Mailbox Monday (Mar 28, 2011)

 Mailbox Monday's host for March is I'm Booking It. In My Mailbox is hosted Sundays at The Story Siren. Please visit these posts and take a look at what packages everybody else got this week! 

Until Tuesday

by Luis Carlos Montalvan

with Bret Witter

"We aren't just service dog and master; Tuesday and I are also best friends.  Kindred souls.  Brothers. Whatever you want to call it. We weren't made for each other, but we turned out to be exactly what the other needed."

Until Tuesday is the true and touching story of a wounded man and a wounded dog -- and how they came together to help make each other whole.  A highly decorated former Captain in the U.S. Army, Luis Montalvan, served two tours of duty in Iraq.  After returning home from combat, the pressures of his physical injuries, agoraphobia, and crippling post traumatic stress disorder proved more than he could endure.  Haunted by images of war, he found himself unable to climb a simple flight of stairs or ride the subway without intense pain and difficulty, and wondered if he would ever recover.

Tuesday, a beautiful and sensitive golden retriever, had suffered his own heartbreaks during his intensive training to become a service dog.  He had lived amongst prisoners and at a home for troubled boys, blessing many lives on his way to Luis, but the rigorous training and separation anxiety he endured when passed from one trainer to the next caused him significant emotional and behavioral problems.  So, when Tuesday was finally placed with Luis, it was a match made in heaven.  Until Tuesday tells the inspiring unforgettable story of how these two wounded warriors, man and dog, found salvation together. 

Secret Daughter

by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

Somer's life is everything she imagined it would be -- she's newly married and has started her career as a physician in San Francisco -- until she makes the devastating discovery she never will be able to have children.

The same year in India, a poor mother makes the heartbreaking choice to save her newborn daughter's life by giving her away.  It is a decision that will haunt Kavita for the rest of her life, and cause a ripple effect that travels across the world and back again.

Asha, adopted out of a Mumbai orphanage, is the child that binds the destinies of these two women.  We follow both families, invisibly connected until Asha's journey of self-discovery leads her back to India.

Compulsively readable and deeply touching, Secret Daughter is a story of the unforeseen ways in which our choices and families affect our lives, and the indelible power of love in all its many forms. 

Sons and Princes

by James LePore

Chris Massi has been running from his world his entire life.

The son of a Mafia assassin and the former son-in-law of a mob kingpin, Massi has tried to stay on the right side of the law, building a prestigious career as an attorney, and insulating his children as much as possible.  But now a series of tragedies have left him without a law license and without several of his loved ones.  And at the same time, his teenaged son is beginning to gravitate toward the gangster world Chris has tried so hard to protect him from.

Michele Mathias has been running away from her life for more than a decade. Once a promising young woman with a future, she's now a drug addicted street player living with the knowledge that her daughter -- the only bright thing in her life -- was taken away from her.  When her roommate is murdered in a mob-related hit, her life intersects with Chris's life -- and their worlds change forever.

For Chris, a showdown is coming.  The only way for him to save his son and regain his future is to face -- and maybe even embrace -- the demon he's always avoided.  For Michele, her last chance at redemption has arrived.  How their journeys collide with the dark New York underworld is the stuff of the kind of suspenseful, passionate drama we've come to expect from James LePore. 

The Baby Planner

by Josie Brown

First comes love, then comes marriage.

Who added the designer baby carriage?

In a world where zygotes need preschool applications and the wrong stroller can label you an unfit mother, pregnant professionals turn to Katie Johnson, San Francisco's most prestigious baby planner, long before their baby bumps become obvious under their Armani suits.  But setting up her clients with the latest must-have baby gadgets, top-notch doulas, and most desirable playgroups is just the start.  For the anxious mommies who have her on speed dial, Katie is also therapist, referee, and best friend all in one.

Secretly, however, Katie longs for a baby of her own.  Her husband, Alex, refuses to do more than what he calls keeping an open mind, but when he gives her reason to doubt he means even that, Katie throws herself into helping her most clueless client of all.  Seth Harris is raising his newborn daughter solo, and as Katie helps him navigate his difficult journey, she realizes that life, love, and families are precious gifts. . . ones that can't always be planned. 

Heart of Deception

by M.L. Malcolm

From M.L. Malcolm, the acclaimed author of Heart of Lies, comes a powerful sequel that spans the years from World War II to the turbulent 1960's -- the riveting story of a family struggling with choices forced upon them by war. . . and the consequences that will take a generation to unfold.

A man of many contradictions, Leo Hoffman is a Hungarian national with a French passport, a wealthy businessman with no visible means of support, and a devoted father who hasn't seen his daughter in years.  He is also a spy.

