Mailbox Monday 3-22-2010

Mailbox Monday is hosted at The Printed Page . Please visit Marcia and take a look at what packages everybody else got this week!

Forget Me Not
by Vicki Hinze
(Blog tour for Waterbrook Multnomah - there will be a giveaway!)

Their elusive enemies took everything.
Now they want more.

Crossroads Crisis Center owner Benjamin Brandt was a content man - in his faith, his work, and his family. Then in a flash, everything he loved was snatched away. His wife and son were murdered, and grief-stricken Ben lost faith. Determination to find their killers keeps him going, but after three years of dead ends and torment, his hope is dying too. Why had he survived? He'd failed to protect his family.

Now, a mysterious woman appears at Crossroads seeking answers and help - a victim who eerily resembles Ben's deceased wife, Susan. A woman robbed of her identity, her life, of everything except her faith - and Susan's necklace.

The connections between the two women mount, exceeding coincidence, and to keep the truth hidden, someone is willing to kill. Finding out who and why turns Ben and the mystery woman's situation from dangerous to deadly. Their only hope for survival is to work together, trust each other, and face whatever they discover head on, no matter how painful. But will that be enough to save their lives and heal their tattered hearts? (back cover)

Just Let Me Lie Down
Necessary Terms for the Half-Insane Working Mom
by Kristin van Ogtroop
(from Hachette for review and watch for a giveaway)

Kristin van Ogtrop has a nice career, a dependable husband, and three healthy kids who occasionally make their beds. You could say she is average, but lucky. You could also say that she is half-insane -- but just try to name one working mom who isn't. Like all of us, van Ogtrop needs a bit of guidance from time to time. Yet when she searched the bookshelves for something to help put a little order into her average/lucky/chaotic life, she came up short. And so she had an idea.

In Just Let Me Lie Down, van Ogtrop provides a new lexicon for the half-insane working mom. Using experiences and insights from her own life, she presents terms and concepts to illustrate the highs (children who know where their soccer cleats are, coworkers who never hit "Reply to All," dogs who helpfully eat whatever falls from the table) and lows (getting out of the house in the morning, getting along with everyone at work, getting dinner made before everyone starves, getting willful kids into bed) of trying to combine work and family in the same life.

Filled with essays, lists, poignant observations, and more than a few embarrassing stories, Just Let Me Lie Down shows that if you can't laugh at the nonsense that is daily life for the working mom, then you might need to reconsider your entire existence, or at least take a nap. (inside book jacket)

This Little Prayer of Mine
by Anthony DeStefano
illustrated by Mark Elliott
(Blog tour for Waterbrook Multnomah - there will be a giveaway!)

Nothing Compares to Childlike Faith

I know you're up in heaven, God,
and you can hear my voice from there.
I'm just a little child.
Will you answer my short prayer?

So begins this delightful book that affirms God's readiness to answer our prayers, no matter what our age.

With engaging rhymes and beautiful illustrations, This Little Prayer of Mine assures children that God is always near -- watching, listening, and eager to respond to their requests. They'll also learn that prayer isn't just about asking for things, but about sharing their feelings of sadness and uncertainty as well as of thanksgiving and joy.

Most important, This Little Prayer of Mine reminds children -- and those who love them -- that they can trust God to tenderly care for them, no matter what the future holds. (back cover)

The Threadbare Heart
by Jennie Nash
(for review and contest from Jennie Nash)

A photo of her sons. A doormat from Target. Twenty-three tubs of fabric. Somehow it comforts LIly to list the things she lost when a wildfire engulfed the Santa Barbara avocado ranch she shared with her husband, Tom. He didn't make it out either. His last act was to save her grandmother's lace from the flames -- an heirloom she has never been able to take scissors to, that she was saving for someday. . .

As she negotiates her way through her grief, mourning both the tangible and intangible, Lily wonders about her long marriage. Was it worth all the work, the self-denial? Did she stay with Tom just to avoid loneliness? Should she have been more like her mother, Eleanor - thrice-married and even now, approaching eighty, cavalier about men and, it seems, even about her daughter's emotions?

