Mailbox Monday, April 13th

Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia. If you want to join in, feel free to drop by!

This week I found the following books:



William Boyd: Restless
It is 1939. Eva Delectorskaya is a beautiful 28-year-old Russian émigrée living in Paris. As war breaks out she is recruited for the British Secret Service by Lucas Romer, a mysterious Englishman, and under his tutelage she learns to become the perfect spy, to mask her emotions and trust no one, including those she loves most. Since the war, Eva has carefully rebuilt her life as a typically English wife and mother. But once a spy, always a spy. Now she must complete one final assignment and this time Eva can't do it alone: she needs her daughter's help.

Adriana Trigiani: Lucia, Lucia
Lucia Sartori is the beautiful daughter of a fine Italian immigrant family living in Greenwhich Village, New York, in 1950. Fuelled by the post-war book, in which ambitious girls are encouraged to follow their dreams, Lucia becomes an apprentice for a clothing designer at a chic department store on Fifth Avenue. Though she is sought after as a potential wife by the best Italian families, Lucia is determined to have a career. She juggles the roles of dutiful daughter and ambitious working girl perfectly.
When a handsome stranger comes into the story and catches her eye, it is love at first sight for both of them. In order to win Lucia's hand, he must first win over her traditional family and make proper offer of marriage. Their love affair takes an unexpected turn as secrets are revealed, Lucia's family honour is tested, and her own reputation becomes the center of a sizzling scandal.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Half Of A Yellow Sun
In 1960s Nigeria, a country blighted by civil war, three lives intersect. Ugwu, a boy from a poor village, works as a houseboy for a university lecturer. Olanna, a coung woman, has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos to live with her charismatic new lover, the professor. The third is Richard, a shy Englishman in thrall to Olanna's enigmatic twin sister. When the shocking horror of the war engulfs them, their loyalties are severly tested as they are pulled apart and thrown together in ways that none of them imagined...

And last but certainly not least:

Michael Karpin: Tightrope - Six Centuries Of A Jewish Dynasty
Nearly twenty years ago, a chance meeting with a Backenroth family member spurred journalist Michael Karpin to years of research that spanned the globe and several centuries. In Tightrope, he shares the amazing tale of a family that was in many ways extraordinary and in many others typical of Eastern European Jews. Offering a unique portrait of Jewish life through such pivotal events as the migration from Western to Eastern Europe, the birth of Zionism, and the Holocaust, Tightrope tells an inspiring, compelling, and often surprising take of faith, courage, loyalty, and resourcefulness through centuries of struggle, heartbreak, and triumph.