Rachel Ann Nunes began writing in the seventh grade and is now the author of over 40 published books, including the popular Autumn Rain romance series and the picture book Daughter of a King. She also writes the urban fantasy series “Unbounded” under the name Teyla Branton, and she sometimes uses the name Rachel Branton.
Rachel tops today’s Buffet with This Time Forever, a tender story of heartbreak, healing, and faith that you won’t soon forget. This novel originally appeared in paperback in 2001, and has been reprinted many times. As one reviewer put it, this book “has the feel of a family saga, with two completely satisfying romances that interweave beautifully to create a whole.”
Rachel and her husband, TJ, are the parents of three boys and four girls. In her spare time, Rachel enjoys camping with her family, traveling and meeting new people, and, of course, writing. She writes on Monday through Friday in a home office, often with a child on her lap. She takes frequent breaks from writing to build Lego towers, practice reading, or go swimming with the kids.
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This Time Forever
Women’s Fiction > Domestic Life > Romance
Author: Rachel Ann Nunes
Mickelle Hansen never realized marriage could be so challenging. Her husband’s epilepsy has caused him to become cynical and verbally abusive, but with love in her heart and strength from her Heavenly Father, Mickelle is determined to make her marriage work. Then the worst happens. Can she ever pick up the shattered pieces of her life?
Meanwhile, Rebekka Massoni arrives in America to work for handsome widower Damon Wolfe, leaving all her hopes and dreams back in her beloved France. She has loved and idolized Marc Perrault since she was five years old, but he can offer only her friendship in return.
Can Rebekka forget Marc and learn to love another man? Both Damon and Samuel Bjornenburg, successful CEO of Corban International, hope to win a place in her heart, but Damon’s daughter doesn’t like Rebekka, and Samuel doesn’t share her faith. To make matters worse, Rebekka’s heart is still breaking over Marc. Suddenly she must make the most important decision of her entire life. Will it be the right one?
Shooting Stars
Author: H. D. Gordon
Surah Stormsong is one of the most powerful Sorceresses in the world. She is a princess who is next in line for the throne. As someone who has lost almost everything to this world, she only wants to pull away from it and live a normal life, but when Highborn ladies start being murdered and the Black Stone—a weapon that is capable of great destruction—goes missing, she is called upon to solve the issues and return her people to a state of safety.
But danger lurks inside the castle walls as well, and when she runs into Charlie Redmine, a common Sorcerer Surah met once as a child, things grow complicated very quickly. He is the main suspect of the murders, but Surah is powerless against the connection she feels to him. Time is ticking, and if she doesn’t figure out what’s going on things will go from bad to worse, and an entire kingdom will suffer for it.
An Unintended Journey
Author: Catherine Gayle
Abby Goddard’s life is going along just swimmingly, apart from the disappearance of her life’s love—Wesley Cavendish, a man well above her station. Just before Christmas, Grandmama dies after revealing the identity of Abby’s grandfather. The Duke of Danby, no less. Now the entire family will travel to Yorkshire to confront Danby, hoping to gain a dowry for Abby. But then Wesley reemerges, sparking a hope Abby thought long destroyed.
Shall the prodigal son’s sole inheritance be an unsightly gash? Wesley Cavendish aspires to the political realm, despite his father’s near-murderous opposition…not to mention his opposition to Abby Goddard. But since Father died, will the new Earl of Fordingham rescind Father’s disgraceful allegations? Fordingham thwarts Wesley at every turn, threatening marriage to a prominent Tory family—which precludes Abby—to put an end to Wesley’s Whig involvement…unless Wesley can find a loophole.
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THE AMBASSADOR’S WIFE
Author: Jake Needham
The first body is in Singapore, on a bed in an empty suite in the Marriott Hotel. The second in Bangkok, in a seedy apartment close to the American embassy. Both women. Both Americans. Both beaten viciously and shot in the head. Both stripped naked and lewdly displayed. The FBI says it’s terrorism, but the whispers on the street are that a serial killer is stalking American women across Asia.
