What did YOU buy today? May 2013

Only one purchase, but lots of yummy ARCs.

Finally out in paperback and in my personal library: Crucible of Gold by Naomi Novik (book 7 in the Temeraire series of alternate historical fantasy)

And the ARCs, in order of future publication:

* TransAtlantic by Colum McCann (coming June 2013; multiple time period historical fiction)

* Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole (July 2013; epistolary WWI and WWII historical novel with a bit of a mystery)

* The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer (July 2013; multiple time period historical/fantasy fiction)

* Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Scott Anderson (August 2013; WWI era history)

* Nostalgia: a Novel by Dennis McFarland (October 2013; American Civil War fiction)

* _Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin_ by Jill Lepore (October 2013; historical nonfiction about Benjamin Franklin's sister, resurrected from records and their correspondence)

(It was a really, really big box of ARCs we received at the bookstore. The managers got to pick before the rest of us were given a shot. I am so happy they do not share my tastes.... :-)

A fellow bookseller who's also an editor for a romance book publisher goes to the Romantic Times conference every year and comes back with a large selection of free books which she brings to the bookstore.

I grabbed bunches (not many of us read historical romance -- or at least not many admit to it) and brought them home in a pretty freebie tote she got there, too:

* Thief of Shadows by Elizabeth Hoyt
* Destiny's Embrace by Beverly Jenkins
* Lessons from a Scandalous Bride by Sophie Jordan
* Confessions of a Little Black Gown by Elizabeth Boyle
* Lord of Wicked Intentions by Lorraine Heath (really enjoyed a book she wrote a few years back where the hero had been a pacifist during the American Civil War)
* One Good Earl Deserves a Lover by Sarah Maclean
* What Happens in Scotland by Jennifer McQuiston

And I think these were self-published by author "Rose Gordon", since there's no sign of a publisher listed: His Contract Bride, His Yankee Bride, and His Jilted Bride.

Had to own a book right away about Albert Richardson, a journalist during the American Civil War: Junius & Albert's Adventures in the Confederacy by Peter Carlson.

Richardson & Junius Browne were locked up by the Confederates in a variety of prisons in the south after venturing too near Vicksburg. Eventually they escaped and made their way North again.

I want to read what they themselves wrote of their experiences, too, but this title looked too good to pass up, even though it meant shelling out for a hardcover.

I was looking at the author's sources after I bought it and discovered I actually already own another book about Richardson (yup, unread as yet): Lost Love by George Cooper. I'm sure they're also mentioned in The Bohemian Brigade by James M. Perry and Bohemian Brigade by Louis Morris Starr, both of which I also own.