It's Mailbox Monday! What are You Reading?!

This meme is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey where we keep track of what we are currently reading and plan to read.

Mailbox Monday is a meme originally from Marcia's Mailbox and is being hosted in September at  Book N Around.

Posting a bit early so I can make room for two new giveaway posts this week! It's going to be a busy week here!

In my mailbox, I received this interesting one which was a surprise:

Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman
And Lucifer said: “Let us rise against Him now in all our numbers, and pull the walls of heaven down…”

The year is 1348. Thomas, a disgraced knight, has found a young girl alone in a dead Norman village. An orphan of the Black Death, and an almost unnerving picture of innocence, she tells Thomas that plague is only part of a larger cataclysm—that the fallen angels under Lucifer are rising in a second war on heaven, and that the world of men has fallen behind the lines of conflict.

Is it delirium or is it faith? She believes she has seen the angels of God. She believes the righteous dead speak to her in dreams. And now she has convinced the faithless Thomas to shepherd her across a depraved landscape to Avignon. There, she tells Thomas, she will fulfill her mission: to confront the evil that has devastated the earth, and to restore to this betrayed, murderous knight the nobility and hope of salvation he long abandoned.

As hell unleashes its wrath, and as the true nature of the girl is revealed, Thomas will find himself on a macabre battleground of angels and demons, saints, and the risen dead, and in the midst of a desperate struggle for nothing less than the soul of man.

What I've been reading:

This week I finished reading An Heiress at Heart by Jennifer Delamere, and it was one of those that I was pleasantly surprised about! I had assumed it would be a bit of a fluffy piece but there were lots of different things going on, and I especially loved how it is marketed as a "Romance" in the Hachette Books Forever publication line, and it was a nice, clean, sweet romance. It's to be published in October so keep an eye out for it. My review will post closer to the publication date in a month or so.



October 2012
The most lucrative contraband in Europe, with its intricate patterns and ephemeral hope, threatens to cost them everything. Lace may be the deliverance for which they all pray...or it may bring the ruin and imprisonment they all fear..

Next up on the list to read was Ruins of Lace by Iris Anthony. When I looked at Iris Anthony's homepage, there was a photo of her, and turns out she writes as another author I have read, but that didn't have anything do with my expectactions of the book. I wanted this book to be awesome because the subject matter had so much potential. It has seven points of view, and it is a fairly short novel, perhaps it would make a great play? (And I must say I really hate the pseudonym business, I love Amanda Cabot's work but I can't figure out what other names she writes as!! GRRRR!!!)
Here is my review of Ruins of Lace.

So after that one, my guilty pleasure of Philippa Gregory was next. The Kingmaker's Daughter is another of the Cousins' War series, and it will be the eleventh Philippa Gregory that I have read. Some of her work I didn't like too much, but overall I have enjoyed them - otherwise I wouldn't keep reading them! I really shouldn't have picked this one up to read, as I am super behind on review books that I am supposed to review at a certain date, but with the digging for Richard III I could not keep away any longer. Gotta let my mood take over every now and then! I am excited that Richard's bones may have been found and that there is evidence of scoliosis, a condition I share with him! Mine is not as severe (yet) but I do have an 'S' curve so time will only tell if I will soon be known as a hunchback as well.

The book begins as Anne Neville is almost nine years old, so it reads a bit like a young adult read, and judging from other reviewers the entire book holds this tone. I never really have high hopes for a smashing book from Gregory, but I hope it is not too eye rolling.

Edit to add: I just finished this one!! Once I got past the initial set-up of how this story was leading, I blazed through it. Review and giveaway to go up Monday AM! And be quick, this one is going to be a quick flash giveaway!