Mailbox Madness (5/10 - 5/16)

In My Mailbox is hosted at The Story Siren. 

Mailbox Monday is hosted at The Printed Page . Please visit Kristi and Marcia  and take a look at what packages everybody else got this week!

I won these earrings from NGlassworks who was sponsoring a giveaway over at Leslie Loves Veggies (sorry about the photo - I couldn't seem to get a good shot!)



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A Tidbit Romance: Falling in Love with God's Word One Devotion at a Time
by Erin Coss


It's like sitting on the front porch with God, having a chat over fresh-squeezed lemonade.


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Saving Max
by Antoinette van Heugten


What would a loving mother not do for her child?


Lawyer Danielle Parkman is at her wit's end. Her son Max, a whipsmart teen with high-functioning autism, has always been a handful. But lately he's shutting down, using drugs and lashing out -- violently.


Desperate, Danielle brings Max to a top-flight psychiatric facility. But rather than reassurance, Danielle receives an agonizing diagnosis portraying a severely damaged, dangerous boy -- one she's never met.


Then Danielle finds Max unconscious and bloodied at the feet of a patient who has been brutally stabbed to death. Worse, Danielle is arrested as an accessory to the heinous crime.


In a baffling netherworld of doubt and fear, barred from contacting her son, Danielle clings to the thought of Max's innocence. But has she, too, lost touch with reality? Is her baby boy really a killer?


With the justice system bearing down on them both, Danielle steels herself to discover the truth -- no matter how horrifying. But only finding the true killer will absolve her from having to choose between her son and her soul.

Huck: The Remarkable True Story of How One Lost Puppy Taught a Family--and a Whole Town--About Hope and Happy Endings

by Janet Elder

This story begins with a little boy's dream. Janet Elder's son, Michael, for years begged for a dog. At one point, when he was about seven years old, there was even a PowerPoint plea entitled "My Dog." Janet almost caved, but then she thought about their city apartment, her and her husband's demanding jobs, and their need to get away. As much as she hated having a heartbroken boy on her hands, she remained steadfast: no dog. What does make her reconsider her long-standing position on a family dog is a breast cancer diagnosis.

Worried about the toll the illness would take on eleven-year-old Michael and her husband, Rich, Janet decides the anticipation and excitement over the arrival of a new puppy would be the perfect antidote to the strain on the family of months of treatments.

On Thanksgiving weekend, shortly after the treatments are completed, they bring home a sweet, mischievous, red-haired toy poodle they name Huck, who quickly and conclusively wins everyone's heart.

A few months later, the family ventures south to attend the Yankee's spring training and enjoy a much-needed vacation, leaving Huck for the first time with Janet's sister in Ramsey, New Jersy. Barely twenty-four hours into their trip, Janet gets a phone call that Huck has slipped through the backyard fence and run away. Brokenhearted and frantic, the family races home to begin a search for little Huck, who faces the threat of coyotes, raccoons, swamps, rain, freezing temperatures, and fast cars. Moved by the family's plight, strangers -- from schoolchildren to the police lieutenant -- join the search.  But, as the days pass, finding a small puppy in a densely wooded area proves to be an incredible test of faith and determination.

Touching and warmhearted Huck is a page-turning story about resilience, the kindness of strangers, and hope.

Love on a Dime (Ladies of Summerhill)

by Cara Lynn James

Newport, Rhode Island, 1899, is a place of shimmering waves, sleek yachts, and ladies of leisure. Of opulent mansions that serve as summer cottages for the rich and famous. Home of railroad magnates and banking tycoons -- dashing young men and the women who aspire to marry them.

But it's not the place for lady novelists. Especially not those who pen disreputable dime novels. This poses a problem for Lilly Westbrook, because that's exactly what she does.

No one in Lilly's social set knows she pens fiction under the nom de plume Fannie Cole. Not her family or the wealthy young man about to propose to her. And especially not Jackson Grail, the long-lost beau who just bought her publishing company. . .and who stirs her heart more than she cares to admit.

But Lilly must put aside her feelings and follow the path that will maintain her family's social stature and provide the financial security everyone is depending on.

Now Lilly faces a double dilemma. Can she continue to protect her secret identity? And will she have the courage to choose the man who will risk it all just to win her heart?

The Summer of Skinny Dipping

by Amanda Howells

Sometimes I still wake up shivering in the early hours of the morning, drowning in dreams of being out there in the ocean that summer, of looking up at the moon and feeling as invisible and free as a fish. But I'm jumping ahead, and to tell the story right I have to go back to the very beginning. To a place called Indigo Beach. To a boy with pale skin that glowed against the dark waves. To the start of something neither of us could have predicted, and which would mark us forever, making everything that came after and before seem like it belonged to another life.

My name is Mia Gordon:

I was sixteen years old,

and I remember everything.

Deliver Us from Evil(audio book)

by David Baldacci

Evan Waller is a monster. He has built a fortune from his willingness to buy and sell anything. . .and anyone. In search of new opportunities, Waller has just begun a new business venture: one that could lead to millions of deaths all over the globe.

On Waller's trail is Shaw, the mysterious operative from The Whole Truth, who must prevent Waller from closing his latest deal. Shaw's one chance to bring him down will come in the most unlikely of places: a serene, bucolic village in Provence.

But Waller's depravity and ruthlessness go deeper than Shaw knows. And now, there is someone else pursuing Waller in Provence: Reggie Campion, an agent for a secret vigilante group headquartered in a musty old English estate -- and she has an agenda of her own.

Hunting the same man and unaware of each other's mission, Shaw and Reggie will be caught in a deadly duel of nerve and wits.

Call of the Highland Moon

by Kendra Leigh Castle

A Scottish Highlands werewolf fleeing his destiny. . .

Not ready for the responsibilities of alpha and clan leader, Gideon MacInnes crosses the ocean, looking for a place to rest and think. But as a snowstorm closes in, Gideon is attacked by rogue wolves and stumbles, wounded and bleeding, to the doorstep of Carly Silver's tiny romance bookstore.

A warmhearted woman looking for a new pet. . .

Carly takes him in, treats his wounds, and goes to sleep with what she thinks is a large dog at the foot of her bed.  But she wakes up to find that the beast has turned into a man -- a devastatingly handsome (and naked) man. . .

With a supernatural enemy stalking them, their only hope is to get back to Scotland, where Carly has to choose between becoming a werewolf herself, or giving up the one man she's ever truly loved. . .

Play Dead

by Ryan Brown

For the first time in Killington High School history, the Jackrabbits football team is one win away from the district championship where it will face its most vicious rival, the Elmwood Heights Badgers. On the way to the game, the Jackrabbits' bus plunges into a river, killing every player except for bad-boy quarterback Cole Logan who is certain the crash was no accident -- given that Cole himself was severely injured in a brutal attack by three ski-masked men earlier that day. Bent on payback, Cole turns to a mysterious fan skilled in black magic to resurrect his teammates. But unless the undead Jackrabbits defeat their murderous rival on the field, the team is destined for hell. In a desperate race against time, with only his coach's clever daughter, Savannah Hickman, to assist him, Cole must lead his zombie team to victory. . .in a final showdown where the stakes aren't just life or death -- but damnation or salvation.

The 9th Judgment (audio book)

by James Patterson

A young mother and her infant child are ruthlessly gunned down while returning to their car in the garage of a shopping mall. There are no witnesses, and Detective Lindsay Boxer is left with only one shred of evidence: a cryptic message scrawled across the windshield in blood red lipstick.

The same night, the wife of A-list actor Marcus Dowling is woken by a cat burglar who is about to steal millions of dollars' worth of precious jewels. In just seconds there is a nearly empty safe, a lifeless body, and another mystery that throws San Francisco into hysteria.

Lindsay spends every waking hour working with her partner, Rich -- and her desire for him threatens to tear apart both her engagement and the Women's Murder Club. Before Lindsay and her friends can piece together either case, one of the killers forces Lindsay to put her own life on the line --  but is it enough to save the city? With unparalleled danger and explosive action, The 9th Judgment is James Patterson at his compelling, unstoppable best!

The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898 (audio book)

by Evan Thomas

On February 15, 1898 the American ship USS Maine mysteriously exploded in Havana Harbor. News of the blast quickly reached U.S. shores, where it was met by some not with alarm but with great enthusiasm.


A powerful group of war lovers agitated for the United States to exert its muscle across the seas.  Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge were influential politicians dismayed by the "closing" of the western frontier. William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal falsely heralded that Spain's "secret infernal machine" had destroyed the battleship, as Hearst himself saw great potential in whipping Americans into a frenzy. The Maine would provide the excuse they'd been waiting for.


On the other side were Roosevelt's former teacher, philosopher William James, and his friend and political ally, Thomas Reed, the powerful Speaker of the House. Both foresaw a disaster. At stake was not only sending troops to Cuba and the Philippines, Spain's sprawling colony on the other side of the world -- but the friendships between these men.


Now, bestselling historian Evan Thomas brings us the full story of this monumental turning point in American history. Epic in scope and revelatory in detail, The War Lovers takes us from Boston Mansions to the halls of Congress to the beaches of Cuba and the jungles of the Philippines. It is a landmark work with an unforgettable cast of characters -- and provocative relevance to today.


What came in your mailbox this week?