In My Mailbox (7)

In My Mailbox

Week Seven

Seeing how I was taking a break last Sunday, this week's In My Mailbox will include both weeks so it's a larger than normal.

Heist Society

Ally Carter

When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her to the Louvre...to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria...to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own - scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving "the life" for a normal life proves harder than she'd expected.

Soon, Kat's friend and former co-conspirator, Hale, appears out of nowhere to bring her back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has good reason: a powerful mobster's priceless art collection has been stolen and he wants it returned. Only a master thief could have pulled off this job, and Kat's father isn't just on the suspect list, he is the list. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly encounter, Kat's dad needs her help.

For Kat there is only one solution: track down the paintings and steal them back. So what if it's a spectacularly impossible job? She's got two weeks a teenage crew, and, hopefully, just enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in her family's (very crooked) history - and with any luck, steal her life back along the way.

First thoughts: I've picked this book up off the shelf a dozen times, debating whether or not I wanted to get it. So when I saw the library had a copy in I couldn't help myself. It sounds like an interesting plotline plus art! I'm planning on starting it this afternoon.

Uglies

Scott Westerfeld

Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license - for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there.

But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world - and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes change her world forever.

First Thoughts: I'm honestly not sure, at this point, whether Uglies is going to get read or not. I've heard mixed things about it and I had picked it up on a whim during my last trip to the library. If you've read it (and I'm sure some of you have) let me know what you think.

A Match Made in High School

Kristin Walker

When a mandatory course forces Fiona to "try the knot" with super-jock Todd Harding, she's convinced life couldn't get any worse. Until her crush is paired with her arch-enemy (otherwise known as Todd's obscenely hot, slightly sadistic girlfriend). But that's nothing compared to her best friend's fate - a year with the very goofy, very big Johnny Mercer

A series of hilarious pranks leaves Fiona wondering: Is there something her "best friend" hasn't told her? Could there be more to Johnny Mercer than an awesome music collection? And most intriguing, could Todd Harding have a heart beneath his pretty-boy-exterior?

First Thoughts: Another library grab (I'm broke, ok?) but one I am super excited about. I heard about this book about a month ago and I've wanted to read it ever since. It sounds cute and light and fun. After reading The Forest of Hands and Teeth earlier this week, I want something more fluffy for a change. Plus the cover is really, really cute!

Moonlight Falls

Vincent Zandri

Albany, New York, is the setting of Zandri's paranoid thriller (in the Hitchcock tradition) about Richard "Dick" Moonlight, former APD detective turned private investigator/massage therapist, who believes he killed Scarlet Montana - his illicit lover and wife of his ex-boss, Chief of Detectives Jake Montana. The problem is ... Moonlight doesn't remember what happened because he’s got a small fragment of a .22 hollow point round buried inside his brain, lodge directly up against his cerebral cortex. It's the result of a botched suicide attempt four years prior to the novel’s start, and an operation to remove the bullet fragment would be too dangerous.

But the bullet causes Moonlight lots of problems, the least of which are the occasional memory loss and his rational ability to tell right from wrong...

First Thoughts: This book came in the mail this week, which I'm excited about. I won an autographed copy from Goodreads and while the book isn't what I normally go for I think it sounds ridiculously good. I'll probably bump it up on my reading list because my best friend is already trying to steal the thing from me (she had entered the contest but didn't win a copy, so now she's trying to snag mine).

Poor Little Bitch Girl

Jackie Collins

Denver Jones is a hotshot twenty-something attorney working in L.A. Carolyn Henderson is personal assistant to a powerful and very married senator in Washington with whom she is having an affair. And Annabelle Maestro - the daughter of two movie stars - has carved out a career for herself in New York as the madam of choice for discerning famous men. The three of them went to high school together in Beverly Hills, and although Denver and Carolyn have kept in touch, Annabelle is out on her own with her cocaine-addicted boyfriend, Frankie.

Then there is Bobby Santangelo Stanislopolous, the Kennedy-esque son of Lucky Santangelo and deceased Greek shipping billionaire Dimitri Stanislopolous. Bobby owns Mood, the hottest club in New York. Back in the day, he went to high school with Denver, Carolyn, and Annabelle. And he connected with all three of them. Plus, Frankie is his best friend.

When Annabelle's beautiful movie-star mother is found shot to death in the bedroom of her Beverly Hills mansion, the five of them find themselves thrown together...and secrets from the past have a way of coming back to haunt everyone.

First Thoughts: Another library book...I know, I have a problem but I've had a hold on this forever and it finally came in. Not going to lie, it was the awesome cover that attracted me to the book but the plot sounds like the perfect guilty pleasure. And as much as I love YA, sometimes I want to step away into something that's a bit more trashy.

Seeing how I was on a break, I didn't actually get much done in the world of blogging since my last post. I put up my first return review yesterday for Hex Hall. You can check it out here.

I've finished two other books: The Forest of Hands and Teeth and the third book in the Morganville Vampire series, Midnight Alley. The reviews for those should hopefully be up later this weekend.