Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. We share what books that we found in our mailboxes last week. And I am adding what I purchased. Here's what I received during the last week:Not a huge book week over here, which is fine since I have a lot of reading to do already.
"1587 and the Spanish are preparing to launch the Armada, their Holy Enterprise of England, to rescue the English from heresy and Elizabeth, their Witch-Queen. Ex-soldier David Becket, now responsible for the Queen's Ordnance but struggling to deal with his tortured past in the Tower of London and on the battlefields of Europe, discovers that large quantities of gunpowder are going astray. Can someone in the heart of the English government be selling it to the Spanish? Unaccountably he is plagued by vivid dreams of England invaded, an alternative story where the Armada is victorious. Simon Ames, Becket's old friend, has been captured by the Inquisition in Lisbon as he attempts to elicit vital information for the Queen. His wife, Rebecca; a black slave, Merula, and Becket are permitted to rescue him on one condition. They must also infiltrate the Spanish fleet and unravel the riddle of the Miracle of Beauty. But Simon has been sentenced to work as a galley slave on the Armada and, chained to an oarbench, is now bound for England. Patricia Finney's brilliant reworking of the Armada legend is an imaginative tour de force and illustrates how different England's history could have been had the Spanish landed. Thrilling, intricate and inspiring, this is a tale of gods, of courage, of love, and, ultimately, of redemption."
I am still recovering from my burnt-out on Elizabeth I phase but I hope to get back into the groove soon as I do truly love her.
Received for Review:
"The Hidden Man" by David Ellis "THE HIDDEN MAN introduces attorney Jason Kolarich, a Midwestern everyman with a lineman's build and an easy smart-ass remark. He's young, intelligent, and driven, but he's also saddled with an overwhelming emotional burden - one that threatens to unravel his own life, and possibly the lives of those around him.
Twenty-seven years ago, two-year-old Audrey Cutler disappeared from her home in the middle of the night. Her body was never found. All the detectives had to go on were vague eyewitness accounts of a man running down the Cutler's street, apparently carrying someone.
Without enough evidence to suggest otherwise, Griffin Perlini - a neighbor with prior offenses against minors - was arrested, but never convicted.
The case is long closed when Perlini is murdered in his apartment nearly thirty years later. Now a man named Mr. Smith appears in Jason Kolarich's office offering him a suspicious amount of money to defend the lead suspect in Perlini's murder, saying only that he represents an interested third party and that Kolarich is perfect for the case. Sure enough, the man on trial is Audrey Cutler's older brother Sammy, Kolarich's childhood best friend, a man he hasn't seen since a falling out almost twenty years prior. And just when it seems like the case can't get any more complex, the mysterious third party starts applying pressure to Kolarich. With his own life and Sammy's in the balance, Kolarich has to not only put aside the mounting anxiety of the case but also a heart wrenching personal tragedy in order to find out what really happened to Audrey all those years ago." I really enjoy Lee Child so I am hoping this has the same flair.
I am still recovering from my burnt-out on Elizabeth I phase but I hope to get back into the groove soon as I do truly love her.
Received for Review:
"The Hidden Man" by David Ellis "THE HIDDEN MAN introduces attorney Jason Kolarich, a Midwestern everyman with a lineman's build and an easy smart-ass remark. He's young, intelligent, and driven, but he's also saddled with an overwhelming emotional burden - one that threatens to unravel his own life, and possibly the lives of those around him.Twenty-seven years ago, two-year-old Audrey Cutler disappeared from her home in the middle of the night. Her body was never found. All the detectives had to go on were vague eyewitness accounts of a man running down the Cutler's street, apparently carrying someone.
Without enough evidence to suggest otherwise, Griffin Perlini - a neighbor with prior offenses against minors - was arrested, but never convicted.
The case is long closed when Perlini is murdered in his apartment nearly thirty years later. Now a man named Mr. Smith appears in Jason Kolarich's office offering him a suspicious amount of money to defend the lead suspect in Perlini's murder, saying only that he represents an interested third party and that Kolarich is perfect for the case. Sure enough, the man on trial is Audrey Cutler's older brother Sammy, Kolarich's childhood best friend, a man he hasn't seen since a falling out almost twenty years prior. And just when it seems like the case can't get any more complex, the mysterious third party starts applying pressure to Kolarich. With his own life and Sammy's in the balance, Kolarich has to not only put aside the mounting anxiety of the case but also a heart wrenching personal tragedy in order to find out what really happened to Audrey all those years ago." I really enjoy Lee Child so I am hoping this has the same flair.
"The Invention of Everything Else" by Samantha Hunt "From the moment Louisa first catches sight of the strange man who occupies a forbidden room on the thirty-third floor, she is determined to befriend him.Unbeknownst to Louisa, he is Nikola Teslainventor of AC electricity and wireless communicationand he is living out his last days at the Hotel New Yorker.Winning his attention through a shared love of pigeons, she eventually uncovers the story of Teslas life as a Serbian immigrant and a visionary genius: as a boy he built engines powered by June bugs, as a man he dreamed of pulling electricity from the sky.The mystery deepens when Louisa reunites with an enigmatic former classmate and faces the loss of her father as he attempts to travel to the past to meet up with his beloved late wife. Before the week is out, Louisa must come to terms with her own understanding of love, death, and the power of invention."From a win at Dan's Journal, (Thank you!) I received:
"The Night Gardener" by George Pelecanos "Gus Ramone is "good police," a former Internal Affairs investigator now working homicide for the city's Violent Crime branch. His new case involves the death of a local teenager named Asa, whose body has been found in a local community garden.The murder unearths intense memories of a case Ramone worked as a patrol cop twenty years earlier, when he and his partner, Dan "Doc" Holiday, assisted a legendary detective named T. C. Cook. The series of murders, all involving local teenage victims, was never solved. In the years since, Holiday has left the force under a cloud of morals charges, and now finds work as a bodyguard and driver. Cook has retired, but he has never stopped agonizing about the "Night Gardener" killings.
The new case draws the three men together on a grim mission to finish the work that has haunted them for years. All the love, regret, and anger that once burned between them comes rushing back, and old ghosts walk once more as the men try to lay to rest the monster who has stalked their dreams. Bigger and even more unstoppable than his previous thrillers, George Pelecanos achieves in The Night Gardener what his brilliant career has been building toward: a novel that is a perfect union of suspense, character, and unstoppable fate."
What was in your mailbox?
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