Monday: Books in the Mail

Last Monday you may have thought I missed this weekly post but I didn't; I just didn't get any books in the mail that week so didn't bother posting. However, last week saw the Mailbox smiling happily as it was filled almost daily with lovely little padded envelopes. Here's what came:

For a Hachette Book Tour. I'll be reading this right away! But sorry, the review won't be coming for a while:

FBI Special Agent Brad Raines is facing his toughest case yet. A Denver serial killer has killed four beautiful young women, leaving a bridal veil at each crime scene, and he's picking up his pace. Unable to crack the case, Raines appeals for help from a most unusual source: residents of the Center for Wellbeing and Intelligence, a private psychiatric institution for mentally ill individuals whose are extraordinarily gifted.

It's there that he meets Paradise, a young woman who witnessed her father murder her family and barely escaped his hand. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Paradise may also have an extrasensory gift: the ability to experience the final moments of a person's life when she touches the dead body.

In a desperate attempt to find the killer,Raines enlists Paradise's help. In an effort to win her trust, he befriends this strange young woman and begins to see in her qualities that most 'sane people' sorely lack. Gradually, he starts to question whether sanity resides outside the hospital walls...or inside.

As the serial killer picks up the pace and volume of his gruesome killings, the case becomes even more personal to Raines when his friend and colleague, a beautiful young forensic psychologist, becomes the Bride Collector's fourth target. And she isn't the last by far. (US) - (Canada)

From LibraryThing Early Reviewers:

Orphan Ellinor Arden is called from her secluded Paris home to London for the hearing of a will. To her surprise, she is named as the inheritor of her estranged uncle's fortune, on condition that she marry his adopted son.

Encouraged by her lawyer and guardian, the dashing Horace Margrave, she enters into wedded life with this perfect stranger, but it soon becomes clear that her trust in a dead man's wishes has been misplaced.

Suspense-ridden sensation fiction from a master of the art, The Lawyer's Secret and the counterpart piece presented here, 'The Mystery at Fernwood', represent gripping Victorian literature at its best. (US) - (Canada)

From the book's publicist:

The past Janeal thought had burned away is rising from the ashes.

Years ago, the Gypsy Kumpania where Janeal Mikkado lived was attacked by outsiders. With her best friend about to be consumed by a fire, Janeal had two options: try to save her friend--at serious risk to her own life--or disappear with the million dollars that she had just discovered . . .

But the past is quickly coming back to haunt her. Both the best friend and the boyfriend that she was sure were dead have reappeared in her life, as has someone who knows about the money. There's a debt to be paid for the money she found, but there's an even greater debt she must face--and if the chaff isn't burned from her own heart, it will consume her. (US) - (Canada)

From the book's publicist:

Readers of Patrick Taylor’s books know Mrs. Kinky Kincaid as the unflappable housekeeper who looks after two frequently frazzled doctors in the colourful Irish village of Ballybucklebo. She is a trusted fixture in the lives of those around her, and it often seems as though Kinky has always been there.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Some forty-odd years before and many miles to the south, the girl who would someday be Kinky Kincaid was Maureen O’Hanlon, a farmer’s daughter growing up in the emerald hills and glens of County Cork. A precocious girl on the cusp of womanhood, Maureen has a head full of dreams, a heart open to romance, and something more: a gift for seeing beyond the ordinary into the mystic realm of fairies, spirits, and even the dreaded Banshee, whose terrifying wail she first hears on a snowy night in 1922. . . .

As she grows into a young woman, Maureen finds herself torn between love and her fondest aspirations, for the future is a mystery even for one blessed with the sight. Encountering both joy and sorrow, Maureen at last finds herself on the road to Ballybucklebo---and the strong and compassionate woman she was always destined to become.

An Irish Country Girl is another captivating tale by Patrick Taylor, a true Irish storyteller. (US) - (Canada)

I'm not sure how I ended up with this one, but it sounds great!:

Ludelphia Bennett may be blind in one eye, but she can still put in a good stitch. Ludelphia sews all the time, especially when things go wrong.

But when Mama goes into labor early and gets deathly ill, it seems like even quilting won’t help. That’s when Ludelphia decides to do something drastic—leave Gee’s Bend for the very first time. Mama needs medicine that can only be found miles away in Camden. But that doesn’t stop Ludelphia. She just puts one foot in front of the other.

What ensues is a wonderful, riveting and sometimes dangerous adventure. Ludelphia weathers each challenge in a way that would make her mother proud, and ends up saving the day for her entire town.

Set in 1932 and inspired by the rich quilting history of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, Leaving Gee’s Bend is a delightful, satisfying story of a young girl facing a brave new world. (US) - (Canada)