Mailbox Monday: December 27

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week. (Library books don’t count, but eBooks & audiobooks do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists!

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia @ The Printed Page, is one of my favorite memes, and I have enjoyed hosting the 2010 holiday edition! Don't forget to check in next week with Rose City Reader for the very first Mailbox Monday of 2011.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas! I sure did! Hubby stuffed my stocking with four books he picked from my Amazon wishlist:

Katsa has been able to kill a man with her bare hands since she was eight — she’s a Graceling, one of the rare people in her land born with an extreme, and in her case horrifying, skill. As niece of the king, she should be able to live a life of privilege, but Graced as she is with killing, she is forced to work as the king’s thug. When she first meets Prince Po, Graced with combat skills, Katsa has no hint of how her life is about to change.

She never expects to become Po’s friend. She never expects to learn a new truth about her own Grace — or about a terrible secret that lies hidden far away... a secret that could destroy all seven kingdoms with words alone.

 

 

Incarceron is a prison so vast that it contains not only cells, but also metal forests, dilapidated cities, and vast wilderness. Finn, a seventeen-year-old prisoner, has no memory of his childhood and is sure that he came from Outside Incarceron. Very few prisoners believe that there is an Outside, however, which makes escape seems impossible.

 

And then Finn finds a crystal key that allows him to communicate with a girl named Claudia. She claims to live Outside- she is the daughter of the Warden of Incarceron, and doomed to an arranged marriage. Finn is determined to escape the prison, and Claudia believes she can help him. But they don't realize that there is more to Incarceron than meets the eye. Escape will take their greatest courage and cost more than they know.

 

 

Evie’s always thought of herself as a normal teenager, even though she works for the International Paranormal Containment Agency, her ex-boyfriend is a faerie, she’s falling for a shape-shifter, and she’s the only person who can see through paranormals’ glamours.

But Evie’s about to realize that she may very well be at the center of a dark faerie prophecy promising destruction to all paranormal creatures. So much for normal.

In the tradition of Philippa Gregory’s smart, transporting fiction comes this tale of dark suspense, love, and betrayal, featuring two star-crossed sisters, one lost and the other searching.

Bright and inquisitive, Hannah Powers was raised by a father who treated her as if she were his son. While her beautiful and reckless sister, May, pushes the limits of propriety in their small English town, Hannah harbors her own secret: their father has given her an education forbidden to women. But Hannah’s secret serves her well when she journeys to colonial Maryland to reunite with May, who has been married off to a distant cousin after her sexual misadventures ruined her marriage prospects in England.

As Hannah searches for May, who has disappeared, she finds herself falling in love with her brother-in-law. Alone in a wild, uncultivated land where the old rules no longer apply, Hannah is freed from the constraints of the society that judged both her and May as dangerous — too smart, too fearless, and too hungry for life. But Hannah is also plagued by doubt, as her quest for answers to May’s fate grows ever more disturbing and tangled.

And my Mom gave me a $25 gift card to Barnes & Noble, which I will use in short order to buy ebooks for my Nook! I can't wait to see what books arrived in your Mailboxes and under your Christmas Trees!

And here's one more recipe to finish out the month. This is a recipe my sister discovered at a bbq she attended years ago and it's become a family favorite. People rave about them everywhere I take them. This year my husband and I hosted our annual family Christmas party and I asked my sister to bring these. So easy and always a hit!

Brown Sugar Ham Biscuits

(Sorry, I don't have a picture,
but they are sticky-sweet and delicious!)

Pack of 24 party rolls (I always use Martin's potato party rolls)

swiss cheese slices

thinly sliced or shaved honeybaked ham (I like Sara Lee's pre-packaged slices)

1/2 stick of butter

1/4 cup of brown sugar

1 tbsp. worcestershire sauce

Use the first three ingredients to assemble 24 mini-ham and swiss sandwiches (I use half a slice of ham folded, and 1/4 slice of cheese for each one), and place them in a lightly greased 9x13 baking pan. It's a tight fit, but you can get all 24 in there! In a saucepan melt butter and brown sugar and bring to a boil, stirring often. Remove from heat, add worcestershire sauce and stir until well blended. Use a basting brush to generously apply the brown sugar glaze to the tops of the ham sandwiches. Place the pan in the oven and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. I only had a few leftover from the party and I just ate them for lunch. So good, warm or cold!

Enjoy! Thanks for visiting my blog and participating in Mailbox Monday this month!