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In My Mailbox: Week of April 21
Chick Lit Plus

In My Mailbox: Week of April 21

In My Mailbox: Week of April 21

Title: Somewhere Between Black and White
Author: Shelly Hickman
Received: Via CLP Blog Tours
Synopsis: Romance, humor, family drama, with a touch of Buddhism. Sound interesting?

When approaching life’s problems, Sophie sees in black and white. That is, when they’re someone else’s problems. So when it comes to her sister, Sophie is sure she has all the answers, and offers them without hesitation. If only her sister would listen.

Then, through a series of chance encounters, she meets Sam, who is witty, kind, and downright unflappable. Sophie has the overwhelming sense that she’s known him before, and as a relationship builds between them, odd visions invade her mind. Though she tries to dismiss them, their persistence will not allow it.

As someone who is quick to judge others, she is intrigued by Sam’s ability to accept people as they are. She begins to see him as a role model, but try as she may, his accepting nature is difficult to emulate.

Will Sophie ever be able to put her hasty judgments aside and realize not every problem has a simple solution?

Title: Getting Skinny
Author: Monique Domovitch
Received: Via CLP Blog Tours
Synopsis: Owning a restaurant is as crazy for Nicky Landry as an alcoholic owning a bar. But despite having to cram herself into a body shaper to look decent in a dress, life is pretty good. She’s throwing the party of the year for her graduating doctor boyfriend, Rob, who she’s sure is going to propose—until his new girlfriend shows up at the party.
After ordering Rob to get his stuff out of her house and get lost, Nicky finds him faceup with her expensive Chroma knife sticking right out of his cheating heart.
As the prime suspect, Nicky is in hot water. And no matter how hard she tries to clear her name, her problems only mount. She’s convinced she can solve the murder—if only she can figure out the identity of the skinny person seen walking away with Rob after the party.
Getting “Skinny” won’t be easy for Nicky, but she never imagined it would be life or death…

Title: The Comedy Diva Diaries
Author: Kirsten Van Ritzen
Received: From Kirsten Van Ritzen
Synopsis: The Comedy Diva Diaries is the tale of a twenty-nine year old comedienne who gives herself an ultimatum: achieve success before her next birthday, or die trying.

Our sassy, deluded and insecure heroine endures disastrous stand-up gigs and humiliating TV commercial auditions. Her rich boyfriend, pampered pooch, flamboyant agent, dysfunctional family and back-stabbing rivals aren’t much help. On the brink of emotional collapse, Diva finds inspiration in a self help book, and makes the fateful decision to move across the continent in pursuit of the Hollywood dream.

Will Diva admit defeat? Or will she find fame and fortune before turning thirty?

Title: Call Me Zelda
Author: Erika Robuck
Received: Penguin Group
Synopsis: Everything in the ward seemed different now, and I no longer felt its calming presence. The Fitzgeralds stirred something in me that had been dormant for a long time, and I was not prepared to face it….

From New York to Paris, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald reigned as king and queen of the Jazz Age, seeming to float on champagne bubbles above the mundane cares of the world. But to those who truly knew them, the endless parties were only a distraction from their inner turmoil, and from a love that united them with a scorching intensity.

When Zelda is committed to a Baltimore psychiatric clinic in 1932, vacillating between lucidity and madness in her struggle to forge an identity separate from her husband, the famous writer, she finds a sympathetic friend in her nurse, Anna Howard. Held captive by her own tragic past, Anna is increasingly drawn into the Fitzgeralds’ tumultuous relationship. As she becomes privy to Zelda’s most intimate confessions, written in a secret memoir meant only for her, Anna begins to wonder which Fitzgerald is the true genius. But in taking ever greater emotional risks to save Zelda, Anna may end up paying a far higher price than she intended….

Title: What She Left Us
Author: Stephanie Elliott
Received: From Stephanie Elliott
Synopsis: Jenna and Courtney are dealing with the unexpected death of their mother in different ways. Jenna broke off her engagement to the man she thought she’d love forever, while Courtney headed back to college to take charge of a dorm-floor full of college students as a resident assistant.

Six months later, Jenna is fueled by panic over the news that the sisters may have the same disease that caused their mother’s death and she makes an irrational decision – she packs it up and heads to college to be with Courtney. The timing couldn’t be worse for Courtney, who’s discovering love for the first time with Mitch, a sexy guitar player who may just be off limits.

Emotionally unstable, Jenna wonders if she made the worst mistake of her life by breaking off her engagement with Darren, and when he shows up to make amends, she can’t help but second-guess her decision. But then there’s Clay, the compassionate bartender at Klippy’s who seems to understand everything Jenna’s going through. And those hazel eyes just seem to see right through to Jenna’s soul…

As the girls maneuver through their unpredictable futures, trying to manage their new health risks as well as tumultuous love lives, Courtney finds a disturbing photograph that indicates there may be more to their family than she ever imagined.

This stunning revelation could shatter the sisters to the very core, making them question everything they thought they knew about their family, their faith, their past and, most of all, each other.

April 21, 2013
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In My Mailbox: Week of April 14
Chick Lit Plus

In My Mailbox: Week of April 14

Title: The Week Before the Wedding

Author: Beth Kendrick

Received: Penguin

Synopsis:
After enduring a chaotic childhood, Emily McKellips yearns for a drama-free life, complete with a white picket fence. Her dreams are about to come true: She has a stellar career, a gorgeous house, and a fiancé any woman would die for. But as friends and family arrive in picturesque Valentine, Vermont, for her wedding, an uninvited guest shows up.

Ryan is Emily’s first husband from a disastrous starter marriage. They wed on a whim, only to discover that combustible chemistry couldn’t ensure a happily ever after. But Ryan is no longer the headstrong boy she left behind. He’s now a successful film producer who just happens to be scouting a resort in Valentine with his adorable retriever in tow.

As the bridesmaids revolt and the mothers of the bride and groom do battle, Emily is surprised to discover new sides of both her ex and her fiancé. She thought she had life and love all figured out, but the next seven days might change her mind—and her heart.

Title: The Way Back to Happiness

Author: Elizabeth Bass

Received: Kensington

Synopsis: No one could blame Bev Putterman for becoming estranged from her sister. No one but Bev, anyway. Growing up, Diana was difficult and selfish yet always their mother’s favorite. And then came the betrayal that took away the future Bev dreamed of.

Yet if Diana caused problems while alive, her death leaves Bev in a maelstrom of remorse. She longs to provide a stable home for Diana’s fourteen-year-old daughter, Alabama. But between her commitment-phobic boyfriend and her precarious teaching position, Bev’s life is already in upheaval without an unruly teenager around.

All Alabama knows about Aunt Bev is what her mother told her–and none of it was good. They clash about money, clothes, boys, and especially about Diana. In desperation, Alabama sets out to find her late father’s family. Instead she learns of the complicated history between her mother and aunt, how guilt can shut down a life–and most important, how love and forgiveness can open a door and make us whole again. . .

Title: Wedding Night

Author: Sophie Kinsella

Received: TransWorld Books

Synopsis: Lottie is tired of long-term boyfriends who don’t want to commit to marriage. When her old boyfriend Ben reappears and reminds her of their pact to get married if they were both still single at thirty, she jumps at the chance…

Title: Family Pictures

Author: Jane Green

Received: St. Martins Press

Synopsis: From the author of Another Piece of My Heart comes Family Pictures, the gripping story of two women who live on opposite coasts but whose lives are connected in ways they never could have imagined. Both women are wives and mothers to children who are about to leave the nest for school. They’re both in their forties and have husbands who travel more than either of them would like. They are both feeling an emptiness neither had expected. But when a shocking secret is exposed, their lives are blown apart. As dark truths from the past reveal themselves, will these two women be able to learn to forgive, for the sake of their children, if not for themselves?

