The Printed Page

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

*** Historical fiction ~ The Book of Unholy Mischief by Elle Newmark (new-to-me author) (Claimed by Sandra)

Luciano, the wily hero of Newmark’s entertaining first novel, is only a street urchin when the doge of Venice’s chef finds him, but once dragged into the kitchen as an apprentice, he discovers more bubbling than boiling water. While the town is in an uproar over the rumor of an ancient book containing magical potions and lessons on alchemy, Luciano pines away for a girl and learns the basics of chopping, sweeping and eavesdropping. As he and his maestro become friendlier, Luciano begins to learn that there’s more to his teacher than a garden of strange plants and a box of spices.

Historical fiction ~ The Wet Nurse’s Tale by Erica Eisedorfer (new-to-me author/Shelf Awareness) (Claimed by Teddy Rose)

Susan Rose isn’t the average protagonist: she’s scheming, promiscuous, plump, and she is also smart, funny, tender, and entirely lovable. Like many lower-class women of Victorian England, she was born into a world that offered very few opportunities for the poor and unlovely. But Susan is the kind of plucky heroine who seeks her fortune, and finds it . . . with some help from, well, her breasts. Susan, you see, is a professional wet nurse; she breast-feeds the children of wealthy women who can’t or won’t nurse their own babies.

But when her own child is sold by her father and sent to a London lady who had recently lost a baby, Susan manages to convince his new foster mother, Mrs. Norbert, to hire her as a wet nurse. Once reunited with her son, Susan discovers the Norbert home to be a much more sinister place than she’d ever expected. Dark and full of secrets, its master is in India, and the first baby who died there did so under very mysterious circumstances. Susan embarks on a terrifying journey to rescue her son before he meets the same fate.

Women’s fiction ~ Easy on the Eyes by Jane Porter (Hachette) (Claimed by Ashley)

At 38, Tiana Tomlinson has made it. America adores her as one of the anchors of America Tonight, a top-rated nightly entertainment and news program. But even with the trappings that come with her elite lifestyle, she feels empty. Tina desperately misses her late husband Keith, who died several years before. And in a business that thrives on youth, Tina is getting the message that her age is starting to show and certain measures must be taken if she wants to remain in the spotlight. It doesn’t help that at every turn she has to deal with her adversary–the devilishly handsome, plastic surgeon to the stars, Michael Sullivan. But a trip away from the Hollywood madness has consequences that could affect the rest of her life.

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

*** There’s nothing better than wandering out to the mailbox to find that your favorite mail person has left a package for you. . Usually we’re kind of expecting those packages because more than likely we’ve requested or ordered the goodies they hold. But wait there is one thing better ~ the totally unexpected out-of-the blue book package. I had one arrive this week. To my friend Jennifer at The Literate Housewilfe Review ~ thank you! Jenn sent me The Blue Notebook and The Uncommon Reader.

Fiction ~ The Blue Notebook by James A. Levine (new-to-me author) (Claimed by Kathleen)

It is the story of Batuk, an Indian girl who is taken to Mumbai from the countryside and sold into prostitution by her father; the blue notebook is her diary, in which she recalls her early childhood, records her life on the Common Street, and makes up beautiful and fantastic tales about a silver-eyed leopard and a poor boy who fells a giant with a single gold coin.

Fiction ~ The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett (new-to-me author)

Briskly original and subversively funny, this novella from popular British writer Bennett (Untold Stories; Tony-winning play The History Boys) sends Queen Elizabeth II into a mobile library van in pursuit of her runaway corgis and into the reflective, observant life of an avid reader. Guided by Norman, a former kitchen boy and enthusiast of gay authors, the queen gradually loses interest in her endless succession of official duties and learns the pleasure of such a common activity. With the dawn of her sensibility… mistaken for the onset of senility, plots are hatched by the prime minister and the queen’s staff to dispatch Norman and discourage the queen’s preoccupation with books. Ultimately, it is her own growing self-awareness that leads her away from reading and toward writing, with astonishing results.

