Books That Caught Our Eye

1 Comment

Posted on March 3, 2023

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:

You Cannot Save Here, by Anthony Moll found at Savvy Verse & Wit.

Winner of the 2022 Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from the Washington Writers’ Publishing House, You Cannot Save Here is a collection of poems about how we live when each day feels like the world is ending. The poems ask what we do with the small moments that matter when so much around us—climate disaster, gun violence, pandemics, wars—makes these days feel apocalyptic. The book is a bit speculative and a bit confessional. It’s queer, punk, and woven tightly with cultural allusion—from visual art to video games, pop culture to counterculture.

“Sounds very à propos, perfect for our time!”

The Paris Maid, by Ella Carey found at Silver’s Reviews.

London, present day. I open my phone to find a message from my aunt: a black-and-white photograph with the caption “Paris, 1944”. A young woman stares up at me, her head shaved and a swastika painted onto her forehead. As I try to take in what I’m seeing, my heart begins to race. Could this be my beloved grandmother, branded a traitor?

Devastated Nicole Beaumont, a devoted schoolteacher, questions why her adored grandmother never spoke about her life during the war. Her unwavering love and protection taught Nicole lifelong lessons about loyalty and family, so this revelation rocks her very core. About to start a family of her own, Nicole sets out for Paris in search of answers.

But in war, nothing is simple and what Nicole discovers will alter the course of her life forever…

Paris, 1944. When Louise started working as a housemaid at The Ritz Hotel, she never imagined that the most powerful Nazis in France would make it their home. As she changes silk sheets and scrubs sumptuous marble bathtubs, she listens and watches, reporting all she can to the Resistance.

But when a stranger appears in the hotel’s ornate glass doorway, she has never been so scared—the secret she’s been keeping is suddenly in danger of breaking free.

Can Louise fight for freedom whilst keeping those she loves safe? Or will she be cast aside as a traitor by the very same people she is risking her life to protect?

Inspired by true events, fans of Fiona Valpy, The Nightingale and Rhys Bowen will love this heart-shattering historical novel. From top-ten bestseller Ella Carey, The Paris Maid is a totally gripping story about love, betrayal and a shocking family secret hidden for a generation.

“Ooh, another WWII historical novel set in Paris!”

MARTHA:

Identity by Nora Roberts at Bookfan.

A new thriller about one man’s ice-cold malice, and one woman’s fight to reclaim her life.

Former Army brat Morgan Albright has finally planted roots in a friendly neighborhood near Baltimore. Her friend and roommate Nina helps her make the mortgage payments, as does Morgan’s job as a bartender. But after she and Nina host their first dinner party—attended by Luke, the flirtatious IT guy who’d been chatting her up at the bar—her carefully built world is shattered. The back door glass is broken, cash and jewelry are missing, her car is gone, and Nina lies dead on the floor.

Soon, a horrific truth emerges: It was Morgan who let the monster in. “Luke” is actually a cold-hearted con artist named Gavin who targets a particular type of woman, steals her assets and identity, and then commits his ultimate goal: murder.

What the FBI tells Morgan is beyond chilling. Nina wasn’t his type. Morgan is. Nina was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. And Morgan’s nightmare is just beginning. Soon she has no choice but to flee to her mother’s home in Vermont. While she struggles to build something new, she meets another man, Miles Jameson. He isn’t flashy or flirtatious, and his family business has deep roots in town. But Gavin is still out there hunting new victims, and he hasn’t forgotten the one who got away.

“I like the cover and I like romantic suspense so this caught my eye.”

Cowboys and Chaos, Magical Mystery Book Club #3 by Elizabeth Pantley found at Bookworm.

This is no ordinary book club! When the group chooses a book, they are whisked away from reality to find themselves totally immersed in the story. The characters, the setting, and the murder all come to life. In order to exit the book, they’ll need to solve the mystery and reach The End.

This time, the club chooses a mystery that takes place in a quaint western town – in the old Wild West. That sounds like great fun, until they arrive in the dusty old town in the Arizona desert, among cowboys and saloons. They discover that the outhouse isn’t the worse thing about this trip.

