Monday, April 13, 2009

Mailbox Monday-- A Much Appreciated Slow Week

Now that I've got a house filled with family from the UK, I'm glad last week was a slow book week! I sent 4 books to new Paperback Swap homes and took in 5 foster books, 4 from PBS and one an ARC from Shelf Awareness. Here's the scoop:

--An Advancement of Learning by Reginald Hill (PBS), the second in the Dalziel and Pascoe mystery series set in Yorkshire, England. (For those of you not in the know, "Dalziel" is pronounced "Dee-el".) This series is one of the best British police procedurals going.

--Quail in My Bed by Burley Packwood (PBS). Petra is a wild Gambel's quail that hitches a ride to Canada when an Arizona couple goes on vacation. I love Gambel's quail, so I'm really looking forward to this one!

--Butter in the Well: A Scandinavian Woman's Tale of Life on the Prairie by Linda K. Hubalek (PBS). "
Read the account of Kajsa Svensson Runeberg, an emigrant wife who recounts, through her diary, how she and her family built up a farm on the unsettled Kansas prairie. This historical fiction is based on the Swedish woman who homesteaded the author's childhood home."

--The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe (ARC).
"Harvard graduate student Connie Goodwin needs to spend her summer doing research for her doctoral dissertation. But when her mother asks her to handle the sale of Connie's grandmother's abandoned home near Salem, she can't refuse. As she is drawn deeper into the mysteries of the family house, Connie discovers an ancient key within a seventeenth-century Bible. The key contains a yellowing fragment of parchment with a name written upon it: Deliverance Dane. This discovery launches Connie on a quest--to find out who this woman was and to unearth a rare artifact of singular power: a physick book, its pages a secret repository for lost knowledge. As the pieces of Deliverance's harrowing story begin to fall into place, Connie is haunted by visions of the long-ago witch trials, and she begins to fear that she is more tied to Salem's dark past then she could have ever imagined."

--Eye Contact by Cammie McGovern (PBS).
"A nine-year-old autistic boy, Adam, witnesses the murder of a classmate. Disturbed by what he saw, Adam retreats into himself, frustrating the police and worrying his mother, Cara, who has watched Adam's development with a nervous eye since he was diagnosed with autism. Cara is fearful of the effect the murder will have on her son, but she's also surprised to find the investigation dredging up her own past: the officer assigned to the case is the younger brother of her former best friend, whom she hasn't spoken to in almost a decade. And another old friend, who might just be Adam's father, has come back into her life."

Those are the books that came into my house last week. If you'd like to see what others received last week, click on that hungry-looking gator mailbox at the top of this post to be taken to Marcia's The Printed Page. Thanks for hosting this fun meme, Marcia!





17 comments:

  1. I so wanna read the Howe book :D
    Have fun

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  2. I hope you enjoy Deliverance Dane as much as I did. I loved it! You got some great books this week.
    My mailbox is here

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  3. A net gain of only one book? That's pretty amazing in my book. ;-)

    My mailbox is here.

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  4. Great list of books! Happy Reading.

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  5. Quail in My Bed sounds like it would be entertaining!

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  6. I'm half way through Physick and am truly enjoying it. I hope you do too. Nice selection this week.

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  7. Eye Contact sounds interesting to me.

    BTW, All four of the Kellermans are going to be at The Poisoned Pen tonight. I'm not going because I think both Faye and Jonathan have burned out.

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  8. The Howe book sounds intriguing.. I'm adding that to my wishlist. :D

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  9. Quail in My Bed sounds cute! Enjoy your company and your new reads!

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  10. When does Butter in the Well take place? It sounds as if it could be useful from a teaching point of view.

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  11. I'm looking forward to your thoughts on Physick. It sounds interesting. Happy reading!

    --Anna
    Diary of an Eccentric

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  12. Great week. Can't wait to see what you think of Deliverance. I've had my eye on that one.

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  13. Blodeuedd--I've wanted to read it, too. I was surprised when the ARC arrived!

    Kathy--I'm hoping that this week will be slow, too. Too much going on here at the old homestead!

    Kaye--I'm so glad you enjoyed Howe's book!

    Kristen--I thought it was pretty amazing, too!

    Thanks, Serena!

    Alyce--I've started reading it, and it is entertaining so far!

    Margot--another "thumbs up" for Howe...yes!

    Charlie--I agree with you about the Kellermans.

    Claire--I'm always happy to add to someone else's wish list!

    Thanks, Mary!

    Jen--I am enjoying both, although I am getting a lot less reading done than normal.

    Dorte--It takes place from 1868-1888. Will that be of any help to you? Evidently this is just one volume of a series of books describing the lives of the first settlers in an area. If this one is good, I'll be checking out the others!

    Anna--It looks as though it's not being published until June, so I'll probably let it sit and percolate a bit while I plow through other books on my TBR shelves.

    Dar--It sounds like many of us have had our eyes on Howe's book. I'm beginning to think it was my lucky day when I managed to snag an ARC!

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  14. Thank you for stopping by the mailbox this week. We share 'The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane'. Enjoy your books!

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  15. I just got Deliverence Dane this week too. Very excited as I saw so many others getting it!

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