At Mailbox Monday we encourage participants to not only share the books they received, but to check out the books others have received.Every Wednesday we will each share two 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
The Song of the Jade Lily by Kirsty Manning @ Book Dilettante and Silver’s Reviews.
Kirsty Manning makes her US debut with this gripping historical novel that tells the little-known story of Jewish refugees who fled to Shanghai during WWII.
“Compelling, passionate, and admirable.”— Australian Women’s Weekly
1939 : Two young girls meet in Shanghai, also known as the “Paris of the East”. Beautiful local Li and Jewish refugee Romy form a fierce friendship, but the deepening shadows of World War II fall over the women as they slip between the city’s glamorous French Concession district and the teeming streets of the Shanghai Ghetto. Yet soon the realities of war prove to be too much for these close friends as they are torn apart.
2016: Fleeing London with a broken heart, Alexandra returns to Australia to be with her grandparents, Romy and Wilhelm. Her grandfather is dying, and over the coming weeks Romy and Wilhelm begin to reveal the family mysteries they have kept secret for more than half a century. As fragments of her mother’s history finally become clear, Alexandra struggles with what she learns while more is also revealed about her grandmother’s own past in Shanghai.
After Wilhelm dies, Alexandra flies to Shanghai, determined to trace her grandparents’ past. Peeling back the layers of their hidden lives, she is forced to question what she knows about her family—and herself.
The Song of the Jade Lily is a lush, provocative, and beautiful story of friendship, motherhood, the price of love, and the power of hardship and courage that can shape us all.
I love fiction like this – historical and a foreign location.
——–
Mortality with Pronoun Shifts: Poems by Don Colburn at Rose City Reader.
WINNER of the 2018 Cathy Smith Bowers Chapbook Contest
Why I Read Obituaries
I listen for a distant bell
even when the name is one
I couldn’t have come up with.
Today it was Bruce Langhorne, 78,
his right hand missing two fingers
and much of a thumb, blown off
by homemade fireworks when he was 12,
which didn’t keep him from taking up guitar
and learning so well he played with Dylan
and Baez, Lightfoot and Rush.
From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
he performed with Odetta before 250,000
the day Martin Luther King Jr. said, “I have a dream.”
There were folk-rock gigs in Hollywood
and a mid-career swerve to Hawaii, where he grew
macadamia nuts. Diabetes inspired him
to cook up organic low-sodium salsa
he sold as Brother Bru-Bru’s Hot Sauce.
Death is the one news hook
late or soon we all achieve
but an obit needs a better reason
to tell its story. Mr. Langhorne’s goes back
to ’64, when he walked into the recording studio
carrying an enormous Turkish drum with bells,
and Dylan, in that jingle jangle morning,
he came following, to sing a song for us.
This sounds intriguing.
Martha
Tiger Queen by Annie Sullivan founds at BermudaOnion’s Weblog.
Description
From Annie Sullivan, author of A Touch of Gold, comes Tiger Queen, a sweeping YA adventure that tells the story of a fierce desert princess as she fights to save her kingdom. Fans of Rebel of the Sands and Meagan Spooner will devour this retelling of Frank Stockton’s famous short story “The Lady, or the Tiger?.”
In the mythical desert kingdom of Achra, an old law forces sixteen-year-old Princess Kateri to fight in the arena against twelve suitors to prove her right to rule. For Kateri, losing is not an option because in order to fulfil her promise to her late mother, she must win to keep her crown and lead her people. The situation outside the palace is uneasy. The harsh desert is unforgiving, water is scarce, and Kateri’s people are thirsty. To make matters worse, the gang of thieving Desert Boys, the same group that killed Kateri’s mother and her new baby, frequently raids the city wells and steals water, forcing the king to ration what little water is left. The punishment for stealing water is the choice between two doors. Behind one door lies freedom and behind the other is a tiger.
The people of Achra are growing restless and distrustful of the monarchy, and when Kateri’s final opponent is announced, she knows she cannot win. In her desperation, Kateri turns to the desert and the one person she never thought she’d side with. Her future now, too, is behind two doors–only she’s not sure which holds the key to keeping her kingdom and which will release the tiger.
“Again, I like the cover and the blurb presents an interesting fantasy retelling.”
——–
The Overdue Life of Amy Byler by Kelly Harms found at Savvy Verse & Wit.
Overworked and underappreciated, single mom Amy Byler needs a break. So when the guilt-ridden husband who abandoned her shows up and offers to take care of their kids for the summer, she accepts his offer and escapes rural Pennsylvania for New York City.
Usually grounded and mild mannered, Amy finally lets her hair down in the city that never sleeps. She discovers a life filled with culture, sophistication, and—with a little encouragement from her friends—a few blind dates. When one man in particular makes quick work of Amy’s heart, she risks losing herself completely in the unexpected escape, and as the summer comes to an end, Amy realizes too late that she must make an impossible decision: stay in this exciting new chapter of her life, or return to the life she left behind.
But before she can choose, a crisis forces the two worlds together, and Amy must stare down a future where she could lose both sides of herself, and every dream she’s ever nurtured, in the beat of a heart.
“First, Library reference in the cover. Second, the description at Goodreads includes a quote that says “A laugh-out-loud funny, pitch-perfect novel….” I could use laugh out loud.”
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At Mailbox Monday we encourage participants to not only share the books they received, but to check out the books others have received.Every Wednesday we will each share two books that caught our eye from that week’s Mailbox Monday.Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, called “the most famous undocumented immigrant in America,” tackles one of the defining issues of our time in this explosive and deeply personal call to arms.
In spring 1918, Lieutenant Colin Mabry, a British soldier working with MI8 after suffering injuries on the front, receives a message by carrier pigeon. It is from Jewel Reyer, the woman he once loved and who saved his life–a woman he believed to be dead. Traveling to France to answer her urgent summons, he desperately hopes this mission will ease his guilt and restore the courage he lost on the battlefield.
