Books That Caught Our Eye

At Mailbox Monday we encourage participants to not only share the books they received, but to check out the books others have received.

Each week will share 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.

Serena

Fix it and Forget it Best of Fall Recipes at Reviews from the Stacks.

Fall is here, and so is a busy season of Thanksgiving parties and cooking for big groups. But don’t let stress get in the way—simply take out your slow cooker and prepare holiday meals for the entire family with ease and joy.

Here, we have collected the very best slow cooker recipes and fan favorites that capture the spirit of fall. Wow your guests and loved ones with healthy and delicious seasonal offerings that cover appetizers, soups and stews, meaty and vegetarian mains, breakfast, beverages, and desserts. Selected from some of the best home cooks across the country, these more than 150 super-easy family-friendly meals will be the life of the party:

Butternut Squash and Apple Soup Fast and Fabulous Brussels Sprouts Honey-Maple Sweet Potatoes Applesauce Meatloaf Tortellini with Broccoli Overnight Scalloped Chicken Casserole Autumn Harvest Pork Loin Meatless Shepherd’s Pie Pumpkin-Pecan Pie Hot Mulled Cider

Accompanied with gorgeous, festive photographs, as well as tips on how to use your slow cooker, Fix-It and Forget-It Best of Fall Recipes is your one-stop solution for the country’s best-loved meals during everyone’s favorite time of the year. Happy fall and happy cooking!

“I’m always on the lookout for new recipes.”

——–

Dark Roads by Chevy Stevens at Silver’s Reviews.

For decades, people have been warned about the Cold Creek Highway. Hitchhikers have vanished along it over the years, and women have been known to have their cars break down… and never be seen again. When Hailey McBride decides to run away from an unbearable living situation, she thinks that her outdoor skills will help her disappear into the Cold Creek wilderness, and she counts on people thinking that she was the victim of the killer.

One year later, Beth Chevalier arrives in Cold Creek to attend a memorial for the victims of the highway, but it might as well be one week for the amount of pain that Beth is still dealing with after her sister, Amber, was murdered the previous summer. Beth has quit university, is lying to her parents, and popping pills like Tic Tacs. Maybe this will finally bring her peace.

When she gets a job at a local diner where Amber once worked, she connects with people who knew her sister. Beth wants to find who killed her sister and put her own life back together, but as she gets closer to the truth, she learns that there is more than one person lying in Cold Creek.

“I have read all of her books so far.”

Martha

Of Darkness and Light by Heidi Eljarbo found at Library of Clean Reads.

In this first book of a new historical mystery series, a young art historian faces a tough choice in German-occupied Norway.

Oslo, 1944. Soli Hansen’s passion for art history is and always has been a way of life for her. While she spends her days working in an art shop, WWII is taking its toll on everyone. Apprehensive of the consequences, Soli avoids becoming entangled in the war resistance efforts. She closes her eyes in hopes the enemy will retreat and leave her beautiful country for good.

But when a woman is found dead in the alley alongside the art shop and a painting from the last auction goes missing, Soli is thrown into the thickest of the fray involving both Nazi art theft and the Norwegian resistance.

Once Soli finds her courage, there’s no turning back. Her personal life is turned upside-down with danger, lies, spying, and an incredible discovery.

“This sounds like an engaging historical mystery.”

——–

The Last Watch (The Divide #1) by J.S. Dewes found at Bookfan.

The Expanse meets Game of Thrones in J. S. Dewes’ fast-paced, sf adventure The Last Watch, where a handful of soldiers stand between humanity and annihilation.

The Divide.

It’s the edge of the universe.

Now it’s collapsing—and taking everyone and everything with it.

The only ones who can stop it are the Sentinels—the recruits, exiles, and court-martialed dregs of the military.

At the Divide, Adequin Rake, commanding the Argus, has no resources, no comms—nothing, except for the soldiers that no one wanted.

They’re humanity’s only chance.

“This sci-fi is right up my reading alley!”

Leslie

When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain at Book Reviews by Linda Moore.

Anna Hart is a seasoned missing persons detective in San Francisco with far too much knowledge of the darkest side of human nature. When tragedy strikes her personal life, Anna, desperate and numb, flees to the Northern California village of Mendocino to grieve. She lived there as a child with her beloved foster parents, and now she believes it might be the only place left for her. Yet the day she arrives, she learns that a local teenage girl has gone missing.

The crime feels frighteningly reminiscent of the most crucial time in Anna’s childhood, when the unsolved murder of a young girl touched Mendocino and changed the community forever. As past and present collide, Anna realizes that she has been led to this moment. The most difficult lessons of her life have given her insight into how victims come into contact with violent predators. As Anna becomes obsessed with saving the missing girl, she must accept that true courage means getting out of her own way and learning to let others in.

Weaving together actual cases of missing persons, trauma theory, and a hint of the metaphysical, this propulsive and deeply affecting novel tells a story of fate, necessary redemption, and what it takes, when the worst happens, to reclaim our lives—and our faith in one another.