The Printed Page

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

If you’re new to Mailbox Monday welcome! Thank you to everyone who stops by Mailbox Monday. Whether you comment or visit I appreciate your taking the time to drop in.

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Mailbox Monday blog tour: Our August host is Chick Loves Lit

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RIF: Donating to local library
Title: Nonna’s Book of Mysteries (Alchemy, book #1) by Mary Osborne (new-to-me author)

At age fourteen, all Emilia Serafini wants is to learn to paint so that she can become an artist. But painters’ apprenticeships for young women don’t exist in the Florence of Renaissance Italy. The odds appear stacked against her until she receives a fascinating book, A Manual to the Science of Alchemy. It was once her grandmother’s and Emilia turns again and again to the Manual for guidance.

When Emilia meets the wealthy, brooding Franco Villani, her life takes a thrilling, but dangerous turn. Franco will do anything to win a place in the court of the powerful Cosimo de’ Medici. Well aware that Cosimo prizes ancient manuscripts above all, Franco realizes Emilia’s Manual would be invaluable to him in more ways than one.

Infused with the mysticism of alchemy, Nonna’s Book of Mysteries is an exciting portrait of a young woman who defies convention to seek her destiny

RIF: Donating to local library
Title: Broken by Karin Slaughter

When the body of a young man is discovered deep beneath the icy waters of Lake Grant, a note left under a rock by the shore points to suicide. But within minutes, it becomes clear that this is no suicide. It’s a brutal, cold-blooded murder. All too soon former Grant County medical examiner Sara Linton — home for Thanksgiving after a long absence — finds herself unwittingly drawn into the case. The chief suspect is desperate to see her, but when she arrives at the local police station she is met with a horrifying sight — he lies dead in his cell, the words ‘Not me’ scrawled across the walls. Something about his confession doesn’t add up and deeply suspicious of the detective in charge, Lena Adams, Sara immediately calls the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Shortly afterwards, Special Agent Will Trent is brought in from his vacation to investigate. But he is immediately confronted with a wall of silence. Grant County is a close-knit community with loyalties and ties that run deep. And the only person who can tell the truth about what really happened is dead.

RIF: Adopt me
Title: In Harm’s Way (Sheriff Walt Fleming, book #4) by Ridley Pearson

Sun Valley sheriff Walt Fleming’s budding relationship with photographer Fiona Kenshaw hits a rough patch after Fiona is involved in a heroic river rescue and she attempts to duck the press. Despite her job and her laudable actions, she begs Walt to keep her photo out of the paper, avoiding him when he can’t.

Then Walt gets a phone call that changes everything: Lou Boldt, a police sergeant out of Seattle, calls to report that a recent murder may have a Sun Valley connection. After a badly beaten body is discovered just off a local highway, Walt knows there is a link-but can he pull the pieces together in time?

RIF: Adopt me
Title: Reversal (Harry Bosch, book #16) by Michael Connelly

Longtime defense attorney Mickey Haller is recruited to change stripes and prosecute the high-profile retrial of a brutal child murder. After 24 years in prison, convicted killer Jason Jessup has been exonerated by new DNA evidence. Haller is convinced Jessup is guilty, and he takes the case on the condition that he gets to choose his investigator, LAPD Detective Harry Bosch.

Together, Bosch and Haller set off on a case fraught with political and personal danger. Opposing them is Jessup, now out on bail, a defense attorney who excels at manipulating the media, and a runaway eyewitness reluctant to testify after so many years.

With the odds and the evidence against them, Bosch and Haller must nail a sadistic killer once and for all. If Bosch is sure of anything, it is that Jason Jessup plans to kill again.

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What books came into your house last week? Don’t forget to fill out Mister Linky or leave a comment with a list of books if you don’t blog. If you’re interested in Read It Forward you will need to leave a comment in addition to filling out a link feature.

• In the “Your name:” box, please enter either your name or your blog’s name.

• In the “Your URL:” box please enter the URL/link that will lead directly to the post you are submitting (also called the permalink). This is not the URL to the blog’s home page.

