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Posts Tagged ‘Mailbox Monday’

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). 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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Memoir ~ Bending Toward the Sun: A Mother and Daughter Memoir by Leslie Gilbert-Lurie (new-to-me author/FSB Associates) (Claimed by Missy)

A miraculous lesson in courage and recovery, Bending Toward the Sun tells the story of a unique family bond forged in the wake of brutal terror. Weaving together the voices of three generations of women, Leslie Gilbert-Lurie and her mother, Rita Lurie, provide powerful—and inspiring—evidence of the resilience of the human spirit, relevant to every culture in every corner of the world. By turns unimaginably devastating and incredibly uplifting, this firsthand account of survival and psychological healing offers a strong, poignant message of hope in our own uncertain times.

Rita Lurie was five years old when she was forced to flee her home in Poland to hide from the Nazis. From the summer of 1942 to mid-1944, she and fourteen members of her family shared a nearly silent existence in a cramped, dark attic, subsisting on scraps of raw food. Young Rita watched helplessly as first her younger brother then her mother died before her eyes. Motherless and stateless, Rita and her surviving family spent the next five years wandering throughout Europe, waiting for a country to accept them. The tragedy of the Holocaust was only the beginning of Rita’s story.

Decades later, Rita, now a mother herself, is the matriarch of a close-knit family in California. Yet in addition to love, Rita unknowingly passes to her children feelings of fear, apprehension, and guilt. Her daughter Leslie, an accomplished lawyer, media executive, and philanthropist, began probing the traumatic events of her mother’s childhood to discover how Rita’s pain has affected not only Leslie’s life and outlook but also her own daughter, Mikaela’s.

A decade-long collaboration between mother and daughter, Bending Toward the Sun reveals how deeply the Holocaust remains in the hearts and minds of survivors, influencing even the lives of their descendants. It also sheds light on the generational reach of any trauma, beyond the initial victim. Drawing on interviews with the other survivors and with the Polish family who hid five-year-old Rita, this book brings together the stories of three generations of women—mother, daughter, and granddaughter—to understand the legacy that unites, inspires, and haunts them all.

Memoir ~ However Tall the Mountain: A Dream, Eight Girls, and a Journey Home by Awista Ayub (new-to-me author/publicist contact) (Claimed by Kristi)

A ball can start a revolution.

Born in Kabul, Awista Ayub escaped with her family to Connecticut in 1981, when she was two years old, but her connection to her heritage remained strong. An athlete her whole life, she was inspired to start the Afghan Youth Sports Exchange after September 11, 2001, as a way of uniting girls of Afghanistan and giving them hope for their future. She chose soccer because little more than a ball and a field is needed to play; however, the courage it would take for girls in Afghanistan to do this would have to be tremendous–and the social change it could bring about by making a loud and clear statement for Afghan women was enough to convince Awista that it was possible, and even necessary.

Under Taliban rule, girls in Afghanistan couldn’t play outside of their homes, let alone participate in a sport on a team. So, Awista brought eight girls from Afghanistan to the United States for a soccer clinic, in the hope of not only teaching them the sport, but also instilling confidence and a belief in their self-worth. They returned to Afghanistan and spread their interest in playing soccer; when Awista traveled there to host another clinic, hundreds of girls turned out to participate–and the numbers of players and teams keep growing. What began with eight young women has now exploded into something of a phenomenon. Fifteen teams now compete in the Afghanistan Football Federation, with hundreds of girls participating.

Against all odds and fear, these girls decided to come together and play a sport that has reintroduced the very traits that decades of war had cruelly stripped away from them–confidence and self-worth. In However Tall the Mountain, Awista tells both her own story and the deeply moving stories of the eight original girls, describing their daily lives back in Afghanistan, and how they found strength in each other, in teamwork, and in themselves–taking impossible risks to obtain freedoms we take for granted. This is a story about hope, about what home is, and in the end, about determination. As the Afghan proverb says, However tall the mountain, there’s always a road.

Memoir ~ The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer (new-to-me authors/Shelf Awareness)

William Kamkwamba was born in Malawi, a country where magic ruled and modern science was mystery. It was also a land withered by drought and hunger, and a place where hope and opportunity were hard to find. But William had read about windmills in a book called Using Energy, and he dreamed of building one that would bring electricity and water to his village and change his life and the lives of those around him. His neighbors may have mocked him and called him misala—crazy—but William was determined to show them what a little grit and ingenuity could do.

