In My Mailbox: Week of October 13

Title: Casey’s Quest

Author: Tamara Lee Dorris

Received: CLP Blog Tours

Synopsis: At her father’s death, Casey Anderson discovers she was adopted at age four. Not able to remember anything, she sets out on a quest to discover why her birth mother gave her up and, and why her adopted parent kept it such a secret. She embarks on a dangerous and spiritually enlightening journey that proves to her, nothing is what it seems.

Title: A Medical Affair

Author: Anne McCarthy Strauss

Received: Booktrope Publishing

Synopsis: While under the care of her pulmonologist after a life-threatening asthma attack, Heather Morrison enters into an affair with her doctor. This affair violates the state’s code of conduct and his medical treatment violates the Hippocratic oath.  Heather’s life is shattered as a result. After the doctor terminates the relationship, Heather begins research for her own healing, and armed with this information, she initiates a civil lawsuit. Although it is a work of fiction, A Medical Affair was extensively researched.  A Medical Affair is a critical book for women who want to make educated decisions regarding their relationships with their doctors.

Title: Obitchuary

Author: Stephanie Hayes

Received: Stephanie Hayes

Synopsis: Penny Perkins, journalist, upstanding citizen, dutiful bridesmaid, just killed her date. Smashed him on the head with a bottle of Misty Mangoberry Merlot.

She is tipsy and panicked. She is wearing a heinous pink bridesmaid dress that makes her irrational. Penny knows she should call the cops and explain her date’s grabby hands, his crazy eyes. She should cry self-defense. She should do a lot of things she doesn’t do.

Things are about to get real complicated for Penny, as her dead date’s life unravels into a mystery the deeper she investigates. Death just happens to be her job.

She’s the newspaper’s obituary writer.

Title: Coming Home For Christmas

Author: Jenny Hale

Received: Bookouture

Synopsis: Coming Home for Christmas is a beautifully observed story about the importance of family, themagic of Christmas, and falling in love one snowflake at a time.

Fans of Trisha Ashley, Susan Wiggs, Carole Matthews and Susan Mallery – and anyone who loves the sound of carols and the twinkling of lights on the Christmas tree – will adore Jenny Hale’s feel-good debut.

Christmas is a time for family… isn’t it?

Allie Richfield loves Christmas, so when she lands a job as House Manager for the amazing Ashford Estate—which includes organizing the Marley family festivities—she is in her element. With a budget bigger than her life savings and a team of staff, how hard can it be?

As one-by-one she meets the Marleys, she’s about to find out…

Allie’s new boss, Robert, might be gorgeous, but he’s also colder than the snow outside and refuses to come home for Christmas. Robert’s playboy brother, Kip, flirts with her relentlessly; and his sister, Sloane, arrives home with baggage—both the divorce-kind and the Louis Vuitton kind. Their ninety-two year old grandmother, Pippa, spends her day grumbling at them all from her mobility scooter.

With Robert intending to sell Ashford, it’s the Marley’s last chance to create some happy memories in their family home—and Allie is determined to make it happen… even if it takes a little Christmas magic! With the festive spirit in full swing, she might even discover a little happiness of her own…

Title: Hunting With Lawn Darts

Author: Geoffrey McKeel

Received: Geoffrey McKeel

Synopsis: Chad Jordan is a nice guy. Just one day removed from a split with his longtime girlfriend, Stephanie, he now must venture back into the obscenely unforgiving world of modern dating. Having spent the last four years sequestered from the single life and with an outlook on courtship that expired about half a century ago, Chad soon finds out that being such a gentle soul, with a preternatural connection to his emotional side, does not necessarily supply him an advantage in finding compatibility. Only the most unlikely of refuges may be guiding his monumental struggle to find that special someone…

Title: The Drake Equation

Author: Heather Walsh

Received: Heather Walsh

Synopsis: She’s a Democrat, he’s a Republican. She spends her days fighting global warming at an environmental non-profit, he makes his living doing PR for Bell Motors and their fleet of SUVs. But as soon as they meet, Emily Crossley and Robert Drake realize they have encountered their intellectual match. You’re never challenged, he tells her.

You’ve surrounded yourself in a cocoon of people who think exactly the same way you do. She hurls the same accusation back at him, and the fiery debates begin.

Despite both of their attempts to derail it, there is no denying that they are falling in love. But their relationship is threatened by political differences, Robert’s excessive work hours, and Emily’s fear of losing her identity as she falls deeper in love.

Can their love survive? The Drake Equation is a tale of modern love and all its complexities.