Mary Lechleidner (writing as Delia Parr) tops today’s Buffet with Hearts Awakening, the first installment in her “Hearts Along the River” inspirational historical romance series.
Mary is a full-time high school teacher who writes during her summer vacations. She writes on the beach seven days a week, weather permitting. She is a mother of three grown children and lives in Collingswood, New Jersey. She was raised in Pennsauken Township, New Jersey, and graduated from Rutgers University.
Mary is the author of 15 novels and winner of several awards, including the Laurel Wreath Award for Historical Romance and the Aspen Gold Award for Best Inspirational Book.
As usual, each book here has gone FREE within the past 24 hours, except for the Bargain books in the yellow section below. Warning: Kindle book promotions can end without notice, so before downloading click the link “See Kindle price at Amazon” to verify that the book is still free. (Prices and availability may differ outside USA.)
Hearts Awakening (Hearts Along the River Book #1)
Christian Fiction > Historical Romance
Author: Delia Parr, Mary Lechleidner
With no means to support herself, Ellie Kilmer agrees to work as a housekeeper for the young widower who lives on Dillon Island, hopeful she can obtain a proper reference. But Jackson Smith quickly realizes that Ellie’s presence may solve his own problems–both the rearing of his young boys and the scandal that surrounds his first marriage.
When a marriage of convenience is offered, Ellie is initially humiliated. Though she is past the age most women marry, she has more pride than to agree to his outlandish suggestion. Yet what options does she have? To marry would mean a home and stability. So despite the rumors circling Jackson and his first wife, Ellie accepts this unlikely proposal…
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The Time Keeper (Timeways, Book 1)
Teen & Young Adult > Science Fiction & Fantasy
Author: Barbara Bartholomew
A light, fast-paced and readable adventure that combines elements of romance, science fiction and fantasy.
Jeanette Lacy, an unhappy 15 year old, attempts to find her runaway brother Neil and ends up being transported to another time. The time-transport stones are located in an old hotel scheduled to be destroyed in a few days, so the plot-clock starts ticking as Jeanette and Neil wander thorugh different centures, not always on Earth, before reaching home.
Originally published in 1985 by New American Library and Dragon Books (United Kingdom).
The Boys of Summer (Summer Series, Book 1)
Romance > Coming of Age
Author: C.J Duggan
It seemed only natural to nickname them the ‘Onslow Boys’. Every time they swaggered in the front door of the Onslow Hotel after a hard week’s work, their laughter was loud and genuine as they settled onto their bar stools. I peeked through the restaurant partition, a flimsy divider between my world and theirs. I couldn’t help but smile whenever I saw them, saw him … Toby Morrison.
Quiet seventeen-year-old Tess doesn’t relish the thought of a summertime job. She wants nothing more than to forget the past haunts of high school and have fun with her best friends before the dreaded Year Twelve begins.
To Tess, summer is when everything happens: riding bikes down to the lake, watching the fireworks at the Onslow Show and water bomb fights at the sweltering Sunday markets.
How did she let her friends talk her into working?
The iCandidate (The Michael Bennit Series)
Thrillers > Political
Author: Mikael Carlson
All Michael Bennit wants to do is be the best high school teacher he can be. However, when he loses a bet to his over-achieving class of history students, he finds himself in unfamiliar territory: a candidate running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
With no money, and only his students to run his campaign, Michael sets a plan in motion to be the country’s first virtual candidate. Leveraging the potential of social media, his campaign becomes the epicenter of national attention and a target for a desperate incumbent fanatical about hanging onto power – at any cost.
The iCandidate follows the plight of four people caught in the firestorm of mass media, social media, and dirty politics. In the end, lives will be changed and the political landscape of the country forever altered, but will the lesson of it all be lost?
Deadly Valentine (A Valentine Mystery, Book 1)
Romance > Mystery & Suspense
Author: Jenna Harte
Tess Madison walked away from her two-timing fiancé, a multi-million dollar trust fund and a cushy corporate law job to pursue the single life indulging in chocolate and fancy French underwear. But her newly reordered life comes unraveled when she reluctantly accepts an invitation to a dinner party and stumbles upon the host’s dead body. Now Tess is in the middle of a murder investigation pitting her wannabe-boyfriend police detective against Jack Valentine, a man from her past with blue-green eyes and sinful smile that causes her to rethink her self-imposed celibacy.
Tess has many reasons to avoid Jack including the fact that he’s the prime suspect in murder. But Tess doesn’t believe Jack’s the murderer and with an honest attempt to keep her hormones in check, she agrees to represent him. With Jack’s help, she uncovers a 30-year-old secret someone is killing to keep hidden and discovers sensual delights that don’t include chocolate or French underwear. But when her professional and personal relationship with Jack threatens to ruin her career and end her life, Tess has to decide if Jack, is worth the risk.
The Missing Semester
Personal Finance > Money Management
Author: Gene Natali Jr., Matt Kabala
Our financial choices have consequences. Will you choose wisely?
The Missing Semester – an award winning financial guide – provides a short course on the essentials for making wise financial decisions and gaining financial freedom. Although designed with the recent college graduate in mind, the book is relevant to a much wider audience. It begins with the premise that your financial future is your responsibility, and that you cannot plan for or expect help. The book shows how to build a strong financial foundation, prepare for the unexpected, and confront challenges.
TODAY’S BARGAINS……………What’s this?
Middle Men: Stories
Short Stories > Single Author
Author: Jim Gavin
Regularly $9.99, Today $1.99
In this widely acclaimed story collection, Jim Gavin delivers a hilarious and panoramic vision of California, in which a number of down-on-their-luck men, from young dreamers to old vets, make valiant forays into middle-class respectability. Each of the men in Gavin’s stories is stuck somewhere in the middle, caught halfway between his dreams and the often crushing reality of his life. A work of profound humanity that pairs moments of high comedy with searing truths about life’s missed opportunities, Middle Men brings to life unforgettable characters as they learn what it means to love and work and exist in the world as a man.
Hailed as a “modern-day Dubliners” (Time Out ) and “reminiscent of Tom Perotta’s best work” (The Boston Globe), this stellar debut has the Los Angeles Review of Books raving, “Middle Mendeserves its hype and demonstrates a top-shelf talent. . . . A brilliant sense of humor animates each story and creates a state of near-continuous reading pleasure.”
Confessing to the Cowboy (Cowboy Café)
Romance > Mystery & Suspense
Author: Carla Cassidy
Regularly $4.99, Today $0.99
Someone is killing waitresses at the Cowboy Café. Three women are dead, and Sheriff Cameron Evans means to find out why. But as he works to solve the case, the hunky sheriff must push beyond his feelings for the café’s owner. There’s a murderer on the loose. Passion has no place here.
For Mary Mathis, the crime is personal. Not only are the victims her employees, they may be a sign of something deeper. Eight years ago she came to Grady Gulch fleeing a violent past that has scarred her for life. Now she has to discover if that history is dooming the women who work for her. She already knows it has made new love impossibleno matter what she may secretly desire.
The Return Man
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
Author: V. M. Zito
Regularly $9.99, Today $1.99
The outbreak tore the U.S. in two. The east remains a safe haven. The west has become a ravaged wilderness. They call it the Evacuated States. It is here that Henry Marco makes his living. Hired by grieving relatives, he tracks down the dead and delivers peace.
Now Homeland Security wants Marco for a mission unlike any other. He must return to California, where the apocalypse began. Where a secret is hidden. And where his own tragic past waits to punish him again.
But in the wastelands of America, you never know who – or what – is watching you.
Journeys on the Silk Road: A Desert Explorer, Buddha’s Secret Library, and the Unearthing of the World’s Oldest Printed Book
Biographies & Memoirs > Adventurers & Explorers
Author: Joyce Morgan, Conrad Walters
Regularly $19.99, Today $1.99
When a Chinese monk broke into a hidden cave in 1900, he uncovered one of the world’s great literary secrets: a time capsule from the ancient Silk Road. Inside, scrolls were piled from floor to ceiling, undisturbed for a thousand years. The gem within was the Diamond Sutra of AD 868. This key Buddhist teaching, made 500 years before Gutenberg inked his press, is the world’s oldest printed book.
The Silk Road once linked China with the Mediterranean. It conveyed merchants, pilgrims and ideas. But its cultures and oases were swallowed by shifting sands. Central to the Silk Road’s rediscovery was a man named Aurel Stein, a Hungarian-born scholar and archaeologist employed by the British service.
Undaunted by the vast Gobi Desert, Stein crossed thousands of desolate miles with his fox terrier Dash. Stein met the Chinese monk and secured the Diamond Sutra and much more. The scroll’s journey—by camel through arid desert, by boat to London’s curious scholars, by train to evade the bombs of World War II—merges an explorer’s adventures, political intrigue, and continued controversy.
Race to the Altar
Contemporary Romance
Author: Carolyn McCray
Regularly $2.99, Today $0.99
Set in the exciting world of Formula One international race car driving, follow Kitty, a rare female driver, as she tries to decide between her financier fiancee or the handsome, but cocky, race car driver.
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2