Suspense/thriller ~ King of Lies by John Hart (new-to-me author/eBook not available for Read It Forward)

Jackson Workman Pickens, whom most people call “Work,” is a struggling North Carolina criminal defense attorney. Work has wrestled with inner demons for most of his life, especially after the death of his mother and the disappearance of his wealthy father, Ezra Pickens, a highly successful lawyer who took him into his practice. Trapped in a loveless marriage and haunted by poor emotional choices and his sister’s psychological trauma, Work finds himself under suspicion when his father’s corpse surfaces more than a year after Ezra was last seen alive. Work’s quest for the truth behind his father’s demise opens old wounds and forces him to face the consequences of his own decisions.

Suspense/thriller ~ A World I Never Made by James LePore (new-to-me author/courtesy of TLC Book Tours) (Claimed by Mari)

Pat Nolan, an American man, is summoned to Paris to claim the body of his estranged daughter Megan, who has committed suicide. The body, however, is not Megan’s and it becomes instantly clear to Pat that Megan staged this, that she is in serious trouble, and that she is calling to him for help.

This sends Pat on an odyssey that stretches across France and into the Czech Republic and that makes him the target of both the French police and a band of international terrorists. Joining Pat on his search is Catherine Laurence, a beautiful but tormented Paris detective who sees in Pat something she never thought she’d find–genuine passion and desperate need. As they look for Megan, they come closer to each other’s souls and discover love when both had long given up on it.

Juxtaposed against this story is Megan’s story. A freelance journalist, Megan is in Morocco to do research when she meets Abdel Lahani, a Saudi businessman. They begin a torrid affair, a game Megan has played often and well in her adult life. But what she discovers about Lahani puts her in the center of a different kind of game, one with rules she can barely comprehend. Because of her relationship with Lahani, Megan has made some considerable enemies. And she has put the lives of many–maybe even millions–at risk.

*** And to the Kim at Page After Page and Jenny at Jenny Loves To Read thank you for the beautiful bookmarks. *** Read It Forward details

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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’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.

*** Nothing new at my house this week. I still have to pick the recipients of last week’s Read It Forward so email will be going out this week. ***

Read It Forward details

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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’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.

*** Fiction ~ Dragon House by John Shors (from the author/I love his other two novels Beneath a Marble Sky and Besides A Burning Sea) (Claimed by Elizabeth)

Set in modern-day Vietnam, Dragon House tells the tale of Iris and Noah—two Americans who, as a way of healing their own painful pasts, open a center to house and educate Vietnamese street children.

Iris and Noah find themselves reborn in an exotic land filled with corruption and chaos, sacrifice and beauty. Inspired by the street children she meets, Iris walks in the footsteps of her father, a man whom Vietnam both shattered and saved. Meanwhile, Noah slowly rediscovers himself through the eyes of an unexpected companion.

Resounding with powerful themes of suffering, sacrifice, friendship, and love, Dragon House brings together East and West, war and peace; and celebrates the resilience of the human spirit.

Memoir ~ Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal by Julie Metz (new-to-me author/Shelf Awareness) (Claimed by Andrea)

Julie Metz’s life changes forever on one ordinary January afternoon when her husband, Henry, collapses on the kitchen floor and dies in her arms. Suddenly, this mother of a six-year-old is the young widow in a bucolic small town. And this is only the beginning. Seven months after Henry’s death, just when Julie thinks she is emerging from the worst of it, comes the rest of it: She discovers that what had appeared to be the reality of her marriage was but a half-truth. Henry had hidden another life from her.

“He loved you so much.” That’s what everyone keeps telling her. It’s true that he loved Julie and their six-year-old daughter ebulliently and devotedly, but as she starts to pick up the pieces and rebuild her life without Henry in it, she learns that Henry had been unfaithful throughout their twelve years of marriage. The most damaging affair was ongoing–a tumultuous relationship that ended only with Henry’s death. For Julie, the only thing to do was to get at the real truth–to strip away the veneer of “perfection” that was her life and confront each of the women beneath the veneer.

Memoir ~ The Islamist: Why I Became an Islamic Fundamentalist, What I Saw Inside, and Why I Left by Ed Husain (new-to-me author/FSB Associates)

Raised in a devout but quiet Muslim community in London, at sixteen Ed Husain was presented with an intriguing political interpretation of Islam known as fundamentalism. Lured by these ideas, he committed his life to them. Five years later, he rejected extremism and tried to return to a normal life. But soon he realized that Islamic fundamentalists pose a threat that most people—Muslim and non- Muslim alike—simply don’t understand.

