Ellie Parker is a master at building walls around her heart. In the twenty-five years she’s been alive, Dex Remington has been the only person who has always believed in her and been there for her. But four years earlier, she came to Dex seeking comfort and then disappeared like a thief in the night, leaving him a broken man.

Dex Remington is one of the top PC game developers in the United States. He’s handsome, smart, and numb. So damn numb that he’s not sure he’ll ever find a reason to feel again.

A chance encounter sparks intense desires in Ellie and Dex. Desires that make her want to run–and make him want to feel. A combination of lust and fear leads these young lovers down a dangerous path. Is it possible to cross a burned bridge, or are they destined to be apart forever?

Eight titled peers who never expected to become dukes do just that—and are attracted to females whom Polite Society does not believe worthy of the title duchess, due to their desires to be more than typical ladies of the ton.

But these sudden dukes choose to forge their own paths with the remarkable women who are already doing just that—and the resulting love proves that trusting one’s heart is always the right choice.

A fun-loving man who has become a staid duke . . .

An independent lady who wishes to pursue her artistic bent . . .

A long-ago meeting which left a lasting impression on them both . . .

What happens when a steamy duke who has never lost in battle meets the innocent young lady determined to conquer his heart?

When Lady Henley Killigrew’s father dies and his title of earl passes to a not so friendly cousin who wants her and her two younger sisters out of their elegant London townhouse, she takes them to Moonstone Cottage, a lovely manor house they inherited from a maiden aunt in the Cornwall seaside village of Moonstone Landing. But their funds are limited, and the new earl is a stingy guardian who will not loosen the purse strings to allow her to properly maintain herself and her sisters in their new home. The only way to save them all is for her to marry, for that is the only way to claim her trust fund. Would her neighbor, Cain St. Austell, the brooding and reclusive Duke of Malvern, consider a marriage of convenience?

Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Goldilocks, who innocently wandered into a home owned by a family of bears…

Okay, my name is Ria. And I may have broken in, but I was high and it was cold outside. Oh, and the bears were actually shifters.

Potayto, potahto.

The point is, I’m kind of a wreck. Plus, I robbed my cheating, lying a-hole of an ex-boyfriend on my way out the door and he’s not thrilled about it, so I’m stuck with these three distractingly attractive men for the time being — one of whom is weirdly hung up on the whole breaking and entering thing. What could go wrong?

Lawrence, Duke of Penshaw, is undercover and getting punched on a daily basis.

Devastated by the murder of his brother by a traitor to the Crown, Lawrence agrees to leave his identity as Duke behind to go undercover at an illegal boxing ring in London. He’s waiting for the killer to return from France, and absolutely must not get distracted. Especially by a beauty from Society who absolutely should not be here.

Julia Dryden knows her mother would be scandalized by her presence at the boxing matches—it flies in the face of their agreement for her to choose a husband by Easter. After all, she isn’t getting any younger.

But her eye is caught by a tall, handsome man who gives everything in the ring and seems to have no fear of danger.
From two different worlds—but not the ones she thinks—Julia has no idea the man she’s falling in love with is not a common rogue.

The Pentagon, Washington. A worldwide crisis that only one man can solve . . .

Meet Jack Locke — a gifted fighter pilot. He’s hard to manage and harder to kill. Can he follow orders long enough to stop World War III?

Fate puts him at the centre of a crisis that could plunge the world into all-out war. The USAF’s 45th Tactical Fighter Wing shoots down a Libyan MiG jet that is threatening the safe passage of a UN food relief flight, increasing instability in North Africa and the Middle East.

Kicked out of North Africa, the 45th relocate to England. Colonel Anthony Waters is sent there to whip a band of rogues and mavericks into a disciplined fighting force. Because their country could ask them at any time to fly their F-4s into the eye of the firestorm, to face an overwhelming enemy and brave the flames of hell itself without question and with no support.

