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The Last Amen (Detective Kate Murphy Mystery) (affiliate link)
Is there a serial killer in the Catholic Church?
When a young woman is found dead on her bed, dressed in an old-fashioned nightgown with her hands clasped in a prayer position, Detective Kate Murphy is called to investigate her murder.
Before Kate and her colleagues can find the killer, another woman is found dead in the same position. Other than being Catholic, having blonde hair, and living in Boston, the women have very little in common. But one thing is clear: the serial killer has some twisted religious beliefs.
What is his motive? Who is he? And, most importantly, can Kate stop the murderer before he strikes again?
If you like adrenaline-pumping suspense and nail-biting drama, then you’ll enjoy this page-turning mystery.
Frayed Rope (The Ugly Roses Book 1) (affiliate link)
Ryder Callaghan didn’t know a damn thing about the moody woman who moved in next door.
But his military instincts told him she was in trouble.
The deep kind that gets you six feet under.
Elle was running from someone, and come hell or high-water Ryder was going to figure out exactly who and why.
She was stubborn and beautiful, and he would use every Callaghan Security employee to find answers to questions she flat out refused to answer:
Why she slept with a gun under her pillow.
Why she dressed like she was on her way to a funeral in winter.
Why she had more scars than men he’d fought with in Iraq.
Ryder knew women. They came freely and easily for him. Yet the one woman he wants –for more than one night– doesn’t want anything to do with him.
How do you save a woman who won’t let you in?
Mosaic Chronicles Books 1-4 (Mosaic Chronicles Box Sets Book 1) (affiliate link)
Ryder Callaghan didn’t know a damn thing about the moody woman who moved in next door.
But his military instincts told him she was in trouble.
The deep kind that gets you six feet under.
Elle was running from someone, and come hell or high-water Ryder was going to figure out exactly who and why.
She was stubborn and beautiful, and he would use every Callaghan Security employee to find answers to questions she flat out refused to answer:
Why she slept with a gun under her pillow.
Why she dressed like she was on her way to a funeral in winter.
Why she had more scars than men he’d fought with in Iraq.
Ryder knew women. They came freely and easily for him. Yet the one woman he wants –for more than one night– doesn’t want anything to do with him.
Small Batch Cookies: Deliciously easy bakes for one to six people (Edd Kimber Baking Titles) (affiliate link)
70 NEW RECIPES FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF ONE TIN BAKES!
Craving a warm cookie, straight from the oven, but don’t want to buy lots of expensive ingredients or make an enormous quantity to last for weeks? Then this is the recipe book for you!
Edd’s tasty cookies are simple to make, with straightforward instructions and mouth-watering flavours. Only ever making a maximum of 6 biscuits, these are the perfect little treat. From Lemon Custard Creams to Sticky Toffee Cookies, Red Velvet Sandwiches and Mint Thins there is a perfect cookie for every moment, to be made just for you. The first ever winner of The Great British Bake Off, Edd is known for his reliable recipes and expert baking know-how, so even a beginner baker is guaranteed to find joy in these 70 sumptuous recipes.
Whether chewy or gooey, chocolatey or crunchy, a small batch of cookies makes everything better!
Then, Again: A Novel (affiliate link)
Asha’s husband, Charlie, isn’t dead, but he’s been gone just the same since the day his aneurysm trapped him in a coma. Everything that made him Charlie left this world a year ago for a limbo that has trapped Asha, too. She doesn’t want to stay in this situation, but she can’t bear to kiss the love of her life goodbye.
Luckily, she’s not alone. Asha has the support of her best friend, her father, and then, unexpectedly, Jason. Asha and Jason shared a tumultuous romance from junior high through her early college years, and he’s her first love. Now divorced, Jason wants to reconnect. For Asha, it feels weird. It feels wrong. But for now, it also feels kind of wonderful.
Exploring love—and its infinite variations—Then, Again, told through Asha’s eyes in the 1990s, 2000s, and today, deftly captures the choices made in the face of monumental loss and the power in memories of better things to carry us through impossible times.
A Healthier Home Cook: Whole Food Recipes, Techniques, and Tips for Families That Want to Eat A Little Less Toxic (affiliate link)
Reclaim your kitchen from processed foods and mystery chemicals, then cook through 75+ recipes that focus on eating well for whole-body health.
With all the emphasis put on healthy eating, you probably realize how consequential your food choices are to your mental and physical health, for better or worse. But did you know that a 2017 publication from the National Institute of Health estimates that there are now more than 10,000 chemicals the FDA regulates in food (and that there are only about 100 employees doing so)?
Yet you can control to improve what you’re cooking and eating—and A Healthier Home Cook provides an accessible guide for doing just that. In author Shawna Holman’s best-selling first book, A Healthier Home, she took her enthusiasm for healthy living to the page and provided an accessible, room-by-room roadmap for making the home A Little Less Toxic. Now, she’s back with a full book to support most people’s entry point: the kitchen and cooking.
A Change of Heart at the Vintage Dress Shop (affiliate link)
Cressida Collins is the queen of makeovers. With a well-placed stitch, button or seam, she can transform any frock in The Vintage Dress Shop and give customers their Cinderella moment.
Like her beautifully organised workroom under the eaves, Cress’s life away from the shop is just as orderly and mapped out. But when her boyfriend of fifteen years drops a bombshell, it explodes all the carefully laid plans Cress had for her future.
It’s going to take more than needle and thread to put Cress’s own life back together. Will she ever be brave enough to say goodbye to her old dreams and start over?
But after designing a dress for a customer and transforming her into the woman she always wanted to be, Cress realises that it can be fun not to follow a pattern. Then there’s her blossoming friendship with Miles, a very handsome and very sexy film director…
As an undergraduate, Michele Filgate started writing an essay about being abused by her stepfather. It took her more than a decade to realize that she was actually trying to write about how this affected her relationship with her mother. When it was finally published, the essay went viral, shared on social media by Anne Lamott, Rebecca Solnit, and many others. This gave Filgate an idea, and the resulting anthology offers a candid look at our relationships with our mothers.
Leslie Jamison writes about trying to discover who her seemingly perfect mother was before ever becoming a mom. In Cathi Hanauer’s hilarious piece, she finally gets a chance to have a conversation with her mother that isn’t interrupted by her domineering (but lovable) father. André Aciman writes about what it was like to have a deaf mother. Melissa Febos uses mythology as a lens to look at her close-knit relationship with her psychotherapist mother. And Julianna Baggott talks about having a mom who tells her everything.
The Magdalen Girls (affiliate link)
Dublin, 1962. Within the gated grounds of the convent of The Sisters of the Holy Redemption lies one of the city’s Magdalen Laundries. Once places of refuge, the laundries have evolved into grim workhouses. Some inmates are “fallen” women—unwed mothers, prostitutes, or petty criminals. Most are ordinary girls whose only sin lies in being too pretty, too independent, or tempting the wrong man. Among them is sixteen-year-old Teagan Tiernan, sent by her family when her beauty provokes a lustful revelation from a young priest.
Teagan soon befriends Nora Craven, a new arrival who thought nothing could be worse than living in a squalid tenement flat. Stripped of their freedom and dignity, the girls are given new names and denied contact with the outside world. The Mother Superior, Sister Anne, who has secrets of her own, inflicts cruel, dehumanizing punishments—but always in the name of love. Finally, Nora and Teagan find an ally in the reclusive Lea, who helps them endure—and plot an escape. But as they will discover, the outside world has dangers too, especially for young women with soiled reputations.
… See the rest of today ‘s Book Picks here on page 2Page 2