Based on first-hand experiences and written with pervasive clarity, The Islamist delivers a rare inside glimpse of the devious methods used to recruit new members, and offers profound insight into the appeal fundamentalism has for young Muslims in the Western world.

Suspense/thriller ~ Panic Attack by Jason Starr (new-to-me author/eBook – not available for Read It Forward) Download the eBook from the publisher – right side bar

Dr. Adam Bloom has the perfect life. He’s financially secure and lives in a luxurious house with his wife, Dana, and their twenty-two-year-old daughter, Marissa, a recent college graduate. Late one night, his daughter wakes him up and says, “Somebody’s downstairs.” Adam uses his gun to kill one of the unarmed intruders, but the other escapes. From that moment on, everyone’s life in the Bloom household will never be the same.

Adam doesn’t feel safe, not with the other intruder out there somewhere, knowing where he lives. Dana suggests moving, but Adam has lived in the house all his life and he doesn’t want to run away. As the family recovers from the break-in and the Blooms’ already rocky relationship rapidly falls apart, Marissa meets a young, talented artist named Xan. Adam feels that something’s not quite right with Xan, but his daughter ignores his warnings and falls deeply in love with him. When suspicious things start happening to the Blooms all over again, Adam realizes that his first instinct about Xan was probably dead on.

Historical fiction ~ The triumph of the Sun by Wilbur Smith (new-to-me author/eBook – not available for Read It Forward) Download the eBook from the publisher – right side bar

It is 1884, and in the Sudan, decades of brutal misgovernment by the ruling Egyptian Khedive in Cairo precipitates a bloody rebellion and Holy War. The charismatic new religious leader, the Mahdi or ‘Expected One’, has gathered his forces of Arab warlords in preparation for a siege on the city of Khartoum. The British are forced to intervene to protect their national interests and to attempt to rescue the hundreds of British subjects stranded in the city.

British trader and businessman Ryder Courtney is trapped in the capital city of Khartoum under the orders of the infamously iron-willed General Charles George Gordon. It is here that he meets skilled soldier and swordsman Captain Penrod Ballantyne of the 10th Hussars and the British Consul, David Benbrook, as well as Benbrook’s three beautiful daughters. Against the vivid and bloody backdrop of the Arabs’ fierce and merciless siege these three powerful men must fight to survive.

Serial is a horror novella. Like a deeply twisted version of an After School Special, it is the single most persuasive public service announcement on the hazards of free car rides.

The Serial eBook also contains a Q&A with Kilborn and Crouch, author bibliographies, and excerpts from their most recent and forthcoming works: Kilborn’s Afraid and Crouch’s Abandon.

Serial is located under “Book Extras” in the bottom right-hand corner. Readers can download it either as a PDF file (Amazon Kindle) or there’s also an ePub version of the book (the Sony eBook Reader format). Here’s the link: Serial eBook

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Read It Forward details

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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’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.

*** Memoir ~ Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey Into a Family Secret by Steve Luxenberg (new-to-me author/FSB Associates) (Claimed by Avis)

Beth Luxenberg was an only child. Everyone knew it: her grown children, her friends, even people she’d only recently met. So when her secret emerged, her son Steve Luxenberg was bewildered. He was certain that his mother had no siblings, just as he knew that her name was Beth, and that she had raised her children, above all, to tell the truth.

By then, Beth was nearly eighty, and in fragile health. While seeing a new doctor, she had casually mentioned a disabled sister, sent away at age two. For what reason? Was she physically disabled? Mentally ill? The questions were dizzying, the answers out of reach. Beth had said she knew nothing of her sister’s fate.

Six months after Beth’s death in 1999, the secret surfaced once more. This time, it had a name: Annie.

Steve Luxenberg began digging. As he dug, he uncovered more and more. His mother’s name wasn’t Beth. His aunt hadn’t been two when she’d been hospitalized. She’d been twenty-one; his mother had been twenty-three. The sisters had grown up together. Annie had spent the rest of her life in a mental institution, while Beth had set out to hide her sister’s existence. Why?

