As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Where I Belong (Alabama Summer Book 1) (affiliate link)
Benjamin Kelly. World’s biggest jerk.
Mia hates him with a fury and has no desire to ever see him again. When she decides to start her summer off with a bang and finally give away her v-card, she unknowingly hands it over to the one guy that excelled at making her life miserable, learning a valuable lesson in the process.
Always get the name of the guy you’re going home with.
Ben can’t get the girl he spent one night with out of his head.
When she leaves him the next morning, he thinks he’ll never see her again. Until he sees her lounging by the pool with his sister.
Mia is determined to hate Ben, even though she can’t forget him. Ben is determined to prove he’s not the same guy he used to be.
FOLLY (Alex Duggins Book 1) (affiliate link)
MURDER IN A BEAUTIFUL COTSWOLDS VILLAGE
Following the breakdown of her marriage, Alex Duggins has returned to the village of Folly-on-Weir in the Cotswolds. She is starting again, buying the local pub in the area where she grew up.
But on a wintery walk in the hills above Folly, Alex stumbles across a frosted corpse buried in the snow. The dead man has a dart piercing his neck.
Then the questions start.
And Alex finds herself top of the suspect list.
Can she clear her name and find the real murderer?
As she begins to peel back the layers of deception that have long concealed one of the town’s darkest secrets, she becomes the target of a ruthless killer who has nothing left to lose.
After Darkness Falls: A Vampire Romance (affiliate link)
They’ve exterminated an entire bloodline, purging the world of the only creatures vampires dread. Or so they think.
Chloe used to study hard, do everything right to pave a bright future, but children sometimes have to pay for their parents’ sins, and Chloe’s tab is pretty steep.
At twenty-five, when a series of attacks forces her to seek refuge in the notorious Institute of Paranormal Studies, Chloe sees it as a second chance to achieve her goals. She believes she has nothing to lose.
She couldn’t be more mistaken.
Levi has had centuries to observe the mortals and immortals of this world. He knows what the sassy woman who entered his domain is at first glance. A relic of the old days, so ancient that even an elder lord descended from the first immortals has reason to fear her.
He should slit her throat while he has the chance.
He should.
Butter, Sugar, Magic (Book 1) (affiliate link)
Embracing a midlife transformation has never been more delicious.
At best, she’s expecting a kitschy candy dish, at worst a beloved taxidermied pet, so when Cassie-newly divorced, single mom with zero prospects-discovers she’s inheriting a fully stocked bakery along with a beautifully furnished apartment from a great aunt she’d never even heard of, she’s convinced she must be dreaming.
The apartment bizarrely adapting itself to her whims and the friendly neighbor floating fireballs in the air aren’t helping.
Cassie has two choices. She can hightail it out of this bewildering town and figure out another way to support her pre-teen daughter. Or she can stay and live the life of her dreams in this unsettling place where the rules of physics don’t seem to apply, and people are suspiciously friendly and welcoming.
Wicked Moons (Wicked Good Witches Book 1) (affiliate link)
The Rules of Being a Howard Witch:
Bring new witches into the world to replenish the bloodline.
Don’t expect to live long enough to meet your grandchildren.
And now, our parents are dead and we’re the last three witches who can keep the family legacy alive.
Only, I’ve been bitten by a werewolf so falling for a human is too dangerous.
My younger brother’s plans don’t include being a witch—he wants a life without magic.
And our little sister can’t even leave the house without having a panic attack and is not-so-secretly crushing on our longtime family ally, a vampire who’s sworn off love altogether.
So, no pressure or anything.
And like we need more problems – the body of a dead tourist has been found and the murder linked to a beloved and deceased family member. We must now embark on a supernatural mission to prove their innocence… or their guilt.
The Cleopatra Cipher (Adrian West Adventures Book 1) (affiliate link)
A priceless treasure. An ancient secret society. A race against time to save countless lives…
Former FBI profiler Adrian West is in Rome for a history conference when she learns that her friend and colleague, Dr. Sebastian Rossi, has been abducted.
When another of his colleagues is found murdered, and Adrian framed for the crime, it’s a race against time to prove her innocence, find Sebastian before it’s too late, and stop the secret of a powerful ancient queen from causing the loss of countless lives…
A Ranch to Call Home (affiliate link)
An abandoned bride discovers that true love is closer to home than she ever imagined in this Western historical romance.