When bodies of American women start turning up, Singapore CID calls in Inspector Tay. It’s a high profile case, and he’s the best they have.
Then why is it, Tay soon begins to wonder, that nobody seems to want him to find the women’s killer? Not the FBI, not the American ambassador, not even his bosses at CID.
When international politics takes over a murder case, the truth is the next victim.
Dark Creations: Gabriel Rising
Author: Jennifer Martucci, Christopher Martucci
When Gabriel James mysteriously appears in seventeen-year-old Melissa Martin’s English class, she is not prepared for what she experiences, how she feels the first time they speak. With otherworldly attractiveness, gallantry, charm and intelligence, he is everything boys her age are not.
But Gabriel has a secret, a dark secret. His secret threatens to rip them apart and unleash an evil on the world so horrific, humanity will be forever changed. Gabriel and Melissa will risk everything – their very lives – to guard their love. Together, they will be forced to confront mankind’s darkest creation.
The World of Divergent: The Path to Allegiant
Author: Veronica Roth
Fans of Veronica Roth’s #1 bestselling “Divergent” trilogy won’t want to miss this bonus volume. (“Divergent” is a gripping dystopian tale of electrifying choices, powerful consequences, unexpected romance, and a deeply flawed “perfect society.” The series will be a major motion picture in theaters in March 2014.)
This fifty-page bonus, previously available only to buyers of the Divergent Series Box Set, includes faction manifestos, a faction quiz, an interview with author Veronica Roth, book playlists, discussion questions, series inspirations, and much more. It also contains ten enticing teasers from Allegiant, the final book in the Divergent series.
The Parrot Talks in Chocolate
Author: Everett Peacock
The bartender, and his incredibly smart Macaw parrot both explore the magical paths of love and the tropics in this escapist tale from Hawaii. In his family run Tiki Bar, and from his bedroom in the treehouse just above, our storyteller describes the characters surrounding his idyllic existence. Not immune to danger or mystery, each adventure leads him further and further toward a self realization of just how perfect the world can be.
My Occasional Torment
Author: Bee Robb
Marriage is demanding, and after 33 years, Julia wants proof that hers will last. Everyone in Highland Park, Illinois, seems to be cheating, divorced, or widowed. She cannot forget the time her husband, Sebastian, a history professor at the local junior college, was unfaithful before they married, and wonders if she should visit the plastic surgeon to keep herself desirable.
Compounding her fears is the steady stream of women students who have read Mitch Albom and Frank McCourt, and now want her husband to be their inspiration. In between her fears that she is not woman enough, or Scottish enough (she’s three quarters) for her husband, she is also worried about her elderly father-in-law, who obsesses about gangsters; her 17-year-old son Roby, who is at war with his father; and their widowed neighbor, whom they all call the vampire.
Take a Deep Breath
Author: Shar Dimick
Liv Reynolds can’t remember when anxiety and panic didn’t play havoc on her life. Recently divorced from a man who wouldn’t or couldn’t understand her, she retreats with her daughter to her grandmother’s summer cottage on Lake of the Pines. Liv has fond memories of the summers she spent there with her grandparents. Always a safe haven, she hopes to spend the summer relaxing, healing and finding herself again.
In the midst of a panic attack, she finds herself face-to-face with Cameron Preston, the boy with whom she’d spent her childhood summers. In love with him back then, she never found the courage to tell him and they drifted apart…Her heart leaps at the second chance for love. Confusion swamps her as she tries to figure out why Cam keeps pulling away… Can Liv rekindle their old friendship and to turn it into something more?
Universal Laws: The Secret Behind Manifesting Your Desires
Author: Jennifer O’Neill
When it comes to working with the Law of Attraction, or manifesting your desires, there are many, so called “secrets”…
When movies are produced or books are published on either of these two subjects some of the most important information is, well let’s just say… “missing.” You’re only provided with half of the information that you need.
Is it on purpose? Maybe, sometimes… Is it on accident? Probably, most of the time… Is it because they don’t know the entire truth themselves? Most likely…
You will never, ever, be able to fully understand how to manifest things into your life without understanding the how the entire manifestation process works. In this book you will learn:
* How to “understand” Universal Laws.