Title: The Apple Orchard

Received: Susan Wiggs

Received: Etch Communications

Synopsis: Tess Delaney makes a living restoring stolen treasures to their rightful owners. People like Annelise Winther, who refuses to sell her long-gone mother’s beloved necklace—despite Tess’s advice. To Annelise, the jewel’s value is in its memories.

But Tess’s own history is filled with gaps: a father she never met, a mother who spent more time traveling than with her daughter. So Tess is shocked when she discovers the grandfather she never knew is in a coma. And that she has been named in his will to inherit half of Bella Vista, a hundred-acre apple orchard in the magical Sonoma town called Archangel.

The rest is willed to Isabel Johansen. A half sister she’s never heard of.

Against the rich landscape of Bella Vista, Tess begins to discover a world filled with the simple pleasures of food and family, of the warm earth beneath her bare feet. A world where family comes first and the roots of history run deep. A place where falling in love is not only possible, but inevitable.

And in a season filled with new experiences, Tess begins to see the truth in something Annelise once told her: if you don’t believe memories are worth more than money, then perhaps you’ve not made the right kind of memories.

Title: Love Me Anyway

Author: Tiffany Hawk

Received: St. Martins Press

Synopsis: When twenty-three-year-old Emily Cavenaugh’s marriage to her abusive high school sweetheart ends, she trades in her dull smalltown life for an all-access pass to see the world as a flight attendant. Hoping for a new start, she moves to San Francisco to bunk with six other new flight attendants. Among them is KC Valentine, a free spirit who encourages Emily to shed her mousy ways and start collecting experiences as exciting as her passport stamps. Emily soon follows KC’s advice a little too well, falling in love with an older, married co-worker named Tien, a father to two young girls. But as Emily and Tien become more deeply entangled, KC grows distraught. Neither her friends nor co-workers know the real reason she became a flight attendant: to find her father who abandoned her as a child. As Emily and KC fly from Vegas to Boston, San Francisco to London, Chicago to Delhi, each searching for love and acceptance, they’re torn between passion and moral conviction, freedom and belonging.

An assured debut from a former flight attendant, Love Me Anyway deftly captures the complexities of love, friendship, and family, the excitement and loneliness that come from living everywhere and nowhere, and the surprising detours life can take when you set out to discover the world.

April 14, 2013
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In My Mailbox: Week of April 7
Chick Lit Plus

In My Mailbox: Week of April 7

In Samantha’s Mailbox:

Aggravated Circumstances by Michele ShriverTitle: Aggravated Circumstances

Author: Michele Shriver

Received: Via CLP Blog Tours

Synopsis: A family can be torn apart in an instant. Putting it back together is a harder task.

A relapsed addict opens the door to find a cop with a search warrant, setting off a chain of events that will cause four lives to intersect.

Devin Lenox has already lost one child to the system and this time she vows it will be different. If she’s going to make it, though, she’ll need something she’s never had before- someone on her side.

Her battle with depression behind her, Elisa Cahill looks forward to resuming her legal career. Devin’s case seems like the perfect opportunity to do that, and bury her own past demons in the process, at least if old grudges don’t prove to be her undoing.

Child protection worker Taylor Ross struggles to balance a social life with her demanding job and has little sympathy for people like Devin, at least at first. When Taylor starts to see Devin in a new light, she finds herself at odds with her superiors. Will she be willing to go to bat for Devin, and what price will she pay if she does?

Sarah Canfield is a compassionate judge who is not afraid to make difficult decisions, but will her past link to Devin undermine her objectivity and cause her to put her own family at risk?

A look inside the child welfare system, the people who work in it and the lives it impacts, Aggravated Circumstances is a story of despair, hope and recovery.

Meltdown by Tara ThompsonTitle: Meltdown

Author: Tara Thompson

Received: Via CLP Blog Tours

Synopsis: NYSSA, internationally renown supermodel, is accustomed to turning heads. As a young girl, her flawless face attracted the wrong kind of attention. She escaped an abusive father and successfully navigated life’s seedy underbelly to become a runway renegade, although not without leaving her share of enemies behind. Lately she’s caught the eye of….

STEVE, handsome hometown hero and soon-to-be Governor of Texas. Unfortunately he’s already married. As Steve publicly dumps his perfect, former Miss Texas wife for Hollywood’s latest ‘It’ girl, his state faces the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression. Will he be able to turn things around, or is he too embroiled in his political sex scandal? His good friend and business partner….

DEMETRI, sexy hedge fund manager, is at the top of his professional game and tries to save his friend from near financial ruin. Yet he’s distracted by Steve’s new girlfriend, who just happens to be Demetri’s old flame. Years ago, Nyssa ran from him and he’s never forgotten her. But why is he still interested? Demetri’s dating….

AISLINN, a woman as brilliant as she is beautiful. Enjoying all the perks of having a billionaire boyfriend, she’s falling fast for Demetri and has no idea that she might be the one getting played. Although she bets big on Wall Street, the largest casino in the world, nothing is more risky than giving her heart away.

In this fun, juicy, glamorous novel, no one is exactly who they appear to be…
And all of them are heading for a MELTDOWN.

Who will rise from the ashes?

Crime and Passion by Chantel RhondeauTitle: Crime and Passion

Author: Chantel Rhondeau

Received: Via CLP Blog Tours

Synopsis: A decorated police officer, more intent on justice than following the letter of the law, lands in trouble when a gorgeous schoolteacher finds a dead body on the beach. Officer Donovan Andrews knows how to have a good time—ask any woman in town. But when it comes to men abusing their wives or children, Donovan takes it upon himself to make them regret it. Madeline Scott is unlucky in love. All she wants is a quiet place to heal, away from cheating, womanizing men. However, her life is far from peaceful once she stumbles across the body and witnesses someone fleeing the scene. Terror spreads in Pleasant View when the small community hears a killer is on the loose. All evidence points to Donovan, and he realizes someone is trying to frame him. When troubling suspicions from his past surface, even fellow officers believe he’s guilty. Madeline might be the only person who can clear his name, but first he has to win her trust. The body count rises and no one is safe. The murderer makes it clear Madeline is next. Soon, Donovan’s whole world is focused on protecting her and keeping himself out of prison. The more time he spends with her, the harder it is to fight his growing attraction. However, she’s been burned by love, and convincing Madeline he’s interested in something more than hot sex may prove harder than keeping her alive.

Meet me at the Cupcake Cafe by Jenny ColganTitle: Meet Me at the Cupcake Cafe

Author: Jenny Colgan

Received: SourceBooks

Synopsis: Come and meet Issy Randall, proud owner of The Cupcake Cafe. Issy Randall can bake. No, more than that – Issy can create stunning, mouth-wateringly divine cakes. After a childhood spent in her beloved Grampa Joe’s bakery, she has undoubtedly inherited his talent. When she’s made redundant from her safe but dull City job, Issy decides to seize the moment. Armed with recipes from Grampa, and with her best friends and local bank manager fighting her corner, The Cupcake Cafe opens its doors. But Issy has absolutely no idea what she’s let herself in for. It will take all her courage – and confectionery – to avert disaster …

The With of Little Italy by Suzanne PalmieriTitle: The Witch of Little Italy

Author: Suzanne Palmieri

Received: St. Martins

Synopsis: In Suzanne Palmieri’s charming debut, The Witch of Little Italy, you will be bewitched by the Amore women. When young Eleanor Amore finds herself pregnant, she returns home to her estranged family in the Bronx, called by “The Sight” they share now growing strong within her. She has only been back once before when she was ten years old during a wonder-filled summer of sun-drenched beaches, laughter and cartwheels. But everyone remembers that summer except her. Eleanor can’t remember anything from before she left the house on her last day there. With her past now coming back to her in flashes, she becomes obsessed with recapturing those memories. Aided by her childhood sweetheart, she learns the secrets still haunting her magical family, secrets buried so deep they no longer know how they began. And, in the process, unlocks a mystery over fifty years old—The Day the Amores Died—and reveals, once and for all, a truth that will either heal or shatter the Amore clan.

