In My Mailbox: Week of June 2

le: Between Friends

Author: Amanda Cowen

Received: Via CLP Blog Tours

Synopsis: The only way to have a friend is to be one…especially between the sheets…

When neurotically challenged and unlucky in love Megan Daniels is propositioned by her life-long friend Ben Romano with a coin toss (heads, they sleep together, tails, they don’t) the night before they are about to attend a destination wedding, she drunkenly accepts his challenge. But when Megan wakes up the next morning with a bad hang-over and Ben in her bed, she is more than mortified. It isn’t until the tropical heat begins to ignite emotions Megan never believed or thought she could possibly have, when she starts to question if risking their friendship is the answer to finding true love.

A cute and contemporary debut novel, BETWEEN FRIENDS faces one girl’s struggle between the fine lines of friendship and love and the risk of opening up her heart to the possibility of forever.

pastors wivesTitle: Pastors’ Wives

Author: Lisa Takeuchi Cullen

Received: Penguin Group

Synopsis: Lisa Takeuchi Cullen’s debut novel Pastors’ Wives follows three women whose lives converge and intertwine at a Southern evangelical megachurch. Ruthie follows her Wall Street husband from New York to Magnolia, a suburb of Atlanta, when he hears a calling to serve at a megachurch called Greenleaf. Reeling from the death of her mother, Ruthie suffers a crisis of faith—in God, in her marriage, and in herself. Candace is Greenleaf’s “First Lady,” a force of nature who’ll stop at nothing to protect her church and her superstar husband. Ginger, married to Candace’s son, struggles to play dutiful wife and mother while burying her calamitous past. All their roads collide in one chaotic event that exposes their true selves. Inspired by Cullen’s reporting as a staff writer for Time magazine, Pastors’ Wives is a dramatic portrayal of the private lives of pastors’ wives, caught between the demands of faith, marriage, duty, and love.

love storyTitle: The Hypnotist’s Love Story

Author: Liane Moriarty

Received: Penguin Group

Synopsis: Ellen O’Farrell has grown tired of the lack of respect her profession is afforded by others—especially her critical physician mother. She is proud to be a hypnotherapist and has found her niche. Unfortunately, she has not been as lucky in love. That is, until she meets Patrick Scott. A handsome young widower she met through an online dating service, Patrick seems too good to be true. So when he one day announces that he has something to tell her, Ellen braces for the worst. His confession: he is being stalked by a former girlfriend. That’s okay, Ellen assures him, and inwardly she has to admit that she finds the situation kind of intriguing. Thrilling, even.

Ellen would love to learn everything she can about the woman—Saskia—but she refrains from pumping Patrick for details because it clearly upsets him. Indeed, Ellen would love to get inside this woman’s head. What she doesn’t realize is that she already knows her. The obsessed Saskia, under an assumed name, has become one of Ellen’s hypnotherapy clients intent on getting as close as possible to her perceived rival.

As Ellen and Patrick grow deeper in love, Saskia grows even more fixated on her former lover. What Patrick failed to see is Saskia’s deep attachment to his young son, Jack, whom she nurtured in the wake of his mother’s death. Meanwhile, Ellen gets some news that could forever change her life and could either solidify or jeopardize her relationship with Patrick. Could Saskia exploit this new development to further her own calculated motives?