Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page.
We share what books that we found in our mailboxes last week.
Absolutely, Positively: A Lucy Valentine Novel
by Heather Webber (review) ~ 
“Exposed” by a Boston Herald reporter, Lucy is suddenly the talk of the town. Long back-story short: Even though the rest of her Valentine ancestors were blessed by Cupid with psychic abilities, Lucy’s only special power lies in her ability to find things. This skill has proven quite a blessing for those who come to her matchmaking agency in search of finding their long-lost loves. Now that Lucy’s secret is out, she has more new clients than she knows what to do with. But soon a certain man of mystery steals Lucy’s spotlight…No, it’s not Sean Donahue, the sexy fireman-turned-private-eye who’s stolen Lucy’s heart. It’s a masked man in a cowboy hat, dubbed “The Lone Ranger,” who’s been throwing handfuls of cash across the Common. Now all of Beantown’s abuzz. Can Lucy unmask the mysterious money man, track down all her clients’ old flames, and turn up the heat on her love life? Absolutely, positively…After Dark with a Scoundrel: Lords of Vice
by Alexandra Hawkins (review) ~ 
Young, tender, and highly impressionable, Lady Regan can’t help but be intrigued by her brother’s wayward friends—the wickedly charming Lords of Vice. One man in particular, the dashing Lord 
Hugh Mordare (known simply as “Dare” among the ton), utterly captivates her—in spite of his reputation as a notorious womanizer. But when she steals an innocent kiss from Dare, Regan is swiftly packed off to boarding school, safely away from danger…and desire. Five years later, Regan returns—a proper lady and ravishing beauty. Miss Swann’s Academy for Young Ladies has taught her how to behave in polite society. But all the training in the world cannot extinguish her love for Dare. Now, she hopes to beat the master of seduction at his own game—by daring Dare to love her in return. This time, both of their hearts are on the line…and winner takes all.
The Seduction of His Wife
by Janet Chapman (review) ~ Alex Knight is dead -- or so everyone 
thinks. A widowed logger baron with a risk-taking streak, he took on a South American engineering project and was reported dead after a rebel attack. So when he turns up back in Maine very much alive, his grieving family is shocked. But the biggest shock is Alex's, when he discovers he's now married -- to a woman he's never met. Sarah Banks is ready for a change from running a quiet Bed & Breakfast, and working for the Knight family offers not only a bigger opportunity, but also the family life she yearns for. So she's glad to help secure custody of Alex's orphaned children, whom she's come to love, by marrying their father by proxy before he's legally declared dead. But when Alex returns, the sexy, determined woodsman upends all of Sarah's plans. Because suddenly she's married to a passionate stranger with an easy smile...and tumbling headlong into a fiery dance of seduction.
The Murderer's Daughters
by Randy Susan Meyers (review & giveaway) ~ This solid novel begins with young Lulu finding her mother dead and her sister wounded at the hands of her alcoholic father, who has failed at killing himself after attacking the family. Meyers traces the following 30 years for 
Lulu and her sister, Merry, as they are sent to an orphanage, where Lulu turns tough and calculating, searching for a way into an adoptive family. Eventually, Lulu becomes a doctor specializing in the almost old, though her secretiveness about her past causes new rifts to form in her new family. Meanwhile, Merry becomes a victim witness advocate, but her life is stunted; she's dependant on Lulu, drugs and alcohol, and she can't find love because she usually want[s] whoever wants me. In the background, their imprisoned father looms until a crisis that eerily mirrors the past forces Lulu and Merry to confront what happened years ago. Though the novel's sprawling time line and undifferentiated narrative voices—the sisters narrate in rotating first-person chapters—hinder the potential for readers to fall completely into the story, the psychologically complex characters make Meyers's debut a satisfying read.
Friendship Bread: A Novel
by Darien Gee (arc, review) ~ An anonymous gift sends a woman on a 
journey she never could have anticipated. One afternoon, Julia Evarts and her five-year-old daughter, Gracie, arrive home to find an unexpected gift on the front porch: a homemade loaf of Amish Friendship Bread and a simple note: I hope you enjoy it. Also included are a bag of starter, instructions on how to make the bread herself, and a request to share it with others. Still reeling from a personal tragedy that left her estranged from the sister who was once her best friend, Julia remains at a loss as to how to move on with her life. She’d just as soon toss the anonymous gift, but to make Gracie happy, she agrees to bake the bread. When Julia meets two newcomers to the small town of Avalon, Illinois, she sparks a connection by offering them her extra bread starter. Widow Madeline Davis is laboring to keep her tea salon afloat while Hannah Wang de Brisay, a famed concert cellist, is at a crossroads, her career and marriage having come to an abrupt end. In the warm kitchen of Madeline’s tea salon, the three women forge a friendship that will change their lives forever. In no time, everyone in Avalon is baking Amish Friendship Bread. But even as the town unites for a benevolent cause and Julia becomes ever closer to her new friends, she realizes the profound necessity of confronting the painful past she shares with her sister. About life and loss, friendship and community, food and family, Friendship Bread tells the uplifting story of what endures when even the unthinkable happens. Release date ~ April 19th.
