Monday Mailbox - Sept 26th - Personal deliveries

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.  September, is the month for hosting by Amused at Amused by Books. Be sure to stop by and say howdy.

Since we knew we were going to be gone for much of September and a chunk of October, I deliberately refrained from accepting too many review requests, and confined myself to e-galleys through Net Galley.  However, last week, I had the chance to meet-up with Caite of A Lovely Shore Breeze.  We met in my small town library, where I gave her the grand tour (how grand can a whole 936 square feet get?) and then adjuourned across the street to our local general store cum cafe (AKA "The Gig") so she could partake of an honest to gosh whoopie pie.

While we chatted away about the merits of cheese steak sandwiches (with or without mayo), e-readers, lighthouses, fog, tour groups, ugly Americans overseas, etc etc., we chanced upon the topic of one of our mutually favorite authors Louise Penny.  I allowed as how I was panting to get my hands on the newest one, but just had not had a chance yet.  I was planning to break down and buy it for my Nook, and have it on order for our library.  She allowed as how she had the audio copy IN HER CAR!!!!! (can you see me drooling already?????)  and that she'd finished it, and that she was not an overall fan of audio, so she couldn't see herself ever listening to it again, and WOULD I LIKE TO HAVE IT???  Now since the Gig Store is right next door to the Post Office where I get my mail, I think this counts as the Mailbox delivery of all time!  I didn't even have to grovel--although I was prepared to offer up something close to the equivalent of my first-born for this treat.  What a lovely lovely gift and what a lovely lovely treat to be able to meet a fellow blogger in person.  Caite my dear, my reciprocal grab-bag is open...just let me know what strikes your fancy (first borns are excluded) and it will be on the way.   And, dear readers,  if you haven't yet visited Caite's blog....get over there---her photography is drop dead gorgeous, and the reviews aren't half-bad either.

I realize this isn't saying too much about this book, but since I know I'll be listening to it very soon, and I don't expect from reviews so far that I will be anything but thrilled about it, I'm sure you'll be able to hang on until then.  It's Louise Penny, it's Armand Gamage, it's Three Pines. What else is there to say?
Here's the Marketing blurb:

Penny has been compared to Agatha Christie [but] it sells her short. Her characters are too rich, her grasp of nuance and human psychology too firm...." --Booklist (starred review)
“Hearts are broken,” Lillian Dyson carefully underlined in a book. “Sweet relationships are dead.”
But now Lillian herself is dead. Found among the bleeding hearts and lilacs of Clara Morrow's garden in Three Pines, shattering the celebrations of Clara's solo show at the famed Musée in Montreal. Chief Inspector Gamache, the head of homicide at the Sûreté du Québec, is called to the tiny Quebec village and there he finds the art world gathered, and with it a world of shading and nuance, a world of shadow and light.  Where nothing is as it seems.  Behind every smile there lurks a sneer. Inside every sweet relationship there hides a broken heart.  And even when facts are slowly exposed, it is no longer clear to Gamache and his team if what they've found is the truth, or simply a trick of the light.  

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Children of the Street

Kwei Quartey

Now the other book that arrived in my e-galley mailbox is another one by Kwei Quartey in the Inspector Darko Dawson Mystery series.  I've reviewed the first one "Wife of the Gods" and have been anxiously awaiting this next one in the series.  Darko Dawson is a delightful character, and I enjoyed getting to know something about the culture and people of Ghana that Quartey describes so well.

Here's the publisher's blurb on this one:

In the slums of Accra, Ghana’s fast-moving, cosmopolitan capital, teenagers are turning up dead. Inspector Darko Dawson has seen many crimes, but this latest string of murders—in which all the young victims bear a chilling signature—is the most unsettling of his career. Are these heinous acts a form of ritual killing or the work of a lone, cold-blooded monster? With time running out, Dawson embarks on a harrowing journey through the city’s underbelly and confronts the brutal world of the urban poor, where street children are forced to fight for their very survival—and a cunning killer seems just out of reach.
Kwei Quartey was raised in Ghana by an African American mother and a Ghanaian father, both of whom were university lecturers. Dr. Kwei Quartey practices medicine in Southern California, rising early in the morning to write before going to work. He is currently writing his next novel.

  It's going to be a great autumn reading and listening to these two.  What was in your mailbox this week?