Changing LanesTitle: Changing Lanes

Author: Kathleen Long

Received: Finn Partners

Synopsis: Abby Halladay has the perfect life. Or, rather, she will…as long as everything goes exactly according to plan. Abby never leaves anything to chance—not her job as a syndicated columnist, not her engagement to her fiancé, Fred, and certainly not her impending wedding in Paris (New Jersey, that is).

Unfortunately for Abby, even the best-laid plans often go awry—like when Fred runs away to Paris (France, that is), her column is canned, and her dream home is diagnosed with termites. Forced to move back in with her parents and drive her dad’s cab, Abby’s perfect life has now officially become the perfect disaster.

Then a funny thing happens. Slowly but surely, Abby begins letting go of her dreams of perfection. As she does, the messy, imperfect life she thought she never wanted starts to feel exactly like the one she needs.

Poignant and heartfelt, Changing Lanes celebrates the unexpected joys of everyday life—and the enduring promise of second chances.

April 7, 2013
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In My Mailbox: Week of March 31
Chick Lit Plus

In My Mailbox: Week of March 31

Title: Eleusis

Author: Genevieve Fairbrother

Received: Via CLP Blog Tours

Synopsis: Macy needs a break. Her parents are dead and now a moody trespasser has set up camp on the property she has inherited. When the stranger confesses himself to be an ageless sea-god and tells Macy she has been guarding a secret she never knew existed, her once simple life takes a drastic turn. Just when she thinks it can’t get any stranger, a back door to the Underworld opens up and it’s time to run like hell.

Mythology and contemporary life collide as this fast-paced novel explodes and dark forces tracking Macy surface to capture her. In the transatlantic chase that follows, she learns of her forgotten past and a centuries-old connection to the sea-god who helps her escape. A tragic miscalculation derails Macy and in a moment of self-sacrifice she ends up where it all began, trapped in the Underworld.

Has she learned enough about her past to forge a meaningful future? Utterly alone, she realizes that to gain real freedom, she must reject her assigned place in history and in doing so risk everything.

Events challenge her whilst she comes to grips with her legacy and decides what she wants in life. Family betrayal, sinister plot twists, and unlikely friends fill this exhilarating story of one woman’s journey to shape her future as she learns her true identity and strives to become a force in her own right.

Eleusis by Genevieve Fairbrother is one-of-a-kind contemporary paranormal adventure novel that narrates a unique perspective on women and relationships using the life of one immortal woman moving through time.

Orphan Train by Christina Baker KlineTitle: Orphan Train

Author: Christina Baker Kline

Received: SheReads

Synopsis: Orphan Train is a gripping story of friendship and second chances from Christina Baker Kline, author of Bird in Hand and The Way Life Should Be.

Penobscot Indian Molly Ayer is close to “aging out” out of the foster care system. A community-service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping Molly out of juvie and worse….

As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly learns that she and Vivian aren’t as different as they seem to be. A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance. Molly discovers that she has the power to help Vivian find answers to mysteries that have haunted her for her entire life – answers that will ultimately free them both.

Rich in detail and epic in scope, Orphan Train is a powerful novel of upheaval and resilience, of unexpected friendship, and of the secrets we carry that keep us from finding out who we are.

Shake Down the Stars by Renee SwindleTitle: Shake Down the Stars

Author: Renee Swindle

Received: Penguin

Synopsis: Piper Nelson is stuck. She can’t quite stay away from the husband she divorced. She isn’t always attentive to the high school students she teaches. And even she admits that she’s been drinking too much and seeking out unsuitable men. Piper’s mother, married to a celebrity evangelist, and her sister, immersed in plans to wed a professional football player and star in a reality TV show, are both too self-absorbed to sympathize with Piper’s angst. They tell her to get a grip. But how can Piper ever really recover from the blow she suffered five years ago, when a car accident took the life of her young daughter?

When Piper’s ex-husband announces his new girlfriend is pregnant, Piper is forced to take stock. Realizing that it’s time for a change is one step, but actually making it happen is quite another. And despite what she thinks, Piper can’t do it alone Lucky for her, a couple of crazy, funny new friends are ready to step in when she needs them most…and show her how to live and laugh again.

Double Click by Lisa BeckerTitle: Double Click

Author: Lisa Becker

Received: Lisa Becker

Synopsis: Fans of the romantic hit Click: An Online Love Story will enjoy another voyeuristic dive into the lives of Renee, Shelley, Ashley, Mark and Ethan, as Double Click picks up with their lives six months later. Are Renee and Ethan soul mates? Does Mark ever go on a date? Has Shelley run out of sexual conquests in Los Angeles? Will Ashley’s judgmental nature sabotage her budding relationship? Through a marriage proposal, wedding, new baby and unexpected love twist, Double Click answers these questions and more. Readers will continue to cheer, laugh, cry and cringe following the email exploits of Renee and friends.

Marriage Matters by Cynthia EllingsenTitle: Marriage Matters

Author: Cynthia Ellingsen

Received: Penguin

Synopsis: She barely has time to attend a wedding, let alone plan one, but Chloe has just caught the bouquet. So has her married mother… and her widowed grandmother. With three generations set to walk down the aisle, each “I do” sounds more improbable than the last.

On top of grad school, clinical hours, and part-time work, Chloe is surprised to find a ring on her finger. Sharing the news about the engagement is easy, except with her best friend. Their relationship has always been platonic…so why is Chloe so afraid he is going to object?

Kristine is successful at running her travel bookstore, but her twenty-five year marriage is on the rocks. When her husband suggests a vow renewal ceremony, she agrees to say I Do…until a tempting employee makes her wonder whether or not she wants to be married at all.

June knows what’s best for her and everyone around her. Given a second chance at love, she’s delighted to plan the family wedding of her dreams. But when June gets a little carried away in her enthusiasm, she risks losing more than the love of her life… she risks losing her family.

In Cynthia Ellingsen’s heartwarming and hilarious novel of first loves, second chances, and unexpected twists, three generations of brides-to-be discover that love is always better as a family affair.

Girl Unmoored by Jennifer Gooch HummerTitle: Girl Unmoored

Author: Jennifer Gooch Hummer

Received: SheKnows

Synopsis: Apron Bramhall has come unmoored. Fortunately, she’s about to be saved by Jesus. Not that Jesus—the actor who plays him in Jesus Christ Superstar. Apron is desperate to avoid the look-alike Mike, who’s suddenly everywhere, until she’s stuck in church with him one day. Then something happens—Apron’s broken teenage heart blinks on for the first time since she’s been adrift.Mike and his boyfriend, Chad, offer her a summer job in their flower store, and Apron’s world seems to calm. But when she uncovers Chad’s secret, stormy seas return. Apron starts to see things the adults around her fail to—like what love really means, and who is paying too much for it.Apron has come unmoored, but now she’ll need to take the helm if she’s to get herself and those she loves to safe harbor.

Losing It by Cora CarmackTitle: Losing It

Author: Cora Carmack

Received: eBury Publishing

Synopsis: Virginity.

Bliss Edwards is about to graduate from college and still has hers. Sick of being the only virgin among her friends, she decides the best way to deal with the problem is to lose it as quickly and simply as possible—a one-night stand. But her plan turns out to be anything but simple when she freaks out and leaves a gorgeous guy alone and naked in her bed with an excuse that no one with half a brain would ever believe.

