IMMB (7)

In My Mailbox is where I post the books I bought, borrow, won, or received this week. IMMB was started by Kristi of The Story Siren and inspired by Alea of Pop Culture Junkie.

This week I received several books: 2 books for review from Henry Holt (Lockdown and Dreamhunter) and two books I won from a blog (Stray Affections and The Impostor's Daughter)! Summaries from Amazon.

Lockdown: Escape from Furnace 1 
By: Alexander Gordon Smith
Furnace Penitentiary: the world’s most secure prison for young offenders, buried a mile beneath the earth’s surface. Convicted of a murder he didn’t commit, sentenced to life without parole, “new fish” Alex Sawyer knows he has two choices: find a way out, or resign himself to a death behind bars, in the darkness at the bottom of the world. Except in Furnace, death is the least of his worries. Soon Alex discovers that the prison is a place of pure evil, where inhuman creatures in gas masks stalk the corridors at night, where giants in black suits drag screaming inmates into the shadows, where deformed beasts can be heard howling from the blood-drenched tunnels below. And behind everything is the mysterious, all-powerful warden, a man as cruel and dangerous as the devil himself, whose unthinkable acts have consequences that stretch far beyond the walls of the prison.
Together with a bunch of inmates—some innocent kids who have been framed, others cold-blooded killers—Alex plans an escape. But as he starts to uncover the truth about Furnace’s deeper, darker purpose, Alex’s actions grow ever more dangerous, and he must risk everything to expose this nightmare that’s hidden from the eyes of the world.

Dreamhunter 
By: Elizabeth Knox
Fast-paced and dazzlingly imaginative, Dreamhunter will draw the reader into an extraordinary fictional world in which dreams are as vividly described as the cream cakes in the tea shop, the sand on the beach or teenage first love.
Set in 1906, Dreamhunter describes a world very similar to ours, except for a special place, known simply as The Place, where only a select group of people can go. These people are called Dreamhunters and they harvest dreams which are then transmitted to the general public for the purposes of entertainment, therapy - or terror and political coercion.
Fifteen-year-old cousins Laura Hame and Rose Tiebold both come from famous dreamhunting families, but only Laura proves to be blessed with the gift and once inside The Place she finds out what happened to her missing dreamhunter father and reveals how the government has used dreams to control an ever-growing population of convicts and political dissenters.

Stray Affections
By: Charlene Ann Baumbich
The last thing that Cassandra Higgins expects out of her Sunday is to be mesmerized at a collectors' convention by a snowglobe. She's enjoying some mommy time, with husband Ken at home tending their brood of four young boys, when she's utterly charmed by the one-of-a kind globe containing figures of three dogs and a little girl with hair the color of her own. She can't resist taking the unique globe home-even if means wrestling another shopper for it!
The beautiful snowglobe sparks long-dormant memories for Cassie, of her beloved Grandpa Wonky, the stray dog she rescued as a child, and the painful roots of her combative relationship with her mother, "Bad Betty" Kamrowski. Life in Wanonishaw, Minnesota is never dull, though, and Cassie keeps the recollections at bay, busy balancing her boys, her home daycare operation, and being a good friend to best pal Margret. But after a strange-flurrious, as Cassie deems it-moment happens with the remarkable snowglobe, Cassie and the people she loves, including her mother, are swirled into a tumultuous yet grace-filled and life-changing journey.
With the quirky, close-knit Midwestern small-town feel that made Charlene Ann Baumbich's acclaimed Dearest Dorothy novels so popular, Stray Affections invites readers to experience the laughter and the healing of second chances, and the reminder that God never gives up on our dreams.

The Impostor's Daughter
By: Laurie Sandell
Laurie Sandell grew up in awe (and sometimes in terror) of her larger-than-life father, who told jaw-dropping tales of a privileged childhood in Buenos Aires, academic triumphs, heroism during Vietnam, friendships with Kissinger and the Pope. As a young woman, Laurie unconsciously mirrors her dad, trying on several outsized personalities (Tokyo stripper, lesbian seductress, Ambien addict). Later, she lucks into the perfect job--interviewing celebrities for a top women's magazine. Growing up with her extraordinary father has given Laurie a knack for relating to the stars.