Laura Lee’s fiancé Johnny is dashing, passionate . . . and strangely absent. Waiting for him in her wedding dress in the streets of Forget-Me-Not, Texas, Laura refuses to believe she’s been abandoned. Just like she refuses to believe the distractingly handsome rancher Jesse Creed when he claims that her new, perfect house doesn’t belong to Johnny, but to him!
Until Jesse can prove it, Laura isn’t going anywhere. But living side by side with Jesse is temptation itself. And suddenly this house starts to feel an awful lot like the home she’s always longed for . . .
Gullstruck Island (affiliate link)
In the late seventies, at the age of eighteen and with a seventh-grade education, Dolly Freed wrote Possum Living about the five years she and her father lived off the land on a half-acre lot outside of Philadelphia. At the time of its publication in 1978, Possum Living became an instant classic, known for its plucky narration and no-nonsense practical advice on how to quit the rat race and live frugally. In her delightful, straightforward, and irreverent style, Freed guides readers on how to buy and maintain a home, raise and grow their own food, cope with the law, stay healthy, save money, and more, all in the name of self-reliant, independent living.
Forty years later, Possum Living remains an essential guide to going off the grid. This updated edition includes an introduction by Novella Carpenter, and new wisdom from Freed on aging, used cars, emergency funds, and how to get back in touch with yourself. Possum Living, says Freed, is about how to cook; to go fishing; to be with family, friends, and neighbors; to forage for wild berries; to enjoy a hobby; to relax; or, even better, to do nothing at all. Some of the best living, she reminds us, happens in possum time.
America’s Expiration Date: The Fall of Empires and Superpowers . . . and the Future of the United States (affiliate link)
A warning and a wake-up call to learn history so we are not doomed to repeat it. A must-read for anyone who longs for a promising future for our great nation.
What is wrong with America today? Is it possible that America could crumble and our democracy fail?
Questions like these plague Americans and cause us to be anxious about the future of the “land that we love.” Individuals may come to different conclusions, but there seems to be a common thread – the deep-seated feeling that we need to improve our country. Our culture is increasingly immoral, the family structure is threatened from all sides, and government programs consistently overreach, creating massive debt.
In this powerful and prophetic book, nationally syndicated columnist and trusted political commentator Cal Thomas offers a diagnosis of what exactly is wrong with the United States by drawing parallels to once-great empires and nations that declined into oblivion. Citing the historically proven 250-year pattern of how superpowers rise and fall, he predicts that America’s expiration date is just around the corner and shows us how to escape their fate.
Behind the Book: Eleven Authors on Their Path to Publication (affiliate link)
Every book has a story of its own, a path leading from the initial idea that sparked it to its emergence into the world in published form. No two books follow quite the same path, but all are shaped by a similar array of market forces and writing craft concerns as well as by a cast of characters stretching beyond the author.
Behind the Book explores how eleven contemporary first-time authors, in genres ranging from post-apocalyptic fiction to young adult fantasy to travel memoir, navigated these pathways with their debut works. Based on extensive interviews with the authors, it covers the process of writing and publishing a book from beginning to end, including idea generation, developing a process, building a support network, revising the manuscript, finding the right approach to publication, building awareness, and ultimately moving on to the next project. It also includes insights from editors, agents, publishers, and others who helped to bring these projects to life.
Why Learn History (When It’s Already on Your Phone) (affiliate link)
A look at how to teach history in the age of easily accessible—but not always reliable—information.
Let’s start with two truths about our era that are so inescapable as to have become clichés: We are surrounded by more readily available information than ever before. And a huge percent of it is inaccurate. Some of the bad info is well-meaning but ignorant. Some of it is deliberately deceptive. All of it is pernicious.
With the Internet at our fingertips, what’s a teacher of history to do? In Why Learn History (When It’s Already on Your Phone), professor Sam Wineburg has the answers, beginning with this: We can’t stick to the same old read-the-chapter-answer-the-question snoozefest. If we want to educate citizens who can separate fact from fake, we have to equip them with new tools. Historical thinking, Wineburg shows, has nothing to do with the ability to memorize facts. Instead, it’s an orientation to the world that cultivates reasoned skepticism and counters our tendency to confirm our biases. Wineburg lays out a mine-filled landscape, but one that with care, attention, and awareness, we can learn to navigate.
… See the rest of today ‘s Book Picks here on page 2Page 2