• My rating: Excellent (based on entertainment value not historical accuracy which I don’t read for)
• New-to-me author: Yes
• Would I read more from this author: Yes

Title: Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England’s Most Passionate Queen and the Three Men Who Loved Her
Author/website: Susan Kay
Publisher: Publisher: Sourcebooks
Publication date & page count: July ’10 (org. pub date 1985) & 662 pages

Kay’s prodigious research buttresses this robust historical romance, winner of Britain’s Georgette Heyer Historical Novel Prize and the Betty Trask Prize for a first novel. England’s greatest Queen is presented from an intriguing psychological viewpoint Elizabeth I’s need for men and the bondage endured by those she chose. Freely mixing the verifiable with the imagined, Kay traces Elizabeth’s rise from lonely childhood to lonely eminence. In the person of Robert Dudley, later Leicester, she creates a romantic fulcrum for Elizabeth’s womanliness, delineating the childhood affection for Dudley that flowered in clandestine liaison and may be the closest Elizabeth came to a loving relationship. All of the Court’s intriguing personnel from the ubiquitous, conniving Cecils to the presumptive upstart, Essexare drawn with care; the turbulence of the period, filled with violent deaths, challenges from abroad, pragmatic liaisons, is conveyed with verisimilitude; the rich tapestry of the Tudor ascendancy is woven with colorful threads. It is, however, the depiction of a woman of whom “half the wives of England were jealous” that lingers.

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

If you’re new to Mailbox Monday welcome! Thank you to everyone who stops by Mailbox Monday. Whether you comment or visit I appreciate your taking the time to drop in.

***

Mailbox Monday Blog Tour – Starting next month Mailbox Monday is going on a blog tour. Thank you to everyone who signed up to be a tour host. We booked out through December of 2011 in less than 24 hours. You all are an absolutely wonderful group. If you missed out on hosting a stop don’t despair as I’m taking names for a wait list. Its just way too early to even think about booking 2012 tour dates. Those on the wait list will be offered the 2012 tour stops before they go public. Also those wait listed will be contacted in the order your name went on the list to host a current tour stop should one become available. You can email me at marcia[at]printedpage[dot]us to sign up or use the contact form on the Mailbox Monday Blog Tour page.

If you get lost and can’t remember the current tour host you can stop by here as I have the information in a couple of different places. The right side bar has tour stops for the remainder of 2010. I’ve also put together a Mailbox Monday Blog Tour page.

***

What books came into your house last week? You have the choice of using inlinkz or Mr. Linky. With inlinkz you can include a book cover if you’d like along with the link to your Mailbox Monday post (clicking on the image takes you to the blog post.)

Don’t forget to fill out either inlinkz or Mister Linky or leave a comment with a list of books if you don’t blog. If you’re interested in Read It Forward you will need to leave a comment in addition to filling out a link feature.

• In the “Your name:” box, please enter either your name or your blog’s name.

• In the “Your URL:” box please enter the URL/link that will lead directly to the post you are submitting (also called the permalink). This is not the URL to the blog’s home page.

***

Read It Forward details

• My rating: Very good/excellent (based on entertainment value not historical accuracy which I don’t read for)
• New-to-me author: Yes
• Would I read more from this author: Yes

Title: Lady of the Butterflies
Author/website: Fiona Mountain
Publisher: Publisher: Putnam, a division of the Penguin Group
Publication date & page count: July ’10 & 527 pages

From page 197 of Lady of the Butterflies

“I love my husband,” I said firmly. “I love Edmund.”
“I love Edmund too,” he echoed savagely. “I’ve known him all my life. His father and my father knew each other all their lives. Do not think I am not tortured by guilt for this, for how I feel about you. But I cannot help myself. I cannot help it that for these past months I have tossed and turned in my bed every night for longing for Edmund’s little wife. Nell, I have never wanted a woman as I want you.”

Set in Somerset and London during the turbulent time of the Restoration, Lady of the Butterflies is a dramatic tale of passion, prejudice and death by poison, of riot and rebellion, science and superstition, madness and metamorphosis. It is also about the beauty of butterflies, about hope, transformation and redemption.
Eleanor is the daughter of a strict puritan and Roundhead major and lives in a medieval manor on the bleak wetlands of Somerset. Her longing for colour and brightness leads to an obsession with butterflies as well as to an illicit passion for charismatic but troubled Richard Glanville. Richard, the son of an exiled Cavalier, embodies all that Eleanor had been taught to despise and distrust, but he also holds for her all the allure of the forbidden. Her first husband dies, seemingly poisoned, freeing Eleanor and Richard to marry. But can their love survive suspicion and prejudice, a bloody rebellion which makes them bitter enemies, and a superstitious community that stirs up hatred towards her for her love of butterflies? It seems the only peace she can find is in her long-lasting friendship with renowned naturalist James Petiver, a clever young London apothecary who is credited as the father of British entomology. But when Eleanor and Richard’s son becomes apprenticed to James, tragedy strikes, and Eleanor is forced to embark on a dangerous search for her son that is entwined with a personal quest for truth, freedom and love.

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

If you’re new to Mailbox Monday welcome! Thank you to everyone who stops by Mailbox Monday. Whether you comment or visit I appreciate your taking the time to drop in.

