In My Mailbox/Mailbox Monday - 1/25/10

Eventually, I guess, I will get used to writing 2010.  I just noticed that on last week's edition of In My Mailbox/Mailbox Monday, I dated it 1/17/09...oh well.  Maybe in February I'll get it right.

Welcome to another edition of my combo meme In My Mailbox/Mailbox Monday.  You can find these hosted by some wonderful ladies: Kristi at The Story Siren and Marcia at The Printed Page, respectively.  They host these memes so that book bloggers can share the books that come into their houses.  I appreciate them both and hope that you will visit their blogs.



Very LeFreak by Rachel Cohn, from Knopf
Very LeFreak has a problem: she’s a crazed technology addict. Very can’t get enough of her iPhone, laptop, IMs, text messages, whatever. If there’s any chance the incoming message, call, text, or photo might be from her supersecret online crush, she’s going to answer, no matter what. Nothing is too important: sleep, friends in mid-conversation, class, a meeting with the dean about academic probation. Soon enough, though, this obsession costs Very everything and everyone. Can she learn to block out the noise so she can finally hear her heart?

Arcadia Falls (ARC) by Carol Goodman, from Ballantine Books via Shelf Awareness
There once was a girl who liked to pretend she was lost. . . .

Meg Rosenthal is driving toward the next chapter in her life. Winding along a wooded roadway, her car moves through a dense forest setting not unlike one in the bedtime stories Meg used to read to her daughter, Sally. But the girl riding beside Meg is a teenager now, and has exchanged the land of make-believe for an iPod and some personal space. Too much space, it seems, as the chasm between them has grown since the sudden, unexpected death of Meg’s husband.

Dire financial straits and a desire for a fresh start take Meg and Sally from a comfortable life on Long Island to a tucked-away hamlet in upstate New York: Arcadia Falls, where Meg has accepted a teaching position at a boarding school. The creaky, neglected cottage Meg and Sally are to call home feels like an ill portent of things to come, but Meg is determined to make the best of it—and to make a good impression on the school’s dean, the diminutive, elegant Ivy St. Clare.

St. Claire, however, is distracted by a shocking crisis: During Arcadia’s First Night bonfire, one of Meg’s folklore students, Isabel Cheney, plunges to her death in a campus gorge. Sheriff Callum Reade finds Isabel’s death suspicious, but then, he is a man with secrets and a dark past himself.

Meg is unnerved by Reade’s interest in the girl’s death, and as long-buried secrets emerge, she must face down her own demons and the danger threatening to envelop Sally. As the past clings tight to the present, the shadows, as if in a terrifying fairy tale, grow longer and deadlier.

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow, from Algonquin Books
This debut novel tells the story of Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I. who becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy. 

With her strict African American grandmother as her new guardian, Rachel moves to a mostly black community, where her light brown skin, blue eyes, and beauty bring mixed attention her way. Growing up in the 1980s, she learns to swallow her overwhelming grief and confronts her identity as a biracial young woman in a world that wants to see her as either black or white.

Who Stole My Soul? by Vishura Prakash, from Synergy Books
If a soul is intangible and resides within our hearts and minds, can it be stolen? More importantly, who do you turn to when you feel your soul slipping away from you? In this fantastical, semi-autobiographical book, Vishwa Prakash addresses these questions. When Vishwa feels a mysterious force sweep away his soul, he embarks on a spiritual quest and appeals to an unusual being for help-the devil, who is not quite what Vishwa expected. Vishwa's dialogue with the devil takes him deep within himself, in search of answers to his dilemma. The devil has an unorthodox viewpoint, which intrigues one moment and enlightens the next.

The Bride Collector (ARC) by Ted Dekker, from Center Street for an upcoming blog tour
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 Wellness 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 Bride Collector picks up the pace-and volume-of his gruesome crucifixions, the case becomes even more personal to Raines when his friend and colleague, a beautiful young forensic psychologist, becomes the Bride Collector's next target.

The FBI believes that the killer plans to murder seven women. Can Paradise help before it's too late?

Bubble Trouble by Margaret Mahy, from Clarion Books
When little Mabel's bubble gets away from her, it's her baby brother who gets into trouble. Soon he's floating out of the house, above the fence, and all over town! And it's up to Mabel, Mother, and the rest of the townspeople to get him safely back down. Who knew that so much trouble could come from one little bubble?