* Why Universal Laws are important to manifesting your desires.
* What it “feels” like when working with Universal Laws and manifesting.
* Manifesting Exercises.
* Manifesting Meditation.
* 6 Common blocks to manifesting your desires.
Peace River
Author: Jaclyn Hawkes
The police didn’t understand the danger—but she did. Her father had always been abusive, but now, with a $10 million thoroughbred farm on the line, and a powerful bookie leaning on him, her father had become out of control.
But how do you get away and take a world famous stallion with you? Carrie was getting desperate when a handsome and honorable but thoroughly cynical rodeo cowboy from Wyoming happened to show up with a horse trailer. He didn’t ride a white horse, but he was definitely a knight in shining armor.
He’ll protect her from the mob, but can she survive falling in love with a bull rider?
Dead in the Water
Author: Glenda Carroll
Meet Trisha Carson — No money. No man. No mojo.
Trisha is sitting in the hot summer sun at the edge of a cool Sierra lake. She thinks she is a witness to an accidental drowning at an open water swim. What else can it be? An elite athlete doesn’t sprint away from the pack, stop, never to move again. But then, a week later, another swimmer known more for her beauty than athletic ability drives her car off a 20-foot cliff into the Pacific Ocean.
Only Trisha believes the accidents aren’t so accidental. Naively she asks too many questions to precisely the wrong people. Her suspicions are dismissed by friends and family. But her inquiries continue and lead to an expanding web of intrigue, revenge and danger.
Oleander Girl: A Novel
Literature & Fiction > Coming of Age > Asian American
Author: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Regular Price $9.99, Today $1.99
Beloved bestselling author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has been hailed by Abraham Verghese as a “gifted storyteller” and by People magazine as a “skilled cartographer of the heart.” Now, Divakaruni returns with her most gripping novel yet, a sweeping, suspenseful coming-of-age tale about a young woman who leaves India for America on a search that will transform her life.
THOUGH SHE WAS ORPHANED AT BIRTH, the wild and headstrong Korobi Roy has enjoyed a privileged childhood with her adoring grandparents, spending her first seventeen years sheltered in a beautiful, crumbling old mansion in Kolkata. But despite all that her grandparents have done for her, she is troubled by the silence that surrounds the circumstances of her parents’ death and clings fiercely to her only inheritance from them: the love note she found, years ago, hidden in a book of poetry that had belonged to her mother. As she grows, Korobi dreams of one day finding a love as powerful as her parents’, and it seems her wish has finally come true when she meets the charming Rajat, the only son of a high-profile business family.
Shortly after their engagement, however, a sudden heart attack kills Korobi’s grandfather, revealing serious financial problems and a devastating secret about Korobi’s past. Shattered by this discovery and by her grandparents’ betrayal, Korobi decides to undertake a courageous search across post-9/11 America to find her true identity. Her dramatic, often startling journey will ultimately thrust her into the most difficult decision of her life.
King of Swords (The Starfolk)
Fantasy > Myths & Legends
Author: Dave Duncan
Regular Price $9.99, Today $1.99
Rigel has always known he is not quite human, but the only clue to his origin is the otherworldly bracelet he has worn since childhood.
His search for his parentage leads him to the Starlands, where reality and fantasy have changed places. There he learns that he is a human-starborn cross, and his bracelet is the legendary magical amulet Saiph, which makes its wearer an unbeatable swordsman. Fighting off monsters, battling a gang of assassins seeking to kill him, Rigel finds honorable employment as a hero. He knows that he must die very soon if he remains in the Starlands, but he has fallen hopelessly in love with a princess and cannot abandon her.
Through the imaginative landscape of the Starlands, Rigel’s quest leads him to encounter minotaurs, sphinxes, cyclops, and more fearsome creatures in Dave Duncan’s latest fantasy series.
