MONDAY MEMES: MAILBOX AND WHAT ARE YOU READING?

Welcome to our Monday memes, which bring us together to celebrate our reading weeks.

Mailbox Monday is hosted this month by Bermudaonion.

It’s Monday!  What Are You Reading? is hosted by Book Journey.

Mailbox Monday:

This week, my mailbox contained one book only, which I ordered from Amazon.

The Home for Broken Hearts, by Rowan Coleman, has been on my wish list ever since I saw it on someone’s blog.  Maybe more than one someone shouted it out.  But I was sold.

Here’s what Amazon tells us:

For the past year, ever since Ellen Wood lost her husband in a car accident, she’s been afraid to leave the house. She struggles to keep her head above water and care for her adolescent son, Charlie, which becomes that much more difficult when she discovers just how little money she has. At a loss for ideas about how to keep her home, Ellen reluctantly agrees to her sister’s suggestion that she take in lodgers, and soon a German businesswoman, a handsome journalist, and Ellen’s favorite romance author are all living under her roof….

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It’s Monday!  What Are You Reading?

Blogging Stuff:

Last week, as you know, we all had BBAW events, and this was my first time.  I posted a couple of times on my Snow Connections and Impressions site.

I also did another merger, creating a page from Moonbeams and Rainbows over on Stardust Dreams, and saying good-bye to that first site.

Another related post:  The Sunday Salon, which chronicles some of the week’s reading and blogging events.

This past week, I’ve finished some books, and now I’m ready to dive into my new stack.

Here’s What I Read and Reviewed (Click the title for the review):

1)  Back to the Homeplace, by William Leverne Smith

2)  Odd Mom Out, by Jane Porter

3)  With Friends Like These, by Sally Koslow

What’s Up Next:

1)  Missing Pieces, by Joy Fielding (It’s been on my TBR piles for awhile!)

Here’s a tidbit:

Therapist Kate Sinclair expertly deals with her Palm Beach clients, but her own family is flying apart. Her delusional half-sister Jo Lynn, who marries and divorces abusers, is now obsessed with Colin Friendly, an accused serial rapist-killer. Sara, Kate’s wily and buxom daughter, escalates teen rebellion to new heights, seeking the unstable Jo Lynn for support, and Kate’s husband of 24 years retreats into avoidance. When Robert, an old flame, turns up the heat by offering Kate her own therapy show on one of his radio stations, her prim assisted-living mother wigs out. Kate worries that if she keeps giving pieces of herself away, there won’t be anything left. The suspense intensifies when Colin escapes from prison and threatens Sara….

2)  The Cloud Chamber, by Joyce Maynard (Another graduate of the TBR piles!)

Here’s a snippet:

Grade 7-10-In the 1960s, Nate, 14, copes with a family tragedy that is poorly handled by most of the adults in his life. Apparently, his father attempted suicide, but failure to find the rifle that caused his head wound has the local law enforcement-and the neighbors-wondering if Nate’s mother fired the shot. Their Montana dairy farm was already in big trouble and now bankruptcy is imminent. Nate deals with the cold shoulders he gets at school by determining to build a science project that would make his father proud: a cloud chamber in which the radiation of cosmic particles is made visible in vapor. His partner is the girl no one likes: Naomi dresses funny, and her father is a fire-and-brimstone preacher. But she is a good artist and has plenty of emotional intelligence, and Nate learns to treat her as an equal on the project and as a friend as well. Junie, six, has become his charge now that the family is collapsing. He listens to his sister, comforts her, and allows himself to be cheered by her seemingly endless good will. These are real kids. The plot moves quickly and engagingly through Nate’s trials and small triumphs….

3)  Body Work, by Sara Paretsky

A blurb:

Paretsky’s superb 14th novel featuring PI V.I. Warshawski (after Hardball) delves into Chicago’s avant-garde art scene. At the trendy Club Gouge, where Warshawski is keeping an eye on Petra, a young cousin who caused trouble in the previous book, performance artist Karen Buckley (aka the Body Artist) invites members of the audience to step on stage to paint her nude body. The intricate design that one woman paints on Karen’s back provokes a violent outburst from Chad Vishneski, a troubled Iraqi war veteran. When two nights later, someone shoots the woman who upset Chad outside the club, Chad is the logical murder suspect. Hired by Chad’s estranged parents to clear his name, Warshawski straddles a minefield that reaches from the Windy City’s neighborhoods to the Gulf War battlefields. Scenes with her aging neighbor and a new love interest give a much needed balance to the serious plot. This strong outing shows why the tough, fiercely independent, dog-loving private detective continues to survive….

That’s it for this week!  I hope that you’ll stop by and share your own goodies for the week.