Mailbox Monday – March 9

mmb-300x282Mailbox 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.

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1. The Dead Key by D.M. Pulley – I picked this one up at the author’s first book talk yesterday and she was fantastic. More on the talk later this week.

2014 Winner — Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award — Grand Prize and Mystery & Thriller Fiction Winner

It’s 1998, and for years the old First Bank of Cleveland has sat abandoned, perfectly preserved, its secrets only speculated on by the outside world.

Twenty years before, amid strange staff disappearances and allegations of fraud, panicked investors sold Cleveland’s largest bank in the middle of the night, locking out customers and employees, and thwarting a looming federal investigation. In the confusion that followed, the keys to the vault’s safe-deposit boxes were lost.

2. The Midnight Witch by Paula Brackston – received from St. Martin’s Press

Lilith is the daughter of the sixth Duke of Radnor. She is one of the most beautiful young women in London and engaged to the city’s most eligible bachelor. She is also a witch.

When her father dies, her hapless brother Freddie takes the title. But it is Lilith, instructed in the art of necromancy, who inherits their father’s role as Head Witch of the Lazarus Coven. And it is Lilith who must face the threat of the Sentinels, a powerful group of sorcerers intent on reclaiming the Elixir from the coven’s guardianship for their own dark purposes. Lilith knows the Lazarus creed: secrecy and silence. To abandon either would put both the coven and all she holds dear in grave danger. She has spent her life honoring it, right down to her charming fiancé and fellow witch, Viscount Louis Harcourt.

3. Fribbet the Frog and the Tadpoles by Carole P Roman – received from Red Feather Productions

Fribbet the Frog and the Tadpoles is another great voyage into problem solving and friendship, as well as an adventurous trip into the imagination.

Join the Captain No Beard and his friends as they learn the value of sharing our troubles with others and that help is always there when we need it.

Did you received anything fun in your mailbox last week?

Traveling the States with Gage – Pennsylvania

Gage goes to school Monday-Thursday and mornings are a time he usually is willing and wanting to learn a little, so I decided to start doing a little state work each three-day weekend.

Pennsylvania: The Keystone StateExploring the States:Pennsylvania, the Keystone State. I decided to use this series I found at the library.  We start by reading through the book and then I chose some things to do 5-10 minute activities over the three days.  My goal is really just two activities  for each of the three days and then two books, this one and one more picture book.

Here’s what we did

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1. Trace the state map, marked the capital,painted it, and wrote Pennsylvania. He hates to write and this week’s long state name made his unhappy and stubborn.

2. Colored and painted the very intricate state map.IMG_2532[1]

3. Used glitter glue to color the state flower, mountain laurel.

4. The book featured the Crayola Experience and factory in Easton so we did a Crayola project.

IMG_2540[1]IMG_2547[1]IMG_2553[1]IMG_2554[1]IMG_2556[1]Took the paper off broken crayons (took longer than I thought it would), mixed the colors in different muffin cups, put in the oven at 300 for about 10 minutes, pull them out one by one and drop the flimsy one all over the floor, put in the freezer, pull them out and you got some very cool looking crayon pellets.  Inspired by this pin.

Our Pennsylvania Punxsutawney Phil activities (because he was featured in the book).

5.groundhogWe read a book about Groundhog Day, made a craft and did a few papers matching objects with their shadows.  He was very happy to have his picture taken 😉

6.phil1phil2phil3(learning how to use the side of the chalk from dad)phil4Tape his feet to the paper and attach a pipe cleaner to the back to help him stand and ta-da! It’s Punxsutawney Phil and his shadow.  This pin was the inspiration.

7. Watched a video of Phil (he wasn’t all that impressed)


Keep sending me ideas for your state – especially book ideas!

Our Ohio activities.

 

Brief First Lines Quiz – guessing closed

Let’s see if you can guess these classics by their brief first lines.  They are tough – good luck!

No googling or looking at other commenter answers.  Yes, we’re going by the honor system 🙂  Play every week or just one time, you are always welcome 🙂  It only takes once to be eligible for a prize.

1. ”It was a pleasure to burn.” Fahrenheit 451 

2.  “Howard Roark laughed.”  Fountainhead

3.  “It’s hard being left behind.” The Time Traveler’s Wife

4.  “I am an invisible man.”  Invisible Man

5.  “Call me Ishmael.”   Moby Dick

6. “A screaming comes across the sky.”  Gravity’s Rainbow

7. “124 was spiteful.”  Beloved

8.  “All this happened, more or less.”  Slaughterhouse-Five

9. ” I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.”  I Capture the Castle

10.  “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”  1984

The Prophet by Michael Koryta

The ProphetThe Prophet. Finished 2-17-15, rating 4.5/5 stars, thriller, pub. 2012

Unabridged audio, 11 hours 50 minutes.  Read by Robert Petkoff.

Adam Austin hasn’t spoken to his brother in years. When they were teenagers, their sister was abducted and murdered, and their devastated family never recovered. Now Adam keeps to himself, scraping by as a bail bondsman, working so close to the town’s criminal fringes that he sometimes seems a part of them. Kent Austin is the beloved coach of the local high school football team, a religious man and hero in the community. After years of near misses, Kent’s team has a shot at the state championship, a welcome point of pride in a town that has had its share of hardships. Just before playoffs begin, the town and the team are thrown into shock when horrifically, impossibly, another teenage girl is found murdered. As details emerge that connect the crime to the Austin brothers, the two must confront their buried rage and grief-and unite to stop a killer.

We get to know Adam from the very beginning and he was such a fascinating character.  Haunted by his sister’s murder and fiercely protective, he is willing to cross every line that the law has placed in his way.  Enter his brother, the football coach, the other side of the family tree is viewed as the local hero, an image he strives to cultivate every day.  When the law seems unable to protect him he isn’t afraid to ask his big brother for help if though they’ve long been estranged.

This is an excellent thriller, especially if you love football and I do.  The action centered around the high school football team and their quest for a state title, which includes a lot of play by play. It’s set in a small, Cleveland area town on Lake Erie and I knew this town even if it wasn’t real.  This book felt like the character study of two brothers and one small Ohio town and I was drawn into the bleakness and pain as much as I was into the current bad guy running around town.

This was my first Koryta read and I can’t wait to read more. Any Koryta fans out there? What should I read next?