I haven’t done a Mailbox Monday post in a long while because I’ve been giving the books individual spotlights as they come into my home through my recent arrivals series. But I’ve been slacking a bit and am many, many books behind; doing an individual post for each would take days. So, I’m just going to do a quick round-up post highlighting all the new additions to my TBR pile.

I’ve already finished (and loved!) Still Missing by Chevy Stevens; the review is forthcoming. I actually set aside Stolen by Lucy Christopher in order to read it. The two books run along similar lines—kidnap victims and the aftermath, though Stolen is for a younger audience and Still Missing is purely adult. Another difference between the two is the pacing: Stolen is slow going and Still Missing flew by at breakneck speed.

After finishing Still Missing, I decided to try my hand at Stolen again and after another thirty agonizingly slow pages, I decided to set it aside (…for the second time) and picked up Rumor Has It by Jill Mansell. While this book took more than a few chapters to get into, I’ve warmed up to the story and the characters. Frankly, though, the Anglicisms are tripping me up and I’m not overly fond of the writing style—but the story is shaping up to be a good one.

And a quick note about the cover of The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson…the image does it no justice. It’s absolutely beautiful and the blue is a lovely hologram-y type of material that reflects and changes as it bends and shifts. Words cannot describe.

I’ve missed the Sunday Sketch feature and today, I was sketching up a storm. Unfortunately, I spent most of the day sketching random ideas that popped into my head rather than a scene or character from one of my current reads…which is why today’s Sunday Sketch is unfinished.

I decided to stop and post it up before the clock officially struck midnight so that it would still qualify as a Sunday Sketch.

Initially I planned to do a scene from Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant fairytale—there was a scene that I thought would be perfect—but  I couldn’t quite get what was in my head onto paper, so I ended up going with something that was yelling to be sketched: a stolen embrace between Destiny and Seth from The Miles Between.

Although they never truly kiss, they had such a lovely low-key romance blossoming through the story that it warms my heart just thinking about it.

When I do finish it, I’ll post that up too. For now, I hope you enjoy what’s done so far.