In My Mailbox (26)

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme inspired by Alea and hosted by Kristi. Check out Kristi's blog to see what others got in terms of books this week!

I was away last week so this is two weeks' worth of review books. Yippee!

The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin by Josh Berk
(Random House / Feb. 9, 2010)

Being a hefty, deaf newcomer almost makes Will Halpin the least popular guy at Coaler High. But when he befriends the only guy less popular than him, the dork-namic duo has the smarts and guts to figure out who knocked off the star quarterback. Will can’t hear what’s going on, but he’s a great observer. So, who did it? And why does that guy talk to his fingers? And will the beautiful girl ever notice him? (Okay, so Will’s interested in more than just murder . . .)


Those who prefer their heroes to be not-so-usual and with a side of wiseguy will gobble up this witty, geeks-rule debut.

I've heard only good things about this book, so I'm so excited to get to read it!

Saving Maddie by Varian Johnson
(Random House / March 9, 2010)

Joshua Wynn is a preacher’s son and a “good boy” who always does the right thing. Until Maddie comes back to town. Maddie is the daughter of the former associate pastor of Joshua’s church, and his childhood crush. Now Maddie is all grown up, gorgeous—and troubled. She wears provocative clothes to church, cusses, drinks, and fools around with older men. Joshua’s ears burn just listening to the things she did to get kicked out of boarding school, and her own home.


As time goes on, Josh goes against his parents and his own better instincts to keep Maddie from completely capsizing. Along the way, he begins to question his own rigid understanding of God and whether, as his mother says, a girl like Maddie is beyond redemption. Maddie leads Josh further astray than any girl ever has . . . but is there a way to reconcile his love for her and his love for his life in the church?

Hmm, I don't usually pick up books regarding religion, but I might as well give this one a try. New books = exciting!

Everlasting by Angie Frazier
(Scholastic / June 1, 2010)

Sailing aboard her father's ship is all seventeen-year-old Camille Rowen has ever wanted. But as a lady in 1855 San Francisco, her future is set: marry a man she doesn't love in order to preseve her social standing. On her last voyage before the wedding, Camille learns the mother she has always believed dead is in fact alive and in Australia. When their Sydney-bound ship goes down in a gale, and her father dies, Camille sets out to find her mother and a map in her possession - a map believed to lead to a stone that once belonged to the legendary civilization of the immortals. The stone can do exactly what Camille wants most: bring someone back from the dead.


Unfortunately, her father's adversary is also on the hunt for the stone, and she must race him to it. The only person Camille can depend on is Oscar - a handsome young sailor and her father's first mate - who is in love with Camille and whom she is inexplicably drawn to despite his low social standing and her pending wedding vows. With an Australian card shark acting as their guide, Camille eludes murderous bushrangers, traverses dangerous highlands, evades a curse placed on the stone, and unravels the mystery behind her mother's disappearance sixteen years earlier. But when another death shakes her conviction to resurrect her father, Camille must choose what - and who - matters most.

Oh man, that cover is deceiving. I didn't realize this would be almost historical fantasy! The synopsis sounds a bit like a female Indiana Jones story set in the 19th century...sounds so good!

Trackers #1 by Patrick Carman
(Scholastic / May 1, 2010)

In the 21st century landscape of bits and bytes, everyone leaves a digital footprint ... even the most advanced cyber criminals. And that’s where the Trackers come in. Four tech-savvy kids armed with high-tech video cameras and esoteric coding skills, the Trackers can find almost anyone, anywhere. Told through a collage of videos, text, and websites, Trackers #1 follows Adam, Finn, Lewis, and Emily as they become entangled in a high-tech, high-stakes game of cat and mouse with Shantorian, the world’s most dangerous hacker. At least, that’s who they think they’re tracking....


As the four dig deeper into the shadowy world of online crime, they soon learn that things aren’t always as they seem.

Man, I feel like I need to read one of Patrick Carman's books lately. They all sound like an intriguing blend of sci-fi, slightly dystopian, and action.

The New Brighton Archeological Society, Book 1: The Castle of Galomar by Mark Andrew Smith and Matthew Weldon
(Image Comics / March 2009)

Out of the ashes of misfortune will rise the next generation of great adventurers!


After their parents are lost on an archeological expedition, four children begin to unlock the secrets of their parents' mysterious lives, discovering a hidden world of mystical artifacts, mythical creatures, and arcane knowledge. Soon they find themselves drawn into a conflict over a great library that has kept two kingdoms at war for centuries, the children must save an enchanted forest, the birthplace of magic itself. Join us as these children become the latest members of the fabled New Brighton Archeological Society, and take their first steps towards their true destiny!

This looks like a quick and cute graphic novel read.

The Story of Cirrus Flux by Matthew Skelton
(Delacorte / Feb. 23, 2010)

London, 1783. Orphan Cirrus Flux is being watched. Merciless villains are conniving to steal the world's most divine power--The Breath of God--which they believe Cirrus has inherited. Now he faces a perilous journey through the dirty backstreets of the city as a sinister mesmerist, a tiny man with an all-seeing eye, and a skull-collecting scoundrel pursue him. Cirrus must escape them, but he'll need to trust some unlikely allies if he hopes to thwart his foes . . . and survive a grand and terrifying showdown.

