In My Mailbox

Well that week went so very quickly! I read Wither (review soon - OMG it was SO good)and am almost finished Graveminder (also so very good). As you can see, I'm still reading far more slowly than I'd like - but it's that time of year. Oh, and I've booked Daisy Whitney and CJ Omolulu to come to Keplers to talk about The Mockingbirds and Dirty Little Secret. With thanks, as ever, to The Story Siren who started and hosts this meme.

And now for the books:

1. Putting makeup on Dead People
By Jennifer Violi

It's been four years since Donna Parisi's father passed away, but it might as well have been four days. Donna makes conversation and goes through the motion, but she hasn't really gotten on with life. She's not close with anyone, she doesn't have a boyfriend and she's going to college at the local university with a major that her mother picked. But one day Donna has an epiphany. She wants to work with dead people. She wants to help people say goodbye and she wants to learn to love a whole person--body and soul. She wants to live her life and be exceptional...at loving, at grieving and at embalming and cremating,too. Even as she makes the decision, things start to change. Donna makes friends with the charismatic new student, Liz. She notices the boy, Charlie, at her table and realizes that maybe he's been noticing her, too. And she begins to forgive the rest of her family for living their lives while she's been busy moping.

2. Red Glove by Holly Black
(someone must have seen my wow!)
The cons get twistier and the stakes get higher in Red Glove, the sequel to White Cat.

3. Iron Witch
Karen Mahoney

Freak. That's what her classmates call seventeen-year-old Donna Underwood. When she was seven, a horrific fey attack killed her father and drove her mother mad. Donna's own nearly fatal injuries from the assault were fixed by magic—the iron tattoos branding her hands and arms. The child of alchemists, Donna feels cursed by the magical heritage that destroyed her parents and any chance she had for a normal life. The only thing that keeps her sane and grounded is her relationship with her best friend, Navin Sharma.

When the darkest outcasts of Faerie—the vicious wood elves—abduct Navin, Donna finally has to accept her role in the centuries old war between the humans and the fey. Assisted by Xan, a gorgeous half-fey dropout with secrets of his own, Donna races to save her friend—even if it means betraying everything her parents and the alchemist community fought to the death to protect.

I'll be reading Lost Saint first (because Bree will be at kepler's Jan 13), then Mockingbirds (Daisy and Cynthia will be at kepler's Feb 2).

How was your week?