Mailbox Monday June 20

It's Monday again! 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 Brooke of The Bluestocking Guide. Thank you for hosting Brooke! Just be warned Mailbox Monday can lead to toppling stacks of books and large wish lists.

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and Father's Day! I worked hard this weekend on some much needed yard work. It never seems to be done. Summer is here and we have been blessed with beautiful weather. Not too hot, not too cold. Perfect for doing yard work. Now I ma ready to sit outside and admire my work and read. I love to read outside! I have hummingbirds this year along with our usual goldfinches. I have found if I am sitting still reading outside, the birds will come to visit. They have been fun to watch.

This week I received three books. One is for review and two I purchased.

Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ann Brashares comes the welcome return of the characters whose friendship became a touchstone for a generation. Now Tibby, Lena, Carmen, and Bridget have grown up, starting their lives on their own. And though the jeans they shared are long gone, the sisterhood is everlasting.

Despite having jobs and men that they love, each knows that something is missing: the closeness that once sustained them. Carmen is a successful actress in New York, engaged to be married, but misses her friends. Lena finds solace in her art, teaching in Rhode Island, but still thinks of Kostos and the road she didn’t take. Bridget lives with her longtime boyfriend, Eric, in San Francisco, and though a part of her wants to settle down, a bigger part can’t seem to shed her old restlessness.

Then Tibby reaches out to bridge the distance, sending the others plane tickets for a reunion that they all breathlessly await. And indeed, it will change their lives forever—but in ways that none of them could ever have expected.

As moving and life-changing as an encounter with long-lost best friends, Sisterhood Everlasting is a powerful story about growing up, losing your way, and finding the courage to create a new one.

I received this book courtesy of Random House

The next two books are ones I purchased. Both are books I have been wanting to read. Both look like great summer, beachy reads which I am all about this summer!

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. Best Staged Plans is Claire Cook at her most humorous and heartfelt.

Ten Beach Road by Wendy Wax


Madeline, Avery, and Nikki are strangers to each other, but they have one thing in common. They each wake up one morning to discover their life savings have vanished, along with their trusted financial manager- leaving them with nothing but co-ownership of a ramshackle beachfront house.

Throwing their lots in together, they take on the challenge of restoring the historic property. But just as they begin to reinvent themselves and discover the power of friendship, secrets threaten to tear down their trust-and destroy their lives a second time.

That is what came to my mailbox last week. What books made their way into your home?