Saturday 28 May 2011 | By: Nicole @ Nicole About TOwn

In My Mailbox #3/Mailbox Monday: May 22-29, 2011 Edition

So once again In My Mailbox and Mailbox Monday have been combined into one post this week.  I think that I am going to keep them this way for all future posts.

In My Mailbox is hosted by Kristi over at The Story Siren.  Mailbox Monday is being hosted this month over at Mari Reads.  The purpose of both meme’s is pretty much the same thing.  They highlight books that you have received in your mailbox over the past week.  I must say that I keep receiving a lot of books and I really love it.  For the books that I received that have not been released yet, I will give you the synopsis of the books and not just the names.

So here is what I received this week:

From NetGalley


Title: The Devil Colony
Author: James Rollins
Release Date: June 21, 2011

Deep in the Rocky Mountains, a gruesome discovery—hundreds of mummified bodies—stirs international attention and fervent controversy. Despite doubts about the bodies' origins, the local Native American Heritage Commission lays claim to the prehistoric remains, along with the strange artifacts found in the same cavern: gold plates inscribed with an unfathomable script.

During a riot at the dig site, an anthropologist dies horribly, burned to ashes in a fiery explosion in plain view of television cameras. All evidence points to a radical group of Native Americans, including one agitator, a teenage firebrand who escapes with a vital clue to the murder and calls on the one person who might help—her uncle, Painter Crowe, Director of Sigma Force.

To protect his niece and uncover the truth, Painter will ignite a war among the nation's most powerful intelligence agencies. Yet an even greater threat looms as events in the Rocky Mountains have set in motion a frightening chain reaction, a geological meltdown that threatens the entire western half of the U.S. From the volcanic peaks of Iceland to the blistering deserts of the American Southwest, from the gold vaults of Fort Knox to the bubbling geysers of Yellowstone, Painter Crowe joins forces with Commander Gray Pierce to penetrate the shadowy heart of a dark cabal, one that has been manipulating American history since the founding of the thirteen colonies. But can Painter discover the truth—one that could topple governments—before it destroys all he holds dear?

I love James Rollins books.  More specifically, I love books in his Sigma Series and this is number seven.  I have been waiting for this one for a while so look out for the review very soon.





Title: The Book of Lies

Author: Mary Horlock
Release Date: July 19, 2011

Life on the tiny island of Guernsey has just become a whole lot harder for fifteen-year-old Cat Rozier. She’s gone from model pupil to murderer, but she swears it’s not her fault. Apparently it’s all the fault of history.

A new arrival at Cat’s high school in 1984, the beautiful and instantly popular Nicolette inexplicably takes Cat under her wing. The two become inseparable—going to parties together, checking out boys, and drinking whatever liquor they can shoplift. But a perceived betrayal sends them spinning apart, and Nic responds with cruel, over-the-top retribution.

Cat’s recently deceased father, Emile, dedicated his adult life to uncovering the truth about the Nazi occupation of Guernsey—from Churchill’s abandonment of the island to the stories of those who resisted—in hopes of repairing the reputation of his older brother, Charlie. Through Emile’s letters and Charlie’s words—recorded on tapes before his own death— a “confession” takes shape, revealing the secrets deeply woven into the fabric of the island . . . and into the Rozier family story.


Title: Brooklyn, Burning
Author: Steve Brezenoff
Release Date: September 1, 2011

When you're sixteen and no one understands who you are, sometimes the only choice left is to run. If you're lucky, you'll find a place that accepts you, no questions asked. And if you're really lucky, that place has a drum set, a place to practice, and a place to sleep. For Kid, the streets of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, are that place. Over the course of two scorching summers, Kid falls hopelessly in love and then loses nearly everything and everyone worth caring about. But as summer draws to a close, Kid finally finds someone who can last beyond the sunset.





Title: A Long Long Sleep
Author: Anna Sheehan
Release Date: August 9, 2011

Rosalinda Fitzroy has been asleep for sixty-two years when she is woken by a kiss.

Locked away in the chemically induced slumber of a stasis tube in a forgotten sub-basement, sixteen-year-old Rose slept straight through the Dark Times that killed millions and utterly changed the world she knew. Now her parents and her first love are long dead, and Rose -- hailed upon her awakening as the long-lost heir to an interplanetary empire -- is thrust alone into a future in which she is viewed as either a freak or a threat.

Desperate to put the past behind her and adapt to her new world, Rose finds herself drawn to the boy who kissed her awake, hoping that he can help her to start fresh. But when a deadly danger jeopardizes her fragile new existance, Rose must face the ghosts of her past with open eyes -- or be left without any future at all.


Title: Everything We Ever Wanted
Author: Sara Shepard
Release Date: October 11, 2011

One phone call can change everything...

