Jules Gabriel Verne (1828 – 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright best known for his adventure novels and his profound influence on the literary genre of science fiction. Along with William Shakespeare and Agatha Christie, Verne is one of the most-translated authors in history.
Verne was trained to follow in his father’s footsteps as a lawyer, but quit the profession early in life to write for magazines and the stage. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the “Voyages Extraordinaires,” a widely popular series of scrupulously researched adventure novels including Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and Around the World in Eighty Days.
Verne’s The Mysterious Island tops today’s Buffet. The novel is based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk, who survived alone for almost five years on an uninhabited island off the coast of Chile. The novel tells the story of five men and a dog who land in a balloon on a faraway, fantastic island of bewildering goings-on and their struggle to survive as they uncover the island’s secret.
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The Mysterious Island
Fiction Classics > Science Fiction
Author: Jules Verne
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A group of men escape imprisonment during the American Civil War by stealing a balloon. Blown across the world, they are air-wrecked on a remote desert island. In a manner reminiscent of Robinson Crusoe, the men apply their scientific knowledge and technical skill to exploit the island s bountiful resources, eventually constructing a sophisticated society in miniature. The book is also an intriguing mystery story, for the island has a secret…
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The Bachelor Pact
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Humor
Author: Rita Herron
Three men sworn to bachelor hood meet their matches in this trilogy about friendships, family and love.
Marry Me, Maddie — When Maddie is dumped on television, her brothers’ best friend is enlisted to babysit her – but will they fall in love?
Sleepless in Savannah — a dating game show goes awry and forces Sophie to take a weekend date with a stranger instead of Maddie’s brother — the man she wants to be with.
I Love Lucy — all Lucy wants for the holidays is to be with her family and the man she loves — instead she’s hiding out from a stalker in a sixties & up community!
Passport through Darkness: A True Story of Danger and Second Chances
Biographies & Memoirs > Christian Living
Author: Kimberly L. Smith
As she shares her extraordinary stories of fighting human trafficking as an ordinary mom, Kimberly Smith offers hope for readers who wonder if God is calling them to greater things.
Passport Through Darkness takes readers on Smith’s journey from normal family life and business, to Europe, to the deserts of Africa and ultimately, to the deserts of her own soul as she tries to live well as an imperfect American mom, crusade for justice for orphans around the world, and embrace God’s extraordinary dreams for her. When Kimberly and her husband risk everything to answer God’s call, they see God change and restore them—even amid exhaustion, marital struggles, and physical limitations.
A Path Less Traveled
Christian Fiction > Romance
Author: Cathy Bryant
Trish James is tired of being rescued. When a spooked horse claims her husband’s life, she’s determined to blaze a path for herself and her traumatized son without outside help. But will that mean leaving the place etched on her heart?
Andy Tyler has had to struggle for everything, and starting a new law practice in Miller’s Creek, Texas is no different. Though prepared for business challenges, he’s not prepared for falling in love–especially with yet another woman who will probably abandon him for her career.
Will Andy and Trish be able to see past their limited human understanding to take a path less traveled?
The Lake House Secret
Romantic Suspense
Author: Debra Burroughs
With her life going from bad to worse, reporter Jenessa Jones is drawn back to her small hometown by a death in her family. When human remains are discovered not far from town, Jenessa is assigned the story, throwing her into the thick of town drama.
Caught between her old boyfriend, with whom she shares a sordid past, and her new love interest, who offers her something she has desperately been wanting, Jenessa is embroiled in a homicide investigation that ends up pointing the finger at someone she cares very much about. Can she uncover the truth of this murder before it destroys her family and any chance she has for a happy life?
Dust Devils
Mystery > Hard-Boiled
Author: Roger Smith
Framed for murdering his family, journalist Robert Dell’s only ally is his oldest enemy: his father, an ex-CIA hitman with one last shot at redemption. Hunting the real killer, father and son take a bloody road trip into the heart of darkness, uncovering a conspiracy reaching to the highest levels of the state.
