In My Mailbox (Jan. 24, 2010)

The weekly In My Mailbox post is hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren. It is fun to see what everyone else gets in their mailboxes, shopping bags, and library visits.

Click on the link to The Story Siren's site to see the rules and join in the fun. I guarantee that your TBR pile will grow when you see all the cool books everyone gets. You will discover lots of wonderful blogs and lots of books that you won't be able to live without.

Here is what I got this week:

I am a major Kelley Armstrong fan. When I saw that she had a new book out I had to get it immediately. Angelic is a trade hardcover of a novella. Apparently it is hard to find. I see Amazon only has it from resellers today at a whopping $79.99. That makes the $20 I paid seem lots more reasonable than I thought when I clicked the "buy with one-click" button.

I received Never Look Away by Linwood Barclay in ARC from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. I posted my review here, on LibraryThing, and will on Amazon when they open it up for customers to post reviews.

I added these YA books this week:

Undead Much by Stacey Jay which is book 2 in a series. I also ordered You Are So Undead to Me but it hasn't arrived yet. I am determined to get over my anti-zombie prejudice and these sound like fun.

I added both Fire and Water by Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson. These were a harder decision for me because I had to weigh if my love of Robin McKinley was greater than my dislike of short stories. The balance came down on the loving Robin McKinley side this time.

I read a terrific review of The Pace by Shelena Shorts on someone's blog (can't recall who) and decided I had to have it. Now I don't know why. But the cover is rather intriguing.

These books are for two of the challenges I am doing this year. The first two are for the 2010 YA Debut Author Challenge hosted by The Story Siren. The second two are for the In the Middle Reading Challenge hosted by Jill at The O.W.L.

Wish by Alexandra Bullen has been getting such nice buzz on the YA blogs I follow that I had to have it. It has a lovely cover.

The Iron King by Julie Kagawa also sounds terrific. I have been avoiding reading the reviews because I don't want to take a chance and be spoiled. I want to go into this one with no preconceptions.

Neither of the next two books are newly published but I hadn't decided to read them until I decided to take part in the In the Middle Reading Challenge. I spend a lot of time reading YA books but not so much reading Middle Grade books. I want to be able to talk with my younger students about great books too.

Rapunzel's Revenge by Shannon Hale looks good. I like fairy tale retellings. I think I had previously overlooked it because I am not a big fan of graphic novels (another prejudice I am trying to overcome).

Skullduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy has been recommended to me by my HS Media Center assistant. She is a big fan.

That's it for me this week. What did you add to your TBR stack?