Mailbox Monday November 12th

Welcome to Mailbox Monday which is hosted this month by Bermuda Onion.  Still continuing my trend of cutting back so last week was another light one.

1) Collateral by Ellen Hopkins. Publisher's Summary. Meet Ashley, a graduate student at San Diego University. She was raised in northern California reading poetry and singing back-up in her best friend’s band. The last thing she ever expected was to end up a military wife. But one night, she meets a handsome Marine named Cole. He doesn’t match the stereotype of the aggressive military man she’d always presumed to be true; he’s passionate and romantic, and he even writes poetry. Their relationship evolves into a deeply felt, sexually charged love affair that goes on for five years and survives four deployments. Cole desperately wants Ashley to marry him, but when she meets another man, a college professor, with similar professional pursuits and values, she begins to see what life might be like outside the shadow of war.

2) Tilt by Ellen Hopkins. Publisher's Summary. Witnessing the fallout from the poor choices their parents make and the lies adults tell themselves, three teens are clinging to the last remnants of the secure and familiar world in which they’ve grown up. But the ground is shifting. What was once clear is now confused. Everything is tilting.

Mikayla is sure she’s found the love her parents seem to have lost, but is suddenly weighing nearly impossible choices in the wake of dashed expectations. Shane has come out, unwilling to lie anymore about who he is, but finds himself struggling to keep it all under control in the face of first love and a horrific loss. Harley, a good girl just seeking new experiences, never expects to hurtle towards self-destructive extremes in order to define who she is and who she wants to be.

Both thanks to Simon & Schuster!

Mailbox Monday -- August 13th!

Welcome to Mailbox Monday which is hosted this month by Jennifer at Five Minutes for Books. Below are the books that I received last week:

1) Imperfect Bliss by Susan Fales-Hill. Meet the Harcourts of Chevy Chase, Maryland. A respectable middle-class, middle-age, mixed-race couple, Harold and Forsythia have four eminently marriageable daughters—or so their mother believes. Forsythia named her girls after Windsor royals in the hopes that one day each would find her true prince. But princes are far from the mind of their second-born daughter, Elizabeth (AKA Bliss), who, in the aftermath of a messy divorce, has moved back home and thrown herself into earning her PhD.

All that changes when a reality television show called The Virgin takes Bliss’s younger sister Diana as its star. Though she fights it at first, Bliss can’t help but be drawn into the romantic drama that ensues, forcing her to reconsider everything she thought she knew about love, her family, and herself. Fresh and engaging,Imperfect Bliss is a wickedly funny take on the ways that courtship and love have changed—even as they’ve stayed the same.

(Thanks to the super-generous publisher who sent me a duplicate copy).

2) The Next Best Thing by Jennifer Weiner.  Publisher's Summary. Actors aren’t the only ones trying to make it in Hollywood.…At twenty-three, Ruth Saunders left her childhood home in Massachusetts and headed west with her seventy-year-old grandma in tow, hoping to make it as a screenwriter. Six years later, she hits the jackpot when she gets The Call: the sitcom she wrote,The Next Best Thing, has gotten the green light, and Ruthie’s going to be the showrunner. But her dreams of Hollywood happiness are threatened by demanding actors, number-crunching executives, an unrequited crush on her boss, and her grandmother’s impending nuptials.

Set against the fascinating backdrop of Los Angeles show business culture, with an insider’s ear for writer’s room showdowns and an eye for bad backstage behavior and set politics, Jennifer Weiner’s new novel is a rollicking ride on the Hollywood roller coaster, a heartfelt story about what it’s like for a young woman to love, and lose, in the land where dreams come true.

Thanks to the publisher!

Mailbox Monday -- August 6th

Welcome to Mailbox Monday which is hosted this month by Jennifer at 5 Minutes for Books.  Below are the books I received recently.  I am sorry that I have no pictures, but I came home from vacation to a bad cold and a sick dog.  Although the cold is still with me (is it true that summer colds are the worst?) my dog Maggie is recovering nicely from her lumpectomy, so I guess one out of two isn't bad.

Thanks for stopping by!

1) Unsaid by Neil Abramson. Publisher's Summary. Unsaid is about the limits (both real and self-imposed) of communication and the healing power of the human-animal bond. It is narrated by Helena, a veterinarian who has died, but cannot move on because she is terrified of confronting the mistakes she believes she has made in her life, the thousands of animals she euthanized over the course of her career, and, perhaps most of all, her growing belief that her thirty-seven years of life were insignificant.

Driven by her need for closure, connection and meaning, Helena haunts — and is haunted by — the life she has been forced to leave behind: her shattered attorney husband, David; her houseful of damaged but beloved animals; and Cindy, a chimpanzee to whom she helped teach sign language, and who may hold the key to unlocking the mysteries of animal consciousness. Helena finally finds her answers when David takes on a legal case to try to save Cindy’s life and, using all of Helena’s past work, must prove what it really means to be “human.”  Unsaid examines the significance of this looming change in very human and emotional terms, using it to explore the power of the human-animal bond.

Personal e-book purchase.

2) Marilyn by Lois Banner. Publisher's Summary. As an academic who has been at the forefront of women’s issues for the last half decade, Banner spent nine years researching the intimate details of Monroe’s life, interviewing more than one hundred people in her inner circle and fan club, and examining confidential papers and ledgers in the final years of her life that has never been fully told. through this meticulous research, Banner refutes much of the mythology surrounding Monroe,offering a depth to her story that has never been fully told, and exposing new facets of her personality and facts surrounding her life.

Thanks to the publicist!

Mailbox Monday -- July 23rd

Welcome to Mailbox Monday which is hosted this month by Mrs. Q. Book Addict.  The past few weeks have been challenging for me personally because I was without power for nearly a week and then my computer got a virus.

All is well now, but as you are reading this I am currently on my annual Panama City Beach Vacation.  While I love much about the area I do not love my extremely temperamental internet access, so this is a schedule post.  And if the beach winds favor me I will stop by to check out everyone's mailboxes.  If not, I'll see you next week!

1) The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  Publisher's Summary.
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capital surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capital is harsh and cruel and keeps the other districts in line by forcing them to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight-to-the death on live TV. One boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and sixteen are selected by lottery to play. The winner brings riches and favor to his or her district.But that is nothing compared to what the Capital wins: one more year of fearful compliance with its rules.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her impoverished district in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before – and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

Thanks to Paperback Swap!