An academic in Pennsylvania discovers a terrifying trauma from her past after inheriting a house in Cardiff, Maine from someone she has never heard of. A pubescent girl, overcome with loneliness, befriends a feral cat that becomes her protector from the increasingly aggressive males that surround her. A brilliant but shy college sophomore is distraught to discover that she’s pregnant, and the professor who takes her under his wing may not have innocent intentions. And a woman who marries into a family shattered by tragedy finds herself haunted by her predecessor’s voice, an inexplicably befouled well, and a compulsive attraction to a garage that took two lives.

A horticulturist and amateur sleuth roots out an irritating professor’s killer.
An unpleasant man in every respect, university professor Herbert Ungley is exceedingly vain. One morning, his landlady catches her cat coming in with Ungley’s hairpiece between its teeth. It’s clear something has happened to the old grouch, because he would never be caught without his toupee. Ungley is found in the yard behind his social club, with his head bashed in and his baldness plain for the world to see. Although the police are content to call it an accident, sleuthing horticulturalist Peter Shandy is unconvinced, and finds there are too many unanswered questions: How did Ungley come to have such a bulging bank account? Who was Ungley’s long-lost heir, and what did he have to do with the professor’s lost hair? And whose is the second body in the woods? Shandy must answer these questions and more if he’s to discover who pulled the rug out from the balding corpse.

Discover practical strategies to make reading aloud a meaningful family ritual.

The stories we read–and the conversations we have about them–help shape family traditions, create lifelong memories, and become part of our legacy. Reading aloud not only has the power to change a family–it has the power to change the world.

But we all know that connecting deeply with our families can be difficult in our busy, technology-driven society. Reading aloud is one of the best ways to be fully present with our children, even after they can read themselves, but it isn’t always easy to do. Discover how to:

Prepare your kids for academic success through reading to them
Develop empathy and compassion in your kids through books
Find time to read aloud in the midst of school, sports, and dinner dishes
Choose books across a variety of sibling interests and ages
Make reading aloud the best part of your family’s day

I was promised to a man my uncle chose… but I ran away with the enemy.

In this valley, my family name means something.
To some, protection. To others, destruction.
When a Bellanti stole my heart, he started a war.

A ring on my finger put a target on his back.

I hardly know the man I threw my life away for.
He looked like I imagined Mr. Darcy would.
He wrote me poetry.

But he’s locked me away exactly the way my uncle had.
Choosing him was my last taste of freedom.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire…

He will burn me alive either way.

In the 1960s, actress and model Edie Sedgwick exploded into the public eye like a comet. She seemed to have it all: she was aristocratic and glamorous, vivacious and young, Andy Warhol’s superstar. But within a few years she flared out as quickly as she had appeared, and before she turned twenty-nine she was dead from a drug overdose.

In a dazzling tapestry of voices—family, friends, lovers, rivals—the entire meteoric trajectory of Edie Sedgwick’s life is brilliantly captured. And so is the Pop Art world of the ‘60s: the sex, drugs, fashion, music—the mad rush for pleasure and fame. All glitter and flash on the outside, it was hollow and desperate within—like Edie herself, and like her mentor, Andy Warhol. Alternately mesmerizing, tragic, and horrifying, this book shatters many myths about the ‘60s experience in America.

A young Chinese woman falls in love with a Jewish man in nineteenth-century China in this evocative novel by the Nobel Prize–winning author of The Good Earth.

In 1850s China, a young girl, Peony, is sold to work as a bondmaid for a rich Jewish family in Kaifeng. Jews have lived for centuries in this region of the country, but by the mid-nineteenth century, assimilation has begun taking its toll on their small enclave. When Peony and the family’s son, David, grow up and fall in love with one another, they face strong opposition from every side. Tradition forbids the marriage, and the family already has a rabbi’s daughter in mind for David. Long celebrated for its subtle and even-handed treatment of colliding traditions, Peony is an engaging coming-of-age story about love, identity, and the tragedy and beauty found at the intersection of two disparate cultures. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

… See the rest of today ‘s Book Picks here on page 2Page 2