Mailbox Monday - September 21, 2009

This weekly meme, hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page, is where we get to share what awesome books we received in the mail over the last week.

I must admit, my mailbox disappointed me a little bit last week. I'm waiting on some great stuff coming, but it just didn't show up when I was expecting it. I guess there's always this week, right?

Here are the two books I did receive:

From the publisher:

Book Description

Meet Matt Prior. He's about to lose his job, his wife, his house, maybe his mind. Unless . . .

In the winning and utterly original novels Citizen Vince and The Zero, Jess Walter ("a ridiculously talented writer"—New York Times) painted an America all his own: a land of real, flawed, and deeply human characters coping with the anxieties of their times.

Now, in his warmest, funniest, and best novel yet, Walter offers a story as real as our own lives: a tale of overstretched accounts, misbegotten schemes, and domestic dreams deferred.

A few years ago, small-time finance journalist Matthew Prior quit his day job to gamble everything on a quixotic notion: a Web site devoted to financial journalism in the form of blank verse. When his big idea—and his wife's eBay resale business— ends with a whimper (and a garage full of unwanted figurines), they borrow and borrow, whistling past the graveyard of their uncertain dreams. One morning Matt wakes up to find himself jobless, hobbled with debt, spying on his wife's online flirtation, and six days away from losing his home. Is this really how things were supposed to end up for me, he wonders: staying up all night worried, driving to 7-Eleven in the middle of the night to get milk for his boys, and falling in with two local degenerates after they offer him a hit of high-grade marijuana?

Or, he thinks, could this be the solution to all my problems?

Following Matt in his weeklong quest to save his marriage, his sanity, and his dreams, The Financial Lives of the Poets is a hysterical, heartfelt novel about how we can reach the edge of ruin—and how we can begin to make our way back.

AND

From the author:

New novel finds black humor in crime on fringe of society Murder in the Magick Club, a novel by attorney Byron A. Lorrier, tells the story of a murder mystery that takes place in a bar that caters to witches, goths and everything in between

Largo, FL - Sep 2, 2009 - Murder in the Magick Club, a novel by attorney Byron A. Lorrier, is an occult-themed murder mystery set in a pagan-themed night club, which follows a cast of rundown characters who live on the outskirts of society.

The last thing beleaguered nightclub owner Bryn Thomas needed was a dead body out back. After all, he already deals with annoying psychic flashes of his infinitely unfulfilling past and future lives, a worsening drinking problem, a disabling load of debt and running his ratty yet inexplicably popular club. But when he discovers the body of an old man by the dumpster behind the club, it soon becomes apparent that someone he knows is more than a make-believe witch or warlock.

"The book is a down-and-dirty stab at black humor wrapped around a mystery," Lorrier says. "Readers will relate to the need for delusional, magical escape from their day-to-day encounters with vile villains and financial stress."

The Magick Club mystery is complicated by Thomas' incompetent staff, including Cal, the thuggish hustler, Robert, the clumsy, catty instigator, and Magdeline, the oblivious, battered, drug-addled butt of everyone's jokes. Everyone who frequents the club becomes a suspect and the truth may be impossible to find in the midst of séances, witchcraft and enlightening effects of mugwort tea.

I'm really looking forward to getting into these books. What did you mail box bring you?