A Hard Death: A Novel
by Jonathan Hayes (netgalley) ~ He knows their names, and the day they will die. . . . Edward Jenner, the brilliant forensic pathologist introduced in Precious Blood, has survived the horrific ordeal of the Inquisitor serial killings in New York, but not the political fall-out. His medical license suspended, Jenner finds himself banished to Douglas County in coastal Florida, and settles in to work as a Medical Examiner in the balmy seaside resort of Port Fontaine. But nothing in Douglas County is as it seems. First, Jenner’s former mentor is found savagely murdered with his wife in a suspicious car crash, then an anonymous call in the middle of the night leads Jenner to a nightmarish discovery of four men hanged in the Everglades. He finds traces of a shadowy criminal conspiracy, and soon learns that he can trust no one. With his life on the line, Jenner refuses to walk away and let his friend’s murder go unpunished. The result is an explosive, edge-of-the-seat thriller from an emerging master of the genre. Release date ~ April 1st.
Before Cain Strikes
by Joshua Corin (netgalley) ~ School is in session. The subject is murder. When 
the student is ready, the teacher appears. The only problem is, in this online classroom the students are would-be serial killers eager to learn the tricks of the trade from a master, the enigmatic Cain42. FBI consultant Esme Stuart is struggling to stanch the doubt and fear eating away at her marriage. Now a seedy truecrime writer is dredging up the deadly confrontation that nearly destroyed her. But the link between Esme’s old enemy and this new predator is the key to the Bureau’s manhunt. Esme knows her involvement in the case could cost her everything. Her marriage. Her daughter. Her life. But when Cain openly challenges his “students” to embark on a killing spree, she has no choice but to act— before Cain strikes another victim down… Release date ~ March 22nd.
The Weird Sisters
by Eleanor Brown (Nook) ~ There is no problem that a library card can't solve. The Andreas family is one of readers. Their father, a renowned Shakespeare professor who speaks 
almost entirely in verse, has named his three daughters after famous Shakespearean women. When the sisters return to their childhood home, ostensibly to care for their ailing mother, but really to lick their wounds and bury their secrets, they are horrified to find the others there. See, we love each other. We just don't happen to like each other very much. But the sisters soon discover that everything they've been running from-one another, their small hometown, and themselves-might offer more than they ever expected.
Deadly Fear
by Cynthia Eden (Kindle) ~ TWO BRILLIANT AGENTS - FBI Special Agent Monica 
Davenport has made a career out of profiling serial killers. But getting inside the twisted minds of the cruel and the sadistic has taken its toll: She's walled herself off from the world. Yet Monica can't ignore fellow agent Luke Dante, the only man who ever broke through her defenses. ONE DREAM TEAM Luke has the unique ability to put victims at ease...professionally, he and Monica made a perfect team. Now they're reunited to catch a murderer who uses his victims' deepest, darkest fears for sport - but their investigative skills aren't enough. Luke and Monica will have to face the secrets from their past, the ones that terrify them the most, if they are to have a future together. But can they catch a killer whose weapon is...DEADLY FEAR
Deadly Heat
by Cynthia Eden (Kindle) ~ She wants revenge . . . Six months after her lover died in an arsonist's blaze, firefighter Lora Spade calls in the FBI's elite Serial Services Division to track the 
elusive killer. When Special Agent Kenton Lake is lured into a violent inferno, Lora pulls him to safety and is stunned - not by the fire, but by her own searing attraction to Kent. For the first time in months, she longs for something other than vengeance. He wants her . . .Kenton's interest in Lora should be purely professional. But one fleeting kiss and he can't get her out of his mind. Her combination of strength and vulnerability makes him want to protect her, and that means solving this case - and fast. For even the passion igniting between them can't hide a terrifying truth: Lora is the next target in a murderer's sadistic, fiery game. A vicious killer wants only . . . DEADLY HEAT
The Silver Boat: A Novel
by Luanne Rice (arc, review) ~ From the beloved New York Times 
bestselling Luanne Rice comes a heartwarming yet heart-wrenching portrait of three far-flung sisters who come home to Martha's Vineyard one last time. Their mother's beach house is the only place any of them ever found true happiness and they need to begin the difficult process of letting go. Memories of their grandmother, mother, and their Irish father, who sailed away the year Dar turned twelve, rise up and expose the fine cracks in their family myth-especially when a cache of old letters reveals enough truth to send them back to their ancestral homeland. Transplanted into the unfamiliar, each sister sees life, her heart, and her relationship to home in a new way. But how do they let go of a place that contains the complicated love of their imperfect family? Without the house, where will they be together? The novel is a season on Martha's Vineyard; a mission to Ireland; a cast of friends, including one wildly off-the-grid Zen genius; passionate love in the surf; and three very different sisters with lives filled with beauty, sorrow, and deep love they'd never been quite sure they could trust. The Silver Boat is Luanne Rice at her very best, complete with her singular talent for capturing a family in all its flawed complexity. Release date ~ April 5th.
