Giveaway of Katherine’s Wish and The Etruscan by Linda Lappin

As I mentioned yesterday, Linda Lappin has generously offered to send a copy of Katherine’s Wish to one of my readers (read my review) and a copy of The Etruscan to another reader.

As I have not read The Etruscan, here is a brief synopsis:

Set in the early 1920s, in the middle of Etruscan country north of Rome, this wildly romantic first novel unburies the nearly lost genre of the literary Gothic. Told through alternating points of view and diary entries, it recounts the story of Harriet Sackett, an independent lady traveler and photographer who leaves the staid society of England in order to photograph and research Etruscan tombs on behalf of the London Theosophical Society.*

Reviews of The Etruscan are available on these sites:
Roman Road Walks (scroll down to second review)
The Irish Emigrant
The Literary Review

You can also visit www.theetruscan.com, which contains a clickable map of the area of Harriet’s explorations, with audiofiles and photos.

Finally, you can watch a YouTube video about the book.

This giveaway is open to residents of Canada, the U.S. and Europe, and I will accept entries until 11:59 PM Eastern Time on Friday, July 17.

For one entry, post a comment here and let me know which book you would like to win. You can indicate that you are interested in both; however, you can only win one (so be sure to let me know which one you want most). Entries that don’t include a blog link or email address will be disqualified.

For another entry, let me know if you like reading fiction based on the lives of real people. If so, what’s your favourite book in this genre?

For another entry, post a relevant comment on my review of Katherine’s Wish. If you’ve already done so, that counts too!

For another five entries, become a follower of my blog or subscribe to my blog through Google Reader (or equivalent). If you are already a follower or subscriber, let me know and you will still get the five extra entries. (Please do not comment that you are a follower five times! I will tabulate each person’s entries separately.)

Best of luck!

*This description was taken from www.theetruscan.com.

Teaser Tuesdays (June 30)

Should Be Reading hosts the Teaser Tuesdays weekly event.

My modified rules are as follows:

Grab your current read. Pick two or three “teaser” sentences more or less at random from the book, anywhere on the page. You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your teaser from… that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given! (Please avoid spoilers!) (Read the official Teaser Tuesday rules.)

My teaser:


“The truth is I’ve never leaned to ride a bicycle, because, among other reasons, it is something you can never forget. This is who I am: someone who simultaneously longs for and fears the commitment of remembering” (p. 3).

This is from The Opposite of Love by Julie Buxbaum.

Katherine’s Wish by Linda Lappin (a review)

Katherine’s Wish by Linda Lappin is a fictionalized account of the last five years of the writer Katherine Mansfield’s life, from 1918 to 1923, told from the alternating points of view of Mansfield herself; her husband, John Middleton Murry; and her companion, Ida Constance Baker. During that time, Mansfield lived in France, England, Italy and Switzerland, ever in search of a place to both write and recover from the tuberculosis that would eventually kill her.

I found the first part of this book a bit hard to get into. Not only do all three of the main characters come across as unlikeable, but Lappin also seems to be cramming in background information about Mansfield in a way that feels forced, given the structure of the novel. This results in passages like this one:

Upon her return, [Katherine] would put an end to all that [Murry’s affairs], by marrying Murry, once her divorce from George Bowden came through at last. What a terrible mistake that had been: marrying Bowden on the spur of the moment, simply because he adored her and seemed so well-connected. Of course, that wasn’t the real reason she had let George rush her to the altar. The real reason had been the fatherless child in her womb, Garnet’s child, the baby she had lost later in Bavaria. And that had all been Mother’s fault. She would never have miscarried if Mother hadn’t sent her to that dreadful spa to get her away from Ida. (p. 12)

This feels disjointed and I would imagine very confusing to someone who is unfamiliar with Mansfield’s history.

