Mailbox Monday (July 23, 2012)

Welcome to Mailbox Monday, the weekly meme created by Marcia from A girl and her books.  This is where I share the titles I have received for review or purchased during the past week.  Mailbox Monday will be hosted in July by Mrs Q Book Addict.

I have been in email hell for the last week!  We changed internet providers so I had to change email addresses - it feels like I have been updating all the newsletters that I get for a month!  And don't get me started on what I had to do to get my files transferred!  My new provider doesn't have files within files *yet* so I hope I can find things when I need them.  But, at least I got some good books last week!

Pushing the Limits
by Katie McGarry


So wrong for each other. . . and yet so right.


No one knows what happened the night Echo Emerson went from popular girl with jock boyfriend to gossiped-about outsider with "freaky" scars on her arms.  Even Echo can't remember the whole truth of that horrible night.  All she knows is that she wants everything to go back to normal.


But when Noah Hutchins, the smoking-hot, girl-using loner in the black leather jacket, explodes into her life with his tough attitude and surprising understanding, Echo's world shifts in ways she could never have imagined.  They should have nothing in common.  And with the secrets they both keep, being together is pretty much impossible.


Yet the crazy attraction between them refuses to go away.  And Echo has to ask herself just how far they can push the limits and what she'll risk for the one guy who might teach her how to love again.

The Last Letter from your Lover
by Jojo Moyes


In 1960, Jennifer Stirling wakes in the hospital and remembers nothing -- not the car accident that put her there, not her wealthy husband, not even her own name.  Searching for clues, she finds an impassioned letter, signed simply "B," from a man for whom she seemed willing to risk everything.


In 2003, journalist Ellie Haworth stumbles upon an old letter containing a man's ardent plea to his married lover.  She becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to the lovers.  Perhaps if they lived happily ever after, her own complicated afair could have a happy ending, too.  A Brief Encounter for our time, this is a novel for romantics of every age. 

Finding Emma
by Steena Holmes


Megan sees her daughter Emma everywhere.  She's the little girl standing in the supermarket, the child waiting for the swings at the playground, the girl with ice cream dripping down her face.  But it's never Emma.


Emma's been missing for two years.


Unable to handle the constant heartache of all the false sightings, Megan's husband threatens to walk away unless Megan can agree to accept Emma is gone.  Megan's life and marriage is crumbling all around her and she realizes she may have to do the thing she dreads most:  move on.

When Megan takes a photo of a little girl with an elderly couple at the town fair, she believes it to be her missing daughter.  Unable to let go, she sets in motion a sequence of events that could destroy both families lives. 

and when she was good
by Laura Lippman


When Hector Lewis told his daughter that she had a nothing face, it was just another bit of tossed-off cruelty from a man who specialized in harsh words and harsher deeds.  But twenty years later, Heloise considers it a blessing to be a person who knows how to avoid attention.  In the comfortable suburb where she lives, she's just a mom, the youngish widow with a forgettable job who somehow never misses a soccer game or a school play.  In the state capitol, she's the redheaded lobbyist with a good cause and a mediocre track record.


But in discreet hotel rooms throughout the area, she's the woman of your dreams -- if you can afford her hourly fee.


For more than a decade, Heloise has believed she is safe.  She has created a rigidly compartmentalized life, maintaining no real friendships, trusting few confidantes.  Only now her secret life, a life she was forced to build after the legitimate world turned its back on her, is under siege.  Her once oblivious accountant is aksing loaded questions.  Her longtime protector is hinting at new, mysterious dangers.  Her employees can't be trusted.  One county over, another so-called suburban madam has been found dead in her car, a suicide.  Or is it?


Nothing is as it seems as Heloise faces a midlife crisis with much higher stakes than most will ever know.


And then she learns that her son's father might be released from prison, which is problematic because he doesn't know he has a son.  The killer and former pimp also doesn't realize that he's serving a life sentence because Heloise betrayed him.  but he's clearly beginning to suspect that Heloise has been holding something back all these years.


With no formal education, no real family, and no friends, Heloise has to remake her life -- again.  Disappearing will be the easy part.  She's done it before and she can do it again.  A new name and a new place aren't hard to come by if you know the right people.  The trick will be living long enough to start a new life. 

Outpost
by Ann Aguirre


Salvation isn't as safe as it seems. . .


Deuce's whole world has changed.  Currently living topside in a community called Salvation, she has a new set of problems.  Down below, she was considered an adult, and she contributed to the enclave.  Now above ground, she's a brat in need of training in the eyes of the Salvation residents.  She doesn't fit in with the other girls:  She hates cooking, sewing, and school.  Deuce only knows how to fight.


To make matters worse, her feelings for her Hunter partner Fade haven't changed, but he seems not to want her around anymore.  Confused and lonely, she starts looking for a way out.


Deuce pursues a chance to serve in the summer patrols -- those responsible for making sure the growers and planters can work the fields without danger of Freak attack.  It should be routine, but the Freaks have grown smarter.  They're watching.  Waiting.  Planning.  The monsters don't intend to let Salvation survive, and it may take a girl like Deuce to turn back the tide. 

Not Much of a Crime
by Steven W. Johnson


Allison King finds herself embroiled in a fight for her life when she decides to run for a vacant seat on the town council of Charleston, Nevada.  Does she have what it takes to overcome the political corruption, intrigue, and murder that permeates the town and still save the adult video empire she has created in Los Angeles?


What books came home to you last week?