Alison Strobel tops today’s Buffet with Reinventing Rachel, her novel about one woman’s search for God, of falling and rising, and finding that we’re never alone.
Alison inherited the writing gene from her father, journalist/author Lee Strobel, and grew up composing stories on everything from napkins to typewriters. She wrote her first full-length novel after moving to California for college. Waterbrook Press picked up Worlds Collide and published it in 2005. Violette Between followed in 2006 and earned Alison a nomination for the prestigious Rita Award.
Parenthood prompted Alison and her husband to write the award-winning That’s Where God Is, the first in a series of children’s books on spiritual formation, which released in 2010 and was followed the next year by That’s When I Talk to God.
Alison and her family now live in Colorado. When she’s not writing, she’s reading or doing homeschool with her daughters.
As usual, each book listed here has gone FREE within the past 24 hours, except for the Bargain books in the yellow section. Warning: Kindle book promotions can end without notice, so before downloading click the link “See Kindle price at Amazon” to verify that the book is still free. (Prices and availability may differ outside USA.)
Reinventing Rachel: A Novel
Women’s Fiction > Friendship > Christianity
Author: Alison Strobel
God let Rachel Westing down. For twenty-six years she’s done everything by the book; she figures He should have her back. But then she learns her fiancé is cheating on her. Her parents are getting a divorce. And her Christian mentor has a pill addiction. Where is God in all this? Nowhere, as far as Rachel can see. Wounded, bitter, and with a shattered faith, she quits her job and moves across the country to live with Daphne—her childhood best friend whose soul Rachel once thought she was meant to save.
Confident, successful, fun-loving Daphne sets about helping Rachel reinvent herself, and for a while it’s exciting. But when another tragedy shakes Rachel to the core, what little bit of self-possession she has left begins to unravel. A true-to-life story that will draw you in and keep you biting your nails until the end.
space
The Advocate
Thrillers > Legal
Author: Teresa Burrell
For Sabre Orin Brown, life is good; she has it all…or would have, if only she could solve the mysterious disappearance of her brother. The search for her brother and her career as a Juvenile Court Attorney collide when she defends a nine-year-old whose father will go to any length to obtain custody.
Sabre finds herself immersed in a case with too many unanswered questions. Her quest for the truth takes her coast to coast and five years into the past. Confronted with mysterious clues and strange occurrences, Sabre is threatened by someone wanting to make her suffer the unbearable anguish of losing everything–including her life.
As Sabre’s passion to find the answers intensifies, she discovers a twisted history of desperation, deceit, and revenge. And she discovers how obscure and treacherous the truth can be.
The Magic Wakes
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Author: Charity Bradford
Since childhood, scientist Talia Zaryn has been haunted by recurring dreams, visions of an alien attack on her planet Sendek. Each time it ends abruptly with Talia’s death in the capital city Joharadin, a city that she has spent her life desperately avoiding. Talia keeps these dreams a secret, hoping they are nothing more than childish nightmares. But when she is unexpectedly transferred to Joharadin she is convinced that the conflict, and her own death, is at hand.
As Talia’s nightmares occur with increasing frequency, they reveal the imminent invasion of a half-dragon, half-human race called Dragumon, bent on the annihilation of her world.
In Sendek, magic is dead and science rules, forcing Talia to keep another secret, one that could cost her everything if it were known. Now, in order to save her planet, Talia must awaken the powers within her and rely at last on the magic that is her true inheritance.
Slapstick (Kurt Vonnegut series)
Humor > Satire
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Regular Price $8.99, Today $1.99
- $7.99 List Price
- See Kindle Price at Amazon.com
Perhaps the most autobiographical (and deliberately least disciplined) of Vonnegut’s novels, Slapstick (1976) is in the form of a broken family odyssey and is surely a demonstration of its eponymous title. The story centers on brother and sister twins, children of Wilbur Swain, who are in sympathetic and (possibly) telepathic communication and who represent Vonnegut’s relationship with his own sister who died young of cancer almost two decades before the book’s publication.
Vonnegut dedicated this to Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Like their films and routines, this novel is an exercise in non-sequentiality and in the bizarre while using those devices to expose larger and terrible truths. The twins exemplify to Swain a kind of universal love; he campaigns for it while troops of technologically miniaturized Chinese are launched upon America. Love and carnage intersect in a novel contrived to combine credibility and common observation; critics could sense Vonnegut deliberately flouting narrative constraint or imperative in an attempt to destroy the very idea of the novel he was writing.
Jailbird (Kurt Vonnegut Series)
Genre Fiction > Historical
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Regular Price $8.99, Today $1.99
- $7.99 List Price
- See Kindle Price at Amazon.com
Walter Starbuck, a career humanist and eventual low-level aide in the Nixon White House, is implicated in Watergate and jailed, after which he (like Howard Campbell in Mother Night) works on his memoirs. Starbuck is innocent (his office was used as a base for the Watergate shenanigans of which he had no knowledge) and yet he is not innocent (he has collaborated with power unquestioningly served societal order all his life). In that sense, Starbuck is a generic Vonnegut protagonist, an individual compromised by the essential lack of interior.
Jailbird (1979) uses the format of the memoir to retrospectively trace Starbuck’s uneven, centerless and purposeless odyssey in or out of the offices of power. He represents another Vonnegut Everyman caught amongst forces which he neither understands nor can defend. Written in the aftermath of Watergate, Jailbird is, of course, an attempt to order those catastrophic events and to find some rationale or meaningful outcome, and, as is usually the case with Vonnegut’s pyrotechnics, there is no easy answer or perhaps there is no answer at all.
Starbuck (his name an Americanized version of his long, foreign birth name), in his profound ambiguity and ambivalence, may himself constitute an explanation for Watergate, a series of whose consequences have not, almost forty years later, been fully assimilated or understood. The Nixon who passes across the panorama of Jailbird is no more or less ambiguous than Starbuck himself–a man without qualities whose overwhelming quality is one of imposition.
Technomancer (Unspeakable Things: Book One)
Science Fiction > Adventure
Author: B.V. Larson
Regular Price $9.99, Today $0.99
A new kind of alien invasion…
When Quentin Draith wakes up in a private sanatorium, he has no memory of who he is or how he received the injuries riddling his body. All he knows is that he has to get out, away from the drugs being pumped into him and back to the real world to search for answers. His first question: How did his friend Tony’s internal organs fill with sand, killing him in a Las Vegas car crash?
After a narrow escape, he tracks down the basic facts: he is an investigator and blogger specializing in the supernatural—which is a good thing, because Quentin’s life is getting stranger by the minute. It seems he is one of a special breed, a person with unusual powers. He’s also the prime suspect in a string of murders linked by a series of seemingly mundane objects. The deeper he digs and the harder he works to clear his name, the more Quentin realizes that some truths are better off staying buried…
Drop Dead Divas
Mystery > Women Sleuths
Author: Virginia Brown
Regular Price $12.95, Today $1.99
- $12.95 List Price
- See Kindle Price at Amazon.com
Welcome to a genteel world of pimento cheese finger sandwiches, tall libations in frosted glasses, stiletto heels, aging southern-belle sisterhood, and murder . . . In Dixie Divas, Trinket Truevine, her pal Bitty and their raucous divas friends in the historic small town of Holly Springs, Mississippi, solved the murder of Bitty’s ex-senator husband, Phillip. Now, in Drop Dead Divas, the Divas are sleuthing again. Their pal Naomi Spencer has been accused of murdering her fiance, drag race champion Race Champion. Soon, Naomi turns up dead, too. Talk about a fly in the martini . . . Join the bawdy fun as Trinket, Bitty and the gang unravel another small-town mystery. Virginia Brown is the acclaimed author of more than fifty romance and mystery novels.
A Hundred Summers
Historical Romance
Author: Beatriz Williams
Regular Price $10.99, Today $2.99
Memorial Day, 1938: New York socialite Lily Dane has just returned with her family to the idyllic oceanfront community of Seaview, Rhode Island, expecting another placid summer season among the familiar traditions and friendships that sustained her after heartbreak.
