Mailbox Monday

Welcome to Mailbox Monday! It's a weekly event for bloggers to share what books arrived in their mailboxes. Mailbox Monday was originally created by Marcia of To Be Continued and is now hosted by Vicki, Serena and Leslie at Mailbox Monday's own blog.


It's been a wonderful week in my mailbox! An unemployed art historian arrived, along with a hero reporter, a police procedural with international danger, a woman who was wondering if you can find love twice in a lifetime and to top it all off there was a Predator Drone was circling inside my mailbox too! Here's a little more about what came in...

And The Dark Sacred Night by Julia Glass... Kit Noonan is an unemployed art historian with twins to help support and a mortgage to pay—and a wife frustrated by his inertia. Raised by a strong-willed, secretive single mother, Kit has never known the identity of his father—a mystery that his wife insists he must solve to move forward with his life. Out of desperation, Kit goes to the mountain retreat of his mother’s former husband, Jasper, a take-no-prisoners outdoorsman. There, in the midst of a fierce blizzard, Kit and Jasper confront memories of the bittersweet decade when their families were joined. Reluctantly breaking a long-ago promise, Jasper connects Kit with Lucinda and Zeke Burns, who know the answer he’s looking for. Readers of Glass’s first novel, Three Junes, will recognize Lucinda as the mother of Malachy, the music critic who died of AIDS. In fact, to fully understand the secrets surrounding his paternity, Kit will travel farther still, meeting Fenno McLeod, now in his late fifties, and Fenno’s longtime companion, the gregarious Walter Kinderman. 

I'm very excited to receive this book! From the author of Three Junes, which I had enjoyed, comes this new story that welcomes back some familiar faces. Published by Anchor Books, a division of Penguin Random House, and was published earlier this year in April.


Last Words by Rich Zahradnik... In March of 1975, as New York City hurtles toward bankruptcy and the Bronx burns, newsman Coleridge Taylor roams police precincts and ERs. He is looking for the story that will deliver him from obits, his place of exile at the Messenger-Telegram. Ever since he was demoted from the police beat for inventing sources, the 34-year-old has been a lost soul. A break comes at Bellevue, where Taylor views the body of a homeless teen picked up in the Meatpacking District. Taylor smells a rat: the dead boy looks too clean, and he’s wearing a distinctive Army field jacket. A little digging reveals that the jacket belonged to a hobo named Mark Voichek and that the teen was a spoiled society kid up to no good, the son of a city official. Taylor’s efforts to protect Voichek put him on the hit list of three goons who are willing to kill any number of street people to cover tracks that just might lead to City Hall. Taylor has only one ally in the newsroom, young and lovely reporter Laura Wheeler. Time is not on his side. If he doesn't wrap this story up soon, he’ll be back on the obits page—as a headline, not a byline. Last Words is the first book in the Coleridge Taylor mystery series. 

Just paging through this book and picking out bits and pieces to read, gave me the feeling that this was going to be a good read. I liked the writing and the setting. AND, I look forward to reading a police procedural, which I haven't done in a long time. Published by Camel Press, Last Words is 237 pages, which means it can make for a pleasant evenings read, and it's a Kindle bargain price right now too at $4.95.

Perfect Sins by Jo Bannister... Four years ago, Gabriel Ash was working with the British government investigating hijackings in Somalia. But when his wife and sons disappeared, presumably taken—and probably killed—by pirates, his life fell apart. He has sudden reason to hope when a senior policeman suggests that his sons might still be alive—until that policeman is murdered. Still, there seems to be some link to a local operation, and Ash, no longer a government agent, is determined to find it.

Meanwhile, his friend Hazel Best has been having a tough time of her own. A police constable whose last case ended with her shooting someone dead, she is just beginning to regain her balance. Hazel and Ash are both beginning to take more of an interest in the outside world, when a neighboring archaeologist decides to dig up a curious mound of earth near the ice house on his land. It might be a burial mound, he thinks. It is, but not the ancient one he expects; it holds the bones of a little boy from perhaps thirty years ago, carefully laid to rest with twentieth-century toys. As Hazel is slowly drawn back into police work, Ash finds himself under threat from someone who must think his investigation into his family's disappearance is finally getting somewhere...

Jo Bannister is well known for her suspense novels, mysteries and police procedurals. I'm really looking forward to cracking the spine on this one! Under 300 pages, and recently released by Minotaur Books, this should be a good one.
 
The Life Intended by Kristin Harmel... In this richly told story where Sliding Doors meets P.S. I Love You, Kristin Harmel weaves a heart-wrenching tale that asks: what does it take to move forward in life without forgetting the past?

After her husband’s sudden death over ten years ago, Kate Waithman never expected to be lucky enough to find another love of her life. But now she’s planning her second walk down the aisle to a perfectly nice man. So why isn’t she more excited?

At first, Kate blames her lack of sleep on stress. But when she starts seeing Patrick, her late husband, in her dreams, she begins to wonder if she’s really ready to move on. Is Patrick trying to tell her something? Attempting to navigate between dreams and reality, Kate must uncover her husband’s hidden message. Her quest leads her to a sign language class and into the New York City foster system, where she finds rewards greater than she could have imagined.

I had never heard of Kristin Harmel, but the description above piqued my interest, because I loved the movie Sliding Doors. (I'm such a romantic!) Then I opened the book to read the first few pages and fell in love! I loved the way Kristin wrote and I was beginning to love the story too! This is going to be a wonderful read, I am sure!  Published by Gallery Books and Simon & Schuster, stay tuned for my review AND for the release date, which is December 30th!


Global Predator by Jack Maclean... High above the mountains of the North West Frontier, a Global Predator circles waiting to unleash its Hellfire missiles. The trail of Osama Bin Laden’s deputy, the elusive Egyptian terror master, Ayman al-Zawahiri has gone cold until a chance recording identified by a translator at the National Security Agency offers new clues. A special intelligence team assembles and plots to catch at him at a meeting with other high ranking al Qaeda leaders. In Pakistan’s beautiful Swat Valley, the local Taliban have been stepping up their attacks on anyone educating girls. English aid worker Sally is taken hostage while visiting one of her schools. When Wilkins, escaping his reckless trading mistakes at his London bank, is forced to rescue her, he finds himself trapped in a world of blind fear and terror. Only one person can now make sense of what is happening and stop a massacre of innocent schoolgirls.


A bit different from my normal reading, but taking a peek through the book, the writing is good and I will definitely be cracking the spine to see how Jack Maclean can entice me to keep reading this politically charged thriller. This is published by Amazon and is at a Kindle bargain price of $3.03!

I am so excited to have these books come in the mail! Thank you to the generous publishers! I look forward to reading each of these and look for my reviews coming soon!