2)  Imperfect Bliss by Susan Fales-Hill.  Publisher's Summary.
Meet the Harcourts of Chevy Chase, Maryland. A respectable middle-class, middle-age, mixed-race couple, Harold and Forsythia have four eminently marriageable daughters—or so their mother believes. Forsythia named her girls after Windsor royals in the hopes that one day each would find her true prince. But princes are far from the mind of their second-born daughter, Elizabeth (AKA Bliss), who, in the aftermath of a messy divorce, has moved back home and thrown herself into earning her PhD.

All that changes when a reality television show called The Virgin takes Bliss’s younger sister Diana as its star. Though she fights it at first, Bliss can’t help but be drawn into the romantic drama that ensues, forcing her to reconsider everything she thought she knew about love, her family, and herself. Fresh and engaging,Imperfect Bliss is a wickedly funny take on the ways that courtship and love have changed—even as they’ve stayed the same.
Publish Post
Thanks to Atria Books!

Mailbox Monday -- July 16th

Welcome to Mailbox Monday which is hosted this month by Mrs. Q. Book Addict.  Below are the books that I received last week:

1)  Legacy of Tril by Heather Brewer.  Publisher's Summary. Tril is a world where Barrons and Healers are Bound to each other: Barrons fight and Healers cure their Barrons' wounds in the ongoing war with the evil Graplar King. Seventeen-year-old Kaya was born a Healer, but she wants to fight. In Tril, and at Shadow Academy, where she is sent to learn to heal, it is against Protocol for Healers to fight. So Kaya must learn in secret. Enter two young men: One charming, rule-following Barron who becomes Bound to Kaya and whose life she must protect at all costs. And one with a mysterious past who seems bent on making Kaya's life as difficult as possible. Kaya asks both to train her, but only one will, and the consequences will change their lives forever. Thanks to the Publisher!

 2) Triangles by Ellen Hopkins. Publisher's Summary. THREE FEMALE FRIENDS FACE MIDLIFE CRISES IN A NO-HOLDS-BARRED EXPLORATION OF SEX, MARRIAGE, AND THE FRAGILITY OF LIFE.

Holly: Filled with regret for being a stay-athome mom, she sheds sixty pounds and loses herself in the world of extramarital sex. Will it bring the fulfillment she is searching for?

Andrea: A single mom and avowed celibate, she watches her friend Holly’s meltdown with a mixture of concern and contempt. Holly is throwing away what Andrea has spent her whole life searching for—a committed relationship with a decent guy. So what if Andrea picks up Holly’s castaway husband?

Marissa: She has more than her fair share of challenges—a gay, rebellious teenage son, a terminally ill daughter, and a husband who buries himself in his work rather than face the facts.

As one woman’s marriage unravels, another’s rekindles. As one woman’s family comes apart at the seams, another’s reconfigures into something bigger and better. In this story of connections and disconnections, one woman’s up is another one’s down, and all of them will learn the meaning of friendship, betrayal, and forgiveness.

Unflinchingly honest, emotionally powerful, surprisingly erotic, Triangles is the ultimate page-turner. Hopkins’s gorgeous, expertly honed poetic verse perfectly captures the inner lives of her characters. Sometimes it happens like that. Sometimes you just get lost.

Get lost in the world of Triangles, where the lives of three unforgettable women intersect, and where there are no easy answers.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster!

3) Between the Lines by Jodi Piccoult & Samantha van Leer.  Publisher's Summary.

Between the Lines was Sammy’s idea, and frankly, she’s got a better imagination than I ever did at her age. It’s called Between the Lines, and it’s about what happens when happily ever after…isn’t. Delilah, a loner hates school as much as she loves books—one book in particular. In fact if anyone knew how many times she has read and reread the sweet little fairy tale she found in the library, especially her cooler than cool classmates, she’d be sent to social Siberia . . . forever.To Delilah, though, this fairy tale is more than just words on the page. Sure, there’s a handsome (well, okay, incredibly handsome) prince, and a castle, and an evil villain, but it feels as if there’s something deeper going on. And one day, Delilah finds out there is. Turns out, this Prince Charming is not just a one-dimensional character in a book. He’s real, and a certain fifteen-year-old loner has caught his eye. But they’re from two different worlds, and how can it ever possibly work? Thanks to the Publisher!

Mailbox Monday -- July 9th

Welcome to Mailbox Monday which is hosted this month by Mrs. Q: Book Addict.  Today is a special Mailbox Monday for me because it is my birthday.  Last week I received the best birthday gift ever -- power after going without it for nearly a week-- it is great to be getting back to my old routine.  Below are a few books that I received recently (honestly not sure when, but it was within the past two weeks).

1) Return to Sullivans Island by Dorthea Benton Frank.  Publisher's Weekly Summary. Frank creates a world in which aspiring writer Beth Hayes, whose chirpy internal monologues and quiet uncertainties make her easily endearing, is as much a character as the house she lives in. After graduating from college in Boston, Beth returns to the South to spend a year house-sitting her family's home, Island Gamble, while her mother, Susan, visits Paris. Frank's portrayal of a large and complicated family is humorous and precise: there's Susan, adoring and kind; Aunt Maggie, a stickler for manners; twin aunts Sophie and Allison, who run an exercise-and-vitamin empire; and uncles Timmy and Henry, the latter of whom has ties to Beth's trust fund. Frank's lovable characters occasionally stymie her pace; there's almost no room left for Beth's friends or her love affairs with sleazy Max Mitchell and cherubic Woody Morrison, though these become important later on. Frank is frequently funny, and she weaves in a dark undercurrent that incites some surprising late-book developments. Tight storytelling, winsomely oddball characters and touches of Southern magic make this a winner.

2) Thy Neighbor by Norah Vincent.  Amazon Product Description. At thirty-four, Nick Walsh is a broken, deeply cynical man. Since the violent deaths of his parents thirteen years earlier, he has been living alone in his childhood home in the suburban Midwest, drinking, drugging, and debauching himself into oblivion. A measure of solace is provided by his newly found relationship with Monica, a mysterious woman who seems to harbor as many secrets as he does. Obsessed with understanding the circumstances surrounding his parents’ deaths and deranged by his relentless sorrow, Nick begins a campaign of spying on his neighbors via hidden cameras and microphones he has covertly installed in their houses. As he observes with amusement and disbelief all the strange, sad, and terrifying things that his neighbors do to themselves and to one another, and as he, in turn, learns that he is being stalked, he begins to slowly unravel the shocking truth about how and why his parents died.

