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There’s Always a Catch (Christmas Key Book 1) (affiliate link)
When stagnation threatens the future of her beloved island, mayor Holly goes head-to-head with the community’s elderly retirees. With secrets swirling, family drama brewing, and an ex-boyfriend hanging around, can Holly find a way to save her slice of paradise?
With her beloved island’s future on the line, Mayor Holly Baxter must choose between progress and the status quo, and she’ll go up against a small army of golf cart driving retirees to do it. Throw in some major family drama, long-kept secrets, and the complication of a new romance that sparks under the watchful eye of her ex, the island’s only cop, and Holly realizes that—in life, and in love—there’s always a catch!
Black Cherry Betrayal (Claire’s Candles Book 2) (affiliate link)
THERE’S A BODY IN THE ATTIC…
Claire Harris is excited to get the keys to her candle shop finally. A foul smell coming from the attic, however, turns her excitement into a living nightmare. There, she finds the body of Jane Brindle, the owner of the tearoom, which had stood in the heart of the village for decades. Jane’s eventual retirement at eighty after years of fruitlessly hounding her daughter, Em, to take over the tearoom sent her to the south of France, or so everyone assumed. Jane never left Northash, but nobody is admitting to knowing what happened to her. Accusations fly everywhere, with many fingers pointing at free-spirited Em, and even some at Claire for daring to change the status quo. How did Jane end up dead in the locked attic after having supposedly left the village for a new life under the sun four months previously? How is Jane’s impossibly wealthy 102-year-old mother, Opal, involved? Someone close to Jane killed her, but can Claire find out who before her candle shop dreams crumble around her?
The Girl I Was Before (Lily McDermott Series Book 1) (affiliate link)
When Lily McDermott walks in to find Marc, her husband of just three months in bed with actress Nadia, life as she knows it is over. Lily thinks things can’t get any worse when she sees photos of her husband and his new lover splashed across the glossy magazine pages, but when she loses her job too, she is at her lowest ebb and turns to baking to soothe her soul.
Wounded and broken she has to try and pick herself up again with the help of her best friend Frankie and with her encouragement, Lily decides to turn her hobby into a business and sets up Baked With Love. However whatever Lily does, it seems disaster soon ensues and when handsome stranger Sam comes to her rescue, Lily isn’t quite ready to turn her back on her marriage. Can Lily risk opening her heart again or is she destined to allow Marc to shadow her life forever?
Gate 76 (Freddy Ferguson Book 1) (affiliate link)
Deadly Obsession (affiliate link)
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (affiliate link)
The Gilded Age in New York, 1870-1910 (affiliate link)
In forty short years, New York City suddenly became a city of skyscrapers, subways, streetlights, and Central Park, as well as sprawling bridges that connected the once-distant boroughs. In Manhattan, more than a million poor immigrants crammed into tenements, while the half of the millionaires in the entire country lined Fifth Avenue with their opulent mansions.
The Gilded Age in New York captures what is was like to live in Gotham then, to be a daily witness to the city’s rapid evolution.
Newspapers, autobiographies, and personal diaries offer fascinating glimpses into daily life among the rich, the poor, and the surprisingly large middle class.
The use of photography and illustrated periodicals provides astonishing images that document the bigness of New York: the construction of the Statue of Liberty; the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge; the shimmering lights of Luna Park in Coney Island; the mansions of Millionaire’s Row.
Sidebars detail smaller, fleeting moments: Alice Vanderbilt posing proudly in her “Electric Light” ball gown at a society-changing masquerade ball; immigrants stepping off the boat at Ellis Island; a young Theodore Roosevelt witnessing Abraham Lincoln’s funeral.
Darkness Begins (After the EMP Book 1) (affiliate link)
If the power grid fails, how far will you go to survive?
Madison spends her days tending plants as an agriculture student at the University of California, Davis. She plans to graduate and put those skills to work only a few hours from home in the Central Valley. The sun has always been her friend, until now.
When catastrophe strikes, how prepared will you be?
Tracy starts her morning like any other, kissing her husband Walter goodbye before heading off to work at the local public library. She never expects it to end fleeing for her life in a Suburban full of food and water. Tackling life’s daily struggles is one thing, preparing to survive when it all crashes down is another.
The end of the world brings out the best and worst in all of us.
With no communication and no word from the government, the Sloanes find themselves grappling with the end of the modern world all on their own. Will Madison and her friends have what it takes to make it back to Sacramento and her family? Can Tracy fend off looters and thieves and help her friends and neighbors survive?
Coming Home to Seashell Harbor (affiliate link)
Hadley Wells swapped her dreams of saving the planet for the glamour of Hollywood. But when a very public breakup reveals cracks in her not-so-perfect life, she returns to her hometown to reassess what it is she truly wants. Unfortunately, Seashell Harbor has some trouble of its own—including the first man to ever break her heart.
A serious injury forced footballer Tony Cammareri into early retirement—now he’s determined to reboot his life with a splashy new restaurant venture. He knows better than to expect a happy reunion with Hadley, but he’s determined to make up for the way things ended between them. Yet when Tony and Hadley end up vying for control of the town’s future, they find themselves once again on opposing sides.
As their rivalry intensifies, they must decide what’s worth fighting for—and what it truly means to be happy.
The Senator’s Widow (affiliate link)
Unravel the threads of clandestine love and political intrigue in this captivating tale, where entangled hearts and hidden agendas collide, weaving a thrilling dance of romance and deception in the shadowy corridors of power.
In this tantalizing lesbian romantic thriller, Sarah Lou Rogers, a disgraced former Secret Service Agent, has sworn off love, finding refuge in fleeting, no-strings-attached encounters after a perilous affair left her life in shambles.
Miranda, known as the ‘Web Spinner of Washington, D.C.,’ is the unseen hand guiding her husband, ultra-conservative Senator Mitchell Reichert, to the threshold of the White House. Despite her sham marriage and a life filled with superficial pleasures, she can’t shake off the memory of one passionate afternoon with Sarah, an encounter she desperately tries to convince herself was just a fling. However, the tables turn when Mitchell is assassinated, and Miranda is named the prime suspect.
Fast Food My Way (affiliate link)
In this companion volume to the PBS series, Jacques Pépin shows you how to create great-tasting dishes ranging from stunning salads such as Tomato and Mozzarella Fans to Supreme of Chicken with Balsamic Vinegar and Shallot Sauce to his breathtaking Almond Cake with Berries, all special enough for company, yet easy enough for those weekday evenings when you have no time. Fast food Jacques’s way involves no compromises in taste but saves you hours in the kitchen. His Instant Beef Tenderloin Stew, for instance, not only is far faster to make than traditional versions, but tastes brighter and fresher.
With concise, clear directions, Jacques shares the secrets of his kitchen. He teaches you how to season a salmon fillet perfectly and cook it in a low oven, right on the serving platter. You’ll learn how to make a satisfying homemade vegetable soup in seconds, a baked potato in half the usual time, and a succulent roast that takes minutes, not hours, to prepare.
… See the rest of today ‘s Book Picks here on page 2Page 2