When Sylvie Bates-McAllister, a recently-widowed mother of two, receives a late-night phone call from the prestigious school founded by her grandfather, her family is thrown into chaos. Her adopted son Scott may have been involved in a hazing scandal --and it may or may not have led to the death of one of the boys he coaches on the school team. Sylvie must decide between maintaining her outwardly perfect life --the family estate outside Philadelphia inherited from her grandfather, the school, the reputation --and the son who she feels wants nothing to do with her.

For Charles, Sylvie's biological son, the call dredges up a ghost from the past --his high school girlfriend who has been off the map for years. Joanna, his wife, is forced to confront all the things that she didn't anticipate would come along with a perfect life she imagined ever since she was a young girl, creating her scrapbook of the Bates-McAllisters. Scott, haunted by years of first impressions and assumptions, is drawn into a new understanding of a world he has never felt a part of.

For all the Bates-McAllisters, the phone call awakens questions lain dormant for years, revealing a tangled web of secrets that ties the family together: the mystery of the school hazing, Sylvie's deceased husband's locked filing cabinet, the event that tore Charles and Scott apart the night of their high school graduation, and the intended recipient of a certain bracelet. The quest to push past a legacy of resentment and judgments to unravel the truth takes the family on individual journeys across state lines, into hospitals, through the Pennsylvania woods, and face-to-face with the question: what if the life you always planned for, and dreamed of, isn't what you want at all? 

Title: Cain

Author: José Saramago
Release Date: October 6, 2011

In this, his last novel, Saramago daringly reimagines the characters and narratives of the Bible through the story of Cain. Condemned to wander forever after he kills Abel, he is whisked around in time and space. He experiences the almost-sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham, the Tower of Babel, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Joshua at the battle of Jericho, Job’s ordeal, and finally Noah’s ark and the Flood. And over and over again Cain encounters an unjust, even cruel God. A startling, beautifully written, and powerful book, in all ways a fitting end to Saramago’s extraordinary career.







Title: The Queens of all the Earth
Author: Hannah Sternberg
Release Date: October 1, 2011

As her freshman classmates move into dorms at Cornell University, Olivia Somerset suffers a nervous breakdown. When months of coaxing and analyzing fail to rouse Olivia from her stupor, big sister Miranda decides the sisters should fly off to Barcelona for some "vacation therapy."

When a mistake at their Barcelona hostel leaves the Somersets in a large co-ed dorm room, Olivia and Miranda are saved by kindly Mr. Brown and his son Greg, who happily volunteer to surrender their private room. But while Olivia feels an instant connection with brooding Greg Brown, Miranda sides with fellow guest and cocky American travel writer Lenny:

The Browns are just plain weird, and must be avoided at all costs.

In the midst of urbane Peruvian priests-in-training and Scottish soccer fans, from the shops of La Rambla to the waters of the Mediterranean to the soaring heights of Montjuic, Miranda works to protect her still-fragile sister while Olivia struggles to understand her burgeoning adulthood, her feelings for Greg, and the fear that makes the next step in her life so impossible to take.




Title: The Poisoned House

Author: Michael Ford
Release Date: September 1, 2011

Life can be cruel for a servant girl in 1850s London. Fifteen-year-old Abi is a scullery maid in Greave Hall, an elegant but troubled household. The widowed master of the house is slowly slipping into madness, and the tyrannical housekeeper, Mrs. Cotton, punishes Abi without mercy. But there's something else going on in Greave Hall, too. An otherworldly presence is making itself known, and a deadly secret will reveal itself—a secret that will shatter everything Abi knows. 


Title: Domestic Violets
Author: Matthew Norman
Release Date: September 1, 2011

Tom Violet has failed, once again, to have sex with his wife.

And that’s not the worst of it. Besides his latest false start in the bedroom, there’s the 9-5 office job that’s slowly crushing his spirit, his lovelorn stepfather who’s in constant need of counsel, and the strange realization that his boozy stepmother is sort of stalking him. Then, of course, there's his own inappropriate crush on a 23-year-old colleague, the growing suspicion that his wife is having an affair with someone from her gym, and the family dog, Hank, who suffers from acute anxiety. And then there’s the novel—the one he’s been slaving over for years, all the while haunted by the fear that it will never see the light of day. Too young to have these kinds of problems, but too old to see any easy way out, Tom finds himself mired in hopeless inaction. And then his philandering, borderline-estranged father, Curtis, shows up in the middle of the night and tells him: a) that he’s just been thrown out of his own house by wife #3; b) that he’ll be moving in with Tom for who knows how long; and c) that he’s just won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Pushed to the brink, Tom decides to take things in an entirely different direction by enacting a series of truly stupid plans for revenge and self-improvement that, of course, go completely haywire. 


Author: Stella Duffy
Release Date: September 27, 2011

[box] For citizens of Byzantine Constantinople, the name Theodora evoked strong reactions--awe, lust, and doubt to name a few. Sadly, Theodora is all but lost to history. Her story, both mesmerizing and inspiring, has been rescued from obscurity by Stella Duffy in her new novel, THEODORA: Actress, Empress, Whore (A Penguin Paperback Original). Like Elizabeth I and Cleopatra, Theodora was expert at wielding power from the throne. Unlike those famous rulers, Theodora was not born into royalty. Her rise to become Empress of the Roman Empire began in the bear pit of the Hippodrome.

Born to the famed stadium's bear-keeper, Theodora's early life was drastically altered when her father was killed by his beloved bear. In order to keep their family afloat, Theodora and her two sisters were indentured to Menander, coach of one of the city's foremost dancing troupes. A natural performer, Theodora learns dance, acrobatics, and comedy, and by the age of fifteen, became the star of the Hippodrome. Like almost every actress of the time, Theodora was also a child prostitute.

At the age of eighteen and at the height of her popularity in Constantinople, Theodora decides to abandon her career in favor of following her lover Hecebolus to The Pentapolis (modern day Libya) where he is the new Governor. She leaves behind her beloved sister Comito, her theater community, and her daughter Ana, whom she barely knows. When things turn sour with Hecebolus Theodora escapes to a religious community whose views conflict with the contemporary Roman state.

Theodora renounces her former life, undergoes a religious conversion, and is eventually sent back to Constantinople as a spy. She is soon sent to meet Justinian, nephew to the Emperor Justin. Theodora works closely with Justinian and eventually he asks for her hand, changing the law forbidding former actresses from marrying, opening doors for all women. After their marriage, Theodora and Justinian stand side by side as he is crowned Emperor and she, his Empress.  

From the Author


Author: Kimberley A. Johnson & Ann Werner
Release Date: May, 2011

What sorrow lurks in the minds of men suffering from a broken heart? Ain’t No Sunshine knows! How do men feel when they lose someone they love? Do they cry? Do they obsess? Do they call psychics? Under the protection of anonymity, thirty-eight men describe in detail how they’ve dealt with the pain of heartbreak. Whether it's because of divorce, betrayal, death or simply getting dumped, the raw honesty of these men may surprise you. Modern American society so often discourages men from admitting to emotional pain, especially when it comes to matters of the heart. From an early age men are taught to "suck it up." Women often think men have it easier when it comes to the pain of heartbreak. But is that really the case? Ain't No Sunshine provides an opportunity to unlock those mysteries in this informal collection of stories. Interviews with therapists, psychics and bartenders are included and provide informative insights into how men react to a broken heart. Love is never easy. Loss of love is always difficult. Here is proof that not only do men struggle, sometimes the struggle is more difficult than it is for women. Ain't No Sunshine is a rare glimpse into the elusive male psyche

This is a non-fiction book and it is outside of what I usually read.  Having said that, it's really good and the review is pending.


Author: Tara Shuler
Release Date: May 2011

Alice Whitlock is a young vampire going to high school for the first time at the age of seventeen at the behest of her eccentric mother. In many ways, she's more afraid of the human students than they would be of her. She feels lost and awkward in human society, but she soon develops a strong bond with the cousin of one of her classmates, nineteen year old Kai.

He is beautiful, but somewhat of an enigma with his unusual demeanor. She discovers a dark secret in Kai's life, and she instantly wants to shelter him from the pain he is experiencing.

Then she meets Maksim Augustine, the incredibly gorgeous guy who seems more like he should be a model than a high school student. She is overwhelmingly attracted to him phsyically, but her love for Kai causes her to continually push him away. Eventually, she discovers a dark secret about Max, too.

But Max's secret threatens tear her entire world apart...

Purchased










So that is my Haul for this week.  What did you get in your mailbox?

7 comments:

Aislynn @ Knit Purl Stitch Read & Cook said...

Great books!! Thanks for stopping by!

Aislynn

AtenRa said...

Great haul!
Happy reading :)

Thanks for following!

Mars said...

Wow, so many great books! I hope you enjoy them all! :)
Happy reading.

Check out what's in my mailbox! :)

Grace Fonseca said...

Love your list. Especially like the cover to Shelter. Really like vamps. I'm a vamp girl at heart. Hope you enjoy your selections. Come check out my IMM.

Mary said...

Wow, what a great mailbox list. Enjoy!

Valentina said...

Oh wow! I want to read all of these!

Here's mine:
http://carabosseslibrary.blogspot.com/2011/05/mailbox-monday.html

Beth(bookaholicmom) said...

Great assortment of books! I hope you enjoy them all.

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