MONDAY FROM THE INTERIOR: MAILBOX MONDAY & WHAT ARE YOU READING? -- JULY 23

Good morning, and welcome to another Monday, in which we celebrate our reading, blogging, and life.  Mailbox Monday is hosted in July by Mrs. Q Book Addict; and Book Journey brings us another edition of What Are You Reading?

MAILBOX MONDAY:

This week brought two books into my mailbox.  One is a review book from the publisher, and the other is a book I purchased.

1.   Where’d You Go, Bernadette - Maria Semple (Publisher)

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she’s a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she’s a disgrace; to design mavens, she’s a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.

Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette’s intensifying allergy to Seattle–and people in general–has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.

To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence–creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter’s role in an absurd world.

2.  Small Damages - Beth Kephart

Juno meets Under the Tuscan Sun

It’s senior year, and while Kenzie should be looking forward to prom and starting college in the fall, she discovers she’s pregnant. Her determination to keep her baby is something her boyfriend and mother do not understand. So she is sent to Spain, where she will live out her pregnancy, and her baby will be adopted by a Spanish couple. No one will ever know.

Alone and resentful in a foreign country, Kenzie is at first sullen and difficult. But as she gets to know Estela, the stubborn old cook, and Esteban, the mysterious young man who cares for the horses, she begins to open her eyes, and her heart, to the beauty that is all around her, and inside her. Kenzie realizes she has some serious choices to make–choices about life, love, and home.

Lyrically told in a way that makes the heat, the colors, and the smells of Spain feel alive, Small Damages is a feast for the heart and the soul, and a coming-of-age novel not easily forgotten

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WHAT ARE YOU READING?

Welcome to our week in review and our anticipation for the new one.

My week has included some intriguing titles and some blog posts.

On the Blogs:

At Story Corner, I posted about Cooler Days Ahead:  Reading, etc.

My Creative Journey included a Check-In Post:  Goal Tweaking; and I posted an excerpt from Interior Designs at Snow Chronicles:  Internet Dating: “Post-Mortem.”

Reviews-Click Titles:

Rain, (e-book), by Leigh K. Cunningham

Keepsake (e-book), by Kristina Riggle

The Roots of the Olive Tree, by Courtney Miller Santo

The Shadow Queen, by Rebecca Dean

What’s Up Next?(Click Titles/Covers for More Info)

One Breath Away, by Heather Gudenkauf

 

 

What I Did For Love, by Susan Elizabeth Phillips (From Mt. TBR)

Summer Breeze (e-book) , by Nancy Thayer

Red (e-book), by Kait Nolan

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That is my week!  Hope to visit many of you and discover what you’ve been up to…and come on by and share your comments and links.