Monday Mailbox

Mailbox Monday is a gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week and explore great book blogs. Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists. It has finally found a permanent  home at Mailbox Monday with the following new administrators:

Leslie of Under My Apple Tree
Serena of Savvy Verse & Wit
Vicki of I'd Rather Be at the Beach

I received 10 novels (7 print copies+3 e-books) after a drought of three weeks, thanks to the authors/publicists. I also received two poetry books from Harvee Lau from Book Dilettante. 

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman 

Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.

Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.

The Lightkeeper's Wife by Sarah Anne Johnson 


Alone on the tip of the cape, Hannah Snow is on the verge of her most heroic rescue yet.

On 19th century Cape Cod, Hannah Snow shouldn't even be in the water. Her husband, John, would be furious-it's his job to tend to Dangerfield Light. It's certainly not women's work, and his quick trips out of town don't give her permission to rush toward the tattered ships. But she does, and though she can't save everyone, William "Billy" Pike, is someone she can. He's recuperating in her care when John's horse is found abandoned. Hannah invites Billy to stay as a hired hand-but soon discovers that he is not at all whom she thought he was. When everything holding her together falls apart, can Hannah learn how to save herself?

 I Adored a Lord by Katharine Ashe (e-book)

All that clever, passionate Ravenna Caulfield wants is to stay far away from high society's mean girls.

All that handsome, heroic Lord Vitor Courtenay wants is to dash from dangerous adventure to adventure.

Now, snowbound in a castle with a bevy of the ton's scheming maidens all competing for a prince's hand in marriage, Ravenna's worst nightmare has come true.

Now, playing babysitter to his spoiled prince of a half-brother and potential brides, Vitor is champing at the bit to be gone.

When a stolen kiss in a stable leads to a corpse in a suit of armor, a canine kidnapping, and any number of scandalous liaisons, Ravenna and Vitor find themselves wrapped in a mystery they're perfectly paired to solve. But as for the mysteries of love and sex, Vitor's not about to let Ravenna escape until he's gotten what he desires . . .

Cider Brook by Carla Neggers

Being rescued by a good-looking, bad-boy firefighter isn't how Samantha Bennett expected to start her stay in Knights Bridge, Massachusetts. Now she has everyone's attention—especially that of Justin Sloan, her rescuer, who wants to know why she was camped out in an abandoned old New England cider mill. 

Samantha is a treasure hunter who has returned to Knights Bridge to solve a 300-year-old mystery and salvage her good name. Justin remembers her well. He's the one who alerted her late mentor to her iffy past and got her fired. But just because he doesn't trust her doesn't mean he can resist her. Samantha is daring, determined, seized by wanderlust—everything that strong, stoic Justin never knew he wanted. Until now…


Boarding Pass by Paul Cumbo (e-book)

Twenty-one-year-old Matt Derby is a typical college senior: bright, open-minded, and full of potential. But he's also stuck in neutral, struggling with girl problems, a lack of direction, and decisions made difficult by too many choices.

When a television news report tells the story of a heroic firefighter in a small Wyoming town, Matt recognizes someone he hasn't seen in nearly six years: his boarding school roommate, Trey Daniels, who disappeared after being expelled in tenth grade.

Matt boards a flight headed west, aiming not only to visit his injured friend, but also to put off his own return to school and the big decisions that await him there. Once at cruising altitude, his flashbacks recall the formative days at the Ashford River School, and the memorable events that cemented their boyhood friendship before Trey's departure.
Upon landing, Matt soon discovers the seemingly impulsive journey is nothing less than a pilgrimage that revisits his past, illuminates the present, and defines his future.

  The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure

Like most gentiles in Nazi-occupied Paris, architect Lucien Bernard has little empathy for the Jews. So when a wealthy industrialist offers him a large sum of money to devise secret hiding places for Jews, Lucien struggles with the choice of risking his life for a cause he doesn't really believe in. Ultimately he can't resist the challenge and begins designing expertly concealed hiding spaces—behind a painting, within a column, or inside a drainpipe—detecting possibilities invisible to the average eye. But when one of his clever hiding spaces fails horribly and the immense suffering of Jews becomes incredibly personal, he can no longer deny reality.