Recruited by the Allies to help lay the groundwork for their invasion of North Africa, Leo intends to engage in as little espionage as possible -- just enough to earn his American citizenship so he can get to New York and reunite with his daughter, Maddy.  But while Leo dodges death in France and Morocco, Maddy is learning shocking truths about her father's mysterious past -- haunting knowledge that will compel her down her own dangerous path of deception and discovery. 



Red on Red

by Edward Conlon

From the author of the celebrated bestseller Blue Blood comes this highly anticipated fiction debut.  In Red on Red, Edward Conlon tells the story of two NYPD detectives, Meehan and Esposito: one damaged and introspective, the other ambitious and unscrupulous.  Meehan is compelled by haunting and elusive stories that defy easy resolution, while Esposito is drawn to cases of rough and ordinary combat.  A fierce and unlikely friendship develops between them and plays out against a tangle of mysteries:  a lonely immigrant who hangs herself in Inwood Hill Park, a serial rapist preying on upper Manhattan, a troubled Catholic schoolgirl who appears in the wrong place with uncanny regularity, and a savage gang war that erupts over a case of mistaken identity.  Red on Red captures the vibrant dynamic of a successful police partnership -- the tests of loyalty, the necessary betrayals, the wedding of life and work -- and tells an unrelenting and exciting story that captures the grittiness, complexity, ironies, and compromises of life on the Job. 

Warm Bodies

by Isaac Marion

R is a young man with an existential crisis -- he is a zombie.  He has no memories, no identity, and no pulse, but he has dreams.  His ability to connect with the outside world is limited to a few grunted syllables, but his inner life is deep, full of wonder and longing.

After experiencing a teenage boy's memories while consuming his brain, R makes an unexpected choice that begins a tense, awkward, and strangely sweet relationship with the victim's human girlfriend.  Julie is a blast of color in the otherwise dreary and gray landscape that surrounds R.  His choice to protect her will transform not only R, but his fellow Dead, and perhaps their whole lifeless world.  Scary, funny, and surprisingly poignant, Warm Bodies explores what happens when the cold heart of a zombie is tempted by the warmth of human love. 

Ghellow Road

by T.H. Waters

Ghellow Road is a literary diary of a young girl's journey through life.  Theresa's story begins in a large midwestern city where she is born to loving parents in 1965.  For a brief moment in time, her life is full, as is her heart, and the world is hers to receive without consequence.  As time passes and Theresa grows, supernatural forces begin to shape her existence, no matter how carefully her father colors the empty spaces of her world.  After a series of tragic events.  Theresa and her family seek refuge in a small Minnesota town nestled near the shores of Rainy Lake.  She creates a new life for herself there, sharing adventures with friends and riding the ups and downs of adolescence.  Yet through it all, her mother remains forever lost in the prison of her own mind and forever lost to Theresa.  The young girl feels as though she is leading a double life, one that no one else could possibly understand.  She begins to peer at the world as if looking through a thick, black veil, never certain which pieces are illusion and which are not.  Through the kindness and support of the townspeople, she eventually summons the strength to survive.  This is a story of tragedy and triumph.  This is the story of my life. . .

Economic Meltdown: A Family Preparedness Plan for Disaster

by Karen McHale

It's 2012 -- Did the world end yet?

Inflation in the United States is at 27%, unemployment at 32%.  The dollar is only worth 49 cents and the DOW can't seem to rise above 3,217.  Gas is $15 a gallon and now there is no electricity.  What if there was a meltdown of the United States financial system and the government isn't there to save you?

A man-made disaster is looming and is your family prepared for famines or runaway inflation that may send the US dollar into free fall.  What would you do?  How would you feed your family?  Are you prepared to take care of yourself?

In Economic Meltdown, emergency planner Karen McHale takes you on a fast paced ride and shows you what could happen and how to prepare for it.

I won this next one in a giveaway from the author.

The Tudor Secret

by C. W. Gortner

The era of the Tudors was one of danger, intrigue, conspiracy, and above all, spies.

Summer 1553: a time of danger and deceit.  Brendan Prescott, an orphan, is reared in the household of the powerful Dudley family.  Brought to court, Prescott finds himself sent on an illicit mission to the king's brilliant but enigmatic sister, Princess Elizabeth.  But Brendan is soon compelled to work as a double agent by Elizabeth's protector, William Cecil, who promises in exchange to help him unravel the secret of his own mysterious past.

A dark plot swirls around Elizabeth's quest to unravel the truth about the ominous disappearance of her seirously ill brother, King Edward VI.  With only a bold stable boy and audacious lady-in-waiting at his side, Brendan plunges into a ruthless gambit of half-truths, lies, and murder.  Filled with the intrigue and pageantry of Tudor England, The Tudor Secret is the first book in the Elizabeth I Spymaster Chronicles.