Mailbox Monday – 2/22
Mailbox Monday can be found at: The Printed Page
Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.
Okay this week is crazy for Mailbox Monday. I had a whole bunch of audible.com audio book credits to use so I ended up getting four audio books: Greywalker
I actually found The Final Storm (Book 3, The Door Within Trilogy)
Then wb32 reads sent me a heads up the Quirk Books was giving away free copies of “Dawn of the Dreadfuls
Lastly I got two books from the library: Lips Touch Three Times
You can see more info on all these books below! I hope that you have a great week and wish you all Happy Reading!
The Dark Divine by Bree Despain
First Sentence: “Blood fills my mouth.”
From Amazon.com: “Grace Divine, daughter of the local pastor, always knew something terrible happened the night Daniel Kalbi disappeared–the night she found her brother Jude collapsed on the porch, covered in his own blood–but she has no idea what a truly monstrous secret that night held.
The memories her family has tried to bury resurface when Daniel returns, three years later, and enrolls in Grace and Jude’s high school. Despite promising Jude she’ll stay away, Grace cannot deny her attraction to Daniel’s shocking artistic abilities, his way of getting her to look at the world from new angles, and the strange, hungry glint in his eyes.
The closer Grace gets to Daniel, the more she jeopardizes her life, as her actions stir resentment in Jude and drive him to embrace the ancient evil Daniel unleashed that horrific night. Grace must discover the truth behind the boy’s dark secret…and the cure that can save the ones she loves. But she may have to lay down the ultimate sacrifice to do it–her soul.”
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson
First Sentence: “Lisbeth Salander pullled her sunglasses down to the tip of her nose and squinted from beneath the rim of her sun hat.”
From Amazon.com: “Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden’s wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pieced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.”
Greywalker (Greywalker, Book 1) by Kat Richardson
First Sentence: “I’d been surprised when the guy belted me.”
From Amazon.com: “Harper Blaine was your average small-time P.I. until a two-bit perp’s savage assault left her dead for two minutes. When she comes to in the hospital, she sees things that can only be described as weird-shapes emerging from a foggy grey mist, snarling teeth, creatures roaring.
But Harper’s not crazy. Her “death” has made her a Greywalker- able to move between the human world and the mysterious cross-over zone where things that go bump in the night exist. And her new gift is about to drag her into that strange new realm-whether she likes it or not.”
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
First Sentence: “Those who saw him hushed.”
From Amazon.com: “Corrigan, a radical young Irish monk, struggles with his own demons as he lives among the prostitutes in the middle of the burning Bronx. A group of mothers gather in a Park Avenue apartment to mourn their sons who died in Vietnam, only to discover just how much divides them even in grief. A young artist finds herself at the scene of a hit-and-run that sends her own life careening sideways. Tillie, a thirty-eight-year-old grandmother, turns tricks alongside her teenage daughter, determined not only to take care of her family but to prove her own worth.
Elegantly weaving together these and other seemingly disparate lives, McCann’s powerful allegory comes alive in the unforgettable voices of the city’s people, unexpectedly drawn together by hope, beauty, and the “artistic crime of the century.” A sweeping and radical social novel, Let the Great World Spin captures the spirit of America in a time of transition, extraordinary promise, and, in hindsight, heartbreaking innocence. Hailed as a “fiercely original talent” (San Francisco Chronicle), award-winning novelist McCann has delivered a triumphantly American masterpiece that awakens in us a sense of what the novel can achieve, confront, and even heal.”
The Final Storm (THe Door Within, Book 3) by Wayne Thomas Batson
First Sentence: “Aidan searched fro Gwenn’s image in the thunderclouds.”
From Amazon.com: “Still staggering under Paragor’s relentless attacks, Alleble’s remaining allies flee from the four corners of The Realm to safety within the Kingdom’s walls. But there is little time for Alleble to mourn before Paragor, the Wyrm Lord, and the deadly Seven Sleepers unite against the followers of King Eliam. As Alleble begins to lose hope, Paragor unleashes The Final Storm. Will anyone survive to see the dawn?”
Dawn of the Dreadfuls (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Prequel) by Steve Hockensmith
First Sentence: “Walking out in the middle of a funeral would be, of course, bad form. So attempting to walk out on one’s own was beyond the pale.”
From Amazon.com: “With more than one million copies in print, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was the surprise publishing phenomenon of 2009. A best seller on three continents, PPZ has been translated into 21 languages and optioned to become a major motion picture.
In this terrifying and hilarious prequel, we witness the genesis of the zombie plague in early-nineteenth-century England. We watch Elizabeth Bennet evolve from a naïve young teenager into a savage slayer of the undead. We laugh as she begins her first clumsy training with nunchucks and katana swords and cry when her first blush with romance goes tragically awry. Written by acclaimed novelist (and Edgar Award nominee) Steve Hockensmith, Dawn of the Dreadfuls invites Austen fans to step back into Regency England, Land of the Undead!”
From Library:
Lips Touch Three Times by Laini Taylor
First Sentence: “There is a certain kind of girl that Goblins crave.”
From Amazon.com: “Three tales of supernatural love, each pivoting on a kiss that is no mere kiss, but an action with profound consequences for the kissers’ souls:
Goblin Fruit: In Victorian times, goblin men had only to offer young girls sumptuous fruits to tempt them to sell their souls. But what does it take to tempt today’s savvy girls?
Spicy Little Curses: A demon and the ambassador to Hell tussle over the soul of a beautiful English girl in India. Matters become complicated when she falls in love and decides to test her curse.
Hatchling: Six days before Esme’s fourteenth birthday, her left eye turns from brown to blue. She little suspects what the change heralds, but her small safe life begins to unravel at once. What does the beautiful, fanged man want with her, and how is her fate connected to a mysterious race of demons?”
Chasing the Dragon (Quantum Gravity, Book 4) by Justina Robson
First Sentence: “Cold winds blew off the north shore and gave Lila a burning slap as they snatched foam from the rim of her coffee cup and flung it into her face.”
From Amazon.com: “Lila Black returns in the fourth volume of high-octane, high-magic, high-tech adventures. Ever since the Quantum Bomb of 2015 things have been different; the dimensions have fused and suddenly our world is accessible to elves, demons, ghosts and elementals and their worlds are open to us. Things have been different for Special Agent Lila Black too: tortured and magic-scarred by elves, rebuilt by humans into a half-robot, part-AI, nuclear-fueled walking arsenal, married to a demon and in love with a recently-deceased elf. It was confusing enough before she was catapulted fifty years into her own future.
Returning to the life of a guns-blazing secret agent, Lila finds herself having inherited all of her former boss’s old offices and whatever mysteries they contain, as the elf has done a runner some fifty years previously. Appointed head of the new android division, she can see all too clearly what lies in store for her if the growth of the alien technologies in her cyborg body continue unchecked.
But there are more immediate concerns. Like resurrecting her lover, Zal. And her husband, the demon Teazle, is embroiled in a fatal plot in Demonia, and her magic sword is making itself happy as a pen whose writing has the power to affect other worlds. The world is off its rocker and most everyone is terrified of faeries.
And all the while, she hears the voices of the machine material projections of an immaterial form, The Signal. The Signal talks constantly if only she knew what it meant.”