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.

***

RIF: Kindle eBook
Married by Morning (Hathaways, book #4) by Lisa Kleypas (favorite author)

Everyone in the Hathaway family loves Catherine Marks. Well, everyone except for the head of the family, Leo, Lord Ramsay. Leo thinks Catherine is far too outspoken, opinionated, and obstinate for a companion, and Catherine has an equally high opinion of her employer. For the sake of his sisters, however, Leo manages to strike an uneasy truce. But when he suddenly discovers he has one year to find a wife and produce an heir or lose the family’s beloved home, the first (and only) woman he even considers marrying is the one who drives him crazy. The only problem is that Catherine is a lady with secrets, and one of those secrets is about to destroy her carefully cultivated new life unless Leo can convince her to trust him to help set things right. A sharp-witted and sharp-tongued heroine closely guards the secret of her past from an equally determined hero with a few secrets of his own in the latest sinfully sensual, superbly written addition to Kleypas’ wickedly funny Hathaway series.

RIF: Kindle eBook
Think of a Number by John Verdon (new-to-me author/NetGalley)

Arriving in the mail over a period of weeks are taunting letters that end with a simple declaration, ‘Think of any number.picture it.now see how well I know your secrets.’ Amazingly, those who comply find that the letter writer has predicted their random choice exactly. For Dave Gurney, just retired as the NYPD’s top homicide investigator and forging a new life with his wife, Madeleine, in upstate New York, the letters are oddities that begin as a diverting puzzle but quickly ignite a massive serial murder investigation.

What police are confronted with is a completely baffling killer, one who is fond of rhymes filled with threats and warnings, whose attention to detail is unprecedented, and who has an uncanny knack for disappearing into thin air. Even more disturbing, the scale of his ambition seems to widen as events unfold.

Brought in as an investigative consultant, Dave Gurney soon accomplishes deductive breakthroughs that leave local police in awe. Yet, even as he matches wits with his seemingly clairvoyant opponent, Gurney’s tragedy-marred past rises up to haunt him, his marriage approaches a dangerous precipice, and finally, a dark, cold fear builds that he’s met an adversary who can’t be stopped.

In the end, fighting to keep his bearings amid a whirlwind of menace and destruction, Gurney sees the truth of what he’s become – what we all become when guilty memories fester – and how his wife Madeleine’s clear-eyed advice may be the only answer that makes sense.

A work that defies easy labels — at once a propulsive masterpiece of suspense and an absorbing immersion in the lives of characters so real we seem to hear their heartbeats – Think of a Number is a novel you’ll not soon forget.

***

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