USA Today bestselling author Melissa Schroeder tops today’s Buffet with Desire by Blood, an innovative Victorian paranormal.
Melissa began cultivating her love of romance novels years ago, after accidentally picking up a Linda Howard book. She was immediately hooked, and went on to read nearly 300 novels during the next year. Meanwhile she’d been honing her writing skills by crafting suspense stories and literary shorts. After a while, she realized she herself was born to write romantic comedy, or at least romance with a comedic edge.
She counts among her influences Nora Roberts, Jenny Crusie, Susan Andersen, Amanda Quick, Jayne Anne Krentz, Julia Quinn, Christina Dodd, and Lori Foster.
Since her first release in 2004, Melissa has written nearly 30 short stories, novellas and novels released with seven different publishers in a variety of genres and time periods. Those releases have won Melissa a 2005 Eppie Finalist award, Two Capa finalists, and an International ebook best seller in June of 2005. Surrender was named top Category Romance by Authors After Dark, and she was named Author of the Year and Most Accessible Author.
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Desire by Blood
Romance > Paranormal
Author: Melissa Schroeder
Nicodemus Blackburn has seen the best and worst of mankind. Five hundred years of dealing with them teaches the vampire to be very wary of the creatures. Unfortunately, alarming events leave him no choice but to enter the world of the ton to hunt a rogue vampire—one who is making his own army of blood thirsty vampires. Searching for the villain is not the worst of his troubles. That can be laid at the feet of bluestocking Lady Cordelia Collingsworth.
Cordelia has always been an outcast, even in her own family. She has forged her way in the world with her ability to write, and Nico Blackburn is the focus of her next article. Before she can obtain any information about the mysterious man, she is pulled headlong into a scandal that leaves her with no choice but to marry Nico—a man with dangerous secrets.
Thrust into a world she knows nothing of, Cordelia finds herself falling in love with a man who claims to be a vampire. As their passion grows, so does the danger around them and Nico will have to call on all of his powers to protect the one thing he has realized he cannot live without: his opinionated, infuriating, and thoroughly delectable wife.
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CADE: A MacKenzie Family Novel
Thrillers > Romance > Spy Stories & Tales of Intrigue
Author: Liliana Hart
Cade MacKenzie is prepared to give his life to destroy the cartel that killed his lover, but the only way to draw them out is to present them with the perfect bait.
Bayleigh Scott has no idea who her new neighbor is, only that her body is drawn to him in ways she can’t explain, and the danger that surrounds him isn’t the deterrent she knows it should be.
More than fireworks explode between Cade and Bayleigh when she discovers the real reason he relentlessly pursued her, but by then it’s too late, because she’s already been drawn into a deadly game of desire, deception and revenge.
The Edge of Courage
Romantic Suspense
Author: Elaine Levine
Rocco Silas has come home to Wyoming after long years as a Red Team operative in Afghanistan. It isn’t easy returning to civilian life, especially burdened as he is with a staggering case of PTSD or hunted as he is by an enemy determined to seek an eye-for-eye–neither of which can he battle until he confronts the truth of what happened one fateful day in the high mountain ranges of the Hindu Kush.
Mandy Fielding’s dream of opening a therapeutic riding center on her family’s ranch is almost within her grasp–until she hires Rocco Silas, a dangerous ex-Spec Ops friend of her brother’s. His haunted eyes and passionate touch promise a love she never dared believe possible. Can they confront the truth of his past and build a future together or will the enemy stalking him destroy them both?
Haunted Honeymoon at Casa Dracula
Romance > Paranormal > Vampires
Author: Marta Acosta
Milagro De Los Santos is forced to take another ghostwriting job for hoaxer Don Pedro when she can’t pay her condo fees. Her romantic life isn’t much better. She’s conflicted about her fling with Vampire Council member Ian Ducharme and still yearning for her ex-fiancé, Dr. Oswald Grant and her life at his wine-country ranch.
When Ian’s flirtations with a pretty neighbor infuriate Milagro, she travels to London, and the blood really hits the fan. People around her are dying grisly deaths, and Milagro’s framed for murder. She escapes to Oswald’s ranch, but an accident gives her amnesia and she forgets her entire existence as the only human survivor of a vampire infection.
Cobweb Bride
Science Fiction & Fantasy > Myths & Legends
Author: Vera Nazarian
What if you killed someone and then fell in love with them?