Mailbox Monday Update

Sorry everyone, but there will be no Mailbox Monday for me this week because I am without power. Due to the "land hurricane" that hit my area Friday night I have been without power for three days and have been unable to post to my blog. I hope to be back by the beginning of next week (based on what my electric company is saying).

Mailbox Monday -- June 25th!

Welcome to Mailbox Monday which is hosted this month by the Burton Book Review.  Below are the books I received this past week:

1) One Good Friend Deserves Another by Lisa Verge Higgins.  Publisher's Summary: Dhara, Kelly, Marta & Wendy have been the closest of friends since college, so close, in fact, that after a series of communal romantic disasters, they bond together to create rules of relationships meant to keep their hearts safe. Now, at the far side of thirty-five, those rules seem to have worked for them—country-club Wendy, a curator of a small local museum, is due to marry a longtime boyfriend in an over-the-top wedding; Marta, a high-powered Latina partner in a white-shoe law firm, is living in sensual luxury with a sexy Cuban entrepreneur; Kelly, the tech-geek computer programmer, seems happy in her introverted singlehood.

Only Dhara, an Indian-American cardiologist, is struggling after the abrupt end of a long-term relationship. When she suddenly decides to agree to a traditional arranged marriage, her girlfriends gather in the hopes of stopping her from making a terrible mistake. As old relationships crumble and dangerous new ones emerge, the girls begin to realize that the rules that they made to keep their hearts safe may have also shielded them from the risky possibilities of true love.

2) You Came Back by Christopher Coake.  Publisher's Summary: Thirty-something midwesterner Mark Fife believes he has successfully moved past the accidental death of his young son Brendan, as well as his subsequent divorce from his college sweetheart Chloe. He's successful, he's in love again, and he believes he's mastered his own memories.

But then he is contacted by a strange woman who tells him not only that she owns his old house, but that she believes it to be haunted by Brendan's ghost. Will Mark--who does not believe in ghosts--come to accept the mounting evidence that Brendan's is real? Will his engagement to his new love Allison be threatened by the reappearance in Mark's life of Chloe--who does believe? If the ghost is real, what can these two wounded parents do to help their son?

Both thanks to Hachette Book Group!

3)  Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen.  Publisher's Summary. Bestselling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize Anna Quindlen writes about looking back and ahead—and celebrating it all—as she considers marriage, girlfriends, our mothers, faith, loss, all the stuff in our closets, and more.As she did in her beloved A Short Guide to a Happy Life,Quindlen says for us here what we may wish we could have said ourselves. Using her past, present, and future to explore what matters most to women at different ages, Quindlen talks about.

Kimdle book purchase.

Mailbox Monday -- June 18th!

Welcome to Mailbox Monday which is hosted this month by the Burton Book Review. This week was a light one with only one book that I purchased for my Kindle:

1) Dirty Secret by Jessie Sholl. Publisher's Summary: When her divorced mother was diagnosed with cancer, New York City writer Jessie Sholl returned to her hometown of Minneapolis to help prepare for the upcoming surgery and get her mother's affairs in order. While a daunting task for any adult dealing with an aging parent, it's compounded for Sholl by one lifelong, complex, and confounding truth: Her mother is a compulsive hoarder. Dirty Secret is a daughter's memoir of confronting her mother's disorder, of searching for the normalcy that was never hers as a child, and, finally, cleaning out the clutter of her mother's home in the hopes of salvaging the true heart of their relationship -- before it's too late.

Mailbox Monday -- June 11th!

Welcome to Mailbox Monday, hosted this month by the Burton Book Review. Below are the books I received this past week:

1) Cleaning Nabokov's House by Leslie Daniels.  Publisher's Summary. “I knew I could stay in this town when I found the blue enamel pot floating in the lake. The pot led me to the house, the house led me to the book, the book to the lawyer, the lawyer to the whorehouse, the whorehouse to science, and from science I joined the world.”

So begins Leslie Daniels’s funny and moving novel about a woman’s desperate attempt to rebuild her life. When Barb Barrett walks out on her loveless marriage she doesn’t realize she will lose everything: her home, her financial security, even her beloved children. Approaching forty with her life in shambles and no family or friends to turn to, Barb must now discover what it means to rely on herself in a stark new emotional landscape.

Guided only by her intense inner voice and a unique entrepreneurial vision, Barb begins to collect the scattered pieces of her life. She moves into a house once occupied by Vladimir Nabokov, author of the controversial masterpiece Lolita, and discovers a manuscript that may be his lost work. As her journey gathers momentum, Barb deepens a connection with her new world, discovering resources in her community and in herself that no one had anticipated. Written in elegant prose with touches of sharp humor and wit, Cleaning Nabokov’s House offers a new vision of modern love and a fervent reminder that it is never too late to find faith in our truest selves.

2) Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner. Publisher's Summary. Jules Strauss is a Princeton senior with a full scholarship, acquaintances instead of friends, and a family she’s ashamed to invite to Parents’ Weekend. With the income she’ll receive from donating her “pedigree” eggs, she believes she can save her father from addiction.

Annie Barrow married her high school sweetheart and became the mother to two boys. After years of staying at home and struggling to support four people on her husband’s salary, she thinks she’s found a way to recover a sense of purpose and bring in some extra cash.

India Bishop, thirty-eight (really forty-three), has changed everything about herself: her name, her face, her past. In New York City, she falls for a wealthy older man, Marcus Croft, and decides a baby will ensure a happy ending. When her attempts at pregnancy fail, she turns to technology, and Annie and Jules, to help make her dreams come true.

But each of their plans is thrown into disarray when Marcus’ daughter Bettina, intent on protecting her father, becomes convinced that his new wife is not what she seems…

With startling tenderness and laugh-out-loud humor, Jennifer Weiner once again takes readers into the heart of women’s lives in an unforgettable, timely tale that interweaves themes of class and entitlement, surrogacy and donorship, the rights of a parent and the measure of motherhood.

3) Abdication by Juliet Nicholson. Publisher's Summary. England, 1936. The year began with the death of a beloved king and the ascension of a charismatic young monarch, sympathetic to the needs of the working class, glamorous and single. By year’s end, the world would be stunned as it witnessed that new leader give up his throne in the name of love, just as the unrest and violence that would result in a Second World War were becoming impossible to ignore.

