New Books

I know I had said book reviews were up next but I spent a good part of the day cutting paper, dying paper and preparing text blocks so before I knew it the day was practically gone and now I’m too tired to go into the book reviews. I will get to those reviews soon but for now I’ll just tell you about the books that have arrived recently.

The first one is thanks to a giveaway that Jenners hosted and I got a copy of Testimony by Anita Shreve. I’m really looking forward to this book. I’ve only read one of Shreve’s books and that was for a book group discussion years ago. I was the only person that didn’t like the book. Still when I read the back covers of her books they always sound interesting and just like the type of story I might enjoy. So, let’s see how it goes with this book. Thanks again to Jenners and Hatchette Group for the giveaway.

The others are a few ARCs that sound very good.

• 20 Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler. According to her best friend Frankie, twenty days in Zanzibar Bay is the perfect opportunity to have a summer fling, and if they meet one boy ever day, there’s a pretty good chance Anna will find her first summer romance. Anna lightheartedly agrees to the game, but there’s something she hasn’t told Frankie—she’s already had that kind of romance, and it was with Frankie’s older brother, Matt, just before his tragic death one year ago.
• Roadside Crosses by Jeffery Deaver. The last time I tried a Deaver book I definitely think it was just the wrong time sort of thing. I’m hoping this time when I pick up the book I’ll be in the mood for a good thriller.
• War Damage by Elizabeth Wilson. London in the aftermath of World War II is a beaten down, hungry place, so it’s no wonder that Regine Milner’s Sunday house parties are so popular. But when one of Regine’s party guests turns up dead, there is no shortage of suspects. Doesn’t that sound good?
• The Stalin Epigram by Robert Littell. When I first saw this one I thought it was just an espionage type novel, which I don’t typically read, but this novel is about a real-life poet who struggled to get published in a totalitarian state. I think this one will be intriguing.
• The Chosen One by Carol lynch Williams. Thirteen-year-old Kyra has grown up in an isolated polygamous community without questioning her father’s three wives and her twenty brothers and sisters. Or at least without questioning them much—if you don’t count her secret visits to the Mobile Library on Wheels to read forbidden books, or her meetings with the boy she hopes to choose for herself instead of having a man chosen for her. But when the Prophet decrees that Kyra must marry her 60-year-old uncle—who already has six wives—Kyra must make a desperate choice in the face of violence and her own fears of losing her family.

And, you know what? I expect that more new books will be arriving on my shelves this weekend. Half Price Books is having their 20% Off Everything sale this weekend and you bet I’ll be there.