Mailbox Monday – 11/16

Mailbox Monday can be found at: The Printed Page

I was a bit light on books this week. Got in three new ones. The first one “Mr. Darcy, Vampyre” is on loan from a friend. I was mildly curious about this book and my friend gave it to me to check out. The second two books I got through paperbackswap.com. I have been looking forward to reading both “The Affinity Bridge” and “Anathem” for quite some time. I have loved all of Neal Stephenson’s previous works, so I hope “Anathem” follows them.

Details are below. Hope you all have a great week and happy reading!

“Mr. Darcy, Vampyre” by Amanda Grange

First Sentence: “Elizabeth Bennet’s wedding morning was one of soft mists and mellow sunshine.”
From Amazon.com: “Amanda Grange’s style and wit bring readers back to Jane Austen’s timeless storytelling, but always from a very unique and unusual perspective, and now Grange is back with an exciting and completely new take on Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet.

Mr. Darcy, Vampyre starts where Pride and Prejudice ends and introduces a dark family curse so perfectly that the result is a delightfully thrilling, spine-chilling, breathtaking read. A dark, poignant and visionary continuation of Austen’s beloved story, this tale is full of danger, darkness and immortal love.”

“Anathem” by Neal Stephenson

First Sentence: “‘Do you neighbors burn one another alive?’ was how Fraa Orolo began his conversation with Artisan Flec.”
From Amazon.com: “For ten years Fraa Erasmas, a young avout, has lived in a cloistered sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the outside world. But before the week is out, both the existence he abandoned and the one he embraced will stand poised on the brink of cataclysmic change—and Erasmas will become a major player in a drama that will determine the future of his world, as he follows his destiny to the most inhospitable corners of the planet . . . and beyond.

Anathem is the latest miraculous invention by the New York Times bestselling author of Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle—a work of astonishing scope, intelligence, and imagination.”

“The Affinity Bridge” by George Mann

First Sentence: “The flies. Always the damn flies.”
From Amazon.com: “Welcome to the bizarre and dangerous world of Victorian London, a city teetering on the edge of revolution. Its people are ushering in a new era of technology, dazzled each day by unfamiliar inventions. Airships soar in the skies over the city, while ground trains rumble through the streets and clockwork automatons are programmed to carry out menial tasks in the offices of lawyers, policemen, and journalists.

But beneath this shiny veneer of progress lurks a sinister side.

Queen Victoria is kept alive by a primitive life-support system, while her agents, Sir Maurice Newbury and his delectable assistant Miss Veronica Hobbes, do battle with enemies of the crown, physical and supernatural. This time Newbury and Hobbes are called to investigate the wreckage of a crashed airship and its missing automaton pilot, while attempting to solve a string of strangulations attributed to a mysterious glowing policeman, and dealing with a zombie plague that is ravaging the slums of the capital.

Get ready to follow dazzling young writer George Mann to a London unlike any you’ve ever seen and into an adventure you will never forget.”