Fiction ~ The Marriage Bureau for Rich People by Farahad Zama (new-to-me author/Shelf Awareness) (Claimed by Kristen)

What does an Indian man with a wealth of common sense do when his retirement becomes too monotonous for him to stand? Open a marriage bureau of course!

With a steady stream of clients to keep him busy, Mr. Ali sees his new business flourish as the indomitable Mrs. Ali and his careful assistant, Aruna, look on with vigilant eyes. There’s the man who wants a tall son-in-law because his daughter is short; the divorced woman who ends up back with her ex-husband; a salesman who can’t seem to sell himself; and a wealthy, young doctor for whom no match is ever perfect. But although his clients go away happy, little does Mr. Ali know that his esteemed Aruna hides a tragedy in her past—a misfortune that the bureau, as luck would have it, serendipitously undoes.

Fiction ~ Valeria’s Last Stand by Marc Fitten (new-to-me author/Shelf Awareness) (Claimed by Mary)

In the small hamlet of Zivatar, 68-year-old Valeria is known by all as a cantankerous woman, quick to criticize everything from the produce at the market to the mayor’s lofty ambitions to lure foreign investors to the town. But a chance encounter one day with the elderly local potter—a man Valeria has known for years but never noticed—changes everything. The widower potter falls just as hard for Valeria, despite his relationship with Ibolya, the owner of the village’s only tavern. Unaccustomed to being smitten, Valeria tries to maintain her normal routine, but the village is in an uproar over this unlikely love triangle. The arrival of a traveling chimney sweep intent on bilking the townspeople sends another ripple through what was once a placid village.

Fiction ~ Sima’s Undergarments for Women by Ilana Stanger-Ross (new-to-me author). From my good friend Kathy at Bermuda Onion. Thanks Kathy! (eBook – not available for Read It Forward)

Nestled in a tight-knit Brooklyn community, 65-year-old Sima Goldner’s discount lingerie shop is a prime business in her orthodox Jewish neighborhood, and, more importantly, it is also a haven for the many women who frequent her small basement store. Discontented with her marriage to a bumbling, retired schoolteacher named Lev, Sima pours herself into her business and her varied customers, many of whom use the privacy of her shop as a forum to ruminate about their relationships, families, and lives. Sima’s everyday routine is indelibly changed with the arrival of the young, vibrant Timna, an attractive Israeli expatriate who applies to work as a seamstress. As the relationship between Sima and Timna evolves, Sima finds herself confronting the realities of her infertility and the complexities of her past, long shrouded in shame and adolescent regret. Backdropped by the shop’s colorful patrons, Stanger-Ross’ engaging novel follows Sima as she struggles to find balance in navigating her newfound relationship with Timna while exploring the intense depths of personal reconciliation and redemption.

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Read It Forward details

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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’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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Honestly with my blog downtime, designing my own themes, hosting By the Chapter this week and working my paying job I didn’t have time to put together my MM post. I have 3 books but you’ll just have wait until next week to find out what they are.

If you tried emailing me between last Wednesday and Saturday night my email took a vacation and rejected everything. Please email me again (marcia [at] printedpage [dot] us) as my fabulously wonderful big brother slapped it around and got it functioning.

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Read It Forward details

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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’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 ~ The Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg. This is a Read It Forward book with no waiting period. It will go in the mail this week. (Claimed by Janel)

The familiar protagonist of Berg’s 13th novel (after The Art of Mending) is a Boston widow of several months, 55-year-old Betta Nolan, who fulfills her dying husband’s dream of moving out to the Midwest and starting a new life. “It will give me peace to know that what you will do is exactly what we talked about,” says John commandingly before dying of liver cancer; Betta, an author of children’s books, sells their Beacon Hill brownstone and takes off, buying an oversized Victorian in the small town of Stewart, Ill., 49 miles from Chicago. Lonely, she finds herself tracking down three former college roommates from the late 1960s, Lorraine, Maddy and Susanna, whom she ditched once she met John. The women reappear one by one and help give her the courage to open a shop called What a Woman Wants (it’ll sell “all different stuff that women loved. Beautiful things, but unusual too. Like antique birdcages with orchids growing in them”). Meanwhile, she begins to make friends in town, notably with attractive young handyman Matthew and natty oldster Tom Bartlett. 

