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The Maxwell Brides Series: Books 1-5 (affiliate link)
Surprise Valentine (DIY Divas Book 1) (affiliate link)
Kali hates Valentine’s Day. The one time she took a chance on a guy, he left her in the dust for another woman.
To her, there’s nothing more humiliating than finding her boyfriend making out with someone else on what was supposed to be their date. So Kali swore off men and buried herself in her design work…again.
Her high-end interior decorating clients keep her busy, but life has become monotonous. On a video chat with her long-time friends, she figures out where she went wrong in life. Yet Kali refuses to believe the promises of men. But when a new customer hires her to decorate his house for, of all the holidays, Valentine’s Day, Kali finds herself in a complicated position.
Jorian Delaney made Miss Kali Lanel a promise before he even saw her for the first time. Upon their meeting, wanting more time with her, he changes his plan and hires her for a party he hasn’t yet arranged. Now he’s stuck frantically gathering friends while hiding his interest from her. It’s pretty clear she’s not going to accept a date. And Jorian knows all too well why.
A Valentine’s Choice (affiliate link)
Valentine’s day is just around the corner, who will Rachel ask to be her Valentine?
Rachel Saltzman is the youngest of seven children. Between her job at the bakery and the chaos of the large family living at home, she barely has a minute to herself. When she catches the eye of the local millionaire’s son, Wes, she knows her life is about to be turned upside down.
Aaron Erb works two jobs just to make ends meet. Aaron’s father was injured in an accident which left him unfit to ever work again. Regardless of the ruthless hours he works, money was always tight. Tight enough for Aaron not to consider courting. How could he find a wife when he couldn’t even care for his own family?
With Valentine’s day approaching, Rachel can’t help but wonder if her heart belongs to the rich Englischer or to the poor Amish boy she’d known almost all her life.
One Cat For the Road (Crazy Cat Lady Chronicles Book 1) (affiliate link)
How many cats does it take to be called a crazy cat lady?
For nurse-practitioner Wyn Miller, living in a post-apocalyptic future when domestic animals are rare, the answer is one—an orange Maine Coon cat named Sal.
It’s not the quantity that matters; it’s that she would kill to protect him.
So when the man who’d tried to steal Sal is found dead, Wyn is the prime suspect. Can she sort out the other possibilities, all of whom have a motive for murder, and identify the killer before the police can arrest her and impound Sal?
The Bookish Bandit (The Bookish Romance (TBR) Book 1) (affiliate link)
“Steal my heart, not my pages.”
Aspiring author Charlie Blaire never expected to stumble across her own novel at her favorite bookstore. Except this novel isn’t hers. Published under someone else’s name, the book she wrote to cope with the loss of her missionary parents is already topping charts.
Irate, confused, and determined to regain the rights to her book, Charlie leaves her idyllic life in the countryside of Vermont to set things straight in The Big Apple. When she crashes into a charming stranger who offers to help, her faith in humanity and God’s handiwork is restored. But when secrets unravel and the final pages have been turned, what’s too good to be true may turn a blossoming love story into a star-crossed tragedy.
Sunset Cove (Orcas Island Book 1) (affiliate link)
A secret three decades in the making…
Claire Cooke lost her sisters in a plane crash thirty years ago. She adopted her three nieces and built a life as best she could, and at 52, the girls’ distant uncle surprises her with a six-million-dollar inheritance. Claire decides to take a risk and buy The Grand Madrona Hotel on beautiful Orcas Island to start a new chapter in her life.
Chip Douglas didn’t put in ten years as manager of the hotel just to watch a stranger run it into the ground. So imagine his surprise when Claire turns out to be the exact opposite of what he’d expected. She’s charming, wise, and beautiful – someone he could easily see himself falling in love with. If only his divorce hadn’t convinced him that falling in love again was impossible…
When the FBI comes knocking at the hotel, it’s not long before Claire is forced to face her history or lose her potentially happily ever after with Chip. Will she make the right choice?
The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups (affiliate link)
From time immemorial, contagious narratives have spread through susceptible groups—with enormous, often disastrous, consequences. Inspired by Charles Mackay’s nineteenth-century classic Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, neurologist and author William Bernstein examines mass delusion through the lens of current scientific research in The Delusions of Crowds.
