In My Mailbox: Week of July 22

In Samantha’s Mailbox:

Title: Sex, Lies & Hot Tubs

Author: Elissa Ambrose

Received: Via CLP Blog Tours

Synopsis: If a woman tries to preserve a marriage that has been damaged by infidelity, is she heroic or is she delusional? How many times does her husband have to cheat before she calls it quits? How many times does he have to get caught?

Meet Ellen Dunwell, doting wife, loving mother, high school teacher extaordinaire. She’s worried that her husband, the respected Dr. Jeffrey Dunwell, wonderful father, great lover, is having another affair. As if that’s not bad enough, her friends don’t understand her, her neighbor’s son is a Peeping Tom, and her angst-ridden teenage daughter is stashing pot in her room and dating a control freak. When Jeffrey suddenly disappears, Ellen nearly slips over the edge. Instead, she pulls herself together and sets out on a mission to find him—only to get caught up in a web of intrigue and danger, where nothing is as it seems and the stakes are her life.

Title: Pillow Stalk

Author: Diane Vallere

Received: From Diane Vallere

Synopsis: Interior Decorator Madison Night has modeled her life after Doris Day’s character in Pillow Talk, but when a killer targets women dressed like the bubbly actress, Madison’s signature sixties style places her in the middle of a homicide investigation. The local detective connects the new crimes to a twenty-year old cold case, and Madison’s long-trusted contractor emerges as the leading suspect. As the body count piles up like a stack of plush pillows, Madison uncovers a Soviet spy, a campaign to destroy all Doris Day movies, and six minutes of film that will change her life forever.

Title: Can We Start Again?

Author: Shirley Benton

Received: From Shirley Benton

Synopsis: Is it ever too late for a second chance? Tammy and Alvin had mapped out their entire lives together, including a pre-parental plan – a list of everything they wanted to do as a couple before they had children. But no amount of planning could have anticipated the heartbreaking problems that lay ahead problems that shattered their once-perfect relationship and led to a traumatic break-up. Then, after years of trying to move on, Tammy’s world is turned upside down when Alvin comes back into her life asking for a second chance – with a difference. He proposes that they spend time together, doing the things they had once so eagerly planned, in a bid to remember why they felt they’d have children together some day, and ultimately recapture what they had. Still in love with Alvin, Tammy finds herself powerless to say no, even though their problems are still simmering in the background and threatening to boil over at any moment. Still, what they once had is surely worth trying to save. But can something that’s broken ever truly be whole again?

Title: In Need of Therapy

Author: Tracie Banister

Received: From Tracie Banister

Synopsis: Lending a sympathetic ear and dispensing sage words of advice is all part of the job for psychologist Pilar Alvarez, and she’s everything a good therapist should be: warm, compassionate, supportive. She listens, she cares, and she has all the answers, but how’s the woman everyone turns to in their hour of need supposed to cope when her own life starts to fall apart?

While working hard to make a success of her recently-opened practice in trendy South Beach, Pilar must also find time to cater to the demands of her boisterous Cuban family, which includes younger sister Izzy, an unemployed, navel-pierced wild child who can’t stay out of trouble, and their mother, a beauty queen turned drama queen who’s equally obsessed with her fading looks and getting Pilar married before it’s “too late.” Although she’d like to oblige her mother and make a permanent love connection, Pilar’s romantic prospects look grim. Her cheating ex, who swears that he’s reformed, is stalking her. A hunky, but strictly off-limits, patient with bad-boy appeal and intimacy issues is making passes. And the sexy shrink in the suite across the hall has a gold band on his left ring finger.

When a series of personal and professional disasters lead Pilar into the arms of one of her unsuitable suitors, she’s left shaken, confused, and full of self-doubt. With time running out, she must make sense of her feelings and learn to trust herself again so that she can save her business, her family, and most importantly, her heart.

Title: A Girl Like You

Author: Maria Geraci

Received: From Lisa @ BookSparks PR

Synopsis: Every ugly duckling is a swan in waiting…

Emma Frazier is smart, hardworking, and loves her job as a journalist for a Florida lifestyle magazine. Emma knows she’s no great beauty, but she’s pretty certain she has a shot with her handsome new boss, Ben Gallagher—until Emma overhears a mutual acquaintance refer to her as the “ugly friend.” In an effort to reclaim her battered self-esteem, Emma decides to impress Ben at work by promising an exclusive interview with NASCAR legend, Trip Monroe.

Emma and Trip went to high school together and although it’s been fourteen years since they’ve spoken, Emma is certain she can score an interview with the elusive super star. But connecting with Trip turns out to be harder than Emma imagined. Her quest for the interview leads her back to her tiny hometown of Catfish Cove, where old secrets and a new romantic interest shake up Emma’s views on life and teach her that maybe the key to finding true love is as simple as accepting yourself for the person you were always meant to be.

In Sara’s Mailbox:

Title: Ruby

Author: Marie Maxwell

Received: Unsolicted

Synopsis: As a former evacuee, feisty Ruby is forced to fend for herself when she returns to her family in London. Set in the aftermath of WW2 and based in Southend, this gripping saga is richly evocative of the period. Special low price for a limited period to discover this new talent. Home is where the heart is… After having lived peacefully in Cambridgeshire as an evacuee, 15-year-old Ruby Blakeley is bought back to reality when her bully of a brother Ray comes to take her home to East London. Far from being welcomed back with open arms, Ruby finds herself being treated as a skivvy by her widowed mother and subject to a tirade of taunts from her two brothers. Things get worse when she becomes pregnant. Unable to tackle her family, Ruby runs away and makes a new start for herself in Southend. But she soon finds she can’t escape her past. A hard-hitting, gritty drama that will appeal to fans of Katie Flynn and Dilly Court.

Title: The Typewriter Girl

Author: Alison Atlee

Received: Unsolicited

Synopsis: In Victorian London, there’s only so far an unmarried woman can go, and Betsey Dobson has relied on her wits and cunning to take herself as far as she can—to a position as a typewriter girl. But still, Betsey yearns for something more…so when she’s offered a position as the excursions manager at a seaside resort, she knows this is her chance for security, for independence, for an identity forged by her own work and not a man’s opinion. Underqualified for the job and on the wrong side of the aristocratic resort owner, Betsey struggles to prove herself and looks to the one person who can support her new venture: Mr. Jones, the ambitious Welshman building the resort’s pleasure fair. As she and Mr. Jones grow ever closer, Betsey begins to dream that she might finally have found her place in the world—but when her past returns to haunt her, she must fight for what she’s worked so hard…or risk losing everything.

Title: Enchanting Lily

Author: Anjali Banerjee

Received: Alexandra @ Penguin Group

Synopsis: From the author of the “luminous [and] gorgeous” (Susan Wiggs) Haunting Jasmine comes a glorious new novel that reaches straight into to the heart to celebrate the resilience of the human spirit… “I wonder how my carefully planned life could have tipped so far out of balance?” Into the quaint town of Fairport on Shelter Island comes Lily Byrne, a young widow who is not so much running from the old but rather edging toward something new and indefinable. Here in the peaceful Pacific Northwest, newly engaged in her vintage clothing boutique, she hides from the world. But Lily knows that solitude can’t sustain her forever. Somehow, somewhere, something’s got to give. It does, with the unexpected arrival of an exuberant little cat. As Lily searches for the cat’s true home, she embarks on a journey just as unpredictable—one of healing and renewal that opens up a whole new world in this small island community she now calls home. Saved by the hidden graces of others, she even allows herself to fall in love again. But how much of this is serendipity? How much is destiny? As Lily starts looking at herself, and her life, in an enlightening new way, she can’t help but also wonder, how long can such good fortune last?