Mailbox Monday!

It's Mailbox Monday! Mailbox Monday gathers together for readers the books that came into the house last week. (feel free to share yours) Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.
************************************************

I hit the motherlode last week. Many paperbackswap books came in. Let's get started.

I had the first book of PF Chisholm's series on my wish list which got fulfilled. I noticed the sender also had the next two books of the four book series listed so I requested them as well. She contacted me and said she had the fourth book but it wasn't listed because of some water damage. Would I be interested if she just threw it in? I said sure, I'm not a collector of pristine first editions or anything. I just want to read the story.

These books feature Sir Robert Carey, a nobleman in Elizabethan England (my favorite period!)

A FAMINE OF HORSES: When Sir Robert Carey, courtier to Queen Elizabeth, is transferred to the Scottish border, he finds many problems. His brother-in-law has appointed him Deputy Warden over Richard Lowther, who assumed he would get the job. Carey has to contend with Lowther and the distrustful Sergeant Henry Dodd, who has just found the body of the son of a powerful feudal lord. Carey must convince Dodd that stemming the lord's vengeful tendency and bringing the murderer to trial is the civilized way of justice. While looking for the killer, they stumble on the makings of a border attack, which Carey suspects is being masterminded locally.

A SEASON OF KNIVES: In 1592, Sir Robert Carey, a handsome courtier fleeing his creditors, his father's wrath, and the close scrutiny of his Queen, came north to Carlisle to take up his new post as Deputy Warden of the West March. The presence of his true love, the married Elizabeth Widdrington, was no mere coincidence. Before long, Sir Robert was up to his ruff in horse rustling and treason (A Famine of Horses), but he sorted that out with dispatch. Now he's in trouble again. The rowdy Grahams plan to kidnap Elizabeth as she journeys home to her husband. While Sir Robert storms out to stop them, someone murders the man he has just sacked from his post of paymaster to the Carlisle garrison. When Sir Robert returns, he finds his servant Barnabus slung into the castle dungeon, accused of the crime, and his arch enemy Sir Richard Lowther scheming to have Carey arrested for masterminding the murder.... When even faithful Sergeant Dodd is prepared to believe he did it, the courtier finds his hands full--while ruin stares him in the face--as he juggles the murder inquiry and untangles a skein of love and greed that reminds him most uncomfortably of how carefully he must conceal his love for Elizabeth.

A SURFEIT OF GUNS: After a skirmish on the Scottish border, Sir Robert Carey, Deputy Warden of the English West March in 1592, finds one of his men maimed by an exploding pistol. Carey discovers more faulty weapons back at Carlisle Castle, but these are soon stolen, necessitating a dangerous goodwill trip to the riotous camp of the predatory Scottish King James. Feuding clans, political unrest, rowdy humor and exploits, unwise love affairs, and the plight of the poor all play a part.

A PLAGUE OF ANGELS: Carey has been called to the city by his father, Lord Chamberlain Hunsdon, half-brother to Queen Elizabeth, to search for his missing brother Edmund. It seems Edmund, never the most sensible of men, has gotten himself mixed up in false alchemy and counterfeiting, a crime that is considered treason. As Carey and Dodd investigate the scheme that drew in Edmund, they discover that Thomas Heneage, the greedy and cruel vice chamberlain, is almost certainly involved. Facts, however, are as elusive as Edmund continues to be. Alternately helped and hindered by the playwrights Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare, and merely frustrated by the poet Robert Greene, Carey and Dodd dart about the streets of London, visiting bars and churches, literally avoiding the plague as well as the wiles of the lovely Mistress Bassano.

Also received last week:

OTHER GODS: The Averillan Chronicles by Barbara Reichmuth Geisler. The Averillan Chronicles, set in the aftermath of the Norman invasion of England in the mid-12th century. Dame Averilla struggles to protect her Benedictine abbey when an important book is stolen, another nun goes missing and an alleged witch suddenly returns.

FALCONER'S JUDGEMENT by Ian Morson. In 1261, England's King Henry III faces nobles and commoners disaffected with his foreign advisers, while factions in Europe vie for control of the papacy as Alexander IV lies dying in Rome. Into this turbulent stew falls William Falconer, Regent Master of the University of Oxford, who attempts to save some students accused of killing Sinibaldo, the master of cooks and brother of the much-unloved Bishop Otho, Papal Legate to England and a candidate for the Holy See. After the chief suspect is murdered, Falconer applies Aristotle's deductive logic, which he has learned from his friend Roger Bacon, to sift though ecclesiastic and worldly plots. He is aided by Knight Templar Guillaume de Beaujeu, sent from Rome to pursue his own order's ends, and Ann Segrim, the unhappy wife of one of the local plotters.

FALCONER AND THE FACE OF GOD by Ian Morson. Featuring William Falconer, a 13th-century professor and astute crime solver. Someone is trying to kill off the head actor, the supremely nasty Stefano de Askeles, in a traveling morality play that arrives in Oxford just as Falconer is doing some down-and-dirty research for his mentor, Roger Bacon. De Askeles survives a fatal blow, but his unlucky stand-in doesn't, which makes Falconer the actor's reluctant protector.

WHEN GODS DIE by CS Harris. Featuring Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, an investigator in Regency England. The young wife of an aging marquis is found murdered in the arms of the Prince Regent. Around her neck lies a necklace said to have been worn by Druid priestesses-that is, until it was lost at sea with its last owner, Sebastian St. Cyr's mother. Now Sebastian is lured into a dangerous investigation of the marchioness's death-and his mother's uncertain fate. As he edges closer to the truth-and one murder follows another-he confronts a conspiracy that imperils those nearest him and threatens to bring down the monarchy. [and this one is autographed]

WHERE SERPENTS SLEEP by CS Harris. Hero Jarvis, while doing research at Magdalene House, a refuge run by the Quakers for prostitutes in Regency England, narrowly escapes with her life when eight women living there are viciously killed, their murders concealed by arson. As one of the young women died in her arms, Hero decides she must determine why this victim, clearly wellborn, was working as a prostitute and why someone wanted her dead. Unfamiliar with murder investigations, she enlists the help of Sebastian St. Cyr, who has spent the last eight months trying unsuccessfully to deal with the loss of his lover. Sebastian, intrigued by the case and seeing the opportunity to anger Hero’s father, his sworn enemy, agrees to help her. The two investigate, both separately and together, in the slums and mansions of London, uncovering corruption and almost losing their lives on several occasions.

****************************************

I've read the two Harris' but I'm collecting them. The others will be added to the TBR mountain range. I'll have a couple to mention for this week but otherwise I don't have anything else coming in. I have to say, I'm not wanting for anything to read, that's for sure. I'm wanting for time to read. :)

HOOOOOOOT today. 90s. Tomorrow is going to close to 100. Triple digit yuck.

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster