Monday Mailbox

This month  Monday Mailbox  is being hosted by Mari at MariReads. The wonderful weekly meme gives us a chance to shout out books that have appeared in our mailboxes (real or virtual).  I haven't played the game in a while (it's a little hard for the UPS truck to get down our long windy driveway in the snow), but here are the ones that were delivered in the last two weeks.

Fonduing Fathers by Juli Hyzy was a contest win from Karen at Bookin' With Bingo.  I've read a couple of Hyzy's mysteries, love cozies, and having spent several years living just outside the DC beltway, I'm looking forward to this one. It's on the top of the summer reading list. 

White House executive chef Olivia Paras has enough on her plate. But after gaining new information about her father’s death, the First Family isn’t the only family Olivia is concerned about… Olivia has always believed that her father was an honorable man—until a trip to visit her mother reveals that he was dishonorably discharged from the army. Olivia is even more shocked to learn that he was brutally murdered because someone at his company suspected him of selling corporate secrets. Refusing to believe that her father was a scoundrel, Olivia won’t rest until she proves his innocence. Enlisting the help of her boyfriend, Gav, Olivia must reach out to her father’s colleagues to discover the truth behind his murder. What she’s about to discover may not only put her at risk, but threaten national security as well…

Miss Julia Stirs up Trouble. This latest in the delightful series by Ann B. Ross is scheduled for release by Viking/Penguin next week.  I received a review copy from the publisher, and will be running a giveaway toward the middle of April.  Stay tuned, because Miss Julia fans are not going to want to miss this one!

With a crisp bite in the air, Miss Julia is enjoying a well-earned respite by her new fireplace. But autumn leaves aren’t the only things falling: James, Hazel Marie’s housekeeper, has had a nasty tumble down some stairs. How can Hazel Marie feed and take care of him—not to mention a husband and two babies—when she barely knows how to boil water?

Miss Julia jumps in to help by convincing the ladies of Abbotsville to put on their aprons and give cooking lessons. With success so close she can taste it, Miss Julia isn’t thrilled when an unexpected visitor shows up. Brother Vern Puckett, Hazel Marie’s no-good uncle, started life on the wrong foot and stayed there. What could he possibly want from his frazzled niece this time?

With a delightful helping of madcap antics, Miss Julia Stirs Up Trouble is a perfect next course in this charming series.

 Darcy Scott, author of the fabulous debut novel Matinicus, an Island Mystery, has just published her next story in the series: Reese's Leap.   Maine Authors Publishing has sent me a review copy and I'm anxious to get to this one.  I loved the first (it was one of the most popular in our town library last year) and expect this one will be every bit as exciting and enjoyable.

In this much-anticipated sequel to the award-winning Matinicus, five longtime friends--briefly freed from their complex lives for an annual, all-female retreat on Adria Jackman's remote, 200-acre enclave of Mistake Island, Maine--are forced to put the partying on hold to host the hard-drinking, bachelor botanist, Gil Hodges, stranded there for what could be days. A hopeless womanizer, Gill is secretly pleased at the layover, but soon finds Mistake's deeply forested interior deceptively bucolic and the women a bit too intriguing for comfort, stirring both glorious memory and profound regret. When a ruthless, diabolical stranger appears out of nowhere, insinuating himself into the fold and bent on a twisted kind of revenge, it falls to Gil to keep the women safe, despite their dawning awareness that not everyone will make it off the island alive.

And finally,  Maine Authors Publishing also sent a review copy of Joel Chandler's debut crime novel The Fine Art of Murder.  I'm thinking May is going to be a marvelous mystery month with this many good ones stacking up.

 A murder is committed in an art gallery overnight by a copycat artist, using the same manner, technique and materials used by the artist whose work is on display. An art critic is convinced that the perpetrator has committed this murder, not because of the usual motives of revenge, anger, jealousy, greed, etc. but as a work of fine art in itself. If he is right, the key to discovering the anonymous murderer is to correctly attribute the work to an artist. A police detective is skeptical of the critic's assumptions and pursues the murder in her usual ways and finds a few suspects with compelling motives. The critic follows several preconceived ideas, assumptions, and false clues to no avail. Who will tag the murderer first? Meanwhile art students and faculty of nearby Boston art colleges are convinced that the person responsible, if an artist, will surely reveal himself on his own, and wanting credit and acclaim for a famous and major work of art, will eventually come forward and sign the work as his or her own.

So what was in your mailbox lately?  Next week, I'll let you take a peak at my virtual mailbox....it's been pretty full lately too.