The good news is that Paige, Glo, Zell, Frank, and the other members of the club discover plenty of surprises here, and they have a great time visiting a piece of history. They’ll get to live through many exciting moments as they unravel this cozy mystery story.

“This cover pulled me in and a magical book club sounds good. I need to check out the series.”

SERENA:

Weyward by Emilia Hart at Bookfan.

Three women. Five centuries. One secret.

‘I had nature in my heart, she said. Like she did, and her mother before her. There was something about us – the Weyward women – that bonded us more tightly with the natural world.
We can feel it, she said, the same way we feel rage, sorrow or joy.’

In 2019, Kate flees an abusive relationship in London for Crows Beck, a remote Cumbrian village. Her destination is Weyward Cottage, inherited from her great Aunt Violet, an eccentric entomologist.

As Kate struggles with the trauma of her past, she uncovers a secret about the women in her family. A secret dating back to 1619, when her ancestor Altha Weyward was put on trial for witchcraft…

Weyward is a stunning debut novel about gender and control – about the long echoes of male violence through the centuries. But more than that, it is a celebration of nature, female power and breaking free.

“This sounds very intriguing and I love multi-generational novels, witchcraft and women’s empowerment stories.”

Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant: A Memoir by Curtis Chin at BookBirdDog

Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone—from the city’s first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples—could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal. Here was where, beneath a bright-red awning and surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker and activist Curtis Chin came of age; where he learned to embrace his identity as a gay ABC, or American-born Chinese; where he navigated the divided city’s spiraling misfortunes; and where—between helpings of almond boneless chicken, sweet-and-sour pork, and some of his own, less-savory culinary concoctions—he realized just how much he had to offer to the world, to his beloved family, and to himself.

Served up by the cofounder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and structured around the very menu that graced the tables of Chung’s, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant is both a memoir and an invitation: to step inside one boy’s childhood oasis, scoot into a vinyl booth, and grow up with him—and perhaps even share something off the secret menu.

“I love the idea of this being structured around a menu and that there’s a secret menu. This sounds like an intriguing memoir.”

What books caught your eyes this week?

Mailbox Monday

1 Comment

Posted on February 26, 2023

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week.
Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles, and humongous wish lists.

I’ll likely have a visitor or two this weekend, but it will be a nice change of pace. We haven’t really seen each other in years. I hope everyone has a lovely weekend and finds time to read. I’ll have another busy week of work, so not much reading time for me.

Tell us about your new books by adding your Mailbox Monday post to the linky below:

Be sure to stop back later this week for Books That Caught Our Eye.

Books That Caught Our Eye

2 Comments

Posted on February 24, 2023

We encourage you to share the books that caught your eye in the comments.

EMMA:

The Christie Caper, by Carolyn G. Hart found at Carstairs Considers…

In honor of Agatha Christie’s one hundredth birthday, mystery bookstore owner Annie Laurance Darling plans a week-long celebration of mystery, treasure hunts, title clues, and Christie trivia. Yet even as the champagne is chilling and the happy guests begin arriving on Broward’s Rock Island, Annie feels a niggling sense of doom. But the last thing she or her guests expect is that the scheduled fun and mayhem will include a real-life murder. The unexpected arrival of Neil Bledsoe, the most despised book critic in America, was sure to raise a few hackles. An advocate of hard-boiled detection and gory true crime, Bledsoe drops a bombshell on the devoted Christie assemblage: He’s penning a scurrilous biography of the grand dame of suspense herself. Before the first title clue is solved, no less than two attempts are made on Bledsoe’s life. Now Annie and her unflappable husband, Max Darling, find themselves trying to stop a murder in the making-only the first corpse isn’t the one they’re expecting. . .and it isn’t the last.

“Agatha Christie, a bookstore: this is pushing all the right buttons. This is book 7 in the series, but hopefully it works well as a standalone.”

The Sentence of Death, by Anthony Hororwitz found at Bookfan

“You shouldn’t be here. It’s too late…”

These, heard over the phone, were the last recorded words of successful celebrity-divorce lawyer. Richard Pryce, found bludgeoned to death in his bachelor pad with a bottle of wine – a 1982 Chateau Lafite worth £3,000, to be precise.Odd, considering he didn’t drink. Why this bottle? And why those words? And why was a three-digit number painted on the wall by the killer? And, most importantly, which of the man’s many, many enemies did the deed?Baffled, the police are forced to bring in Private Investigator Daniel Hawthorne >and his sidekick, the author Anthony, who’s really getting rather good at this murder investigation business.But as Hawthorne takes on the case with characteristic relish, it becomes clear that he, too, has secrets to hide. As our reluctant narrator becomes ever more embroiled in the case, he realises that these secrets must be exposed – even at the risk of death…

“I actually read and reviewed it 4 years ago. Great mix of reality and fiction. Horowitz is an amazing author. I take this as a reminder to keep reading the series! This is book 2 out of 4.”

MARTHA:
These Silent Woods by by Kimi Cunningham Grant found at Book Dilettante.

A father and daughter living in the remote Appalachian mountains must reckon with the ghosts of their past in Kimi Cunningham Grant’s These Silent Woods, a mesmerizing novel of suspense.

No electricity, no family, no connection to the outside world.

For eight years, Cooper and his young daughter, Finch, have lived in isolation in a remote cabin in the northern Appalachian woods. And that’s exactly the way Cooper wants it, because he’s got a lot to hide. Finch has been raised on the books filling the cabin’s shelves and the beautiful but brutal code of life in the wilderness. But she’s starting to push back against the sheltered life Cooper has created for her–and he’s still haunted by the painful truth of what it took to get them there.

The only people who know they exist are a mysterious local hermit named Scotland, and Cooper’s old friend, Jake, who visits each winter to bring them food and supplies. But this year, Jake doesn’t show up, setting off an irreversible chain of events that reveals just how precarious their situation really is. Suddenly, the boundaries of their safe haven have blurred–and when a stranger wanders into their woods, Finch’s growing obsession with her could put them all in danger. After a shocking disappearance threatens to upend the only life Finch has ever known, Cooper is forced to decide whether to keep hiding–or finally face the sins of his past.

Vividly atmospheric and masterfully tense, These Silent Woods is a poignant story of survival, sacrifice, and how far a father will go when faced with losing it all..

“I like the sound of this thriller.”

Stone Maidens by Lloyd Devereux Richards found at The Bookworm.

As the chief forensic anthropologist for the FBI’s Chicago field office, Christine Prusik has worked her fair share of bizarre cases. Yet this one trumps them all: a serial killer is strangling young women and dumping their bodies in the steep, forested ravines of southern Indiana.

With each victim, the killer leaves a calling card: a stone figurine carved like the spirit stones found among the primitive tribes of Papua New Guinea — the same tribes from whom Prusik narrowly escaped a decade earlier while doing field research. The similarity is eerie and, frankly, terrifying; Prusik still carries the scars from the tribesmen’s attack. But is the connection real? Or have the dark details of Prusik’s nightmares finally wormed their way into her waking life?

Displaying the expertise of a veteran writer, debut novelist Lloyd Devereux Richards skillfully builds layers of psychological suspense and terror into a compulsively readable whodunit.

“This is another thriller that looks good. (And I didn’t see it on Tik Tock.)”

SERENA:

The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz at Bookshelf Journeys.

Alex has all but given up on her dreams of becoming a published author when she receives a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: attend an exclusive, month-long writing retreat at the estate of feminist horror writer Roza Vallo. Even the knowledge that Wren, her former best friend and current rival, is attending doesn’t dampen her excitement.

But when the attendees arrive, Roza drops a bombshell—they must all complete an entire novel from scratch during the next month, and the author of the best one will receive a life-changing seven-figure publishing deal. Determined to win this seemingly impossible contest, Alex buckles down and tries to ignore the strange happenings at the estate, including Roza’s erratic behavior, Wren’s cruel mind games, and the alleged haunting of the mansion itself. But when one of the writers vanishes during a snowstorm, Alex realizes that something very sinister is afoot. With the clock running out, she’s desperate to discover the truth and save herself.

“I love the cover and how it is pulled back like we’re opening a book. I’ve never been on a writing retreat but have always wanted to go. This may give me pause next time I’m thinking about it.”

Over the Hill & Up the Wall by Todd Alexander at Sam Still Reading.

Of course, we love our parents. Even if they do so many things that drive us bonkers.

Like how a mother – for argument’s sake, let’s say mine – taps her fingernails on the car window whenever she sees a place of interest (seven taps for a regular haunt, up to twenty for somewhere fascinating). Or the way a father – let’s call him Dad – practises deafness but can miraculously hear a suggestion of no ham at Christmas over the roar of cricket commentary. It might be the way your mum works herself into a tizz over a call from Azerbaijan one week and Nigeria the next. Or how your dad has an answer to everything (despite his information being forty years out of date) and ‘a guy’ for all fixes (if only he could find his Rolodex).

When do we stop being our parents’ child and become their parent? After all, they did pretty well on their own for decades – why do they need our intervention now? And that tendency for them to drive us up the wall … could it be because we are entering middle age and starting to recognise some of those traits in ourselves?

Over the Hill and Up the Wall is an affectionate, funny look at the frictions of taking a more active role in our elders’ lives. It’s a nod to every child who has waited three hours for a parent to fasten their seatbelt, and every parent whose child assumes they can’t count to twenty. And, if your parents are just hitting middle age, it may well be a warning of things to come!

“I am in that sandwich generation where I’m caring for my own child and my parents. This book speaks to me about all the silly and annoying things that go on here.”

What books caught your eyes this week?

Mailbox Monday

6 Comments

Posted on February 19, 2023

No swim meets this weekend. I am looking forward to some relaxation. I hope everyone had a great week, full of reading.

Tell us about your new books by adding your Mailbox Monday post to the linky below:

Be sure to stop back later this week for Books That Caught Our Eye.

Books That Caught Our Eye

Mailbox Monday

2 Comments

Posted on February 12, 2023

With Valentine’s Day coming, I thought this was the best mailbox to post. I’ll be headed to another swim meet this weekend, which is why I’m prescheduling this post. I hope everyone had a great week and has a weekend full of reading. Currently, I’m on an audiobook roll, and you can imagine why.

Tell us about your new books by adding your Mailbox Monday post to the linky below:

Be sure to stop back later this week for Books That Caught Our Eye.

Books That Caught Our Eye

1 Comment

Posted on February 10, 2023

We encourage you to share the books that caught your eye in the comments.

EMMA:

John Adams, by David McCullough found at The Book Connection

The enthralling, often surprising story of John Adams, one of the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.

In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest Yankee patriot — “the colossus of independence,” as Thomas Jefferson called him — who spared nothing in his zeal for the American Revolution; who rose to become the second President of the United States and saved the country from blundering into an unnecessary war; who was learned beyond all but a few and regarded by some as “out of his senses”; and whose marriage to the wise and valiant Abigail Adams is one of the moving love stories in American history.

Like his masterly, Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Truman, David McCullough’s John Adams has the sweep and vitality of a great novel. It is both a riveting portrait of an abundantly human man and a vivid evocation of his time, much of it drawn from an outstanding collection of Adams family letters and diaries. In particular, the more than one thousand surviving letters between John and Abigail Adams, nearly half of which have never been published, provide extraordinary access to their private lives and make it possible to know John Adams as no other major American of his founding era.

As he has with stunning effect in his previous books, McCullough tells the story from within — from the point of view of the amazing eighteenth century and of those who, caught up in events, had no sure way of knowing how things would turn out. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, the British spy Edward Bancroft, Madame Lafayette and Jefferson’s Paris “interest” Maria Cosway, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, the scandalmonger James Callender, Sally Hemings, John Marshall, Talleyrand, and Aaron Burr all figure in this panoramic chronicle, as does, importantly, John Quincy Adams, the adored son whom Adams would live to see become President.

Crucial to the story, as it was to history, is the relationship between Adams and Jefferson, born opposites — one a Massachusetts farmer’s son, the other a Virginia aristocrat and slaveholder, one short and stout, the other tall and spare. Adams embraced conflict; Jefferson avoided it. Adams had great humor; Jefferson, very little. But they were alike in their devotion to their country.
At first they were ardent co-revolutionaries, then fellow diplomats and close friends. With the advent of the two political parties, they became archrivals, even enemies, in the intense struggle for the presidency in 1800, perhaps the most vicious election in history. Then, amazingly, they became friends again, and ultimately, incredibly, they died on the same day — their day of days — July 4, in the year 1826.

Much about John Adams’s life will come as a surprise to many readers. His courageous voyage on the frigate Boston in the winter of 1778 and his later trek over the Pyrenees are exploits that few would have dared and that few readers will ever forget.
It is a life encompassing a huge arc — Adams lived longer than any president. The story ranges from the Boston Massacre to Philadelphia in 1776 to the Versailles of Louis XVI, from Spain to Amsterdam, from the Court of St. James’s, where Adams was the first American to stand before King George III as a representative of the new nation, to the raw, half-finished Capital by the Potomac, where Adams was the first President to occupy the White House.

This is history on a grand scale — a book about politics and war and social issues, but also about human nature, love, religious faith, virtue, ambition, friendship and betrayal, and the far-reaching consequences of noble ideas. Above all, John Adams is an enthralling, often surprising story of one of the most important and fascinating Americans who ever lived.

“McCullough is an amazing author. I have enjoyed two books by him, and I need to read more. I love history and watched a fascinating documentary on Adams, so I really need to read this one.”

The Maid’s Diary, by Loreth Anne White found at Bookshelf Journeys

A cunning, twisty, and unsettling novel of psychological suspense with a startling conclusion by Loreth Anne

White, the Amazon Charts and Washington Post bestselling author of The Patient’s Secret.
Kit Darling is a maid with a snooping problem. She’s the “invisible girl,” compelled to poke into her wealthy clients’ closely guarded lives. It’s a harmless hobby until Kit sees something she can’t unsee in the home of her brand-new clients: a secret so dark it could destroy the privileged couple expecting their first child. This makes Kit dangerous to the couple. In turn, it makes the couple—who might kill to keep their secret—dangerous to Kit.

When homicide cop Mallory Van Alst is called to a scene at a luxury waterfront home known as the Glass House, she’s confronted with evidence of a violent attack so bloody it’s improbable the victim is alive. But there’s no body. The homeowners are gone. And their maid is missing. The only witness is the elderly woman next door, who woke to screams in the night. The neighbor was also the last person to see Kit Darling alive.

As Mal begins to uncover the secret that has sent the lives of everyone involved on a devious and inescapable collision course, she realizes that nothing is quite as it seems.

And no one escapes their past.

“I haven’t read a really good psychological novel for a while. This one looks like it would fit the bill!”

MARTHA:

Scraps of Paper Spookie Town Murder Mystery #1 by Kathryn Meyer Griffith found at The Book Connection.

Abigail Sutton’s beloved husband walks out one night, doesn’t return, and two years later is found dead, a victim of a long ago crime. It’s made her sympathetic to the missing and their families.

Starting her new life, Abigail moves to small town and buys a fixer-upper house left empty when old Edna Summers died. Once it was also home to Edna’s younger sister, Emily, and her two children, Jenny and Christopher, who, people believe, drove away one night, thirty years ago, and just never came back.

But in renovating the house Abigail finds scraps of paper hidden behind baseboards and tucked beneath the porch that hint the three could have been victims of foul play.

Then she finds their graves hidden in the woods behind the house and with the help of eccentric townspeople and ex-homicide detective, Frank Lester, she discovers the three were murdered. Then she and Frank try to uncover who killed them and why…but in the process awaken the ire of the murderer. ***

“I like the sound of this. It is listed as a cozy mystery but sounds a bit creepy to me. And I got it free too.”

The Doctor of the Great North Woods by Sawyer Hall found at Bookshelf Journeys.

As a doctor fresh out of training, Aubrey Lane can’t wait to leave those brutal days behind her. She’s worked nights, weekends, and holidays, only to watch her twenties go by in a blur.

But just as she’s about to walk out of the hospital for the last time, she receives some devastating news: her father is dead. The circumstances are mysterious, the cause unknown. Was it a heart attack? A strange illness? An accident in the Great North Woods of Maine, where Aubrey grew up? Her mother won’t give her any details, but her message is clear: You need to come home.

As Aubrey tries to cope with her own grief and confusion, she makes the difficult decision to travel back to Maine. But what she finds there shakes her to her very core…

And dares her to become the doctor her community needs her to be.

“The title and cover made me check the blurb. This is tagged as a medical thriller and does sound interesting.”

SERENA:

Anatomy by Dana Schwartz at Infinite Curio.

Hazel Sinnett is a lady who wants to be a surgeon more than she wants to marry.Jack Currer is a resurrection man who’s just trying to survive in a city where it’s too easy to die.

When the two of them have a chance encounter outside the Edinburgh Anatomist’s Society, Hazel thinks nothing of it at first. But after she gets kicked out of renowned surgeon Dr. Beecham’s lectures for being the wrong gender, she realizes that her new acquaintance might be more helpful than she first thought. Because Hazel has made a deal with Dr. Beecham: if she can pass the medical examination on her own, the university will allow her to enroll. Without official lessons, though, Hazel will need more than just her books – she’ll need bodies to study, corpses to dissect.

Lucky that she’s made the acquaintance of someone who digs them up for a living, then.

But Jack has his own problems: strange men have been seen skulking around cemeteries, his friends are disappearing off the streets. Hazel and Jack work together to uncover the secrets buried not just in unmarked graves, but in the very heart of Edinburgh society.

“This sounds so exciting. I love these quirky kinds of mystery tales.”

What books caught your eye this week?

Mailbox Monday

Books That Caught Our Eye

1 Comment

Posted on February 3, 2023

We encourage you to share the books that caught your eye in the comments.

EMMA:

If Cats Disappeared From The World, by Genki Kawamura found at A Universe in Words

Our narrator’s days are numbered. Estranged from his family, living alone with only his cat Cabbage for company, he was unprepared for the doctor’s diagnosis that he has only months to live. But before he can set about tackling his bucket list, the Devil appears with a special offer: in exchange for making one thing in the world disappear, he can have one extra day of life. And so begins a very bizarre week . . .

Because how do you decide what makes life worth living? How do you separate out what you can do without from what you hold dear? In dealing with the Devil our narrator will take himself – and his beloved cat – to the brink. Genki Kawamura’s If Cats Disappeared from the World is a story of loss and reconciliation, of one man’s journey to discover what really matters in modern life.

This beautiful tale is translated from the Japanese by Eric Selland, who also translated The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide. Fans of The Guest Cat and The Travelling Cat Chronicles will also surely love If Cats Disappeared from the World.

“Japanese fiction and cats? Yes please !”

Mount Fuji: 36 Sonnets, by Jay Hall Carpenter found at Savvy Verse & Wit

Jay Hall Carpenter’s homage to “36 Views of Mount Fuji” by Katsushika Hokusai (1830). These Shakespearean sonnets discuss family, nostalgia, love, death, and more.

“I’m also going toward Japan here. I really enjoy Hokusai‘s art, and am curious to see how the poet (also a famous sculptor) took his inspiration from it.”

MARTHA:

Primer and Punishment: A House-Flipper Mystery #5 by Diane Kelly found at Bookfan.

Primer and Punishment marks the fifth in the delightful cozy mystery series from Diane Kelly set in Nashville, Tennessee. Whitney Whitaker has a knack for nailing down murderers . . . but this time she might just come unmoored.

Carpenter Whitney Whitaker and her cousin Buck are looking once again to rehab and resell a house, only this particular house is made of fiberglass, floats, and has been dubbed the Skinny Dipper. The old houseboat sure could use some work, but the unusual project has Whitney bubbling with excitement.

The charming and handsome Grant Hardisty lives on the cabin cruiser in the adjacent slip, but the cousins soon learn he’s left a half dozen angry ex-wives in his wake and made enemies of all sorts of unsavory folks. The man is clearly caught in an increasingly dangerous current with no life preserver in sight.