It is up to Lily to understand what she could still gain even when it seems that everything is lost. Someday has arrived. . . (back cover)

Read, Remember, Recommend
Created by Rachelle Rogers Knight
(for review from Sourcebooks)

A must-have for book lovers, Read, Remember, Recommend contains:

• More than 2,500 cross-referenced award-winning and notable reading suggestions from every celebrated literary award and book list available, guaranteed to help you discover great literature and new authors.
• Checklists to help you organize and keep track of books you want to read, books you've loaned or borrowed, books you've read, and books you want to recommend.
• Journal pages to record your thoughts, ideas, and discussion points on books and authors.
• A comprehensive list of literary blogs, book award lists, and literary terms.

Perfect for book clubs and anyone who loves a good book, Read, Remember, Recommend is the ultimate way to enhance your love of reading. (back cover)

The Swimming Pool
by Holly LeCraw
(for review from Doubleday via Shelf Awareness)

A heartbreaking affair, an unsolved murder, an explosive romance: Welcome to summer on the Cape in this powerful debut.

Seven summers ago, Marcella Atkinson fell in love with Cecil McClatchey, a married father of two. But on the same night their romance abruptly ended, Cecil's wife was found murdered. The case was never solved, and Cecil died soon after, an uncharged suspect.

Now divorced and estranged from her only daughter, Marcella lives alone, mired in grief and guilt. Meanshile, Cecil's grown son, Jed, returns to the Cape with his sister for the first time in years. When he finds a woman's bathing suit buried in a closet -- a relic, unbeknownst to him, of his father's affair -- he decides to confront Marcella on a hunch.

When, to their deep surprise, they fall into an affair of their own, passion temporarily masks their shared pain. But as we are left to believe on the last stunning page, the betrayals of the past cannot be ignored and will have a ripple effect on these two families for years to come.

In this scintillating and intensely powerful debut, Holly LeCraw delivers a sensuous narrative of such force and depth that you won't be able to put it down. (back cover)

The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno
by Ellen Bryson
(for review from Henry Holt via Shelf Awareness)

Bartholomew Fortuno, the world's thinnest man, believes that his unusual body is a gift. Hired by none other than P.T. Barnum to work at his spectacular American Museum -- a modern marvel of macabre displays and live performances by Barnum's cast of freaks and oddities -- Fortuno has reached the pinnacle of his career. But after a decade of solid performance, he finds his contentment flagging. When a carriage pulls up outside the museum in the dead of night, bearing Barnum and a mysterious veiled woman -- rumored to be a new performer -- Fortuno's curiosity is piqued. And when Barnum asks Fortuno to follow her and report back on her whereabouts, his world is turned upside-down. Why is Barnum so obsessed with this woman? Who is she, really? and why has she taken such a hold of the hearts of those around her?

The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno is a moving novel about human appetites and longings. With pitch-perfect prose, Ellen Bryson explores what it means to be profoundly unique -- and the power of love to transcend even the greatest divisions. (back cover)

How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly
by Connie May Fowler
(for review from Hachette)

Set amidst the lush pine forests and rich savannahs of Florida's Northern Panhandle, this is the story of one woman whose existence until now has seemed fairly normal: She is thirtysomething, married, and goes about her daily routine as a writer. But we soon learn that ghosts, an indifferent husband, and a seemingly terminal case of writer's block are burdening Clarissa's life. She awakes on the summer solstice and, prodded by her own discontent and one ghost's righteous need for truth, commences upon a twenty-four-hour journey of self-discovery. Her harrowing, funny, and startling adventures lead Clarissa to a momentous decision: She must find a way to do the unthinkable. Her life and the well-being of a remarkable family of blithe spirits hand in the balance.

In How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly, Connie May Fowler once again demonstrates her keen abilities as a storyteller. A remarkably original and empowering novel about an unexpected midlife awakening, it will resonate and be discussed for years to come. (inside book jacket)

Too Close to Home
by Lynette Eason
(Blog tour for Baker Publishing)

The FBI has a secret weapon.
But now the secret's out.

When missing teens begin turning up dead in a small Southern town, the FBI sends in Special Agent Samantha Cash to help crack the case. Her methods are invisible, and she never quits until the case is closed.

Homicide detective Connor Wolfe has his hands full. His relationship with his headstrong daughter is in a tailspin, and the string of unsolved murders has the town demanding answers. Connor is running out of ideas -- and time.

Samantha joins Connor in a race against the clock to save the next victim. And the killer starts to get personal.

Too Close to Home ratchets up the suspense with each page even as love blossoms in the face of danger. Read this one with the lights on! (back cover)

What books did you get in your mailbox this week?