MONDAY FROM THE INTERIOR: MAILBOX MONDAY & WHAT ARE YOU READING? — APRIL 9

Welcome to another Monday from the Interior, in which we share about the books we received in the mail (or bought), and talk about our bookish week, past and future.

For April, Mailbox Monday is hosted by Cindy’s Love of Books.

Sheila, at Book Journey, brings us What Are You Reading?

MAILBOX MONDAY:

My mailbox brought one review book; I also purchased one download and one from the bookstore.

1.  Come Home, by Lisa Scottoline (St. Martin’s Press)

Jill Farrow is a typical suburban mom who has finally gotten her and her daughter’s lives back on track after a divorce. She is about to remarry, her job as a pediatrician fulfills her—though it is stressful—and her daughter, Megan, is a happily over-scheduled thirteen-year-old juggling homework and the swim team.

But Jill’s life is turned upside down when her ex-stepdaughter, Abby, shows up on her doorstep late one night and delivers shocking news: Jill’s ex-husband is dead. Abby insists that he was murdered and pleads with Jill to help find his killer. Jill reluctantly agrees to make a few inquiries and discovers that things don’t add up. As she digs deeper, her actions threaten to rip apart her new family, destroy their hard-earned happiness, and even endanger her own life. Yet Jill can’t turn her back on a child she loves and once called her own.

Come Home reads with the breakneck pacing of a thriller while also exploring the definition of motherhood, asking the questions: Do you ever stop being a mother? Can you ever have an ex-child? What are the limits to love of family? 

2.  The Beginner’s Goodbye, by Anne Tyler

Anne Tyler gives us a wise, haunting, and deeply moving new novel in which she explores how a middle-aged man, ripped apart by the death of his wife, is gradually restored by her frequent appearances—in their house, on the roadway, in the market.
 
Crippled in his right arm and leg, Aaron spent his childhood fending off a sister who wants to manage him. So when he meets Dorothy, a plain, outspoken, self-dependent young woman, she is like a breath of fresh air. Unhesitatingly he marries her, and they have a relatively happy, unremarkable marriage. But when a tree crashes into their house and Dorothy is killed, Aaron feels as though he has been erased forever. Only Dorothy’s unexpected appearances from the dead help him to live in the moment and to find some peace.
 
Gradually he discovers, as he works in the family’s vanity-publishing business, turning out titles that presume to guide beginners through the trials of life, that maybe for this beginner there is a way of saying goodbye.
 
A beautiful, subtle exploration of loss and recovery, pierced throughout with Anne Tyler’s humor, wisdom, and always penetrating look at human foibles.

3.  More Than You Know (e-book), by Penny Vincenzi

It all comes down to love or money in a harrowing custody battle over a little girl, set against the glossy backdrop of the magazine and advertising worlds in 1960s London.
 
A privileged girl from a privileged class, Eliza has a dazzling career in the magazine world of the 1960s. But when she falls deeply in love with Matt, an edgy working-class boy, she gives up her ritzy, fast-paced lifestyle to get married.
    
By the end of the decade, however, their marriage has suffered a harrowing breakdown, culminating in divorce and a dramatic courtroom custody battle over their little girl. Also at risk is Eliza’s gorgeous family home, a pawn in the game, which she can’t bear to give up.
    
True to form, Penny Vincenzi introduces a devious cast of characters seemingly plucked from the pages of sixties- and seventies-era magazines, as she deftly maneuvers between the glamorous, moneyed worlds of fashion and advertising, and a heart-wrenching custody battle going on in the courtroom where the social mores of the time are on full display.

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WHAT ARE YOU READING?

Welcome to another Monday morning where we share our thoughts about bookish topics.  This past week was spring break, and I spent some time with the grandkids; I even did some furniture rearranging.

The rest of the week I spent reading…and also did a bit of blogging.

Midweek found me writing Hump Day Potpourri:  Mugs, Memories, & Bookish Thoughts; and on that same day, I posted my review of Whole Latte Life, by Joanne DeMaio.  I read it in February, but it is on blog tour this month.

Read/Reviewed-Click Titles for Reviews:

The Secret Garden (e-book), by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Matrimony, by Joshua Henkin

Arranged, by Catherine McKenzie

American Pastoral, by Philip Roth

What’s Up Next? Click titles/covers for more info:

1.  The Chaperone, by Laura Moriarty (Amazon Vine)

2.  A Silence of Mockingbirds, by Karen Spears Zacharias (Review book)

3.  An Appetite for Murder (e-book), by Lucy Burdette

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That’s my week, past and present.  What are you planning?  What was your last week like?  Come on by and share.