During the tumultuous intervening months, amidst the whirl of social and political upheaval, wise-beyond-her-nineteen-years May Thomas will take the first, faltering steps toward creating a new life for herself. Just disembarked at Liverpool after a long journey from her home on a struggling sugar plantation in Barbados, she secures a position as secretary and driver to Sir Philip Blunt, a job that will open her eyes to the activities of the uppermost echelons of British society, and her heart to a man seemingly beyond her reach. Outwardly affable spinster Evangeline Nettlefold is a girlhood friend to the American socialite Wallis Simpson, a goddaughter to Lady Joan Blunt and a new arrival to London from Baltimore. She will be generously welcomed into society’s most glittering circles, where one’s daily worth is determined by one’s proximity to a certain H.R.H. and his married mistress. But as the resentment she feels toward Wallis grows in magnitude, so too does the likelihood of disastrous consequences.

Young, idealistic Julian Richardson’s Oxford degree and his close friendship with Rupert Blunt have catapulted him from excruciating hours in his mother’s middle-class parlor to long holidays spent at stately homes and luxurious dinners in the company of a king. But even as he enjoys his time in this privileged world, his head cannot forget the struggles of those who live outside its gilded gates, and his uneasy heart cannot put aside his undeclared affection for May.

May, Evangeline and Julian will all become embroiled in the hidden truths, undeclared loves, unspoken sympathies and covert complicities that define the year chronicled in Abdication. In pitch-perfect prose, Juliet Nicolson has captured an era in which duty and pleasure, tradition and novelty, and order and chaos all battled for supremacy in the hearts and minds of king and commoner alike. As addictive as Downton Abbey, as poignant as The Remains of the Day, Abdication is a breathtaking story inspired by a love affair that shook the world at a time when the world was on the brink of war.

4) Temptation by Douglas Kennedy. Publisher's Summary. I always wanted to be rich. I know that probably sounds crass, but it’s the truth. A true confession. Like all would-be Hollywood screenwriters, David Armitage wants to be rich and famous. But for the past eleven years, he’s tasted nothing but failure. Then, out of nowhere, big-time luck comes his way when one of his scripts is bought for television. Before you can say “overnight success,” he’s the new toast of Hollywood as the creator of a hit series. Suddenly a major player, he finds that he’s reinventing himself at a great speed, especially when it comes to walking out on his wife and daughter for a young producer who worships only at the altar of ambition.

But David’s upward mobility takes a decidedly strange turn when a billionaire film buff named Philip Fleck barges into his life, proposing a very curious collaboration. David takes the bait and suddenly finds himself inadvertently entering into a Faustian pact and an express ride to the lower depths of the Hollywood jungle.

5) Objects of My Affection by Jill Smolinski. Publisher's Summary. Lucy Bloom is broke, freshly dumped by her boyfriend, and forced to sell her house to send her nineteen-year-old son to drug rehab. Although she’s lost it all, she’s determined to start over. So when she’s offered a high-paying gig helping clear the clutter from the home of reclusive and eccentric painter Marva Meier Rios, Lucy grabs it. Armed with the organizing expertise she gained while writing her book,Things Are Not People, and fueled by a burning desire to get her life back on track, Lucy rolls up her sleeves to take on the mess that fills every room of Marva’s huge home. Lucy soon learns that the real challenge may be taking on Marva, who seems to love the objects in her home too much to let go of any of them.

While trying to stay on course toward a strict deadline—and with an ex-boyfriend back in the picture, a new romance on the scene, and her son’s rehab not going as planned—Lucy discovers that Marva isn’t just hoarding, she is also hiding a big secret. The two form an unlikely bond, as each learns from the other that there are those things in life we keep, those we need to let go—but it’s not always easy to know the difference.

All thanks to Simon & Schuster!

Mailbox Monday -- June 4th!

Welcome to Mailbox Monday which is hosted this month by by Alternative-Read. Below are the books I received this week:

1) Fearless by Eric Blehm.  Publisher's Summary When Navy SEAL Adam Brown woke up on March 17, 2010, he didn’t know he would die that night in the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan—but he was ready: In a letter to his children, not meant to be seen unless the worst happened, he wrote, “I’m not afraid of anything that might happen to me on this earth, because I know no matter what, nothing can take my spirit from me.”

Long before Adam Brown became a member of the elite SEAL Team SIX—the counterterrorism unit that took down Osama bin Laden—he was a fun-loving country boy from Hot Springs, Arkansas, whose greatest goal had been to wear his high school’s football jersey. An undersized daredevil, prone to jumping off roofs into trees and off bridges into lakes, Adam was a kid who broke his own bones but would never break a promise to his parents. But after high school, Adam fell in with the wrong crowd and his family watched as his appetite for risk dragged him into a downward spiral that eventually landed him in jail. Battling his inner demons on a last-chance road to redemption, Adam had one goal: to become the best of the best—a US Navy SEAL.

An absorbing chronicle of heroism and humanity, Fearless presents an indelible portrait of a highly trained warrior who would enter a village with weapons in hand to hunt terrorists, only to come back the next day with an armload of shoes and meals for local children. It is a deeply personal, revealing glimpse inside the SEAL Team SIX brotherhood that also shows how these elite operators live out the rest of their lives, away from danger, as husbands, fathers and friends.

Fearless is the story of a man of extremes, whose courage and determination was fueled by faith, family, and the love of a woman. It’s about a man who waged a war against his own worst impulses and persevered to reach the top tier of the US military. Always the first to volunteer for the most dangerous assignments, Adam’s final act of bravery led to the ultimate sacrifice.

Adam Brown was a devoted man who was an unlikely hero but a true warrior, described by all who knew him as fearless.

 2) The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D. by Nichole Bernier.  Publisher's Summary. Summer vacation on Great Rock Island was supposed to be a restorative time for Kate, who’d lost her close friend Elizabeth in a sudden accident. But when she inherits a trunk of Elizabeth's journals, they reveal a woman far different than the cheerful wife and mother Kate thought she knew.

 The complicated portrait of Elizabeth—her troubled upbringing, and her route to marriage and motherhood—makes Kate question not just their friendship, but her own deepest beliefs about loyalty and honesty at a period of uncertainty in her own marriage.

The more Kate reads, the more she learns the complicated truth of who Elizabeth really was, and rethinks her own choices as a wife, mother, and professional, and the legacy she herself would want to leave behind. When an unfamiliar man’s name appears in the pages, Kate realizes the extent of what she didn’t know about her friend, including where she was really going on the day she died.