Historical fiction ~ The Tory Widow by Christine Blevins (new-to-me author/Librarything Early Reviewers program) (Claimed by Michelle)

On a bright May day in New York City, Anne Peabody receives an unexpected kiss from a stranger. Bringing news of the repeal of the Stamp Act, Jack Hampton, a member of the Sons of Liberty, abruptly sweeps Anne into his arms, kisses her—and then leaves her to her fate of an arranged marriage…

1775: Nearly ten years have passed and Anne, now the Widow Merrick, continues her late husband’s business printing Tory propaganda, not because she believes in the cause, but because she needs the money to survive. When her shop is ransacked by the Sons of Liberty, Anne once again comes face to face with Jack and finds herself drawn to the ardent patriot and his rebel cause.

As shots ring out at Lexington and war erupts, Anne is faced with a life-altering decision: sit back and watch her world torn apart, or stand and fight for both her country’s independence and her own.

Fiction ~ The Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (new-to-me author). This book arrived as a complete surprise to me. I have no idea who it came from. (Claimed by Linda)

In an abandoned mansion at the heart of Barcelona, a young man, David Martín, makes his living by writing sensationalist novels under a pseudonym. The survivor of a troubled childhood, he has taken refuge in the world of books and spends his nights spinning baroque tales about the city’s underworld. But perhaps his dark imaginings are not as strange as they seem, for in a locked room deep within the house lie photographs and letters hinting at the mysterious death of the previous owner.

Like a slow poison, the history of the place seeps into his bones as he struggles with an impossible love. Close to despair, David receives a letter from a reclusive French editor, Andreas Corelli, who makes him the offer of a lifetime. He is to write a book unlike anything that has ever existed–a book with the power to change hearts and minds. In return, he will receive a fortune, and perhaps more. But as David begins the work, he realizes that there is a connection between his haunting book and the shadows that surround his home.

Contemporary fiction ~ Still Life: A Novel by Joy Fielding (from my good friend Dar at Peeking Between the Pages. Thank you!)

Casey Marshall has it all: a successful interior-design business; a handsome, loving husband; wonderful friends; and a boatload of family money at her disposal. But just as she’s contemplating starting a family, she’s the victim of a hit-and-run accident that leaves her in a coma. But she’s not completely out of it, so she’s a witness to everything that happens in her hospital room. But is that so bad? Isn’t it everyone’s dream to be a fly on the wall, to hear what might be said at our funerals? Even though Casey is privy to everyone’s “private” remarks and conversations as they visit, she feels trapped and helpless, especially when it becomes abundantly clear that the incident with the car was no accident. Her frustration mounts as her sister, the wayward but bighearted Drew, becomes a suspect, along with everyone close to her. While not narrated in first person, the action revolves around Casey’s experiences and perceptions. Fielding makes the most of this intriguing premise without succumbing to gimmicky plot tricks. The moment that Casey solves her own attempted murder is truly riveting, and the anxiety she feels as she tries to avoid the would-be murderer’s completion of his task is palpable. A heart-pounding mainstream thriller

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Read It Forward details

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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’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.

** Be sure and check out the Read It Forward announcement towards the end of this post. I still have homeless books. Check out my MM posts for the weeks of 4/6 and 4/13. **

It was a very quiet book week around here until Saturday. I think the mailman was reading ‘em.

Suspense/thriller ~ The Chameleon Conspiracy by Haggai Carmon (new-to-me author)

A Dan Gordon Intelligence Thriller third installment, where Dan Gordon is assigned to the CIA to investigate a case of massive fraud left for dead. He revisits the FBI assumptions and suspects that the fraud was perpetrated by one person who changed identities like a chameleon changes its color. Through cooperation with the Mossad, Gordon discovers that shocking truth. Dan travels undercover to Pakistan, where he survives a kidnapping attempt. A daring covert operation is planned by the CIA and the Mossad and Dan with an unwitting Austrian woman penetrate Iranian society. While in Iran he is hunted by the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security. The Kurdish rebels show their loyalty but can he trust them? Are the hints Dan senses sent by a high-ranking Iranian intelligence officer for real or a trap? Is the plan to launch a major terrorist attack on the U.S., a ploy or reality? What role does a network of Islamic charities play? Who wants to collapse the U.S economy? Dan Gordon hovers the globe in search of clues; will he again have the upper hand? Much more than just his person is at stake, and at risk..

Non-Fiction ~ The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler (new-to-me author/Librarything Early Reviewers program) (Claimed by Natalie)

Turn-of-the-century Paris was the beating heart of a rapidly changing world. Painters, scientists, revolutionaries, poets–all were there. But so, too, were the shadows: Paris was a violent, criminal place, its sinister alleyways the haunts of Apache gangsters and its cafes the gathering places of murderous anarchists. In 1911, it fell victim to perhaps the greatest theft of all time–the taking of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. Immediately, Alphonse Bertillon, a detective world-renowned for pioneering crime-scene investigation techniques, was called upon to solve the crime. And quickly the Paris police had a suspect: a young Spanish artist named Pablo Picasso…..

Memoir ~ Who Do You Think You Are? by Alyse Myers (new-to-me author/FSB Associates) (Claimed by Marie)

Shortly after Alyse Myers’s mother dies, Alyse and her sisters are emptying her mother’s apartment, trying to decide what to discard and what to keep. Alyse covets only one thing — a wooden box that sits in the back of a closet. Its contents have been kept from Alyse her entire life. That box, she hopes, will contain answers to her questions: Who were her parents really, and why did her mother settle for so very little in her life?

Growing up during the 1960s in a working-class neighborhood in Queens, New York, Alyse’s home is not a happy one. Her parents argue constantly and after the death of Alyse’s father, her mother at age thirty-three is left with three young girls. While her mother retreats to the kitchen table with her cigarettes and bitterness, determined to stay there forever, Alyse yearns for more in life, including the right to escape. After a childhood of harrowing fights, abject cruelty, and endless uncertainty, Alyse adamantly rejects everything about her mother’s life, provoking her mother’s infuriated demand, “Who do you think you are?”

Contemporary fiction ~ Rooftops of Tehran: A Novel by Mahbod Seraji (new-to-me author/Authors on the Web) (Claimed by Kim)

In this poignant, eye-opening and emotionally vivid novel, Mahbod Seraji lays bare the beauty and brutality of the centuries-old Persian culture, while reaffirming the human experiences we all share.

In a middle-class neighborhood of Iran’s sprawling capital city, 17-year-old Pasha Shahed spends the summer of 1973 on his rooftop with his best friend Ahmed, joking around one minute and asking burning questions about life the next. He also hides a secret love for his beautiful neighbor Zari, who has been betrothed since birth to another man. But the bliss of Pasha and Zari’s stolen time together is shattered when Pasha unwittingly acts as a beacon for the Shah’s secret police. The violent consequences awaken him to the reality of living under a powerful despot, and lead Zari to make a shocking choice…

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Amazingly I’m not a reader who hoards her books, only cats! For a while now, behind the scenes, I’ve been passing the books I’m finished with along to friends. I’ve decided to offer my books to all Mailbox Monday contributors. No book should be homeless. As long as I have books to share I’ll do so. Here’s the important stuff:

• All books in my Mailbox Monday posts will be available starting the week of April 6th.
• Each week new homes will be chosen at random. See I really do read the comments you leave with the links to your Mailbox Monday posts. Just ask someone who commented, in passing, about wanting to read a book I’ve posted. This is not a structured giveaway or contest. I will simply chose names from those Mailbox Monday contributors who have expressed an interest in one of my posted books. The only stipulation is you must have a Mailbox Monday post with a link I can verify, not just a comment expressing interest in a book.
• If you have more than one choice include your selections in order in case your 1st choice has been claimed.
• It’s too time consuming to respond to all requests so I will only be emailing the new owner. Claimed and unclaimed books will be updated on the corresponding Mailbox Monday posts and the Read It Forward widget on my blog’s right side bar. Be sure to keep an eye on your spam folder just in case
• I will mail to all US and Canadian addresses. If you live overseas I can do two of those a month. If you do live overseas please include that tidbit of information upfront.
• So that I can spread the wealth I’m asking that you claim a book once every two months. If you’re selected in May please don’t request again until July. So that no one gets selected more than once every two months I’m tracking the new homes on a spreadsheet. And hopefully it will keep me from giving away the same book twice!