That is, until Greenwalds decide to take up residence in Seaview.
Nick and Budgie Greenwald are an unwelcome specter from Lily’s past: her former best friend and her former fiancé, now recently married—an event that set off a wildfire of gossip among the elite of Seaview, who have summered together for generations. Budgie’s arrival to restore her family’s old house puts her once more in the center of the community’s social scene, and she insinuates herself back into Lily’s friendship with an overpowering talent for seduction…and an alluring acquaintance from their college days, Yankees pitcher Graham Pendleton. But the ties that bind Lily to Nick are too strong and intricate to ignore, and the two are drawn back into long-buried dreams, despite their uneasy secrets and many emotional obligations.
Under the scorching summer sun, the unexpected truth of Budgie and Nick’s marriage bubbles to the surface, and as a cataclysmic hurricane barrels unseen up the Atlantic and into New England, Lily and Nick must confront an emotional cyclone of their own, which will change their worlds forever.
Brotherhood: Dharma, Destiny, and the American Dream
Self-Help > Personal Transformation
Author: Deepak Chopra, Sanjiv Chopra
Regular Price $12.99, Today $1.99
In Brotherhood, Deepak and Sanjiv Chopra reveal the story of their personal struggles and triumphs as doctors, immigrants, and brothers. They were born in the ferment of liberated India after 1947, as an age-old culture was reinventing its future. For the young, this meant looking to the West.
The Chopra brothers were among the most eager and ambitious of the new generation. In the 1970s, they each emigrated to the United States to make a new life. Both faced tough obstacles: While Deepak encountered resistance from Western-trained doctors over the mind-body connection, Sanjiv struggled to reconcile the beliefs of his birthplace with those of his new home.
Eventually, each brother became convinced that America was the right place to build a life, and the Chopras went on to great achievements—Deepak as a global spiritual teacher and best-selling author, Sanjiv as a world-renowned medical expert and professor at Harvard Medical School.
Brotherhood will fascinate and inspire those who still believe in America’s capacity to foster achievement and reward hard work.
FranklinCovey Style Guide: For Business and Technical Communication
Business & Investing > Skills > Communication
Author: Stephen R. Covey
FranklinCovey Style Guide can help any writer produce documents that achieve outstanding results. Created by FranklinCovey, the world-renowned leader in helping organizations enhance individual effectiveness, this edition fully reflects today’s online media and global business challenges. It covers everything from document design and graphics to sentence style and word choice. This edition’s many improvements include extensive new coverage of graphics, writing for online media, and international business English. Through dozens of examples and model documents, writers learn how to overcome “writer’s block” and efficiently create documents from start to finish.
FranklinCovey’s experts show how to get powerful results from every email; add distinctiveness and power to any online presence; write far more effective proposals, letters, memos, reports, and resumes; and improve all forms of documentation, from business procedures to highly technical content.
50 Ways to Protect Your Identity in a Digital Age
Personal Finance > Credit Ratings & Repair
Author: Steve Weisman
It is better to stop identity theft from happening in the first place than have to fix or repair the situation afterwards. Steve Weisman reveals the threats of new identity theft attacks based on use of Facebook, iPad, iPhone, Android, cloud apps, iPod, and other new technologies — and shows you how to protect yourself, or how to fix the damage if you’ve already been attacked.
Discover why ID theft is more dangerous than ever, and discover today’s most dangerous new threats — including attacks targeting medical records, personal finance and online banking sites, the elderly, and military service members. Meet the hackers and organized crime groups who want to steal your identity and money — and learn how to protect your data and your life.
The PlayBook: An Inside Look at How to Think Like a Professional Trader
Business & Investing > Investing
Author: Mike Bellafiore
Want to become a truly great trader – either for yourself or for a proprietary trading firm? This book will help you get there. This unique approach is the closest thing to signing up for a “trader boot camp” yourself. You’ll learn by watching new traders walk through actual trades, explain what they’ve tried to do, and try to survive brutally tough expert critiques.