Set in the anxious summer after the September 11th attacks, this story of two women—their friendship, their marriages, private ambitions and fears—considers the aspects of ourselves we show and those we conceal, and the repercussions of our choices.

Both thanks to Random House!

3) Serpent's Kiss by Melissa de la Cruz. Publisher's Summary. Joanna and her daughters, bookish Ingrid and wild-child Freya, are just settling into the newfound peace that has been cast over their small, off-the map town of North Hampton. With the centuries-old restriction against practicing magic lifted, casting spells, mixing potions, and curing troubled souls has never felt so good for the three witches. That is, until everything gets turned upside down—from Joanna’s organized kitchen to Ingrid’s previously non existent love life to Freya’s once unshakeable faith in her sexy soul mate, Killian Gardiner.

When Freya’s twin brother, Freddie, suddenly returns, escaped from Limbo and professing innocence on a long-ago crime, Freya should be ecstatic. The golden boy can do no wrong. Or can he? Freddie blames no other than her fiancé Killian for his downfall, and enlists Freya’s help to prove it. Now Freya doesn’t know who to believe or trust.And for the first time in—well,forever really—Ingrid is also busy in love. Matt Noble, the handsome and charming police detective, has won her heart. But can romance work between a virgin witch and a mortal who doesn’t believe in magic? Things get even more complicated when it appears Ingrid is harboring the prime suspects in Matt’s police investigation.

To add to the chaos, a dead spirit is attempting to make contact with Joanna—but does it mean to bring harm or help? Joanna asks her sort-of ex-husband Norman to help figure it out, only to accidentally invite him to a Thanksgiving dinner with a dapper gentleman she’s recently begun dating.

As the witches pull together to discover the serpent within their midst and the culprit behind Freddie’s imprisonment, everything is thrown into peril. Will the discovery come too late to save those they love most?

Thanks to Hyperion!

Mailbox Monday -- May 28th!

Welcome to Mailbox Monday the Memorial Day Edition! This month mailbox Monday has been hosted by Martha's Bookshelf. Below are the books that I received this week:

1) In One Person by John Irving.  Publisher's Summary.A compelling novel of desire, secrecy, and sexual identity, In One Person is a story of unfulfilled love—tormented, funny, and affecting—and an impassioned embrace of our sexual differences. Billy, the bisexual narrator and main character of In One Person, tells the tragicomic story (lasting more than half a century) of his life as a “sexual suspect,” a phrase first used by John Irving in 1978 in his landmark novel of “terminal cases,” The World According to Garp.

His most political novel since The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving’s In One Person is a poignant tribute to Billy’s friends and lovers—a theatrical cast of characters who defy category and convention. Not least, In One Person is an intimate and unforgettable portrait of the solitariness of a bisexual man who is dedicated to making himself “worthwhile.”

Thanks to Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea.

2) A Widow's Might by Sandra Brannan.  Publisher's Summary. In this second book in the eponymous series, gutsy, sharp-witted Liv Bergen vows to clear her brother's name as a murder suspect. Her way is hindered, though, by a half million bikers and gawkers who have turned the Black Hills of South Dakota into a modern-day Sodom in the dog days of summer.

When Liv witnesses a second homicide, she attracts the uninvited attentions of Mully, the menacing leader of bike gang Lucifer's Lot. Their cat-and-mouse game puts Liv once again in the path of FBI agent Streeter Pierce, who's gone undercover to find the perp in the first murder -- plus a shadow criminal called the Crooked Man. Liv taps every ounce of brains and skill she has to avoid becoming the killer's next victim, and the intriguing Streeter shoots to kill.

Thanks to the Publicist!

Mailbox Monday -- May 21st!

Welcome to Mailbox Monday which is hosted this month by Martha's Bookshelf. Below are the books that I received this week:

1) Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage. Amazon Description. Rising sixth grader Miss Moses LoBeau lives in the small town of Tupelo Landing, NC, where everyone's business is fair game and no secret is sacred. She washed ashore in a hurricane eleven years ago, and she's been making waves ever since. Although Mo hopes someday to find her "upstream mother," she's found a home with the Colonel--a café owner with a forgotten past of his own--and Miss Lana, the fabulous café hostess. She will protect those she loves with every bit of her strong will and tough attitude. So when a lawman comes to town asking about a murder, Mo and her best friend, Dale Earnhardt Johnson III, set out to uncover the truth in hopes of saving the only family Mo has ever known. Full of wisdom, humor, and grit, this timeless yarn will melt the heart of even the sternest Yankee.

Thanks to the Penguin Group!

2)The Inquisitor by Mark Allen Smith. Publisher's Summary. Geiger has a gift: he knows a lie the instant he hears it. And in his business—called "information retrieval" by its practitioners—that gift is invaluable, because truth is the hottest thing on the market. Geiger's clients count on him to extract the truth from even the most reluctant subjects. Unlike most of his competitors, Geiger rarely sheds blood, but he does use a variety of techniques—some physical, many psychological—to push his subjects to a point where pain takes a backseat to fear. Because only then will they finally stop lying. One of Geiger's rules is that he never works with children. So when his partner, former journalist Harry Boddicker, unwittingly brings in a client who demands that Geiger interrogate a twelve-year-old boy, Geiger responds instinctively. He rescues the boy from his captor, removes him to the safety of his New York City loft, and promises to protect him from further harm. But if Geiger and Harry cannot quickly discover why the client is so desperate to learn the boy's secret, they themselves will become the victims of an utterly ruthless adversary.

 Thanks to Henry Holt!

3) Goodbye for Now by Laurie Frankel. Publisher's Summary. Sam Elling works for an internet dating company, but he still can't get a date. So he creates an algorithm to match people with their soul mates. The technology fixes Sam up with Meredith, the love of his life, but it also gets him fired when the company starts losing all their customers to Mr. and Ms. Right. 

When Meredith's grandmother Livvie dies suddenly, Sam reconfigures the algorithm so that Meredith can keep in touch with her. Mining from all her correspondence--email, Facebook, video chat, texts--Sam constructs a computer simulation of Livvie, who responds to email or video chat just as if she were still alive. It's not magic or the supernatural; it's computer science.

