Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week.

Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles, and humongous wish lists!!

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia @ A Girl and Her Books, has a permanent home now at Mailbox Monday.

 ************

Here’s a shout out to the administrators:
Emma @ Words And peace

Serena @ Savvy Verse And Wit
Martha @ Reviews By Martha's Bookshelf 

************

                THANKS to everyone for keeping Mailbox Monday alive.

Decisions I've made this week:

As much as I love reading and getting tons of books lately it’s felt more like a job then a pleasure. I’ve always loved reading. I’ve even stepped out of my comfort zone and tried genres that I would not read before. I’ve overwhelmed myself with too many, or possibly too many, review books. Somewhere along the way I have lost sight of the beauty and pleasure of just sitting back and reading a book. Just immersing myself in the pages and getting lost in a while other world. Instead of feeling that almost euphoric feeling it’s been more of a challenge. Not for all the books but the ones I feel I absolutely have to finish by a certain date and get the review posted. The books that authors give me to read I take because I have no doubt that I’m going to love them. They are more like dear friends and I’ve read most or all of their books already. Those I will continue to enjoy. I do not have any doubts about that.

The thing is I need a change. A reading change. Starting the first of the year I will not be requesting near as many NetGalley books. I will some and I will continue to do the blog and instagram tours for authors. I’m going to start reading some of the many many books I have. Some of the books that I’ve received as gifts. Some of the ones I’ve bought. I can get almost any book from the library also so that will start happening instead of asking certain authors and publishers for copies to review. A few ignore you anyway. I have several authors that I will read anything they write and that’s a great gift there. Some authors I’ve discovered from other readers and enjoyed their books. I need so bad to get back to pleasure reading. I want to enjoy books again. To savor them. To just read and relax again.

I have way too many to read before the end of this year and a few for early next year. I will stop doing that. It’s ridiculous really. But it happens and people who love reading like I do will understand what I’m saying. I want to inhale books again. Really truly honestly enjoy them. So I’m going to get back control of my book list. I’m going to only request ones that I absolutely truly want. Ones that I do not doubt I’ll love. I’ll spend more time on authors outside of NetGalley too. Those are the ones that have truly made me happy. The ones that actually appreciate that you read and reviewed their book. I love the authors. They put their whole self into each book and they deserve to be treated with the utmost respect. I always try to do that. Reading is the best and I’m bringing back my true love for reading the only way I know how.

So I won't be posting as many NetGalley books as I'm not going to be requesting as many. That is the plan. I'll keep on reading and reviewing though.

Received this week

1: THE CURSE OF PENRYTH HALL by Jess Armstrong

Courtesy of Publisher via NetGalley

An atmospheric gothic mystery that beautifully brings the ancient Cornish countryside to life, Armstrong introduces heroine Ruby Vaughn in her Minotaur Books & Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award-winning debut, The Curse of Penryth Hall.

BOOKMAIL this week

LITTLE MONSTERS by Adrienne Brodeur

Synopsis

From the author of the bestselling memoir Wild Game comes a riveting novel about Cape Cod, complicated families, and long-buried secrets—for fans of the New York Times bestsellers The Paper Palace and Ask Again, Yes .

Ken and Abby Gardner lost their mother when they were small and they have been haunted by her absence ever since. Their father, Adam, a brilliant oceanographer, raised them mostly on his own in his remote home on Cape Cod, where the attachment between Ken and Abby deepened into something complicated—and as adults their relationship is strained. Now, years later, the siblings’ lives are still deeply entwined. Ken is a successful businessman with political ambitions and a picture-perfect family and Abby is a talented visual artist who depends on her brother’s goodwill, in part because he owns the studio where she lives and works.

As the novel opens, Adam is approaching his seventieth birthday, staring down his mortality and fading relevance. He has always managed his bipolar disorder with medication, but he’s determined to make one last scientific breakthrough and so he has secretly stopped taking his pills, which he knows will infuriate his children. Meanwhile, Abby and Ken are both harboring secrets of their own, and there is a new person on the periphery of the family—Steph, who doesn’t make her connection known. As Adam grows more attuned to the frequencies of the deep sea and less so to the people around him, Ken and Abby each plan the elaborate gifts they will present to their father on his birthday, jostling for primacy in this small family unit.

Set in the fraught summer of 2016, and drawing on the biblical tale of Cain and Abel, Little Monsters is an absorbing, sharply observed family story by a writer who knows Cape Cod inside and out—its Edenic lushness and its snakes.

BRIGHT YOUNG WOMEN by Jessica Knoll

Synopsis

From the author of the New York Times bestseller and #1 Netflix movie Luckiest Girl Alive comes an extraordinary novel inspired by the real-life sorority targeted by America's first celebrity serial killer in his final murderous spree.

January 1978. A serial killer has terrorized women across the Pacific Northwest, but his existence couldn’t be further from the minds of the vibrant young women at the top sorority on Florida State University’s campus in Tallahassee. Tonight is a night of promise, excitement, and desire, but Pamela Schumacher, president of the sorority, makes the unpopular decision to stay home—a decision that unwittingly saves her life. Startled awake at 3 a.m. by a strange sound, she makes the fateful decision to investigate. What she finds behind the door is a scene of implausible violence—two of her sisters dead; two others, maimed. Over the next few days, Pamela is thrust into a terrifying mystery inspired by the crime that’s captivated public interest for more than four decades.

On the other side of the country, Tina Cannon has found peace in Seattle after years of hardship. A chance encounter brings twenty-five-year-old Ruth Wachowsky into her life, a young woman with painful secrets of her own, and the two form an instant connection. When Ruth goes missing from Lake Sammamish State Park in broad daylight, surrounded by thousands of beachgoers on a beautiful summer day, Tina devotes herself to finding out what happened to her. When she hears about the tragedy in Tallahassee, she knows it’s the man the papers refer to as the All-American Sex Killer. Determined to make him answer for what he did to Ruth, she travels to Florida on a collision course with Pamela—and one last impending tragedy.

Bright Young Women is the story about two women from opposite sides of the country who become sisters in their fervent pursuit of the truth. It proposes a new narrative inspired by evidence that’s been glossed over for decades in favor of more salable headlines—that the so-called brilliant and charismatic serial killer from Seattle was far more average than the countless books, movies, and primetime specials have led us to believe, and that it was the women whose lives he cut short who were the exceptional ones.