Showing posts with label mystery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mystery. Show all posts

Sunday, November 1, 2020

Mailbox Monday - Nov 2

 


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.

Welcome to November. I hope you had a nice weekend. This was the first year we weren't home for Halloween. Both girls had plans, so Paddy and I went out to eat. We left treats in our mailbox, but it doesn't look like we had many visitors. I think everyone is playing it safe.

Before Halloween we received a bit of snow. These photos are from my walk in the woods the next day, plus we had a visitor in our yard.







As far as books go, my physical mailbox was empty, but I downloaded these Kindle freebies.




As we head into the month of thanksgiving, I wish you all a blessed week. 


Monday, August 5, 2019

Mailbox Monday - Aug 5




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.


Somehow we ended up back at Monday again. I didn't blog much last week because I was dealing with last minute closing issues. Thankfully, everything worked out fine. Two closings last week, updating marketing for another listing, getting three lots under contract, and two open houses kept me tied up.

This week will be a bit hectic because animals and people have doctor visits, we are getting ready for the girls to head back to school, and I'm working on this great project for one of my publishers that I am totally excited about.

My mailbox has been busy too! These two arrived.



My virtual mailbox also picked up these ones.







What presents did your mailbox hold this past week?

Monday, February 11, 2019

Mailbox Monday - Feb 11



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.

We are somehow at Monday again. It was a rough week around here. We lost our oldest cat. He's been with us for over 14 years.





Killer, A.K.A. Miller, was the sweetest cat. He would greet you in the morning and hang out around the bathtub at night when I would read. He loved catnip. He was also such a great daddy to Giggles (above) when we brought her home from the shelter. She's been a bit lost without him.

In my book world, there has been a lot going on. I just finished a great book yesterday. If you like reading about business men, Houston, or books about partnerships and friendships, this is a good read. 




Between Kindle freebies and books I've requested or ordered, the mailbox has been busy.

I bought these ones:





These two are review requests:



Then I picked up a couple freebies.



I'm reading one of The Daughter's of the Mayflower books right now. Hopefully I can get it done as I don't get too far behind on reviews.

Hope you have a blessed week.






Monday, September 24, 2018

Mailbox Monday - Sep 24



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.

Happy Monday! Hope you had a great weekend. I took some time off to attend a soccer game at the Lil' Princess' new school and we had this lovely potluck supper at church. Other than that it was work, work, work.

The weather has been nice, but looks like we are heading into a wet week. Hope it's not too bad. We are supposed to take the girls to The Big E on Wednesday.

Not a ton of reading going on right now, but I did receive a couple of great books. The first is due for review in November.


I also received this devotional as a gift from a dear friend. I think I'll save it to start on January 1.



What did you receive? Hope you had a lot of nice books in your mailbox.

Monday, February 15, 2016

Mailbox Monday - Feb 15

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.

Happy Monday, everyone! I hope you had a nice weekend. We had family visit on Saturday and Sunday was a work day for me. The girls are away for a couple of days, so the hubby and I went out to dinner last night.

I'm so excited that the book I was waiting for arrived. I love the work of Vannetta Chapman and am thrilled to be part of her street team this year.


Joshua Kline travels from his farm in Oklahoma to offer aid to an Englisch town on the gulf coast of Texas after a category 4 hurricane has ravaged the area. He brings his brother with him, who needs a change of environment. The last thing he wants for Alton is another brush with the law. He is pleasantly surprised when he hears that Becca Troyer, the bishop’s granddaughter, plans on joining their team.


What will Joshua find when he arrives in Texas? A lack of electricity, certainly, which poses little problem for the Amish volunteers as they help restore order from destruction. But a budding romance? A call from God? And a possible healing of his relationship with Alton?


Joshua’s Mission is a story of love, forgiveness, and the grace of God that carries us through even the worst situations.

I picked up these two Kindle freebies this week:


The last person Detective Sergeant Kate Redman wants to see while she's doing her Christmas shopping is habitual petty thief and homeless alcoholic Charlie Petworth. While she knows that Charlie steals small things in part to get a warm bed for the night, it's still annoying, particularly in the season of good will.

Then a far more serious crime occurs and Kate realises that Charlie might well be involved. But why would he go from stealing a packet of flower seeds to stealing a little toddler? And is there more to this case than at first meets the eye?

A short story written especially for fans of the Kate Redman Mysteries, this short, seasonal mystery is from crime writer Celina Grace, author of the Kate Redman Mysteries, The Asharton Manor Mysteries and the upcoming historical mystery series, Miss Hart and Miss Hunter Investigate.


On the first day of her new job in the West Country, Detective Sergeant Kate Redman finds herself investigating the kidnapping of Charlie Fullman, the newborn son of a wealthy entrepreneur and his trophy wife. It seems a straightforward case... but as Kate and her fellow officer Mark Olbeck delve deeper, they uncover murky secrets and multiple motives for the crime.

Kate finds the case bringing up painful memories of her own past secrets. As she confronts the truth about herself, her increasing emotional instability threatens both her hard-won career success and the possibility that they will ever find Charlie Fullman alive...

I am listening to this audio book I borrowed from the library:


In the first novel of a spellbinding new trilogy, New York Times bestselling author Jeff Shaara returns to the Civil War terrain he knows best. A Blaze of Glory takes us to the action-packed Western Theater for a vivid re-creation of one of the war’s bloodiest and most iconic engagements—the Battle of Shiloh.

It’s the spring of 1862. The Confederate Army in the West teeters on the brink of collapse following the catastrophic loss of Fort Donelson. Commanding general Albert Sidney Johnston is forced to pull up stakes, abandon the critical city of Nashville, and rally his troops in defense of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. Hot on Johnston’s trail are two of the Union’s best generals: the relentless Ulysses Grant, fresh off his career-making victory at Fort Donelson, and Don Carlos Buell. If their combined forces can crush Johnston’s army and capture the railroad, the war in the West likely will be over. There’s just one problem: Johnston knows of the Union plans, and is poised to launch an audacious surprise attack on Grant’s encampment—a small settlement in southwestern Tennessee anchored by a humble church named Shiloh.

With stunning you-are-there immediacy, Shaara takes us inside the maelstrom of Shiloh as no novelist has before. Drawing on meticulous research, he dramatizes the key actions and decisions of the commanders on both sides: Johnston, Grant, Sherman, Beauregard, and the illustrious Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest. Here too are the thoughts and voices of the junior officers, conscripts, and enlisted men who gave their all for the cause, among them Confederate cavalry lieutenant James Seeley and Private Fritz “Dutchie” Bauer of the 16th Wisconsin Regiment—brave participants in a pitched back-and-forth battle whose casualty count would far surpass anything the American public had yet seen in this war. By the end of the first day of fighting, as Grant’s bedraggled forces regroup for could be their last stand, two major events—both totally unexpected—will turn the tide of the battle and perhaps the war itself.

Anything good in your mailbox last week?


Monday, January 25, 2016

Mailbox Monday - Jan 25

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.

For us in Western Mass this weekend was the blizzard that wasn't. Most of the snow stayed to our south; though we did get around three inches. I am glad for it, but feel badly for those states that got truly pounded by the elements.

Last week was filled with book surprises. I had agreed to hold a giveaway for a book (Fallen Land), but the publisher kindly sent two copies so I could have one for myself (they knew it would be a while before I would get to it). Then a book that had been delayed arrived. Finally, Vannetta Chapman, whose street team I am on for 2016 sent me a book package that included all kinds of goodies.


How to make home your family's favorite place to be . . . all year long. Does your home sometimes feel like just a place to eat, sleep, and change clothes on the way to the next activity? Do you long for "home" to mean more than a place where you stash your stuff? Wouldn't you love it to become a haven of warmth, rest, and joy . . . the one place where you and your family can't wait to be?There is good news waiting for you in the pages of "The Lifegiving Home." Every day of your family's life can be as special and important to you as it already is to God. In this unique book designed to help your family enjoy and celebrate every month of the year together, you'll discover the secrets of a life-giving home from a mother who created one and her daughter who was raised in it: popular authors Sally and Sarah Clarkson. Together they offer a rich treasure of wise advice, spiritual principles, and practical suggestions. You'll embark on a new path to creating special memories for your children; establishing home-building and God-centered traditions; and cultivating an environment in which your family will flourish. (Don't miss the companion piece, "The Lifegiving Home Experience.")




Fallen Land is Taylor Brown's debut novel set in the final year of the Civil War, as a young couple on horseback flees a dangerous band of marauders who seek a bounty reward.

Callum, a seasoned horse thief at fifteen years old, came to America from his native Ireland as an orphan. Ava, her father and brother lost to the war, hides in her crumbling home until Callum determines to rescue her from the bands of hungry soldiers pillaging the land, leaving destruction in their wake. Ava and Callum have only each other in the world and their remarkable horse, Reiver, who carries them through the destruction that is the South.

Pursued relentlessly by a murderous slave hunter, tracking dogs, and ruthless ex-partisan rangers, the couple race through a beautiful but ruined land, surviving on food they glean from abandoned farms and the occasional kindness of strangers.