Meredith loves her virtual Livvie, so the couple launches a business to help others through their grief. But as the company takes off, it proves more complicated than any of them imagined. For every person who just wants to say goodbye, there is someone who can't let go. Meanwhile, Sam and Meredith's affection for one another deepens into the kind of love that comes once in a lifetime, a love that neither of them could live without. But what if they suddenly had to? Thanks to Doubleday Books!

Mailbox Monday -- May 14th!

Welcome to Mailbox Monday which is hosted this month by Martha's Bookshelf. Below are the books I received this week:

1) White Horse by Alex Adams. Publisher's Summary. The world has ended, but her journey has just begun.Thirty-year-old Zoe leads an ordinary life until the end of the world arrives. She is cleaning cages and floors at Pope Pharmaceuticals when the president of the United States announces that human beings are no longer a viable species. When Zoe realizes that everyone she loves is disappearing, she starts running. Scared and alone in a shockingly changed world, she embarks on a remarkable journey of survival and redemption. Along the way, Zoe comes to see that humans are defined not by their genetic code, but rather by their actions and choices.White Horse offers hope for a broken world, where love can lead to the most unexpected places. 

 2) These Girls by Sarah Pekkanen. Publisher's Summary. Cate, Renee, and Abby have come to New York for very different reasons, and in a bustling city of millions, they are linked together through circumstance and chance.

Cate has just been named the features editor of Gloss, a high-end lifestyle magazine. It’s a professional coup, but her new job comes with more complications than Cate ever anticipated.

Her roommate Renee will do anything to nab the plum job of beauty editor at Gloss. But snide comments about Renee’s weight send her into an emotional tailspin. Soon she is taking black market diet pills—despite the racing heartbeat and trembling hands that signal she’s heading for real danger.

Then there’s Abby, whom they take in as a third roommate. Once a joyful graduate student working as a nanny part time, she abruptly fled a seemingly happy life in the D.C. suburbs. No one knows what shattered Abby—or why she left everything she once loved behind.

Pekkanen’s most compelling, true-to-life novel yet tells the story of three very different women as they navigate the complications of careers and love—and find the lifeline they need in each other.

 3) Shelter by Frances Greenslade. Publisher's Summary.  For sisters Maggie and Jenny growing up in the Pacific mountains in the early 1970s, life felt nearly perfect. Seasons in their tiny rustic home were peppered with wilderness hikes, building shelters from pine boughs and telling stories by the fire with their doting father and beautiful, adventurous mother. But at night, Maggie—a born worrier—would count the freckles on her father’s weathered arms, listening for the peal of her mother’s laughter in the kitchen, and never stop praying to keep them all safe from harm. Then her worst fears come true: Not long after Maggie’s tenth birthday, their father is killed in a logging accident, and a few months later, their mother abruptly drops the girls at a neighbor’s house, promising to return. She never does.

With deep compassion and sparkling prose, Frances Greenslade’s mesmerizing debut takes us inside the devastation and extraordinary strength of these two girls as they are propelled from the quiet, natural freedom in which they were raised to a world they can’t begin to fathom. Even as the sisters struggle to understand how their mother could abandon them, they keep alive the hope that she is fighting her way back to the daughters who adore her and who need her so desperately.

Heartbreaking and lushly imagined, Shelter celebrates the love between two sisters and the complicated bonds of family. It is an exquisitely written ode to sisters, mothers, daughters, and to a woman’s responsibility to herself and those she loves.

All thanks to Simon & Schuster!

Mailbox Monday -- May 7th!

Welcome to Mailbox Monday which is hosted this month by Martha's Bookshelf. Below are the books I received this week:

 1) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. Publisher's Summary. Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomqvist is hired by Henrik Vanger to investigate the disappearance of Vanger’s great-niece Harriet. Henrik suspects that someone in his family, the powerful Vanger clan, murdered Harriet over forty years ago. Starting his investigation, Mikael realizes that Harriet’s disappearance is not a single event, but rather linked to series of gruesome murders in the past. He now crosses paths with Lisbeth Salander, a young computer hacker, an asocial punk and most importantly, a young woman driven by her vindictiveness. Together they form an unlikely couple as they dive deeper into the violent past of the secretive Vanger family.

2) The Girl Who Played with Fire. by Stiegg Larsson. Publisher's Summary. Lisbeth Salander is wanted for a triple murder. All three victims are connected to a trafficking exposé about to be published in Mikael Blomqvist’s magazine Millenium, and Lisbeth’s fingerprints are on the weapon. Lisbeth vanishes to avoid capture by the justice. Mikael, not believing the police, is despairingly trying to clear her name, using all his resources and the staff of his magazine. During this process, Mikael discovers Lisbeth’s past, a terrible story of abuse and traumatizing experiences growing up in the Swedish care system. When he eventually finds her, it’s only to discover that she is far more entangled in his initial investigation of the sex industry than he could ever imagine.

 Both thanks to Paperback Swap!

3) A Chance in the World by Steve Pemberton. Publisher's Summary.  Home is the place where our life stories begin. It is where we are understood, embraced, and accepted. It is a sanctuary of safety and security, a place to which we can always return. Down in the dank basement, amid my moldy, hoarded food and worm-eaten books, I dreamed that my real home, the place where my story had begun, was out there somewhere, and one day I was going to find it. Taken from his mother at age three, Steve Klakowicz lives a terrifying existence. Caught in the clutches of a cruel foster family and subjected to constant abuse, Steve finds his only refuge in a box of books given to him by a kind stranger. In these books, he discovers new worlds he can only imagine and begins to hope that one day he might have a different life—that one day he will find his true home. A fair-complexioned boy with blue eyes, a curly Afro, and a Polish last name, he is determined to unravel the mystery of his origins and find his birth family. Armed with just a single clue, Steve embarks on an extraordinary quest for his identity, only to learn that nothing is as it appears. A Chance in the World is the unbelievably true story of a wounded and broken boy destined to become a man of resilience, determination, and vision. Through it all, Steve’s story teaches us that no matter how broken our past, no matter how great our misfortunes, we have it in us to create a new beginning and to build a place where love awaits.

Thanks to Thomas Nelson!

Mailbox Monday -- April 30th

Welcome to Mailbox Monday which is hosted this month by Cindy's Love of Books. Below is the book that I received (I've been cutting back on books a bit), but it is one that I am super excited about as I have just seen the movie:

 1) The Hunger Games Official Movie Companion: Amazon Description. Go behind the scenes of the making of The Hunger Games with exclusive images and interviews. From the screenwriting process to the casting decisions to the elaborate sets and costumes to the actors' performances and directors' vision, this is the definitive companion to the breathtaking film.