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What books came into your house last week? Don’t forget to leave a link to your Mailbox post or a list of books if you don’t have a blog.

***

Read It Forward details

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). 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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Fiction ~ Wait Until Twilight by Sang Pak (new-to-me author/author contact) (Claimed by Christina)

Samuel, 16 and motherless, is somewhat of a misfit at school, even though he is driven by a single-minded determination to clear every academic bar placed before him, with room to spare. As he navigates the miniature and large-scale dramas of adolescent life, which intersect, diverge, and explode at a moment’s notice, Samuel could be any teen ripe for a good coming-of-age. Which is what happens, in a way, when he gets involved with a set of malformed infant triplets and their psychotic older brother, who gets his hooks into Samuel, scarring the boy with the realization of his own capacity for horrific violence.

Fiction ~ The Crying Tree by Naseem Rakha (new-to-me author/publicist contact)

Irene and Nate Stanley are living a quiet and contented life with their two children, Bliss and Shep, on their family farm in southern Illinois when Nate suddenly announces he’s been offered a job as a deputy sheriff in Oregon. Irene fights her husband. She does not want to uproot her family and has deep misgivings about the move. Nevertheless, the family leaves, and they are just settling into their life in Oregon’s high desert when the unthinkable happens. Fifteen-year-old Shep is shot and killed during an apparent robbery in their home. The murderer, a young mechanic with a history of assault, robbery, and drug-related offenses, is caught and sentenced to death.

Shep’s murder sends the Stanley family into a tailspin, with each member attempting to cope with the tragedy in his or her own way. Irene’s approach is to live, week after week, waiting for Daniel Robbin’s execution and the justice she feels she and her family deserve. Those weeks turn into months and then years. Ultimately, faced with a growing sense that Robbin’s death will not stop her pain, Irene takes the extraordinary and clandestine step of reaching out to her son’s killer. The two forge an unlikely connection that remains a secret from her family and friends.

Years later, Irene receives the notice that she had craved for so long—Daniel Robbin has stopped his appeals and will be executed within a month. This announcement shakes the very core of the Stanley family. Irene, it turns out, isn’t the only one with a shocking secret to hide. As the execution date nears, the Stanleys must face difficult truths and find a way to come to terms with the past.

Historical fiction ~ The Days the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan (Claimed by Laura)

1915. The dawn of the hydroelectric power era in Niagara Falls. Seventeen-year-old Bess Heath has led a sheltered existence as the youngest daughter of the director of the Niagara Power Company. After graduation day at her boarding school, she is impatient to return to her picturesque family home near Niagara Falls. But when she arrives, nothing is as she had left it. Her father has lost his job at the power company, her mother is reduced to taking in sewing from the society ladies she once entertained, and Isabel, her vivacious older sister, is a shadow of her former self. She has shut herself in her bedroom, barely eating–and harboring a secret.

The night of her return, Bess meets Tom Cole by chance on a trolley platform. She finds herself inexplicably drawn to him–against her family’s strong objections. He is not from their world. Rough-hewn and fearless, he lives off what the river provides and has an uncanny ability to predict the whims of the falls. His daring river rescues render him a local hero and cast him as a threat to the power companies that seek to harness the power of the falls for themselves. As their lives become more fully entwined, Bess is forced to make a painful choice between what she wants and what is best for her family and her future

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What books came into your house last week? Don’t forget to leave a link to your Mailbox post or a list of books if you don’t have a blog.

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Read It Forward details

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). 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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Suspense/thriller ~ Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo (new-to-me author/publicist contact) (Claimed by Staci)

Kate Burkholder grew up in idyllic Painters Mill, where many residents drive buggies, shun electricity, and distance themselves from the complications of modern life. The presence of a serial killer shatters the stillness of the town, leaving its citizenry terrified and on guard. During this time, young Kate’s life takes a fateful turn when she is sexually assaulted by an Amish man named Daniel Lapp. She shoots Lapp in self-defense and, seeing blood splattered across the floor, is certain he’s dead. (Her father drags away the body, and the family banishes the incident from their memories, never reporting it to police.) With Lapp’s demise, the area murders cease. Rattled residents rest easily once again. Fast-forward 16 years. Kate, now chief of police in Painters Mill, is faced with a series of brutal crimes in which the female victims are tortured and raped. Could Daniel Lapp still be alive? Kate battles her inner demons as she tracks down a killer who shows no sign of letting up. Can she come clean about her past without losing her job?