In the end, as they intersect with the scorching destruction of Sherman's March, the couple seek a safe haven where they can make a home and begin to rebuild their lives.

Dramatic and thrillingly written with an uncanny eye for glimpses of beauty in a ravaged landscape, Fallen Land is a love story at its core, and an unusually assured first novel by award-winning young author Taylor Brown.





Anna's Healing is the first book in a brand-new collection from popular author Vannetta Chapman. These stories of love and family and Amish community in Oklahoma tell of the miracles that can happen when lives are lived in service to God and to one another.

When a tornado strikes the farms surrounding Cody's Creek, Anna Schwartz's life is changed forever. She suffers a spinal cord injury and suddenly finds herself learning to live as a paraplegic.

Three people--Chloe Roberts, Jacob Graber, and Ruth Schwartz--join forces to help Anna through her darkest days. Chloe is an Englischer who writes for the local paper. Jacob has recently arrived in town and stays on as a hired hand at her uncle's. And Ruth is her grandmother, a woman of deep faith and a compassionate spirit.

Then one morning Anna wakes and finds herself healed. How did it happen? Why did it happen? And what is she to do now? Her life is again turned upside down as the world's attention is drawn to this young Amish girl who has experienced the unexplainable.

I also picked up the following Kindle freebie.


Things are going great for Lexy Baker. She's finally opened her dream bakery, gotten rid of her cheating boyfriend and settled into her grandmothers house with her perky dog Sprinkles at her side.

But her blissful life doesn't last long. When her ex boyfriend is found poisoned with cupcakes from her bakery, Lexy finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation headed up by her hunky neighbor detective Jack Perillo.

With the help of a gang of iPad toting, would-be detective grandmothers, Lexy decides to take it upon herself to find the real murderer in order to clear her name and get her bakery back in business.

As things heat up on the murder trail, in the kitchen and between Lexy and the hunky detective, it's a race against time to put the real murderer behind bars and get back to baking.

Will Lexy get her man?


What was in your mailbox this week?

Monday, November 30, 2015

Mailbox Monday - November 30

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.


Lil' Diva, the cousin--Lil' Dickens--and the Lil' Princess


Hope everyone had a blessed Thanksgiving. We had a wonderful holiday surrounded by family followed by another successful annual bazaar at our church.

Because you know I can't resist bargain books or free books, I came home from the bazaar with several titles and picked up a few freebies this weekend.


Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley, the Eighth Earl of Asherton, and his partner, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, encounter what seems to be a perfect crime as they investigate a fatal fire at an fifteenth-century cottage. 85,000 first printing. $85,000 ad/promo.


Over three successive nights, stranger Harry Johnson sits in the London Pub "The Old Wine Shades" and tells a story to Richard Jury about a good friend of his whose wife and son (and dog) disappeared one day in Surrey. They've been missing for nine months - no trace, no clue, no lead as to what happened. The dog came back - but how?


For Dr. David Beck, the loss was shattering. And every day for the past eight years, he has relived the horror of what happened. The gleaming lake. The pale moonlight. The piercing screams. The night his wife was taken. The last night he saw her alive.

Everyone tells him it's time to move on, to forget the past once and for all. But for David Beck, there can be no closure. A message has appeared on his computer, a phrase only he and his dead wife know. Suddenly Beck is taunted with the impossible- that somewhere, somehow, Elizabeth is alive.

Beck has been warned to tell no one. And he doesn't. Instead, he runs from the people he trusts the most, plunging headlong into a search for the shadowy figure whose messages hold out a desperate hope.

But already Beck is being hunted down. He's headed straight into the heart of a dark and deadly secret- and someone intends to stop him before he gets there.


Dear Reader,
I love living in Cedar Cove, but things haven't been the same since a man died at our B and B. Turns out his name was Max Russell, and Bob had known him briefly in Vietnam.We still don't have any idea why he came here and—most important of all—who killed him. Because it now appears that he was poisoned. I sure hope somebody figures it out soon!

Not that we're providing the only news in Cedar Cove these days. I heard that Jon Bowman and Maryellen Sherman are getting married. And Maryellen's mom, Grace, has more than her share of interested men! The question is: Which one is she going to choose? Olivia—I guess it's Olivia Griffin now— is back from her honeymoon, and her mother, Charlotte (who's in her mid-seventies at least), seems to have a man in her life, too. I'm not sure Olivia's too pleased….

There's lots of other gossip I could tell you. Come by for a cup of tea and one of my blueberry muffins and we'll talk.

Peggy Beldon


The dating game is always the same. One disaster after another. Fortunately, Hallie McCarthy can compare notes with her neighbor, Steve Marris. He's divorced and in the same boat. Right--too bad Hallie and Steve are not interested in each other!



Death is business as usual

When Frank and Joe grab one of the Network's cases, the secret government agency tells them they're on their own. Then they hustle themselves a one-way ticket to France, expecting a little action. But after they penetrate the shady world of Reynard and Company, the largest organized crime ring on earth, the Hardys begin to expect something more - murder. Maybe their own.

Posing as gun dealers, Frank and Joe immediately run into trouble with the French police. Soon they're fugitives with no one to turn to but the criminals they've sworn to expose. Caught in a deadly web of enemies and betrayed by a beautiful girl, Frank and Joe must use every ounce of cunning they possess to defeat a foe whose icy fingers slowly tighten over the entire world.

I've requested from the library books two and three from Macomber's Cedar Cove series to get read to read 44 Cranberry Point. The next several books were free for Kindle this weekend. 





Gus LeGarde’s life essentially ended four years ago, when his beloved wife leapt to her death. Today, Gus lavishes love on his family, trying to bury the pain. But trouble arrives when his arrogant son-in-law’s business partner goes missing, and Gus’s innocent friend is set up to take the fall.


When Marcella Hollister’s prize parakeet gets zapped by a wayward power line in the same pool as her mother, the ensuing psychic link helps Marcella chase her mother’s kidnappers through the Adirondack Mountains, where she unearths a fifty-year-old secret about her dear father with shocking links to a hidden treasure.



After two years of brutal captivity, Portia Lamont has escaped and returned to her family’s Vermont horse farm—only to find her parents gone to New York to try an experimental treatment for her mother’s cancer, and her childhood friend Boone Hawke running the farm.

Like the rest of her family, Boone has never given up hope that Portia would return. But when she turns up battered, skinny as a twelve-year-old boy, afraid of everything and unable to talk about what happened, he does the only thing he can—try to help her heal. He summons the town doctor and Portia’s parents, and sets out to put this beautiful, broken woman back together again.

Through her family's love and Boone's gentle affection, Portia gradually comes back to herself, and starts to fall for her old friend in a whole new way. But one thing threatens her fragile hope for recovery: The man who took her promised that if she ever escaped, he'd kill her. Slowly. And someone is definitely watching her...waiting to make his next deadly move.


When Sam Moore discovers a peculiar green marble in his garden, it links him to his vanished little brother and thrusts him back in time, where he battles a faceless serial killer to untangle the maddening mystery and stop the murder of his beloved grandson.


They say it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Finn McGraw disagrees.

He was just seventeen when he had a torrid summer affair with the girl who stole his heart—and then inexplicably turned on him, just before being sent to boarding school. Finn may have moved on with his life, but he’s never forgotten her.

Now, ten years later, he’s got more than his lost love to worry about. A horrific accident turns his life upside down, resurrecting the ghosts of his long-dead family at the same time it takes the lives of the few people he has left.

Finn always believed his estranged brother was responsible for the fire that killed their family—but an unexpected inheritance with a mystery attached throws everything he knows into doubt.

And on top of that, the beguiling daughter of his wealthy employer has secrets of her own. But the closer he gets, the harder she pushes him away.

The Seacrest is a story of intrigue and betrayal, of secrets and second chances—and above all, of a love that never dies.



It is three days before Christmas and a bitter wind is blowing across Norfolk.

Until her daughter was born, forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway didn’t do Christmas, but now that Kate is a year old, she wants it to be special.

She must get a tree, shop for food, clean the house, buy presents, including one for her new boyfriend—who she isn’t even sure is her boyfriend—and remember to get the turkey out of the freezer.

But time is rushing by and the best-laid plans don’t always work out …


Unlucky in love, Maddie LaRocque moves to Calgary at the urging of her former college roommate. Maddie's luck goes from bad to worse when she's laid off from her job two months before Christmas. Undeterred, she sets up a gift wrapping business in the lobby of the Drummond Building in downtown Calgary where she meets Annie, a ten-year-old who has recently lost her parents.

When Maddie falls into the arms of the building's maintenance man it looks as though her luck is changing, but she soon learns that Brent isn't who she thought he was.
Maddie's roommate Lily hasn't fared too well in the romance department either, having been used for her beauty and Asian heritage by a man in Calgary.

The moment Chase Drummond spots Lily, he's stunned by her beauty, but Lily resists his advances, unwilling to have her heart broken by the most eligible bachelor in town.

Will a young orphan girl be able to convince the two women that love is the best gift of all this Christmas?

As you can see, my mailbox this time is filled to overflowing. I am still hoping for a couple more books from Santa this year. 

Hope you will share what your mailbox held. Hope you have a great week.