 Thanks to the publisher!

Mailbox Monday -- April 23rd

Welcome to Mailbox Monday which is hosted this month by Cindy at Cindy's Love of Books. Below are the books I received this week:

1) Dollars and Uncommon Sense by Steve Repak, CFP. Publisher's Summary. There is a personal debt crisis in America. One in five mortgages is under water and the average credit card holder is $15,799 in debt. In DOLLARS AND UNCOMMON SENSE former US Army Sergeant and Certified Financial Planner ™, Steve Repak outlines a strategy to change your misguided common sense ideas about savings and learn to think like a true builder of wealth. Steve served 12 years in the Army, racking up $32,000 in debt while he was there. He then drew on his military experience and put his own finances through boot camp. Not only did he get out of debt, but Steve Repak went on to help others do the same. Now, he shows that wealth builders, like military recruits, have the self-discipline to manage their money and grow their wealth.

Thanks to the Cadence Group!

2) It Rains in February: A Wife's Memoir of Love and Loss by Leila Summers. Amazon Summary. On the 24th of February 2007 my husband, Stuart, drowned himself at sea, leaving me widowed with two young daughters aged six and four. I knew it wasn't an accident, even though the medics and police never suspected suicide. Stuart had been talking about ending his life for a year. His most recent suicide attempt had been only three weeks earlier. Afterwards, he explained that day as the most peaceful day of his life. Sitting next to the dam, he smoked his last cigarette. He drank a hundred sleeping pills and did a final check to make sure everything would look like an accident. The last thing he remembered was swimming out into the crystal clear water. He said that he was no longer scared of dying, that there was nothing scary about it. Living was the scary thing.

It Rains In February: A Wife's Memoir of Love and Loss is the true story of a husband's depression and obsession, not only with another woman, but also with ending his life. In this honest and heartfelt narrative, Leila Summers weaves a compelling tale of the year that led up to Stuart's suicide and the grief, profound loss and self discovery that followed. Although each suicide is unique, this book gives the reader an insider's view from one perspective by way letters and e-mail messages.

3) The Dog That Talked to God by Jim Kraus. Publisher's Summary. Recently widowed Mary Fassler buys a Miniature Schnauzer, Rufus, and her world is turned sideways in the midst of her grief. It seems that Rufus speaks. And not just to her. He also talks to God.

When Rufus begins sharing advice that could result in major changes, Mary gets the feeling the pooch might not be steering her in the right direction. Or, is she just afraid to take the leap and discover something she desperately needs? Only Rufus...and God...knows.

Thanks to the Publisher!

Mailbox Monday -- April 16th

Welcome to Mailbox Monday which is hosted this month by Cindy at Cindy's Love of Books. Below are the books I received this week:

1) Gossip by Beth Gutcheon. Publisher's Summary. Loviah “Lovie” French owns a small, high-end dress shop on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Renowned for her taste, charm, and discretion, Lovie is the one to whom certain women turn when they need “just the thing” for key life events: baptisms and balls, weddings and funerals. Among those who depend on Lovie’s sage advice are her two best friends since boarding school days: Dinah Wainwright and Avis Metcalf. Despite the love they share for their mutual friend, there has always been a chilly gulf between Dinah and Avis, the result of a perceived slight from decades ago that has unimaginably tragic echoes many years later.

An astute chronicler of all that makes us human, Beth Gutcheon delivers her most powerful and emotionally devastating novel to date. Gossip is a tale of intimacy and betrayal, trust and fidelity, friendship and motherhood that explores the way we use “information” — be it true, false, or imagined — to sustain, and occasionally destroy, one another.

Thanks to FSB Associates!

2) Doing Italians oops Italy by The Delusional Divas. Publisher's Summary. Picture it — the new millennium. Shelby and Dena, modern-day Lucy and Ethel (sans Ricky and Fred) are loose in Italy looking for adventure. But this story, complete with zany mishaps and misadventures, has a few tiny twists. For one, Shelby’s burnished skin tones reveal that her Lucy’s ancestors had taken a detour through Africa and mingled, so to speak. Secondly, Dena’s Ethel really has a Fred, perhaps not as long in the tooth, but just as crabby. Thirdly, Shelby and Dena’s adventure is no sitcom. It is the real life humorous, yet poignant, tale of childhood friends — one white, one black, one a stay-at-home mom, the other a law librarian —setting off for the Land of the Boot and the voyage of a lifetime.

Done with Dr. Phil and weary of Louise Hay, Dena and Shelby were middle-aged New Yorkers who had had it with their dreary lives and with every self-help guru who was no help at all. Between them, the pair figured they had more fix-your-life books than the Library of Congress. Name any ISM, and they had tried it…Catholicism, Buddhism, Hypnotism, even Wiccaism. All to no avail.

About to give up and accept their lot, the ladies stumbled upon their truth. The answer was not in an ISM, but in an ION, as in DELUSION. Focusing on the dismal reality of their lives was wasted energy. Why not concentrate on their dreams and what they wanted? What did they want? That was simple. Dena and Shelby wanted to be Divas, the desire of every man and envy of every woman. Their game plan — pretend those dreams were reality. Hence, delusion became Dena and Shelby’s new paradigm.

With the purchase of each new hat, every confectionary bra and panty set, and each high-cut skirt and low-cut top, the harried housewife and bespectacled librarian embraced their delusion of Divahood. Then, hatboxes and steamer trunks in tow, the ditsy duo set out for romantic Italy, Shelby to rekindle a long-ago romance and Dena to kindle whatever she could. As one might imagine, the ladies’ delusions garnered wholly unexpected results. Their journey was one of self discovery and life-altering events that serves as a blueprint for others.

Thanks to the authors!

3) Starters by Lissa Price. Publisher's Summary. In the future, teens rent their bodies to seniors who want to be young again. One girl discovers her renter plans to do more than party--her body will commit murder, if her mind can't stop it. Sixteen-year-old Callie lost her parents when the genocide spore wiped out everyone except those who were vaccinated first--the very young and very old. With no grandparents to claim Callie and her little brother, they go on the run, living as squatters, and fighting off unclaimed renegades who would kill for a cookie. Hope comes via Prime Destinations, run by a mysterious figure known only as The Old Man. He hires teens to rent their bodies to seniors, known as enders, who get to be young again. Callie's neurochip malfunctions and she wakes up in the life of her rich renter, living in her mansion, driving her cars, even dating Blake, the grandson of a senator. It's a fairy-tale new life . . . until she uncovers the Body Bank's horrible plan.