Suspense/thriller ~ Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan (new-to-me author/publicist contact)

The enigmatic David Loogan, who’s recently moved to Ann Arbor, Mich., has stumbled into an editing job for Gray Streets, a mystery magazine, after anonymously submitting a short story. One night, Loogan’s boss, Tom Kristoll, asks him for help in disposing of a corpse. Loogan goes to Kristoll’s house and does so, despite his suspicions that Kristoll’s account of how the man ended up dead is incomplete at best. When Kristoll later dies in a fall from his office window, the police mark Loogan, who’s been having an affair with Kristoll’s wife, as a person of interest.

Suspense/thriller ~ A Circle of Souls by Preetham Grandhi (new-to-me author/author contact) (Claimed by Wisteria)

The sleepy town of Newbury, Connecticut, is shocked when a little girl is found brutally murdered. With the murderer on the loose, the police desperately look for any clues to lead to his identity. Meanwhile, a psychiatrist in a nearby hospital is also in a desperate search to find the cause of seven-year-old Naya Hastings s devastating nightmares. Afraid that she might hurt herself in the midst of a torturous episode, Naya s parents have turned to the bright young doctor as their only hope. When these two situations converge, they set off an alarming chain of events. In this stunning psychological thriller, innocence gives way to evil, and trust lies forgotten in a web of deceit, fear, and murder.

Suspense/thriller ~ The Atlantis Revelation by Thomas Greanias (new-to-me author) (Claimed by IceDream)

The adventure begins with the wreckage of a sunken Nazi submarine and a shocking legacy of Hitler’s quest for Atlantis. Archaeologist Conrad Yeats discovers in the ruins of the Third Reich the key to an ancient conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of every major government. Suddenly Yeats is plunged into a deadly race across the Mediterranean, hunted by the assassins of an international organization that will stop at nothing to ignite global Armageddon and revive an empire. And only Serena Serghetti, the beautiful Vatican linguist he loved and lost, can help him save the world from the Atlantis Revelation.

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What books came into your house last week? Don’t forget to leave a link to your Mailbox post or a list of books if you don’t have a blog.

***

Read It Forward details

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). 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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Historical romance/fiction ~ Decision and Destiny: Colette’s Legacy by DeVa Gantt (Historical Fiction Lovers book Club on Facebook. My thanks to Jennifer at The Literate Housewife Review) (Claimed by Caroline)

A spellbinding saga of a remarkable american family . . .

The beautiful, frail Colette Duvoisin trusted governess Charmaine Ryan with her worries, her dreams, and the care of her beloved children. But now Colette is gone—leaving her three young ones devastated . . . and the house of Duvoisin in turmoil.

To her children’s horror, their father, the enigmatic Frederic Duvoisin, weds his mistress and sister-in-law, Agatha, soon after their mother’s untimely death. A scheming and dangerous adversary, Agatha has no love for her predecessor’s offspring, ruthlessly wielding her newly won power while guarding her own dark secrets. Meanwhile, a rivalry between Colette’s stepsons—suave Paul and cynical John—is reignited, drawing battle lines among family, friends, and servants. When Frederic suddenly emerges from his self-imposed isolation, he touches off a struggle for patriarchal supremacy that threatens to lay the entire Duvoisin empire to waste.

At the center of the storm is innocent Charmaine, who must come to terms with shattering truths about the family she once believed she knew—and decide who among them deserves her admiration, her derision, her devotion . . . and her heart.

Suspense ~ The Hidden Man by David Ellis (new-to-me author/Shelf Awareness) (Claimed by Vicki)

Jason Kolarich is a midwestern Everyman with a lineman’s build and an easy smart-ass remark. He’s a young, intelligent maverick, but he’s also struggling with an overwhelming emotional burden—one that threatens to unravel his own life, and possibly the lives of those around him.

Twenty-seven years ago, two-year-old Audrey Cutler disappeared from her home in the middle of the night. She was never found. All the detectives had to go on were vague eyewitness accounts of a man running down the Cutlers’ street, apparently carrying someone. Without enough evidence to suggest otherwise, Griffin Perlini—a neighbor with prior offenses against minors—was arrested, but never convicted.

