Monday in my Mailbox

So what are you reading this week?  Here are a few we received in the mail and will be getting to shortly.
From the author of the #1 international bestseller The Orchid House, the mesmerizing story of two Irish families entangled by a tragic past that seems destined to repeat itself To escape a recent heartbreak in New York, Grania Ryan returns to her family home on the rugged, wind-swept coast of Ireland. Here, on the cliff edge in the middle of a storm, she meets a young girl, Aurora Lisle, who will profoundly change her life.

Despite the warnings Grania receives from her mother to be wary of the Lisle family, Aurora and Grania forge a close friendship. Through a trove of old family letters dating from 1914, Grania begins to learn just how deeply their families’ histories are entwined. The horrors of World War I, the fate of a beautiful foundling child, and the irresistible lure of the ballet give rise to a legacy of heartache that leaves its imprint on each new generation. Ultimately, it will be Aurora whose intuition and spirit may be able to unlock the chains of the past.

Sweeping from Edwardian England to present-day New York, from the majestic Irish coast to the crumbling splendor of a legendary London town house, The Girl on the Cliff introduces two remarkable women whose quest to understand their past sends them toward a future where love can triumph over loss.

New York Times Bestselling Author

Plans for a romantic beach wedding are threatened when a bridesmaid goes missing and it falls to Piper Donovan to save the day in the third installment of Mary Jane Clark's enthralling Wedding Cake Mystery series

"Mary Jane Clark is a master at whipping up delicious nightmares for mystery fans…"-Associated Press

It's the dead of winter and struggling actress and wedding cake decorator Piper Donovan is thrilled to be in warm and romantic Sarasota, Florida, enjoying the powdery white beaches, soothing seas, and golden sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico. She and her family are there to celebrate her beloved cousin's wedding. Not only is Piper creating the sugar sand dollar-festooned wedding cake, she's also the maid of honor.

But a cloud seems to hover over the whole affair. Shortly after a bridesmaid mysteriously disappears, a kindly neighbor's car is run off the road and a prospective witness, an innocent Amish teenager, is threatened to keep silent. Then a body is found on the wedding beach. With the nuptials threatened, it falls to Piper to unmask a killer. Could it be the wedding planner with something to hide? A doctor and his wife who collect unusual Japanese figurines? The best man, an ex-drug dealer with lecherous eyes and roving hands? What about her cousin's future stepfather-or even the bridegroom himself?

As Piper gets close to figuring out who's been covering his guilty footprints in the sand, the cunning killer has already set his sights on Piper as his next victim!

Going to Solace

Debut Novel by Amanda McTigue

We're in Big Piney and Little Piney, two hollows just outside the town of Garnet in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. It's 1989. Thanksgiving is just around the corner. A handful of mismatched folks--some country people, some far-flung, fancy people--discover they have one thing in common: someone they know is sick, real sick, dying sick. Their paths cross as they go to Solace, a local hospice.

August Early has never set foot in a hospital before. Maggie Dulé packs a bag despite her vow never to return to the Pineys again. Burnice Kling, R.N., is fixing to "fire" her patient, a "cantankerous old cauliflower of a woman" and mother to an estranged daughter named Maggie. Meanwhile Cadence Greevey passes among them unnoticed. She's a "big-little girl" whose thinking hasn't kept up with her growing. Her mama's ailing and there's no one home to help.

Suddenly they find themselves functioning as caregivers, bedside improvisers, doing all they can to beat back death or "hurry him on about his business."

Through chapters that interweave points of view--funny-sad and sad-funny--multiple stories become one. Steeped in the rich flavor of the Appalachians, this debut novel offers comfort in comfortless times, illuminating the altered states of shock and clarity that visit us as our loved (and hated) ones pass from this world to the next.

The New York Times bestselling author of The Map of Timereturns with a mesmerizing novel casting H.G. Wells in a leading role, as the extraterrestrial invasion featured in The War of the Worlds is turned into a bizarre reality.A love story serves as backdrop for The Map of the Sky when New York socialite Emma Harlow agrees to marry millionaire Montgomery Gilmore, but only if he accepts her audacious challenge: to reproduce the extraterrestrial invasion featured in Wells’s War of the Worlds. What follows are three brilliantly interconnected plots to create a breathtaking tale of time travel and mystery, replete with cameos by a young Edgar Allan Poe, and Captain Shackleton and Charles Winslow from The Map of Time.

     Praised for “lyrical storytelling and a rich attention to detail,” (Library Journal, starred review), Palma again achieves the high standard set byThe Map of Time.

When Jennifer Reese lost her job, she was overcome by an impulse common among the recently unemployed: to economize by doing for herself what she had previously paid for. She had never before considered making her own peanut butter and pita bread, let alone curing her own prosciutto or raising turkeys. And though it sounded logical that “doing it yourself” would cost less, she had her doubts. So Reese began a series of kitchen-related experiments, taking into account the competing demands of everyday contemporary American family life as she answers some timely questions: When is homemade better? Cheaper? Are backyard eggs a more ethical choice than store-bought? Will grinding and stuffing your own sausage ruin your week? Is it possible to make an edible maraschino cherry? Some of Reese’s discoveries will surprise you: Although you should make your hot dog buns, guacamole, and yogurt, you should probably buy your hamburger buns, potato chips, and rice pudding. Tired? Buy your mayonnaise. Inspired? Make it. With its fresh voice and delightful humor, Make the Bread, Buy the Butter gives 120 recipes with eminently practical yet deliciously fun “Make or buy” recommendations. Reese is relentlessly entertaining as she relates her food and animal husbandry adventures, which amuse and perplex as well as nourish and sustain her family. Her tales include living with a backyard full of cheerful chickens, muttering ducks, and adorable baby goats; countertops laden with lacto-fermenting pickles; and closets full of mellowing cheeses. Here’s the full picture of what is involved in a truly homemade life—with the good news that you shouldn’t try to make everything yourself—and how to get the most out of your time in the kitchen.  I read and reviewed the hardback edition see my review here.
Neville Roscoe, notorious and enigmatic, lives resolutely outside society, bound only by his own code of honor - until challenged by his desire for the one woman he cannot have.

Miranda Clifford is a lady imprisoned by rigid respectability - until tempted by a passion beyond her power to deny.

Flung together in peril, through danger and intrigue, they discover a love impossible to ignore ... or keep.