Another Monday, Another Mailbox!! This is a feature where we
all share with each other the yummy books that showed up
at our doors! WARNING: Mailbox Mondays can lead to
extreme envy and GINORMOUS wishlists!!
Mailbox Monday was originally hosted by Marcia at
The Printed Page and now located
here, but is now a traveling meme and for the month of July your new host for MM will be Gwen @
A Sea of Books.
Hey all, welcome to another edition of Mailbox Monday! Boy have I got some fabulous new additions to my bookshelves to tell you all about. This past Friday was my birthday and then Saturday was my husband's birthday, so it was a prolonged weekend celebration :) I received some gift cards and picked up some books that have been on my wishlist and also included are books that were sent to me for review.
Let's start with the review copies first...
by Jennifer Donnelly
Release Date: August 2, 2011
Acquired via: Hyperion Publishing
SYNOPSIS
The Wild Rose is a part of the sweeping, multi-generational saga that began with
The Tea Rose and continued with
The Winter Rose.
It is London, 1914. World War I looms on the horizon, women are
fighting for the right to vote, and explorers are pushing the limits of
endurance in the most forbidding corners of the earth. Into this
volatile time, Jennifer Donnelly places her vivid and memorable
characters:
--Willa Alden, a passionate mountain climber
who lost her leg while summiting Kilimanjaro with Seamus Finnegan, and
who will never forgive him for saving her life;
--Seamus Finnegan, a polar explorer who tries to forget Willa as he marries a beautiful young schoolteacher back home in England
--Max von Brandt, a handsome German sophisticate who courts high society women, but has a secret agenda in wartime London.
Many other beloved characters from
The Winter Rose continue their adventures in
The Wild Rose as well. With myriad twists and turns, thrilling cliffhangers, and fabulous period detail and atmosphere,
The Wild Rose provides a highly satisfying conclusion to an unforgettable trilogy.
by Juliet Grey
Release Date: August 9, 2011
Acquired via: Random House
SYNOPSIS
This enthralling confection of a novel, the first in a new trilogy,
follows the transformation of a coddled Austrian archduchess into the
reckless, powerful, beautiful queen Marie Antoinette.
Why must it be me? I wondered.
When I am so clearly inadequate to my destiny?Raised
alongside her numerous brothers and sisters by the formidable empress
of Austria, ten-year-old Maria Antonia knew that her idyllic existence
would one day be sacrificed to her mother’s political ambitions. What
she never anticipated was that the day in question would come so soon.
Before
she can journey from sunlit picnics with her sisters in Vienna to the
glitter, glamour, and gossip of Versailles, Antonia must change
everything
about herself in order to be accepted as dauphine of France and the
wife of the awkward teenage boy who will one day be Louis XVI. Yet
nothing can prepare her for the ingenuity and influence it will take to
become queen.
Filled with smart history, treacherous rivalries, lavish clothes, and sparkling jewels,
Becoming Marie Antoinette will utterly captivate fiction and history lovers alike.
by Victoria Grossack and Alice Underwood
Publication Date: December 5, 2010
Acquired via: Victoria Grossack
SYNOPSIS
Young and beautiful,
born to a powerful family, Jocasta is destined to become Queen of
Thebes... trapped in a loveless marriage, she cannot save her firstborn
child from her husband's wrath... left alone on the throne after her
husband's death, she must contend with the dangerous Sphinx and contrive
a plan to protect her city...charmed by a foreign prince, she does not
know she is falling in love with her own son... A vibrant tale set in
Bronze Age Greece, Jocasta has garnered rave reviews from university
faculty, publications such as Historical Novels Reviews Online, and
numerous readers. A Greek-language version of Jocasta was released by
Kedros Publishers of Athens in 2006.
by Carolly Erickson
Release Date: August 2, 2011
Acquired via: St. Martin's Griffin
SYNOPSIS
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Wife of Henry VIII
comes a novel about the bitter rivalry between Queen Elizabeth I and
her fascinating cousin, Lettice Knollys, for the love of one
extraordinary man.
Powerful and dramatic, this is the story of
the only woman to ever stand up to the Virgin Queen—her own cousin,
Lettice Knollys. Far more attractive than the queen, Lettice soon won
the attention of the handsome and ambitious Robert Dudley, a man so
enamored of the queen and determined to share her throne that it was
rumored he had murdered his own wife in order to become her royal
consort. The enigmatic Elizabeth allowed Dudley into her heart, and
relied on his devoted service, but shied away from the personal and
political risks of marriage.
When Elizabeth discovered that he
had married her cousin Lettice in secret, Lettice would pay a terrible
price, fighting to keep her husband’s love and ultimately losing her
beloved son to the queen’s headsman.
This is the unforgettable story
of two women related by blood, yet destined to clash over one of Tudor
England’s most charismatic men.
by Angus McDonald
Release Date: August 2, 2011
Acquired via: St. Martin's Griffin
SYNOPSIS
After the events of Outlaw, Robin of Locksley—and
his sidekick and narrator, Alan Dale—finds himself in a very different
England and a very changed world.
In 1190 A.D.