***

Mailbox Monday Blog Tour – Starting next month Mailbox Monday is going on a blog tour. Thank you to everyone who signed up to be a tour host. We booked out through December of 2011 in less than 24 hours. You all are an absolutely wonderful group. If you missed out on hosting a stop don’t despair as I’m taking names for a wait list. Its just way too early to even think about booking 2012 tour dates. Those on the wait list will be offered the 2012 tour stops before they go public. Also those wait listed will be contacted in the order your name went on the list to host a current tour stop should one become available. You can email me at marcia[at]printedpage[dot]us to sign up or use the contact form on the Mailbox Monday Blog Tour page.

If you get lost and can’t remember the current tour host you can stop by here as I have the information in a couple of different places. The right side bar has tour stops for the remainder of 2010. I’ve also put together a Mailbox Monday Blog Tour page.

***

What books came into your house last week? You have the choice of using inlinkz or Mr. Linky. With inlinkz you can include a book cover if you’d like along with the link to your Mailbox Monday post (clicking on the image takes you to the blog post.)

Don’t forget to fill out either inlinkz or Mister Linky or leave a comment with a list of books if you don’t blog. If you’re interested in Read It Forward you will need to leave a comment in addition to filling out a link feature.

• In the “Your name:” box, please enter either your name or your blog’s name.

• In the “Your URL:” box please enter the URL/link that will lead directly to the post you are submitting (also called the permalink). This is not the URL to the blog’s home page.

***

Read It Forward details

• My rating: Very good/excellent
• New-to-me author: Yes
• Would I read more from this author: Yes; looking forward to reading Alchemy’s Daughter, (Alchemy, book #2)

Title: Nonna’s Book of Mysteries (Alchemy, book #1)
Author/website: Mary Osborne
Publisher: Publisher: Lake Street Press
Publication date & page count: June ’10 & 320 pages

From page 165 & 166 of Nonna’s Book of Mysteries

Then, recalling the unpleasant encounter between her husband-to-be and Giacomo Massarino, she told herself that Franco’s jealous impulses would abate in time. Surely Franco would eventually see that her relationship with Giacomo posed no threat. It was true that she and Giacomo had formed a bond through their love of painting. Emilia had to admit that this could be difficult for Franco, but she would reassure him of her loyalty. As time progressed, they would both grow more confident in their mutual affection for one another and such misunderstandings would be a thing of the past.

At age fourteen, all Emilia Serafini wants is to learn to paint so that she can become an artist. But painters’ apprenticeships for young women don’t exist in the Florence of Renaissance Italy. The odds appear stacked against her until she receives a fascinating book, A Manual to the Science of Alchemy. It was once her grandmother’s and Emilia turns again and again to the Manual for guidance.

When Emilia meets the wealthy, brooding Franco Villani, her life takes a thrilling, but dangerous turn. Franco will do anything to win a place in the court of the powerful Cosimo de’ Medici. Well aware that Cosimo prizes ancient manuscripts above all, Franco realizes Emilia’s Manual would be invaluable to him in more ways than one.

Infused with the mysticism of alchemy, Nonna’s Book of Mysteries is an exciting portrait of a young woman who defies convention to seek her destiny

Title: The Dog Park Club
Author/website: Cynthia Robinson
Publisher: Minotaur
Publication date & page count: June ’10 & 295 pages

From page 149 of The Dog Park Club

“But we are,” Wolfy said. “We are there.”
Everyone in the room became still at these three words. We are there. The crystalline truth of it resonated in a pure, clear pitch. Everyone turned to slowly look at Wolf. They regarded the slender, soft-spoken man – the foreign man – with his careful words.
“We are here, Wolfman,” Ed said. “And whoever took Amy didn’t figure on us.”

Max Bravo, a wise-cracking gay opera singer, and his best friend, advertising whiz Claudia Fantini, who’s heartbroken that her husband wants a divorce, find solace taking the husband’s dog, Asta, to a Berkeley, Calif., dog park. There Claudia and Max hang out with a variety of fellow dog lovers, including a hoary-headed Vietnam vet, a sartorially offensive software engineer from Barcelona, and bank loan officer Amy Carter, who’s pregnant. After the popular Amy vanishes and the police fail to find her, Max and company, including Max’s visiting German boyfriend, investigate, staking out Amy’s house because they suspect her husband has killed her.

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

If you’re new to Mailbox Monday welcome! Thank you to everyone who stops by Mailbox Monday. Whether you comment or visit I appreciate your taking the time to drop in.

***

Mailbox Monday Blog Tour – Starting next month Mailbox Monday is going on a blog tour. Thank you to everyone who signed up to be a tour host. We booked out through December of 2011 in less than 24 hours. You all are an absolutely wonderful group. If you missed out on hosting a stop don’t despair as I’m taking names for a wait list. Its just way too early to even think about booking 2012 tour dates. Those on the wait list will be offered the 2012 tour stops before they go public. Also those wait listed will be contacted in the order your name went on the list to host a current tour stop should one become available. You can email me at marcia[at]printedpage[dot]us to sign up or use the contact form on the Mailbox Monday Blog Tour page.