Whitney and Buck are spraying primer on their houseboat when—KABOOM!—Grant’s boat blows sky high with the man himself inside. Detective Collin Flynn has no shortage of suspects, but the waters become muddied when several of them confess to the crime. Is one of those who confessed truly guilty, or are they taking a dive for someone else? When anonymous threats are made against the cousins, Whitney must quickly determine who killed their neighbor at the lake, or she and Buck might also be sunk.

“This cover caught my eye especially since I lived on a houseboat at times with my father. The cozy mystery sounds like one I would like.”

A Time for Justice Zoe Caine Legal Thriller #1 by Freya Atwood found at Bookshelf Journeys.

A terrible crime was committed in a facility for troubled youth. When a lawyer decides to unveil it twenty years later, she must fight against her family and city to find the truth…

As a stubborn and quick-witted lawyer, Zoe Caine has been trying to catch her big case for far too long. And the chance presents itself, the moment a traumatized woman begs her to uncover a horrifying injustice committed by the town’s beloved people. An unspoken crime Zoe knows firsthand.

Contemplating whether she should risk her career, Zoe soon learns that nothing remains secret. When the woman is found injured and near-dead, she decides to investigate. Only to find a truth that should have remained hidden away. They were raised in the same abusive facility. Twenty years ago.

The case has turned personal and Zoe knows she only has one chance to make this right. And when people threaten her life, the court is her only hope. Until the corruption that follows…

A Time for Justice is Freya’s 1st novel in the Zoe Caine series of blood-pumping legal thrillers. If you are an avid fan of strong female leads, action-packed courtroom drama, riveting characters and mind-blowing murder mystery, then you’ll love Freya’s intriguing story.

“I’m apt to be interested anytime there is a Legal Thriller. Make is a female lead and that is a plus.”

SERENA:

Solito: A Memoir by Javier Zamora at Bookshelf Journeys.

A young poet tells the story of his harrowing migration from El Salvador to the United States at the age of nine in this memoir.
Trip. My parents started using that word about a year ago–“one day, you’ll take a trip to be with us. Like an adventure.”

Javier’s adventure is a three-thousand-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, and across the U.S. border. He will leave behind his beloved aunt and grandparents to reunite with a mother who left four years ago and a father he barely remembers. Traveling alone except for a group of strangers and a coyote hired to lead them to safety, Javier’s trip is supposed to last two short weeks.

At nine years old, all Javier can imagine is rushing into his parents’ arms, snuggling in bed between them, living under the same roof again. He does not see the perilous boat trips, relentless desert treks, pointed guns, arrests and deceptions that await him; nor can he know that those two weeks will expand into two life-altering months alongside a group of strangers who will come to encircle him like an unexpected family.

“This sounds like a trip that might make you rethink the journey and the worth of it.”

What do you do with a chance by Kobi Yamada and illustrated by Mae Besom at Words and Peace.

The award–winning creators of The New York Times best sellers What Do You Do With an Idea? and What Do You Do With a Problem? return with a captivating story about a child who isn’t sure what to make of a chance encounter and then discovers that when you have courage, take chances, and say yes to new experiences, amazing things can happen.

In this story, a child is visited by his first chance and unsure what to do with it, he lets it go. Later on, when a new chance arrives he reaches for it, but this time he misses and falls. Embarrassed and afraid, he begins ignoring each new chance that comes by, even though he still wants to take them. Then one day he realizes that he doesn’t need to be brave all the time, just at the right time, to find out what amazing things can happen when he takes a chance

The final addition to the award-winning What Do You Do With…? picture book series created by New York Times best-selling author Kobi Yamada and illustrator by Mae Besom, What Do You Do With a Chance? inspires kids of all ages and parents alike to find the courage to go for the opportunities that come their way. Because you never know when a chance, once taken, might be the one to change everything.

“This sounds like a delightful series of books for kids and this one is particularly inspiring. How many times have we had an opportunity but let fear steer us away?”

What books caught your eye this week?

Mailbox Monday

a meme started by Marcia of To Be Continued

Author Archives: sagustocox

Books That Caught Our Eye

Mailbox Monday

Books That Caught Our Eye

Mailbox Monday

Books That Caught Our Eye

Mailbox Monday

Books That Caught Our Eye

Mailbox Monday

Books That Caught Our Eye

Mailbox Monday

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: