Friday Finds (February 21)

Hosted by Should be Reading

FRIDAY FINDS showcases the books you ‘found’ and added to your To Be Read (TBR) list… whether you found them online, or in a bookstore, or in the library — wherever! (they aren’t necessarily books you purchased).

So, come on — share with us your FRIDAY FINDS!

NetGalley has added to the TBR for me again this week.  First up is Quiet Dell by Jayne Anne Phillips

Due to be published in 24 April 2014 by Random House UK Vintage Publishing this is a historical murder mystery based on true crime.

Blurb

In Chicago in 1931, Asta Eicher, a widow with three children, is lonely and pressed for money after the sudden death of her husband. She begins to receive seductive letters from a chivalrous, elegant man named Harry Powers, who ultimately promises to marry her and to care for her and her children. Asta agrees to go with him to West Virginia to see his house there, and then to bring her children. Weeks later, all are dead.
Emily Thornhill, a bold, independent journalist, one of the few women in the Chicago press, covers the case and becomes deeply invested in understanding what happens to this beautiful family – especially the highly imaginative youngest girl, Annabel – and determined to make sure that Powers is convicted. She also falls in love with the Chicago banker who funds the investigation, wracked by guilt himself for not saving Asta from her tragic end. NetGalley

I have received a copy of  Sorrow Bound by David Mark;  a police procedural, written by a former crime reporter.  This book is due to be published by Quercus Books on 3 April 2014.

Blurb

Philippa Longman will do anything for her family.
Roisin McAvoy will do anything for her friends.
DS Aector McAvoy will do anything for his wife.
Yet each has an unknown enemy – one that will do anything to destroy them. NetGalley

I am really looking forward to the second book by Tom Vowler, That Dark Remembered Day which is going to be published by Headline on 13 March 2014.

Blurb

One family, one town, devastated by one tragic event.
Can you ever know what those closest to you are really capable of?
When Stephen gets a phone call to say his mother isn’t well, he knows he must go to her straight away. But he dreads going back there. He has never been able to understand why his mother chose to stay in the town he grew up in, after everything that happened. One day’s tragic events years before had left no one living there untouched.
Stephen’s own dark memories are still poisoning his life, as well as his marriage. Perhaps now is the time to go back and confront the place and the people of his shattered childhood. But will he ever be able to understand the crime that punctured their lives so brutally? How can a community move on from such a terrible legacy? NetGalley

I really enjoyed Tom Vowler’s debut What Lies Within so I have high hopes that this will be a really good read.

I have been a winner again this week! and was delighted to receive a copy of The Dead Wife’s Handbook by Hannah Beckerman from a giveaway on The Writes of Woman blog.

Blurb

Rachel, Max and their daughter Ellie had the perfect life – until the night Rachel’s heart stopped beating.
Now Max and Ellie are doing their best to adapt to life without Rachel, and just as her family can’t forget her, Rachel can’t quite let go of them either. Caught in a place between worlds, Rachel watches helplessly as she begins to fade from their lives. And when Max is persuaded by family and friends to start dating again, Rachel starts to understand that dying was just the beginning of her problems.
As Rachel grieves for the life she’s lost and the life she’ll never lead, she learns that sometimes the thing that breaks your heart might be the very thing you hope for. Goodreads

And I have bought a copy of Every Secret Thing by Emma Cole a pen name for Susanna Kearsley.  This looks like it has every element I love in a historical novel.

Blurb

When an old man strikes up a conversation with her on the steps of St. Paul’s and makes a mystifying mention of murder and an oddly familiar comment about her grandmother, Kate Murray is intrigued. But she never gets to hear the rest of Andrew Deacon’s tale. Shocked by his unexpected death, she wonders whom this strange, old man is, and what the odd reference to her grandmother could mean. Interest piqued by the story never told, Kate becomes drawn into an investigation, uncovering secrets about the grandmother she thought she knew and a man she never did. Soon she is caught up in a dangerous whirlwind of events that takes her back into her grandmother’s mysterious wartime past and across the Atlantic as she tries to retrace Deacon’s footsteps. Finding out the truth is not so simple, however, as only a few people are still alive who know the story and Kate soon realizes that her questions are putting their lives in danger. Stalked by an unknown and sinister enemy, and facing death every step of the way, Kate must use her tough journalistic instinct to find the answers from the past in order to have a future. Goodreads

So to conclude this week I have added another great selection of books to my TBR, I must do better! What have you found this week?