The Stone Man
Science Fiction > Horror
Author: Luke Smitherd
Nobody knew where it came from. Nobody knew why it came.
Even so, for two-bit (and antisocial) reporter Andy Pointer, the appearance in his city of a man made of moving stone meant the scoop of a lifetime. He would soon learn that The Stone Man was much more–and much worse–than that.
This is Andy’s account of everything that came afterwards, and the people that were lost along the way; of the terrible price that he, and the rest of his country, had to pay.
The destruction. The visions. The dying.
The Winthrop Woman
Historical Fiction > Biographical
Author: Anya Seton
Regular Price $10, Today $1.99
In 1631 Elizabeth Winthrop, newly widowed with an infant daughter, set sail for the New World. In those days of hardship, famine, and Indian attack, there was only one way, in the minds of the governors of the Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut colonies, to hold together the sanity and identity of the colonists. That was through a strong and bigoted, theocratic government.
It is against this background of rigidity and conformity that Bess Winthrop dared to befriend Anne Hutchinson at the moment of her banishment from the Bay Colony; dared to challenge a determined army captain bent on the massacre of her friends the Siwanoy Indians; and, above all, dared to love a man as her heart and her whole being commanded.
Coming Home
Romance > Contemporary
Author: Christine S. Feldman
Regular Price $4.99, Today $0.99
No woman ever really forgets her first love. Callie Sorenson is no exception. Hers was tall, tanned, and — as her older brother’s best friend — completely off limits. Danny McCutcheon.
It’s a name that Callie hasn’t spoken in years, even if the man to whom it belongs has never really been all that far from her thoughts. Or her heart. But now a twist of fate will bring her back to the childhood home she left behind years ago, and to the hometown boy for whom she secretly longed.
When her mother takes a bad fall and breaks her hip, Callie leaves the bright lights of New York City to fly back west and help with the rehabilitation. It’s a tense homecoming due to a long time estrangement between mother and daughter, and it drives Callie to confront both a painful personal loss and her unanswered questions about the father who abandoned her when she was just a child.
Strangers in the Land (The Zombie Bible)
Science Fiction & Fantasy > Horror
Author: Stant Litore
Regular Price $9.99, Today $1.99
Four must stand against the dead. The aging prophetess Devora. Hurriya, the slave girl. Zadok, a legend among warriors. And the widower Barak, who has sworn to defend his homeland from a migration of walking corpses greater than has ever been seen.
Devora is all too familiar with the unclean dead. She was there when her mother was pulled screaming from her tent by zombies. And when her mother rose, famished for flesh, it was Devora’s hand that ended her hunger. Now Devora has struck an uneasy alliance with those she fears most among the living. Yet the strangers in the land must stand together if they are to rid the land of its curse.
Shatter Me
Teen & Young Adult > Science Fiction & Fantasy
Author: Tahereh Mafi
Regular Price $9.99, Today $1.99
Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.
The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.
The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war – and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.
Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.
Saving Justice: Watergate, the Saturday Night Massacre, and Other Adventures
Biographies & Memoirs > Lawyers & Judges
Author: Robert H. Bork
Regular Price $21.50, Today $2.99
In June 1973, Judge Robert Bork was plucked from a quiet life of academia at Yale University and planted in the tumultuous soil of constitutional crisis by a Nixon administration barreling toward collapse. From the ousting of Vice President Spiro Agnew to the discharge of the Watergate special prosecutor, an event known as the Saturday Night Massacre, Saving Justice offers a firsthand, insider account of the whirlwind of events that engulfed the administration during the last half of 1973 and the first few months of 1974. This important volume provides a revelatory look into the inner workings of the Justice Department during some of the most consequential months of the Nixon administration.
All He Ever Dreamed (The Kowalskis)
Contemporary Fiction > Romance
Author: Shannon Stacey
Regular Price $4.99, Today $1.99
Josh Kowalski is tired of holding down the fort—better known as the Northern Star Lodge—while his siblings are off living their dreams. Now that his oldest brother has returned to Whitford, