Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday started by Marcia at A Girl and Her Books 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). This month Mailbox Monday is being hosted by Staci at Life in the Thumb. Stop by there to check out everyone else's mailboxes.

Because I have taken an unintended blogging break, I have a bunch of books to get caught up on. Here is the list....

From Goodreads: What makes up a family? For Casey it's sharing a house with her fiance, Michael, and his three children, whom she intends to nurture more than she ever took care of herself. But Casey's plans have come undone. Michael's silences have grown unfathomable and deep. His daughter Angel seethes as only a teenage girl can, while the wide-eyed youngest, Jewel, quietly takes it all in.
Then Michael's son, Dylan, runs off, and the kids' mother, a woman never afraid to say what she thinks, noisily barges into the home. That's when Casey decides that the silences can no longer continue. She must begin speaking the words no one else can say. She'll have to dig up secrets—including her own—uncovering the hurts, and begin the healing that is long overdue. And it all starts with just a few tentative words. . . .
This one was a Godoreads FirstReads win, I am looking forward to it as I very much enjoyed her other book I read.


From Goodreads: Everyone wins this game of literary tennis, a comedy of manners about envy in which Wickham skewers the nouveau riche. At their country estate, Patrick Chance and his wife host a weekend tennis party. As four couples gather on the sunny terrace, it seems obvious who among them is succeeding, and who is falling behind. But by the end of the party, nothing will be quite as certain. While the couples’ children amuse themselves with pony rides and rehearsals for a play, the adults suffer a series of personal revelations and crises. Wickham’s nonstop action reveals at every turn that matters may not be as they seem, and in the end one thing is crystal clear: the weekend is about anything but tennis. This was a win from the Library Thign Early Reviewer Program. I love Sophie Kinsella (who uses her alternate name Madeleine Wickham to pen this one) so I am expecting to enjoy it despite seeing others only gave it two stars.


From Amazon: Since his first captivating adventure in Hector and the Search for Happiness, Hector the young French psychiatrist has continued to explore the mysteries of the human soul. Having found that love seems virtually inseparable from happiness, he begins taking notes on this powerful emotion. But unbeknownst to him, Clara, the doctor's beloved, is making her own investigations into love. As much a love story as a novel about love, Hector and the Secrets of Love is a feel-good life manual wrapped in a globetrotting adventure, told with the blend of a fairy tale's naïve wisdom and a satirist's dry wit that has won Hector fans around the world. This one was a win from the Library Thing Early Reviewers program too. I've started this one in my carand it has taken awhile to grow on me, we'll see how it goes.


From Goodreads: Lippman sets many of the stories in this anthology, Hardly Knew Her, in familiar territory: her beloved Baltimore, from downtown to its affluent suburbs, where successful businessmen go to shocking lengths to protect what they have or ruthlessly expand their holdings, while dissatisfied wives find murderous ways to escape their lives. But Lippman is also unafraid to travel - to New Orleans, to an unnamed southwestern city, and even to Dublin, the backdrop for the lethal clash of two not-so-innocents abroad. Tess Monaghan is here, in two stories and a profile, aligning herself with various underdogs. And in her extraordinary, never-beforepublished novella, Scratch a Woman, Lippman takes us deep into the private world of a high-priced call girl/madam and devoted soccer mom, exploring the mystery of what may, in fact, be written in the blood.
I haven't read a Laura Lippman before despite reading so many positive reviews of her work. This was a win but I have searched my e-mail and can't remember from where! Was it you? If so, thank you!!

From Goodreads: A year after taking the chance of a lifetime, Cici, Lindsay, and Bridget are still trying to make a home for themselves on the newly-renovated Ladybug Farm. Life in the Shenandoah Valley is picturesque, but filled with unexpected trials— such as the introduction of two young people into the ordered life the women have tried to build for themselves. As the walls of the old house reveal their secrets and the lives of those who have gone before begin to unfold, the cobbled-together household starts to disintegrate into chaos. And when one of their members is threatened by a real crisis, they must all come together to fight for the roots they’ve laid down, the hopes they share, and the family they’ve become. Found this one at the Library Used Books and remembered how many people loved the Ladybug Farm so had to pick it up.

From Goodreads: Originally published in Switzerland, and gracefully translated into English by Carol Brown Janeway, The Reader is a brief tale about sex, love, reading, and shame in postwar Germany. Michael Berg is 15 when he begins a long, obsessive affair with Hanna, an enigmatic older woman. He never learns very much about her, and when she disappears one day, he expects never to see her again. But, to his horror, he does. Hanna is a defendant in a trial related to Germany's Nazi past, and it soon becomes clear that she is guilty of an unspeakable crime. As Michael follows the trial, he struggles with an overwhelming question: What should his generation do with its knowledge of the Holocaust? "We should not believe we can comprehend the incomprehensible, we may not compare the incomparable.... Should we only fall silent in revulsion, shame, and guilt? To what purpose?"Another old one that I came across for a quarter.

From Goodreads: In this sequel to the top-selling A Girl Named Zippy, the woman rising heroically from the couch is Zippy's mother, Dolonda. After years of languorous existence, this oversized couch potato emerged from the den to pursue a higher education. Dolonda was well read but in other ways seemed ill suited for college: This middle-aged, 260-pound coed had a husband who disapproved of the entire venture, no driver's license, and almost no money. Like its predecessor, She Got Up Off the Couch holds our attention with its sympathetic rendering of idiosyncratic family characters. Hilarious; heartbreaking; ultimately empowering.Never heard of this one but it sounds funny, I am a memoir junkie.

From Goodreads: Shopaholic Becky Bloomwood is pregnant, but the prospect of motherhood hasn't reined in her passion for fashion. In fact, this insatiable London shopper has a new excuse for raiding boutiques, catalogues, and baby shops for goodies. Amid all this happy expectation, though, lurks a major problem. Becky has become convinced that her hubby Luke has been fiddling with vampish obstetrician Venetia Carter. To allay her fears, our self-indulgent personal shopper hires a private detective to track down the truth. It won't surprise Shopaholic fans that this sets off a madcap romp that is more fun than an afternoon at Prada.I've committed to the series thus far - have to see it through until the bitter end.