Mailbox Monday - August 29th

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.  August is the month for hosting by Staci of Life in the Thumb.  She's not only hosting, but she's got some great giveaways going, so stop on over there after you're done here.

This week, I got some really exciting books:
From Simon and Schuster, I received an ARC:

 A Thousand Lives, the untold story of Faith, Deception, and survival at Jonestown by Julia Scheeres

In 1954, a pastor named Jim Jones opened a church in Indianapolis called Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church. He was a charismatic preacher with idealistic beliefs, and he quickly filled his pews with an audience eager to hear his sermons on social justice. After Jones moved his church to Northern California in 1965, he became a major player in Northern California politics; he provided vital support in electing friendly political candidates to office, and they in turn offered him a protective shield that kept stories of abuse and fraud out of the papers. Even as Jones's behavior became erratic and his message more ominous, his followers found it increasingly difficult to pull away from the church. By the time Jones relocated the Peoples Temple a final time to a remote jungle in Guyana and the U.S. Government decided to investigate allegations of abuse and false imprisonment in Jonestown, it was too late.

A Thousand Lives is the story of Jonestown as it has never been told before. New York Times bestselling author Julia Scheeres drew from thousands of recently declassified FBI documents and audiotapes, as well as rare videos and interviews, to piece together an unprecedented and compelling history of the doomed camp, focusing on the people who lived there.

The people who built Jonestown wanted to forge a better life for themselves and their children. They sought to create a truly egalitarian society. In South America, however, they found themselves trapped in Jonestown and cut off from the outside world as their leader goaded them toward committing "revolutionary suicide" and deprived them of food, sleep, and hope. Yet even as Jones resorted to lies and psychological warfare, Jonestown residents fought for their community, struggling to maintain their gardens, their school, their families, and their grip on reality.

Then DownEast Books, our own world class publishing house here in Maine sent me another two of their latest.  They have really been putting out some awesome books lately, and I'm truly honored to get advanced copies of these two:

Port City black & white - Gerry Boyle

A Brandon Blake Mystery

Brandon Blake, the tough and resourceful kid from the Portland waterfront, has made it. He’s been hired by the Portland Police Department, partly as payback for stopping a vicious cop killer in Port City Shakedown. But the newest rookie on the night shift isn’t pulling any punches. And when a drug-addled mom can’t find her baby, Blake—
whose mother left him and was killed when he was a toddler— comes down on her hard. Except the baby really is gone. Was he stolen and sold? Traded for drugs? Blake and his partner, the take-no-crap triathloner Kat, join the rest of the force as they search for the missing child. They are up against city gangs, working families who think the
city is going to hell, and the media—pressing the police to find the child, dead or alive, blaming Blake for setting off a chain of events that includes suicides, home invasions, and demonstrations in the city’s streets.
Meanwhile, Blake’s girlfriend, aspiring writer Mia, sees Brandon drifting into the world of cops and crime and leaving her behind. He doesn’t fit in with her hip friends and is particularly uncomfortable around her best friend Lily, a trust-funder, and Lily’s partner, the handsome Winston from Barbados, who runs a trendy Old Port restaurant.
Brandon’s relentless search for the child brings a load of trouble down on him, threatens his career, his life, his relationship. Will he end up alone on his old cabin cruiser Bay Witch? Or worse?

Maine's Most Scenic Roads

25 Routes off the Beaten Path

by  John Gibson

Tucked away among Maine’s blue highways are stretches of road that are beautiful, and a joy to discover. In this fully updated edition of Maine’s Most Scenic Roads there are trips that are close by, or just far enough away to fit whatever kind of escape you’re looking for.

Maine’s Most Scenic Roads offers a selection of the best drives in all areas of the state, including loop routes, as well as point-to-point. Each can also be worked into a larger itinerary. Thorough directions and easy-to-follow maps ensure that the reader can relax and enjoy the view.

 I'm definitely going to put this one on the guest room night stand!