In My Mailbox 20/3/11

In My Mailbox is an awesome meme held by Kristi at The Story Siren, which encourages bloggers to share all the new books that have made it into their homes every week. This week I got:

The Opposite of Amber by Gillian Philip (thank you to Bloomsbury UK for sending me a copy to review.) Description from Goodreads.

They found the fifth girl right after the snow melted ...the place where he left her was winter water, crazed with ice-feathers and dusted with snow. The traces from her body were gone, the ones that said his name, but she had an extra skin of ice that protected her and she looked perfect, like Snow White'. Ruby and her older sister Jinn live together on their own, just about making ends meet. Jinn is beautiful, with glittering blonde hair, and makes it her business to look after Ruby. They are horrified by, but try to ignore, the local newspaper stories of prostitutes who are murdered, their bodies eventually discovered underwater. Then the no-good Nathan Baird turns up on the scene - again - and Jinn starts to change. First Nathan moves in with Jinn and Ruby, making Ruby feel an outsider, and then Jinn and Nathan move out, leaving Ruby alone. Jinn no longer has time to look after Ruby. And it seems to Ruby that Jinn herself needs looking after. Her beautiful glittering hair starts to lose its shine. And then Jinn disappears. A deeply moving, chilling, and incredibly powerful thriller that celebrates the love two sisters have for each other and mourns the events beyond their control that will conspire to drive them apart.

I first saw this one on a Waiting on Wednesday post at A Tapestry Of Words and the premise looked really unusual and dramatic. I'll be reading this one as part of the 2011 Out Of Your Comfort Zone Challenge.

Tess Of The D'Urbervilles (bought)

Tess is an innocent young girl until the day she goes to visit her rich 'relatives', the D'Urbavilles. Her encounter with her manipulative cousin, Alec leads her onto a path that is beset with suffering and betrayal. When she falls in love with another man, Tess sees a potential escape from her past, but only if she can tell him her shameful secret.

I'm reading this one for school and it's my first Hardy book. I'm currently about half way through and liking it. This isn't the actual cover that I have but I love the look of the BBC drama adaptation the photo is from and it looks so much prettier than the cover I have.

NOTE:  I'm not going to be joining up to the main IMM linky this week because I'm away this weekend (this post has been scheduled) so I won't be able to reply to any comments until I get back or comment on any other IMMs. Sorry!