In The MailBox Monday 29-30/8/2010

Mailbox Monday & In My Mail is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday & In My mail  can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

These are the ones I got for last week =D Yup THAT many! Got them from friends, publisher, etc =D I'm just worried on how fast I be able to review them.

Bedeviled Angel (Works Like Magic 02)
Annette Blair

An enchanting new novel from a national bestselling sensation

At the Works Like Magick employment Agency in Salem, Massachusetts, matching clients in need with magical temps is a piece of cake, especially since sexy Chance Gordricson also happens to be heaven-sent. He's Kenya Saint-Denis's guardian angel. And when he's hired to keep an eye on her and the two surrogate children she's become saddled with, he just might fall prey to temptation.

Dial Emmy For Murder (Soap Opera Mystery 02) 

Eileen Davidson

Soap operas can get so dirty

Tabloids and fans are stunned when daytime soap opera star Alexis Peterson leaves her show. She's too busy with her new job as presenter at the Daytime Emmy(r) Awards to even notice. But when a co-presenter goes missing on award night, Alexis is determined to find who is killing Hollywood's biggest and brightest before another burns out... 

Exogenesis (Stargate Atlantis 05) 
Elizabeth Christensen, Sonny Whitelaw 

Global disaster threatens the Atlantis homeworld.  

Hostage Bride 

Janet Dailey

Beneath Tamara's cool beauty lay a dangerous secret--she had borrowed company funds for a desperate family crisis. But before she could return the money, ruthless entrepreneur Bickford Rutledge took over the firm. Bick was a handsome, hard-driving man who always got what he wanted--and he wanted Tamara. When he discovered the truth, he offered her a choice. She could escape the law's revenge--if she surrendered to the smoldering passion of the one man who ruled her destiny--a man who would own her, body and soul!

Going Too Far 
Jennifer Echols 

All Meg has ever wanted is to get away. Away from high school. Away from her backwater town. Away from her parents who seem determined to keep her imprisoned in their dead-end lives. But one crazy evening involving a dare and forbidden railroad tracks, she goes way too far...and almost doesn't make it back.
John made a choice to stay. To enforce the rules. To serve and protect. He has nothing but contempt for what he sees as childish rebellion, and he wants to teach Meg a lesson she won't soon forget. But Meg pushes him to the limit by questioning everything he learned at the police academy. And when he pushes back, demanding to know why she won't be tied down, they will drive each other to the edge -- and over....

Never Tease A Wolf 

Joan Johnston 

When a wolf threatens local ranches, Montana Fish and Wildlife agent Abigail Dayton must relocate the animal in an effort to save the endangered species. Abby knows the breed well: powerful, strong and lean, predatory. The description also fits rancher Luke Granger. She knows Luke's type - a man who's lived a hard, solitary life working the land. The kind of man who doesn't trust easily, but tempts a woman to risk everything

Barbie & The Beast
Linda Thomas-Sundstrom 

A Hairy Situation
Barbie Bradley was swept off her feet - literally. One moment the twenty-something was traversing Forest Lawn Cemetery in the dead of night with her best friend, the next she was thrown like a sack of potatoes over a man's shoulder. True, she and Angie had come to this odd locale for a singles party, but this wasn't quite how she'd planned to get picked up.
Hello Dolly!
Darin Russell found "Ms. Right" at work, which was suprising because girls in the cemetery were usually a tad, in a word, stiff. Not that this one couldn't stand to loosen up. She seemed particularly sensitive about being named after the Mattel toy, and before he popped the question he had to know how she'd react to his furry little secret. You see, though he had a tuxedo and a Porsche, he had more in common with the residents of the Miami Zoo than Ken. And if things went according to plan, Barbie was going to see his animal side. 

 Lord Wraxall's Fancy

Anne Lieff Saxby

In 1720, Lady Celine is summoned to the Caribbean island which he governs. During the voyage, Celine falls in love with Liam, one of the ship's officers, unaware that her father has promised her to the evil Lord Wraxall. But the dark dandy knows nothing of Celine's strong will or Liam's alliance with notorious pirates who sail the Spanish Main. Recommended for adults only. 

The Best Laid Plans
Sidney Sheldon

The latest from the indefatigable Sheldon is full of manipulators, dirty dealers, and dastardly rascals, all snatching at power--political, financial, sexual, or all the above; in other words, business as usual in Sidney's World. The Best Laid Plans begins with the meeting and mating of Oliver Russell, a promising young attorney-cum-gubernatorial candidate, and Leslie Stewart, the beautiful go-getter who is running his public relations campaign. Just as the pair is about to be wed, Russell's mentor, Senator Todd Davis, offers him a deal he can't refuse: marry my daughter and I will make you president. Russell accepts and Stewart vows revenge. The lion's share of The Best Laid Plans revolves around the young pol's rise to power and Stewart's byzantine plotting to bring him to grief. Russell gives his phony wife plenty of opportunities because, like every fictional president (and some real ones), Russell has an unruly libido. Reading this book is like waiting for a train wreck, bracing for the inevitable collision; but to Sheldon's credit, the titanic scandal that ends the novel is not quite what you expect...

To Take a Queen

Jan Smith

In 1314, as a bitter Highland winter draws in, Lady Blanche McNaghten, the young widow of a chieftain is rediscovering her taste for sexual pleasures. Then fate throws her into the path of Black McGregor, a sworn enemy. Can their mutual lust for each other diminish the natural antagonism?

Cry Wolf
Wilbur Smith

The year is 1935, shortly before World War II. The "Wolf of Rome", Italy's army under Mussolini, is poised to invade Ethiopia, whose army is not only ill-equipped, but also severely outnumbered. Desperate to save his troubled land, Emperor Haile Selassie enlists American Jake Barton and Englishman Gareth Swales, two risk-takers who both share a taste for danger and the thrill of adventure. The mission seems simple: Deliver four ancient refurbished armored cars and Vicky Camberwell, an American journalist, in exchange for a hefty weight of gold. But soon Jake and Gareth realize that this is just the beginning of a long, harrowing journey that will take them from the sea to the scorching deserts of Africa to the peaks of its treacherous mountains, where a dramatic struggle to stay alive awaits them...

Purge

Sofi Oksanen

Soon to be published in twenty-five languages, Sofi Oksanen’s award-winning novel Purge is a breathtakingly suspenseful tale of two women dogged by their own shameful pasts and the dark, unspoken history that binds them.
When Aliide Truu, an older woman living alone in the Estonian countryside, finds a disheveled girl huddled in her front yard, she suppresses her misgivings and offers her shelter. Zara is a young sex-trafficking victim on the run from her captors, but a photo she carries with her soon makes it clear that her arrival at Aliide’s home is no coincidence. Survivors both, Aliide and Zara engage in a complex arithmetic of suspicion and revelation to distill each other’s motives; gradually, their stories emerge, the culmination of a tragic family drama of rivalry, lust, and loss that played out during the worst years of Estonia’s Soviet occupation.
Sofi Oksanen establishes herself as one the most important voices of her generation with this intricately woven tale, whose stakes are almost unbearably high from the first page to the last. Purge is a fiercely compelling and damning novel about the corrosive effects of shame, and of life in a time and place where to survive is to be

The Order (Nexus)
Nadine Somers

As Tamara and Max enter a twilight world of depraved practices and unspeakable rituals, the race is on to prevent the ushering in of a slave society over which the Contessa di Diablo and her debauched acolytes will reign supreme.

Candy

Terry Southern, Mason Hoffenberg

Banned upon its initial publication, the now-classic Candy is a romp of a story about the impossibly sweet Candy Christian, a wide-eyed, luscious, all-American girl. Candy –– a satire of Voltaire’s Candide –– chronicles her adventures with mystics, sexual analysts, and everyone she meets when she sets out to experience the world.

Lust Killer
Ann Rule

To his neighbors, Jerry Brudo was a gentle man whose mild manner contrasted with his awesome physical strength. To his employers, Jerry was a fine worker. To his wife, he was a good husband. And to the Oregon police, Jerry Brudo was the most hideously twisted killer they had ever unmasked.

