Mailbox Monday June 21

Mailbox Monday is a meme where you can post what books came into your home during the week. It is hosted by Marcia over at The Printed Page. Go on over and check it out. Be warned though it can lead to large TBR piles and wish lists!

This week I received 3 books and an audiobook.



This Must Be The Place by Kate Racculia

Synopsis (from US Macmillan)
A sudden death, a never-mailed postcard, and a longburied secret set the stage for a luminous and heartbreakingly real novel about lost souls finding one another

The Darby-Jones boardinghouse in Ruby Falls, New York, is home to Mona Jones and her daughter, Oneida, two loners and self-declared outcasts who have formed a perfectly insular family unit: the two of them and the three eclectic boarders living in their house. But their small, quiet life is upended when Arthur Rook shows up in the middle of a nervous breakdown, devastated by the death of his wife, carrying a pink shoe box containing all his wife's mementos and keepsakes, and holding a postcard from sixteen years ago, addressed to Mona but never sent. Slowly the contents of the box begin to fit together to tell a story—one of a powerful friendship, a lost love, and a secret that, if revealed, could change everything that Mona, Oneida, and Arthur know to be true. Or maybe the stories the box tells and the truths it brings to life will teach everyone about love—how deeply it runs, how strong it makes us, and how even when all seems lost, how tightly it brings us together. With emotional accuracy and great energy, This Must Be the Place introduces memorable, charming characters that refuse to be forgotten.



Everything Lovely, Effortless, Safe by Jenny Hollowell

Synopsis (from US Macmillan)

A young woman caught at the turning point between success and failure hopes fame and fortune will finally let her leave her old life—and her old self—behind

Birdie Baker has always dreamed of becoming someone else. At twenty-two, she sets off to do just that. Walking out on her pastor husband and deeply evangelical parents, she leaves behind her small-town, small-time life and gets on a bus to Los Angeles.

Nine years later, Birdie's life in Hollywood is far from golden, and nothing in the intervening years—the brutal auditions, the tawdry commercials—has brought her any closer to the transformation she craves. Caught between success and failure, haunted by guilt about a tragedy in her long-forsaken family, Birdie is at the brink of collapse when she meets Lewis, a beautiful but naïve young actor with his own troubled history, whose self-destructive impulses run dangerously parallel to her own.

When her big chance finally comes, Birdie must reconcile the wide-eyed girl she once was with the jaded starlet she has become and try to find herself and her future somewhere in between. Everything Lovely, Effortless, Safe is the story of a young woman's struggle to make her own way in the Technicolor land of make-believe.

Thank you to Jason at Henry Holt and Company who sent me both of the above books.



Adam & Eve by Sena Jeter Naslund

Hours before his untimely—and highly suspicious—death, world-renowned astrophysicist Thom Bergmann shares his discovery of extraterrestrial life with his wife, Lucy. Feeling that the warring world is not ready to learn of—or accept—proof of life elsewhere in the universe, Thom entrusts Lucy with his computer flash drive, which holds the keys to his secret work.

Devastated by Thom’s death, Lucy keeps the secret, but Thom’s friend, anthropologist Pierre Saad contacts Lucy with an unusual and dangerous request about another sensitive matter. Pierre needs Lucy to help him smuggle a newly discovered artifact out of Egypt: an ancient codex concerning the human authorship of the Book of Genesis. Offering a reinterpretation of the creation story, the document is sure to threaten the literal foundation of all three major world religions . . . and there are those who will stop at nothing to suppress it.

Midway through the daring journey, Lucy’s small plane goes down between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the Middle East. The severely injured Lucy is rescued by Adam, a delusional American soldier whose search for both spiritual and carnal knowledge has led to madness. As Lucy heals, the bond between her and Adam grows. Ultimately, the pair forsake their half-mythical Eden and make their way back toward civilization—where members of an ultra-conservative religious cult are determined to deprive the world of the knowledge Lucy carries.


Set against the searing debate between evolutionists and creationists, Adam & Eve expands the definition of a “sacred book” and suggests that true madness lies in wars and violence fueled by all religious literalism and intolerance. A thriller, a romance, an adventure, and an idyll, Adam & Eve is a tour de force by a master contemporary storyteller.

Thank you to Tavia from William Morrow (through Shelf Awareness) for sending me Adam & Eve.




Behind The Wheel Express Spanish Level 1

Synopsis (from Barnes and Noble)

Behind the Wheel Spanish Level 1 covers beginning to intermediate level Spanish, providing a flexible, solid and universal foundation in speaking, understanding, and creatively expressing yourself in Spanish. The program features an English speaking instructor to guide you through the lessons and two native Latin American Spanish speakers to aid with your pronunciation. Includes a companion book to reinforce and enhance the audio experience.

I received this wonderful audiobook lesson courtesy of Barnes and Noble Book Clubs and Macmillon Audio.

It was a very nice week here. What wonderful books made their way into your home?