Holy Mailbox Monday, Batman!

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.  Click the link-up button above the see more book hauls and/or to add your own!

It's been a dry spell in my mailbox of late.  Seriously, I've been going through withdrawal.  But just now, I went down to the road to a mailbox STUFFED with envelopes and packages.  (I didn't think the mail carrier was down there that long!)

First up, all the way from the UK:

(Cover graphic is linked to tour page at Historical Fiction Virtual Blog Tours.  I will review this title on Friday, December 5, 2014.)

Publication Date: December 5, 2014

Crooked Cat Publications

Formats: eBook, Paperback

Pages: 312

ISBN: 978-1-910510-06-3

Genre: Historical Fiction

SIX EPOCHS, TEN LIVES INTERSECTING AT A SINGLE PLACE. 2013: Al Cohen, an American in search of his European heritage.

1944-1946: Friedrich Werner, an officer of the Wehrmacht and later a prisoner of war. His wife Greta, clinging to what remains of her life in war-torn Berlin.

1799: Suzanne de Beaubigny, a royalist refugee from revolutionary France.

1517: Richard Mabon, a Catholic priest on pilgrimage to Jerusalem with his secretary, Nicholas Ahier.

1160: Raoul de Paisnel, a knight with a dark secret walking through Spain with his steward, Guillaume Bisson.

4000 BC: Egrasté, a sorceress, and Txeru, a man on an epic voyage.

Transgressions, reconciliations and people caught on the wrong side of history.

Omphalos. A journey through six thousand years of human history.

~~~oOo~~~

Next up, a book I have been waiting for since I read its predecessor, When Camels Fly back in May of this year:

(Cover links to the book's GoodReads page.  The book is part of a tour by Virtual Author Book Tours.  I will post a review of this title on Friday, January 16, 2015.)

Publication Date: November 12, 2014

RidgeRoute Press

Formats: eBook, Paperback

Pages: 408

ISBN: 0991401735

Genre: Historical Fiction

A friend's deception. A family's dilemma.

While cataloguing looted antiquities in Brussels, archaeologist Grace Madison discovers that her daughter has vanished in France, and her son's bride has been attacked in Switzerland. After the Madison family unearths a relic whose taproot pierces the Ancient Near East, they realize that before they can save themselves, they must rescue an old friend. If he'll let them. 

Because choosing what's right is all that's left. 

~~~oOo~~~

(Cover links to the tour page at Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours.  I will post a review of this title on Wednesday, December 10, 2014, and host a guest post by the author on Friday, December 12, 2014)

Publication Date: September 29, 2014

Raven’s Wing Books

Formats: eBook, Paperback

Pages:  344

ISBN:  1618071254

Genre: Historical Fiction

“… in the meantime, a credible report caused all ecclesiastics of the Catholic Church to lament and weep.” Prudentius of Troyes, Annales Bertiniani, anno 839

On Ascension Day May 22, 838, Bishop Bodo, chaplain, confessor, and favorite of both his kin, Emperor Louis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, and Empress Judith, caused the greatest scandal of the Carolingian Empire and the 9th century Roman Church.

Bodo, the novel, dramatizes the causes, motivations, and aftermath of Bodo’s astonishing cause célèbre that took place during an age of superstitions, a confused Roman Church, heterodoxies, lingering paganism, broken oaths, rebellions, and dissolution of the Carolingian Empire.

~~~oOo~~~

And last but not least:

(Cover links to the tour page at Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours.  I will post a review of this title on Monday, December 8, 2014.)

Publication Date: October 1, 2014

Blank Slate Press

Formats: eBook, Trade Paperback

Pages: 300

ISBN:  0985808667

Genre: Historical Fiction

Agnes Canon is tired of being a spectator in life, an invisible daughter among seven sisters, meat for the marriage market. The rivers of her Pennsylvania countryside flow west, and she yearns to flow with them, explore new lands, know the independence that is the usual sphere of men.

This is a story of a woman’s search for freedom, both social and intellectual, and her quest to understand what freedom means. She learns that freedom can be the scent and sound of unsettled prairies, the glimpse of a cougar, the call of a hawk. The struggle for freedom can test the chains of power, poverty, gender, or the legalized horror of slavery. And to her surprise, she discovers it can be found within a marriage, a relationship between a man and a woman who are equals in everything that matters.

It’s also the story of Jabez Robinson, a man who has traveled across the continent and seen the beauty of the country and the ghastliness of war, as he watches his nation barrel toward disaster. Faced with deep-seated social institutions and hard-headed intransigence, he finds himself helpless to intervene. Jabez’s story is an indictment of war in any century or country, and an admission that common sense and reasoned negotiation continue to fail us.

As Agnes and Jabez struggle to keep their community and their lives from crumbling about them, they must face the stark reality that whether it’s the freedom of an African from servitude, of the South from the North, or of a woman from the demands of social convention, the cost is measured in chaos and blood.

This eloquent work of historical fiction chronicles the building of a marriage against the background of a civilization growing – and dying – in the prelude to civil war. 

~~~oOo~~~

If you made it this far, first of all: congratulations!  Secondly, thank you!  Which of these books seems most up your alley?