Mailbox Monday 01.23.12

Hosted this month by At Home With Books.

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.


These are all from NetGalley.

Love and war converge in this lush, epic story of a young woman’s struggle with life and love during and after the Second Empire (1860–1871), an era that was absinthe-soaked, fueled by railway money and prostitution, and transformed by cataclysmic social upheaval.

Eugénie R., born in France’s foie gras country, follows the man she loves to Paris, but soon finds herself marooned, pregnant, and penniless. She gives birth to a daughter she is forced to abandon and spends the next ten years fighting to get her back. An outcast, Eugénie takes to the streets, navigating her way up from ruin and charting the treacherous waters of sexual commerce. Along the way she falls in love with an artist, a woman, and a revolutionary. The capital, the gleaming center of art and civilization in Europe, is enjoying its final years of wanton prosperity before galloping headlong into the Franco-Prussian War. For Eugénie it is a conflicted landscape—grisly, evocative, and addictive. As the gates of the city close against the advancing army, Eugénie must make a decision between past and present—between the people she loves most.

The Unruly Passions of Eugénie R. is a testament to the power of love, friendship, and the art of self-creation.

Release date: March 27th.

It is 1923. Evangeline (Eva) English and her sister Lizzie are missionaries heading for the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar. Though Lizzie is on fire with her religious calling, Eva’s motives are not quite as noble, but with her green bicycle and a commission from a publisher to write A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar, she is ready for adventure.

In present day London, a young woman, Frieda, returns from a long trip abroad to find a man sleeping outside her front door. She gives him a blanket and a pillow, and in the morning finds the bedding neatly folded and an exquisite drawing of a bird with a long feathery tail, some delicate Arabic writing, and a boat made out of a flock of seagulls on her wall. Tayeb, in flight from his Yemeni homeland, befriends Frieda and, when she learns she has inherited the contents of an apartment belonging to a dead woman she has never heard of, they embark on an unexpected journey together.

Released date: May 22nd.

When former infantry officer Laurence Bartram arrives in the village of Easton Deadall, he is struck by the beauty of the place: a crumbling stately home; a centuries-old church; and a work-in-progress memorial to the village's soldiers, almost all of whom died in one heroic battle in 1916.

Now the Great War is over, and the rest of the country is newly alight with hope, but the village remains haunted by tragedy. As does the Easton family: in 1911, five-year-old Kitty Easton disappeared from her bed and has not been seen since; only her fragile mother still believes she is alive. While Laurence is a guest of the Eastons, a young maid in service vanishes--a sinster echo of Kitty's disappearance. And when an unknown woman's body is discovered at the entrance of an ancient underground labyrinth, Laurence is drawn into the shadows where family secrets fester, and more than one life may be at stake.

Sequel to The Return of Captain John Emmett. Release date: June 26th.