The books | May ’12

The Innocent by David Baldacci  ♦  A Brewing Storm by Richard Castle  ♦  Copycat Killing by Sofie Kelly  ♦  A Deeper Darkness by J.T. Ellison  ♦  Rivals in the Tudor Court by D.L. Bogdan  ♦  Hawkwood by James McGee  ♦  The Sumerton Women by D.L. Bogdan  ♦  The Abandoned by Amanda Stevens  ♦  The Restorer by Amanda Stevens  ♦  National Security by Marc Cameron  ♦  The Virgin Queen’s Daughter by Ella March Chase  ♦  Dead Scared by S.J. Bolton  ♦  The Borgia Mistress by Sara Poole  ♦  Brownies & Broomsticks by Bailey Cates  ♦  To Die For by Sandra Byrd  ♦  Opal Fire by Barbara Annino

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The DNFs

The House of Velvet and Glass by Kathrine Howe  ♦  The King’s Agent by Donna Russo Morin  ♦  The Big Kitty by Claire Donally  ♦  Bloodstone by Barbara Annino

Marcia’s Mailbox | 5.26

• Brownies and Broomsticks by Bailey Cates

Marcia’s Mailbox | 5.22

• The Borgia Mistress by Sara Poole
• To Die For by Sandra Byrd

Library Loot | May 15th

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader.

The King’s Agent by Donna Russo Morin

To the casual observer, Battista della Paglia is an avid art collector, or perhaps a nimble thief. In reality, the cunning Italian is an agent for François, the King of France, for whom he procures the greatest masterpieces of the day by any means necessary. Embroiled in a power struggle with Charles V, the King of Spain, François resolves to rule Europe’s burgeoning cultural world. When he sets his sights on a mysterious sculpture, Battista’s search for the elusive objet d’art leads him to a captivating woman on a mission of her own. . .

Having spent her life under the controlling eye of her protector, the Marquess of Mantua, Aurelia longs for freedom. And she finds it in Battista. Together, they embark on a journey to find the clues that will lead him to the sculpture– a venture so perilous it might have spilled from the pen of Dante himself. From the smoldering depths of Rome to a castle in the sky, the harrowing quest draws them inextricably together. But Aurelia guards a dark secret that could tear them apart–and change the course of history. . .

National Security by Marc Cameron

When Terrorism Goes Viral, One Man Goes Ballistic.

They can strike anytime, anywhere. A public landmark. A suburban shopping mall. And now, the human body itself. Three Middle Eastern terrorists have been injected with a biological weapon, human time bombs unleashed on American soil. They are prepared to die. To spread their disease. To annihilate millions. If America hopes to fight this enemy from within, we need a new kind of weapon. Meet Special Agent Jericho Quinn. Air Force veteran. Champion boxer. Trained assassin. Hand-picked for a new global task force that, officially, does not exist, Quinn answers only to the Director of National Intelligence and the U.S. President himself.

His methods are as simple, and as brutal, as his codename.

The Hammer.

The Restorer by Amanda Stevens

My name is Amelia Gray. I’m a cemetery restorer who sees ghosts. In order to protect myself from the parasitic nature of the dead, I’ve always held fast to the rules passed down from my father. But now a haunted police detective has entered my world and everything is changing, including the rules that have always kept me safe.

It started with the discovery of a young woman’s brutalized body in an old Charleston graveyard I’ve been hired to restore. The clues to the killer – and to his other victims – lie in the headstone symbolism that only I can interpret. Devlin needs my help, but his ghosts shadow his every move, feeding off his warmth, sustaining their presence with his energy. To warn him would be to invite them into my life. I’ve vowed to keep my distance, but the pull of his magnetism grows ever stronger even as the symbols lead me closer to the killer and to the gossamer veil that separates this world from the next.

