Mailbox Monday - June 29th

Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page. To see this weeks list of participants go to The Printed Page.

I didn't think I would be here this week to make this post on Marcia's blog, but I'm here - I underwent neurosurgery on Friday at Duke University Hospital and was able to come home yesterday! What a wonderful blessing and that is a wonderful hospital full of caring nurses, doctors and staff.

I'm now into recovery time, which allows more blogging, reading blog and just general reading time over the next few weeks.

ARCs of:

undiscovered gyrl by Allison Burnett - pub date: August 11, 2009 - Vintage Paperback

Only on the internet can you have so many friends and be so lonely.
Beautiful, wild, funny, and lost, Katie Kampenfelt is taking a year off before college to find her passion. Ambitious in her own way, Katie intends to do more than just smoke weed with her boyfriend, Rory, and work at the bookstore. She plans to seduce Dan, a thirty-two-year-old film professor.

Katie chronicles her adventures in an anonymous blog, telling strangers her innermost desires, shames, and thrills. But when Dan stops taking her calls, when her alcoholic father suffers a terrible fall, and when she finds herself drawn into a dangerous new relationship, Katie's fearless narrative begins to crack, and dark pieces of her past emerge.
Sexually frank, often heartbreaking, and bursting with devilish humor, Undiscovered Gyrl is an extraordinarily accomplished novel of identity, voyeurism, and deceit.

Red to Black by Alex Dryden

A spy thriller, a love story and a chilling look at a resurgent superpower...At the dawn of the new millennium, Finn, an MI6 spy, and Anna, a colonel of the KGB, have been sent to spy on each other. Instead they find a love that becomes to only truth they can trust. A source deep within the Kremlin tells Finn of a plan, hatched in the depths of the Cold War, to dismantle the edifice of the communist state and to bring about the rise of a new imperium within Russia: a plan to control the whole of Europe. Finn's masters in London are blinded by the new wealth pouring out of Russia and he must leave the Service and work in secrecy to uncover the deadly threat it poses to the freedom of every one of us.

Books for Review:

Confessions of a Trauma Junkie: My Life as a Nurse Paramedic by Sherry Jones Mayo RN, EMTP, NCCM - received this from the author. This looks very interesting and I can't wait to read it.

Share the innermost feelings of emergency services workers as they encounter trauma, tragedy, redemption, and even a little humor. Sherry Jones Mayo has been an Emergency Medical Technician, Emergerncy Room Nurse, and an on-scene critical incident debriefer for Hurricane Katrina. Most people who have observed or experienced physical, mental or emotional crisis have single perspectives. This book allows readers to stand on both sides of the gurney; it details a progression from innocence to enlightened caregiver to burnout, glimpsing into each stage personally and professionally.

Giveaway Wins:

Impulse by Ellen Hopkins - I won this audiobook on CD from Mari at MariReads

Sometimes you don't wake up. But if you happen to, you know things will never be the same. Three lives, three different paths to the same destination: Aspen Springs, a psychiatric hospital for those who have attempted the ultimate act- suicide. Vanessa is beautiful and smart, but her secrets keep her answering the call of the blade. Tony, after suffering a painful childhood, can only find peace through pills. And Conner, outwardly, has the perfect life. But dig a little deeper and find a boy who is in constant battle with his parents, his life, himself. In one instant each of these young people decided enough was enough. They grabbed the blade, the bottle, the gun- and tried to end it all. Now they have a second chance, and just maybe, with each other's help, they can find their way to a better life- but only if they're strong and can fight the demons that brought them here in the first place.

From Booksfree I received:

Nothing Can Keep Us Together (Gossip Girl #8) by Cecily Von Ziegesar
Wicked Burn by Beth Kery

And from Paperbackswap I received:
Some more sewing books and another herb book

Another wonderful week - now to read all of this while I'm in recovery for the next few weeks.