Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page.

We share what books that we found in our mailboxes last week.

Here's what I got ~

Murder of a Wedding Belle: A Scumble River Mystery by Denise Swanson (For Review) ~ School psychologist Skye Denison reluctantly agrees to act as maid of honor in her California cousin's over-the-top platinum-style wedding- and is also expected to assist the control-freak wedding planner. But when Skye discovers the planner dead, just one week before the big event, Skye is suddenly working double-duty. While overseeing every nuptial detail, she's also helping the police find out who hated the bridal consultant enough to kill her. Can Skye get her cousin to the church on time-and save herself from a killer who may actually be on the guest list? Release date: April 6th.

'Til Dice Do Us Part: A Bunco Babes Mystery by Gail Oust (For Review) ~ The Bunco Babes are a group of hip retirees who love to play bunco- and addictive game of luck. But someone's luck is about to run out... For good. When Claudia Connors returns from Vegas with a new husband, actor Lance Ledeaux, Kate McCall and the other Bunco Babes are shocked. To make matters worse, Lance has plans to direct, produce, and star in a play he has written-and he wants all the Babes to participate. When he's killed during rehearsal with a pistol, all eyes are on Claudia, who is literally holding the smoking gun. Anyone could have loaded the real bullets, but its up to Kate to prove Claudia's innocence-or her newly widowed friend will be throwing dice behind bars. Release date: April 6th.

The Night Killer: A Diane Fallon Forensic Investigation by Beverly Connor (For Review) ~ Forensi c investigator Diane Fallon fights for her life in her eighth mystery Diane is driving through a downpour on a windy mountain road after picking up a set of rare Indian artifacts when a tree suddenly slams across the hood of her car, revealing a human skeleton in its hollow trunk. As she starts to investigate, she's ambushed by a stranger and forced to run for her life. Stranded in the night with a killer, Diane must uncover a secret hidden away by time and distance-or she may not live to see another morning... Release date: April 6th.

Lead-Pipe Cinch (A GEORGIANA NEVERALL MYSTERY) by Christy Evans (For Review) ~ The second mystery featuring Georgiana Neverall, plumber's apprentice extraordinaire. Georgiana Neverall never pictured herself knee-deep in a muddy trench building a moat-part of a state-of-the-art castle that would soon house a retired Microsoft engineer. She also never imagined being a murder suspect, but that's exactly what happens when a floater in the moat turns out to be her ex-boyfriend. Release date: April 6th.

Cut to the Corpse (A Decoupage Mystery) by Lucy Lawrence (For Review) ~ A sticky situation in the second Decoupage mystery. Decoupage teacher Brenna Miller is in over her head when she finds bride-to-be Tara with her fiance's dead best friend-and Tara holding the murder weapon. It's up to Brenna to get to the truth before Tara's future turns to shreds. Release date: April 6th.

Monster in Miniature (A Miniature Mystery) by Margaret Grace (For Review) ~ This miniaturist is in BIG trouble... For a festive Halloween project, Geraldine Porter and her granddaughter, Maddie, set out to create a multi-story haunted dollhouse. But their holiday fun turns to fear when a neighborhood scarecrow turns out to be a bloody corpse. Release date: April 6th.

Murder on the Eightfold Path (A Mantra for Murder Mystery) by Diana Killian (For Review) ~ The only yoga mystery series on the market. While in her mother's garden, A.J. stumbles-literally-on the body of her mother's current beau. Now A.J. is going to have to find her balance and solve the murder without getting tied up in knots. Release date: April 6th.

A Toast to Murder (A Wine Lover's Mystery) by Michele Scott (For Review) ~ Pop open a new Wine Lover's mystery. The big day is swiftly approaching for Nikki Sands-Manager of the Malveaux Estates in Napa Valley-and her fiancé Derek Malveaux, who owns the winery. But when they start receiving cryptic messages questioning their belief in fate, things quickly turn fatal. Release date: April 6th.

