Mailbox Monday will be hosted in May by Martha at Reviews by Martha's Bookshelf. I got another win this week and a couple of review books. Come on in and take a look!
I also bought some books this week at a Scholastic Warehouse sale and also found a few books at some local thrift stores.
For Review:
Play Him Again
by Jeffrey Stone
It’s the Roaring Twenties but silence remains golden for Hollywood. Sound is scorned by movie moguls. It’s too expensive. Only two studios have sound equipment. Only one picture has contained limited spoken dialogue.
Matt Hudson, a rumrunner and the preferred bootlegger of the movie industry, wants to produce a talking picture. Hud’s gut tells him a talkie would rake in the dough at the box office but neither sound studio will lease him their facilities.
Hud’s oldest friend, con man Danny Kincaid, uses the talkie gold mine angle to con a transplanted Chicago gangster into buying a bogus sound device. But when the gangster gets wise, Danny ends up dead.
Now Hud has a score to settle and nothing can stop him from finding Danny’s killer. After Hud unravels a web of deception, blackmail, and murder that leads to a studio controlled by the gangster, he sets up another con to play the gangster again. A con that will either avenge Danny or get Hud killed.
Foreign Identity
by Becca J. Campbell
Two nameless strangers, a man and a woman, find themselves imprisoned together. With no memories of their own identities, let alone their captor and tormentor, escape is the only option. The pair faces a bizarre labyrinth of rooms and clues that confuse more than they explain. Every discovery only brings more questions.
Who captured them? Why were they taken? What does their captor want from them? What can the riddles mean?
Who are they?
Lacking allies and options, the duo must learn to trust one another. Mazes, puzzles, and even strange, lurking creatures force them to rely on their wits--and each other--for survival. But survival isn’t enough. They need answers.
Will the answers be enough? Will the truth bring them closer together, or drive them forever apart? Will discovering their identities finally bring them home?
Purchased from Scholastic for my daughters (okay - for me too)
Rot & Ruin
Jonathan Maberry
In the zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic America where Benny Imura lives, every teenager must find a job by the time they turn fifteen or get their rations cut in half. Benny doesn’t want to apprentice as a zombie hunter with his boring older brother Tom, but he has no choice. He expects a tedious job whacking zoms for cash—but what he gets is a vocation that will teach him what it means to be human.
Acclaimed horror author Jonathan Maberry makes his young adult debut with this detail-rich depiction of a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has fallen, the dead have risen, and danger is always imminent.
Bad Girls Don't Die
by Katie Alender
Alexis thought she led a typically dysfunctional high school existence. Dysfunctional like her parents' marriage; her doll-crazy thirteen-year-old sister, Kasey; and even her own anti-social, anti-cheerleader attitude.
When a family fight results in some tearful sisterly bonding, Alexis realizes that her life is creeping from dysfunction in to danger. Kasey is acting stranger than ever: her blue eyes go green sometimes; she uses old-fashioned language; and she even loses track of chunks of time, claiming to know nothing about her strange behavior. Their old house is changing, too. Doors open and close by themselves, water boils on the unlit stove, and an unplugged air conditioner turns the house cold enough to see their breath in.
Alexis wants to think that it's all in her head, but soon, what she liked to think of as silly parlor tricks are becoming life-threatening -- to her, to her family, and to her budding relationship with the class vice president. Alexis knows she's the only person who can stop Kasey -- but what if that green-eyed girl isn't even Kasey anymore?
Unearthly
by Cynthia Hand
In the beginning, there's a boy standing in the trees . . . .
Won from Letters Inside Out
The Crescent
by Jordan Deen
Becoming a werewolf is not an option for seventeen-year-old Lacey Quinn, but death can be a strong motivator.
Lacey is so focused on her future that everyday life has passed her by. Counting down the days to her eighteenth birthday, Lacey is almost home free. But when she falls for the mysterious Alex Morris, she lands in the middle of an ancient war between two enemy wolf packs. Tempting dreams, tantalizing lies and a dangerous love triangle ensues leaving Lacey heartbroken and confused.
Lacey's fate rests in the hands of Alex and Brandon, but both are pulling her strings for their own agendas. Even as she slips further into the dark world of werewolves, Lacey struggles to find the truth and save the only family she's ever known.
I bought these for my son from Scholastic:
The following were purchased at a community thrift store:
I also bought some books this week at a Scholastic Warehouse sale and also found a few books at some local thrift stores.
For Review:
Play Him Again
by Jeffrey Stone
It’s the Roaring Twenties but silence remains golden for Hollywood. Sound is scorned by movie moguls. It’s too expensive. Only two studios have sound equipment. Only one picture has contained limited spoken dialogue.
Matt Hudson, a rumrunner and the preferred bootlegger of the movie industry, wants to produce a talking picture. Hud’s gut tells him a talkie would rake in the dough at the box office but neither sound studio will lease him their facilities.
Hud’s oldest friend, con man Danny Kincaid, uses the talkie gold mine angle to con a transplanted Chicago gangster into buying a bogus sound device. But when the gangster gets wise, Danny ends up dead.
Now Hud has a score to settle and nothing can stop him from finding Danny’s killer. After Hud unravels a web of deception, blackmail, and murder that leads to a studio controlled by the gangster, he sets up another con to play the gangster again. A con that will either avenge Danny or get Hud killed.
Foreign Identity
by Becca J. Campbell
Two nameless strangers, a man and a woman, find themselves imprisoned together. With no memories of their own identities, let alone their captor and tormentor, escape is the only option. The pair faces a bizarre labyrinth of rooms and clues that confuse more than they explain. Every discovery only brings more questions.
Who captured them? Why were they taken? What does their captor want from them? What can the riddles mean?
Who are they?
Lacking allies and options, the duo must learn to trust one another. Mazes, puzzles, and even strange, lurking creatures force them to rely on their wits--and each other--for survival. But survival isn’t enough. They need answers.
Will the answers be enough? Will the truth bring them closer together, or drive them forever apart? Will discovering their identities finally bring them home?
Purchased from Scholastic for my daughters (okay - for me too)
Rot & Ruin
Jonathan Maberry
In the zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic America where Benny Imura lives, every teenager must find a job by the time they turn fifteen or get their rations cut in half. Benny doesn’t want to apprentice as a zombie hunter with his boring older brother Tom, but he has no choice. He expects a tedious job whacking zoms for cash—but what he gets is a vocation that will teach him what it means to be human.
Acclaimed horror author Jonathan Maberry makes his young adult debut with this detail-rich depiction of a post-apocalyptic world where humanity has fallen, the dead have risen, and danger is always imminent.
Bad Girls Don't Die
by Katie Alender
Alexis thought she led a typically dysfunctional high school existence. Dysfunctional like her parents' marriage; her doll-crazy thirteen-year-old sister, Kasey; and even her own anti-social, anti-cheerleader attitude.
When a family fight results in some tearful sisterly bonding, Alexis realizes that her life is creeping from dysfunction in to danger. Kasey is acting stranger than ever: her blue eyes go green sometimes; she uses old-fashioned language; and she even loses track of chunks of time, claiming to know nothing about her strange behavior. Their old house is changing, too. Doors open and close by themselves, water boils on the unlit stove, and an unplugged air conditioner turns the house cold enough to see their breath in.
Alexis wants to think that it's all in her head, but soon, what she liked to think of as silly parlor tricks are becoming life-threatening -- to her, to her family, and to her budding relationship with the class vice president. Alexis knows she's the only person who can stop Kasey -- but what if that green-eyed girl isn't even Kasey anymore?
Unearthly
by Cynthia Hand
In the beginning, there's a boy standing in the trees . . . .
Clara Gardner has recently learned that she's part angel. Having angel blood run through her veins not only makes her smarter, stronger, and faster than humans (a word, she realizes, that no longer applies to her), but it means she has a purpose, something she was put on this earth to do. Figuring out what that is, though, isn't easy.
Her visions of a raging forest fire and an alluring stranger lead her to a new school in a new town. When she meets Christian, who turns out to be the boy of her dreams (literally), everything seems to fall into place—and out of place at the same time. Because there's another guy, Tucker, who appeals to Clara's less angelic side.
As Clara tries to find her way in a world she no longer understands, she encounters unseen dangers and choices she never thought she'd have to make—between honesty and deceit, love and duty, good and evil. When the fire from her vision finally ignites, will Clara be ready to face her destiny?
Unearthly is a moving tale of love and fate, and the struggle between following the rules and following your heart.
Won from Letters Inside Out
The Crescent
by Jordan Deen
Becoming a werewolf is not an option for seventeen-year-old Lacey Quinn, but death can be a strong motivator.
Lacey is so focused on her future that everyday life has passed her by. Counting down the days to her eighteenth birthday, Lacey is almost home free. But when she falls for the mysterious Alex Morris, she lands in the middle of an ancient war between two enemy wolf packs. Tempting dreams, tantalizing lies and a dangerous love triangle ensues leaving Lacey heartbroken and confused.
Lacey's fate rests in the hands of Alex and Brandon, but both are pulling her strings for their own agendas. Even as she slips further into the dark world of werewolves, Lacey struggles to find the truth and save the only family she's ever known.
I bought these for my son from Scholastic:
The following were purchased at a community thrift store:
WHAT BOOKS CAME HOME TO YOU THIS WEEK?
