Mailbox Monday (Feb 20, 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! 

For review:

You're Already Amazing

Embracing Who You Are, Becoming All God Created You to Be

by Holley Gerth

Pssst . . . pull up a chair and I'll tell you a secret.  You'd better lean in close for this one.

Ready?

You don't have to do more, be more, have more.

I'm sure there are security alarms going off somewhere.  You should probably hide this book when your in-laws come over.

But it's true.

It's the kind of true that will change your life, set you free, and make you wake up smiling for the first time in a long time.  I know because that's what it did for me. . .

So watch out, sister.  If you keep reading you just might be next.

With this heart-to-heart message, Holley Gerth invites you to embrace one very important truth -- that you truly are already amazing.  Like a trusted friend, Holley gently shows you how to forget the lies and expectations the world feeds you and instead believe that God loves you and has bigger plans for your life than you've even imagined.



For review:

Frantic

by Mike Dellosso

Can a deranged serial killer be stopped before it's too late?

For gas station attendant Marny Toogood it's just another day on the job when an urgent message from a young girl in the backseat of a car draws him into a daring rescue attempt.  Now on the run with the girl and her brother, Marny begins to realize he must conquer his own past and surrender all to Christ.

As they face kidnapping, underground cults, and other evils, can Marny trust the simple faith of a child and stand his ground against a power so twisted?





For review: 

The Good Father

by Noah Hawley

As the chief of rheumatology at Columbia Presbyterian, Dr. Paul Allen's specialty is diagnosing patients with conflicting symptoms, patients other doctors have given up on.  He lives a contented life in Westport, Connecticut, with his second wife and their twin sons -- a life hard-won after a failed marriage that produced a son named Daniel.

In the gripping opening scene of this compulsively readable novel, Dr. Allen is home with his family when a televised news report announces that the Democratic candidate for president has been shot at a rally.  Daniel is accused of pulling the trigger, sending the Allen family down a harrowing path of no return.

Daniel Allen has always been a good kid -- a decent student, popular -- but, as a child of divorce used to shuttling back and forth between parents, he is also something of a drifter.  Which may be why, at the age of nineteen, he quietly drops out of Vassar and begins an aimless journey across the United States, during which he sheds his former skin and eventually even changes his name to Carter Allen Cash.

Who is ultimately to blame when a child turns out to be far from what his parents ever expected?  How long can a parent punish himself for the events of the past?  When does a parent let go?

This absorbing novel unflinchingly defines the responsibilities -- and limitations -- of being a parent and examines our capacity to provide our children with unconditional love in the face of an unthinkable situation.





For review: 

What Dies in Summer

by Tom Wright

"I did what I did, and that's on me."  From that tantalizing first sentence, Tom Wright sweeps us up in a tale of lost innocence.  Jim has a touch of the Sight.  It's nothing too spooky and generally useless, at least until the summer his cousin L.A. moves in with him and their grandmother.  When Jim and L.A. discover the body of a girl, brutally raped and murdered in a field, an investigation begins that will put both their lives in danger.  In the spirit of The Lovely Bones and The Little Friend, What Dies in Summer is a novel that casts its spell on the very first page and leaves an indelible mark.



Purchased for a read-along:

The Hunger Games

by Suzanne Collins

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts.  The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games.  But Katniss has been close to dead before -- and survival, for her, is second nature.  Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender.  But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.



Paperback Swap: 



The Awakening

by Kelley Armstrong

If you had met me a few weeks ago, you probably would have described me as an average teenage girl -- someone normal.  Now my life has changed forever and I'm as far away from normal as it gets.  A living science experiment -- not only can I see ghosts, but I was genetically altered by a sinister organization called the Edison Group.  What does that mean?   For starters, I'm a teenage necromancer whose powers are out of control; I raise the dead without even trying.  Trust me, that is not a power you want to have.  Ever.

Now I'm running for my life with three of my supernatural friends -- a charming sorcerer, a cynical werewolf, and a disgruntled witch -- and we have to find someone who can help us before the Edison Group finds us first.  Or die trying.



Mailbox Monday (Feb 13, 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! 

Agony of the Leaves

by Laura Childs

In the latest novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Scones and Bones, Indigo Tea Shop Owner Theodosia Browning finds herself in hot water when a body surfaces at the grand opening of Charleston's Neptune Aquarium. . .

The opening of the aquarium is a major Charleston event, and Theodosia has been hired to cater tea, scones, and sandwiches for the private party to honor dignitaries and big-buck donors.  Things are going swimmingly until Theodosia escapes the party for a momentary rest, only to discover the body of a man entangled in a net, drowned in one of the aquarium's state-of-the-art tanks.

To make matters worse, the victim is Theodosia's former boyfriend Parker Scully.  The EMTs on the scene think Parker's drowning was an accident, but when Theodosia notices what look like defensive wounds on his hands she realizes that someone wanted Parker dead.  The local police aren't keen on hearing her theory -- especially because of her ties to the victim -- so Theodosia knows that if she wants Parker's killer brouight to justice, she'll have to jump into the deep end and start her own investigation. . .

White Horse

by Alex Adams

The world has ended, but her journey has just begun.

Thirty-year-old Zoe leads an ordinary life until the end of the world arrives.  She is cleaning cages and floors at Pope Pharmaceuticals when the President of the United States announces that human beings are no longer a viable species.  When Zoe realizes that everyone she loves is disappearing, she starts running.  Scared and alone in a shockingly changed world, she embarks on a remarkable journey of survival and redemption.  Along the way, Zoe comes to see that humans are defined not by their genetic code, but rather by their actions and choices.  White Horse offers hope for a broken world, where love can lead to the most unexpected places.

Restoration

by Olaf Olafsson

Having grown up in an exclusive circle of wealthy British ex-pats in Florence in the 1920s, Alice shocks everyone when she marries Claudio, the son of a minor landowner, and moves to San Martino, a crumbling villa in Tuscany.  Settling into their new paradise, husband and wife begin to build their future, restoring San Martino and giving birth to a son.

But as time passes, Alice grows lonely, a restlessness that leads her into the heady social swirl of wartime Rome and a reckless affair that will have devastating consequences.  While she spends time with her lover in Rome, Alice's young son falls ill and dies, widening the emotional chasm between her and her husband -- and leaving her vulnerable to the machinations of a nefarious art dealer who ensnares her in a dangerous and deadly scheme.

Returning to San Martino, Alice yearns for forgiveness.  But before she can begin to make amends, Claudio disappears, and the encroaching fighting threatens to destroy everything they have built.  Caught between loyalists and resisters, cruel German forces and Allied troops, Alice valiantly struggles to survive, hoping the life and love she lost can one day be restored.

Sarai

by Jill Eileen Smith

He promised her his heart.  She promised him a son.  But how long must they wait?

When Abram finally requests the hand of his beautiful half sister Sarai, she asks one thing -- that he promise never to take another wife as long as she lives.  Even Sarai's father thinks the demand is restrictive and agrees to the union only if she makes a promise in return -- to give Abram a son and heir.  Certain she can easily do that, Sarai agrees.

But as the years stretch on and Sarai's womb remains empty, she becomes desperate to fulfill her end of the bargain, lest Abram decide that he will not fulfill his.  To what lengths will Sarai go in her quest to bear a son?  And how long will Abram's patience last?

Combining in-depth research and vivid storytelling, Jill Eileen Smith brings to life the beautiful and inscrutable Sarai in this remarkable story of love, jealousy, and undaunted faith.

What books came home to you last week?

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?

Mailbox Monday! (Jan 30, 2012)

 Mailbox Monday will be hosted in January by Alyce at At Home With Books.  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! 

No Mark Upon Her

by Deborah Crombie

New York Times bestselling author Deborah Crombie makes her mark with this absorbing, finely hued tale of suspense -- a deeply atmospheric and twisting mystery full of deadly secrets, salacious lies, and unexpected betrayals involving the mysterious drowning of a Met detective -- an accomplished rower -- on the Thames.

When a K9 search-and-rescue team discovers a woman's body tangled up with debris in the river, Scotland Yard superintendent Duncan Kincaid finds himself heading an investigation fraught with complications.  The victim, Rebecca Meredith, was a talented but difficult woman with many admirers-- and just as many enemies.  An Olympic contender on the verge of a controversial comeback, she was also a high-ranking detective with the Met -- a fact that raises a host of political and ethical issues in an already sensitive case.

To further complicate the situation, a separate investigation, led by Detective Inspector Gemma James, Kincaid's wife, soon reveals a disturbing -- and possibly related -- series of crimes, widening the field of suspects.  But when someone tries to kill the search-and-rescue team member who found Rebecca's body, the case becomes even more complex and dangerous, involving powerful interests with tentacles that reach deep into the heart of the Met itself.

Surrounded by enemies with friendly faces, pressured to find answers quickly while protecting the Yard at all costs, his career and reputation on the line, Kincaid must race to catch the killer before more innocent lives are lost -- including his own.

I won this one from the author.

The Yippy, Yappy Yorkie in the Green Doggy Sweater

by Debbie Macomber

What happens when you combine:

A girl named Ellen who has just moved to a new neighborhood; a yippy, yappy Yorkie named Baxter who disappears from Ellen's new yard; and a new neighborhood that doesn't look anything like their old home on Blossom Street?

For Ellen and Baxter, it's a moving day that turns into something very special, with many happy discoveries.

In their second Blossom Street Kids picture book, New York Times bestselling authors Debbie Macomber and Mary Lou Carney share a charming and heartwarming tale about embarking on new adventures and finding friends in unexpected places.

This was recommended to me from a random stranger at a thrift store - so I bought it!

