Mailbox Monday - May 3, 2015

Mailbox Monday is a gathering place for readers to share what came in their mailbox. This meme has a permanent home at Mailbox Monday and was created by Marcia at To Be Continued I am linking up to Mailbox Monday. 

This is what I received last week

Won:

Lemon Pies and Little White Lies by Ellery Adams - A Charmed Pie Shoppe Mystery #4

Jaded by Varina Denman - Mending Hearts #1

To be reviewed:

Called to be Amish by Marlene C. Miller

The Proposal at Siesta Key by Shelley Shepard Gray - Amish Brides of Pinecraft #2

Bought:

The Chocolate Promise by Josephine Moon

A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet by Sophie Hudson

Nightmares Can Be Murder by Mary Kennedy - Dream Club Mystery #1

The Readaholics and the Falcon Fiasco by Laura DiSilverio - A Book Club Mystery #1

Bewitched, Bothered, and Biscotti by Bailey Cates - A Magical Bakery Mystery #2

Lemon Pies and Little White Lies by Ellery Adams - Ella Mae LeFay's Charmed Pie Shoppe has become a phenomenon beyond her wildest dreams, providing the enchanted town of Havenwood, Georgia, with spellbinding desserts and magical ies. Her personal life is also heating up as she takes on the responsibilities of leadership within her magical community. The only thing weighing her down is the prolonged absence of handsome Hugh Dylan ...

Still, when Havenwood is rocked by a series of mysterious deaths, Ella Mae must put romantic longings aside -- especially when she realizes that the mystical symbols left at each crime scene are dangerously personal. Now she will have to whip up all her supernatural skills to uncover a killer out to settle an ancient score - before the murderer devastates everything Ella Mae is determined to protect ...

The Charmed Pie Shoppe Mystery Series

#1 Pies and Prejudice

#2 Peach Pies and Alibis 

#3 Pecan Pies and Homicides

#4 Lemon Pies and Little White Lies

Jaded by Marina Denman - Their small-town church wants them apart but God has other plans.

As a child, Ruthie was shunned by the local congregation. Now, thirteen years later, Ruthie's heart begins to stir when an attractive single preacher arrives. But their relationship is bitterly opposed, and a string of secrets are unearthed that threaten to turn the church, the town, and her world upside down.

Jaded is the rare novel that is a love story between both a woman and a man ,,, and God and His church. Plunging deep into the waters of shame, forgiveness, and restoration, this book will resonate with every woman who's experienced a loss of heart ... and a thirst for hope. 

Mended Hearts Series

#1 Jaded

Called to be Amish by Marlene C. Miller - Ever wish you were Amish?

Fewer than one hundred outsides have joined the Amish since 1950 - and stayed, Marlene C. Miller is one of them. In this rare memoir, Miller recounts her unhappy and abusive childhood, how she throws herself into cheerleading and marching band, and how she falls in love with the gentle young Amish man who helps lace her ices skates. 

Follow the author on this unusual journey to find out how God's love called her out of bitterness and depression and into the warm embrace of her new Amish community. Accompany her as she dons an Amish dress and prayer covering and gets baptized. Learn how she endures the strain of ten children, a hundred-acre farm, and personal tragedies, and find out how she comes to close to walking away from it all. Turning Amish has proven to be anything but plain and simple for this former majorette. Yet nearly fifty years later, Miller is still living God's call as an Old Order Amish woman. 

Plainspoken

#1 Chasing the Amish Dream: My Life as a Young Amish Bachelor by Loren Beachy

#2 Called to be Amish: My Journey from Head Majorette to the Old Order by Marlene C. Miller

#3 Hutterite Diaries: Wisdom From My Prairie Community by Linda Maendel

The Proposal at Siesta Key by Shelley Shepard Gray - Penny Troyer never disobeys her parents. But tonight she's bending the rules because Michael Knoxx - the most famous member of the Knoxx Family, a traveling Mennonite evangelical family - is scheduled to speak. Penny has heard of Michael - how he lost part of his leg in a terrible accident and uses the experience to inspire others - and knows she must meet him .. even if it means challenging her parents' strict rules and taking the first step toward her own independence. 

Though he speaks about living life to the fullest, Michael knows she needs to take his own advice. Life on the road is grueling and Michael wants to slow down, to rest ... to perhaps meet someone who sees him as a man, not just a celebrity. So when a twist of fate allows him the chance to stay a little longer in Pinecraft, Michael knows God is showing him a new path, especially when he discovers that Penny has also survived a terrible ordeal. 

