IMM #14

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme to share what we bought, checked out, swapped, or won. IMM is hosted by The Story Siren . I decided to add the synopsis of the books  


Won/gifted

Exiled (The Protector #1)
by M.R. Merrick

Publication Date:  August 27th 2011 by M.R. Merrick

Chase Williams is a demon hunter in the Circle, or at least he was supposed to be. On his fifteenth birthday, Chase stepped up to the altar to claim his elemental power, but it never came. Elemental magic is passed down to a hunter through the bloodline, but on Chase's birthday, the bloodline stopped. 
Exiled without the Circle's protection, Chase has spent two years trying to survive a world riddled with half-demons and magic. When he has a run in with a frightened and seemingly innocent demon, he learns the Circle's agenda has changed: the Circle plans to unlock a portal and unleash pure-blood demons into the world. Vowing to stop them, and knowing he can't do it alone, Chase forms a reluctant alliance with Rayna — a sexy witch with an attitude and a secret. 
In their attempt to stop them, Chase and Rayna find themselves in the middle of the Circle's plan, leaving one of them to decide what their friendship is worth, and the other's life depending on it.

Shift (The Protector #2)
by M.R. Merrick

Publication Date:  February 1st 2012 by M.R. Merrick

Devastated by the loss of his mother, Chase is trying to balance the life he’s been left with, a family he’s still getting to know, and power he never thought he’d have. He doesn’t understand why the Goddess has named him the Protector and granted him two gifts: the Mark, a tattoo that now covers his back, and the ring. But between getting interrogated by the Circle and psychic attacks from Riley, the Mark is the least of his concern. There’s a demon inside Rayna that’s fighting to be released, and it’s not her inner witch. It’s something else–a monster threatening to tear her apart. 
As Chase struggles to control his magic, his enemies are closing in. Everyone has staked a claim on his ring, and destroying it may be his only chance to stop Riley. But Chase must decide if stopping him is worth risking the lives of everyone he cares about, or if protecting the ring will be enough to save his world

[ I heard and read amazing things about this series, reading soon in school break time]

In Too Deep
by Amanda Grace, Mandy Hubbard

Publication Date:  February 8th 2012 by Flux

From the author of "But I Love Him" comes a haunting novel about what happens to one teenage girl when a rumor of rape goes around her school. A Junior Library Guild Selection.

[freaking exited about it]

The Shadow Reader (McKenzie Lewis #1)
by Sandy Williams

Publication Date:   October 25th 2011 by Ace 

There can only be one allegiance. It’s her time to choose. 
Some humans can see the fae. McKenzie Lewis can track them, reading the shadows they leave behind. But some shadows lead to danger. Others lead to lies. 
A Houston college student trying to finish her degree, McKenzie has been working for the fae king for years, tracking vicious rebels who would claim the Realm. Her job isn’t her only secret. For just as long, she’s been in love with Kyol, the king’s sword-master—and relationships between humans and fae are forbidden. 
But any hope for a normal life is shattered when she’s captured by Aren, the fierce and uncompromising rebel leader. He teaches her the forbidden fae language and tells her dark truths about the Court, all to persuade her to turn against the king. Time is running out, and as the fight starts to claim human lives, McKenzie has no choice but to decide once and for all whom to trust and where she ultimately stands in the face of a cataclysmic civil war 

The Forever Girl: Sophia's Journey (Forever Girl, #1)

by Rebecca Hamilton

Publication Date:  January 26th 2012 by Immortal Ink Publishing

Sophia Parsons’ family has skeletons, but they aren’t in their graves... 
Solving the mystery of an ancestor’s hanging might silence the clashing whispers in Sophia's mind, but the cult in her town and the supernaturals who secretly reside there are determined to silence her first. 
As Sophia unknowingly crosses the line into an elemental world full of vampire-like creatures, shapeshifters, and supernatural grim reapers, she meets Charles, a man who becomes both lover and ally. 
But can she trust him? 
It’s not until someone nearly kills Sophia that she realizes the only way to unveil the source of her family's curse: abandon her faith or abandon her humanity. If she wants to survive, she must accept who she is, perform dark magic, and fight to the death for her freedom

The Waiting Booth
by Brinda Berry

Publication Date:  July 15th 2011 by Etopia Press

A missing boy, government agents, an interdimensional portal...
Mia has one goal for her senior year at Whispering Woods High--find her missing older brother. But when her science project reveals a portal into another dimension, she learns that travelers are moving in and out of her woods in the most alarming way and government agents Regulus and Arizona are policing their immigration. Mia’s drawn to the mysterious, aloof Regulus, but it’s no time for a crush. She needs to find out what they know about her brother, while the agents fight to save the world from viral contamination. But when Regulus reveals that he knows Mia's secrets, she begins to wonder if there's more going on than she thought...and if she was wrong to trust him...

Review

World on Fire
by Hayley B. James 
Publication Date: January 16th 2012 by Dreamspinner Press

When shy Cole Saunders sets out for Nowheresville, Colorado, to interview a reclusive artist, it’s mostly to prove he’s capable of doing the job. He doesn’t expect a house and garden so elaborate and secluded that he’s forced to rely on his subject, Lucian Thomas, for anything he needs. 
While Cole is trying to get a read on his host, Lucian turns the tables on him, knowing more about Cole than should be possible, wielding an uncanny ability to draw Cole out of his shell. And something even stranger is happening in the garden, which seems to rearrange itself at its master’s whim. Lucian claims he wants to set Cole’s world on fire, but all Cole can see smoldering is the tension between them.

Freebies

First Bitten (The Alexandra Jones series)
by Samantha Towle

Publication Date: January 22nd 2012 by Night Publishing

A love story with bite …... 
Walking home after a night out drowning her sorrows with her best friend, Carrie, Alexandra Jones stupidly takes a phone call from her cheating ex-boyfriend, Eddie, and in her anger hurls her phone into the forest before her. 
But when Alex goes to retrieve her phone from the undergrowth, she and Carrie come face-to-face with a monster they never even knew existed, a Vârcolac (a nightmarish vampire-werewolf hybrid) and he's in search of fresh blood. The next thing Alex knows, she is staring at the impossibly handsome but mysterious Nathan who has helped bring her back to life, but not to the life she left. 
To her horror, she discovers she has now become a blood-drinking Vârcolac herself and she is the only female of her kind, with the potential for breeding a whole new army of Vârcolacs if they can only track her down and press her into service. 
And while Alex gets to know Nathan and his shape-shifting family as they offer her the protection she so desperately needs, unbeknown to all of them, the Vârcolacs are getting closer …

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (Niki Slobodian #1)
by J.L. Murray

Publication Date: January 30th 2012 by Hellzapoppin Press

It’s not like the movies, where they don’t know they’re dead. They don’t often haunt people or places for revenge, and as far as I know they don’t befriend lonely children. Usually. If you could see them, you might not even know them from some of the living. Empty-eyed and looking around at the world like they can’t believe it’s all still there and going on without them. Or maybe they’re seeing it for the first time. This city is full of ghosts. I can see them all. Lucky me.” 
Niki Slobodian was born with a gift. Ever since she was little she could see things that weren't supposed to be there. Ghosts, spirits, apparitions. That's how she landed on the Registry. Now she can't work or she'll end up the same place as her father. In prison. But with bills piling up, and with Niki's godmother dying in the hospital, Niki's becoming desperate. 
But when Niki meets Sam, she sees a beacon of hope. Sam gets her off the Registry, something Niki thought was impossible. He also pays her enough money to get out from under her mountain of debt. And all Niki has to do is round up a homicidal Dark that's escaped from Hell. 
With a new partner, Bobby Gage, another Abnormal with a gift for Casting, Niki has to find the Dark and figure out how to get it back to Hell. But there is the small matter of how the Dark got out. And if the Dark was released purposefully, what else is loose in the city? 

Jarrett
by A.R. Kahler

Publication Date: December 31st 2011

Two years after humans created the Hollow Ones and tore the world apart, Jarrett and his fellow Hunters are trying to hold onto civilization. But when he meets Tenn, an orphaned warrior like himself, a new, dangerous chapter of his life begins.

Vamplayers
by Rusty Fische

Publication Date:  December 13th 2011 by Medallion Press

At the Afterlife Academy of Exceptionally Dark Arts, the vampires in training follow one of two tracks: they become either Sisters or Saviors. Of course, everyone wants to be a Savior, swooping into infested high schools in matching red leather jumpsuits and wielding crossbows, putting down swarming vampires with deadly efficiency. 
But Lily Fielding is just a Sister—a Third Sister at that, a measly trainee. When Lily and her two Sisters, Alice and Cara, are called out to their latest assignment, she figures it’s just another run-of-the-mill gig: spot the Vamplayer (part vampire, part player), identify the predictably hot, trampy girl he’s set his eyes on, and befriend her before the Vamplayer can turn her to do his bidding. 
Finding the sleek and sexy Vamplayer, Tristan, and his equally beautiful and popular target, Bianca, is easy. And when Lily meets the adorably geeky Zander, she too falls under a lover’s spell. But this assignment turns out to be trickier than most when the Third Sister must battle the baddest vampire of all

So that's what I got this week

What did You Get?