Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists. Thanks, so much, to Marcia at The Printed Page, for hosting this awesomely fun meme!!
It is so much fun to see what others have received - not to mention add more titles to that ever lengthening wish list, lol!!
What goodies did you receive last week?!
Forbidden Passion
by Rita Herron (from Hachette Book Group - ck back in the next day or two for your chance to win 1 of 5 copies!)
SHE SEES HIM IN HER DREAMS...
Fueled by her family's murder years ago, Dr. Marlena Bender has devoted her life to understanding violent criminals. But when a serial killer in this small Southern town starts taking the lives of women in diabolical ways--leaving trophies of his kills on Marlena's doorstep--it all hits too close to home. Terrified, Marlena turns to the only man she can trust...the man who saved her life.
BUT HIS SECRET IS HER WORST NIGHTMARE.
Sheriff Dante Valtrez would move heaven and earth to keep Marlena safe, but he's not the savior she thinks he is. A dark legacy runs through his blood and a dangerous secret lies within him. Now a fierce, hot, ruthless desire draws Dante and Marlena together--as a demonic force from his past threatens to rip them apart, destroying everything they hold dear.
Dark Deceptions
by Dee Davis (from Hachette Book Groups - be sure to ck back in the next day or two for your chance to win 1 of 5 copies!)
A-Tac is an elite CIA unit masquerading as faculty at an Ivy League college. Brilliant, badass, and seemingly bulletproof, the members of A-Tac are assigned to the riskiest missions and the most elusive targets.
TORN BETWEEN DUTY AND DESIRE
Covert operations expert Nash Brennon has spent the last eight years trying to forget Annie Gallagher, his former field partner and the only woman he ever loved. Annie betrayed him when he needed her most, then vanished without a trace. Now suddenly she's back in the game - this time as a suspected traitor and threat to national security.
Annie's son has been kidnapped by political terrorists. The price for his life? Assassinate a UN ambassador. When Nash and his group find her, the smoldering passion between Annie and the man she swore she'd never contact again blazes out of control. But can Nash trust her? The stakes couldn?t be higher: Their enemy's endgame is personal, and one false move could cost them their lives.
Everything is Broken
by Emma Larkin (from publisher for TLC tour)
A deeply reported account of life inside Burma in the months following the disastrous Cyclone Nargis and an analysis of the brutal totalitarian regime that clings to power in the devastated nation.
On May 2, 2008, an enormous tropical cyclone made landfall in Burma, wreaking untold havoc and leaving an official toll of 138,300 dead and missing. In the days that followed, the sheer scale of the disaster became apparent as information began to seep out from the hard-hit delta area. But the Burmese regime, in an unfathomable decision of near-genocidal proportions, provided little relief to its suffering population and blocked international aid from entering the country. Hundreds of thousands of Burmese citizens lacked food, drinking water, and basic shelter, but the xenophobic generals who rule the country refused emergency help.
Emma Larkin, who has been traveling to and secretly reporting on Burma for years, managed to arrange for a tourist visa in those frenzied days and arrived hoping to help. It was impossible for anyone to gauge just how much devastation the cyclone had left in its wake; by all accounts, including the regime's, it was a catastrophe of epic proportions. In
Everything Is Broken, Emma Larkin chronicles the chaotic days and months that followed the storm, revealing the secretive politics of Burma's military dictatorship and the bizarre combination of vicious military force, religion, and mysticism that defined its unthinkable response to this horrific event.
The Burmese regime hid the full extent of the storm's devastation from the rest of the world, but the terrible consequences for Burma and its citizens continue to play out months after the headlines have faded from newspapers around the world. In
Everything Is Broken, Larkin-whose deep knowledge of the Burmese people has afforded her unprecedented access and a rare understanding of life under Burmese oppression-provides a singular portrait of the regime responsible for compounding the tragedy and examines the historical, religious, and superstitious setting that created Burma's tenacious and brutal dictatorship. Writing under an assumed name, Larkin delivers the heretofore untold story of a disaster that stunned the world, unveiling as she does so the motivations of the impenetrable generals who govern this troubled nation.
The Turning
by Helen Ellis (from Sourcebooks Fire for tour)
Nobody can know your secret.
Nobody can know your power.
But if nobody knows who you are to begin with...what's stopping you?
I whisper, "What's so special about me all of a sudden?"
Nick says, "The Turning."
Mary feels different, but can't explain why. The fainting, the strange cravings...and worse, the things she's noticed about her body.
Mary doesn't know where to turn. If she tells her parents or her sister, she'll risk losing everything. She has no other family, no way of knowing if what she's going through is normal. Everyone she's ever known and loved could reject her...
"Helen Ellis is the kind of writer that makes the pages fly and the kind of friend readers will wish they had growing up."
-Hannah Tinti, ALA Alex Award-winning auth or of
The Good Thief
Magic Keepers: The Pyramid of Souls
(bk 2) by Erica Kirov (provided by Sourcebooks for review)
It was stolen from Alexander the Great. To keep it safe, Edgar Allen Poe bargained away his sanity. And somebody suckered P. T. Barnum to get their hands on it. It's the most closely guarded secret in the magician community. And it's missing.
What would you do to protect your family from an ancient pyramid capable of stealing your very soul?
Nick Rostov finally has the life he's always dreamed-and he'll do anything to protect it.
Nick has only now discovered he is part of an extended Russian family of magicians: the Magickeepers. He lives with his eccentric new relatives at the Winter Palace Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, where they perform daring feats of magic to a packed house. Real magic.
