At Mailbox Monday, we encourage participants to not only share the books they received, but also to check out the books received by others. Each week, our team is sharing with you a few Books That Caught Our Eye from that week’s Mailbox Monday.
We encourage you to share the books that caught your eye in the comments.
EMMA:
The Never-Ending End of the World by Ann Christy found at Reviews by Martha’s Bookshelf.
Station Eleven meets The Last of Us in this post-apocalyptic sci-fi epic from USA Today and Wall Street Journal best-selling author Ann Christy. Coco Wells hasn’t seen another living person since she was a teenager. All of Manhattan is reliving the same few seconds, minutes, or hours on a loop… and they have been for years. Everything looks normal from a distance, but up close it’s a nightmare. Coco is a survivor. She scavenges for food, reads, and—most importantly—avoids loopers. They ignore her, but only as long as she’s silent. She’s learned the painful lesson that a broken loop can mean death. After eight years of solitude, learning to survive and precisely timing the loops that weave around the city, Coco wonders what lies beyond New York and what has become of the rest of the world. As she leaves home for the first time, one question haunts her above all: “Am I the only one left?” Speculative sci-fi, dystopian apocalypse, and scientific mystery coalesce into The Never-Ending End of the World — a gripping tale of survival, hope, and love from retired Naval Officer Ann Christy
“Totally the type of scifi I enjoy!”
Red London by Alma Katsu found at Savvy Verse & Wit.
CIA agent Lyndsey Duncan has a new asset to turn, in order to prevent the most calculated global invasion of our time. But will their blossoming friendship get in the way? After an explosive takedown of a well-placed mole within the CIA, agent Lyndsey Duncan has been tasked with keeping tabs on her newest Russian asset, deadly war criminal Dmitri Tarasenko. She arrives in London fully focused on the assignment at hand, until her MI6 counterpart, Davis Ranford, the very person responsible for ending her last mission overseas after they were caught in a whirlwind affair, personally calls for her.
After a suspicious attack on a powerful Russian oligarch’s property on Billionaires’ Row in the toniest neighborhood in London, Davis needs Lyndsey to cozy up to the billionaire’s aristocratic British wife, Emily Rotenberg. Lyndsey’s job is to obtain any and all information related to Emily’s husband, Mikhail Rotenberg, and his relationship with the new Russian president, whom CIA and MI6 believe is responsible for the sudden mysterious disappearance of his predecessor, the Hard Man.
Fortunately for Lyndsey, there’s little to dissuade Emily from taking in a much-needed confidante. After all, misery needs company. But before Lyndsey can cover much ground with her newfound friend, the CIA unveils a perturbing connection between Mikhail and Russia’s geopolitical past, one that could dangerously upend the world order as we know it. As the pressure to turn Emily becomes higher than ever, Lyndsey must walk a fine and ever-changing line to keep the oligarch’s fortune from falling into Russian hands and plunging the world into a new, disastrous geopolitical reality.
Red London is a nuanced, race-against-the-clock story that at times feels eerily set against today’s headlines, a testament to author Alma Katsu’s 30-plus career in national security. It’s a rare spy novel written by an insider that feels as prescient as it is page-turning and utterly unforgettable.
“Looks like I would really enjoy this spy thriller.”
MARTHA:
The Forthright Woman by Darry Fraser found at Sam Still Reading.
Widow Marcella Ross won’t let anything – or anyone – stop her from discovering the truth behind a deadly family mystery … Mystery and romance collide in this compulsive historical adventure from a bestselling Australian author. 1898, South Australia At the gateway to the Flinders Ranges lies Kanyaka Station, once a thriving sheep and cattle property, now abandoned and in ruins. But a discovery in her late mother’s papers draws recently widowed Marcella Ross out to its remote landscape in search of clues to the disappearance of her Uncle Luca, an Italian immigrant whose fate seems to have been bound up in that of his mysterious partner – also long-since vanished. When Marcella is nearly run over by a handsome stranger, she discovers he too is entangled in the secrets of the past. When tragedy and obsession threaten Marcella’s fragile independence, how far will she have to go to unlock the secrets of Kanyaka – or solve the puzzle of her own future? 1955 After learning that they are unlikely to have children, Frances and Joe MacDonald have taken the unusual step of buying a caravan and travelling together through the outback. They stop and camp at Kanyaka Station, where Fran becomes mesmerised by the past. Family lore holds that an ancestor met an untimely end amid the desolate ruins. But what truly happened, and to whom, at the isolated station? As fate alters the course of her life, Fran’s footsteps echo another woman’s from so long ago … As the mystery unravels, will these two women have the chance to take control of their own destinies?
“I like dual time stories and this historical fiction/mystery sounds like a good one.”
Once Upon a Wardrobe by Patti Callahan Henry found at Book Reviews by Linda Moore.
“Where did Narnia come from?” The answer will change everything. Megs Devonshire is brilliant with numbers and equations, on a scholarship at Oxford, and dreams of solving the greatest mysteries of physics. She prefers the dependability of facts—except for one: the younger brother she loves with all her heart doesn’t have long to live. When George becomes captivated by a copy of a brand-new book called The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and begs her to find out where Narnia came from, there’s no way she can refuse. Despite her timidity about approaching the famous author, Megs soon finds herself taking tea with the Oxford don and his own brother, imploring them for answers. What she receives instead are more stories . . . stories of Jack Lewis’s life, which she takes home to George. Why won’t Mr. Lewis just tell her plainly what George wants to know? The answer will reveal to Meg many truths that science and math cannot, and the gift she thought she was giving to her brother—the story behind Narnia—turns out to be his gift to her, instead: hope.
“I like C. S. Lewis and the Narnia stories so this title caught my eye.”
SERENA:
Owner of a Lonely Heart: A Memoir by Beth Nguyen at BookBirdDog (Book Dilettante).
At the end of the Vietnam War, when Beth Nguyen was eight months old, she and her father, sister, grandmother, and uncles fled Saigon for America. Beth’s mother stayed—or was left—behind, and they did not meet again until Beth was nineteen. Over the course of her adult life, she and her mother have spent less than twenty-four hours together. Owner of a Lonely Heart is a memoir about parenthood, absence, and the condition of being a refugee: the story of Beth’s relationship with her mother. Framed by a handful of visits over the course of many years—sometimes brief, sometimes interrupted, sometimes with her mother alone and sometimes with her sister—Beth tells a coming-of-age story that spans her own Midwestern childhood, her first meeting with her mother, and becoming a parent herself. Vivid and illuminating, Owner of a Lonely Heart is a deeply personal story of family, connection, and belonging: as a daughter, a mother, and as a Vietnamese refugee in America.
“I’ve always loved learning about different cultures through memoir, and the Vietnam War has been a ghost in our family as my uncle served during the war. This immigrant story looks like one I could learn from, and I’m particularly drawn to the complicated mother-daughter relationship.”
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What books caught your eye this week?
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