Mailbox Monday (Jan 10, 2011)

 Mailbox Monday's host for January is Rose City Reader.In My Mailbox is hosted Sundays at The Story Siren. Please visit this posts and take a look at what packages everybody else got this week! 

Never Been Kissed

by Melody Carlson

Revell

New School = New chance for that first kiss

Summer is ending, and for once that doesn't seem like such a bad thing to Elise.  She's hoping that starting fresh at a new high school will turn her first-kiss prospects around.  New guys, new friends, and a new lease on life.

What she wasn't counting on was all the new pressure -- to hang with the right crowd, wear the right clothes, and date the right guy.  Just when it seems she's on top of the world, everything comes crashing down.  Could one bad choice derail her future?

~I received this book for a Revell/Baker tour happening the week of Jan 23.~

To Have and To Kill

by Mary Jane Clark

William Morrow

Piper Donovan never imagined that decorating wedding cakes could be so dangerous!  A struggling actress with no immediate prospects and a recently broken engagement, Piper moves back in with her parents to take stock of her life.  She steps tentatively into the family bakery business and finds herself agreeing to create a wedding cake for the acclaimed star of a daytime television drama.  But soon someone close to the bride-to-be is horribly murdered and it seems that that someone is ruthlessly determined to stop the wedding.

With the help of her former neighbor, Jack, a handsome FBI agent with a soft spot for the gorgeous cake-maker, Piper moves closer to the truth.  And as she narrows in on a suspect, she realizes that it's hotter in the kitchen than she may be able to handle. . .

~I received this book from Harper Collins and hope to have it reviewed in the next 6-8 weeks.~

The Memory Palace

by Mira Bartok

Simon and Schuster

Mira Bartok spent seventeen years hoping that her mother, Norma Herr, would never find her.  A severe case of schizophrenia caused Norma to obsess over her daughters' lives -- calling them fifty times a day or more, appearing unannounced at their jobs and homes, threatening them if they suggested that she get treatment for her illness.  After Norma violently attacked her daughters when they insisted she get help, Mira and her sister decided that they must change their names and cut off all contact in order to stay safe.

During the nearly two decades that they spent apart, Mira traveled the world -- exploring the ancient romance of Florence, the eerie mysticism of northern Norway, the raw desert of Israel -- but she could not completely abandon her past.  As Mira struggled to balance her alliance with her sister, her burgeoning art career, and her anguish over losing her mother, she and Norma began exchanging letters through post office boxes.

At age forty, a debilitating car accident left Mira with a terrible brain injury.  She could retrain herself to draw and to write, but struggled to regain memories.  When she learns that her mother has been hospitalized with terminal cancer, Mira and her sister decide to visit Norma before it is too late.  In those final weeks, they experience a cathartic reunion that none of them had imagined possible, and Mira begins to reconnect with the memories that she feared had been lost.  The Memory Palace is a stunning memoir that explores the bond between mother and daughter that cannot be broken no matter how much exists -- or is lost -- between them.

~I received this book from Simon and Schuster through Shelf Awareness and hope to have it reviewed by the end of February.~



Family Affair

by Debbie Macomber

William Morrow

Lacey Lancaster has always longed to be a wife and mother.  However, after a painful divorce, she decides it's time to lay low for a while in her charming San Francisco apartment with her beautiful Abyssinian cat, Cleo.

Everything would be wonderful, except for her utterly impossible neighbor Jack Walker.  When he's not arguing day and night with his girlfriend, begging her to move in with him, he's chasing down his cat named Dog, who seems determined to get Cleo to succumb to his feline advances.

Then Lacey discovers the awful truth -- Cleo is in the family way and Dog's to blame.  She's furious that neither Jack nor his amorous animal seem too upset about the situation.

But Lacey learns that things are not quite as they seem.  Jack's "girlfriend" is really his sister -- and his intentions toward Lacey are very honorable.  And though she's not quite sure about Dog, Lacey begins to discover the tender joy of falling in love all over again.

~I received this book from Harper Collins and hope to have it reviewed in the next 6 weeks.~

Ghost Country

by Patrick Lee

Harper Collins

For decades, inexplicable technology has passed into our world through the top secret anomaly called the Breach.

The latest device can punch a hole into the future. . .

What Paige Campbell saw when she opened a door into seventy years from now scared the hell out of her.  She and her Tangent colleagues brought their terrible discovery to the President -- and were met with a hail of automatic gunfire after leaving the White House.  Only Paige survived.