Luckily, once the stage is set, the narrative focuses on the novel’s present (1918-1923) and flows much more smoothly. Although I’m not familiar enough with Mansfield’s writing to judge whether Lappin was successful in reproducing her style, I certainly felt like I was getting a glimpse into Mansfield’s mind. Above all, Lappin captures Mansfield’s fierce desire to write despite all odds and at whatever cost—these were my favourite parts of the book. Here, for example, are some of (the fictionalized) Mansfield’s thoughts on writing:

Certainly there was nothing like it: to be divided always into two or more, a multitude of selves. To be the detached observer, sitting in a carriage, driving along the sea, clinging to the cold handle of the carriage door, smelling the tang of salt in the air, and at the very same instant to hang suspended in the silver flash of rain against a smoky sky, to be scattered in the foam blowing along the strand. . . . Passenger and driver, the little boy in a blue cape, nibbling strawberries at the roadside, the high-stepping horse and the roiling sea were all parts of herself. (p. 170)

And here is (the fictionalized) Virginia Woolf describing her journal to Mansfield:

‘It’s like a madwoman’s dream, or like a deep drawer in an old desk where I collect shreds and scraps of my daily impressions which I later reassemble in obsessive experiments.’ (p. 154)

Lappin writes with such compassion for her characters that I soon forgot that I had initially found them unlikeable (with the exception perhaps of Murry). As the end of the novel neared, I found myself almost hoping that it would end differently, that Mansfield would somehow be given more time.

Check out these sites for other reviews of Katherine’s Wish:
Absinthe Minded • Perigee: Publication for the Arts • Rain Taxi

Also visit Sheri’s blog for a guest post by the author:
Bookopolis

Katherine’s Wish won the Gold Medal for Historical Fiction at the 2009 IPPY Awards as well as an honorable mention for the Eric Hoffer Award in 2009. It was also a finalist for the 2008 ForeWord Book of the Year Award.

Are you interested in reading this book? Author Linda Lappin has generously offered to send a copy of this novel to one of my readers in Canada, the U.S. or Europe. She has also offered to send a copy of her first novel, The Etruscan, to another reader. Come back tomorrow for all the details.

Thank you to Linda Lappin for sending me this book to review.


This is the eighth book I review for the New Authors Challenge.

Mailbox Monday (June 29)

I haven’t received any books in a couple of weeks, so I was pretty happy to find a package in my mailbox this morning. Turns out it was a copy of Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey into a Family Secret by Steve Luxenberg, which was sent to me by Marcia at The Printed Page through her generous Read It Forward program. Thanks, Marcia!

What did you find in your mailbox this past week? For other Mailbox Monday posts, head over to Marcia’s blog, The Printed Page.

Friday Finds (June 26)

What great books have you added to your wish list this week? Share your Friday Finds at Should Be Reading.

Here are the books that made it onto my wish list this week:

I first heard of Sweeping Up Glass by Carolyn Wall on Gwen’s blog, Literary License, and then read Wendy’s review on her blog, Musings of a Bookish Kitty. An excerpt of the first chapter is available on the Random House site.

Cathy at Kittling: Books reviewed The Keeper of Secrets by Judith Cutler. Although she said “everything fell into place way too early,” it still sounds like a good read to me.

Eva at A Striped Armchair mentioned Snoop: What Your Stuff Says about You by Sam Gosling in her Library Loot post this week, which she had discovered from reading Bride of the Book God’s review.

Linda at Better with Books (another Montrealer!) reviewed The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World by Marti Olsen Laney, which sounds like just the kind of book I need to read.

First Tina at Bookshipper reviewed What’s the Best You Can Do: First-Hand Recollections by a Second-Hand Bookseller by Derek Rowlinson, then Cindy at Cindy’s Love of Books reviewed it too. I’m hoping one of them will pass on their copy to me...

Finally, Amy at My Friend Amy reviewed Nothing But Ghosts by Beth Kephart and has launched a book drive (with prizes!) with the goal of selling 200 copies of this book by next Friday, July 3. Lenore at Presenting Lenore is helping with this effort and has also reviewed the book and interviewed the author.

Braids, polygamy and what girls learn...

Here is a series of covers that feature a woman with braided hair from the back:

The first two covers are exact lookalikes: The Age of Shiva by Manil Suri and La part manquante by Christian Bobin (originally in French, translated as The Missing Part).

The other two pairs are very similar: two different covers for What Girls Learn by Karin Cook, which look like The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams (down to the pink title!) and The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff, both of which happen to be novels about polygamy.

I think my favourite cover is The Chosen One, but that may be because I read the cover story, which explains the significance of this image, over at Melissa Walker’s blog. (I do think its similarity to What Girls Learn is uncanny!)

I recently won a copy of The Chosen One from Natasha at Maw Books Blog (yay!), so I should be reviewing it sometime this summer.