Thanks to Delacorte Press!

Mailbox Monday -- April 9th

Welcome to Mailbox Monday which is hosted this month by Cindy at a Cindy's Love of Books. Below are the books I received this week:

1) The Third Gate by Lincoln Child. Publisher's Summary. Under the direction of famed explorer Porter Stone, an archaeological team is secretly attempting to locate the tomb of an ancient pharaoh who was unlike any other in history. Stone believes he has found the burial chamber of King Narmer, the near mythical god- king who united upper and lower Egypt in 3200 B.C., and the archaeologist has reason to believe that the greatest prize of all—Narmer’s crown—might be buried with him. No crown of an Egyptian king has ever been discovered, and Narmer’s is the elusive “double” crown of the two Egypts, supposedly pos­sessed of awesome powers.

The dig itself is located in one of the most forbidding places on earth—the Sudd, a nearly impassable swamp in north­ern Sudan. Amid the nightmarish, disorienting tangle of mud and dead vegetation, a series of harrowing and inexpli­cable occurrences are causing people on the expedition to fear a centuries- old curse. With a monumental discovery in reach, Professor Jeremy Logan is brought onto the project to investigate. What he finds will raise new questions . . . and alarm.

Thanks to Random House!

2) 30 Failures by Age 30 by Katharine Miller. Publisher's Summary. Once upon a time, 30 was old. It was Grown Up. It was almost middle-aged. If you weren’t married, something was wrong with you. If you didn’t have children, something was wrong with you. If you weren’t settled down with life all figured out, you’d screwed up somewhere along the way. Or so it seemed. Here is one woman’s exploration of personal and social failures and the hilarity that ensues.

Thanks to the Publicist!

3) Dancing on Broken Glass by KA Hancock. Publisher's Summary. Lucy Houston and Mickey Chandler probably shouldn’t have fallen in love, let alone gotten married. They’re both plagued with faulty genes—he has bipolar disorder; she, a ravaging family history of breast cancer. But when their paths cross on the night of Lucy’s twenty-first birthday, sparks fly, and there’s no denying their chemistry.

Cautious every step of the way, they are determined to make their relationship work—and they put their commitment in writing. Mickey will take his medication. Lucy won’t blame him for what is beyond his control. He promises honesty. She promises patience. Like any marriage, there are good days and bad days—and some very bad days. In dealing with their unique challenges, they make the heartbreaking decision not to have children. But when Lucy shows up for a routine physical just shy of their eleventh anniversary, she gets an impossible surprise that changes everything. Everything. Suddenly, all their rules are thrown out the window, and the two of them must redefine what love really is.

Thanks to the author!

Mailbox Monday -- April 2nd

The past two weeks have been crazy as my dog, Maggie, was diagnosed with suspicious lumps and needed major surgery. Thankfully, Maggie made it through the 4 hour surgery with flying colors and is healing. Now I am awaiting the biopsy results to determine if she needs further treatment.

Welcome to Mailbox Monday which is hosted this month by Cindy at a Cindy's Love of Books. Below are the books I received:

1) Still by Lauren Winner. Publisher's Summary. In the critically acclaimed memoir Girl Meets God, Lauren F. Winner chronicled her sojourn from Judaism to Christianity. Now, in Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, Winner describes how experiences of loss and failure unexpectedly slam her into a wall of doubt and spiritual despair: “My belief has faltered, my sense of God’s closeness has grown strained, my efforts at living in accord with what I take to be the call of the gospel have come undone.”

Witty, relatable, and fiercely honest, Winner lays bare her experience of what she calls the “middle” of the spiritual life. In elegant and spare prose, she explores why—in the midst of the overwhelming anxiety, loneliness, and boredom of her deepest questioning about where (or if) God is—the Christian story still explains who she is better than any other story she’s ever known. Still is an absorbing meditation combining literary grace with spiritual wisdom. It is sure to resonate with anyone looking to sustain a spiritual life in the midst of real life.

Thanks to the Publicist!

2) Out of Sight Out of Time by Ally Carter. Publisher's Summary. The last thing Cammie Morgan remembers is leaving the Gallagher Academy to protect her friends and family from the Circle of Cavan--an ancient terrorist organization that has been hunting her for over a year. But when Cammie wakes up in an alpine convent and discovers months have passed, she must face the fact that her memory is now a black hole. The only traces left of Cammie’s summer vacation are the bruises on her body and the dirt under her nails, and all she wants is to go home.
Once she returns to school, however, Cammie realizes that even the Gallagher Academy now holds more questions than answers. Cammie, her friends, and mysterious spy-guy Zach must face their most difficult challenge yet as they travel to the other side of the world, hoping to piece together the clues that Cammie left behind. It’s a race against time. The Circle is hot on their trail and willing stop at nothing to prevent Cammie from remembering what she did last summer.

Thanks to the Publicist!

3) Kingdom Keepers: Shell Game by Ridley Pearson. Publisher's Summary. The fifth novel in the Kingdom Keepers series takes to the high seas! Finn, Amanda, and all of the DHIs are back for this new thrilling story that takes readers belowdecks on the Disney Dream. As the Disney Dream joins the cruise fleet, a special treat is in store for guests aboard its inaugural sail from Cape Canaveral to Los Angeles: the Disney Host Interactive teenage guides will be part of the Dream crew.

Finn, Maybeck, Charlene, Willa, and Philby are to attend the cruise as celebrity guests, and to perform a ribbon cutting for the DHI server to go live. The Dream is now the most advanced cruise ship in the world.

But all is not right belowdecks. Strange things are happening. Unexplained phenomena. Only the Kingdom Keepers know the truth behind their invitation: nearly every Disney villain is represented onboard the new ship: whether on its decks or in its theaters. It's believed the Overtakers have infiltrated the cast and are "stowaways." Worse: it is believed they have stolen an important journal that once belonged to Walt Disney himself–Finn has been having dreams about this–and that some kind of mission is planned.

The ship sets sail filled with enthusiastic guests and crew, and the battle is on in new and exotic arenas. But the end game is far more complicated and intense than anything the Kingdom Keepers had planned on. If the Overtakers get their way, a power will be unleashed that no one will possess the ability to vanquish.

Thanks to Shelf Awareness!