Mailbox Monday -- September 12th

The reason why I love Mondays -- Mailbox Monday hosted this month by Amused by Books. Below are the books I received this week:

1) Coming Up for Air by Patti Callahan Henry. Publisher's Summary. Ellie Calvin is caught in a dying marriage, and she knows this. With her beloved daughter away at college and a growing gap between her and her husband – between her reality and the woman she wants to be – she doesn’t quite seem to fit into her own life.

But everything changes after her controlling mother, Lillian, passes away. Ellie’s world turns upside down when she sees her ex-boyfriend, Hutch, at her mother’s funeral and learns that he is in charge of a documentary that involved Lillian before her death. He wants answers to questions that Ellie’s not sure she can face, until, in the painful midst of going through her mother’s things, she discovers a hidden diary – and a window onto stories buried long ago.

As Ellie and Hutch start speaking for the first time in years, Ellie’s closed heart slowly begins to open. Fighting their feelings, they set out together to dig into Lillian’s history. Using both the diary and a trip to the Summer House, a mysterious and seductive bayside home, they gamble that they can work together and not fall in love again. But in piecing together a decades-old unrequited-love story, they just might uncover the secrets in their own hearts…

Thanks to St. Martin's Press!

2) Northwest Angle by William Kent Krueger. Publisher's Summary. With his family caught in the crosshairs of a group of brutal killers, detective Cork O'Connor must solve the murder of a young girl in the latest installment of William Kent Krueger's unforgettable New York Times bestselling series.

During a houseboat vacation on the remote Lake of the Woods, a violent gale sweeps through unexpectedly, stranding Cork and his daughter, Jenny, on a devastated island where the wind has ushered in a force far darker and more deadly than any storm.

Amid the wreckage, Cork and Jenny discover an old trapper's cabin where they find the body of a teenage girl. She wasn't killed by the storm, however; she'd been bound and tortured before she died. Whimpering sounds coming from outside the cabin lead them to a tangle of branches toppled by the vicious winds. Underneath the debris, they find a baby boy, hungry and dehydrated, but still very much alive. Powerful forces intent on securing the child pursue them to the isolated Northwest Angle, where it's impossible to tell who among the residents is in league with the devil. Cork understands that to save his family he must solve the puzzle of this mysterious child whom death follows like a shadow.

Thanks to Atria Books!

3) Bestiary for Business by Erika Schelby. Author's Summary. The BESTIARY FOR BUSINESS is a collection of fables that look at current economic conditions in an irreverent way. Looking into Aesop’s ancient mirror there to see current fads and follies fused to timeless fables? The BESTIARY FOR BUSINESS is doing just that.

Today, many of us are subjected to a flow of unpleasant news from Wall Street and the financial markets. And all of us are in business in one way or another: we are the captives, participants, cheer leaders, anti-heroes, or the economically injured people in a national and global game. If one listens carefully, one will hear that much of the fun and fairness has gone from economic activities. So if these fifty fables produce some smiles or even relief from annoyance, that would be great. The book deals with a variety of subjects and offers story titles such as “The Belt Tightening”, “Downsizing”, “Globalization”, “Insider Trading”, “MBA Delusion”, and “On Management Styles”. Each fable is seasoned and peppered with concluding quotations that enhance the content.

The players in the Bestiary are (innocent) animals with human characteristics. Now wouldn't it be wonderful if we as a species could advance to capitalism with a more likeable human face?

Thanks to the Author!

4) Taking Time to Live by Ron Fugere. Publisher's Summary. Taking the Time to Live (Bennett & Hastings Publishing, June 30, 2011) is the amusing and sometimes poignant story of sailing vessel Paso Feo’s 2006 voyage. Following the collapse of his 28-year marriage, Ron Fugere embarked on a solo journey without a firm destination or route, leaving navigation to chance, circumstance and whims.

His travels eventually carried him around British Columbia’s Vancouver Island, over a span of five months and 2,6000 nautical miles. In his travels, Captain Ron learned much about navigation and seamanship, but more importantly he gained insight into the power of dreams and discovered truths about matters of the heart.

Taking the Time to Live will warm your heart, tickle your funny-bone and arouse your sense of wanderlust.

Thanks to the Publisher!

5) Brothers Krimm by Cecile Wehrman. Amazon Product Description. On September 14, 2009, a serial bank bandit scores one of his biggest hauls ever in Williston, N.D. Jimmy Krimm has been robbing banks for most of his adult life, but the biggest crime he ever committed took place before he left his mother's Michigan home decades earlier. When police deliver the news that her oldest son is dead, Charlene Krimm is left pining for any children he may have fathered, and with the task of breaking the news to her younger son, Rob -- Jimmy's first victim. "The Brothers Krimm" examines the way childhood sexual abuse forms two men --turning one into a predator -- and the other into the kind of hero whose triumph is found in his will to rise above the past. In the wake of the events of September 14, 2009, a small town reporter is compelled to dig deeper into the mystery of Jimmy Krimm. Driven by the desire to help his family gain closure, Cecile Wehrman sets out to follow the trail of a serial bank robber -- a trail that leads, inexplicably, to her own doorstep – to the abuse in her own past, and to the very real possibility she could have been Jimmy’s next victim. From Chapter 1: "It's a story that will test all of my skills as a researcher. I will have to examine my ethics as a journalist. I will have to open old wounds, personal wounds. My faith will be shaken. Inconsequential things, something as simple as finding a penny, will take on new meaning...And it won't be until many months into it that my research will uncover an inexplicable connection to this robber -- this man who terrorized my neighborhood. It is a piece of evidence so startling it will literally knock me to the ground.” With the cooperation of the Krimm family, through prison documents, police records and even Jimmy’s own words and photos from the road during his final bank robbing spree, Wehrman chronicles the exploits of a modern day Jesse James – dispelling forever the notion of the dashing bank bandit and replacing it with the portrait of a homeless wanderer who took what he needed, no matter who it hurt.

Thanks to the Author!