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman
(Penguin / Jan. 2010)

Steel Magnolias meets The Help in this Southern debut novel sparkling with humor, heart, and feminine wisdom


Twelve-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt is in trouble. For years, she has been the caretaker of her psychotic mother, Camille-the tiara-toting, lipstick-smeared laughingstock of an entire town-a woman trapped in her long-ago moment of glory as the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen. But when Camille is hit by a truck and killed, CeeCee is left to fend for herself. To the rescue comes her previously unknown great-aunt, Tootie Caldwell.


In her vintage Packard convertible, Tootie whisks CeeCee away to Savannah's perfumed world of prosperity and Southern eccentricity, a world that seems to be run entirely by women. From the exotic Miz Thelma Rae Goodpepper, who bathes in her backyard bathtub and uses garden slugs as her secret weapons, to Tootie's all-knowing housekeeper, Oletta Jones, to Violene Hobbs, who entertains a local police officer in her canary-yellow peignoir, the women of Gaston Street keep CeeCee entertained and enthralled for an entire summer.

I've heard a lot of good things about this book, and so I'm excited to have the opportunity to be on a blog tour for it.

Facebook Fairytales: Modern-Day Miracles to Inspire the Human Spirit by Emily Liebert
(Skyhorse Publishing / Apr. 1, 2010)

Once upon a time there was an online social network called Facebook, and it brought together people from all over the globe, helping them to reignite romances, launch careers, and even find organ donors. Facebook Fairytales brings to light inspirational “happy endings” stemming from the increasingly popular social-networking site. Author Emily Liebert crafts captivating narratives of real-life stories from interviews with Facebook users who have used the site’s many applications to find biological parents, relay messages to loved ones during the Mumbai terrorist attacks, donate money to Chinese orphanages, and try to hunt down a hit-and-run criminal. Readers will relate to these tales and, simultaneously, be charmed by the little spark of magic that sets them apart from your everyday success stories.


Liebert also interviews and shares the story of Chris Hughes, Facebook co-founder who worked on the Obama new-media campaign, revolutionizing the use of social-networking sites as a political tool. Complete with an introductory interview with Facebook founder and president, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Fairytales is a collection of tales that will inspire you to seek out your “happily ever after” on the world’s most popular social-networking site—and maybe find Prince Charming along the way.

A Wish After Midnight by Zetta Elliott
(Amazon Encore / Feb. 2010)

Genna Colon is a fifteen-year-old girl living in Brooklyn. She doesn’t have a lot to show for herself besides bad hair, an impossible crush on a classmate, and a dysfunctional family. What she does have—an intelligence beyond her peers—is not winning her many friends in school, so she seeks safe haven in her favorite place in the city: a quiet, enclosed garden with a fountain. When Genna flees into her sanctuary late one night, she makes a desperate wish and finds herself instantly transported back in time to Civil War–era Brooklyn.


Displaced in the past, Genna realizes she has eluded one harsh reality only to surface in another. She must confront new horrors and all-too-familiar prejudices, while holding tightly to a cover-story that threatens to unravel at any moment.

I've heard nothing but praise for this book, and so am really excited to have the opportunity to review this! Thanks, Sarah!

The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan
(Random House / March 9, 2010)

Gabry lives a quiet life. As safe a life as is possible in a town trapped between a forest and the ocean, in a world teeming with the dead, who constantly hunger for those still living. She's content on her side of the Barrier, happy to let her friends dream of the Dark City up the coast while she watches from the top of her lighthouse. But there are threats the Barrier cannot hold back. Threats like the secrets Gabry's mother thought she left behind when she escaped from the Sisterhood and the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Like the cult of religious zealots who worship the dead. Like the stranger from the forest who seems to know Gabry. And suddenly, everything is changing. One reckless moment, and half of Gabry's generation is dead, the other half imprisoned. Now Gabry only knows one thing: she must face the forest of her mother's past in order to save herself and the one she loves.

I couldn't get through FOHOT and so this one wasn't really on my radar, but now that I have it...damn, the finished book looks SO pretty. Maybe I'll try to read it, and if that doesn't work out, maybe I'll have a giveaway...

From Around the World Tours:

Forget-Her-Nots by Amy Brecount White
(Greenwillow Books / March 2, 2010)

When someone leaves three mystery flowers outside her dorm door, Laurel thinks that maybe the Avondale School isn't so awful after all — until her own body starts to freak out. In the middle of her English presentation on the Victorian Language of Flowers, strange words pop into her head, and her body seems to tingle and hum. Impulsively, Laurel gives the love bouquet she made to demonstrate the language to her spinster English teacher. When that teacher unexpectedly and immediately finds romance, Laurel suspects that something — something magical — is up. With her new friend, Kate, she sets out to discover the origins and breadth of her powers by experimenting on herself and others. But she can’t seem to find any living experts in the field of flower powers to guide her. And her bouquets don't always do her bidding, especially when it comes to her own crush, Justin. Rumors about Laurel and her flowers fly across campus, and she's soon besieged by requests from girls — both friends and enemies — who want their lives magically transformed — just in time for prom.

Whisper by Phoebe Kitanidis
(Balzer + Bray / Apr. 27, 2010)

Joy is used to hearing Whispers. She’s used to walking down the street and instantly knowing people’s deepest, darkest desires. She uses this talent for good, to make people happy and give them what they want. But for her older sister, Jessica, the family gift is a curse, and she uses it to make people’s lives—especially Joy’s—miserable. Still, when Joy Hears a frightening whisper from Jessica's own mind, she knows she has to save her sister, even if it means deserting her friends, stealing a car and running away with a boy she barely knows—a boy who may have a dark secret of his own.

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That's it! And now to do some schoolwork, and then maybe I can get around to doing some reading... :)