And as if that weren’t embarrassing enough, when she arrives for her first class of her last college semester, she recognizes her new theater professor.

She’d left him naked in her bed about eight hours earlier. . . .

In Sara’s Mailbox:

By Design by Jayne DenkerTitle: By Design

Author: Jayne Denker

Received: Jayne Denker

Synopsis: She’s got loads of talent, a massive crush–and no confidence. Now she just needs a plan…

Interior designer Emmie Brewster is having one of those…decades. Her overbearing boss believes she’s only qualified to make coffee. Her boyfriend treats her like a booty call. And her widowed father is dating again–more successfully than she is. Then Emmie lands a client who happens to be the hottest man she’s ever encountered. Too bad Graham Cooper is already involved with the kind of woman Emmie longs to be. If only she had the courage…

Emmie’s always been content to dream–about having her own business, her own Mr. Right–but something about Graham makes her want to take action. Maybe it’s time she used her talent for creating beauty and order on herself. She has Graham’s admiration–does she dare go for more? With a little encouragement from her friends, and a lot of newfound motivation, Emmie’s ready to try…

I’ll Take What She Has by Samantha WildeTitle: I’ll Take What She Has

Author: Samantha Wilde

Received: Felicia @ Random House

Synopsis: Samantha Wilde’s heartfelt second novel that dissects the age old question: is the grass always greener on the other side? The novel follows Nora Harriet Helpsom Fulch Galusha as she is in the midst of a serious case of baby fever. Nora’s insecurities are brought to the forefront when the glamorous new history teacher Cynthia Cypress arrives on campus married to Nora’s ex boyfriend and with a baby on the way. I’LL TAKE WHAT SHE HAS is a touching story of female friendship, family, and wanting what you don’t have.

March 31, 2013
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In My Mailbox: Week of March 24
Chick Lit Plus

In My Mailbox: Week of March 24

Samantha’s Mailbox:

breatheTitle: Breathe

Author: Kate Bishop

Received: Via CLP Blog Tours

Synopsis: Alex thought she had married the man of her dreams: successful, gorgeous, and delighted by her small-town charm. When he walks out six months later, proclaiming to have ‘found himself’ (with the help of a stunning yoga teacher), she ‘finds herself’ alone in an unfamiliar city, vengefully drinking through his prized wine collection, living on takeout, and refusing to answer the door. When this fails to cure her broken heart and bruised ego, she reluctantly allows her new friends to intervene. Slowly, Alex learns to define success on her own terms; she discovers the secret to love in all its forms, and the perfect flying crow pose, one breath at a time.

Title: Meeting Miss Mollie

Author: Di Jones

Received: Via CLP Blog Tours

Synopsis: She’s the Agony Aunt who has it all. Except for one small problem – her life is a disaster.

Annabelle is a hard nosed writer with a good marriage, a nice flat, a thriving career at Adorn magazine and a busy social life. She has only one ambition – to be the best known Agony Aunt in the UK.

When her world is turned upside down by her husband’s infidelity she strikes out on her own and goes flatting with a jet setting businessman. But things in her new house aren’t quite what they seem and her problems mount.

Through her ups and downs, Annabelle forges a relationship with the strangest of friends and discovers the best things in life are those she always avoided.

Meeting Miss Mollie is a story about lies, loss, loyalty, love and laughter, and will appeal to anyone who loves chicklit or romantic comedy. You’ll laugh as you read this book, and perhaps even shed a tear.

This is the second novel by author Di Jones, whose first novel Transplanting Holly Oakwood has been in the Top Ten in romantic comedy. If you enjoy Jill Mansell or Sophie Kinsella, Di is a new author you must read.

life listTitle: The Life List

Author: Chrissy Anderson

Received: From Chrissy Anderson

Synopsis: The Life List is the ultimate chick lit novel and most of the story is true. Chrissy Anderson, a twenty-eight year old fashion executive, created a seven-point life list at the age of sixteen and she’s been steadily checking off the boxes and mocking the style and life choices of everyone around her ever since.Her life begins to run amuck when she unexpectedly meets a much younger, Leo, who makes her question her “perfect life”.

Chrissy’s lifelong friendships and her marriage are put to the test as she tries to sort out her feelings for Leo. With the help of her brassy, no-nonsense therapist, Dr. Maria, Chrissy learns more about herself than she anticipates. But, it isn’t until the untimely death of her best friend that Chrissy is catapulted into long overdue authenticity and scrambles to correct the mistakes of her past….trying to figure out if it’s Kurt, Leo or both that she has to get rid of to make everything right.

Women of all kinds-twenty-somethings, housewives and superwomen wanna-bes- will all be able to relate to the pressure of constructing the ideal life, only to fall short. Not everyone will agree with Chrissy Anderson’s decisions, but all will pause as they follow along on her journey to ask, “What would I do if I were her?”

crooked branchTitle: The Crooked Branch

Author: Jeanine Cummins

Received: From Penguin

Synopsis: From the national bestselling and highly acclaimed author of The Outside Boy comes the deeply moving story of two mothers—witty, self-deprecating Majella, who is shocked by her entry into motherhood in modern-day New York, and her ancestor, tough and terrified Ginny Doyle, whose battles are more fundamental: she must keep her young family alive during Ireland’s Great Famine.

After the birth of her daughter Emma, the usually resilient Majella finds herself feeling isolated and exhausted. Then, at her childhood home in Queens, Majella discovers the diary of her maternal ancestor Ginny—and is shocked to read a story of murder in her family history.

With the famine upon her, Ginny Doyle fled from Ireland to America, but not all of her family made it. What happened during those harrowing years, and why does Ginny call herself a killer? Is Majella genetically fated to be a bad mother, despite the fierce tenderness she feels for her baby? Determined to uncover the truth of her heritage and her own identity, Majella sets out to explore Ginny’s past—and discovers surprising truths about her family and ultimately, herself.

jane austenTitle: Jane Austen’s Guide to Thrift

Author: Kathleen Anderson & Susan Jones

Received: From Penguin

Synopsis: Embrace your inner Jane and find a new way of life in thrift! Jane Austen knew that wealth and grandeur had little to do with happiness, and that fashionable new dresses and reticules to impress Mr. Darcy simply were not the path to fulfillment—especially when one accrues debt in the process. It’s as true today as it was then . . .

Whether you have a fortune or not, you’re well advised to make the most of your income—and save for your future. Now, using the timeless wisdom and example of Jane Austen’s memorable heroines, this book offers everything the modern lady needs to know about:

*Clever investing

*Keeping up appearances on a budget

*Giving and receiving graciously

*Finding treasures at flea markets and church rummage sales

*Planning a party that only looks extravagant

*And more

Jane Austen’s Guide to Thrift shows how to make your circumstances significantly less reduced, and how to live a life of elegent economy and joyful generosity—whether you’ve as much as Emma Woodhouse or as little as Miss Bates.

pretendTitle: Let’s Pretend This Never Happened

Author: Jenny Lawson

Received: From Penguin

Synopsis: Includes a new chapter!

When Jenny Lawson was little, all she ever wanted was to fit in. That dream was cut short by her fantastically unbalanced father and a morbidly eccentric childhood. It did, however, open up an opportunity for Lawson to find the humor in the strange shame-spiral that is her life, and we are all the better for it.

In the irreverent Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson’s long-suffering husband and sweet daughter help her uncover the surprising discovery that the most terribly human moments—the ones we want to pretend never happened—are the very same moments that make us the people we are today. For every intellectual misfit who thought they were the only ones to think the things that Lawson dares to say out loud, this is a poignant and hysterical look at the dark, disturbing, yet wonderful moments of our lives.

Title: The Blasphemy Box

Author: Mandy Behbehani

Received: From Mandy Behbehani

Synopsis: “You know that nightmare you’ve always had? The one where you wake up one day to find yourself fat, frumpy, fifty and alone? I’m living it.”

Maddy Nelson has an idyllic existence: a handsome husband, great kids, a comfortable, affluent lifestyle. One morning soon after she turns fifty, however, she wakes up in her San Francisco home to find her husband Steven announcing that he’s leaving her for a woman half her age. And a third of her size.

Ouch!

Feeling totally unmoored and grieving for her married life and husband, Maddy finds herself thrust into an unfamiliar and uncomfortable world of middle-aged singledom. There, she must come to terms with her situation and embark on her new life: divorce proceedings, single parenting, internet dating, and trying to earn a living. It’s enough to drive her over the brink. To help her cope, she shares her struggles in a smart, wry blog named The Blasphemy Box, after her ex-husband’s obnoxious habit of having her drop a quarter into a wooden box every time she said something off color. Her madcap middle-aged adventures find her devoted readers who identify with her challenges.

In time, Maddy recreates herself and finds happiness in the arms of a good man, and a fulfilling new career as a novelist.
In Sara’s Mailbox:

the last telegramTitle: The Last Telegram

Author: Liz Trenow

Received: Nicole @ Source Books

Synopsis: We all make mistakes. Some we can fix.
But what happens when we can’t?

Decades ago, as Nazi planes dominated the sky, Lily Verner made a terrible choice. She’s tried to forget, but now an unexpected event pulls her back to the 1940s British countryside. She finds herself remembering the brilliant colors of the silk she helped to weave at her family’s mill, the relentless pressure of the worsening war, and the kind of heartbreaking loss that stops time.

In this evocative novel of love and consequences, Lily finally confronts the disastrous decision that has haunted her all these years. The Last Telegram uncovers the surprising truth about how the stories we weave about our lives are threaded with truth, guilt, and forgiveness.

March 24, 2013
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In My Mailbox: Week of March 17
Chick Lit Plus

In My Mailbox: Week of March 17

In Samantha’s Mailbox:

still lifeTitle: Still Life in Brunswick Stew

Author: Larissa Reinhart

Received: Via CLP Blog Tours

Synopsis: Cherry Tucker’s in a stew. Art commissions dried up after her nemesis became president of the County Arts Council. Desperate and broke, Cherry and her friend, Eloise, spend a sultry summer weekend hawking their art at the Sidewinder Annual Brunswick Stew Cook-Off. When a bad case of food poisoning breaks out and Eloise dies, the police brush off her death as accidental. However, Cherry suspects someone spiked the stew and killed her friend. As Cherry calls on cook-off competitors, bitter rivals, and crooked judges, the police get steamed while the killer prepares to cook Cherry’s goose.

unexpectingTitle: Unexpecting

Author: Lori Verni Fogarsi

Received: Via CLP Blog Tours

Synopsis: Shelley and David are a couple of almost-empty-nesters whose children are just about all off to college. Preparing to embark on the next stage of their life, they’ve just ordered white furniture and are planning the vacation they’ve waited their entire lives to take.

Everything changes when Alexandra, seventeen and pregnant, shows up on their doorstep and announces that she’s the daughter he never knew he had! Their life is catapulted in a completely different direction, abounding with dilemmas: Not only do they have an additional child, but also a baby in a household that had been just about to become serene. How much should they help her? And how could they not?

Shelley feels like she no longer fits in anywhere and to top it off, having two seventeen-year-old girls suddenly plunged into being sisters and school mates is not exactly warm and fuzzy. When Alexandra’s behavior starts to become erratic, the couple is faced with even tougher decisions to make.

Hold on for an emotional yet witty ride as you join this family of characters in a story of love, loyalty, heartbreak, and humor that will stay with you long after you turn the last page!

aftermathTitle: After Math

Author: Denise Grover Swank

Received: Via CLP Blog Tours

Synopsis: Scarlett Goodwin’s world is divided into Before and After.

Before she agreed to tutor Tucker Price, college junior Scarlett was introvert, struggling with her social anxiety disorder and determined to not end up living in a trailer park like her mother and her younger sister. A mathematics major, she goes to her classes, to her job in the tutoring lab, and then hides in the apartment she shares with her friend, Caroline.

After junior Tucker Price, Southern University’s star soccer player enters the equation, her carefully plotted life is thrown off its axis. Tucker’s failing his required College Algebra class. With his eligibility is at risk, the university chancellor dangles an expensive piece of computer software for the math department if Scarlett agrees to privately tutor him. Tucker’s bad boy, womanizer reputation makes Scarlett wary of any contact, let alone spending several hours a week in close proximity.

But from her first encounter, she realizes Tucker isn’t the person everyone else sees. He carries a mountain of secrets which she suspects hold the reason to his self-destructive behavior. But the deeper she delves into the cause of his pain, the deeper she gets sucked into his chaos. Will Scarlett find the happiness she’s looking for, or will she be caught in Tucker’s aftermath?

Ctrl zTitle: Ctrl Z

Author: Danika Stone

Received: From Danika Stone

Synopsis: Indigo Sykes has spent years trying to forget where she came from. She has a degree, a new life, and a quiet existence. Everything she ever wanted… But all of this comes to a screeching halt when an unexpected meeting with computer hacker, Jude Alden, changes her plans. Romance blooms between the mismatched duo, even while entanglements from Indigo’s past threaten to pull the two of them apart.

Dogged by a history of running, Indigo’s hard-won security is shattered when Jude’s illegal activity drags both of them into a dangerous game. As the net of hacking and underworld crime tightens around Jude and Indigo’s dark history is exposed, the two of them must find a way out or risk bringing the consequences down on them both.

salt sistersTitle: The Gilly Salt Sisters

Author: Tiffany Baker

Received: From Grand Central Publishing

Synopsis: The author of the New York Times bestselling The Little Giant of Aberdeen County returns with a magic-tinged tale of dreams, family secrets, and betrayals on a New England salt farm.

In the isolated Cape Cod village of Prospect, the Gilly sisters are as different as can be. Jo, a fierce and quiet loner, is devoted to the mysteries of her family’s salt farm, while Claire is popular, pretty, and yearns to flee the salt at any cost. But the Gilly land hides a dark legacy that proves impossible to escape. Although the community half-suspects the Gilly sisters might be witches, it doesn’t stop Whit Turner, the town’s wealthiest bachelor, from forcing his way into their lives. It’s Jo who first steals Whit’s heart, but it is Claire–heartbroken over her high school sweetheart–who marries him.

Years later, estranged from her family, Claire finds herself thrust back onto the farm with the last person she would have chosen: her husband’s pregnant mistress. Suddenly, alliances change, old loves return, and new battle lines are drawn. What the Gilly sisters learn about each other, the land around them, and the power of the salt, will not only change each of their lives forever, it will also alter Gilly history for good.

In Sara’s Mailbox:

March 18, 2013
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In My Mailbox: Week of March 10
Chick Lit Plus

In My Mailbox: Week of March 10

In Samantha’s Mailbox:

chronicleTitle: Chronicle of the Mound Builders

Author: Elle Marie

Received: Via CLP Blog Tours

Synopsis: Archaeologist Dr. Angela Hunter discovers an ancient codex at a Mississippian Indian dig site in the St. Louis area. Knowing the Mississippians, or Mound Builders, had no written language, she is determined to solve the mystery of the 700-year-old, perfectly preserved codex.

In the early 1300’s, an Aztec family is torn apart. A judge rebelling against the Aztec tradition of human sacrifice is cursed and escapes his enemies with his 12-year-old son. They travel from the Gulf of Mexico up the Mississippi River to settle in the thriving community of Migaduha, modern-day Cahokia Mounds, Illinois.

