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
Stolen by Lucy Christopher @ Read With Katie.
Sixteen-year-old Gemma is kidnapped from Bangkok airport and taken to the Australian Outback. This wild and desolate landscape becomes almost a character in the book, so vividly is it described. Ty, her captor, is no stereotype. He is young, fit and completely gorgeous. This new life in the wilderness has been years in the planning. He loves only her, wants only her. Under the hot glare of the Australian sun, cut off from the world outside, can the force of his love make Gemma love him back?
The story takes the form of a letter, written by Gemma to Ty, reflecting on those strange and disturbing months in the outback. Months when the lines between love and obsession, and love and dependency, blur until they don’t exist–almost.
“This seems like a case of Stockholm syndrome. Creepy and good.”
——–
Now Let’s Dance by Karine Lambert @ Sam Still Reading.
Marguerite had been living a comfortable but dull existence in a suburban town with her straitlaced lawyer husband. When he dies, she realises that life has passed her by.
Marcel had been in a loving relationship with Nora since they left Algeria sixty years before. Now that he has lost her, he has lost his way.
Marguerite and Marcel live in two very different worlds – one rich, one poor. They never should have met. And yet their paths cross at a retreat, and a connection forms…
But will they manage to overcome the disapproval of their friends and families, as well as their own misgivings? Or have they left it too late to really follow their hearts’ desires?
“This sounds like a good book. Can you find love late in life?”
Leslie
The Lying Game Ruth Ware at Rainy Days and Mondays.
On a cool June morning, a woman is walking her dog in the idyllic coastal village of Salten along a tidal estuary known as the Reach. Before she can stop him, the dog charges into the water to retrieve what first appears to be a wayward stick, but to her horror, turns out to be something much more sinister…
The next morning, three women in and around London—Fatima, Thea, and Isabel—receive the text they had always hoped would NEVER come, from the fourth in their formerly inseparable clique, Kate, that says only, “I need you.”
The four girls were best friends at Salten, a second rate boarding school set near the cliffs of the English Channel. Each different in their own way, the four became inseparable and were notorious for playing the Lying Game, telling lies at every turn to both fellow boarders and faculty, with varying states of serious and flippant nature that were disturbing enough to ensure that everyone steered clear of them. The myriad and complicated rules of the game are strict: no lying to each other—ever. Bail on the lie when it becomes clear it is about to be found out. But their little game had consequences, and the girls were all expelled in their final year of school under mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of the school’s eccentric art teacher, Ambrose (who also happens to be Kate’s father).
Atmospheric, twisty, and with just the right amount of chill that will keep you wrong-footed—which has now become Ruth Ware’s signature style—The Lying Game is sure to be her next big bestseller. Another unputdownable thriller from the Agatha Christie of our time.
“Can’t resist those thrillers.”
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The Memory Agent by Matthew B.J. Delaney at Avalinah’s Books..
Crime never changes. Punishment does.
In a time when prisons no longer contain inmates behind concrete and steel, the convicted serve their time while asleep, rehabilitating in virtual reality while blissfully unaware of their crimes.
Roger Parker is a professional prison breaker, skilled at navigating these strange penal dream worlds and extracting those imprisoned there—for a price. Parker wants out of the game, but a powerful senator, desperate to save his son, convinces Parker to pull one last job. The clincher? An opportunity for Parker to find his wife, herself interned, lost somewhere in a treacherous, time-shifting Manhattan cyberscape.
As Parker and his team make their hallucinatory journey between worlds, memory and motive lose coherence and integrity, and the clock begins to run out: internal security detects the breaker, and sets out to remove him—permanently.
Unable to rely on his perceptions, unsure of the truth or even his very identity, will Parker break out . . . or be broken?
“Scifi, tech, thriller? Whatever, I like all three genres.”
Martha
The Clockwork Dynasty by Daniel H. Wilson found at Under My Apple Tree.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Robopocalypse comes an epic new thriller about a race of ageless, human-like machines hiding among us for untold centuries.
Deep in the rugged landscape of eastern Oregon, a young anthropologist named June Stefanov uncovers an exquisite artifact – a three-hundred-year-old mechanical doll – which is evidence of what she has spent years searching for. This is no ordinary doll…it is proof of a living race of ancient automatons that, she believes, exists to this day. Ingeniously hidden inside the intricate doll is a message, addressed to the court of Peter the Great, czar of Russia.
In 1725 Russia, Peter and Elena, two human-like mechanical beings known as ‘avtomat, ‘ are brought to life under the guise of Peter the Great. Their struggle to serve in the court of the czar while blending in, and to survive amid those who wish to annihilate them, will take Peter and Elena across Russia, Europe, and, ultimately, across the centuries to modern day.
Daniel H. Wilson’s masterful new novel seamlessly interweaves past and present, exploring a race of beings that lives undetected among us. As June learns more about the ‘avtomat’ doll she has discovered, she is quickly drawn into a fierce and poignant battle that has spanned the centuries – and will ultimately affect the survival of this ancient race. In this nuanced, heart-pounding thriller, Daniel H. Wilson expertly incorporates technology, exquisite characters, and breathtaking action. This is Wilson’s most sophisticated and entertaining novel to date. From the Hardcover edition.”
“Robotics and space marine – How could I resist.”
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Killing Pace by Douglas Schofield found at Lori’s Reading Corner.
“Engrossing…It’s a tribute to criminal lawyer Schofield’s persuasive powers that his characters, procedural elements, and atmosphere are convincing enough to keep those pages turning without logic getting in the way.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Time of Departure
In Killing Pace, Douglas Schofield, author of Time of Departure and Storm Rising, delivers a heart-pounding tale set in Everglades City, Florida and Sicily, Italy with three important questions: Where am I?… How did I get here?… and most importantly… Who am I?
It’s been two months since Lisa Green crawled barefoot and bleeding out of a terrible car accident. Her boyfriend Roland has been nursing her back to health under close watch. Lisa has amnesia. They both know that, but only Lisa knows that she hasn’t lost her ability to reason. And reason tells her that she is not Roland’s girlfriend. She is his prisoner. Gradually, Lisa remembers training and skills that she didn’t know she had and is able to make her escape. When a sheriff’s deputy finds her, she tells him she wants to report a missing person: herself.
What follows is a high-octane international chase, which involves US Border Control, the Sicilian mafia, and a shadowy organization specializing in trafficking infants taken from Syrian refugees and made available for adoption to wealthy American couples. Lisa, whose real name is Laura Pace, must figure out who she can trust and how to stay alive.
“A “High Octane” description always gets my attention.”
