Mailbox Mondays (3rd May)

Monday Mailbox is hosted by Marcia.

I received the following five books:

1) Lost Alphabet by Lisa Olstein

This second collection from Olstein is an impressive sequence of prose poems spoken in the voice of a lepidopterist engaged in isolated research on butterflies and moths near a village whose residents reluctantly embrace her presence. Flirting with fiction without quite unfurling a clear narrative, Olstein's speaker finds correlatives for her lonely if exploratory inner life in the insects—living and dead—she is studying: I have long recognized kindness in the way they fly. She thinks about and longs for a companion named Ilya, whose advice she mulls over often (It is customary to pray for sound health and good understanding. Ilya says to be more specific is unwise—it's a mistake to believe we know what we require); eventually, he joins her in her work.

2) The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn by Robin Maxwell

When the young Queen Elizabeth I is entrusted with Anne Boleyn's secret diary, she discovers a great deal about the much-maligned mother she never knew. And on learning the truth about her lascivious and despotic father, Henry VIII, she vows never to relinquish control to any man. But this avowal doesn't prevent Elizabeth from pursuing a torrid love affair with her horsemaster, Robin Dudley -- described with near-shocking candor -- as too are Anne's graphic trysts with a very persistent and lustful Henry. Blending a historian's attention to accuracy with a novelist's artful rendering, Maxwell weaves compelling descriptions of court life and devastating portraits of actual people into her naughty, page-turning tale.

3) In Harm's Way By Irene Hannon

FBI special agent Nick Bradley has seen his share of kooks during his fifteen years with the Bureau. But Rachel Sutton is an enigma. She seems normal when she shows up at the FBI office in St. Louis--until she produces a tattered Raggedy Ann doll she found and tells him she thinks something is wrong because of a strange feeling of terror it gives her when she touches it. Nick dismisses her, only to stumble across a link between the doll and an abducted child, setting in motion a chain of events that uncovers startling connections--and puts Rachel's life on the line.

4) The Language Of Secrets by Dianne Dixon

What does one do when one discovers that the life one is having shouldn't be happening as one has been dead for a long time now? How would you feel if you found out you had tombstone for youself? Justin faces it and doesn't know how it came about. He is very much alive, has a good job, a beautiful wife and a toddler son.

The book goes back and forth from 2006 to the early 70s. From his point of view to his mother's. Told poignantly, it is a man's search for his identity and facing the painful past. Although Justin never gets to know his mother, the reader feels her pain, her sadness and the life she led without her son. It touches us at places that we can't fathom.

5) The Healers by Thomas Heric

The Healers begins in the year 2021, when medicine has become corporatized and proprietary treatments are closely guarded secrets. Recent medical school graduate Wesley Anderson is approached to become part of a mysterious medical clan know as the Aesculapian Healers, who cure most illnesses with a money-back guarantee. Their fees are so steep, however, that they have earned the reputation as medical pirates.

When he reluctantly becomes a Healer in order to aid problems in his personal life, Wesley finds himself stumbling upon a whirlwind of dark secrets behind the Aesculapian miracle cures that he never could have imagined. Eventually uniting himself with a group of dissident outsiders who oppose the disturbing medical practices, Wesley is conflicted between his conscience and the power at the heart of his new profession. These Healers provide a service to humanity—but at what cost?

Thanks to the authors and/ or publicists