Post-Bloggiesta blues...

You know that feeling you get after a particularly fun (and intense) visit with family or friends, after they’ve gone home and the noise level in your house has gone from constant to nonexistent? It’s a blah let-down kind of feeling, like the party’s over and all that’s left are mountains of dishes to be done. That’s pretty much how I’ve been feeling for the past few days now that the Bloggiesta is over and life’s gone back to normal. It doesn’t help that I’m on a book pause—I’m supposedly reading Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood by Taras Grescoe but I haven’t really gotten into it yet and I haven’t opened it in over a week. I guess there’s nothing for it, I just have to bite bullet and start washing dishes! (Hmm, I’m not sure this metaphor is totally working for me... Which part of blogging is like washing dishes?)

Many thanks again to Natasha at Maw Books Blog for organizing this fabulous event!

If you have no idea what I’m on about, I apologize. Otherwise, please commiserate with me!

Bloggiesta update #3: Wrap-up post

Fifteen hours, one cup of coffee* and one sleepless night later, Bloggiesta is over. Thank you so much, Natasha, for organizing this fantastic event. And thank you to all the bloggers who hosted the great mini-challenges!

In some ways, I feel like I completely blew it, as I only managed to write one review and start two others (and wrote no other posts!) and didn’t even finish replying to all my comments. However, I did accomplish lots of other things:

Mini-challenges (9 out of 12):

• I updated my Google Alerts and created Technorati watchlists (Emily’s mini-challenge at Emily’s Reading Room).
• I updated my top 10 posts (as well as just about every other post on my blog!) (Jen’s mini-challenge at Devourer of Books).
• I ran my blog through Website Grader (Ruth’s mini-challenge at Bookish Ruth) and my website grade rose from 92% to 93% as a result of completing the Bloggiesta.
• I commented on approximately 20 blogs (Jill’s mini-challenge at Fizzy Thoughts).
• I cleaned up my Google Reader and added categories for the first time (Rebecca’s mini-challenge at The Book Lady’s Blog).
• I now have a blogging buddy and will hopefully find more (Amy’s mini-challenge at My Friend Amy).
• I registered with BlogCatalog and updated my profile on a couple of other directories (Lynn’s mini-challenge at Chronicle of an Infant Bibliophile).
• I spend a HUGE amount of time fixing anchor text (Michelle’s mini-challenge at GalleySmith).
• I now have a gravatar (Trish’s mini-challenge at Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’), though I still need to figure out how to create a favicon!

Other accomplishments:

• I updated my challenge posts (thank you to Sandra at Fresh Ink Books for inspiring me to do this).
• I updated my “similar covers” posts (in some cases replacing images with larger versions; I also added a couple of images to my collection of bowler hat covers).
  
• I went through my entire blog and replace all the “click here” links with proper anchoring text (the only ones I didn’t bother changing were links for obsolete giveaways).
• Using the Link Evaluator add-on for Firefox (which I found out about from Wendy at caribousmom), I double-checked all the links on my blog. This also helped me spot missing links and quite a few typos!

This was my first experience with this kind of challenge so I really wasn’t sure what to expect. I do think I should have spent more time writing posts and less time tweaking my blog, especially since I didn’t do anything that’s really obvious! But still I’m happy with what I accomplished. Next time, though, I think I’d prefer the Bloggiesta to be held over the weekend (or maybe over three days?).

OK, I need to go to sleep now. I’ll do the rounds and comment on folks’ wrap-up posts next week!

*This was only my second cup of coffee in the last 17 years, so it was very effective for keeping me up all night!

Edited to add:
If you’ve read this post before and wonder why it looks completely different, I just fixed the formatting, not the content!

Bloggiesta update #2

I meant to post this update much earlier and it slipped my mind!

I’ve only written one review so far (ack!), but I’m still hopeful that between now and tomorrow morning I’ll be able to write a few more. (Since I’m a night owl, this is not completely outside the realm of possibility.)

I’ve completed five and a half more challenges:

Fizzy Thoughts (commented on a dozen new-to-me blogs as well as several blogs I’m already familiar with)

The Book Lady’s Blog (cleaned up my Google Reader, which meant deleting blogs that are no longer active or that I don’t really read, adding categories and renaming subscriptions to include the blogger’s name in parentheses; I also added new blogs of course!)