The case is long closed when Perlini is murdered nearly thirty years later. Now a man named Mr. Smith appears in Jason Kolarich’s office, saying only that he represents a third party who wants the man charged with murder off the hook and that Kolarich is perfect for the job. The new client: Audrey Cutler’s older brother, Sammy—Kolarich’s estranged childhood best friend—a man he hasn’t seen in nearly twenty years.

But when Kolarich starts receiving violent threats from Mr. Smith’s enigmatic employer, he figures out that the secrecy behind this nameless third party—and the key to winning Sammy’s case—is entangled with the mystery of Audrey’s disappearance. With his own life and Sammy’s in the balance, Kolarich has to put aside not only the mounting anxiety of the job but also a heart-wrenching personal tragedy in order to find out what really happened to Audrey all those years ago.

Legal mystery ~ Judgment Day by Sheldon Siegel (Kindle eBook; not available for Read It Forward)

Hope springs eternal, wrote poet Alexander Pope, but optimism is wearing thin for San Francisco law partners Mike Daley and Rosie Fernandez. The pair of legal eagles, who remained in business after their marriage went bust, is working to stop the execution of Nathan Fineman, a onetime Mob lawyer accused of gunning down three people at a Chinatown restaurant. Fineman’s health may be failing, but his mind is very much alive. He’s convinced San Francisco cops planted the murder weapon on him as payback for his successful defense of drug dealers in a notorious local case. Fineman’s claim is more than just an indictment of the SFPD; it’s an emotional blow to Daley, whose late father was one of the first cops to reach the scene on the night of the murders. Minutes turn to days as Mike and Rosie seek evidence that might exonerate their client (and possibly implicate Mike’s much-respected old man)

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What books came into your house last week? Don’t forget to leave a link to your Mailbox post or a list of books if you don’t have a blog.

***

Read It Forward details

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). 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.

***
Mystery ~ Killer Weekend by Ridley Pearson (Kindle eBook; not available for Read It Forward)

Eight years ago, Sun Valley, Idaho, sheriff Walt Fleming bravely thwarted an attempt on Attorney General Elizabeth Shaler’s life. Now AG Shaler is back in town, poised to announce her candidacy for president at a three-day conference catering to the world’s most prominent business leaders. The event is the brainchild of Patrick Cutter, a tycoon whose sybaritic lifestyle is a source of both scorn and awe. (He is but one example of the super-rich citizenry that’s taken up residence in the once-quiet ski town.) There is no shortage of security for the proceedings–local police, Secret Service, and Cutter’s own team–but it’s not enough to deter a cunning assassin who slips seamlessly between a pair of identities. (His blind-man act is particularly impressive.) Meanwhile, Sheriff Fleming must cope with the suspicious death of a beautiful socialite and the breakup of his own marriage; it doesn’t help matters that his deputy is sleeping with his ex-wife.

Mystery ~ Killer View by Ridley Pearson (Kindle eBook; not available for Read It Forward)

The rich and famous may regard Sun Valley, Idaho, as a retreat from reality, but for Sheriff Walt Fleming, there is no such escape. In Killer Weekend (2007), the first installment in Pearson’s latest series, Sheriff Fleming earned respect and a certain amount of celebrity when he saved the U.S. attorney general’s life. This time around, trouble hits much closer to home, when the brother of Fleming’s best friend, Mark, is killed during the search for a missing skier. Mark disappears soon after, and it quickly becomes clear these were not random acts. But Walt is at a loss as to what could have befallen Mark, a highly regarded local veterinarian. A series of clues, including the smell of burning wool, leads Fleming to ranches in the remote Pahsimeroi Valley, where he finds pits filled with dead livestock. Then there’s news of contamination at a local water-bottling plant. Fleming has long had his eye on a radical group called the Samakinn. Could they be behind this? Or, fears Walt, is this trouble on a much larger scale?