** Please be patient with me. Just like you my reading schedule is packed full of good books and reading commitments such as By the Chapter. I will try and remember to let you know when I anticipate mailing a book in the initial email. And I will email again when your post office day comes around. **

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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.

Amazingly I’m not a reader who hoards her books, only cats! For a while now, behind the scenes, I’ve been passing the books I’m finished with along to friends. I’ve decided to offer my books to all Mailbox Monday contributors. No book should be homeless. As long as I have books to share I’ll do so. Here’s the important stuff:

Updated March 14, 2010

A small change to Read It Forward. I’ve been finding new homes for my books with other bloggers and have enjoyed doing so this last year. This 2nd year of RIF brings one small change. Due to decreased buying budgets in my smaller library system and limited book collections I’ve decided to donate those books sent to me that aren’t ARCs. Books marked as ARCs will still be passed along to fellow book bloggers.

• All books in my Mailbox Monday posts will be available starting the week of April 6th.
• Each week new homes will be chosen at random. See I really do read the comments you leave with the links to your Mailbox Monday posts. Just ask someone who commented, in passing, about wanting to read a book I’ve posted.  This is not a structured giveaway or contest. I will simply chose names from those Mailbox Monday contributors who have expressed an interest in one of my posted books. The only stipulation is you must have a Mailbox Monday post with a link I can verify, not just a comment expressing interest in a book.
• If you have more than one choice include your selections in order in case your 1st choice has been claimed.
• It’s too time consuming to respond to all requests so I will only be emailing the new owner. Claimed and unclaimed books will be updated on the corresponding Mailbox Monday posts and the Read It Forward widget on my blog’s right side bar. Be sure to keep an eye on your spam folder just in case
• I will mail to all US and Canadian addresses. If you live overseas I can do two of those a month. If you do live overseas please include that tidbit of information upfront.
• So that I can spread the wealth I’m asking that you claim a book once every two months. If you’re selected in May please don’t request again until July. So that no one gets selected more than once every two months I’m tracking the new homes on a spreadsheet. And hopefully it will keep me from giving away the same book twice!

** Please be patient with me. Just like you my reading schedule is packed full of good books and reading commitments such as By the Chapter. I will try and remember to let you know when I anticipate mailing a book in the initial email. And I will email again when your post office day comes around. **

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.

Books just seem to keep making their way to my house. Yay!

Chick lit/romance ~ For the Love of Pete by Julia Harper (aka Elizabeth Hoyt) (new-to-me author/Hachette) (Claimed by Cindy)

Zoey Addler moved back to Chicago to stay near her sister and take care of her baby niece, Petronella—Pete, for short. Unfortunately Pete’s father is the key witness in a Mob trial, and Tony the Rose decides to exert some pressure by having Pete kidnapped. Luckily, Zoey’s upstairs neighbor Dante (or Lips of Sin, as she calls him) is an undercover FBI agent. Zoey and Dante chase the kidnapper across the city until the kidnapper’s baby and Pete are accidentally snatched by two bumbling Indian aunts who are trying to track down their illegally imported saffron. Zoey, Dante, and the Indian ladies take a journey from the top of the state to the bottom, and amid all the gunfights and federal business, Zoey and Dante discover they might be drawn together by more than just the need to get Pete home safe and sound.

Fiction ~ The Wish Maker by Ali Sethi (new-to-me author/Shelf Awareness) (Claimed by Staci)

The unforgettable story of a fatherless boy growing up in a household of outspoken women, The Wish Maker is also a tale of sacrifice, betrayal, and indestructible friendship. Zaki Shirazi and his female cousin Samar Api were raised to consider themselves “part of the same litter.” Together they watched American television and memorized dialogue from Bollywood movies, attended dangerous protests, and formed secret friendships. In a household run by Zaki’s crusading political journalist mother and iron-willed grandmother, it was impossible to imagine a future that could hold anything different for either of them.