Fearing a terrifying personal destiny revealed to him from the other side of the Breach, Travis Chase abandoned Tangent. . . and Paige Campbell.  Now he must rescue her -- because Paige knows tomorrow's world is desolate and dead, a ghost country scattered with the bones of billions.  And Doomsday will dawn in just four short months. . . unless they can find the answers buried in the ruins to come.

But once they cross the nightmare border into Ghost Country, they might never find their way back. . .

~I received this book from Harper Collins and hope to review it in the next 6-8 weeks.~

Altar of Eden

by James Rollins

Harper Collins

Baghdad falls. . . and armed men are seen looting the city zoo.  Amid a hail of bullets, a concealed underground lab is ransacked -- and something horrific is set loose upon the world.

Seven years later, Louisiana state veterinarian Lorna Polk investigates an abandoned shipwrecked fishing trawler carrying exotic caged animals, part of a black market smuggling ring.  But there is something disturbingly wrong with these beasts -- each an unsettling mutation of the natural order, all sharing one uncanny trait:  incredibly heightened intelligence.

Joining forces with U.S. Border Patrol Agent Jack Menard -- a man who shares with her a dark and bloody past -- Lorna sets out to uncover the truth about this strange cargo and the terrorist threat it poses.  Because a beast escaped the shipwreck and is running amok -- and what is about to be born upon the altar of Eden could threaten not only the future of the world but the very foundation of what it means to be human.

~I received this book from Harper Collins and hope to review it in the next 6-8 weeks.~

The Tapestry of Love

by Rosy Thornton

Headline Review

A rural idyll:  that's what Catherine is seeking when she sells her house in England and moves to a tiny hamlet in the Cevennes mountains.  With her divorce in the past and her children grown, she is free to make a new start, and to set up in business as a seamstress.  But this is a harsh and lonely place when you're no longer here on holiday.  There is French bureaucracy to contend with, not to mention the mountain weather, and the reserve of her neighbours, including the intriguing Patrick Castagnol.  And that's before the arrival of Catherine's sister, Bryony. . .

~I received a copy of this book from the author and will review it in the next 6-8 weeks.~

Deed So

by Katharine A. Russell

Create Space

A young girl struggles to understand a tightening web of racial and generational tensions during the turbulent 1960s in the astonishing new novel, Deed So by Katharine Russell.  All twelve-year-old Haddie Bashford wants is to leave the closed-minded world of Wicomico Corners behind, in the hopes that brighter future awaits elsewhere.  But when she witnesses the brutal killing of a black teen, Haddie finds her family embroiled in turmoil fraught with racial tensions.  Tempers flare as the case goes to trial, but things are about to get even hotter when an arsonist suddenly begins to terrorize the town.  Can Haddie help save her town, and herself?

Gorgeously written and filled with warm, luminous characters, Deed So is both a snapshot of tumultuous time and a moving coming-of-age story of a remarkable young girl.

~I received this book from the author through Bostick Communications.  I should have it reviewed in the next 8 weeks.~

The Truth About Vampires

by Theresa Meyers

Harlequin Nocturne

Pulling back the veil on a world shrouded in darkness, Theresa Meyers' stunning debut reveals a sinfully handsome vampire whose secret is about to exposed....

All her life Seattle reporter Kristin Reed sought her breakout story. She never thought she'd find it in the crimson lair of a real life creature of the night. Kristin never believed vampires existed--until with dark brooding eyes and a decadent chocolate scent, Dmitri Dionotte called out to her....

Dmitri and his clan's true nature was cloaked in secrecy until a warring vampire order threatened their existence. Kristin was just the woman he needed. She couldn't resist their story...or Dmitri. Her blood pulsed hot and furious when he touched her, and with his kiss, all logic fled. But each night she spent with her vampire lover brought her closer to death and destruction. A death not even an immortal could triumph over.

 

~I received this E-book from Roxanne at Bewitching Book Tours.  Watch for my review March 22 and author interview March 17.~

Three Seconds

by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom

Sterling Publishing

In this dark and gripping novel from best-selling Swedish writing duo Roslund and Hellstrom, ex-con Piet Hoffman is the Swedish police's most valuable informant on a deadly mission.  He has infiltrated the ruthless Polish mafia, trying to take control of illegal drug distribution within the Swedish prison system.  Success will mean freedom and the chance to start a new life with his wife and young sons.

Then a botched drug deal involving Hoffman results in murder.  The investigation, assigned to the brilliant but haunted Detective Inspector Ewert Grens, leads to a string of unsolved cases in which key evidence has been withheld under mysterious circumstances.  As Grens's investigation takes him closer to the truth, government lies are exposed and Hoffman is trapped in prison, wanted dead by both the police and the mafia.  He has only one chance to make it out alive and start a new life.  Once chance and Three Seconds.

