Mailbox Monday — October 14

Welcome to Mailbox Monday, the weekly meme created by Marcia of To Be Continued, where book lovers share the titles they received for review, purchased, or otherwise obtained over the past week. Mailbox Monday currently is on tour, and this month’s host is Book Dragon’s Lair.

Here’s what I received:

Wolfsangel by Liza Perrat — from France Book Tours for review

Seven decades after German troops march into her village, Céleste Roussel is still unable to assuage her guilt.

1943. German soldiers occupy provincial Lucie-sur-Vionne, and as the villagers pursue treacherous schemes to deceive and swindle the enemy, Céleste embarks on her own perilous mission as her passion for a Reich officer flourishes. When her loved ones are deported to concentration camps, Céleste is drawn into the vortex of this monumental conflict, and the adventure and danger of French Resistance collaboration. As she confronts the harrowing truths of the Second World War’s darkest years, Céleste is forced to choose: pursue her love for the German officer, or answer General de Gaulle’s call to fight for France.

Her fate suspended on the fraying thread of her will, Celeste gains strength from the angel talisman bequeathed to her through her lineage of healer kinswomen. But the decision she makes will shadow the remainder of her days. A woman’s unforgettable journey to help liberate Occupied France, Wolfsangel is a stirring portrayal of the courage and resilience of the human mind, body and spirit.  (publisher’s summary)

Priscilla: The Hidden Life of an Englishwoman in Wartime France by Nicholas Shakespeare — from Harper for review

When Nicholas Shakespeare stumbled across a trunkful of his late aunt’s personal belongings, he was unaware of where this discovery would take him and what he would learn about her hidden past.  The glamorous, mysterious figure he remembered from his childhood was very different from the morally ambiguous young woman who emerged from the trove of love letters, journals, and photographs, surrounded by suitors and living the precarious existence of a British citizen in a country controlled by the enemy.

As a young boy, Shakespeare had always believed that his aunt was a member of the Resistance and had been tortured by the Germans.  The truth turned out to be far more complicated.  (publisher’s summary)

The Bird Skinner by Alice Greenway — from Atlantic Monthly Press for review

Jim Carroway was once a noted ornithologist, collecting and skinning birds as specimens for the Museum of Natural History, in New York.  Slowing down now from a hard-lived life and a recent leg amputation, Jim retreats to an island in Maine to be alone, drink, smoke, and nurse his condition.  Isolated by choice, Jim thinks back to his youth and his time working for Naval Intelligence during World War II in the Solomon Islands.  While spying on the Japanese Army for Admiral Halsey, Jim befriends Tosca, a young islander who worked with him as a scout there.  Now, thirty years later, Tosca has sent his daughter Cadillac to stay with Jim in the weeks before she begins premedical studies at Yale.  She arrives to Jim’s great consternation.  She will capture his heart and that of everyone she meets.

In a novel as riveting as Corelli’s Mandolin or The English Patient, Greenway delivers an astonishing story of youth, lost love, war, and rebirth.  (publisher’s summary)

Tainted by Brooke Morgan — from Serena (thank you!)

Holly Barrett first saw Jack Dane early one morning — tall, tan, and so heartbreakingly handsome he took her breath away. He also seemed like the last person to disrupt her quiet, uneventful days with her sensitive daughter, Katy. But the charming, enigmatic Englishman has blown into her small Cape Cod town like a brisk summer wind off the bay.

He sweeps Holly off her feet, and is soon touching the lives of everyone she deeply cares about. But is Jack the considerate, concerned gentleman he appears to be — or is there a very different creatures lurking below the surface? Has a monster entered her life…and how far will Holly have to go to save the person she loves more than anyone else in the world? (publisher’s summary)

He Taught Me to Hope by P.O. Dixon — purchased

What if Elizabeth is promised to another when she meets Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, the one man who captures her heart and imagination like no other? What’s more, Darcy has an entanglement of his own–an engagement of a peculiar kind. As dire as their chance for “happily ever after” seems, is there a measure of hope by way of a strong and enduring bond between them? (publisher’s summary)

What books did you add to your shelves recently?

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