Brenda Jackson tops today’s Buffet with What a Westmoreland Wants, her multicultural romance that first appeared as a Silhouette Desire paperback in 2010.
Brenda was the first African-American author to have a novel published as part of the Silhouette Desire line, and has seen many of her novels reach the New York Times and USA Today Bestsellers lists. She was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, and married her high school sweetheart in 1972. She went on to earn a degree in business administration from Jacksonville University.
To relieve job-related stress in the early 1990s, Brenda began reading romance novels. Although she enjoyed the novels, she was dissatisfied with the lack of cultural and ethnic diversity in the characters. After complaining to her husband that she could do better, he registered her for a romance writers conference and encouraged her to try her hand at writing. Her first novel, Tonight and Forever, was published in 1995.
Despite publishing 11 books in the first 10 years of her writing career, Brenda still considered writing to be her hobby, and she continued working full-time as a manager at State Farm Insurance.
As usual, each book here has gone FREE within the past 24 hours, except for the Bargain books in the yellow section below. 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.)
What a Westmoreland Wants (Man of the Month)
Romance > Multicultural
Author: Brenda Jackson
Mr. September: Callum Austell, sexy Australian ranch owner
His Deepest Desire: The elusive Gemma Westmoreland
The Seduction Plan: Get her on his turf—ASAP!
He’d been biding his time, and now the perfect opportunity had arrived to pursue the ultimate object of his affections. Offering Gemma a job to decorate his new home meant she had to come to him. And on his territory, the Aussie knew he could easily woo her into his bed. But this Westmoreland woman was no pushover. If Callum was going to get what he wanted—as always—the millionaire just might have to utter three little words first.
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THE MISSINGS
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
Author: Peg Brantley
Aspen Falls, Colorado.
Secrets.
Secrets within a community.
Secrets within a family.
Detective Chase Waters finds himself working the most interesting case of his career—one that comes closer to home than he could ever imagine.
Are the mutilated bodies of young men and women the result of cult… or commerce?
Fear Has a Name: A Novel (The Crittendon Files)
Christian Fiction > Suspense
Author: Creston Mapes
It was more than a break-in. More than a stalking. It was personal. When a stalker targets his family, journalist Jack Crittendon must uncover who the person is and what his motives are—if he is to protect the ones he loves. It will lead Crittendon into a world of behind-closed-door secrets and faith gone awry, as does his investigation of a missing pastor, whose apparent suicide is more than it appears.
Each move Crittendon makes weaves him tighter and tighter into a web of lies, greed, hypocrisy, sin, and danger. He believed he’d never give in to fear. But that was before. And holding on to his faith won’t be easy. Nor will keeping his family safe, and ending the terror. Because that might require him to step over lines he never dared to cross.
How To Save Money: A 21-Day Challenge To Save $500/Month
Personal Finance > Budgeting
Author: Bob Lotich
After getting laid off, I had to wade through all the frugal tips like “reuse twist ties” and “turn off the lights when you leave a room” to find the ones that really delivered.
Sure you can save a few pennies by turning off the lights around the house, but I needed to make bigger money-saving moves. I didn’t need to save a few pennies, I needed to save many hundreds of dollars each month.
That is what this challenge is all about: taking 21 days to make some drastic, but realistic, changes in order to save at least $500 each month.
If you are anything like I was, you probably have more bills and payments due each month than you have money coming in. You have undoubtedly read other money-saving tips in the past, but just felt like none of them would yield much result. You also probably don’t have the time to read through a bunch of fluff, but just want to get to the point. If this sounds like you, then you are who this book was written for.
Infernal Gates
Inspirational Fiction > Science Fiction & Fantasy
Author: Michael J. Webb
Ethan Freeman, ex-Special Forces Ranger, wakes up to discover he is the sole survivor of a fiery commercial airline crash that killed his entire family. His nightmare is only beginning when he becomes the FBI’s prime suspect. Only Ethan knows he’s not a cold-hearted murderer, but he has no idea what happened to him–and why he alone survived.
He finds an unlikely ally in Sam Weaver, the NTSB Chief Investigator. An ex-military pilot, Sam senses Ethan is innocent. She tries to remain dispassionate in her investigation of the crash even as she finds herself attracted to the man who may be America=s worst homegrown mass-murderer.
Neither Ethan nor Sam realize that shadowy spiritual forces are at work which will alter their lives forever.
Stone of Destiny
Action & Adventure
Author: Thor Stonewell
Through an onslaught of gunfire a well known professor leaps to his death off the mighty Irish Cliffs of Moher. Discovering a buried secret was his last fruitless act; keeping hidden a far greater secret, a secret concealed by the Queen of England herself, was his sacrificial intention.
As cogs drop into play throughout the United Kingdom a young American in London finds himself caught up in the world’s greatest unknown conspiracy. With the life of his grandfather on the line, and the legitimacy of the British royal family in question, Trevor Emerson races against time and history in his shared quest to find the Stone of Destiny.