~I received a copy of this book from February Partners through Shelf Awareness. Watch for my February review.~





Legacy

by Jeanette Baker

Sourcebooks Casablanca

A Dream Come True. . .

Christina Murray is elated to inherit her family's ancestral Scottish home, especially when she meets her gorgeous neighbor Ian Douglas, full of Scottish charm and intriguing knowledge of the house's secrets. . .

Turns Into a Nightmare. . .

But at night, Christina is visited by haunting dreams from ghostly ancestors who lead her through the terrifying labyrinth of her family's bloody history.  As much as Ian longs to help her, there's nothing he can do to alleviate Christina's terrors. . .

Clinging to her sanity and to her newfound love for Ian.  Christina discovers the family curse that threatens to bring them both to a terrifying end. . .

~I received a copy of this book from Sourcebooks for a March review.~

Merely Magic

by Patricia Rice

Sourcebooks Casablanca

She has the magic as her birthright. . .

Ninian is a healer, but she's a Malcolm first and foremost, and Malcolms have always had a bit of magic -- unpredictable though it is -- to aid them in their pursuits.  She knows she must accept what she is or perish, but then Lord Drogo Ives arrives, bringing the deepest, most powerful magic she's ever experienced and turning Ninian's world upside down. . .

A man of science doesn't believe in anything he can't see. . .

Drogo Ives has not time for foolish musings or legends, even if he can't seem to resist the local witch.  Thrown together by a series of disastrous events, Ninian won't give herself fully to Drogo until she can make him trust and believe in her, and that's the last thing he'll ever do. . .

As the danger and chaos surrounding them escalates, Drogo and Ninian will be forced to decide: their love or their lives. . .

~I received a copy of this book from Sourcebooks for a March review.~

After the Darkness

by Sidney Sheldon and Tilly Bagshawe

Harper Collins

What happens when the woman who has everything loses everything. . . and the man who has nothing realizes he has nothing to lose?

The young, naive wife of a multi-billionaire financial superstar, Grace Brookstein's life is the stuff of fantasy.  In New York, Lenny Brookstein is the King of the Wall Street social scene, both liked and respected in the worlds of high finance and high society.

Then one day Lenny vanishes, his yacht discovered abandoned far out at sea.  The police believe his death was no accident, that his involvement in a spectacular financial fraud was about to be exposed to the world.  But Grace can't accept the terrible allegations now coming to light, and she will learn the truth. . . even if that truth destroys her.

~I received this book from Harper Collins for a review in the next 6-8 weeks.~



The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson

by Jerome Charyn

W.W. Norton and Company

Jerome Charyn has been writing some of the most bold and adventurous American fiction for over forty years. His ten-book cycle of novels about madcap New York mayor and police commissioner Isaac Sidel inspired a new generation of younger writers in America and France, where he is a national literary icon. Now, adding to his already distinguished career, Charyn gives us The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson, an audacious novel about the inner imaginative world of America’s greatest poet. Channeling the devilish rhythms and ghosts of a seemingly buried literary past, Charyn has removed the mysterious veils that have long enshrouded Dickinson, revealing her passions, inner turmoil, and powerful sexuality.

The story begins in the snow. It’s 1848, and Emily is a student at Mount Holyoke, with its mournful headmistress and strict, strict rules. She sees the seminary’s blond handyman rescue a baby deer from a mountain of snow, in a lyrical act of liberation that will remain with her for the rest of her life. The novel revivifies such historical figures as Emily’s brother, Austin, with his crown of red hair; her sister-in-law, Sue; a rival and very best friend, Emily’s little sister, Lavinia, with her vicious army of cats; and especially her father, Edward Dickinson, a controlling congressman. Charyn effortlessly blends these very factual characters with a few fictional ones, creating a dramatis personae of dynamic breadth.

Inspired by her letters and poetry, Charyn has captured the occasionally comic, always fevered, ultimately tragic story of Dickinson’s journey from Holyoke seminarian to dying recluse, compulsively scribbling lines of genius in her Amherst bedroom. Rarely before has the nineteenth-century world of New England—its religious stranglehold, its barbaric insane asylums, its circus carnivals—been captured in such spectacular depth. Through its lyrical inflections and poetic rhythms, its invention of a distinct, twenty-first-century “Charynesque” language that pays remarkable homage to America’s sovereign literary past, The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson provides a resonance of such power as to make this an indelible work of literature in its own right.

~I received this E-book from Tribute Books for a February 18th review.~

What books came home to you this week?