In an alternate Renaissance world, somewhere in an imaginary “pocket” of Europe called the Kingdom of Lethe, Death comes, in the form of a grim Spaniard, to claim his Bride. Until she is found, in a single time-stopping moment all dying stops. There is no relief for the mortally wounded and the terminally ill….
Covered in white cobwebs of a thousand snow spiders she lies in the darkness… Her skin is cold as snow… Her eyes, frozen… Her gaze, fiercely alive…
While kings and emperors send expeditions to search for a suitable Bride for Death, armies of the undead wage an endless war… A black knight roams the forest at the command of his undead father… Spies and political treacheries abound at the imperial Silver Court…. Murdered lovers find themselves locked in the realm of the living…
daynight
Teen & Young Adult > Romance > Science Fiction & Dystopian
Author: Megan Thomason
Meet The Second Chance Institute (SCI): Earth’s benevolent non-profit by day, Thera’s totalitarian regime by night. Their motto: Because Everyone Deserves a Second Chance at Life(TM). Reality: the SCI subjects Second Chancers to strict controls and politically motivated science experiments like Cleaving–forced lifetime union between two people who have sex. Punishment for disobeying SCI edicts? Immediate Exile or death.
A Guide to Elder Planning
Personal Finance
Author: Steve Weisman, editor
For millions of families, elder planning has become life’s most important financial challenge. To plan successfully for aging, coordinated and knowledgeable action is indispensable. Whether you’re concerned about your own future, your loved ones, or both, Steve Weisman’s A Guide to Elder Planning, Second Edition brings together all the up-to-date knowledge and practical insights you’ll need.
Thorough, realistic, friendly, and easy to read, it covers all the financial, legal, and personal issues faced by seniors and their families. Weisman is one of the nation’s most respected eldercare attorneys: through his nationally syndicated radio show A Touch of Grey and his books, he’s already helped millions of seniors and their families. Now, he brings together practical insights and specific, innovative solutions for estate planning, investment planning, long term care planning, housing, Medicare, Medicaid, retirement planning, Social Security, veterans’ benefits, asset protection, substitute decision making, income tax planning, age discrimination, protection from abuse and scams, end of life issues, and much more.
The Beholder
Crime Fiction > Serial Killers
Author: David Bishop
Maddie Richards is an efficient and resourceful detective with a secret wish that she could handle her messy personal life as well as she handles her work life. As a homicide sergeant for the Phoenix Police Department, she has one of the highest solve rates in America. Her success leads her chief of police to assign her a serial killer case. Some sicko the press calls the Beholder is killing beautiful women. Her chief describes the case as “a career maker or breaker, get me?”
She has an ex-husband she still cares for, but who was bad for her and her ten-year-old son. Her widowed mother who lives with her is both a blessing and a trial. And, oh yes, her ex-husband has married an extremely wealthy and politically connected woman who cannot give birth. So, Maddie’s ex is filing a motion to obtain permanent custody of their son, citing the risks attendant to Maddie’s police work endanger the boy.
If that were not enough, the brother-in-law of the chief of police is using his position as an administrative assistant to sexually harass Maddie. She could file a formal complaint, but the good-old-boys network in the department is watching how she handles the situation.
The Art of Mental Training
Self Help > Sports Psychology > Personal Transformation
Author: DC Gonzalez
In this concise and highly acclaimed success mental training guide, peak performance coach DC Gonzalez teaches a blend of unique mental training technologies, sports psychology essentials, and peak performance methods that are effective and motivational. Get ready to increase your self-belief, self-confidence, and mental toughness, using this powerful guide designed to help you reach new levels of success, sports performance, and personal development.
With a client list that includes top athletes, executives, actors, entertainers, pro-fighters, musicians, soldiers, doctors, lawyers, psychologists, and many more; Dan has been leading people to new levels of achievement since 1988.
Herbs Gone Wild! Ancient Remedies Turned Loose
Alternative Medicine > Herbal Remedies
Author: Diane Kidman
- $0.99 List Price
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Whether it’s cold and flu viruses, high blood pressure, or arthritis, herbs have offered reliable relief for centuries. This book shares practical remedies in an entertaining and easy-to-read format so you can be your family’s home herbalist. Learn what herbs to use for cold and flu symptoms, first aid, general aches and pains, and more. Medicinal teas and tinctures with proper dosages are laid out simply. You’ll even learn how to make your own tinctures and salves, saving money and improving your family’s health naturally. And with the help of the Herbal Medicine Chest guide at the end of the book, you’ll be able to quickly reference over 70 herbs for home use.