Fiction ~ Black Hills (Kindle eBook; not available for Read It Forward)

Lil Chance fell in love with Cooper Sullivan pretty much the first time she saw him, an awkward teenager staying with his grandparents on their cattle ranch in Montana while his parents went through a messy divorce. They spent every summer together, treking in the Black Hills, tracking cougar and falling in love. Then Cooper broke her heart and moved back to New York City. Ten years later and Cooper has given up his job in the police force to run the ranch after his grandfather is injured in a fall. Lil has stayed true to her love of cougars and of the Black Hills and opened an animal sanctuary. She has been targeted by animal rights campaigners in the past but this time someone seems intent on murder. As hikers are killed, animals mutiliated and a family member goes missing, Lil knows that she has no choice but to turn to Cooper for help in her fight for survival …

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What books came into your house last week? Don’t forget to leave a link to your Mailbox post or a list of books if you don’t have a blog.

***

Read It Forward details

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If you enjoy Mailbox Monday Vote It Up @ BookBlips

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). 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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Historical fiction ~ Persona Non Grata: A Novel of the Roman Empire by Ruth Downie (new-to-me author/Shelf Awareness) (Claimed by Warren)

At long last, Gaius Petreius Ruso and his companion, Tilla, are headed home—to Gaul. Having received a note consisting only of the words “COME HO ME!” Ruso has (reluctantly, of course) pulled up stakes and brought Tilla to meet his family.

But the reception there is not what Ruso has hoped for: no one will admit to sending for him, and his brother Lucius is hoping he’ll leave. With Tilla getting icy greetings from his relatives, Lucius’s brother-inlaw mysteriously drowned at sea, and the whole Ruso family teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, it’s hard to imagine an unhappier reunion. That is, until Severus, the family’s chief creditor, winds up dead, and the real trouble begins…

Fiction ~ One Foot Wrong by Sofie Laguna (new-to-me author/publicist contact) (Claimed by Trin)

A child is imprisoned in a house by her reclusive, religious parents. Hester Wakefield has never spoken to another child, nor seen the outside world. Her one possession is an illustrated children’s Bible, and its imagery forms the sole basis for her capacity to make poetic, real-life connections. Her companions at home are Cat, Spoon, Door, Handle, Broom, and Tree, and they all speak to her, sometimes telling her what to do. One day she takes a brave Alice in Wonderland trip into the forbidden outside, at the behest of Handle, and this overwhelming encounter with light and sky and sunshine is a marvel to her. From this moment on, Hester learns that there are some things she cannot tell her parents, and she keeps this secret to herself. Hester buries it among her other secrets, the ones that take place in the shadowy corners of her insular world, and she keeps them all locked inside her as they multiply and grow, waiting until she can find other ways to be free.

Contemporary/historical fiction ~ The Memorist by M.J. Rose (Kindle eBook; not available for Read It Foward)

Meer Logan visits the Manhattan office of Malachai Samuels, the erudite head of a reincarnation foundation. When Malachai shows her an auction catalogue photo of a gaming box once owned by a friend of Ludwig van Beethoven, the photo closely resembles a sketch Meer made as a child based on what Meer wishes were false memories. Malachai believes Meer has been haunted by past-life memories, in particular those of Margaux Neidermier, whose husband in 1814 asked Beethoven to decipher a song inscribed on an ancient flute. The box turns out to contain a Beethoven letter suggesting the composer didn’t destroy the “memory flute” as he claimed to have done at the time. When the box is stolen soon after Meer examines it, she heads to Vienna for answers. Alas, others are on the same trail, including FBI Special Agent Lucien Glass of the Art Crime Team, Austrian authorities and assorted thieves.

Historical fiction ~ Why Mermaids Sing: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery by C.S. Harris (Kindle eBook; not available for Read It Forward)

Murder has jarred London’s elite. The sons of prominent families have been found at dawn in public places, partially butchered, with strange objects stuffed in their mouths. Once again, the local magistrate turns to Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, for help. Moving from the gritty world of London’s docks to the drawing rooms of Mayfair, Sebastian confronts his most puzzling—and disturbing—case yet.

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What books came into your house last week? Don’t forget to leave a link to your Mailbox post or a list of books if you don’t have a blog.

***

Read It Forward details

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). 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.

***

Historical fiction ~ Sacred Hearts by Susan Dunant (publicist contact) (Claimed by Ruth & Alyce)

The year is 1570, and in the convent of Santa Caterina, in the Italian city of Ferrara, noblewomen find space to pursue their lives under God’s protection. But any community, however smoothly run, suffers tremors when it takes in someone by force. And the arrival of Santa Caterina’s new novice sets in motion a chain of events that will shake the convent to its core.

Ripped by her family from an illicit love affair, sixteen-year-old Serafina is willful, emotional, sharp, and defiant–young enough to have a life to look forward to and old enough to know when that life is being cut short. Her first night inside the walls is spent in an incandescent rage so violent that the dispensary mistress, Suora Zuana, is dispatched to the girl’s cell to sedate her. Thus begins a complex relationship of trust and betrayal between the young rebel and the clever, scholarly nun, for whom the girl becomes the daughter she will never have.

As Serafina rails against her incarceration, others are drawn into the drama: the ancient, mysterious Suora Magdalena–with her history of visions and ecstasies–locked in her cell; the ferociously devout novice mistress Suora Umiliana, who comes to see in the postulant a way to extend her influence; and, watching it all, the abbess, Madonna Chiara, a woman as fluent in politics as she is in prayer. As disorder and rebellion mount, it is the abbess’s job to keep the convent stable while, outside its walls, the dictates of the Counter-Reformation begin to purge the Catholic Church and impose on the nunneries a regime of terrible oppression.

Historical fiction ~ The Belly Dancer by Deanna Cameron (new-to-me author/author contact) (Claimed by Gwen)

At the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, the modern, the exotic, and the ground-breaking collide. But Dora Chambers has more pressing matters to consider. Hoping to begin a life of wealth and privilege in Chicago, she sets out to earn the approval of the Fair’s Board of Lady Managers to appease her ambitious, aloof husband. Unimpressed, they give Dora the distasteful task of enforcing proper conduct at the Egyptian belly dancing exhibition.

But Dora’s sensibilities are not so easily flustered. She finds herself captivated by these exotic women, and by their enigmatic manager, Hossam Farouk, who makes his mistrust of her known—although his lingering glances hint at something else.

As Dora’s eyes are opened to the world beyond a life of social expectations and quiet servitude, she finds the courage to break free of her self-imposed bondage, and discovers the truth about the desire and passion in her own heart.

Fiction ~ Saffron Dreams by Shaila Abdullah (new-to-me author/publicist contact) (Kindle eBook; not available for Read It Forward)

You don’t know you’re a misfit until you are marked as an outcast.

From the darkest hour of American history emerges a mesmerizing tale of tender love, a life interrupted, and faith recovered. Arissa Illahi, a Muslim artist and writer, discovers in a single moment that no matter how carefully you map your life, it is life itself that chooses your destiny. After her husband’s death in the collapse of the World Trade Center, the discovery of his manuscript marks Arissa’s reconnection to life. Her unborn son and the unfinished novel fuse in her mind into one life-defining project that becomes, at once, the struggle for her emotional survival and the redemption of her race. Saffron Dreams is a novel about our ever evolving identities and the events and places that shape them. It reminds us that in the midst of tragedy, our dreams can become a lasting legacy.

Memoir ~ Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist by Michael J. Fox (Kindle eBook; not available for Read It Forward)

There are many words to describe Michael J. Fox: Actor. Husband. Father. Activist. But readers of Always Looking Up will soon add another to the list: Optimist. Michael writes about the hard-won perspective that helped him see challenges as opportunities. Instead of building walls around himself, he developed a personal policy of engagement and discovery: an emotional, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual outlook that has served him throughout his struggle with Parkinson’s disease. Michael’s exit from a very demanding, very public arena offered him the time-and the inspiration-to open up new doors leading to unexpected places. One door even led him to the center of his own family, the greatest destination of all.

The last ten years, which is really the stuff of this book, began with such a loss: my retirement from Spin City. I found myself struggling with a strange new dynamic: the shifting of public and private personas. I had been Mike the actor, then Mike the actor with PD. Now was I just Mike with PD? Parkinson’s had consumed my career and, in a sense, had become my career. But where did all of this leave Me? I had to build a new life when I was already pretty happy with the old one..

Always Looking Up is a memoir of this last decade, told through the critical themes of Michael’s life: work, politics, faith, and family. The book is a journey of self-discovery and reinvention, and a testament to the consolations that protect him from the ravages of Parkinson’s.

Fantasy ~ Somewhere In Time by Richard Matheson (new-to-me author/Kindle eBook; not available for Read It Forward)

Somewhere in Time is the powerful story of a love that transcends time and space, written by one of the Grand Masters of modern fantasy.

