Mailbox Monday - January 20

Mailbox Monday is a meme started by Marcia of To Be Continued. Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. It now has a permanent home at the Mailbox Monday blog.

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

I'm working on a middle grade historical novel right now, so I purchased the following book for research on Reconstruction. It's a time period I like reading about, so I felt having this material on hand would be helpful for other projects. Since I bought it used, it didn't cost much.

The Eighth Edition has been thoroughly revised to include expanded material on Africa, the history of African Americans in the Caribbean and Latin America, the current situation of African Americans in the United States, popular culture, and much more. It has also been redesigned with new charts, maps, photographs, paintings, illustrations, and color inserts. Written by distinguished and award-winning authors, retaining the same features that have made it the most popular text on African American History ever, and with fresh and appealing new features, From Slavery to Freedom remains the leading text on the market.

Kindle freebies this week:

When the first book in The Ending Series came out, the authors paid me to promote the book via a virtual book tour. I saw that this 51-page prequel was free last week, so I picked up a copy. As I am typing this, the prequel is still listed as free, but I'm not sure how long that will last.

The first novella in the prequel serial to The Ending Series.

A virus changed everything. This is how it began.

High school. Dealing drugs. A secret girlfriend. Carlos thought his life was hard enough...but then the virus spread.

I believe this is the fourth book in the Sam Slater Mysteries Series. As I am typing this, it is still listed as free for Kindle. Not sure how long it will stay that way.

As 1958 nears an end San Francisco is being terrorized by a man who calls himself the “Fog City Strangler,” who preys on pretty young blonde women. The strangler announces each murder by sending a note and piece of the victim’s clothing to the local newspapers.

Angst mounts as the strangler continues to claim more victims. Private eye Sam Slater is worried that the Fog City Strangler may be eyeing his beautiful blonde wife, TWA stewardess Amelia Ryan. His anxiety is further fueled when TWA launches an advertising campaign with Amelia’s picture on a series of billboards plastered all over the city. Sam fears the billboards may attract too much attention--the wrong kind of attention.

Meanwhile, Sam and Amelia are hired to try to find the missing daughter of a wealthy dowager who fears she has lost her only child. The missing woman went for a walk with her dog on Stinson Beach, near San Francisco, and seemingly vanished into thin air. The woman’s husband arrived at their beach house and found the dog running loose but there was no trace of his wife. The police are stumped in their investigation.

As Sam and Amelia look into the disappearance of the woman on the beach they discover that nothing is as it seems at first glance. On a stormy night a shadowy figure sets fire to the beach house where the couple is staying--hoping to stop their investigation.

What books were you excited to see in your mailbox?