Mailbox Monday - June 13th

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!

Created by Marcia at The Printed Page, Mailbox Monday, now has its own blog. Hosting duties are being rotated every month. Now that we're into June, The Bluestocking Guide is our host.  Be sure to stop on over and see what everyone else got this week.

Again this week, my books arrived via  physical mail people and through the virtual e-mailbox.

The Reading Promise 

by Alice Ozma

This one arrived as an e-galley from Hachette Book Group.  I've seen this one on the boards a lot these past two weeks, and it looks like a great book for all ages.  The publishers blurb:

When Alice Ozma (the author) was in 4th grade, she and her father decided to see if he could read aloud to her for 100 consecutive nights.  On the hundredth night, they shared pancakes to celebrate, but it soon became evident that neither wanted to let go of their reading ritual.  So they decided to continue what they called "The Streak."  Alice's father read aloud to her every night without fail until the day she left for college.  Alice approaches her book as a series of vignettes about her relationship with her father and the life lessons learned from the books he read to her.

The Orchard

by Jeffrey Stepakoff

Last year, I was fortunate enough to win an ARC of Stepakoff's first novel "Fireworks over Toccoa".  I was absolutely enchanted with that one, so when the publisher Thomas Dunne Books offered me an ARC of his latest (release date July 5th) The Orchard, I jumped at the chance.  It will be at the top of July's list- nothing like a good romance to warm up the summer.
The publicity tells us:

Grace Lyndon is a rising ingenue in the world of perfumes and flavors; a stiletto-wearing, work-a-holic in Atlanta, she develops aromas and tastes to enthrall the senses. Dylan Jackson is a widowed single father whose heart and hands have been calloused in the fields of his North Georgia apple farm. When Grace happens to taste an apple picked from Dylan’s trees, it changes both their lives forever. Determined to track down the apple’s origin, Grace sets off in the middle of the night where she finds not only a beautiful mountain orchard in the clouds, but the mysterious man who owns it. In Stepakoff’s heartbreaking eloquence, their sudden yet undeniable attraction is threatened—leaving readers with a momentous finale that proves Jeffrey Stepakoff is a master craftsman of the heart.

Turn of Mind

by Alice La Plante  

Another one due out July 5th is from Grove Atlantic Press.  The e-galley arrived via Net Galley and is now residing on my Nook.  There have been several excellent books published in the past year in which Alzheimer's plays a central role.  This one is going to be novel mystery that has all the markings of one that will be an all-nighter:

A stunning first novel, both literary and thriller, about a retired orthopedic surgeon with dementia, Turn of Mind has already received worldwide attention. With unmatched patience and a pulsating intensity, Alice LaPlante brings us deep into a brilliant woman’s deteriorating mind, where the impossibility of recognizing reality can be both a blessing and a curse.

As the book opens, Dr. Jennifer White’s best friend, Amanda, who lived down the block, has been killed, and four fingers surgically removed from her hand. Dr. White is the prime suspect and she herself doesn’t know whether she did it. Told in White’s own voice, fractured and eloquent, a picture emergesof the surprisingly intimate, complex alliance between these life-long friends—two proud, forceful women who were at times each other’s most formidable adversaries. As the investigation into the murder deepens andWhite’s relationships with her live-in caretaker and two grown childrenintensify, a chilling question lingers: is White’s shattered memory preventing her from revealing the truth or helping her to hide it?

Astartling portrait of a disintegrating mind clinging to bits of realitythrough anger, frustration, shame, and unspeakable loss, Turn of Mind is a remarkable debut that examines the deception and frailty of memory and how it defines our very existence.

The Haunted Bookshop

by Christopher Morley

I was so enchanted by Morley's Parnassus on Wheels, that I grabbed this  recently reissued classic- the sequel- for my own.  I don't own a Kindle, but it's such a delightful book, I don't mind using the Kindle PC app to grab bargain priced books that I really want to read.  If it's half as much fun as the first one, it will be well worth the $1.99.  And I didn't even have to drive to to post office for this one.

Can you tell I'm really becoming a fan of e-books? 

So......what landed in your various mailboxes (real and virtual this week?)