Bernstein tells the stories of dramatic religious and financial mania in western society over the last five hundred years—from the Anabaptist Madness of the 1530s to the dangerous End-Times beliefs that pervade today’s polarized America; and from the South Sea Bubble to the Enron scandal and dot com bubbles. Through Bernstein’s supple prose, the participants are as colorful as their “desire to improve one’s well-being in this life or the next.”
Bernstein’s chronicles reveal the huge cost and alarming implications of mass mania. He observes that if we can absorb the history and biology of this all-too-human phenomenon, we can recognize it more readily in our own time, and avoid its frequently dire impact.
Fitness Can Kill: Patricia Fisher: Ship’s Detective (affiliate link)
Delve into the frenetic world of Patricia Fisher, but be wary of the undertow – most readers get pulled in and never come out again.
What’s worse than one dead body? Two, right?
Wrong.
It’s not so much the number of bodies that Patricia needs to worry about, it’s how far up the mystery meter they score, and this latest case is a doozey.
Confused by the clues, Patricia and team must work against the clock to discover the truth. It’s not so simple as following a breadcrumb trail of clues though and when the body count continues to climb … well, can anyone figure out what is going on?
An ape on the loose, a suspiciously empty glass tank in a storage room, and someone working very hard in the background to derail Patricia’s efforts.
Could this be Patricia’s toughest case yet?
Anger: Taming a Powerful Emotion (affiliate link)
Anger is a cruel master. If you struggle even a little with anger, you know how it feels to get mad too easily. To lash out at someone you love. To hold onto frustration. You might even notice others seem uneasy around you.
You know anger is hurting your life, but you don’t know how to fix it.
There is hope. When you understand why you get angry and what to do about it, you can change the course of your life for the better. In Anger: Taming a Powerful Emotion, counselor Gary Chapman shares surprising insights about anger, its effect on relationships, and how to overcome it. His advice and real-life examples will help you:
Understand yourself better
Overcome shame, denial, and bitterness
Discern good anger from bad anger
Manage anger and conflict constructively
Make positive life changes
Let go of your grudges and resentment
Help others (like your children) deal with anger
and more
Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work . . . and What Does: The New Science of Leading, Energizing, and Engaging (affiliate link)
A top leadership consultant says: Stop trying to motivate people! Find a powerful alternative to the carrot and stick in this science-driven guide.
It’s frustrating for everyone involved and it just doesn’t work. You can’t motivate people—they are already motivated, but generally in superficial and short-term ways. In this book, Susan Fowler builds upon the latest scientific research on the nature of human motivation to lay out a tested model and course of action that will help leaders guide their people toward the kind of motivation that not only increases productivity and engagement but that gives them a profound sense of purpose and fulfillment.
Fowler argues that leaders still depend on traditional carrot-and-stick techniques because they haven’t understood their alternatives and don’t know what skills are necessary to apply the new science of motivation. Her Optimal Motivation process shows leaders how to move people away from dependence on external rewards and help them discover how their jobs can meet the deeper psychological needs—for autonomy, relatedness, and competence—that science tells us result in meaningful and sustainable motivation.
Manta’s Gift (affiliate link)
At twenty-two, hotshot Matthew Raimey has his whole life ahead of him, but a tragic accident quickly changes everything. He’s left feeling hopeless—until he receives a proposition to be part of a new project for SkyLight International: Project Changeling.
It’s not the easiest transition, but eventually Matt is spending his days unlike anyone back on Earth could imagine—swimming through the toxic yet beautiful atmosphere of Jupiter, in the body of a Qanska, an enormous alien resembling a cross between a manta ray and a dolphin. Even stranger, Matt is happy again.
But his second chance at survival doesn’t come without a cost. Behind this project is a mysterious oligarchy of rich and powerful individuals who run the solar system, and they didn’t place Matt on Jupiter out of mere kindness. They’re monitoring his every move, and preparing to collect what they came for . . .
… See the rest of today ‘s Book Picks here on page 2Page 2