New York Times bestselling author Ruth Ryan Langan tops today’s Buffet with Paradise Falls, a classic historical romance set in 1890s rural Michigan. This book first appeared as a Penguin paperback in 2004, and it was revived for the Kindle last month. Author Nora Roberts said the story is “as warm as a quilt on a snowy evening and tender as love’s first kiss.”
Ruth has written more than 100 novels, both historical and contemporary. She also writes contemporary Western romantic suspense for Grand Central Publishing, as well as some novellas for Jove under the pseudonym R. C. Ryan. She began her writing career in secret during the 1970s. Her family discovered her writings when her children came home unexpectedly from school one day and found her writing. When Ruth’s husband was told of her hobby, he bought her an electric typewriter.
Ruth’s first book was published by Silhouette in 1981 after an editor picked it out of their slush pile.
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.)
Paradise Falls
Historical Romance
Author: Ruth Ryan Langan
In 1890 Massachusetts, Fiona Downey accepts a teaching position in rural Michigan, populated by few farms and even fewer people. Living with the Hayden family in Paradise Falls, she is drawn into their complex relationships, especially the uneasy dynamic that seems to pit brother against brother: the older, taciturn Grayson, and Fleming, a handsome charmer.
Attracted to Grayson — but pursued by Fleming — Fiona must decide where her true love lies — and whether that love is worth sacrificing her dearest dreams.
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Guilt Trip (Blanco County Mysteries)
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
Author: Ben Rehder
Life in rural Blanco County, Texas, isn’t what most folks would call exciting—and that suits game warden John Marlin just fine. He’s happy to spend his days and nights protecting the local wildlife from poachers. But when the tequila-slamming, skirt-chasing treasurer of the local Rotary Club goes missing and his vehicle is found in the river the day after a flood, Marlin finds himself in charge of the search efforts. At nearly the same time, a nearby house explodes in a shower of drug paraphernalia, and an exotic car turns up stolen from the missing man’s barn.
Marlin and Sheriff Bobby Garza are soon overwhelmed, trying to figure out how everything connects together. It isn’t long before events begin to spiral out of control. Edgar Award-nominated author Ben Rehder keeps the plot moving and the laughs coming in another spectacularly funny crime novel straight out of the zaniest imagination in Texas.
The Woman
Romance > Mystery & Suspense
Author: David Bishop
There are approximately one-hundred-and-sixty million women living in America. This is a story of just one woman. As the story unfolds Linda gradually learns that some people do deserve to die, but that she is not one of those people.
Linda Darby is a seven-year divorcee, living quietly in a small let-the-world-go-by beach town on the coast of Oregon, who day trades for a living. Her only close friend is a widowed elderly woman who manages a small consulting company, which, as is later discovered, never has visitors, sends and receives its business correspondence only by courier, and is not listed in any phone directory. No one in town knows what kind of consulting the company does, but the rumor is that whatever they do is done for the government.
Then one evening, Linda goes for a walk and nothing for her is ever the same. She is dragged into an alley by two men, but saved by a third, a stranger who disappears as suddenly as he appeared. The next day she finds out the two men in the alley had been killed, the town’s first murders ever. The following day she learns that hours before she had been dragged into the alley, her close friend was tortured and killed. The next night, she awakens several hours after going to bed to find a man sitting in her bedroom, watching her.
What Kills Me: Book One
Teen & Young Adult > Science Fiction & Fantasy
Author: Wynne Channing
An ancient prophecy warns of a girl destined to cause the extinction of the vampire race.
So when 17-year-old Axelia falls into a sacred well filled with blood and emerges a vampire, the immortal empire believes she is this legendary destroyer. Hunted by soldiers and mercenaries, Axelia and her reluctant ally, the vampire bladesmith Lucas, must battle to survive.
How will she convince the empire that she is just an innocent teenager-turned bloodsucker and not a creature of destruction? And if she cannot, can a vampire who is afraid of bugs summon the courage to fight a nation of immortals?
The Animal Within (Otherworldly Prophecies)
Action & Adventure > Horror
Author: Natasha Wetzel
The never ending vacation of a powerful but lazy shifter, Convel, is put on hold when unwanted responsibility is forced into his lap instead of the women he is accustomed to. Laws are being broken that threaten the entire community and it is up to him to end it before his people are ended instead. What starts as an annoying chore will grow into an adventure that will test him to his very core. And in the end it may just be a decision in one single moment that awakens the animal within.
Kiss Me, Chloe
Romance > Contemporary
Author: Linda George
Chloe Lewellyn has set aside her hopes and dreams long enough. All she wants now is to escape from Houston, and from Greg, whose career will always come first. She wants a new life, and, in time, a new love who will put her first in his life and allow her to be the person she wants to be.
Kyle Stanton spies her sitting alone in a crowded restaurant in Albuquerque. Somehow, he knows from the moment he sees her sad expression that this woman, whose heart has been shattered, holds the key to the happiness that has eluded him. How can he convince her to give love another chance? The answer lies in the Rocky Mountains. . . .
Fade Route (Burnside Mysteries)
Mystery > Hard-Boiled
Author: David Chill
A local politician is murdered and there’s one obvious suspect. But everything seems too cut and dried for Burnside’s taste. While the police quickly pinpoint a likely culprit, Burnside — the former USC football star turned private eye — pushes forward into an investigation that reveals more and more possible suspects, all with their own motives. With little more to go on than his gut feeling, Burnside pokes at everything around him as he tries to untangle a web of deceit that threatens to take down an entire community.
The story is set on the outskirts of Los Angeles, in a seaside town that is both serenely gorgeous and brutally stark. It is a community that is home to the very rich and the very poor, a place that contains more than its share of wealth, sin, beauty and despair.
TODAY’S BARGAINS……………What’s this?
Poppet (Jack Caffery)
Mystery > Hard-Boiled
Author: Mo Hayder
Regularly $9.99, Today $1.99
Mo Hayder has for years been a master of chilling, seamlessly-plotted thrillers that keep the reader glued to the page long after lights out, and fresh off of winning the Edgar Award for Best Novel forGone, Hayder is at the top of her game. Her latest novel, Poppet, is Hayder at her most terrifying: a gripping novel about the search for a dangerous mental patient on the loose.
Everything goes according to procedure when a patient, Isaac, is released into the community from a high security mental health ward. But when the staff realize that he was connected to a series of unexplained episodes of self-harm amongst the ward’s patients, and furthermore that he was released in error, they call on Detective Jack Caffery to investigate, and to track Isaac down before he can kill again. Will the terrifying little effigies Isaac made explain the incidents around the ward, or provide the clue Caffery needs to predict what he’s got planned?
Mo Hayder is renowned for conjuring nightmares that sink under the skin, and in Poppet she has delivered a taut, unbearably suspenseful novel that will not let readers go.
Thursdays in the Park
Women’s Fiction > Domestic Life
Author: Hilary Boyd
Regularly $15.95, Today $1.99
Called “a warm and well-written case for love affairs in later life” (Daily Telegraph), Thursdays in the Park was a runaway best-seller in the united Kingdom. Boyd’s debut novel is a touching, romantic tale of new attraction and old loyalties.
Jeanie is on the brink of turning sixty, and the man she’s been married to for more than half of her life has suddenly abandoned the marital bed. When Jeanie’s husband George retreats from his conjugal duties, she is deeply hurt and very confused: Has she done something wrong? Is he in love with someone else? Her pained bewilderment turns to anger as he remains unable, or unwilling, to provide answers. The bright spot of Jeanie’s week is Thursday, the day she takes her granddaughter to the park. There, one day, she meets Ray — age-appropriate, kind-hearted, easygoing, and downright sexy. In short, he is everything that George is not. As her relationship with Ray begins to blossom and she begins to think that her life might hold in store a bold second act, she begins to wonder if she has the courage to take a step off the precipice of routine and duty and into the swirling winds of romance.
Ultimates Vol. 1: Super-Human (Ultimates Marvel Paperback)
Graphic Novels > Superheroes
Author: Mark Millar, Bryan Hitch
Regularly $10.99, Today $1.99
Collects Ultimates (2002) #1-6. Strange beings with incredible powers have risen up to challenge the old order, and ordinary citizens are scared witless. The government’s solution: a small but lethal army known as the Ultimates, created to protect us all from the newly rising threats to mankind!
The German Aces Speak: World War II Through the Eyes of Four of the Luftwaffe’s Most Important Commanders
History > Military > World War II
Author: Colin D. Heaton
Regularly $29.00, Today $2.99
For the first time, four German WWII pilots share their side of the story.
Few perspectives epitomize the sheer drama and sacrifice of combat more perfectly than those of the fighter pilots of World War II. As romanticized as any soldier in history, the WWII fighter pilot was viewed as larger than life: a dashing soul waging war amongst the clouds. In the sixty-five-plus years since the Allied victory, stories of these pilots’ heroics have never been in short supply. But what about their adversaries—the highly skilled German aviators who pushed the Allies to the very brink of defeat?
Of all of the Luftwaffe’s fighter aces, the stories of Walter Krupinski, Adolf Galland, Eduard Neumann, and Wolfgang Falck shine particularly bright. In The German Aces Speak, for the first time in any book, these four prominent and influential Luftwaffe fighter pilots reminisce candidly about their service in World War II. Personally interviewed by author and military historian Colin Heaton, they bring the past to life as they tell their stories about the war, their battles, their lives, and, perhaps most importantly, how they felt about serving under the Nazi leadership of Hermann Göring and Adolf Hitler. From thrilling air battles to conflicts on the ground with their own commanders, the aces’ memories disclose a side of World War II that has gone largely unseen by the American public: the experience of the German pilot.
Pigs
Children’s Books
Author: Robert Munsch, Michael Martchenko
Regularly $6.99, Today $1.99
Megan is told to feed the pigs, but not to open the gate. She does of course, and the results are hilarious as the pigs help themselves to coffee and the newspaper at the breakfast table, follow Megan to school, and ride home by way of the school bus.
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2