Angela recognizes the symbols as Aztec pictograms and begins to translate the story. However, other forces also want the codex and will do anything to get it. Can she learn the secrets of the chronicle before the tragic events of the past are repeated today?

identityTitle: Identity Break

Author: Stifyn Emrys

Received: Via CLP Blog Tours

Synopsis: How far would you go to find yourself?

Imagine everything you thought you knew about yourself turned out to be a lie, and you didn’t know who was telling the truth. Imagine you possessed a secret so dangerous that, if it were exposed, it would reshape the entire world.
What would you do if that secret were your very identity?

In almost every way, Palo Vista seems like a typical California city, with office buildings, schools, and homes sprawled out across suburbia, filled with families making a life for themselves at the dawn of the new millennium.
But two seniors at Mt. MacMurray High are about to find out that nothing is as it seems. Jason Nix is a star athlete and honors student who can’t seem to remember anything about his childhood. Elyse Van Auten is a budding artist from a broken home whose father left her mother two years ago – or so she’s been led to believe.

Like most teens entering adulthood, Elyse and Jason just want to find out who they really are. For them, however, the stakes go far beyond their own personal quest. Join them on a journey of self-discovery that becomes a desperate fight for survival against enemies determined to conceal the truth … and find out what happens when that fight becomes personal.

Cookies For DinnerTitle: Cookies For Dinner

Authors: Pam Johnson-Bennett & Kae Allen

Received: Via CLP Blog Tours

Synopsis: Ever wonder about the poop capacity of the average car seat?

Mothers don’t need another “how to” book on parenting. What they need is to know they’re not the only ones who stand on the supermarket check-out line engaging total strangers in potty training horror stories.

You’ll find plenty of books, relatives and friends who are happy to tell you what you’re doing wrong as a mother. Cookies for Dinner is the antidote to all that! Pam Johnson-Bennett and Kae Allen are two mothers who reveal their imperfections and embarrassments through a series of hilarious true stories.

Pam and Kae bravely tell about how one unexpectedly learns the poop capacity of a car seat, what to wear on Chicken Pox Island and what it feels like to have your toddler lock you out of the house while you’re wearing less-than flattering swimwear.

There’s also the fact that no one tells you that when nursing, your breasts will be treated like a fast food take-out window or that a ravenous infant can create more suction than industrial-grade vacuum cleaners. And, let’s not forget the appropriate technique for removing a crow that is found sitting on the diaper pail while you’re changing your infant’s diapers (hint… don’t use your child’s butterfly net) and how a sausage, egg and cheese biscuit can cause a pregnant woman to do strange things.

What do moms need? Laughter and the comfort of knowing you’re not alone on this roller coaster ride of motherhood. Whether you’re a young mother, experienced mom, mom-to-be, empty-nester, grandparent or still on the fence about becoming a mother, everyone relates to Cookies for Dinner It’s the perfect gift for anyone who will be, is now, has been or NEVER wants to be called… MOM!

Girl ThreeTitle: Girl Three

Author: Tracy March

Received: From Entangled Publishing

Synopsis: Bioethicist Jessica Croft, estranged daughter of a federal judge, has avoided the players, power, and passions of Washington, DC. But when her sister’s suspicious death is classified as natural, Jessie resolves to expose the murderer. Pursuing elite suspects on both sides of the stem-cell-research debate leads her to security consultant Michael Gillette, who knows more about her sister than he’ll admit.

Michael has a vested interest in Jessie’s plight. Her sister died on his watch—while he wasn’t watching. His plan to find her murderer becomes complicated when Jessie’s father hires him to protect Jessie, and his interest turns from professional…to romantic.

Jessie and Michael must unravel a mystery rife with political agendas and deceit. When confidential papers reveal a fertility scandal surrounding the enigmatic Girl Three, the two realize the danger of exposing the truth. Who is Girl Three? And will the murderer kill again to keep a secret?

happinessTitle: What Happiness Looks Like

Author: Karen Lenfestey

Received: From Karen Lenfestey

Synopsis: Joely Shupe had a vision of what her thirties would look like: she’d be the mother of two, finger painting with her kids during the day and cooking dinner for her loving husband at night. Instead she’s a single mother struggling to provide for her only child.

To make matters worse, her ex-fiancé, Jake, shows up–unemployed and reeling from a personal tragedy. He claims he’s ready to parent the daughter he abandoned five years ago. Joely is more interested in Dalton, a devoted father to his own son, who offers to take care of her the way no man ever has. Should Joely risk her daughter bonding with someone new or with the man who broke her heart?

Meanwhile, Joely’s sister, Kate, has the husband and the home, but no baby. After several failed attempts at fertility treatments, Kate’s husband is ready to give up. Kate believes his solution to their problems will tear them apart.

For Joely and Kate, one thing is for sure: this is not the life they expected. Is it time to adjust their idea of what happiness looks like?

beesTitle: The Death of Bees

Author: Lisa O’Donnell

Received: From RandomHouse UK

Synopsis: A riveting, brilliantly written debut novel, The Death of Bees is a coming-of-age story in which two young sisters attempt to hold the world at bay after the mysterious death of their parents.

Marnie and Nelly, left on their own in Glasgow’s Hazlehurst housing estate, attempt to avoid suspicion until Marnie can become a legal guardian for her younger sister.

Written with fierce sympathy and beautiful precision, and told in alternating voices, The Death of Bees by Lisa O’Donnell is an enchanting, grimly comic tale of lost souls who, unable to answer for themselves, can answer only for each other.

In Sara’s Mailbox:

next stopTitle: Next Stop

Author: Glen Finland

Received: Jessica @ Penguin Group

Synopsis: Next Stop is the universal story of how children grow up and parents learn to let go—no matter how difficult it may be for both of them.
The summer David Finland was twenty-one, he and his mother rode the Washington, D.C., metro trains. Every day. The goal was that if David could learn the train lines, maybe David could get a job. And then maybe he could move out on his own. And then maybe his parents’ marriage could get the jump-start it craved. Maybe. Next Stop is a candid portrait of a differently-abled young man poised at the entry to adulthood. It recounts the complex relationship between a child with autism and his family, as he steps out into the real world alone for the first time, and how his autism affects everyone who loves him.

cakeTitle: Saved By Cake

Author: Marian Keyes

Received: Unsolicited

Synopsis: Beloved novelist Marian Keyes tackles the kitchen with a new cookbook featuring desserts that are both simple and delicious, with step-by-step instructions and stunning photography.

“To be perfectly blunt about it, my choice sometimes is: I can kill myself, or I can make a dozen cupcakes. Right so, I’ll do the cupcakes and I can kill myself tomorrow.”

In Saved by Cake, Marian Keyes gives a candid account of her recent battle with depression and her discovery that learning to bake was exactly what she needed to regain her joie de vivre. A complete novice in the kitchen, Marian decided to bake a cake for a friend. From the moment she began measuring, she realized that baking was the best way for her to get through each day.

Refreshingly honest and wickedly funny, Saved by Cake shines with Keyes’ inimitable charm and is chockfull of sound advice. Written in Marian’s signature style, her take on baking is honest, witty, extremely accessible and full of fun. Her simple and delicious recipes—from Consistently Reliable Cupcakes to Fridge-set Honeycomb Cheesecake—are guaranteed to tempt even the most jaded palate.

beesTitle: The Death of Bees

Author: Lisa O’Donnell

Received: Arwen From RandomHouse UK

Synopsis: A riveting, brilliantly written debut novel, The Death of Bees is a coming-of-age story in which two young sisters attempt to hold the world at bay after the mysterious death of their parents.

Marnie and Nelly, left on their own in Glasgow’s Hazlehurst housing estate, attempt to avoid suspicion until Marnie can become a legal guardian for her younger sister.