From Edinburgh Castle to Piccadilly Circus to King Arthur’s ancient Isle of Avalon, join our heroes down the rabbit hole of royalty where the right secret, sufficiently veiled, can ensure the lifelong reaping of billions of dollars, and worse, the lifelong ruling over billions of lives.
TODAY’S BARGAINS……………What’s this?
The Wrong Hostage
Romance > Mystery & Suspense
Author: Elizabeth Lowell
Regularly $7.99, Today $1.99
The latest masterwork from one of the leading writers of suspense . . . New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Lowell returns with a chilling tale of the law gone wrong and a kidnapping that threatens more than one life.
Orphaned at thirteen, Grace Silva clawed her way out of poverty and violence to become one of the most respected judges on the federal bench. Grace believes in the rule of law — lives it, breathes it. She has always been buttoned up and buttoned down.
Joe Faroe has learned that laws are made by politicians, and politicians are all too human. He believes in the innocents, the ones getting ground up by governments that are too polarized or too corrupt to protect their own citizens. He’s been through the political meat grinder himself. It cost him his career, his freedom, and the woman who still haunts him. Since then Faroe has worked outside the rules and politics of government as a kidnap specialist for St. Kilda Consulting, a Manhattan-based global business that concentrates on the shadow world where governments can’t go. He is good at his work — intelligent, confident, ruthless.
Until a friend dies trying to kill him.
A Slight Change of Plan
Romantic Comedy
Author: Dee Ernst
Regularly $9.99, Today $1.99
Kate Everett is about to begin her “second act.” She’s been a widow for eight years and thinks it might be time to start looking for someone to share her life with again. She quits her high-pressure job for something that will allow her more leisure time. She gets rid of the huge family home and moves into a fabulous condo that’s smaller and easier to manage. She’s pretty much got the rest of her life figured out. All she has to do is sit back, relax, and let the pieces fall into place.
But her real life never gets the memo. First, her son moves back in with her—along with his girlfriend. Her dream job falls through, leaving her unemployed. Her mother, whom she hadn’t spoken to in years, can no longer live alone and has to move into her basement. And her only daughter is planning the smallest and simplest wedding in the history of all weddings, much to Kate’s dismay.
Kate thinks that she and Jake, her former college love who has reemerged on an online dating site, of all places, can build something real, and that maybe her happy ending is in front of her at last. But the arrival of Edward, her daughter’s future father-in-law, presents Kate with an unexpected choice.
Silent Tears: A Journey of Hope in a Chinese Orphanage
Biographies & Memoirs > Ethnic & National
Author: Kay Bratt
Regularly $9.99, Today $1.99
Irrepressible memories. Vacant eyes. A child being dangled from a third story window. A boy tied to a chair. Children sleeping in layers of clothing to fight off the bitter cold. An infant dying from starvation. Some things your mind will never allow you to forget.
Silent Tears is the true story of the adversity and triumphs one woman faced as she fought against the Chinese bureaucracy to help that country’s orphaned children.
In 2003, Kay Bratt’s life changed dramatically. A wife and mother of two girls in South Carolina, Bratt relocated her family to rural China to support her husband as he took on a new management position for his American employer. Seeking a way to fill her days and overcome the isolation she experienced upon arriving in a foreign country, Bratt began volunteering at the local orphanage. Within months, her simple desire to make use of her time transformed into a heroic crusade to improve the living conditions and minimize the unnecessary deaths of Chinese orphans.
The Valentine Express
Children’s Books > Growing Up & Facts of Life
Author: Nancy Elizabeth Wallace
Regularly $9.99, Today $1.99
Minna, an appealing rabbit character, comes up with a great Valentine’s Day project which involves enlisting her little brother to do kind things for their neighbors.
7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess
Christian Living > Social Issues
Author: Jen Hatmaker
Regularly $9.99, Today $2.99
American life can be excessive, to say the least. That’s what Jen Hatmaker had to admit after taking in hurricane victims who commented on the extravagance of her family’s upper middle class home. She once considered herself unmotivated by the lure of prosperity, but upon being called “rich” by an undeniably poor child, evidence to the contrary mounted, and a social experiment turned spiritual was born.
7 is the true story of how Jen (along with her husband and her children to varying degrees) took seven months, identified seven areas of excess, and made seven simple choices to fight back against the modern-day diseases of greed, materialism, and overindulgence.
Food. Clothes. Spending. Media. Possessions. Waste. Stress. They would spend thirty days on each topic, boiling it down to the number seven. Only eat seven foods, wear seven articles of clothing, and spend money in seven places. Eliminate use of seven media types, give away seven things each day for one month, adopt seven green habits, and observe “seven sacred pauses.” So, what’s the payoff from living a deeply reduced life? It’s the discovery of a greatly increased God—a call toward Christ-like simplicity and generosity that transcends social experiment to become a radically better existence.
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2