My Friend Amy (sent out two emails requesting official “blogger buddy” status; I haven’t heard from either of them, a fact I’m trying not to be paranoid about!)

Chronicle of an Infant Bibliophile (added my name to the BlogCatalog site and updated a couple of my entries on other directories)

GalleySmith (thanks to Natasha, I already knew about the proper way to use anchor text, but I went back and fixed several of my old posts)

Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’ (signed up for a gravatar, but haven’t created a favicon yet)

I also replied to some of the comments on my blog, but I still have lots more to reply to. I may have to resort to coffee (which I’ve only had once in the last 17 years!) in order to continue bloggiesta-ing for many more hours!

Edited to add:
I forgot to mention that I’ve spent another six hours on the Bloggiesta!

Bloggiesta update #1

Officially, the Bloggiesta challenge has been going on for over 24 hours, but I’ve only managed to work on it for 3 hours so far!

I haven’t finished writing any reviews yet (although I’ve worked on one), but I have (almost) completed three mini-challenges:

Emily’s Reading Room (updated my Google Alerts and created Technorati watchlists)

Devourer of Books (updated my 5 top posts as well as a handful of others; I’d like to do more for this mini-challenge if I have time)

Bookish Ruth (graded my blog using Website Grader, but still need to comment on Ruth’s blog)

I’m hoping to spend most of today bloggiesta-ing (!), so hopefully I can complete a few more mini-challenges AND cross lots of reviews off my list... Wish me luck!

Bloggiesta starts now!

Natasha at Maw Books came up with this great idea: The Bloggiesta challenge asks us to focus on “blog content, improving/ cleaning up your blog or working on your social network profiles.” In other words, catching up! It officially started at 8 a.m. today (in whatever time zone you are in) and runs for 48 hours. I’m hoping to spend 12 hours on it at least, but we’ll see! (I’m going out to lunch with clients today, so that will definitely cut into my day.)

My priorities are:

• writing book reviews (I have 18 to write at the moment!)
• replying to comments on my blog (I’m at least two weeks behind)
  
• cleaning up my blog
• writing an opinion post
  

Reviews are really the top priority—ideally I’d like to write at least six.

These are the books I need to review:

• The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade by Thomas Lynch
• The Pages in Between: A Holocaust Legacy of Two Families, One Home* by Erin Einhorn
• Skin Deep by E. M. Crane
• Willing Spirits* by Phyllis Schieber
• Sing Them Home* by Stephanie Kallos
• Coventry* by Helen Humphreys
• The Next Big Thing by Johanna Edwards
• Places I Never Meant to Be: Original Stories by Censored Writers edited by Judy Blume
• The Wishing Year: An Experiment in Desire by Noelle Oxenhandler
• Between Friends: A Year in Letters by Oonagh Berry and Helen Levine
• Giving Up: The Last Days of Sylvia Plath by Jillian Becker
• A Troubled Guest: Life and Death Stories by Nancy Mairs
• The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
• In Summer Light by Zibby Oneal
• What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman
• Keeping Watch by Laurie R. King
• Katherine’s Wish* by Linda Lappin
• The Local News* by Miriam Gershow

Are you participating in this challenge? Do you have any suggestions for how I can improve my blog? Please let me know!

*These are books I accepted for review. I may or may not review all the others.

Friday Finds (June 19)

What great books have you added to your wish list this week? Share your Friday Finds at Should Be Reading.


Here are the books that made it onto my wish list this week:

I’ve now read three rave reviews of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley: one by Donna at BookBound, one by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea and one by Allison at On My Bookshelf.

Real Life & Liars by Kristina Riggle is the latest book launched by one of the Debs from The Debutante Ball. Swapna reviewed it at S. Krishna’s Books.

Given all my recent readings about polygamy, Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement by Kathryn Joyce sounds right up my alley. Lawrence reviewed it at the Feminist Review.

Rebecca at Lost in Books mentioned The Sky Always Hears Me by Kristin Cronn-Mills in her Friday Finds post last week. Kristin at The Book Book wrote the review that inspired both of us to put it on our wish list.

Nymeth reviewed Virgin: The Untouched History by Hanne Blank at things mean a lot.

