In My Mailbox - 4/4/09

Credit goes to The Story Siren for thinking up the In My Mailbox feature.

I had a very good week, but now I'm not sure what I want to read first! Ack.

Thirteenth Child by Patricia Wrede

Eff was born a thirteenth child. Her twin brother, Lan, is the seventh son of a seventh son. This means he's supposed to possess amazing talent — and she's supposed to bring only bad things to her family and her town. Undeterred, her family moves to the frontier, where her father will be a professor of magic at a school perilously close to the magical divide that separates settlers from the beasts of the wild.

With wit and wonder, Patricia Wrede creates an alternate history of westward expansion that will delight fans of both J. K. Rowling and Laura Ingalls Wilder.


Love's Pursuit by Siri Mitchell

In the small Puritan community of Stoneybrooke, Massachusetts, Susannah Phillips stands out both for her character and beauty. She wants only a simple life but soon finds herself pursued by the town's wealthiest bachelor and by a roguish military captain sent to protect them. One is not what he seems and one is more than he seems.

In trying to discover true love's path, Susannah is helped by the most unlikely of allies, a wounded woman who lives invisible and ignored in their town. As the depth, passion, and sacrifice of love is revealed to Susannah, she begins to question the rules and regulations of her childhood faith. In a community where grace is unknown, what price will she pay for embracing love?


Horse Diaries: Elska by Catherine Hapka

Iceland, circa AD 1000

Elska is a silver dapple Icelandic filly. She spends summers frisking about the countryside and winters in the farmyard, where the girl human Amma takes special care of her. But when a powerful neighbor notices Elska, her contented life suddenly changes. Here is Elska’s story . . . in her own words.


Horse Diaries: Bell's Star by Alison Hart

Vermont, 1850s

Bell’s Star is a brown Morgan colt with a white star and two white stockings. He was bred for hard work, yet he longs to run free with his human friend, Katie, on his back. But when Star helps rescue a runaway slave girl, his ideas about freedom may change forever. Here is Star’s story . . . in his own words.


The Way Lies North by Jean Rae Baxter

This young adult historical novel focuses on Charlotte and her family, Loyalists who are forced to flee their home in the Mohawk Valley as a result of the violence of the "Sons of Liberty" during the American Revolution. At the beginning, fifteen-year-old Charlotte Hooper is separated from her sweetheart, Nick, who sympathizes with the Revolutionaries. The war has already taken the lives of her three brothers, and it is with a sense of desperation that Charlotte and her parents begin the long trek north to the safety of Fort Haldimand (near present-day Kingston). The novel portrays Charlotte’s struggle on the difficult journey north, and the even more difficult task of making a new home in British Canada.


Wicked: Resurrection by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie

Who is Alex Carruthers? That is the question Wicked fans have been asking for nearly six years. Spellbound, the fourth and seemingly last book in the Wicked series, which was originally published in 3002, left readers on the edge of their seats with a classic cliff-hanger ending. But now, as new fans of the bind-up editions of the series begin to ask the same question, the true and final conclusion to the Wicked series will emerge. And all their questions will be answered in this heart stopping, magical adventure about witches, destiny, and the beyond.


Being Nikki by Meg Cabot

Things aren't pretty for Emerson Watts.
Em was sure there couldn't be anything worse than being a brainiac the body of a teenaged supermodel.
But it turned out she was wrong. Because that supermodel could turn out to have a mother who's gone mysteriously missing, a brother who's shown up on her doorstep demanding answers, a former best friend who's intent on destroying Stark Enterprises to avenge the death of his lost love, and a British heartthrob who's written a song about her that's topping the charts.
How can Em balance all that with school, runway shows, and weekend jaunts to St. Johns - especially when she's got ex-boyfriends crawling out of the woodwork who want more than just a photo op; a sister who is headed to the high school cheerleading championships; a company she represents that seems to be turning to the dark side...
Not to mention trying to convince the love of her life that models aren't really airheads after all...especially one model in particular.
But then, nobody said it was going to be easy being Nikki.


Sea Change by Aimee Friedman

16-year-old Miranda Merchant is great at science...and not so great with boys. After major drama with her boyfriend and (now ex) best friend, she's happy to spend the summer on small, mysterious Selkie Island, helping her mother sort out her late grandmother's estate.
There, Miranda finds new friends and an island with a mysterious, mystical history, presenting her with facts her logical, scientific mind can't make sense of. She also meets Leo, who challenges everything she thought she knew about boys, friendship...and reality.
Is Leo hiding something? Or is he something that she never could have imagined?


Eyes Like Stars by Lisa Mantchev

Bertie Shakespeare Smith is not an actress, yet she lives in a theater.
She’s not an orphan, but she has no parents.
She knows every part, but she has no lines of her own.
That is, until now.
Welcome to the Théâtre Illuminata, where the actors of every play ever written can be found behind the curtain. They were born to play their parts, and are bound to the Théâtre by The Book—an ancient and magical tome of scripts. Bertie is not one of them, but they are her family—and she is about to lose them all and the only home she has ever known.


Wicked Will by Bailey MacDonald

Performing in the English town of Stratford-on-Avon in 1576, a young actress (disguised as a boy) and a local lad named Will Shakespeare uncover a murder mystery.







And from Bookmooch, Paperbackswap, or used bookstores: