New York Times bestselling author Sarah Addison Allen tops today’s Buffet with Waking Kate, a short novel that serves as a prequel to her most recent book, Lost Lake.
Born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina, Sarah has a B.A in English Literature, which she describes as like “being able to major in eating chocolate.” Her father is a retired journalist and she credits him as the reason she became a writer.
Sarah started writing seriously in 1994 and although she sold a few small things, it wasn’t until 12 years later in 2006 that Garden Spells was sold. It was supposed to be a simple story, not magical at all, “but then the apple tree started throwing apples”. It has been released in 14 countries.
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Waking Kate
Contemporary Fiction
Author: Sarah Addison Allen
From Sarah Addison Allen, the beloved author of Garden Spells, comes Waking Kate, a story about a woman who soon will face an unforeseen change in her life.
One sticky summer day as Kate is waiting for her husband to come home from his bicycle shop, she spots her distinguished neighbor returning from his last day of work after eighty-six years at Atlanta’s oldest men’s clothing store. Over a cup of butter coffee, he tells Kate a story of love and heartbreak that makes her remember her past, question her present, and wonder what the future will bring.
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Bury Me with My Pearls
Humor > Love, Sex & Marriage
Author: Jane Jenkins Herlong
A real-life, roller-coaster ride of laughter, tears, and stomach-churning truths by a professional speaker, humorist, and singer who, as Miss South Carolina, represented her state in the Miss America pageant and has been singing, speaking, and writing ever since. Incorporating the analogy of pearls, this book uses humor and spiritual principles to bravely address difficult issues many in her audiences encounter within changing roles, self-actualization, and families.
Bury Me with My Pearls addresses the importance of how to guard the countless gifts given by our Lord and that doing the right thing is the right thing, regardless of our feelings or circumstances. It is about trusting God in all things and how he can turn our irritants into to pearls. Bury Me with My Pearlsencourages us to develop our pearls, protect our jewels, carefully wear them next to our hearts, and share with others. All of this with a good splash of humor.
Explore how to walk in love while pruning the family tree in an environment filled with difficult people and how God’s power is released when learning to trust Him, to embrace the lessons being taught, and to grow spiritually no matter how painful. Like the process of the pearl, so many women need to find and embrace their buried treasures.
Mark Taylor: Genesis (Prequel, Mark Taylor Series)
Horror > Occult
Author: M.P. McDonald
Mark Taylor’s life changes forever when he finds an antique camera in an Afghan bazaar. Back home in Chicago, he discovers that the camera has a strange and unique ability–it produces photographs of tragedies yet to happen. Gifted with powers to change destiny, what drives him to risk his life for others? And when presented with photos of 9/11 a day before it happens, what else can he do but attempt to save lives and thwart catastrophe?
In this prequel to M.P. McDonald’s Kindle Bestseller, No Good Deed, find out how Mark Taylor was gifted with powers to change destiny. What drove him to risk his life for others, and why did everything go so wrong on that fateful September day?
Saving Wishes (The Wishes Series, Book 1)
Romance > Coming of Age
Author: GJ Walker-Smith
For Charli Blake, being seventeen is a tough gig. She’s been branded a troublemaker, her reputation is in tatters and she’s stuck in Pipers Cove, a speck of a town on the coast of Tasmania. Thankfully, it’s temporary. Her lifelong dream of travelling the world is just months away from becoming reality. All she has to do is ride out the last few months of high school, which is easier said than done thanks to a trio of mean girls known as The Beautifuls.
When Adam Décarie arrives in town, all the way from New York, life takes an unexpected turn. His arrival sets off a chain of events that alters her life forever, convincing her of one thing. Fate brought him to her.
Saving Wishes is the story of a girl who doesn’t quite fit the life she’s living, and the boy who helps her realise why.
The Heart of a Leader
Christian Living > Business & Professional Growth
Author: Ken Blanchard
The Heart of a Leader offers Blanchard’s insight and wisdom on:
• Choosing values
• Aiming for excellence
• Maintaining integrity
• Finding the courage to change
• Helping others reach their potential
Arranged with your busy schedule in mind, this book offers you Blanchard’s most important concepts in an accessible format. You can reach for instant motivation and insight on a daily basis or soak it up in one reading. Powerfully challenging and deeply inspiring, The Heart of a Leader will enable you to develop the courageous heart of a true leader, master key attitudes and actions to impact lives around you, and enjoy the profound wisdom that only Ken Blanchard can deliver.
Love Storm
Romance > Contemporary
Author: Jennifer McNare
Taking a week off from her internship at the Denver Art Museum, twenty-two-year-old Brooklyn Foster is headed up to her family’s private cabin near Vail, Colorado, for a little rest and relaxation. Unfortunately, she isn’t aware that her brother-in-law, an all-pro defensive lineman, has already offered the use of the cabin to his friend and former teammate, Ryan Landry, the drop-dead gorgeous NFL superstar she’s had a not-so-secret crush on since she was a teenager. As luck would have it, he is also the same man who rebuffed her youthful advances four years earlier, after she ineptly attempted to seduce him in one of the most humiliating moments of her life, and much to her dismay, the same man who can still start her heart racing with only a smile.
Temporarily sidelined from his position as one of the most-celebrated wide receivers in the NFL due to a mild concussion, Ryan Landry eagerly accepted his close friend Wade Calloway’s offer to rest and recuperate at his cabin in the Rocky Mountains, unaware that he wouldn’t be the only one making use of the luxurious retreat. But when Wade’s sister-in-law, the lovely Brooklyn Foster arrives unexpectedly, he can’t deny that spending the next week with the tempting young beauty holds a great deal more appeal than it should.
Across the Creek (Jesse & Sarah, Book 1)
Romance > Contemporary
Author: Jeremy Asher
Life only gives you one first kiss.
And when Jesse Malone kissed Sarah Ramsey, he thought his life would change, but not in the way that it did. An unlikely childhood romance between a poor boy and a wealthy girl began the day Jesse decided to do the impossible and cross the creek. A love was born, one that would become their shelter, protecting them from the storms of their lives, until the day Jesse witnessed his mother’s murder, forcing him to leave his childhood home…and first love.
Ten years later, life has finally gotten better for Jesse. He has a loving family, a charming pet shop to run, and one semester left before graduating with a degree in architecture. Everything is great, until the day fate intervenes and his long-lost love walks into his shop and back into his life.
Sarah, engaged to a budding attorney, is struggling to keep everything together. Her father, diagnosed with terminal cancer, is running out of time. Sarah races to build their dream business while planning her wedding in time for her father to walk her down the aisle.
Just One Damned Thing After Another (The Chronicles of St. Mary’s Series)
Science Fiction > Time Travel
Author: Jodi Taylor
Behind the seemingly innocuous façade of St Mary’s, a different kind of historical research is taking place. They don’t do ‘time-travel’ – they ‘investigate major historical events in contemporary time’. Maintaining the appearance of harmless eccentrics is not always within their power – especially given their propensity for causing loud explosions when things get too quiet.
Meet the disaster-magnets of St Mary’s Institute of Historical Research as they ricochet around History. Their aim is to observe and document – to try and find the answers to many of History’s unanswered questions…and not to die in the process.
But one wrong move and History will fight back – to the death. And, as they soon discover – it’s not just History they’re fighting.
Follow the catastrophe curve from eleventh-century London to World War I, and from the Cretaceous Period to the destruction of the Great Library at Alexandria. For wherever Historians go, chaos is sure to follow in their wake …
TODAY’S BARGAINS……………What’s this?
The Devil of Clan Sinclair
Historical Romance > Regency
Author: Karen Ranney
Regularly $7.99, Today $1.99
True love blossoms in the Scottish Highlands in the steamy historical romance The Devil of Clan Sinclair, the first book in a new series by New York Times bestselling author Karen Ranney.
When Countess of Barrett Virginia Traylor’s husband dies without an heir, she’s left in dire circumstances. The estate will go to his cousin unless Virginia can produce a son before the allotted time is up. In desperation, she turns to Macrath Sinclair, the self-made Scottish millionaire she loved before her father arranged her failed marriage.
After a whirlwind affair results in her bearing a child, Macrath discovers he’s become a father and steals the baby away.
While Virginia tries desperately to convince him to relinquish her son, Macrath realizes that he’ll do anything in his power not to give up the son…or the boy’s maddening, irresistible mother.
Hard As It Gets: A Hard Ink Novel
Romance > Mystery & Suspense
Author: Laura Kaye
Regularly $5.99, Today $1.99
Tall, dark, and lethal…
Trouble just walked into Nicholas Rixey’s tattoo parlor. Becca Merritt is warm, sexy, wholesome–pure temptation to a very jaded Nick. He’s left his military life behind to become co-owner of Hard Ink Tattoo, but Becca is his ex-commander’s daughter. Loyalty won’t let him turn her away. Lust has plenty to do with it too.
With her brother presumed kidnapped, Becca needs Nick. She just wasn’t expecting to want him so much. As their investigation turns into all-out war with an organized crime ring, only Nick can protect her. And only Becca can heal the scars no one else sees.
Desire is the easy part. Love is as hard as it gets. Good thing Nick is always up for a challenge…
The Curse: Touch of Eternity (The Curse Series)
Teen & Young Adult > Romance > Paranormal & Fantasy
Author: Emily Bold
Regularly $9.99, Today $2.00
A centuries-old curse, a mysterious amulet, and a young love reignite a vendetta that had died down long ago…
When seventeen-year-old Samantha goes on a school-exchange trip to Scotland, she takes with her an old pendant that she found amongst her grandmother’s belongings. As soon as she arrives at her host family’s home, she is drawn into the country’s tales and myths. Then she meets the dangerously attractive Payton –a mysterious Highlander who soon conquers Sam’s heart. Caught up in her feelings, she doesn’t realize how much danger she’s in. Payton’s past holds a dark secret. A secret that has bound together both their families’ fates for hundreds of years and is now also endangering Sam’s life.
Get Real & Stop Dieting!
Diets & Weight Loss
Author: Brett Blumenthal
Regularly $9.99, Today $1.99
If you are ready to make a life change for the sake of better health, look no further than this simple, no-frills guide to healthy eating. In the pages of “Get Real & Stop Dieting!,” fitness instructor and wellness expert Brett Blumenthal cuts through the chaos of fad diets and scientific mumbo jumbo to demystify healthy eating once and for all.
After decades of experience in the health and wellness industries, Blumenthal has zeroed in on five simple “Get Real” principles, nutritional tools founded in cold, hard facts. The principles are accompanied by the “Get Real” toolkit to make implementing them easy and effective. Plus, Blumenthal provides forty pages of healthy, satisfying recipes—from whole-grain pancakes to rich chocolate clusters—to help readers launch their nutritional makeover. Healthy eating doesn’t have to be complicated. Now, thanks to this easy-to-implement diet and nutrition program, you too can be inspired, empowered, and motivated to live a healthier, happier life.
An Echo Through the Snow
Contemporary Fiction > Women’s Fiction
Author: Andrea Thalasinos
Regularly $9.99, Today $2.99
Andrea Thalasinos’s debut novel is an inspiring story of how a single act of kindness can transform your life.
Rosalie MacKenzie is headed nowhere until she sees Smokey, a Siberian husky suffering from neglect. Rosalie finds the courage to rescue the dog, and—united by the bond of love that forms between them—they save each other.
Soon Rosalie and Smokey are immersed in the world of competitive dogsled racing. Days are filled with training runs, the stark beauty of rural Wisconsin, and the whoosh of runners on snow. Rosalie discovers that behind the modern sport lies a tragic history: the heartbreaking story of the Chukchi people of Siberia. When Stalin’s Red Army displaced the Chukchi in 1929, many were killed and others lost their homes and their beloved Guardians—the huskies that were the soul and livelihood of their people.
Alternating between past and present, telling of a struggling Chukchi family and a young woman discovering herself, An Echo Through the Snow takes readers on a gripping, profound, and uplifting dogsled ride to the Iditarod and beyond, on a journey of survival and healing.
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2