But as Michael's time in Pinecraft comes to an end, Michael and Penny are left to wonder what kind of future they could possibly have together. Are they brave enough to take the chance given to them? Or will they choose to cling to what is familiar, even if it pushes away their dream of happiness?

Amish Brides of Pinecraft

#1 A Promise of Palm Grove

#2 The Proposal at Siesta Key

The Chocolate Promise by Josephine Moon - Christmas Livingstone has ten rules for happiness, the most important of which is 'absolutely no romantic relationships'.

In The Chocolate Apothecary, her enchanting artisan store in Tasmania, she tempers her chocolate and creates handmade delicacies. Surrounded by gifts for the senses, in this shop chocolate isn't just good for you, it's medicine. 

And then one day a stranger arrives at her front door -- a dishevelled botanist seeking her help. She really doesn't need Lincoln van Luc to walk into her life, even if he does have the nicest blue eyes, the loveliest meddling grandmother and a gorgeous newly rescued dog. She really doesn't need any of it. Or does she?

Set across Tasmania, Paris and Provence, this is a glorious novel of a creative woman about to find out how far in life a list of rules will take her, with an enticing tangle of freshly picked herbs, pots of flowers and lashings of chocolate scenting the air. 

A Little Salty to cut the Sweet by Sophie Hudson - Here's the thing family is worth celebrating. 

And since I'm Southern I would almost always advise that the celebrating should involve a table where both the fried chicken and the laughter are abundant. 

But as wonderful as family life can be, it can also be complicated. Family can get under your skin like nobody's business.

No matter what though, I love my people to pieces. I imagine you feel the same way about your family. And while food may be what brings us to the table when we get together, it's the people who provide the real nourishment. As we join hands and bow heads and break bread, God faithfully teaches us deep lasting lessons about loyalty. About love. About Him. 

This book is a collection of some of my favorite family stories. I'm just as tickled as I can be to share them with you. And I hope you'll feel right at home. 

Nightmares Can Be Murder by Mary Kennedy - Business consultant Taylor Blake has returned to Savannah, Georgia, to help her sister, Alison, turn her dream of running an old-fashioned candy store into a reality. Allison is also interested in dream interpretation and invites Taylor to her Dream Club, where members meet once a week to share and analyze their dreams. 

When a local dance instructor, Chico Hernandez, is found dead in his studio, and the murder scene has an eerie resemblance to one of the dreams shared at the meeting. Taylor can't help but be intrigued. And when her sister, who was briefly involved with the dance teacher, becomes the prime suspect, Taylor and her fellow club member can't be caught napping. It's up to them to dream up a solution so the murder before Allison faces a real-life nightmare. 

Dream Club Mystery Series

#1 Nightmares Can Be Murder

#2 Dream a Little Scream (August 2015)

The Readaholics and the Falcon Fiasco by Laura DiSilverio - Amy-Faye has always loved her idyllic Rocky Mountain town of Heaven, Colorado. Her event-planning business is thriving, her fellow book-obsessed Readaholics are great, and her parents live only a few blocks away. But lately her hometown has felt a little less heavenly. First, she agrees to plan a wedding without realizing the groom is her ex-boyfriend. Then Ivy, one of her fellow Readaholics, dies suddenly under a mysterious circumstances. 

The police rule Ivy's death a suicide by poisoning, but Amy-Faye and the remaining Readaholics suspect foul play. Amy-Faye soon discovers that Ivy was hiding dangerous secrets - and making deadly enemies. Taking a page from her favorite literary sleuths, Amy-Faye is determined to find the real killer and close the book on this case. But finding the truth could spell her own ending...

A Book Club Mystery Series

#1 The Readaholics and the Falcon Fiasco

Bewitched, Bothered and Biscotti by Bailey Cates - As a new witch - not to mention head chef at Savannah's most enchanting bakery - Katie Lightfoot is still getting used to casting spells, brewing potions, and mastering her magical powers. But that doesn't mean she can't find time to enjoy a picnic with firefighter Declan McCarthy ... until she stumbles upon a corpse. 

The dead man's tattoo reveals he was a member of a secret society - and it turns out he's missing an object that was very important to the group. When Katie learns the killer was after more than the man't life, she and her aunt Lucy leave the baked goods on the cooling rack and set off in hot pursuit of a murder. 

A Magical Bakery Mystery

#1 Brownies and Broomsticks

#2 Bewitched, Bothered, and Biscotti

#3 Charms and Chocolate Chips

#4 Some Enchanted Eclair (July 2015)

#5 Magic and Macroons