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith  (Pseudonym: J K Rowling)

When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, Mrs. Quine just thinks her husband has gone off by himself for a few days--as he has done before--and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home. But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine's disappearance than his wife realizes. 

The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were to be published, it would ruin lives--meaning that there are a lot of people who might want him silenced. When Quine is found brutally murdered under bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any Strike has encountered before... 

The Second Child: Poems by Deborah Garrison (thanks to Harvee Lau)

Nine years after the stunning debut of her critically acclaimed poetry collection A Working Girl Can’t Win, which chronicled the progress and predicaments of a young woman, Deborah Garrison now moves into another stage of adulthood–starting a family and saying good-bye to a more carefree self.

In The Second Child, Garrison explores every facet of motherhood–the ambivalence, the trepidation, and the joy (“Sharp bliss in proximity to the roundness, / The globe already set aspin, particular / Of a whole new life”)– and comes to terms with the seismic shift in her outlook and in the world around her. She lays out her post-9/11 fears as she commutes daily to the city, continues to seek passion in her marriage, and wrestles with her feelings about faith and the mysterious gift of happiness. 

Good Poems: American Places by Garrison Keillor  (thanks to Harvee Lau)

Garrison Keillor, the editor of Good Poems and Good Poems for Hard Times, host of The Writer's Almanac, and all-around arbiter of fine American poetry, introduces another inspiring collection by a range of poets, some beloved favorites and others brash unknowns, organized by regions of America.

From Nantucket to Knoxville, Manhattan to Minnesota, the heart can be exalted anywhere. Think of these poems as postcards-from Billy Collins, Nikki Giovanni, William Carlos Williams, Naomi Shihab Nye, Gary Snyder, Mary Oliver, and many more.


The Old Blue Line by J. A. Jance

Butch Dixon has been taken for a ride …

Not a jump in the car, see the sights kind of ride. He's been taken for everything he has. He's lost his house, his restaurant business, his savings, his car, his best friend, his faith-all to his conniving ex-wife. But that was seven years ago. He picked himself up, left Chicago, and started over in Peoria, Arizona, running the Roundhouse Bar and Grill. He doesn't look back on those bad years; there's no point. Not until two curious cops show up at the Roundhouse.

Faith, Butch's ex-wife, has been murdered, and the evidence points to him. Stunned, Butch quickly realizes that the black-hearted woman is going to ruin him again, from her grave. Lucky for Butch, the Old Blue Line, a group of retired-but still sharp and tenacious-former legal and law enforcement coots, have taken it upon themselves, as a favor, to make sure he doesn't cross that thin line. After the dust settles, Butch's life is again upended-when a little red-haired ball of fire, Sheriff Joanna Brady, takes a seat at his bar.

Until You're Mine by Samantha Hayes 

Claudia is heavily pregnant with a much-wanted baby, she has a loving husband and a beautiful home.

And then Zoe steps into her life.

Zoe has come to help Claudia when her baby arrives. But there's something about Zoe that Claudia doesn't like.

And when she finds Zoe in her bedroom, Claudia's anxiety turns to real fear.

A Song for the Dying by Stuart MacBride

Eight years ago, the Inside Man abducted and killed four women. He left another three in critical condition, their stomachs slit open and a plastic doll stitched inside. Then he disappeared. Until now…

Ash Henderson was a Detective Inspector on the initial investigation. Things haven’t exactly gone well since: his family has been destroyed, his career is in tatters, and one of Oldcastle’s most vicious criminals is making sure he spends the rest of his life in prison.

But Dr. Alice McDonald has other ideas. When a nurse turns up dead on waste ground behind Blackwall Hill – a doll stitched into her innards – Alice convinces one of the investigating teams to get Ash released and working the case. He’s out for as long as he’s useful.

And if he’s out, he can get revenge.