Mailbox Monday (Feb 6, 2012)

 Mailbox Monday will be hosted in February at Metroreader.  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! 

May the Road Rise Up to Meet You

by Peter Troy

 

An engrossing American epic told from four distinct perspectives, spanning the first major wave of Irish immigration to New York through the end of the Civil War.

 

Four unique voices; two parallel love stories; one sweeping novel rich in the history of nineteenth-century America.  This beautiful debut about survival, love, faith, and family, primarily set against the backdrop of the American Civil War, skillfully braids together the stories of four unforgettable characters whose experiences speak to the diversity of our heritage.

 

Ethan McOwen is an Irish immigrant whose endurance is tested in Brooklyn and the Five Points at the height of its urban destitution; he is among the first to join the famed Irish Brigade and becomes a celebrated war photographer.  Marcella, a society girl, defies her father to become a passionate abolitionist.  Mary and Micah are slaves of varying circumstances, who form an instant connection and embark on a tumultuous path to freedom.  The two eventually plot a clandestine escape on a cold Christmas Eve, but things will not go as planned. . .

 

War eventually brings these characters together, changing the course of their individual lives.  Interspersed with letters, jounrals, and dreams, and written in richly textured historical detail, including vivid and poignantly rendered senes on the battlefield, May the Road Rise Up to Meet You is a captivating and quintessential American saga.

 

 

 

Losing Clementine

by Ashley Ream

 

She's got the wit and sharp tongue of Dorothy Parker, the talent of Picasso, and an ex-husband who still wants her.  But all that isn't enough to keep Clementine alive, and in thirty days she's going to turn out the lights of her life for good.

 

With the month she has left, renowned artist Clementine Pritchard will attempt to tie up loose ends -- from coming to terms with the family tragedy that left her without a mother and sister to traveling south of the border to secure tranquilizers to finding the father who abandoned her.  Settling accounts also means coming face-to-face with the reasons she can't go on -- and the truth hidden at its core.  What she doesn't count on, though, is that in losing Clementine, she may actually find her.

 

A wonderfully entertaining and poignant novel featuring a deeply flawed and irresistible character, Losing Clementine is a bold debut from a promising new voice.

 

 

Picture the Dead

by Adele Griffin

 

Jennie feels the tingling presence of something unnatural in the house now that Will is dead.

 

Her heart aches without him, and she still doesn't know how he really died.  It seems that everywhere she turns, someone is hiding yet another clue.  As Jennie seeks the truth, she finds herself drawn ever deeper into a series of tricks and lies, secrets and betrayals, and begins to wonder if she had ever really known Will at all.

 

 

The Lost Saints of Tennessee

by Amy Franklin-Willis

 

 

With enormous heart and agility, Amy Franklin-Willis mines the fault lines in one Southern working-class family.  Driven by the soulful voices of forty-two-year-old Ezekiel Cooper and his mother, Lillian, The Lost Saints of Tennessee journeys from the 1940s to the 1980s as it follows Zeke's evolution from annointed son, to honorable sibling, to unhinged middle-aged man.

 

After Zeke loses his twin brother in a mysterious drowning and his wife to divorce, he throws his two treasured possessions -- a copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and his dead brother's ancient dog -- into his truck, and skips town to escape his grief.  Zeke leaves behind two adolescent daughters and his estranged mother, who reveals her own side of the Cooper family story in a spirited voice stricken by guilt over old sins, desperate that her family isn't beyond repair.  When Zeke finds refuge with cousins in Virginia horse country, severe weather, a surprising inheritance, and a new romance converge, leading Zeke to a crossroads where he must decide the fate of his family.

 

 

Being Lara

by Lola Jaye

 

From the time she was five years old, Lara Reid knew she was an alien.  Her dark complexion and kinky hair -- so unlike her fair-skinned mother's and father's -- were proof that she was different. At eight she learned the word "adopted."  But the tale of a far-off orphanage in Nigeria was little more than another bedtime story.

 

Now Lara is thirty and a strange woman in a blue-and-black head tie is staring at her as she blows out the candles on her birthday cake.  And though the woman is a stranger, Lara senses that she has known her for her entire life.  She is her long-lost birth mother, Yomi, arrived from Africa.

 

Thanks to her steely reserve, Lara has never fully opened herself to anyone, not even her boyfriend, and she is determined not to allow Yomi's sudden appearance to change her life in any way.  But some things can't be controlled, no matter how hard we try, and soon Lara's life is turning upside down, filled with dangerously unfamiliar emotions that take her completely by surprise.

 

Torn in conflicting directions, desperate to flee, Lara knows she must face the truth about her past and the lives of her mothers if she hopes to find peace, understanding, and acceptance of who she is -- and what it means to be Lara.

 

 

Common English Bible

 

What is special about the CEB?

 

It’s easier to read and understand. For many, reading the Bible and then truly grasping what it means can be a challenge. Yet the Bible is meant for everyone. The Common English Bible is a new translation of the Bible in a language that readers naturally speak and communicate—a common language.

To keep scripture relevant, and integrated into worship. Cultural and religious settings have changed dramatically. Changes in worship impact the words we use in our churches. And language is changing even faster because of the digital revolution. Combined with huge cultural shifts underway, these changes are so enormous that a completely new translation of the Bible is required.

 

 

The Pioneer Woman

by Ree Drummond

 

That's when I saw him -- the cowboy -- across the smoky room.

 

I'll never forget that night.  It was like a romance novel, an old Broadway musical, and a John Wayne Western rolled into one.  Out for a quick drink with friends, I wasn't looking to meet anyone, let alone a tall, rugged cowboy who lived on a cattle ranch miles away from my cultured, corporate hometown.  But before I knew it, I'd been struck with a lightning bolt. . . and I was completely powerless to stop it.

 

This isn't just my love story; it's a universal tale of passion, romance, and all-encompassing love that sweeps us off our feet.

 

It's the story of a cowboy.  And Wranglers.  And chaps.

 

And the girl who fell in love with them.

What books came home to you this week?