The Color of Love
Romance > Contemporary
Author: Sandra Kitt
Regular Price $7.99, Today $1.99
Acclaimed for her moving depictions of interracial love, bestselling author Sandra Kitt delivers a passionate and provocative tale of modern romance.
An artist trapped in an unfulfilling relationship, Leah Downey wants more out of life. But she plays it safe, never venturing too far from her comfort zone . . . not since the night she was mugged at knifepoint.
Beginning a relationship with a perfect stranger is completely out of character for Leah. But something about Jason Horn strikes a chord deep within her. They couldn’t be more different. Jason is white, a streetwise New York cop haunted by his own demons. He’s stunned by his instant attraction to this vibrant black woman who arouses both desire and his fiercest protective instincts.
Full Blooded (Jessica McClain)
Romance > Paranormal > Werewolves & Shifters
Author: Amanda Carlson
Regular Price $9.99, Today $1.99
It’s not easy being a girl. It’s even harder when you’re the only girl in a family of werewolves. But it’s next to impossible when your very existence spells out the doom of your race… Meet Jessica McClain — she just became part of the pack.
In the vein of Kelley Armstrong and Patricia Briggs, a new urban fantasy that rewrites the werewolf myth…
The Craft of Intelligence: America’s Legendary Spy Master on the Fundamentals of Intelligence Gathering
Politics & Social Sciences > Intelligence & Espionage
Author: Allen W. Dulles
Regular Price $13.50, Today $1.99
If the experts could point to any single book as a starting point for understanding the subject of intelligence from the late twentieth century to today, that single book would be this one. This classic of spycraft is based on Allen Dulles’s incomparable experience as a diplomat, international lawyer, and America’s premier intelligence officer. Dulles was a high-ranking officer of the CIA’s predecessor–the Office of Strategic Services–and was present at the inception of the CIA, where he served eight of his ten years there as director. Here he sums up what he learned about intelligence from nearly a half-century of experience in foreign affairs.
Dulles reveals much about how intelligence is collected and processed, and how the resulting estimates contribute to the formation of national policy. He discusses methods of surveillance, and the usefulness of defectors from hostile nations. His knowledge of Soviet espionage techniques is unrivaled, and he explains how the Soviet State Security Service recruited operatives and planted “illegals” in foreign countries. He spells out not only the techniques of modern espionage but also the philosophy and role of intelligence in a free society threatened by global conspiracies.
My Appetite for Destruction: Sex, and Drugs, and Guns N’ Roses
Biographies & Memoirs > Composers & Musicians
Author: Steven Adler, Lawrence J. Spagnola
Regular Price $9.99, Today $1.99
From Steven Adler, the original drummer for Guns N’ Roses, comes My Appetite for Destruction, the inside story of GNR. Offering a different perspective from the bestselling Slash, Adler chronicles his life with the band, and own intense struggle with addiction, as seen on Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab and Sober House.
The Path to Love: Spiritual Strategies for Healing
Self-Help > Personal Transformation
Author: Deepak Chopra
Regular Price $9.99, Today $3.99
Join Deepak Chopra on a wondrous journey. . . “The Path to Love.” Philosophical, inspiring, and ultimately very practical, The Path to Love is a book that can change lives as it invites the spirit to work its wonders on the most complex and richly rewarding terrain of all: the human heart.
Stand-in Groom
Romance > Contemporary
Author: Suzanne Brockmann
Regular Price $7.99, Today $1.99
With a rare blend of humor, erotic tension, and dead-on emotional truth, New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Brockmann weaves this delightful romance of a man and woman brought together by chance, bound by choice, and in trouble deeper than they realize.
Like a knight in a fairy tale, he appeared from out of nowhere and rescued her at the last moment. Now, sizing up the man who’d saved her purse and driven off her attackers, aspiring Boston entrepreneur Chelsea Spencer considered that this good-looking stranger could fit another role—not to mention a tuxedo—equally well. By the end of the week, Chelsea was scheduled to get married as a condition for earning the inheritance necessary to save her fledgling business. There was only one problem: She was short a groom.
Johnny Anziano would have been satisfied with a date, but the woman he’d dashed in to save during a street mugging had proposed much more than that. For two weeks’ “work,” he’d earn $75,000 and a luxurious tropical island vacation. By saying a simple, meaningless “I do,” he could save Chelsea one more time. But this time they were facing something a lot more dangerous than a gang of street thugs—their attraction for each other.
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2