Written with fierce sympathy and beautiful precision, and told in alternating voices, The Death of Bees by Lisa O’Donnell is an enchanting, grimly comic tale of lost souls who, unable to answer for themselves, can answer only for each other.

March 10, 2013
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In My Mailbox: Week of March 3
Chick Lit Plus

In My Mailbox: Week of March 3

In Samantha’s Mailbox:

brenda novakTitle: When Summer Comes

Author: Brenda Novak

Received: From Brenda Novak

Synopsis: One day, Callie Vanetta receives devastating news…

She needs a liver transplant. But her doctors warn that, in her case, the chances of finding a compatible donor aren’t good.

Determined to spend whatever time she has left on her own terms, she keeps the diagnosis to herself and moves out to her late grandparents’ farm. She’s always wanted to live there. But the farm hasn’t been worked in years and she begins to fear she can’t manage it, that she’ll have to return to town.

One night, a stranger comes knocking at her door…

He’s an attractive and mysterious drifter by the name of Levi McCloud, and he offers to trade work for a few nights’ shelter. Callie figures she doesn’t have anything to lose. He needs a place to stay until he can fix his motorcycle; she needs an extra pair of hands. The arrangement seems ideal until what was supposed to be temporary starts to look more and more permanent. Then she realizes she does have something to lose—her heart. And, although he doesn’t yet know it, Levi stands to lose even more.

and the i found youTitle: And Then I Found You

Author: Patti Callahan Henry

Received: Unsolicited

Synopsis: Kate Vaughan is no stranger to tough choices.

She’s made them before. Now it’s time to do it again.

Kate has a secret, something tucked away in her past. And she’s getting on with her life. Her business is thriving. She has a strong relationship with her family, and a devoted boyfriend whom she wants to love with all her heart. If Kate had ever made a list, Rowan would fill the imagined boxes of a perfect mate. But she wants more than the perfect on paper relationship; she wants a real and imperfect love. That’s why, when Kate discovers the small velvet box hidden in Rowan’s drawer, she panics.

It always happens this way. Just when Kate thinks she can love, just when she believes she can conquer the fear, she’s filled with dread. And she wants more than anything to make this feeling go away. But how?

When the mistakes have been made and the running is over, it’s time to face the truth. Kate knows this. She understands that a woman can never undo what can never be undone. Yet, for the first time in her life she also knows that she won’t fully love until she confronts those from her past. It’s time to act.

Can she do it? Can she travel to the place where it all began, to the one who shares her secret? Can the lost ever become found?

And Then I Found You gives new life to the phrase “inspired by a true story.” By travelling back to a painful time in her own family’s history, the author explores the limits of courage, and the price of a selfless act.

lisaTitle: Come Home

Author: Lisa Scottoline

Received: Ebury Press

Synopsis: Lisa Scottoline has delivered taut thrillers with a powerful emotional wallop in her New York Times bestsellers Save Me, Think Twice, and Look Again. Now, with her new novel, Come Home, she ratchets up the suspense with the riveting story of a mother who sacrifices her future for a child from her past.

Jill Farrow is a typical suburban mom who has finally gotten her and her daughter’s lives back on track after a divorce. She is about to remarry, her job as a pediatrician fulfills her—though it is stressful—and her daughter, Megan, is a happily over-scheduled thirteen-year-old juggling homework and the swim team.

But Jill’s life is turned upside down when her ex-stepdaughter, Abby, shows up on her doorstep late one night and delivers shocking news: Jill’s ex-husband is dead. Abby insists that he was murdered and pleads with Jill to help find his killer. Jill reluctantly agrees to make a few inquiries and discovers that things don’t add up. As she digs deeper, her actions threaten to rip apart her new family, destroy their hard-earned happiness, and even endanger her own life. Yet Jill can’t turn her back on a child she loves and once called her own.

Come Home reads with the breakneck pacing of a thriller while also exploring the definition of motherhood, asking the questions: Do you ever stop being a mother? Can you ever have an ex-child? What are the limits to love of family?

place for usTitle: A Place For Us

Author: Liza Gyllenhaal

Received: Unsolicited

Synopsis: Brook Bostock has led a privileged life. The daughter of an extremely wealthy and prominent family, she married the man of her dreams and is raising two deeply loved children. But her happy home is shattered when a neighborhood teenager is assaulted during a night of drinking with the Bostocks’ son and his prep school friends.

The scandal receives national attention—not only because of Brook’s family name, but because of the lawsuit looming against Brook and her husband, Michael, that alleges they are responsible for what went on in their house. Suddenly the small Massachusetts town they call home seems to be turning against them, revealing the simmering jealousies and resentments that have been lurking under the surface all along.

With their once-perfect family in danger of falling apart, Brook and Michael must find a way to get through this together—or risk losing everything they love…

lifeTitle: Evidence of Life

Author: Barbara Taylor Sissel

Received: Unsolicited

Synopsis:
On the last ordinary day of her life, Abby Bennett feels like the luckiest woman alive. But everyone knows that luck doesn’t last forever…

As her husband, Nick, and daughter, Lindsey, embark on a weekend camping trip to the Texas Hill Country, Abby looks forward to having some quiet time to herself. She braids Lindsey’s hair, reminds Nick to drive safely and kisses them both goodbye. For a brief moment, Abby thinks she has it all—a perfect marriage, a perfect life—until a devastating storm rips through the region, and her family vanishes without a trace.

When Nick and Lindsey are presumed dead, lost in the raging waters, Abby refuses to give up hope. Consumed by grief and clinging to her belief that her family is still alive, she sets out to find them. But as disturbing clues begin to surface, Abby realizes that the truth may be far more sinister than she imagined. Soon she finds herself caught in a current of lies that threaten to unhinge her and challenge everything she once believed about her marriage and family.

With a voice that resonates with stunning clarity, Barbara Taylor Sissel delivers a taut and chilling mystery about a mother’s love, a wife’s obsession and the invisible fractures that can shatter a family.

In Sara’s Mailbox:

harlanTitle: Six Years

Author: Harlan Coben

Received: Cassie @ Penguin

Synopsis: Six years have passed since Jake Sanders watched Natalie, the love of his life, marry another man. Six years of hiding a broken heart by throwing himself into his career as a college professor. Six years of keeping his promise to leave Natalie alone, and six years of tortured dreams of her life with her new husband, Todd.

But six years haven’t come close to extinguishing his feelings, and when Jake comes across Todd’s obituary, he can’t keep himself away from the funeral. There he gets the glimpse of Todd’s wife he’s hoping for…but she is not Natalie. Whoever the mourning widow is, she’s been married to Todd for almost two decades, and with that fact everything Jake thought he knew about the best time of his life—a time he has never gotten over—is turned completely inside out.

As Jake searches for the truth, his picture-perfect memories of Natalie begin to unravel. Mutual friends of the couple either can’t be found, or don’t remember Jake. No one has seen Natalie in years. Jake’s search for the woman who broke his heart, who lied to him, soon puts his very life at risk as it dawns on him that the man he has become may be based on a carefully constructed fiction.

Harlan Coben once again delivers a shocking page-turner that deftly explores the power of past love, and the secrets and lies that such love can hide.

March 3, 2013
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In My Mailbox: Week of February 24
Chick Lit Plus

In My Mailbox: Week of February 24

In Samantha’s Mailbox:

appetitesTitle: Appetites

Author: Karen Frankola

Received: Via CLP Blog Tours

Synopsis: When Sarah suddenly hears from Harry, the Brit she almost married twenty years ago, she decides now is the time to change her life. Sarah has a great job in Manhattan, but she considers herself too fat to have a boyfriend. Harry is visiting New York in four months and she wants to turn back into the girl he fell in love with. Since she can never stick to a diet, she comes up with a drastic solution.

