Mailbox Monday May 16

It's Monday again! I can't believe how quickly the weeks go by. Time for another Mailbox Monday post. Mailbox Monday is the creation of Marcia from A Girl and Her Books. The meme is on tour and this month's host is Mari of MariReads. Thank you for hosting Mari! Just be warned Mailbox Monday can lead to toppling stacks of books and large wish lists. Don't ask me how I know this.

I hope everyone had a great reading week and a is enjoying spring. The weather has decided to pretend it is late fall here. It was a miserable weekend-cold, rainy and windy. However, it made for a great weekend to tuck in and read which is exactly what I did on Saturday! I also pre-ordered an upcoming summer read that I am looking forward to reading on the beach...without wearing mittens and a winter coat! I posted it today even though it hasn't been mailed yet because I am so excited to read it! As far as last weeks mailbox goes, I received one book which also looks to be a great summer read. If summer ever comes. I'm really not bitter about the cold weather we are having..really I'm not..ha! If anyone sees spring, maybe you could send that to my mailbox! Running the furnace in May is not my idea of spring! On to my mailbox!

South of Superior by Ellen Airgood

A debut novel full of heart, in which love, friendship, and charity teach a young woman to live a bigger life.

When Madeline Stone walks away from Chicago and moves five hundred miles north to the coast of Lake Superior, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, she isn't prepared for how much her life will change.

Charged with caring for an aging family friend, Madeline finds herself in the middle of beautiful nowhere with Gladys and Arbutus, two octogenarian sisters-one sharp and stubborn, the other sweeter than sunshine. As Madeline begins to experience the ways of the small, tight-knit town, she is drawn into the lives and dramas of its residents. It's a place where times are tough and debts run deep, but friendship, community, and compassion run deeper. As the story hurtles along-featuring a lost child, a dashed love, a car accident, a wedding, a fire, and a romantic reunion-Gladys, Arbutus, and the rest of the town teach Madeline more about life, love, and goodwill than she's learned in a lifetime.

A heartwarming novel, South of Superior explores the deep reward in caring for others, and shows how one who is poor in pocket can be rich in so many other ways, and how little it often takes to make someone happy.

I received this book from Riverhead Books through Librarything Early Reviewers

Best Staged Plans by Claire Cook

As a professional home stager, Sandy Sullivan is an expert at transforming cluttered rooms into attractive houses ready for sale. If only reinventing her life were as easy as choosing the perfect paint color. She's eager to put her family's suburban Boston home on the market, to downsize, and to simplify her own life. But she must first deal with her foot-dragging husband and her grown son, who has moved back home after college to inhabit the basement "bat cave."

After reading them the riot act, Sandy takes a job staging a boutique hotel in Atlanta recently acquired by her best friend's boyfriend. The good news is that she can spend time with her recently married daughter, Shannon, in Atlanta. The bad news is that Shannon finds herself heading to Boston for job training, leaving Sandy and her southern son-in-law, Chance, as reluctant roommates.

If that's not complicated enough, Sandy begins to suspect that her best friend's boyfriend may be seeing another woman on the side.

Filled with characters who are fresh and original, yet recognizable enough to live in your neighborhood plus plenty of great tips and tricks for fixing up houses, and lives this is a wise and witty story of letting go and moving on.

I pre-ordered this book on Saturday while I was dreaming of summer. This book will be released on June 7, 2011 by Voice. I love Claire Cook and did not want to miss out on her newest book. Hopefully by the time it is released, I will be wearing short sleeves, capris and flip flops and it will be warm!

That is what came to my mailbox and what will be coming soon. What wonderful treats made their way into your home?