WEEKLY UPDATES: COUNTDOWN TO CHRISTMAS

 

Good morning!  Today’s post will link up to Sunday Salon, The Sunday Post,  and Book Journey, for  Weekly Updates.

**Mailbox Monday is now hosted at the home site:  Mailbox Monday.

Good morning, Bloggers!  Grab some coffee (or a pot of tea!), and let’s talk about our weeks.

I hope everyone who celebrates Christmas is enjoying the pre-holiday excitement.  It is hard not to, but I don’t love the crowds or how impossible it is to find parking spaces.

I spent some time in my daughter’s cozy home, enjoying her Christmas tree lights…and then I took Noah to Barnes & Noble today, after we had lunch, and it was actually less hectic than most places.

 

 

I had a pretty good week, so have a sip of coffee or tea…and let’s take a look:

LAST WEEK ON THE BLOGS:

Interior Thoughts:  Upcoming Book Releases & My Review Process

Chase Away the Blues with Intros/Teasers – “A Fireproof Home for the Bride”

Serendipitous Wednesday:  “Every Fifteen Minutes”

My Bookish (and Not So Bookish) Thoughts:  Not Ready for Christmas!

Sunday Morning:  An Excerpt from “Interior Designs”

A Guilty Pleasures Friday:  “The Life You’ve Imagined”

Saturday Sparks:  A Merry Christmas to All!

Review:  Unbecoming, by Rebecca Scherm

Review:  Winter Street, by Elin Hilderbrand

Review:   Monday, Monday (e-book), by Elizabeth Crook

Review:  The Paying Guests (e-book), by Sarah Waters

Review:  Where Are You Now? (e-book), by Mary Higgins Clark

 

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INCOMING BOOKS:  (Titles/Covers Linked to Amazon)

 

 

 

I received one book in the mail (from Amazon Vine), and downloaded three e-books.

 

Lillian on Life, by Alison Jean Lester (Vine)

 

 

 

This is the story of Lillian, a single woman reflecting on her choices and imagining her future.  Born in the Midwest in the 1930s; Lillian lives, loves, and works in Europe in the fifties and early sixties; she settles in New York and pursues the great love of her life in the sixties and seventies. Now it’s the early nineties, and she’s taking stock. Throughout her life, walking the unpaved road between traditional and modern choices for women, Lillian grapples with parental disappointment and societal expectations, wins and loses in love, and develops her own brand of wisdom. Lillian on Life lifts the skin off the beautiful, stylish product of an era to reveal the confused, hot-blooded woman underneath.

 

Downloads:

 

What the Dead Know (e-book), by Laura Lippman

 

 

 

Thirty years ago two sisters disappeared from a shopping mall. Their bodies were never found and those familiar with the case have always been tortured by these questions: How do you kidnap two girls? Who—or what—could have lured the two sisters away from a busy mall on a Saturday afternoon without leaving behind a single clue or witness?

Now a clearly disoriented woman involved in a rush-hour hit-and-run claims to be the younger of the long-gone Bethany sisters. But her involuntary admission and subsequent attempt to stonewall investigators only deepens the mystery. Where has she been? Why has she waited so long to come forward? Could her abductor truly be a beloved Baltimore cop? There isn’t a shred of evidence to support her story, and every lead she gives the police seems to be another dead end—a dying, incoherent man, a razed house, a missing grave, and a family that disintegrated long ago, torn apart not only by the crime but by the fissures the tragedy revealed in what appeared to be the perfect household.

 

Eat the Document (e-book), b Dana Spiotta

 

 

 

In the heyday of the 1970s underground, Bobby DeSoto and Mary Whittaker — passionate, idealistic, and in love — design a series of radical protests against the Vietnam War. When one action goes wrong, the course of their lives is forever changed. The two must erase their past, forge new identities, and never see each other again.

Now it is the 1990s. Mary lives in the suburbs with her fifteen-year-old son, who spends hours immersed in the music of his mother’s generation. She has no idea where Bobby is, whether he is alive or dead.

Shifting between the protests in the 1970s and the consequences of those choices in the 1990s, Dana Spiotta deftly explores the connection between the two eras — their language, technology, music, and activism. Character-driven and brilliant, Eat the Document is an important and revelatory novel about the culture of rebellion, with particular resonance now.

 

Eleanor & Park (e-book), by Rainbow Rowell

 

 

 

Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meets Park, you’ll remember your own first love—and just how hard it pulled you under.

 

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WHAT’S UP NEXT? (Titles/Covers Linked to Amazon)

A Fireproof Home for the Bride, by Amy Scheibe (Vine)

 

 

 

The Last Anniversary (e-book), by Lianne Moriarty

 

 

 

The Matchmaker (e-book), by Elin Hilderbrand

 

 

 

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Wow, what a week!  And now we are counting down the days until Christmas…and the days until the New Year!

 

 

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