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Murder Mansion (The Painted Lady Inn Book 1) (affiliate link)
Find Me on the Bayou (Love & Found) (affiliate link)
The spark that ignites during a summer romance just might turn into the kind of love neither of them knew they were looking for…
Get ready for a summer love story that will make your heart skip a beat…
Austin’s been on a relentless quest to help his dad find his biological father. After years of searching, he’s ready to throw in the towel… until he meets her.
Simoneaux Bayou has been through rough times since the hurricane, but hope is on the horizon. Mary, caught up in the chaos, is longing for some normalcy… until she meets him.
Step into the enchanting shores of Simoneaux Bayou, where love is always in the air…
One Night at Finn’s (Finn’s Pub Book 1) (affiliate link)
Ever been on a bad date? Hold my beer…
My dry spell isn’t voluntary. It just happened. Or didn’t happen. And then… it didn’t happen some more.
I’m not saying I’m looking for perfection, but is hot, sweaty sex with a genuinely decent guy too much to ask?
When I meet the much older and newly retired Master Sergeant Carter Willis, he definitely fits my criteria. But after he rescues me from the worst of my dating mistakes, I can’t tell if he’s watching my back to protect it, or because he likes what he sees.
Giving romance tips to strangers is easy. This feeling I get when Carter is around is making life complicated. It feels like a thing. A forever type thing.
And if there’s one thing that scares me more than my accidental abstinence becoming a permanent condition… It’s trusting in forever.
Corner Booth (The Rockland Chronicles) (affiliate link)
A daring move forges the love of a lifetime.
A rushed lunch and a bold move introduce Carlie to a stranger—one who hardly acknowledges her existence as he sits across from her, sharing his booth to save her a wait in a long line.
What began as a random encounter becomes a weekly date in which Carlie chatters about her life to a silent lunchmate. Much about him interests her–his slightly Euro fashion sense, his commitment to the work he does as he eats his lunch week after week, and his evident attention to the running monologue she shares between bites of meals that he inevitably pays for.
Dean gets to know the woman across from him–looks forward to their lunches each week, learns valuable lessons about himself—but when the cafe is threatened, and then when she doesn’t show up one day, he suspects their unusual friendship means more to him than he imagined.
Sugar and Ice (Rinkside in the Rockies Series Book 1) (affiliate link)
Knocking on the door of that hot hockey player’s apartment was a risky move, but I was desperate for an oven to complete my baking project. Little did I know, he would answer the door dripping wet and clad in nothing but a towel…
As a recipe tester for Bake It! magazine, I’m no stranger to success in the kitchen, but when it comes to reading men, I’m a disaster. After being burned by love in the past, I, Josephine Rossi, have sworn off men and focused on my career in Denver.
But one encounter with towel-clad Cade Callahan has me questioning my own rules.
Cade is more than just a tough hockey player, he’s intelligent, funny, and undeniably sexy. But as we both navigate our painful pasts, can we take the risk to trust our hearts again? And will the combination of sugar and ice lead to the greatest love story of all?
Le Doux Mysteries Collection: Books 1-3 (affiliate link)
Magic is a part of everyday life in Hex Haven…unless you’re cursed, that is.
Wynona Le Doux knew opening a tea shop wouldn’t exactly be easy, after all, she’s the oldest daughter of the town president and her family’s reputation might be described as a wee bit…sketchy. But after having been cursed at birth to have no magical powers at all in a world where magic is everything, Wynona’s ability to power through is almost like magic itself.
But when a dead body shows up in her office just a few days before her grand opening, it throws a hex on all her well laid plans. And when the chief of police, with a grudge against her family, puts her at the top of the suspect list? Wynona realizes that she’s either going to have to add the title of ‘detective’ to her resume, or kiss her new found independence goodbye.
With the grand opening growing ever closer, can Wynona clear her name and find the real killer before they strike again? Or will all her plans go up in flames like her sister’s old boyfriends?
To Catch a Thief (affiliate link)
The classic mystery that inspired the Academy Award-winning film by Alfred Hitchcock.
“Le Chat” is a legend. He is a mystery. He is a jewel thief, famous and elusive for being able to swipe anything and get away clean. He is John Robie, retired and living a quiet life, tending his rose garden in the South of France.
But his retirement plans are thrown for a loop when a series of robberies too closely resemble the work of “Le Chat,” and the police start digging into Robie’s past. To keep himself free, and with the help of an equally mysterious young woman, John Robie will have to catch the true thief, before the police catch him.
The Art of Making Memories: How to Create and Remember Happy Moments (affiliate link)
Do you remember your first kiss? The day you graduated? Your favorite vacation? Or the best meal you ever had?
Memories are the cornerstones of our identity, shaping who we are, how we act, and how we feel. In his work as a happiness researcher, Meik Wiking has learned that people are happier if they hold a positive, nostalgic view of the past. But how do we make and keep the memories that bring us lasting joy?
The Art of Making Memories examines how mental images are made, stored, and recalled in our brains, as well as the “art of letting go”—why we tend to forget certain moments to make room for deeper, more meaningful ones. Meik uses data, interviews, global surveys, and real-life experiments to explain the nuances of nostalgia and the different ways we form memories around our experiences and recall them—revealing the power that a “first time” has on our recollections, and why a piece of music, a smell, or a taste can unexpectedly conjure a moment from the past. Ultimately, Meik shows how we each can create warm memories that will stay with us for years.
Power Play (Mack Bedford) (affiliate link)
A highly volatile nuclear world looms. Israel has obliterated the deep underground nuclear weapons facility built by Iran, and the United States is nerve-wracked about the stance of a defiant North Korea.
Against this backdrop, the Russians plan a cyber warfare offensive on the US. In addition to a ballistic strike on the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, they plan to jam the top-secret electronic access key to America’s missile launch system—the nuclear football. If successful, Russia would establish a temporary dominance over the United States.
As this geopolitical battle rages in the shadows, behind locked doors, it is up to a Mossad spymaster based in Moscow to avert the Russian scheme. He calls upon the one man he believes can succeed, US Navy SEAL Commander Mack Bedford. It is now up to Mack to prevent the Russians’ cyber weaponry from reaching the American mainland, at which point it would be impossible to stop . . .
One Last Dance (affiliate link)
His Lady Mistress (affiliate link)
Downtrodden servant or gracious lady?
When Max, Earl Blakehurst, meets Verity Scott he sees a downtrodden servant. He doesn’t recognize her as the daughter of a colonel under whom he used to serve, the girl he’d once helped years before. The life Verity’s now living is untenable. So he proposes a shocking solution—he will set her up as his mistress.
It’s only once that Verity’s finally agreed, once Max is beginning to lose his heart to her, that he discovers her true identity. Max is taken aback; he would never have suggested this lady become his mistress. Now, to avoid scandal, they’ll have to marry!
Stir: Mixing It Up in the Italian Tradition (affiliate link)
Although Barbara Lynch was born and raised in South Boston, not Tuscany, many critics believe her food rivals the best of Italy. It has been praised by Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, and Gourmet, and many more.
Lynch’s cuisine is all the more remarkable because it is self-taught. In a story straight out of Good Will Hunting, she grew up in the turbulent projects of “Southie,” where petty crime was the only viable way to make a living. But in a home ec class in high school, she discovered her passion. Through a mix of hunger for knowledge, hard work, and raw smarts, she gradually created her own distinctive style of cooking, mining Italian and French classics for ideas and seasoning them with imagination.
The 150 recipes in Stir combine sophistication with practicality. Appetizers like baked tomatoes and cheese and crisp, buttery brioche pizzas. Dozens of the artful pastas Lynch is famous for, such as little lasagnas with chicken meatballs, and potato gnocchi with peas and mushrooms. Lobster rolls with aïoli.
… See the rest of today ‘s Book Picks here on page 2Page 2