But Nick and his family face a new danger in the form of a stolen relic, the Pyramid of Souls. The tiny pyramid has traded hands many times throughout history. Its power can steal a magician's very soul.
Nick knows who took it: Rasputin, leader of the Shadowkeepers. Using his unique ability as a Gazer-one who can see into the past-Nick enlists his cousin Isabella to help him find it. Soon, the two are hot on the evil sorcerer's trail...until Isabella's soul is trapped by the very relic they're trying to find.
Nick will do anything to rescue Isabella and recover the Pyramid of Souls. But will it be enough to save his family?
The Confessions of Catherine DeMedici
by C.W. Gortner (from publisher for Pump Up Your Book Tour)
Catherine de Medici uses her natural and supernatural gifts to protect the French throne in Gortner's (
The Last Queen) portrait of a queen willing to sacrifice happiness and reputation to fulfill her family's royal destiny. Orphan Catherine has her first vision at age 10, and three years later is betrothed to Henri d'Orleans, brother of the sickly heir to the French throne. She heads to France with a vial of poison hidden among her possessions, and after negotiating an uneasy truce with her husband's mistress, she matures into a powerful court presence, though power, she learns, comes at a price. Three of her sons become king in succession as the widow Catherine wields ever-increasing influence to keep the ambitious de Guise clan at bay and religious adversaries from murdering each other. Gortner's is not the first fictional reinterpretation of a historical villainess—Catherine's role in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, for instance, is recounted in a way sympathetic to her—but hers is remarkably thoughtful in its insight into an unapologetically ruthless queen.
(May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
The Crossing Places
by Elly Griffiths (copy won from GetGlue)
When she's not digging up bones or other ancient objects, quirky, tart-tongued archaeologist Ruth Galloway lives happily alone in a remote area called Saltmarsh near Norfolk, land that was sacred to its Iron Age inhabitants--not quite earth, not quite sea. When a child's bones are found on a desolate beach nearby, Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson calls Galloway for help. Nelson thinks he has found the remains of Lucy Downey, a little girl who went missing ten years ago. Since her disappearance he has been receiving bizarre letters about her, letters with references to ritual and sacrifice. The bones actually turn out to be two thousand years old, but Ruth is soon drawn into the Lucy Downey case and into the mind of the letter writer, who seems to have both archaeological knowledge and eerie psychic powers. Then another child goes missing and the hunt is on to find her. As the letter writer moves closer and the windswept Norfolk landscape exerts its power, Ruth finds herself in completely new territory--and in serious danger.
The Crossing Places marks the beginning of a captivating new crime series featuring an irresistible heroine.
Downloaded from Audible.com:
Succubus on Top
(Georgina Kincaid Bk 2) by Richelle Mead
Love hurts, and no one knows it better than Georgina Kincaid. If she so much as kisses Seth Mortensen, the shy, sexy, incredibly gifted Seattle writer she's been dating, she'll drain his life force. Georgina is a succubus - a demon who draws her power from other men's pleasure. Admittedly, the shapeshifting and immortality perks are terrific, and yes, Georgina did choose to join the ranks of hell centuries ago. But it seems completely unfair that a she-demon whose purpose is seduction can't get hot and heavy with the one mortal who knows and accepts her for who she is...It's not just her personal life that's in chaos. Doug, Georgina's co-worker at a local bookstore, has been exhibiting bizarre behaviour, and Georgina suspects that something far more demonic than double espressos is at work. She could use help finding out, but Bastien, an irresistibly charming incubus and her best immortal friend, is preoccupied with corrupting an ultra-conservative talk radio star - and giving Georgina some highly distracting come-hither vibes. Georgina is going to have to work solo on this one - and fast because soon, Doug's life won't be the only one on the line...
Fallen
by Lauren Kate
Grade 8 Up—Luce must spend her senior year at reform school after her boyfriend dies in a mysterious fire. She suspects that the dark shadows that have tormented her all her life had something to do with it. When she meets supernaturally gorgeous Daniel, she feels a familiar longing, making her believe they have met before. Although Cam is clearly interested in her, Luce only wants Daniel, who runs both hot and cold. He tries to keep Luce at a distance, telling her that the truth would kill her as it has many times before. The first chapter is gripping and foreshadows the supernatural elements to come. The plot revolves around lovers who find one another, only to lose one another over and over again in a story that spans centuries. Instead of vampires, though, these are fallen angels. Many elements are not resolved, such as the cause of the fire and why angels are at this school. Still, fans of supernatural romance will be lining up for this book despite its flaws, and begging for a sequel.—
Kris Hickey, Columbus Metropolitan Library, OH
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Today I am thrilled to pieces to welcome Barry Eva to Cafe of Dreams! Not only is Barry an awesome, kind-hearted, humorous person, but he is also an amazing author! If you have not checked out his work, you must do so!!! I had the pleasure of reviewing Across the Pond
a while back (click here to check out the review) and it is an excellent and memorable YA story!! 
It was one of those summer days that live in ones memories forever, ones that start before dawn and never seem to end. The sky was as blue as the glass in the windows of Notre Dame Cathedral. I’d planned and spending the day with my then girlfriend. We drove the few miles from the house to the seafront, where the blue of the sea seemed to merge into that of the sky. The white topped waves gently played along the length of the horizon, like a dressmaker adding frills to a dress, only enhancing the view. The sun, like a golden globe beat gently down on us, kept from the heat by the cool breeze that wafted across the two of us as we lay lost in the sandy hills that surrounded a small cove. 
: A Novel of the Middle Ages
