In My Mailbox #7

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by The Story Siren. It's a great way for book bloggers to showcase books and other literary things they've received over the past week.

This is a special birthday edition! My birthday was this past Friday, so I wanted to show off what I received.

Purchased:

The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley

I need more adult fiction in my life. Desperately. So when I saw that this was on sale at Amazon, I snatched it up. I vaguely know it's about time travel and dealing with grief. Not much more than that, but ratings have been pretty high so I'm willing to try this out!

Borrowed:

For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund

Already read and reviewed here. Suffice it to say that it's a really thought-provoking science fiction novel but isn't the best in terms of being a retelling of Jane Austen's Persuasion.

Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst

I am not quite sure what made me so excited to read this book, especially considering I haven't read many reviews. Just the idea of a "chosen one" and gods that interact with humans is enough to make me super excited, I suppose. And it has become one of my favorite books for the year. Look out for my review later this week!

Bitterblue (Graceling Realm, #3) by Kristin Cashore

Yes! I refuse to buy this book until it's paperback like my copies of Graceling and Fire, so that meant months and months of waiting on my library's waiting list. And I've also been waiting on a Graceling reread and Fire first read so that I could devour all three of Cashore's companion novels at once.

Given:
The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
Words cannot express how excited I am to read J.K. Rowling's new adult novel. Like a large percentage of Rowling's many fans, I was fortunate enough to grow up with the Harry Potter books. The Casual Vacancy is the type of book I would never randomly decide to read, but I will read anything published by J.K. Rowling and I am eager to see what story she crafted this time.
Daughter of the Forest (Sevenwaters series, #1) by Juliet Marillier
Son of the Shadows (Sevenwaters series, #2) by Juliet Marillier
Child of the Prophecy (Sevenwaters series, #3) by Juliet Marillier
These were the first three books I read by Juliet Marillier, years ago when this was a trilogy and not a series. These are still my favorite works of hers, and after reading a number of recent reviews of Daughter of the Forest, I realized how desperately I need to go back to Sevenwaters and experience the magical stories once again. And then after I finish these three I fully intend to read Marillier's later three Sevenwaters books for the first time.
The Intellectual Devotional by David S. Kidder and Noah D. Oppenheim
I honestly have not heard of this book before, but apparently the method behind it is that you read a small article in it each night for an entire year. There are seven fields of knowledge that repeat each week and each week is a different theme. Sounds interesting and I'm totally down for gaining small bits of knowledge each night. 

What did you receive in your mailbox?