If you get lost and can’t remember the current tour host you can stop by here as I have the information in a couple of different places. The right side bar has tour stops for the remainder of 2010. I’ve also put together a Mailbox Monday Blog Tour page.

***

What books came into your house last week? You have the choice of using inlinkz or Mr. Linky. With inlinkz you can include a book cover if you’d like along with the link to your Mailbox Monday post (clicking on the image takes you to the blog post.)

Don’t forget to fill out either inlinkz or Mister Linky or leave a comment with a list of books if you don’t blog. If you’re interested in Read It Forward you will need to leave a comment in addition to filling out a link feature.

• In the “Your name:” box, please enter either your name or your blog’s name.

• In the “Your URL:” box please enter the URL/link that will lead directly to the post you are submitting (also called the permalink). This is not the URL to the blog’s home page.

***

Read It Forward details

• My rating: Excellent
• New-to-me author: No
• Would I read more from this author: Yes

Title: Blood Harvest
Author/website: S.J. Bolton
Publisher: Publisher: Minotaur
Publication date & page count: June ’10 & 421 pages

From page 151 of Blood Harvest

He realized he was screaming. Then he was running. Then he was screaming in his mother’s voice. And in his dad’s voice. He was yelling ‘Tom, Tom, where are you?’ and she was chasing him, she was coming after him and run, it was all he could do, run, run, run.
And hide.
Everything was quiet. Cold. Wet. He had no idea where he was, but he knew he was somewhere dark and damp. He was lying down, but had no idea whether he’d fallen or jun run out of breath. He was panting as if he’d never get enough air into his lungs ever again. Something hard was digging into his ribs but he didn’t dare move.
‘Tom!’
His dad’s voice. He was close by. Except … was it? Was it him?
‘Daddee.’ A soft voice, low and teasing, like a kid playing hid and seek. A voice that sounded – oh God – exactly like . . .

The Fletchers’ beautiful new house is everything they dreamed it would be. Built between two churches in Heptonclough, a small village on the moors that time forgot, it ought to be paradise for this young family of five, but they barely have a chance to settle in before they find that they’re anything but welcome. Someone seems to be trying to drive them away–at first with silly pranks but then with threats that become increasingly dangerous, especially to the oldest child, ten-year-old Tom Fletcher, who begins to believe that someone is always watching him.

The adults in Tom’s life are trying to help, including his parents; the vicar next door, younger and more dashing than you’d expect a vicar to be; and a therapist, Evi Oliver, who believes him more than she wants to. But there are other clues that something isn’t quite right in Heptonclough, including the mysterious accidental deaths of three toddlers over the last ten years. It is not until Tom’s siblings, two-year-old Milly and five-year-old Joe Fletcher, go missing in turn that the little village’s evil secret turns the Fletchers’ dreams into a nightmare.

• My rating: Very good/excellent (based on entertainment value not historical accuracy which I don’t read for)
• New-to-me author: Yes
• Would I read more from this author: Yes

Title: Poison: A Novel of the Renaissance
Author/website: Sara Poole
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication date & page count: August ’10 & 388 pages

From page 185 of Poison

Vittoro nodded. “Borgia has left instructions that the edict isn’t to go anywhere without his permission, but by morning —

He left the rest unsaid yet I was hopeful all the same. The Vatican was a bureaucracy to rival any in the world. Morozzi could utter all the demands he liked in the name of the Pope, but proper form had to be followed. Some official would have to be awakened and the situation explained to him. That person in turn would have to send word to Borgia, who would have to be found. My guess is that he would be spending the night in fair Giulia’s bed rather than his own. Once he was located, he would have to array himself properly — Il Cardinale never went anywhere without due regard for his dignity.

In the simmering hot summer of 1492, a monstrous evil is stirring in the Eternal City of Rome. The brutal murder of an alchemist sets off a desperate race to uncover the plot that threatens to extinguish the light of the Renaissance and plunge Europe back into medieval darkness.

Determined to avenge the killing of her father, Francesca Giordano defies all convention to claim for herself the position of professional poisoner serving Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, head of the most notorious and dangerous family in Italy. She becomes the confidante of Lucrezia Borgia and the lover of Cesare Borgia. At the same time, she is drawn to the young renegade monk who longs to save her life and her soul.

Pursuing her father’s killer from the depths of Rome’s Jewish ghetto to the heights of the Vatican itself, this mistress of the dark is driven to confront the innermost demons that stand between her and the light for which she yearns.