Mailbox Monday (August 6, 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 August  byJennifer D at 5 Minutes for Books.

What the Heart Remembers

by Debra Ginsberg

Whispers of the past. . .


When Eden Harrison receives a heart transplant from an unknown donor, her seemingly charmed life falls apart.  Haunted by dreams of people and places she doesn't recognize, Eden is convinced that her new heart carries the memories of its original owner.  Eden leaves her old life, including her fiancé, behind as she is mysteriously drawn to the city of San Diego.


Whispers of the mind. . .


There Eden becomes fast friends with Darcy, a young woman recently widowed by Peter, her wealthy, much older husband.  But Darcy is unsettled by her inability to mourn, and more unsettled by recurring thoughts of Adam, a musician with whom she was having an affair -- and who has suddenly vanished.


Whispers of the heart. . .


Yet the more Eden learns about Darcy, the more she realizes that all is not as it seems, and she begins to suspect foul play behind Peter's and Adam's fates.  As the tension around them escalates, Eden's mysterious dreams become more and more frequent.  Can Eden listen to what her heart is trying to tell her before it is silenced forever?

The Survivor

by Gregg Hurwitz

Nate Overbay, a former soldier suffering from PTSD and ALS, goes to an eleventh-floor bank and climbs out the bathroom window onto the ledge, ready to end it all.  But as he's steeling himself to jump, a crew of gunmen bursts into the bank and begins viciously shooting employees and customers. With nothing to lose, Nate climbs back inside, confronts the robbers, and with his military training, starts taking them out, one by one.  The last man standing leaves Nate with a cryptic warning:  "He will make you pay in ways you can't imagine."


Soon enough, Nate learns what this means.  He is kidnapped by Pavlo, a savage Ukrainian mobster and mastermind of the failed heist.  Now blocked from getting into the bank vault to retrieve the critical item inside, Pavlo gives Nate a horrifying ultimatum:  Either break in and acquire the item or watch Pavlo slowly kill the people Nate loves most - his estranged wife, Janie, and his teen-aged daughter, Cielle.  Nate lost them both when he came back from Iraq broken and confused.  Now he's got one chance to protect the people he loves, even if it's the last thing he is able to do. 

The Exceptions

by David Cristofan


No loose ends.  It's the Bovaro family motto.  As part of the Bovaro clan, one of the most powerful and respected families in organized crime, Jonathan knows what he must do: take out Melody Grace McCartney, the woman whose testimony can lock up his father and disgrace his entire family.  The only problem: he can't bring himself to do it. 


Had Jonathan kept his silence, Melody and her parents would never have been identified and lured into the Witness Protection Program, able to run but never to hide.  So he keeps her safe the only way he knows how -- by vowing to clean up his own mess while acting as her shield.


But as he watches her take on another new identity in yet another new town, becoming a beautiful but broken woman, Jonathan can't get her out of his mind. . . or his heart.  From the streets of Little Italy to a refuge that promises a fresh start, Jonathan will be forced to choose between the life he's always known, the destiny his family has carved out for him, and a future unlike anything he's ever imagined.  

The Trinity Game

by Sean Chercover

Would you know a miracle if you saw one?


Daniel Byrne is an investigator for the Vatican's secretive Office of the Devil's Advocate -- the department that scrutinizes miracle claims.  Over ten years and 721 cases, not one miracle he tested has proved true.


But case #722 is different; Daniel's estranged uncle, a crooked TV evangelist, has started speaking in tongues -- and accurately predicting the future.  Daniel knows Reverend Tim Trinity is a con man.  Could Trinity also be something more?


The evangelist himself is baffled by his new found power -- and the violent reaction it provokes.  After years of scams, he suddenly has the ability to predict everything from natural disasters to sports scores.  Now the mob wants him dead for ruining their gambling business, and the Vatican wants him debunked as a false messiah.  On the run from assassins, Trinity and Daniel flee Atlanta, through the back roads of the Bible Belt to New Orleans, where Trinity plans to deliver a final prophecy so shattering his enemies will do anything to keep him silent. 

Freak

by Jennifer Hillier

Suspense magazine chose Jennifer Hillier's "truly frightening" debut, Creep, as one of 2011's best novels, while #1 bestselling author Jeffery Deaver cautioned "you better call in sick -- you're not going anywhere until you finish reading."  Now, Hillier returns to the Pacific Northwest college town where one killer's stranglehold has ebbed. . . but another sick mind has waited for the perfect moment to pick up where the terror left off.


Sitting alone in a maximum-security prison cell, Abby Maddox is a celebrity.  Her claim to fame is the envy of every freak on the outside: she's the former lover of Ethan Wolfe, the killer who left more than a dozen dead women in his wake and nearly added Puget Sound State professor Sheila Tao to the tally. Now Abby, serving a nine-year sentence for slashing a police officer's throat in a moment of rage, has little human contact -- save for the letters that pour in from demented fans, lunatics, and creeps.  But a new wave of murders has given Abby a possible chance for a plea bargain -- because this killer has been sending her love letters, and carving a message on the bodies of the victims:  Free Abby Maddox.


Jerry Isaac will never forget the attack -- or his attacker.  The hideous scarring and tortured speech are daily reminders that the one-time Seattle PD officer, now a private investigator, is just lucky to be alive.  Abby Maddox deserves to rot in jail -- forever, as far as Jerry's concerned.  But she alone may possess crucial evidence -- letters from this newest killer -- that could crack open the disturbing case.  With the help of Professor Sheila Tao, seasoned police detective Mike Torrance, and intuitive criminology student Danny Mercy, Jerry must coax the shattering truth from isolated, dangerous Abby Maddox.  Can he put the pieces together before Abby's number one fan takes another life in the name of a killer's perverted idea of justice?

Creep

by Jennifer Hillier

If he can't have her. .. .


Dr. Sheila Tao is a professor of psychology, an expert in human behavior with her own hidden past.  But she's not the only one keeping secrets. . . When Sheila began an affair with her sexy graduate assistant Ethan Wolfe, she knew she was playing with fire.  Consumed by lust when they were together, she was riddled with guilt when they were apart.  Now she's finally engaged to a good man, and it's time to end the dangerous liaison.  But Ethan has something different in mind.  He intends to make her pay for rejecting him.


. . . No one can.


As Sheila attempts to counter Ethan's increasingly threatening moves, he schemes to reveal her darker, most intimate secrets by destroying her prestigious career. . . and then her.   Caught in a terrifying cat-and-mouse game, Sheila must fight for her life and free herself from the ex-lover whom she couldn't resist -- who is now the manipulative monster who won't let her go. 

 
What books came home to you last week?