Matheson’s classic novel tells the moving, romantic story of a modern man whose love for a woman he has never met draws him back in time to a luxury hotel in San Diego in 1896, where he finds his soul mate in the form of a celebrated actress of the previous century.

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What books came into your house last week? Don’t forget to leave a link to your Mailbox post or a list of books if you don’t have a blog.

***

Read It Forward details

***

If you enjoy Mailbox Monday Vote It Up @ BookBlips

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). 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.

***

Mystery ~ Killer Summer by Ridley Pearson (new-to-me author/Authors on the Web) (Claimed by Kaye)

Sun Valley, Idaho—playground of the wealthy and politically connected—is home to an annual wine auction that attracts high rollers from across the country, and Blaine County Sheriff Walt Fleming is the one who must ensure it goes off without a hitch. The world’s most elite wine connoisseurs have descended on Sun Valley to taste and bid on the world’s best wines, including three bottles claimed to have been a gift from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams. With sky-high prices all but guaranteed for these historic items, it’s no wonder a group of thieves is out to steal them. Walt is responsible for all aspects of the glitzy event, from security of the dignitaries to the physical safety of the auction site to the transportation and safeguard of the wines themselves.

Walt is enjoying a rare afternoon of freedom, fly-fishing with his nephew, Kevin, when a passing truck catches his eye— his suspicions throwing him headlong into the discovery of a complicated plan to steal the rare wine. When a bomb detonates just as the auction revs up, the investigation explodes as well, pulling Walt in a dozen different directions. It seems Walt is caught in the middle of a heist of epic proportions—and not the heist he had prepared for—all orchestrated by the ingenious mind of Christopher Cantell, a man who appears to have covered everything, including the way Walt’s own sheriff’s office will react.

Mystery/Horror(?) ~ Abandon By Blake Crouch (new-to-me author/publicist) (Claimed by Crystal)

On Christmas Day in 1893, every man, woman and child in a remote gold mining town disappeared, belongings forsaken, meals left to freeze in vacant cabins; and not a single bone was ever found. One hundred thirteen years later, two backcountry guides are hired by a history professor and his journalist daughter to lead them into the abandoned mining town so that they can learn what happened. With them is a psychic, and a paranormal photographer—as the town is rumored to be haunted. A party that tried to explore the town years ago was never heard from again. What this crew is about to discover is that twenty miles from civilization, with a blizzard bearing down, they are not alone, and the past is very much alive.

Suspense ~ Relentless by Dean Koontz (Kindle eBook; not available for Read It Forward)

Bestselling author Cullen Cubby Greenwich is mortified when Shearman Waxx, the nation’s premier literary critic, savages his work. Cubby manages to find the syphilitic swine at Roxie’s Bistro in Newport Beach, Calif., where the author’s six-year-old prodigy son nearly pees by accident on Waxx in the restaurant’s men’s room. In retaliation, Waxx threatens Cubby with doom and gets things started nicely by blowing up his house. With almost superhuman ease, the book critic keeps track of Cubby and his family as they flee for their lives.

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What books came into your house last week? Don’t forget to leave a link to your Mailbox post or a list of books if you don’t have a blog.

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GIVEAWAY!!
I’m giving away one copy each of Beneath A Marble Sky and Beside A Burning Sea. Enter here. Open till Tuesday, 6/30/09, midnight MST.

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Read It Forward details

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If you enjoy Mailbox Monday Vote It Up @ BookBlips

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 is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

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Fiction ~ No One You Know by Michelle Richmond (new-to-me author/Librarything)

Ellie Enderlin has never recovered from the unsolved murder of her sister, Lila, a Stanford math prodigy, some 20 years earlier. The day her sister went missing has become “the touchstone from which all other events unfurled.” Compounding the tragedy is the fact that her English professor, the person to whom she confided some of her most intimate feelings about her shy, private sister, has turned the tragedy into a best-selling true-crime book. To have those moments turned into fodder for the public’s voyeuristic appetite has felt like another violation. When Ellie, a world traveler and coffee buyer, meets up unexpectedly with the brilliant mathematician implicated in her sister’s murder, she sees it as a way to wrest back control of her own narrative and solve the crime.