Memoir ~ A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy by Thomas Buergenthal (new-to-me author/Hachette) (Claimed by Melanie)

You think you’ve heard it all: the roundups, deportations, transports, selections, hard labor, death camps (“That was the last time I saw my father”), crematoriums, and the rare miracle of survival. But this one is different. The clear, nonhectoring prose makes Buergenthal’s personal story––and the enduring ethical questions it prompts––the stuff of a fast, gripping read. Five years old in Czechoslovakia at the start of World War II, Buergenthal remembers being crowded into the ghetto and then, in 1944, feeling “lucky” to escape the gas chambers and get into Auschwitz, where he witnessed daily hangings and beatings, but with the help of a few adults, managed to survive. In a postwar orphanage, he learned to read and write but never received any mail, until in a heartrending climax, his mother finds him. In 1952, he immigrated to the U.S., and now, as human-rights lawyer, professor, and international judge, his childhood’s moral issues are rooted in his daily life, his tattooed number a reminder not so much of the past as of his obligation, as witness and survivor, to fight bigotry today.

Historical/contemporary fiction ~ The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe (new-to-me author/Every Woman’s Voice) (Claimed by Jessica)

Harvard graduate student Connie Goodwin needs to spend her summer doing research for her doctoral dissertation. But when her mother asks her to handle the sale of Connie’s grandmother’s abandoned home near Salem, she can’t refuse. As she is drawn deeper into the mysteries of the family house, Connie discovers an ancient key within a seventeenth-century Bible. The key contains a yellowing fragment of parchment with a name written upon it: Deliverance Dane. This discovery launches Connie on a quest–to find out who this woman was and to unearth a rare artifact of singular power: a physick book, its pages a secret repository for lost knowledge.

As the pieces of Deliverance’s harrowing story begin to fall into place, Connie is haunted by visions of the long-ago witch trials, and she begins to fear that she is more tied to Salem’s dark past then she could have ever imagined.

Suspense/thriller ~ The Dead Man by Joel Goldman (new-to-me author/Authors on the Web)

Careful What You Dream. Milo Harper wants former FBI agent Jack Davis’ help. People in Harper’s study of the human brain are starting to die – and dying exactly in the very ways they have dreamed…Harper wants Jack to get to the truth and counter lawsuits aimed at the foundation. But when Jack investigates, the truth explodes: a serial killer is lurking inside one of the most advanced research facilities in the world. For Jack, the case will shatter illusions, raise ghosts, and take him onto both sides of the law – and into the path of a murderer’s terrifying rage.

Historical fiction ~ Royal Blood by Rona Sharon (new-to-me author/FSB Associates) (Claimed by Mari)

In the Tudor Court of 1518, your friends and enemies can be one and the same…During the annual celebration of the Order of the Garter, Sir Michael Devereaux arrives in King Henry VIII’s court on a mission for his benefactor. The celebration’s endless feats and sumptuous women delight the charismatic newcomer, who becomes captivated by the enigmatic Princess Renee of France. But evil, it seems, has followed Michael to the court. Shortly after his arrival, an unknown killer claims several victims, including the Queen’s lady-in-waiting, and the powerful Cardinal Wolsey asks Michael to help with the investigation. As he searches for the killer, Michael is haunted by disturbing images of the victims – flashes of violence that lead him to doubt his own sanity. Michael soon realizes that the key to solving the crime is connected to both the Pope’s Imperial vault in Rome and a mystery from Michael’s own past – revealing a secret that is so damning, it could forever alter the future of mankind.

Memoir ~ Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, Ronald Cotton, and Erin Torneo (new-to-me author/Authors on the Web) (Claimed by Kristi)

Jennifer Thompson was raped at knifepoint by a man who broke into her apartment while she slept. She was able to escape, and eventually positively identified Ronald Cotton as her attacker. Ronald insisted that she was mistaken– but Jennifer’s positive identification was the compelling evidence that put him behind bars. After eleven years, Ronald was allowed to take a DNA test that proved his innocence. He was released, after serving more than a decade in prison for a crime he never committed. Two years later, Jennifer and Ronald met face to face– and forged an unlikely friendship that changed both of their lives. In their own words, Jennifer and Ronald unfold the harrowing details of their tragedy, and challenge our ideas of memory and judgment while demonstrating the profound nature of human grace and the healing power of forgiveness.

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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.