Finally, despite my reservations about Jennifer McMahon (all her books sound disturbing), Joanne’s great review of Dismantled (at The Book Zombie) has inspired me to tentatively put this one on my wishlist... Has anyone else read McMahon? Are her books disturbing?

Giveaway of Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel

Without any fanfare I graduated to 100+ followers about 10 days ago (yay!), slipped over the 250 posts mark and hit the 10,000th visitor mark (sometime on June 9, according to Google Analytics)! Plus I’ve almost reached 250 subscribers! To mark all these occasions, I’m giving away my gently read ARC of Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel to one of my readers. As I said in my review, as long as you promise not to judge Montreal by this book, I’m happy to pass it on! The giveaway is open worldwide and I will accept entries until 11:59 PM Eastern Time on Wednesday, July 1.

For one entry, post a comment here and answer the following question(s): Have you ever read a book that describes a place you’ve lived? Did the book do the place justice or were you disappointed? Please also be sure to provide me with a way of getting in touch with you. Entries that don’t answer my question(s) and/or don’t include a blog link or email address will be disqualified.

For another entry, post a relevant comment on my review. If you’ve already done so, that counts too!

For another five entries, become a follower of my blog or subscribe to my blog through Google Reader (or equivalent). If you are already a follower or subscriber, let me know and you will still get the five extra entries. (Please do not comment that you are a follower five times! I will tabulate each person’s entries separately.)

Best of luck!

Mostly pink animal slippers

When I started collecting covers with (pink) animal slippers on them, the first three I found were Good Grief by Lolly Winston, Strange Bedpersons by Jennifer Crusie and Dreaming in Black and White by Laura Jensen Walker. But then I noticed that the cover for Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann looked very familiar: I think it’s the same image as the one used for Good Grief with the dress colour and the slippers changed! What do you think?

I also had to include An Off Year by Claire Zulkey because even though the slippers aren’t pink, the cover sure is. Plus those bunnies are really cute! Have you come across any other covers featuring animal slippers?

Wondrous Words Wednesday (June 17)

Kathy at Bermudaonion’s Weblog hosts this weekly meme in which she asks us to share new words we’ve come across in our reading. Feel free to join in the fun.

All my words this week are from The Local News by Miriam Gershow.

Cacodemon – “‘Cacodemon’s a good one,’ I said, but my heart wasn’t in it” (p. 46).

According to Wikipedia, a cacodemon is “an evil spirit or demon (in the modern sense of the word). The opposite of a cacodemon is an agathodaemon or eudaemon, a good spirit or angel.”

Paladin – “He was a first-level paladin” (p. 100).

According to my dictionary, a paladin is “any of the twelve peers of Charlemagne’s court, of whom the Count Palatine was the chief; a knight errant, a champion; or a dedicated advocate or supporter of a cause.”* However, since they are referring to Dungeons & Dragons here, I had to turn to Wikipedia for a more precise definition: a paladin is “one of the standard playable character classes in most editions of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing games. The paladin is a holy knight, crusading in the name of good and order.”

Eluviation – “‘Humus first and then topsoil and eluviation and then, and then . . .’” (p. 109).

Dictionary.com defines eluvium as “a deposit of soil, dust, etc., formed from the decomposition of rock and found in its place of origin” (which is surely what the character was thinking of) and thus eluviation is “the lateral or downward movement of dissolved or suspended material within soil when rainfall exceeds evaporation.”

Regolith – “‘Regolith,’ she finally said” (p. 109).

Regolith is “unconsolidated solid material covering the bedrock of a planet.”

Trifecta – “. . . my mother having ventured uncharacteristically into the world to buy tampons, dish soap, and dog food, a trifecta of scarcity that even she could not ignore” (p. 223).

A trifecta is “a group of three related events or people.” (Hmm, I’m not sure how tampons, dish soap and dog food are related, except in the most general of ways...)

What new words have you discovered lately? Share your Wondrous Words on Kathy’s blog.

*Unless otherwise noted, all definitions are from the Canadian Oxford Dictionary (2004).

Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel (a review)

Abducted as a child by her non-custodial father, Lilia, the main character in Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel, has been disappearing for so long that she no longer knows how to stay in one place. Right from the first chapter, in which Lilia slips away quietly from New York and her life with Eli, I knew this was going to be a book I’d want to read slowly, so I could savour every word. In fact, part 1 of the novel, which (like the rest of the book) slips back and forth in time and is told from alternating points of view, reads a bit like linked stories: each chapter can almost be read independently—all the better to savour them. This is my favourite part of the book: mysterious and startling, it drew me into Lilia and Eli’s stories.