Sarah asks her sister Max to lock her up in her basement and feed her nothing but healthy meals. Max, a struggling waitress, agrees begrudgingly. She’s skinny, but has her own set of appetites—for drink, drugs, and great-looking losers.

Sarah thinks a summer in Max’s basement will give her a new body, a chance to reconnect with Harry, and the friendship she’s long craved from her sister. But things quickly go wrong. Max’s drinking leads her to neglect Sarah, who figures out how to get out of the basement. Sarah develops an obsession with Max’s boyfriend and manages to fulfill a sexual fantasy by pretending to be something she’s not.

Can Sarah turn back time with Harry or will she and Max kill each other first? Can either sister ever learn to say no?

anneTitle: Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

Author: Therese Anne Fowler

Received: From St. Martins Press

Synopsis: I wish I could tell everyone who thinks we’re ruined, Look closer…and you’ll see something extraordinary, mystifying, something real and true. We have never been what we seemed.

When beautiful, reckless Southern belle Zelda Sayre meets F. Scott Fitzgerald at a country club dance in 1918, she is seventeen years old and he is a young army lieutenant stationed in Alabama. Before long, the “ungettable” Zelda has fallen for him despite his unsuitability: Scott isn’t wealthy or prominent or even a Southerner, and keeps insisting, absurdly, that his writing will bring him both fortune and fame. Her father is deeply unimpressed. But after Scott sells his first novel, This Side of Paradise, to Scribner’s, Zelda optimistically boards a train north, to marry him in the vestry of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and take the rest as it comes.

What comes, here at the dawn of the Jazz Age, is unimagined attention and success and celebrity that will make Scott and Zelda legends in their own time. Everyone wants to meet the dashing young author of the scandalous novel—and his witty, perhaps even more scandalous wife. Zelda bobs her hair, adopts daring new fashions, and revels in this wild new world. Each place they go becomes a playground: New York City, Long Island, Hollywood, Paris, and the French Riviera—where they join the endless party of the glamorous, sometimes doomed Lost Generation that includes Ernest Hemingway, Sara and Gerald Murphy, and Gertrude Stein.

Everything seems new and possible. Troubles, at first, seem to fade like morning mist. But not even Jay Gatsby’s parties go on forever. Who is Zelda, other than the wife of a famous—sometimes infamous—husband? How can she forge her own identity while fighting her demons and Scott’s, too? With brilliant insight and imagination, Therese Anne Fowler brings us Zelda’s irresistible story as she herself might have told it.

power tripTitle: The Power Trip

Author: Jackie Collins

Received: From Get Red PR

Synopsis: A luxurious yacht in the Sea of Cortez, a birthday cruise for one of the world’s most beautiful women and an invitation no one can refuse. The Power Trip—take it if you dare.

From Hollywood icon and mega-seller Jackie Collins comes a thrilling new novel, The Power Trip, set on a state of the art luxury yacht off the coast of Cabo San Lucas. A tropical getaway with a cast of global power-hungry elites turns sour when they find out maybe they don’t control as much of the world as they thought . . .

In The Power Trip you will meet Aleksandr Kasianenko, a billionaire Russian oligarch, as he sets sail on The Bianca. You’ll meet his sexy supermodel girlfriend, whom The Bianca is named after, and five dynamic, powerful, and famous couples invited on the yacht’s maiden voyage: Hammond Patterson, a driven Senator, and his lovely but unhappy wife, Sierra; Cliff Baxter, a charming, never-married movie star, and his ex-waitress girlfriend, Lori; Taye Sherwin, a famous black UK footballer and his interior designer wife, Ashley; Luca Perez, a male Latin singing sensation with his older decadent English boyfriend, Jeromy; and Flynn, a maverick journalist with his Asian renegade female friend, Xuan.

You will also meet Russian mobster, Sergei Zukov, a man with a grudge against Aleksandr. And Sergei’s Mexican beauty queen girlfriend, Ina, whose brother, Cruz, is a master pirate with orders to hold The Bianca and its illustrious rota of guests for ransom.

The Power Trip explorers the decadent playgrounds of the super-rich . . . and leaves you hungry for more.

baby diariesTitle: The Baby Diaries

Author: Sam Binnie

Received: Avon Books

Synopsis: The hilarious and heart-warming second in the series from the author of The Wedding Diaries.

“I’d be sick right now, but I never like to reinforce a cliché.”

A few weeks after Kiki and Thom return from honeymoon, Kiki finds there’s a noticeable absence. An extremely serious noticeable absence of something, it turns out, Kiki now realises she was pretty glad about. One pregnancy test later, Kiki’s breaking the “good news” (Thom: Wow. We’re so… Edwardian.) and rewriting all the plans she’d made before.

With an ever-expanding waistline, her nightmare childhood “friend” Annie pregnant too, all the problem authors at Polka Dot Books she could (not) wish for and an army of NW London’s Smug Mothers to deal with, these nine months might not be the nine months of blooming relaxation she’d been promised…

Title: Gone With the Wedding

Author: Laura Briggs

Received: From Laura Briggs

Synopsis: Amy Pontelle is a best-selling Romance novelist and diehard GONE WITH THE WIND fan, whose just been offered the Southern belle wedding of a lifetime.

But even when Amy convinces her slower than Southern molasses fiancé, history professor Greg Willey, to play along, her dream of being Scarlett for the big day still has a few snags. The mansion is antiquated to the point of deterioration, its ancient staff is forgetful at best, and Amy can’t escape the true horrors of a corset as the price for elegance.

The worst part is, Amy is now questioning everything–her dreams, her life, and her engagement–now that she’s face to face with the reality of those dreams and the persuasive presence of a better-than-fiction Southern gentleman in an unlikely form…
In Sara’s Mailbox:

sevenTitle: Seven Night Stand

Author: Nicole Helm

Received: Katie @ Entangled Publishing

Synopsis: Reality TV scout Vivvy Marsh loves her job, but she’ll lose it if she doesn’t find a hit. When she’s sent to Demo, Kansas to scout a show, it looks like a bust. It’s flat, boring, and she’s not inspired…until she meets sexy pilot, Nate Harrington.

Nate can’t deny his feelings for Vivvy. She’s beautiful, and doesn’t blink an eye at his crazy family. He could get used to her…but her Hollywood lifestyle doesn’t fly in his small town.

Their feelings deepen, but they’re going to have to part ways at the end of seven days, or one of them is going to have to make a sacrifice that’ll change their lives forever.

harlanTitle: Six Years

Author: Harlan Coben

Received: Cassie @ Penguin Group

Synopsis: Six years have passed since Jake Sanders watched Natalie, the love of his life, marry another man. Six years of hiding a broken heart by throwing himself into his career as a college professor. Six years of keeping his promise to leave Natalie alone, and six years of tortured dreams of her life with her new husband, Todd.

But six years haven’t come close to extinguishing his feelings, and when Jake comes across Todd’s obituary, he can’t keep himself away from the funeral. There he gets the glimpse of Todd’s wife he’s hoping for…but she is not Natalie. Whoever the mourning widow is, she’s been married to Todd for almost two decades, and with that fact everything Jake thought he knew about the best time of his life—a time he has never gotten over—is turned completely inside out.

As Jake searches for the truth, his picture-perfect memories of Natalie begin to unravel. Mutual friends of the couple either can’t be found, or don’t remember Jake. No one has seen Natalie in years. Jake’s search for the woman who broke his heart, who lied to him, soon puts his very life at risk as it dawns on him that the man he has become may be based on a carefully constructed fiction.

Harlan Coben once again delivers a shocking page-turner that deftly explores the power of past love, and the secrets and lies that such love can hide.

February 24, 2013
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