MAILBOX MONDAY

Mailbox Monday is a weekly bookish meme hosted by Marcia over at The Printed Page...

In the last week I did recieve a few goodies!

A fellow adoptive mom is married to a doctor who has written several books.  Their daughter, Molly, is amazing.  She is their bio child and her two younger brothers are adopted from Ethiopia.  She has set up an amazing Charity called H2O for Ethiopia and she sells products to raise money for a well that she is building there.... and she's TEN YEARS OLD.  You can find her on Facebook if you like at H2O for Ethiopia Group. 

The books that her mom sent me are by Kevin Patterson, who is the dad:

Outside the Wire
by Kevin Patterson and Jane Warren
The war in Afghanistan in the words of
its participants

Consumption by Kevin Patterson
A novel

From Canadian Literature:
Patterson’s Consumption revolves around a lung infected with tuberculosis, which functions as a metaphor for the Inuit body diseased by the Europeans who settle Canada. The virus that ravages one girl’s lung serves to represent the way in which diseases decimate whole communities and then finally reveals the damaging potential of affluence on our bodies; thus the infected lung ultimately raises larger medical and cultural issues about epidemiology. This novel opens with a dedication taken from a French alms box to which one often returns in contemplation: “For the sick, the poor, and the ashamed.” Throughout the novel, Patterson investigates the complex relation between these three qualities or situations.

The Water in Between
by Kevin Patterson

A broken heart leads Kevin Patterson to the dock of a sailboat brokerage on Vancouver Island, where he stands contemplating the romance of the sea and his heartfelt desire to get away.  By the end of the day, he finds himself the owner of a thirty-seven-foot ketch called Sea Mouse.  Although he's never really been on the ocean before (aside from the occasional ferry ride), he feels compelled to sail to Tahiti and back, to burn away his failings in hard miles at sea.

Short stories....

The next two books are from Penguin Group (USA) and I could NOT be MORE excited about them!!!!!  Seeeeeriously, just LOOK at the cover of this one!  And the premise is very good....

One of the greatest loves of all time-between Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley-comes to life in this vivid novel.

They were playmates as children, impetuous lovers as adults-and for thirty years were the center of each others' lives. Astute to the dangers of choosing any one man, the Virgin Queen could never give her "Sweet Robin" what he wanted most-marriage- yet she insisted he stay close by her side. Possessive and jealous, their love survived quarrels, his two disastrous marriages to other women, her constant flirtations, and political machinations with foreign princes.
His Last Letter tells the story of this great love... and especially of the last three years Elizabeth and Dudley spent together, the most dangerous of her rule, when their passion was tempered by a bittersweet recognition of all that they shared-and all that would remain unfulfilled.

Um..... swoon?

And then:  
The Secret Eleanor
by Cecelia Holland
 
Eleanor of Aquitaine seized hold of life in the 12th century in a way any modern woman would envy!



1151: As Duchess of Aquitaine, Eleanor grew up knowing what it was to be regarded for herself and not for her husband's title. Now, as wife to Louis VII and Queen of France, she has found herself unsatisfied with reflected glory-and feeling constantly under threat, even though she outranks every woman in Paris.

Then, standing beside her much older husband in the course of a court ceremony, Eleanor locks eyes with a man-hardly more than a boy, really- across the throne room, and knows that her world has changed irrevocably...

He is Henry D'Anjou, eldest son of the Duke of Anjou, and he is in line, somewhat tenuously, for the British throne. She meets him in secret. She has a gift for secrecy, for she is watched like a prisoner by spies even among her own women. She is determined that Louis must set her free. Employing deception and disguise, seduction and manipulation, Eleanor is determined to find her way to power-and make her mark on history.
 
I am still not actively taking any review copies at this time, these were all agreed to long before I put the kaibosh on accepting books.  And I am so excited that I said YES!
 
ANYway... what's in YOUR mailbox???