Mailbox Monday-- Perception Is All

A big vote of thanks to Marcia for hosting my favorite meme. If you'd like to join in or just take a look at the books other participants have received, click on that redhead to the left to be taken right to Marcia's blog, The Printed Page.

Last week I sent 5 books to new PBS (Paperback Swap) foster homes, and I welcomed 4 as I pulled them from my mailbox. Let's take a look at what I unwrapped.

--Beside a Burning Sea by John Shors (PBS). "It’s the fall of 1942, and the U.S. hospital ship Benevolence is cruising the waters of the South Pacific when it is torpedoed by the Japanese. Only nine people survive, and they eventually wash up on an island: the captain Joshua, and his wife, Isabelle, a nurse; Isabelle’s sister Annie and a woman named Scarlet, both nurses; Ratu, a teenage Fijian stowaway; Jake, a black engineer; Nathan and Roger, two officers; and Akira, a wounded Japanese soldier. The group knows it’s only a matter of time before the Japanese war machine reaches their shores, so they valiantly prepare for battle. As they do so, each man and woman struggles with his or her own personal demons. Add to that Annie’s fascination with Akira, and the fact that one survivor is secretly radioing the Japanese from deep in the jungle."

--Telling Tales by Ann Cleeves (Alibris). "It has been ten years since Jeanie Long was charged with the murder of fifteen-year-old Abigail Mantel. Now residents of the East Yorkshire village of Elvet are disturbed to hear of new evidence proving Jeanie's innocence. Abigail's killer is still at large. For one young woman, Emma Bennett, the revelation brings back haunting memories of her vibrant best friend - and of that fearful winters day when she had discovered her body lying cold in a ditch. As Inspector Vera Stanhope makes fresh enquiries on the peninsula and villagers are hauled back to a time they hoped to forget, tensions begin to mount. But are people afraid of the killer, or of their own guilty pasts?" This is the second in the Vera Stanhope series.

--Hidden Depths by Ann Cleeves (Alibris). "A hot summer on the Northumberland coast, and Julie Armstrong arrives home from a night out to find her son murdered. Luke has been strangled, laid out in a bath of water and covered with wild flowers. This stylized murder scene has Inspector Vera Stanhope and her team intrigued. But then a second body - that of beautiful young teacher Lily Marsh - is discovered laid out in a rock pool, the water strewn with flowers. Now Vera must work quickly to find this dramatist, this killer who is making art out of death. Clues are slow to emerge from those who had known Luke and Lily, but Vera soon finds herself drawn towards the curious group of friends who discovered Lily's body. What unites these four men and one woman?" This is the third Vera Stanhope mystery. As you can see, I enjoyed The Crow Trap so much that I couldn't resist getting the others in this series.

--The Bird Yard by Julia Wallis Martin (PBS). "Grim and intense, this novel gives readers an instant jolt with its stark depiction of evil lurking in the decaying back alleys and crumbling infrastructure of Manchester, England. When 12-year-old Gary disappears from his home, Detective Superintendent Parker quickly recognizes that his disappearance is eerily similar to one that occurred five years earlier, in 1992, when another 12-year-old boy, Joseph, vanished. As Parker and his team try to locate Gary, they are deeply disturbed to discover Joseph's skeleton in a remote woods. The pathology report suggests he was murdered in a ritualistic manner. Parker, with the aid of criminal psychologist Murray Hanson, intensifies the hunt for Gary and soon discovers that the two boys, who were both neglected by their parents, had worked for a pet-shop owner who has ties to two other suspects: a reclusive breeder of exotic finches and a convicted pedophile. The streetwise Parker aims to strengthen the fragile links between the three men before a third victim disappears."

Before you congratulate me on once again sending more books out than I received, have you taken a look at my post about buying books for the holidays? I cheated!