated 1845 Franklin Expedition - are entering a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, stranded in a nightmarish landscape of ice and desolation. Endlessly cold, they struggle to survive with poisonous rations and a dwindling coal supply. But their real enemy is even more terrifying. There is something out there in the frigid darkness: an unseen predator staking their ship, a monstrous terror clawing to get in.

Staging Your Comeback by Christopher Hopkins was won somewhere but somehow I can't find from whom!

• From the back cover: Known as The Makeover Guy from his appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show and other national television programs, Christopher Hopkins believes that as they age, women become more beautiful but often feel less attractive. He's out to change that. For more than twenty years he's encouraged women who feel like they have taken a backseat to everything and everyone else to come out of the shadows and take center stage. Now it's your turn. Using Christopher's step-by-step strategies and detailed advice, you will learn to:
• Restore your hair with your ideal cut, color, and style.
• Revamp your wardrobe to flatter a changing body.
• Refresh your face with "visible lift" makeup techniques.
• Renew your spirit and maintain your look using Christopher's revival guide.
  

The Renewal by Terri Kraus was won from Cathy at Word Vessel

From the back cover: A Single mom, a struggling carpenter, and two hearts in need of renewal.

Leslie Ruskin has just purchased the historic Midlands Building, which - like her life - needs a little renovation. She and her five-year-old daughter are starting over after a devastating divorce - but standing on the sidewalk looking up at the seedy downtown brownstone, Leslie wonders if she's done the right thing. It needs work. A lot of work.

Jack Kenyon, a master carpenter, is starting over too. Beginning his own construction business, he seems to be the perfect man for the project. But haunted by loneliness, his past failures, and the lost relationship with his own young daughter, Jack finds it difficult to maintain his sobriety.

As Leslie struggles to manage as a single mom, work begins; she's thrilled when the commercial space rents to experienced restaurateurs and excited when the renovation exposes a mystery on the first floor. But even as Jack an Leslie discover a growing attraction, Jack's old demons begin to surface. Will the whole project derail - or will they find the renewal their lives so desperately need?

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford was won from Katrina at Stone SouP.

From the inside cover: In the opening pages of Jamie Ford's stunning debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, the owner opens a Japanese parasol.

This simple act takes Henry back to the 1940s, when his world was a jumble of confusion and excitement, and to his father, who was obsessed with the war in China and having Henry grow up American. While "scholarshipping" at the exclusive Ranier Elementary, where the white kids ignore him, Henry meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American student. Amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, Henry and Keiko forge a bond of friendship - and innocent love - that transcends the long-standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. After Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps, she and Henry are left only with the hope that the war will end and that their promise to each other will be kept.

Forty years later, Henry Lee, certain that the parasol belonged to Keiko, searches the hotel's dark, dusty basement for signs of the Okabe family's belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot even begin to measure. now a widower, Henry is still trying to find his voice: words that might explain the actions of his nationalistic father; words that might bridge the gap between him and his modern, Chinese American son; words that might help him confront the choices he made many years ago.

Set during one of the most conflicted and volatile times in American history, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an extraordinary story of commitment and enduring hope. In Henry and Keiko, Jamie Ford has created an unforgettable duo whose story teaches us of the power of forgiveness and the human heart.

Polly Dent Loses Grip by S. Dionne Moore was won at Lena Nelson Dooley's blog - A Christian Writer's World.

From the cover: Who says exercise is good for one's health? Certainly not Polly Dent!

Polly Dent Loses Grip on the treadmill and takes a fatal spill that's ruled an accident.

While helping her mother-in-law move into Bridgeton Towers Assisted Living & Nursing, LaTisha Barnhart's nose smells trouble simmering. The residents' gossip is revealing all kinds of motives for murder.

Can LaTisha stay on her achin' feet, and one step ahead of the villain, long enough to solve yet another crime?

The Moment Between by Nicole Baart was won at Trish Perry Books.

From the back cover: Abigail Bennett was completely in control of her life. But then tragedy pushed her to the brink of something she's never experienced: obsession. Now, she's given up everything she's ever worked for to chase down the object of that obsession. His name is Tyler Kamp.

As Abigail follows him across the border into Canada, her journey is awash in memories of family and childhood, especially those of her younger sister Hailey. Even as Abigail races into her future, her past continues to pull her back. Only when she is brought to the edge of her obsession will she be able to come to terms with the tragedy that ignited it.