Dark Hollow

by John Connolly

Haunted by the murder of his wife and daughter, former New York police detective Charlie Parker retreats home to Scarborough, Maine, to rebuild his shattered life.  But his return awakens old ghosts, drawing him into the manhunt for the killer of yet another mother and child.  The obvious suspect is the young woman's violent ex-husband.  But there is another possibility -- a mythical killer who lurks deep in the dark hollow of Parker's own past, a figure that has haunted his family for generations: the monster known as Caleb Kyle. . .

I won this from Spades High Reads

Beyond (Book One in the Afterlife Series)

by T.P. Boje

Have you ever wondered where you go when you die?

Meghan is 16 when it happens to her.  She wakes up on a flying steamboat on her way to a school run by Angels in a white marble castle.  On the boat she meets Mick, who has been dead for more than a hundred years but still looks like he is a teenager.  He helps her through the difficult beginning at the new school in a new world filled with heavenly magic.

One day some of Meghan's roommates find a mirror in the cellar of the school and they persuade her to go through it with them -- well knowing it is strictly against the rules of the school.  Meghan ends up back on earth where she meets Jason.  But Jason is in danger and Meghan knows something important.  Soon she is forced to choose between the two worlds.  The one she belongs to now, and the one she left behind.

I bought this one at a thrift store also.

F is for Fugitive

by Sue Grafton

F is for Flight

When Kinsey Millhone first arrives in Floral Beach, California, it's hard for her to picture the idyllic coastal town as the setting of a brutal murder.  Seventeen years ago, the body of Jean Timberlake -- a troubled teen who had a reputation with the boys -- was found on the beach.  Her boyfriend, Bailey Fowler, was convicted of her murder and imprisoned, but he escaped.

F is for Fear

After all this time, Bailey's finally been captured.  Believing in his son's innocence, Baily's father wants Kinsey to find Jean's real killer.  But most of the residents in this tight-knit community are convinced Bailey strangled Jean.  So why are they so reluctant to answer Kinsey's questions?  If there's one thing Kinsey's got plenty of it's persistence.  And that's exactly what it's going to take to crack the lid on this case.

F is for Fugitive

As Kinsey gets closer to solving Jean's murder, the more dirty little secrets she uncovers in a town where everyone has something to hide -- and a killer will kill again to keep the past buried. . .

What books came home to you this week?

Mailbox Monday! (Jan 23, 2012)

 Mailbox Monday will be hosted in January by Alyce at At Home With Books.  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! 

The Starboard Sea

by Amber Dermont

After the suicide of his friend and sailing partner, Jason Prosper transfers to a New England boarding school to finish his senior year.  Here - amidst the stock market collapse of 1987, the abuses of class privilege, the mutability of sexual desire, and the risks of competitive sailing -- Jason must navigate the depths of his emotions, while finding his moral center, forgiving himself, and accepting the gift of love.

The Snow Child

by Eowyn Ivey

Homesteaders Jack and Mabel have carved out a quiet life of hard work and routine for themselves in the wilderness that is 1920s Alaska, both still deeply longing for the child it's now impossible for them to have.  Yet their love for each other is strong, and in a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they play together, building a child out of snow.  The next morning the snow child is gone -- but a trail of tiny footsteps remains.  For weeks following, they both catch glimpses of a blond little girl alone in the woods but neither dares mention it to the other, afraid that long-buried hopes have overruled common sense.

Then the little girl, who calls herself Faina, shows up on their doorstep.  Small and fair, she seems truly magical: she hunts with a red fox at her side, she leaves blizzards in her wake, and somehow she manages to survive alone in the harsh Alaskan wilderness.  As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand Faina, they come to love her as their own.  But in this beautiful, violent place, things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform them all.

Eowyn Ivey's enchanting, mesmerizing debut is the story of a couple whose longing for a child is so intense that they may have imagined her into existence.  As dazzling as the snowy Alaskan landscape in which it is set, The Snow Child shines with imaginative power, immersing the reader in a place both faraway and familiar, a tale both universal and brilliantly unique. 

Blood, Bones and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef

by Gabrielle Hamilton

Before Gabrielle Hamilton opened her acclaimed New York restaurant Prune, she spent twenty hard-living years trying to find purpose and meaning in her life.  Blood, Bones and Butter follows an unconventional journey through the many kitchens Hamilton has inhabited through the years:  the rural kitchen of her childhood, where her adored mother stood over the six-burner with an oily wooden spoon in hand; the kitchens of France, Greece, and Turkey, where she was often fed by complete strangers and learned the essence of hospitality; Hamilton's own kitchen at Prune, with its many unexpected challenges; and the kitchen of her Italian mother-in-law, who serves as the link between Hamilton's idyllic past and her own future family -- the result of a prickly marriage that nonetheless yields lasting dividends.  By turns epic and intimate, Gabrielle Hamilton's story is told with uncommon honesty, grit, humor, and passion.

What books came home to you this week?