Book Haul~A Doozie!

Not the greatest picture for a doozie of a haul, I think.  I was rockin' the books this past week.  Some of them were sent, but most of them were from my scavenging trip to my local bookish place.  Freebies~slightly used, but in wonderful shape.

This has been a great summer for reading, so far.  That's why it's easy to find the latest novels in favorite second-hand spots.  Why don't you check them out, too?

Here are some summaries of the books above:

 

SUMMARY:   Catherine Strayed is living a quiet, un-remarkable life in a secluded college town following the mysterious death of her husband, a promising writer whose death may have been an accident, a suicide, or perhaps even a murder. When her former mentor (and onetime lover)—a powerful critic who singlehandedly destroyed her late husband’s chance for success—takes a teaching job at the college, Catherine’s world threatens to collapse. For with him has come his latest protégé, an exotic young woman named Antonia Lively. Antonia’s debut novel has become a literary sensation—but it is, in fact, an almost factual retelling of a terrible crime that she relates without any concern for the impact its publication will have on the lives of those involved.

As Antonia insinuates herself into Catherine’s life, mysterious and frightening things start to happen, because unbeknownst to Catherine, the younger woman intends to plunder her own dark, regrettable past—and the unsolved death of her husband—for her next literary triumph.

Sent by Alongquin Books of Chapel Hill.  Many thanks!!

 

 

 

SUMMARY: 

A Curious Man is the marvelously compelling biography of Robert “Believe It or Not” Ripley, the enigmatic cartoonist turned globetrotting millionaire who won international fame by celebrating the world's strangest oddities, and whose outrageous showmanship taught us to believe in the unbelievable.

A big thanks to Crown Publishing for this strange and interesting book...

 SUMMARY:

She knew what he wrote . . .

One little word that made her feel both cheated and beloved.

One word that changed everything.

MINE.

On a chilly morning in the Northwest Iowa town of Blackhawk, Dr. Lucas Hudson is filling in for the vacationing coroner on a seemingly open-and-shut suicide case. His own life is crumbling around him, but when he unearths the body of a woman buried in the barn floor beneath the hanging corpse, he realizes this terrible discovery could change everything. . . .

Howard Books/Simon & Schuster sent along this one.  Thanks so much!!

SUMMARY:

Ash Rashid is a former homicide detective who can't stand the thought of handling another death investigation. In another year, he'll be out of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department completely. That's the plan, at least, until his niece's body is found in the guest home of one of his city's most wealthy citizens. The coroner calls it an overdose, but the case doesn't add up.

SUMMARY:

Ash Rashid stands alone. A twelve-year veteran of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and one of the few Muslim-Americans on the force, he's unafraid of bending the rules in the pursuit of justice. But now Ash wants out. He's finished law school and is aiming to become a prosecutor. The last thing he wants is to become embroiled in a new homicide investigation.

That changes when he hears that the mother of one of his daughter's friends was murdered in front of her...

I appreciate both of these books by Chris Culver sent by Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Publishing Group.


Now here are the books I scavenged by myself from used libraries:

 

This is the only picture I could find of the newest paperback.  Sorry for the extra heading!  Here's a summary:

A sophisticated page-turner about a wealthy New York family embroiled in a financial scandal with cataclysmic consequences.

Now that he's married to Merrill Darling, daughter of billionaire financier Carter Darling, attorney Paul Ross has grown accustomed to New York society and all of its luxuries: a Park Avenue apartment, weekends in the Hamptons, bespoke suits. When Paul loses his job, Carter offers him the chance to head the legal team at his hedge fund. Thrilled with his good fortune in the midst of the worst financial downturn since the Great Depression, Paul accepts the position.

But Paul's luck is about to shift: a tragic event catapults the Darling family into the media spotlight, a regulatory investigation, and a red-hot scandal with enormous implications for everyone involved. Suddenly, Paul must decide where his loyalties lie-will he save himself while betraying his wife and in-laws or protect the family business at all costs?

Cristina Alger's glittering debut novel interweaves the narratives of the Darling family, two eager SEC attorneys, and a team of journalists all racing to uncover-or cover up-the truth. With echoes of a fictional Too Big to Fail and the novels of Dominick Dunne, The Darlings offers an irresistible glimpse into the highest echelons of New York society-a world seldom seen by outsiders-and a fast-paced thriller of epic proportions.

This one is published by Penguin.

 SUMMARY:

In the dark days of war, a mother makes the ultimate sacrifice

 

Lucy Takeda is just fourteen years old, living in Los Angeles, when the bombs rain down on Pearl Harbor. Within weeks, she and her mother, Miyako, are ripped from their home, rounded up—along with thousands of other innocent Japanese-Americans—and taken to the Manzanar prison camp.

Buffeted by blistering heat and choking dust, Lucy and Miyako must endure the harsh living conditions...

 

Published by Harlequin.

 

 

 

SUMMARY:

Taken from her native Iceland to Scotland in the early 1950s when her widower father drowns at sea, young Gemma Hardy comes to live with her kindly uncle and his family. But his death leaves Gemma under the care of her resentful aunt, and she suddenly finds herself an unwelcome guest. Surviving oppressive years at a strict private school, Gemma ultimately finds a job as an au pair to the eight-year-old niece of Mr. Sinclair on the Orkney Islands—and here, at the mysterious and remote Blackbird Hall...

(My note:  Supposed a new take on "Jane Eyre.")

Published by Harper.

SUMMARY:

"At the heart of this sweeping tale of adventure, discovery and exploration is one woman's extraordinary journey, inspired by her love for a man she had not seen in 20 years. In 1769, Isabel Grameson - an upper-class Peruvian woman who had lived all her life close to home - set out across the Andes, and down the length of the Amazon in order to rejoin her husband in French Guiana. Her 3,000-mile trek through untamed wilderness was one that no woman (and few men) had made before."

Published by Delta/Random House.


So that's my current Book Haul...   I think it's monumental for a week!  I think I'm going to read "Sleeping in Eden" first this week.

Stay tuned, and please let me know what you're reading...or have found.  :]


Deborah/TheBookishDame