Fiction ~ The Embers by Hyatt Bass (new-to-me author/author contact)

As Emily Ascher plans her wedding, years after her older brother Thomas died in his teens, she still talks to him and wants to be married where his ashes were scattered. The grief felt by Thomas’ now-divorced parents, Joe and Laura, is compounded by Joe’s guilt for his part in his son’s death. Flashbacks work forward from 1992, revealing family relationships: the ongoing mother-daughter conflict between Laura and Emily, Joe’s ups and downs as a playwright and actor and his affair that ends the marriage, and eventually the circumstances of Thomas’ death.

Fiction ~ While My Sister Sleeps by Barbara Delinksy (Kindle eBook; not available for Read It Forward)

An Olympic marathon contender, self-centered Robin Snow often rubs her younger sister, Molly, the wrong way. After many years in her sister’s shadow, Molly takes out her resentment with petty actions, such as refusing to accompany Robin on a run. Fatefully, Robin has a heart attack while training and falls into a coma. As Robin’s condition fails to improve, Delinsky digs tediously into the family’s woes: Molly’s touchy relationship with Robin’s ambitious reporter ex-boyfriend; middle son Chris’s dealings with a would-be blackmailer; mother Kathryn’s trouble coming to terms with Robin’s dire prognosis.

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What books came into your house last week? Don’t forget to leave a link to your Mailbox post or a list of books if you don’t have a blog.

***

GIVEAWAY!!
I’m giving away one copy each of Beneath A Marble Sky and Beside A Burning Sea. Enter here. Open till Tuesday, 6/30/09, midnight MST.

***

Read It Forward details

***

If you enjoy Mailbox Monday Vote It Up @ BookBlips

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 is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

***
Non-fiction ~ The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor by Colin Tudge and Josh Young (new-to-me author/Hachette) (Claimed by Wendy)

For more than a century, scientists have raced to unravel the human family tree and have grappled with its complications. Now, with an astonishing new discovery, everything we thought we knew about primate origins could change. Lying inside a high-security vault, deep within the heart of one of the world’s leading natural history museums, is the scientific find of a lifetime – a perfectly fossilized early primate, older than the previously most famous primate fossil, Lucy, by forty-four million years.

A secret until now, the fossil – “Ida” to the researchers who have painstakingly verified her provenance – is the most complete primate fossil ever found. Forty-seven million years old, Ida rewrites what we’ve assumed about the earliest primate origins. Her completeness is unparalleled – so much of what we understand about evolution comes from partial fossils and even single bones, but Ida’s fossilization offers much more than that, from a haunting “skin shadow” to her stomach contents. And, remarkably, knowledge of her discovery and existence almost never saw the light of day.

Suspense/thriller ~ Ghostwriter by Travis Thrasher (new-to-me author/Hachette) (Claimed by Gautami)

For years Dennis Shore has thrilled readers with his spooky bestselling novels. Now a widower, Dennis is finally alone in his house, his daughter attending college out of state. When he’s stricken by a paralyzing case of writer’s block and a looming deadline, Dennis becomes desperate. Against better judgment, he claims someone else’s writing as his own, accepting undeserved accolades for the stolen work. He thinks he’s gotten away with it . . . until he’s greeted by a young man named Cillian Reed–the true author of the stolen manuscript.

What begins as a minor case of harassment quickly spirals out of control. As Cillian’s threats escalate, Dennis finds himself on the brink of losing his career, his sanity, and even his life. The horror he’s spent years writing about has arrived on his doorstep, and Dennis has nowhere to run.

Fiction ~ The Lie: A Novel by Fredrica Wagman (new-to-me author/FSB Associates) (Claimed by Jacqueline)

Ramona Smollens has a chance meeting on a park bench with an older man, Solomon Columbus. The two became lovers, and soon Ramona is leaving the home of her mother and recently deceased father for marriage and the trappings of adult life. She takes with her a dark family secret, the sort of secret one simply did not talk about, one that would stalk her as she matured into her role as wife and mother. Coming of age in 1950s America, Ramona gets her cues about a woman’s role from the world around her, and about female sexuality from the silver screen. But when experience teaches her that Hollywood’s ideal is in fact “the lie,” truth and desire collide with a force that is deeply moving and unforgettable.

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What books came into your house last week? Don’t forget to leave a link to your Mailbox post or a list of books if you don’t have a blog.

If you enjoy Mailbox Monday Vote It Up @ BookBlips