Richard the Lionheart, the new King of England, has launched his epic
crusade to seize Jerusalem from the Saracens. Marching with the vast
royal army is Britain’s most famous, most feared, most ferocious
warrior: the Outlaw of Nottingham, the Earl of Locksley—Robin Hood
himself. With his band of loyal men at his side, Robin cuts a bloody
swath on the brutal journey east. Daring and dangerous, he can outwit
and outlast any foe—but the battlefields of the Holy Land are the
ultimate proving ground. And within Robin’s camp lurks a traitor—a
hidden enemy determined to assassinate England’s most dangerous rogue.
Richly imagined and furiously paced, featuring a cast of unforgettable characters, Holy Warrior is adventure, history and legend at its finest.
And now for the birthday books...
by Barbara Erskine
Publication Date: July 1, 2011
SYNOPSIS
Past and present
collide in richly mysterious Egypt, where recently divorced Anna Coburn
is retracing a journey her great grandmother Louisa made in the 19th
century. Cruising down the Nile from Luxor to the Valley of the Kings,
Anna carries with her two mementos: an ancient Egyptian scent bottle,
and the diary of that original Nile voyage, which has lain unread for a
hundred years. As she follows Louisa's footsteps, Anna discovers both
the chilling secret of the bottle and the terrifying specters that
pursued her great grandmother.
by Winston Graham
Publication Date: November 1, 2009
SYNOPSIS
A gorgeous new release of the heartwarming and hilarious first novel in the Poldark series, the subject of the landmark BBC series.
Ross Poldark
is a heartwarming, gripping, and utterly entertaining saga that brings
to life an unforgettable cast of characters and one of the greatest love
stories of our age.
Ross Poldark returns to Cornwall from war,
looking forward to a joyful homecoming with his family and his beloved
Elizabeth. But instead he discovers that his father has died, his home
is overrun by livestock and drunken servants, and Elizabeth, having
believed Ross dead, is now engaged to his cousin. Ross must start over,
building a completely new path for his life, one that takes him in
exciting and unexpected directions…
Thus begins an intricately
plotted story spanning loves, lives, and generations. The Poldark series
is the masterwork of Winston Graham, who evoked the period and people
like only he could, and created a world of rich and poor, loss and love,
that readers will not soon forget.
Demelza: A Novel of Cornwall, 1788-1790 (Poldark #2)
by Winston Graham
Publication Date: June 1, 2010
SYNOPSIS
The second novel in the Poldark series, Demelza is
a heartwarming, gripping, and utterly entertaining saga that brings to
life an unforgettable cast of characters and one of the greatest love
stories of our age.
Demelza Carne, the impoverished miner's
daughter that Ross Poldark rescued from a fairground brawl, is now his
wife. But the events of these turbulent years test their marriage and
their love. Ross begins a bitter struggle for the right of the mining
communities—and sows the seeds of an enduring rivalry with powerful
George Warleggan. All the while, Demelza's efforts to adapt to the ways
of the gentry—and her husband—place her in hilarious and embarrassing
situations. But the birth of her first child bring a joy she never
experienced before…
Jeremy Poldark: A Novel of Cornwall, 1790-1791 (Poldark #3)
by Winston Graham
Publication Date: November 1, 2010
SYNOPSIS
Ross Poldark faces the darkest hour of his life in this third novel of
the Poldark series. Reeling from the tragic death of a loved one,
Captain Poldark vents his grief by inciting impoverished locals to
salvage the contents of a ship run aground in a storm-an act for which
British law proscribes death by hanging. Ross is brought to trial for
his involvement, and despite their stormy marriage, Demelza tries to
rally support for her husband, to save him and their family.
But
there are enemies in plenty who would be happy to see Ross convicted,
not the least of which is George Warleggan, the powerful banker whose
personal rivalry with Ross grows ever more intense and threatens to
destroy the Poldarks.
And into this setting, Jeremy Poldark, Ross and Demelza's first son, is born...
The Poldark series is the masterwork of Winston Graham's lifework,
evoking the period and people like only he can and creating a work of
rich and poor, loss and love, that you will not soon forget.
The Rose of Martinique: A Life of Napoleon's Josephine
by Andrea Stuart
Publication Date: May 10, 2005
SYNOPSIS
One of the most remarkable women of the modern era, Josephine Bonaparte
was born Rose de Tasher on her family's sugar plantation in Martinique.
She embodied all the characteristics of a true Creole-sensuality,
vivacity, and willfulness. Using diaries and letters, Andrea Stuart
expertly re-creates Josephine's whirlwind of a life, which began with an
isolated Caribbean childhood and led to a marriage that would usher her
onto the world stage and crown her empress of France.
Josephine
managed to be in the forefront of every important episode of her era's
turbulent history: from the rise of the West Indian slave plantations
that bankrolled Europe's rapid economic development, to the decaying of
the ancien régime, to the French Revolution itself, from which she
barely escaped the guillotine.
Rescued from near starvation, she grew
to epitomize the wild decadence of post-revolutionary Paris. It was
there that Josephine first caught the eye of Napoleon Bonaparte. A true
partner to Napoleon, she was equal parts political adviser, hostess par
excellence, confidante, and passionate lover. In this captivating
biography, Stuart brings her so utterly to life that we finally
understand why Napoleon's last word before dying was the name he had
given her: Josephine.
Well, that's my mailbox...what did you get in yours?