Mandel’s writing style completely enchanted me. Here is a taste:

Lilia: she had ink stains on her fingers, and the most beautiful eyes. She wore a silver chain necklace but wouldn’t say where it was from. She was obsessed by the topography of language: she followed the maps of alphabets over obscure terrains, parted the shifting gauze curtains between window, fenêtre, finestra, fenster and peered outward, wrote out long charts of words and brought home books in five languages. She maintained a secretive, passionate life of study. She was without precedent.* (p. 21)

Part of what drew me to this book is that some of it is set in Montreal, my home for the last 20 years. However, the Montreal Mandel describes is a metaphorical city rather than a real one: a city of frozen dreary streets, unfriendly locals, underground malls and sleazy nightclubs. (It also seemed highly unlikely that a student like Eli would stay for weeks in a hotel as luxurious as the Queen Elizabeth.) Not only did I not recognize my home town in Mandel’s portrayal of Montreal, but this part of the story also dragged: like Eli, I grew a bit tired of waiting for something to happen.

Despite my grumblings about the Montreal sections of this book, Last Night in Montreal is an absorbing read. Mandel masterfully juggles all the strands of her story and I was impressed by how the pieces fell into place at the end. As long as you promise not to judge Montreal by this book, I recommend it!

Upcoming giveaway: I’m going to give away my gently read ARC, so check back later this week!

Read other reviews of this book on these blogs:
Amy Reads • Baby Got Books • Bookfoolery and Babble • Booking Mama • Booksie’s Blog • Care’s Online Book Club • caribousmom • drey’s library (review & guest post) • Educating Petunia • Feminist Review • In Spring It Is the Dawn • Musings of a Bookish Kitty • Outside of a Dog • Passion for the Page • Peeking Between the Pages • Reading on a Rainy Day • Reflections from the Hinterland • Savvy Verse & Wit • S. Krishna’s Books • The Critical Flame • The Word Hoarder • Violet Crush

You can also read guest posts by the author on these blogs:
Educating Petunia • Savvy Verse & Wit • Powell’s Books Blog

Interviews with the author are available here:
Boxing the Octopus • Words to Mouth

Thank you to Unbridled Books for sending me this book to review.


This is the seventh book I review for the New Authors Challenge.




This is also the third book I review for the LibraryThing Author Challenge.


*Note that this quote comes from an ARC and therefore may have been changed for final printing.

Teaser Tuesdays (June 16)

Should Be Reading hosts the Teaser Tuesdays weekly event.

My modified rules are as follows:

Grab your current read. Pick two or three “teaser” sentences more or less at random from the book, anywhere on the page. You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your teaser from… that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given! (Please avoid spoilers!) (Read the official Teaser Tuesday rules.)

My teaser:


“Figuring things out was an essential property of Dev the way impenetrability is an essential property of matter or oddness is an essential property of the number three. Nothing unusual about the figuring out part” (p. 60).

This is from Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos.

Mailbox Monday: BEA & other loot! (June 15)

I only received a couple of books in my actual mailbox this week, both from Penguin Canada:

Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter
The Opposite of Love by Julie Buxbaum

I also met up with Cindy, Donna and Tina yesterday for our monthly bloggers’ meet-up and scored several more books as well as some BEA loot! (Thank you thank you!)

From Tina I got First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria by Eve Brown-Waite and Best Intentions by Emily Listfield, while from Cindy I got My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier and Saints in Limbo by River Jordan...

The only one of us to go to BEA this year was Donna (although we’re all hoping to go next year!). She brought us all back tote bags with goodies. Mine was from the Strand and contained several bookmarks, sticky notes, a pen from New Horizon Press, a Michelin Guide suitcase tag, a little bag of sunflower seeds (which were given out to promote a young readers book) and an ARC of When Autumn Leaves by Amy Foster, which will be published in October. Also included in the picture below are A Book Lover’s Companion, courtesy of Tina, as well as Cindy’s and Donna’s new business cards!

(Click on photo to enlarge.)

What did you find in your mailbox this past week? For other Mailbox Monday posts, head over to Marcia’s blog, The Printed Page.