Farm Fresh Murder (A Farmers' Market Mystery) by Paige Shelton (For Review) ~ First in the Farmer's Market Mystery Series. Becca Robins leads a simple life, making jams and preserves on her ve ry own farm. But when there's a murder in her quaint little town, she puts herself in the line of fire to defend her friend's innocence-and goes from making jam to being in one. Release date: April 6th

T h e Season of Second Chances: A Novel by Diane Meier (ARC) ~ Coming-of-age can happen at any age. Joy Harkness had built a university career and a safe life in New York, protected and insulated from the intrusions and involvements of other people. When offered a position at Amherst Co llege, she impulsively leaves the city, and along with generations of material belongings, she packs her equally heavy emotional baggage. A tumbledown Victorian house proves an unlikely choice for a woman whose family heirlooms have been boxed away for years. Nevertheless, this white elephant becomes the home that changes Joy forever. As the restoration begins to take shape, so does her outlook on life, and the choices she makes over paint chips, wallpaper samples, and floorboards are reflected in her connection to the co-workers who become friends and friendships that deepen. A brilliant, quirky, town fixture of a handyman guides the renovation of the house and sparks Joy’s interest to encourage his personal and professional growth. Amid the half-wanted attention of the campus’s single, middle-aged men, known as “the Coyotes,”and the legitimate dramas of her close-knit community, Joy learns that the key to the affection of family and friends is being worthy of it, and most important, that second chances are waiting to be discovered within us all. Release date: March 30th.

Without Mercy by Lisa Jackson (ARC) ~ Ever since her father was stabbed to death in a home invasion, Julia “Jules” Farentino has been plagued by nightmares. Her half-sister, Shaylee, now seventeen, has had her own difficulties since the tragedy, earning a rap sheet for drug use, theft, and vandalism. Still, when Jules learns of her mother’s decision to send Shay to an elite boarding school in Oregon, she’s skeptical. Blue Rock Academy has a reputation for turning wayward kids around — but one of its students went missing a few months earlier and her body has never been found. On impulse, Jules applies for a teaching job at the Academy. Shortly before Jules arrives, a student is found hanged, another near death, and a hysterical Shay believes it’s murder. Then another girl is found dead. There’s no doubt something sinister is at hand. And Jules has become the next target of a bloodthirsty killer without limits, without remorse, without mercy… Release date: March 30th.

Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman (ARC) ~ Set on the coast of Maine over the course of four summers, Red Hook Road tells the story of two families, the Tetherlys and the Copakens, and of the ways in which their lives are unraveled and stitched together by misfortune, by good intentions and failure, and by love and calamity. A marriage collapses under the strain of a daughter's death; two bereaved siblings find comfort in one another; and an adopted young girl breathes new life into her family with her prodigious talent for the violin. As she writes with obvious affection for these unforgettable characters, Ayelet Waldman skillfully interweaves life's finer pleasures - music and literature - with the more mundane joys of living. Within these resonant pages, a vase filled with wildflowers or a cold beer on a hot summer day serve as constant reminders that it's often the little things that make life so precious Release date: July 13th.

Hannah's List by Debbie Macomber (ARC) ~ Make time for friends. Make time for Debbie Macomber. On the anniversary of his beloved wife's death, Dr. Michael Everett receives a letter Hannah had written him. In it she reminds him of her love and makes one final request. An impossible request: I want you to marry again. She tells him he shouldn't spend the years he has left grieving her. And to that end she's chosen three women she asks him to consider. First on Hannah's list is Winter Adams, a trained chef who owns a cafe on Seattle's Blossom Street. The second is Leanne Lancaster, Hannah's oncology nurse. Michael knows them both. But the third name is one he's not familiar with - Macy Roth. Each of these three women has her own heartache, her own private grief. During the months that follow, he spends time with Winter, Leanne and Macy, learning more about each of them...and about himself. Release date: April 27th.

The Girl Who Chased the Moon: A Novel by Sarah Addison Allen (For Review) ~ Allen's latest (after The Sugar Queen) takes the familiar setup of a young protagonist returning to the small town where her elusive mother was raised, and subverts it by sprinkling just enough magic into the narrative to keep things lively but short of saccharine. Seventeen-year-old Emily Benedict, intent on learning more about her mother, Dulcie, moves in with her grandfather, but is disappointed to find that her grandfather doesn't want to talk much about Dulcie. She soon discovers, though, that many still hold a grudge against Dulcie for the way she treated an old sweetheart before dumping him and disappearing. Luckily, Dulcie's high school adversary, Julia Winterson, back in town to pay down her deceased father's debt, takes a shine to Emily. She's working another quest as well: baking cakes every day with the hope that they'll somehow attract the daughter she gave up for adoption years ago. There are love interests, big family secrets, and magical happenings (color-changing wallpaper, mysterious lights) aplenty as Allen charts the spiraling inter-generational stories, bringing everything together in an unexpected way.

The Panic Zone by Rick Mofina (ARC) ~ A grieving mother and a relentless reporter pursue a perfect killer. A CAR CRASHES IN WYOMING A young mother is thrown clear of the devastating car crash. Dazed, she sees a figure pull her infant son from the flames. Or does she? The police believe it's a case of trauma playing cruel tricks on the mind, until the night the grief-stricken woman hears a voice through the phone: "Your baby is alive." A BOMB EXPLODES IN A RIO DE JANEIRO CAFE The heinous act kills ten people including two journalists with the World Press Alliance news agency. Jack Gannon's first international assignment is to find out whether his colleagues were innocent victims or targets who got too close to a huge story.A CARIBBEAN CRUISE ENDS IN HORROR Doctors are desperate to identify the mysterious cause of a cruise ship passenger's agonizing death. They turn to the world's top scientists who fear that someone has resurrected their long-buried secret research. Research that is now being used as a deadly weapon.With millions of lives at stake, experts work frantically against time. And as an anguished mother searches for her child and Jack Gannon pursues the truth, an unstoppable force hurls them all into the panic zone. Release date: June 29th.

Damaged by Pamela Callow (ARC) ~ Haunted by the death of her sister, and wounded by her ex-fiance's accusations, Kate Lange throws herself into her new career at a high-powered law firm. When the grandmother of a lonely private school student seeks her counsel, Kate thinks it's just another custody case. But then the teen is brutally murdered. And it isn't only Kate who wonders if her legal advice led to the girl's death. Put on notice by the firm's managing partner, Kate must fight for her career, for her reputation -- and for redemption. Unwilling to live with the damage she may have caused, Kate pursues the case on her own and unearths some chilling facts. Facts that lead Kate directly into the surgically-skilled hands of the Body Butcher. Release date: June 1st.

Margarita Nights: A Sherri Travis Mystery by Phyllis Smallman (For Review) ~ Margarita Nights is a cozy with grit--serving Jack Daniels instead of tea. In a small Florida beach town, Sherri Travis is a bartender with attitude and a woman with an inconveniently murdered husband who turns out to be as much trouble to her dead as he was alive. Sifting through the debris of Jimmy's life, Sherri finds more than a few people who wanted her lying, scheming, scam artist husband gone--but which one actually did the deed?

Tempt Me If You Can by Janet Chapman (Guest Post & Giveaway) ~ When an anonymous letter stuns shipping magnate and confirmed bachelor Ben Sinclair with the news that he has a teenage son, he's determined to make good on the past. But Emma Sands doesn't trust him. The beautiful, fiery blonde has raised her nephew in the peaceful woods of Maine since he was five, and just because fifteen-year-old Michael is the spitting image of his tall, handsome father doesn't give Ben the right to march in and change their lives forever. Or so she thinks, until his return mysteriously unearths a dangerous small-town secret. With Michael's help, Ben will do whatever it takes to prove to fiercely independent Emma that he can be the fearless protector she never knew she wanted...and the passionate lover she always thought she could resist.

WOW: A Handbook for Living by Zen Ohashi and Zono Kurazono (For Review) ~ Zen Ohashi is a master management coach whose methods have been introduced to more than seventy major corporations, companies such as Exxon-Mobile, Fuji-Xerox, British Airways, Canon, Honda and Mitsubishi. In this volume he has created a method for living. A way you too can be successful and powerful in your everyday life. Thirty-one phrases are coupled with simple methods and short explanations designed to implement empowerment and change in lives of readers. Designed to be carried with you and pulled out when you need it, WOW is the ultimate handbook for life.