Mailbox Monday, February 27, 2012

In February Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Metro Reader.

Last week I received Blue Monday by Nicci French. I've already started it and it's turning out to be very good.

The abduction of five-year-old Matthew Farraday provokes a national outcry and a desperate police hunt. And when a picture of his face is splashed over the newspapers, psychotherapist Frieda Klein is left troubled: one of her patients has been relating dreams in which he has a hunger for a child. A child he can describe in perfect detail, a child the spitting image of Matthew.

Detective Chief Inspector Karlsson doesn't take Frieda's concerns seriously until a link emerges with an unsolved child abduction twenty years ago and he summons Frieda to interview the victim's sister, hoping she can stir hidden memories. Before long, Frieda is at the centre of the race to track the kidnapper.

But her race isn't physical. She must chase down the darkest paths of a psychopath's mind to find the answers to Matthew Farraday's whereabouts.

And sometimes the mind is the deadliest place to lose yourself.

Tuesday Teaser: A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley

Tuesday Teasers is hosted by Should Be Reading. The rules are as follows:


Grab your current read and let the book fall open to a random page. Share two sentences from somewhere on that page and the title of the book that you’re getting the teaser from. Please avoid spoilers! Read the official Tuesday Teaser Rules.




My teaser this week is from A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley. From page 109:

Every bit as important as Porcelain's physical safety was the sudden gnawing need I felt to make amends to the family of Fenella Faa: to correct an old wrong committed by my father. For the first time in my life I felt myself seized by hereditary guilt.

Mailbox Monday February 13, 2012

In February Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Metro Reader.




I received A Darkly Hidden Truth by Donna Fletcher Crow last week. Part of a series called The Monastery Murders the description of this novel reads:

Felicity can't possibly help Father Antony find the valuable missing icon. She's off to become a nun. And then her impossible mother turns up unexpectedly. And a good friend turns up murdered...

Breathtaking chase scenes, mystical worship services, dashes through remote water-logged landscapes, the wisdom of ancient holy women, and the arcane rites of The Knights Hospitaller keep the pages turning. Will Felicity choose the veil - or Antony?

Waiting on Wednesday: The House I Loved by Tatiana de Rosnay

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

Paris, France: 1860's. Hundreds of houses are being razed, whole neighborhoods reduced to ashes. By order of Emperor Napoleon III, Baron Haussman has set into motion a series of large-scale renovations that will permanently alter the face of old Paris, moulding it into a "modern city." The reforms will erase generations of history-but in the midst of the tumult, one woman will take a stand.

Rose Bazelet is determined to fight against the destruction of her family home until the very end; as others flee, she stakes her claim in the basement of the old house on rue Childebert, ignoring the sounds of change that come closer and closer each day. Attempting to overcome the loneliness of her daily life, she begins to write letters to Armand, her beloved late husband. And as she delves into the ritual of remembering, Rose is forced to come to terms with a secret that has been buried deep in her heart for thirty years. The House I Loved is both a poignant story of one woman's indelible strength, and an ode to Paris, where houses harbor the joys and sorrows of their inhabitants, and secrets endure in the very walls...

Tuesday Teaser:

Tuesday Teasers is hosted by Should Be Reading. The rules are as follows:


Grab your current read and let the book fall open to a random page. Share two sentences from somewhere on that page and the title of the book that you’re getting the teaser from. Please avoid spoilers! Read the official Tuesday Teaser Rules.



My teaser this week is from Dancing With Colonels. Subtitled 'A Young Woman's Adventures in Wartime Turkey' it is compiled by Sally Enstrom, who is a niece to the author of the letters, Marjorie Havreberg. From page 50:

Tonight Josie and I went down to the 14th St. shopping district and I got some shos finally. I got black patent leather strip pumps-size 7 1/2 quad so they fit-$5.50.

Mailbox Monday February 6, 2012

In February Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Metro Reader.

Last week I received two very different books. The first is The Book Club Cookbook:




The description of The Book Club Cookbook reads:

Whether it’s Roman Punch for The Age of Innocence, Sabzi ChallowGlogg
(spinach and rice) with Lamb for The Kite Runner, or Swedish Meatballs and Glögg for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, nothing spices up a book club meeting like great eats. Featuring recipes and discussion ideas from best-selling authors and book clubs across the country, this fully revised and updated edition of the classic book guides readers in selecting and preparing culinary masterpieces that blend perfectly with the literary masterpieces their club is reading. This edition includes new contributions from a host of today’s bestselling authors including:

• Kathryn Stockett, The Help (Demetrie’s Chocolate Pie and Caramel Cake)
• Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants (Oyster Brie Soup)
• Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper (Brian Fitzgerald’s Firehouse Marinara Sauce)
• Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone (Almaz’s Ethiopian Doro Wot and
• Sister Mary Joseph Praise’s Cari De Dal)
• Annie Barrows, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
• (Annie Barrows’s Potato Peel Pie and Non-Occupied Potato Peel Pie)
• Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (Lisa See’s Deep Fried Sugared Taro)

The Book Club Cookbook will add real flavor to your meetings!

The second book I received is The Darlings by Cristina Alger.




The description of The Darlings (from the author's website) says:

A sophisticated page-turner about a wealthy New York family embroiled in a financial scandal with cataclysmic consequences.

Now that he’s married to Merrill Darling, daughter of billionaire financier Carter Darling, attorney Paul Ross has grown accustomed to New York society and all of its luxuries: a Park Avenue apartment, weekends in the Hamptons, bespoke suits. When Paul loses his job, Carter offers him the chance to head the legal team at his hedge fund. Thrilled with his good fortune in the midst of the worst financial downturn since the Great Depression, Paul accepts the position.

But Paul’s luck is about to shift: a tragic event catapults the Darling family into the media spotlight, a regulatory investigation, and a red-hot scandal with enormous implications for everyone involved. Suddenly, Paul must decide where his loyalties lie—will he save himself while betraying his wife and in-laws or protect the family business at all costs?

Cristina Alger’s glittering debut novel interweaves the narratives of the Darling family, two eager SEC attorneys, and a team of journalists all racing to uncover—or cover up—the truth. With echoes of a fictional Too Big to Fail and the novels of Dominick Dunne, The Darlings offers an irresistible glimpse into the highest echelons of New York society—a world seldom seen by outsiders—and a fast-paced thriller of epic proportions.