The Venus Throw: A Mystery of Ancient Rome

Steven Saylor

Saylor (Catilina's Riddle) has established a fine reputation with his mystery novels set in ancient Rome and starring Gordianus the Finder, an early PI. In his fourth adventure, in 56 B.C., Gordianus is visited by Dio, his teacher of Greek philosophy 30 years earlier in Alexandria, who is now on an Egyptian delegation to Rome. Dio, whose fellow delegates are being killed, fears being poisoned; so Gordianus offers him an untainted dinner. Poor Dio dies that night anyway, stabbed and poisoned. Gordianus looks into the doings of his late teacher's companion, the eunuch priest Trygonion, who had accompanied Dio that evening. A beautiful, sex-hungry widow accuses Gordianus's neighbor, a young, loudmouthed lawyer, of murdering Dio, and she hires Gordianus to prove her charges. Saylor gives the widow a gloriously handsome, incest-inclined brother and sets his tale simmering with eroticism, adding engrossing historical filler about Roman law, politics and goddess cults. The result is a talky, absorbing brew of Rome's decay.

The Judgement of Caesar: A Novel of Ancient Rome
Steven Saylor

Perhaps this superb historical novel will be the breakthrough Saylor richly deserves. His previous nine entries in his Roma Sub Rosa series (Roman Blood, etc.) convincingly recreated first-century B.C. Rome through the eyes of a clever and empathetic detective, Gordianus the Finder, whose pursuit of truth has enmeshed him in complicated political intrigues involving such legendary figures as Julius Caesar, Cicero and Pompey. The 10th installment, set in Alexandria, once again features Caesar, now maneuvering between the two rivals for the Egyptian throne, Ptolemy and Cleopatra, in an effort to consolidate his own claim to rule Rome. Gordianus's reputation as an honest fact finder, and his familiarity with the centers of power, make him a valuable asset to all three leaders, even as he grapples with a bitter personal loss. The mystery—the identity of the poisoner who claimed the life of the royal taster and almost killed both Caesar and Cleopatra—is a subplot that appears only late in the book. That the reader is engaged throughout despite this is a compelling testament to Saylor's growth as a writer and to his seemingly effortless ability to imagine characters who feel real. Longtime fans will find the evolution of Gordianus's personal relationships fascinating, but the backstory is not so complex as to bar new readers from entering Saylor's world.

A Gladiator Dies Only Once 

Steven Saylor

As in The House of the Vestals (1997), Saylor's previous collection featuring Gordianus the Finder, these nine carefully researched stories cover the early phase of the ancient Roman sleuth's career, affording fans the chance to witness the growth of some important personal and political relationships, including Gordianus's connection with the legendary orator Cicero. Though Saylor's novels in this acclaimed series allow him more scope to describe settings and develop his secret Roman history, he still manages, especially in the book's highlights, "The Cherries of Lucullus" and "The White Fawn," to suspend disbelief and make all his characters feel real. Some story mysteries prove to have a noncriminal resolution, but the twisty fair-play plotting that marks Saylor's best novels (Catilina's Riddle; A Murder on the Appian Way; etc.) is very much in evidence, especially in "Archimedes's Tomb" and "Death by Eros." A partial chronology and historical notes round out this excellent volume. 

Arms of Nemesis 
Steven Saylor 

Set in 72 B.C., during the slave revolt led by Spartacus, Saylor's ( Roman Blood ) second historical mystery follows Roman PI Gordianus the Finder to the resort of Baiae on the Bay of Naples. The cousin and factotum of Marcus Licinius Crassus, the wealthiest man in Rome, has been bludgeoned to death, apparently by two slaves who have run away. An ancient Roman law decrees that when a master is killed by a slave, the remainder of the household's slaves must be slaughtered. Gordianus and his adopted son Eco have three days to find the real murderer and save the villa's other 99 slaves. A convoluted plot reveals fraud, embezzlement and arms smuggling (spears and swords traded for silver and jewels); sensuously written subplots hinge on arcanic poisons and clandestine love affairs among a cast that includes a Crassus's second-rate philosopher-in-residence and a retired actor who doubles as a female impersonator. Richly detailed bacchanalian feasts and mesmerizing visits to the Sybil at Cumae lead to the spellbinding conclusion, reached during fierce gladiatorial combat.