Mailbox Madness (Oct 25 - Oct 31)

In My Mailbox is hosted Sundays at The Story Siren.  Mailbox Monday's host for November is Julie at Knitting and Sundries. Please visit these posts and take a look at what packages everybody else got this week!

FOR REVIEW:

Stronger than Sin

by Caridad Pineiro

Dr. Liliana Carrera nearly lost her life to Wardwell scientists.  She won't let them harm other innocent victims, like her new patient, Jesse Bradford.  The former pro athlete had the best hands in the NFL. . . until an injury forced him to undergo Wardwell's experimental gene therapy.  Now Jesse's gorgeous body is superhuman -- but it comes at a price.

With Wardwell threatening his family, Jesse can't tell Liliana all he knows.  Yet he can't resist her compassion. . . or her healing, erotic touch.  As their passion flares, Jesse's body becomes dangerous and volatile.  For evil men are plotting to change the face of humanity -- and will destroy whoever stands in their way.

Letters from Home

by Kristina McMorris

Chicago, 1944.  Liz Stephens has little interest in attending a USO club dance with her friends Betty and Julia.  She doesn't need a flirtation with a lonely serviceman when she's set to marry her childhood sweetheart.  Yet something happens the moment Liz glimpses Morgan McClain.  they share only a brief conversation -- during which she mistakenly believes he is interested in Betty -- but Liz can't forget him.  When Betty asks her to ghostwrite a letter to Morgan, stationed overseas, Liz reluctantly agrees.

Thousands of miles away, Morgan struggles to adjust to the brutality of war.  His letters from "Betty" are a comfort, their soul-baring correspondence a revelation to them both.  While Liz is torn by her feelings for a man who doesn't know her true identity, Betty and Julia each become immersed in their own romantic entanglements.  And as the war draws to a close, all three will face heart-wrenching choices, painful losses, and the bittersweet joy of new beginnings.

Beautifully rendered and deeply moving, Letters from Home is a story of hope and connection, of sacrifices made in love and war -- and the chance encounters that change us forever. 

Everyone Loves a Hero

by Marie Force

Being a hero isn't all it's cracked up to be. . .

After a heroic blizzard landing makes him famous, First Officer Cole Langston thoroughly enjoys the playboy lifestyle that comes with his fame and good looks.  Until he meets the one woman he wants more than anything and finds it impossible to convince her of his love.

Especially when everything you've ever wanted is at stake. . .

Olivia is a talented artist, working at an airport kiosk to get through school.  When drop-dead gorgeous Cole rescues her from an obnoxious customer, their instant attraction turns into something much deeper. . .

With jealousy and insecurity rearing their ugly heads as Cole and Olivia fall hard for each other, they'll either figure out how to trust, or they'll both miss the connection of a lifetime. . .

The Werewolf Upstairs

by Ashlyn Chase

Petty crime never looked so good. . .

Alpha werewolf Konrad Wolfensen sees it as his duty to protect the citizens of Boston, even if it means breaking into their apartments just to prove their security systems don't work.  But when his unsolicited services land him in trouble with the law, he'll have to turn to his sexy new neighbor for help.

She should know better. . .

Attorney Roz Wells is bored.  She used to have such a knack for attracting the weird and unexpected, but ever since she took a job as a Boston public defender, the quirky quotient in her life has taken a serious hit.  Until her sexy werewolf neighbor starts coming around. . .

Roz knows she should stay away from this sexy bad boy, but she can't help it that she's putty in his hands. . .

Christmas at Harrington's

by Melody Carlson

Sometimes the best gift is a second chance.

Christmas is approaching, and Lena Markham finds herself penniless, friendless, and nearly hopeless.  She is trying to restart her life, but job opportunities are practically nonexistent.  When a secondhand red coat unexpectedly lands her a job as Mrs. Santa at a department store, Lena finally thinks her luck is changing.  But can she keep her past a secret?

Reading Christmas at Harrington's, a story full of redemption and true holiday spirit, will be your newest Christmas tradition.

Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People

by Amy Sedaris

Hello.  Good for you, reading the flap! This suggests you are not an impulsive buyer.  You clearly are the type of person who would like more information about your prospective purchase before you throw down your hard-earned cash.  Okay, but guess what?  Do you have any clue how much time it will take to move this stack of books if every potential buyer is going to insist on being an annoyingly responsible shopper?!

More information, let's see, where to start. . . this is a serious craft book and an important one!  Please don't let the fact that further into this flap you will find instructions on how to turn this book cover into a paper hat suggest otherwise.  The point is, this book confronts the hard-hitting craft questions that other books of this genre have refused to even acknowledge: Why should every room look like an attic?  What is the quickest way to obtain feathers from a bird? What are the best crafting options for the criminally insane?  Why is there a half naked man wearing a short canary yellow robe on page 250.

But Simple Times does more than answer the tough questions, it also transports us back to a golden time when we wore handmade sweaters, carved our cooking utensils out of bark, and the best people would buy books based on a whim.

When Strawberries Bloom

by Linda Byler

Lizzie's dream of teaching school has finally come true.  She loves the brand-new school building, the sound of the children singing, and the independence she has in the classroom.  Even the occasionally unruly boys can't ruin the excitement she feels each morning when she starts the school day.

But at home things are in turmoil again.  What do Dat's sudden health problems mean for the future of their farm?  And what about Lizzie's future?  Emma and Mandy are so certain that Joshua and John are their perfect matches, but Lizzie doesn't know what to think about Stephen and how he might fit into her life.

What will Lizzie decide?  Will she continue to teach school?  Or will she give up that dream so that her wish for marriage and a family can come true?

Stephen says he loves her, but Lizzie isn't sure he really understands her.  Can she hope to find anyone within her Amish community who loves her bright mind, her ever-active imagination, her competitive spirit and her stormy humor?

Bedeviled Eggs

by Laura Childs

Getting ready for Halloween, the ladies at the Cackleberry Club cafe are busy carving jack-o'-lanterns, stocking up on candy, and baking pumpkin bread.  But someone's jumped the gun on the tricks.  As mayoral candidate Chuck Peebler leaves the cafe, he gets struck with a crossbow arrow and is killed instantly.  When another murder occurs on the historical society's Quilt Trail, there's no disquising it -- a murderer is running loose in the town of Kindred.  Now Suzanne's on the beat to sniff out one bad egg. . .

The Ice Cream Theory

by Steff Deschenes

"It appeared that my ice cream experiment, at the time, paralleled my love life: I went through a lot of different flavors/boys, some that didn't get more than a fraction of my attention, some that I thought I liked but made me nauseous in the end, some that I wish I could have had more of, and some that I learned to simply appreciate.  And thus The Ice Cream Theory was born."

When Steff Deschenes was a teenager, dealing with her first heartache, her parents offered a distraction: a challenge of sorts, to try every flavor of ice cream made by a local company, with a reward of visiting the ice-cream factory afterwards.  Thirty-six flavors and ten pounds later, a love-affair with ice cream and the beginnings of a lifelong social experiment began.

Over the years, she's explored countless flavor combinations from the US to the farthest-flung corners of the world, theorizing that people are drawn to or repelled by other people much as they are ice cream flavors, craving certain personalities at different stages in life in the same way they crave different ice cream flavors.  How a person selects his or her ice cream says a lot about how he or she lives life.  Deschenes neatly brings together anecdotes from her own adventures with broader-reaching social commentary, to help others recognize the wisdom and joy inherent in a beloved dessert.  With its cheeky "self-help" slant, The Ice Cream Theory offers a charming read and a pick-me-up for soul-searchers.

SWAPPED:

Inkdeath

by Cornelia Funke

The Adderhead--his immortality bound in a book by Meggie's father, Mo--has ordered his henchmen to plunder the villages. The peasants' only defense is a band of outlaws led by the Bluejay--Mo's fictitious double, whose identity he has reluctantly adopted. But the Book of Immortality is unraveling, and the Adderhead again fears the White Women of Death. To bring the renegade Bluejay back to repair the book, the Adderhead kidnaps all the children in the kingdom, dooming them to slavery in his silver mines unless Mo surrends. First Dustfinger, now Mo: Can anyone save this cursed story?

What books found a home with you this week?