Silent Harmony: A Vivienne Taylor Horse Lover’s Mystery
Teen & Young Adult > Mysteries & Thrillers > Romance
Author: Michele Scott
Regular Price $7.99, Today $1.99
Small-town 17-year-old Vivienne Taylor is a talented equestrian with Olympic dreams and a little something extra going on—she is also an “equine empath,” someone who has the ability to read horses’ minds and moods. When she receives a full scholarship to attend Fairmont Riding Academy, a prep school with a famous riding program, she struggles with homesickness, hazing by the school’s snooty drama queen, intense competition in the sport of three-day-eventing, and the not-altogether-unwelcome interest of a hot guy.
On top of all of that, the horse given to Vivienne via the scholarship is an animal that she cannot “read” or understand. When Vivienne learns that her new horse Harmony belonged to the school’s vet, who recently died in a freak accident, she senses that the horse’s aloof behavior may be the result of her witnessing this accident. But as a connection begins to unfold between Vivienne and Harmony, Vivienne begins to believe that the vet’s death was no accident at all–but rather murder–and she resolves, at considerable peril, to track down the killer.
20,000 Days and Counting: The Crash Course For Mastering Your Life Right Now
Self-Help > Personal Transformation
Author: Robert D. Smith
Regular Price $9.99, Today $2.99
The day for change is today and it’s more simple than you realize.
Most people sleepwalk through day-to-day life, passively letting time slip away. Unfortunately, the only thing that can usually wake people up to the intensity of life is impending death. But what if it didn’t have to be that way? 20,000 Days presents breathtakingly simple strategies and concepts that, once applied, will enable readers to be 100% present and intentional with every passing minute of every day, for the rest of their lives.
The book is designed to be read in under an hour and the effect is immediate. Within each segment are tactics for mastering control for your life; principles such as:
- Motivation is a myth
- You only have two choices, yes and no
- How to conquer rejection forever
- How BECOMING the problem will SOLVE all your problems
- Three sentences that will change your life immediately
These timeless principles apply to everyone from the pending graduate to the seasoned business professional; from the time-starved parent to the weary pastor to the restless entrepreneur.
Brief Encounters with Che Guevara
Short Stories > Single Authors
Author: Ben Fountain
Regular Price $9.99, Today $1.99
The well-intentioned protagonists of Brief Encounters with Che Guevara are caught — to both disastrous and hilarious effect — in the maelstrom of political and social upheaval surrounding them. In “Near-Extinct Birds of the Central Cordillera,” an ornithologist being held hostage in the Colombian rain forest finds that he respects his captors for their commitment to a cause, until he realizes that the Revolution looks a lot like big business.
In “The Good Ones Are Already Taken,” the wife of a Special Forces officer battles a Haitian voodoo goddess with whom her husband is carrying on a not-entirely-spiritual relationship. And in “The Lion’s Mouth,” a disillusioned aid worker makes a Faustian bargain to become a diamond smuggler for the greater good. With masterful pacing and a robust sense of the absurd, each story in Brief Encounters with Che Guevara is a self-contained adventure, steeped in the heady mix of tragedy and danger, excitement and hope, that characterizes countries in transition.
Through Fountain’s rounded and novelistic prose, these intelligent and keenly observed stories are painted in provocative and vibrant detail across a global canvas. Brief Encounters with Che Guevaramarks the arrival of a striking and resonant new voice that speaks adeptly to the intimate connection between the foreign, the familiar, and the inescapably human.
The Missing File: A Novel
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
Author: D. A. Mishani
Regular Price $9.99, Today $1.99
In The Missing File, Israeli detective Avraham Avraham must find a teenage boy gone missing from the suburbs of Tel Aviv in this first volume in a fresh new literary crime series by D. A. Mishani.
Crimes in Avraham’s quiet suburb are generally not all that complex. But when a sixteen-year-old boy goes missing and a schoolteacher offers up a baffling complication, Avraham finds himself questioning everything he thought he knew about his life.
Told through alternating points of view, The Missing File is an emotionally wrought, character-driven page-turner with plenty of twists and turns. It’s a mystery that will leave readers questioning the notions of innocence and guilt, and the nebulous nature of truth.
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2