Marcia’s Mailbox | 5.15

• Dead Scared by S.J. Bolton

Mailbox Monday hosts past and present

Hi all,

Since I’ve joined Twitter I’ve done my best to track y’all down so I can follow along. I’ve found most everyone. YAY! If you don’t see me following as @mamacat02 please email me at online [at] printedpage [dot] us with your Twitter handle so that I can follow along. This is not a follow you, follow me post. This is my way to keeping up with everyone and the best way for me to do so is my Twitter account.

Thanks so much

~ Marcia

Library Loot | May 8th

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader.

Rivals in the Tudor Court by D.L. Bogdan

The death toll in Henry VIII’s England can be counted in the thousands. No one was more aware of this than Thomas Howard, third duke of Norfolk. Relying on his indomitable force of will, cleverness, and sheer good fortune, Thomas Howard manages to be one of the king’s only intimates to survive an unforgettable reign of terror. This impeccably researched companion piece to “Secrets of the Tudor Court” chronicles the ambitious duke’s life, loves, and remarkable capacity to endure. Before he was the king’s uncle, before he was his nieces’ ultimate betrayer, Thomas Howard was a hostage at the court of Henry VII while his father was imprisoned in the dreaded Tower of London. There he would marry the queen’s sister, his forever princess Anne Plantagenet. While he founded a dynasty, his career as soldier and sailor brought him acclaim and the trust of the Tudors. But when unspeakable tragedy robs him of family and fortune, Thomas must begin again. Abandoning notions of love, Thomas seeks out an advantageous match with the fiery Elizabeth Stafford, daughter of the duke of Buckingham. Clever, willful, and uncompromising in principle, the young duchess falls victim to a love she cannot deny. When Thomas takes on a mistress, the vulnerable Bess Holland, Duchess Elizabeth prepares to fight for all she holds dear. Only then does she learn she faces a force darker than anything she could ever have imagined, an obsessive love that neither she nor Bess can rival.

The Prophet by Amanda Stevens

My name is Amelia Gray.

I am the Graveyard Queen, a cemetery restorer who sees ghosts. My father passed down four rules to keep me safe and I’ve broken every last one. A door has opened and evil wants me back.

In order to protect myself, I’ve vowed to return to those rules. But the ghost of a murdered cop needs my help to find his killer. The clues lead me to the dark side of Charleston-where witchcraft, root doctors and black magic still flourish-and back to John Devlin, a haunted police detective I should only love from afar.

Now I’m faced with a terrible choice: follow the rules or follow my heart.

The Sumerton Women by D.L. Bogdan

Orphaned at age eight, Lady Cecily Burkhart becomes the ward of Harold Pierce, Earl of Sumerton. Lord Hal and his wife, Lady Grace, welcome sweet-natured Cecily as one of their own. With Brey, their young son, Cecily develops an easy friendship. But their daughter, Mirabella, is consumed by her religious vocation – and by her devotion to Father Alec Cahill, the family priest and tutor. As Henry VIII’s obsession with Anne Boleyn leads to violent religious upheaval, Mirabella is robbed of her calling and the future Cecily dreamed of is ripped away in turn. Cecily struggles to hold together the fractured household while she and Father Alec grapple with a dangerous mutual attraction. Plagued with jealousy, Mirabella unleashes a tumultuous chain of events that threatens to destroy everyone around her, even as the kingdom is torn apart…

Hawkwood: A Regency Crime Thriller by James McGee

Regency London is vividly brought to live in this extraordinary page-turner, the first in a series of historical thrillers featuring Bow Street Runner Matthew Hawkwood – a complex and fascinating hero. Hunting down highwaymen was not the usual preserve of a Bow Street Runner. As the most resourceful of this elite band of investigators, Matthew Hawkwood was surprised to be assigned the case – even if it did involve the murder and mutilation of a naval courier. From the squalor of St Giles Rookery, London’s notorious den of theives and cutthroats, to the palatial homes of the aristocracy where knights of the realm conduct themselves in a manner unbecoming to their rank, Hawkwood relentlessly pursues his quarry. And as the case unfolds, and another body is discovered, the true agenda behind the robbery begins to emerge: the stolen naval dispatch pouch held details of a French plot that, if successful, will send the Royal Navy’s entire fleet scurrying to port in terror, leaving Napoleon to rule the waves. With no way of knowing who can be trusted, Hawkwood must engage in a desperate race against time to prevent the successful execution of the Emperor’s plot.

Tweets

Gosh I really should have dinosaurs populating my blog instead of books. It’s amazing the things one learns once they become a part of the 21^st century. I guess I spend too much time with my nose in a book (ebooks) instead of interacting with technology. I might ramble a bit but I’ll eventually get to point of this post if you stick with me.

Just to give you an idea how far behind we were until three weeks ago Jim and I were using pre-paid flip phones. The looks from my co-workers were horrifying. They couldn’t figure how Jim and I functioned without phones that do nearly everything thing except wash windows, fold laundry and cook. My kids don’t much care for technology. It’s really difficult to text when you don’t have opposable thumbs. And I don’t need to be touch with them 24/7. Heck they spend all their time in the same rooms we do. And yes we still had a land line! What were we going to use those fancy phones for? We soon got lessons in just how handy those gadgets are.

After acquiring smart phones our world changed. Mostly mine but Jim’s a bit also. There’s nothing like new technology to humble a person. Our land line is no more. And once I got the hang of things my laptop went into early retirement. Between my smart phone and my Kindle Fire my beloved laptop is now the dinosaur of technology in our house. I really do love my phone and all its wonders.

And here comes the point of this post. For the longest time I’ve been seriously debating quitting blogging. Putting my laptop away made the decision for me. I realized I didn’t want that particular tether any more. Blogging for me has never been easy. And not having the laptop in easy reach only made my decision that much easier. I kept my domain name but had my brother move my blog away from a hosting site. So if you go looking for A girl and her books (formerly The Printed Page) you won’t find a thing because he made it vanish. I didn’t want to pay expensive hosting fees for a blog that was basically going to be ignored. That also meant migrating my email back to Go Daddy. And having email downtime during the process. My brother convinced me to open a Twitter account so we could be in touch during this process. I’ve avoided any sort of social media for years. Now I was going to really join the 21^st century and open a Twitter account? I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about but there was some trepidation on my part. But I love it, my Twitter account that is. Not that I’m doing a lot with it yet but I did figure out one really good use for me. I’m not one to tell you a lot about myself and what I’m doing. I really don’t find myself all that fascinating. But now I can tweet about books. My geek brother was kind of enough to tell me that tweeting is considered micro blogging. See that’s where the dinosaur business comes back into play. I’d never heard the term micro blogging before today.

Now I ‘blog’ in 140 characters or less. If you can’t figure out if I liked a book in a single tweet than I really am doing something wrong. I’ll be tweeting about the books I read. Those tweets will be posted on the side bar of this blog. Or you could follow me but then you probably get too may tweets just like you get too much email. I’m out there as @mamacat02. The occasional personal tweet might show up from time to time but mainly it’ll be books, books, books.

If you read the entire post thanks for putting up with my rambles.

~ Marcia

Wish list | May ’12

• Guilt by Degrees by Marcia Clark
• The Anatomy of Death by Felicity Young
• The Borgia Mistress by Sara Poole
• Tattooed by Pamela Callow (I liked book one, didn’t like book two so Tattooed (book three) is the pivotal book if I’ll continue with the series or not)
• Hawkwood (aka Ratcatcher) by James McGee
• Brownies & Brooksticks by Bailey Cates
• A Deadly Grind by Victoria Hamilton

I’m coming home to Mailbox Monday

Some of you may know me from my other blog, A girl and her books. The reason I didn’t link you back is because I’m no longer blogging over there. Blogging life at A girl and her books was just too stressful. What little blogging I am doing will be done here. Mailbox Monday will be getting some more posts such a Library Loot, wish lists and monthly reading lists. Feel free to stop by and see what new books have come in, what I’m lusting for and what I read last month.

~ Marcia