MONDAY: MAILBOX & WHAT ARE YOU READING? — JULY 11

READING STACKS

 

Monday is that time during the week when we talk about the books we’ve received in Mailbox Monday, hosted this month by A Sea of Books; and we also share our thoughts about what we’ve read this past week and what’s coming up next on It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? hosted by Book Journey.

 

MAILBOX MONDAY:

 

My mailbox yielded one review book and two books I had preordered from Amazon.

 

1.  Goodie One Shoes, by Roz Siegel – (Meryl Zegarek – Publicist)

A Jimmy Choo Sandal. A Manolo Blahnik mule; a Sergio Rossi slide, a Prada sliver-heeled boot. As magic as Cinderella’s glass slipper. Even when they don’t fit, they can determine your life—or end it. Emily knows these things because she owns a discount shoe store on the colorful Upper West Side of Manhattan—Emily’s Place a neighborhood hangout for shoe lovers, where customers could find a sympathetic ear, a hot cup of coffee and the perfect shoe. Unfortunately, someone has decided that a sexy stiletto-heeled shoe is an excellent murder weapon. A member of the Emily’s Place “family”—the staff of women who run the store and love the shoes in it—is murdered with a red Jimmy Choo high-heeled shoe—sharp as an ice pick, the spiked heel is embedded in her head. Emily is still reeling from the shock of her friend’s murder when a bag is shoved through her mail slot containing the mate to the shoe that was the murder weapon. Emily realizes that her store and everyone connected to it is a target and that a psycho killer is stalking them all. In fact the killer seems to particularly want Emily to suffer. She insists on working with the detective assigned to the case, Paul Murphy to find the killer—and she will do whatever it takes. It’s personal.

2.  Never Knowing, by Chevy Stevens

From the acclaimed author of Still Missing comes a psychological thriller about one woman’s search into her past and the deadly truth she uncovers.

All her life, Sara Gallagher has wondered about her birth parents. As an adopted child with two sisters who were born naturally to her parents, Sara did not have an ideal home life. The question of why she was given up for adoption has always haunted her. Finally, she is ready to take steps and to find closure.

But some questions are better left unanswered.

After months of research, Sara locates her birth mother—only to be met with horror and rejection. Then she discovers the devastating truth: Her mother was the only victim ever to escape a killer who has been hunting women every summer for decades. But Sara soon realizes the only thing worse than finding out about her father is him finding out about her.

What if murder is in your blood?

Never Knowing is a complex and compelling portrayal of one woman’s quest to understand herself, her origins, and her family. That is, if she can survive. . . .

3.  Escape, by Barbara Delinsky

In her luminous new novel, Barbara Delinsky explores every woman’s desire to abandon the endless obligations of work and marriage—and the idea that the most passionate romance can be found with the person you know best.

Emily Aulenbach is thirty, a lawyer married to a lawyer, working in Manhattan. An idealist, she had once dreamed of representing victims of corporate abuse, but she spends her days in a cubicle talking on the phone with vic­tims of tainted bottled water—and she is on the bottler’s side.

And it isn’t only work. It’s her sister, her friends, even her husband, Tim, with whom she doesn’t connect the way she used to. She doesn’t connect to much in her life, period, with the exception of three things—her computer, her BlackBerry, and her watch.

Acting on impulse, Emily leaves work early one day, goes home, packs her bag, and takes off. Groping toward the future, uncharacteristically following her gut rather than her mind, she heads north toward a New Hampshire town tucked between mountains. She knows this town. During her college years, she spent a watershed summer here. Painful as it is to return, she knows that if she is to right her life, she has to start here.

 

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WHAT ARE YOU READING?

Here’s what went on last week….

On the Blogs:

I posted sample chapters of my published books  on my group blog, Dames of Dialogue, including this one this past week from Miles to Go here.

Earlier in the week, one of the dames posted an interview with me here.

Books Read & Reviewed – Click titles for Reviews:

1.  Shades of Grace, by Barbara Delinsky

2.  Blood Brothers, by Nora Roberts

3.  The Little Women Letters, by Gabrielle Donnelly

 

This has been a strange week of assorted tasks, so I didn’t finish everything on my stack.

Still Reading:

The Uncoupling, by Meg Wolitzer

 

What’s Up Next?

1.  She Makes it Look Easy, by Marybeth Whalen (Amazon Vine)

2.  Best Staged Plans, by Claire Cook

3.  Afternoon Delight, by Carolyn Opinion Hinsey

 

So that’s it for the week…some reading, some blogging, and some writing for my challenge.

Hope you’ll stop by and share….