Monday Mailbox

The mailbox has been crammed full with submissions for National Reading Group Month for the past few months but I can't share those with you. What I can do, is share the ridiculous amount of bounty from other sources that I've gotten in the past two weeks so you can wish you were me. (Any bookshelf builders out there?) This past two weeks' mailbox arrivals:

Single-Minded by Lisa Daily came from Macmillan.

About a woman whose life looked completely on track has to reenter the dating world, this looks like a lot of frothy fun.

Stars Over Clear Lake by Loretta Ellsworth came from Macmillan.

A double stranded narrative set in the 1940s and the present, this tale of love and duty starts in a ballroom as young men are shipping out for the war and I'm really looking forward to reading it.

The Last Laugh by Lynn Freed came from Macmillan.

How could you not want to read a novel about three older women who run away to Greece for a year to escape their grandchildren only to have people, including children and grandchildren, start showing up in their retreat? Sounds hilarious and perfect for the summer!

After the Fall by Kate Hall came from Macmillan.

A secret triangle between a damaged teenage girl, her best friend, and his brother, this one looks heavy and heartbreaking.

The Book of Summer by Michelle Gable came from Macmillan.

I could totally jump on this bike and head off no matter what the book is about! That it is about a summer house perched precariously above the sea, the guest book from the house, and the generations of women who have lived there makes this completely enticing.

The Map That Leads to You by J.P. Monninger came from Macmillan.

I really enjoyed a previous novel of Monninger's so I'm looking forward to this one about a girl traveling around Europe and falling in love with a fellow American who is traveling around Europe following his grandfather's old journals.

Class Mom by Laurie Gelman came from Macmillan.

The idea of a mom with two college aged children starting over as class mom for her kindergartner fills me with an inexplicable amount of joy (mostly that it's not me!) so I am definitely looking forward to reading this novel of motherhood and parental politics.

The Gypsy Moth Summer by Julia Fierro came from Macmillan and TLC Book Tours for a blog tour.

Issues of environment, race, and class permeate this summertime drama so it should be the perfect thinking novel to sit on the porch and savor.

Nuclear Family by Susanna Fogel came from Macmillan and LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

An epistolary novel about three decades of one family, be still my beating heart!

The Truth About Goodbye by Russell Ricard came from the author and TLC Book Tours for a blog tour.

Any book that has a tapper in it will likely have my attention and this one set in the dance world in NY about a man still grieving his husband's death but tentatively moving on definitely fits that category.

I Dared the Duke by Anna Bennett came from Macmillan.

I have a thing for historical romances. I have a thing for dukes. And I have a thing for sassy heroines who don't back down. This books is the trifecta of that. Yay!

The Romance Reader's Guide to Life by Sharon Pywell came from Macmillan.

Just the title alone would attract me to this one! But I am also very curious to see how a woman who retreats into romance novels (and one in particular) goes about life when she is forced to face it head on and it isn't like a romance novel.

Schadenfreude, a love Story by Rebecca Schuman came from Macmillan.

One of my favorite words ever, how could I not be attracted to this memoir of a one-sided love affair with all things German?

Before the War by Fay Weldon came from Macmillan.

The short time between the world wars has always interested me and this one about a plain but wealthy woman who proposes marriage to an editor in her father's publishing company, not yet aware she is pregnant with another man's baby or of the terribly sad fate she is soon to face sounds really, really good.

My Mother's Kitchen by Peter Gethers came from Macmillan.

If you saw my roly poly self, you'd know in a minute that food memoirs (and food) speak to me and this one about food and family and love calls to me in so many ways.

The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World by Brian Doyle came from Macmillan.

A novel centered around Robert Louis Stevenson's unwritten novel, how can this not be a twisting, turning adventure?

Dying on the Vine by Marla Cooper came from Macmillan.

A wedding planner, a murder, California wine country. I look forward to what must be a heaping dollop of good crazy!

The Outer Cape by Patrick Dacey came from Macmillan.

Maybe only fellow font nerds will get this, but I wanted this one the minute I saw the title font. That is about chasing the American dream and a family on Cape Cod is just the cherry on top.

If you want to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.