One trade at a time, The Playbook reveals how professional traders must think in order to succeed “under fire,” how they assess their own performance, and how they work relentlessly to improve. Using concrete, actionable setups drawn from his extensive trading and training experience, Bellafiore walks through an extraordinary array of trades, showing readers how to maximize profits and avoid disastrous hidden pitfalls.
Evie’s Knight
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Author: Kimberly Krey
When Evie falls in love with Calvin Knight, their young, virtuous romance conjures a truly wicked spell.
Evie always thought her eighteenth year would be magical, but so far it’s not what she hoped for. Her best friend has gone wild, her love life is void, and she misses her mom more than ever. But life for Evie is about to change. Calvin Knight, the object of her fascination, is about to fall madly in love with her. Just one problem: Their love conjures a murderous woman from beyond the grave who wants Evie dead. The same demon who has haunted the Knight men for over four generations.
Soon Calvin is forced to make a choice: Set Evie free and hope to evade the wrath of The Raven- haired Ghost, or use his newly gifted strengths to fight against her. If he chooses to fight and wins, Calvin will free the Knight men of this demonic witch. If he loses, Evie will become her next victim.
Teleport This
Science Fiction > Adventure > Comedy
Author: Christopher M. Daniels
- $2.99 List Price
- See Kindle Price at Amazon.com
“Not only is your entire premise beyond belief, but not even you would be presumptuous enough to contact extraterrestrial life as the sole representative of all mankind.”
“Sure, I already did. They sent me an application starter kit.”
And with that, Simon and Gilbert, two terrestrial physicists, leave Earth and stumble into and across a larger universe, trying desperately to find their way back to Earth and possibly purchase a working lightsaber or two along the way…
The Secrets of Moonshine
Romance > Paranormal
Author: Denise Daisy
- $0.99 List Price
- See Kindle Price at Amazon.com
As an aspiring author, Bronwyn never dreamed she would be writing trite, sappy love stories for a traveling drama troupe. She longs to write a compelling novel, a story striving to emerge from deep inside of her as far back as she can remember. However, she is suffering from a lack of inspiration, resulting in the most severe writer’s block ever. The reason — her fiancé, Ryan Reese, the
fastest rising star in Hollywood, broke off their engagement, leaving her cynical, bitter and not at all thrilled about scripting any more love stories.
To add to the wreckage of her life, her touring bus breaks down on the way to one of the biggest venues of the summer leaving her stranded in the peculiar town of Moonshine and at the mercy of the town’s most prominent resident, the mysterious Travis Colton.
Essential Saltwater Flies
Outdoors & Nature > Hunting & Fishing
Author: Ed Jaworowski
Now available in one handy volume, here are the best flies–including the Deceiver, Surf Candy, and Gotcha–for catching the most sought-after saltwater species. From the abundance of saltwater flies available today, Jaworowski picks the essential, innovative flies that are the foundation of the sport. Included are tying techniques and tips as well as knot-tying instructions and notes for fishing the flies.
- Flies that work for striped bass, bluefish, redfish, snook, weakfish, seatrout, snappers, jacks, yellowtail, bonito, bonefish, and tarpon
- Step-by-step tying photos
Coffee and Cockpits
Romance > New Adult & College
Author: Jade Hart
By day, Nina Poppins is a professional flight attendant, who lives to travel, and isn’t afraid to chase her dreams. By night, she’s an award winning Salsa dancer who wears sexy corsets and garter belts. She wants to keep her two lives separate, but Liam Mikin knows her secrets.
Liam Mikin is a co-pilot used to getting any air-hostess he wants with one blazing look of his blue eyes. And he wants Nina. But Nina is adamant she won’t end up as another notch on a pilot’s wingtip.
However, fate intervenes when their airplane malfunctions on a routine flight to Samoa, stranding all the crew on the Pacific island. Liam has his opportunity to prove to Nina he’s not what she thinks, but he wasn’t counting on competition in the form of an engineer.
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2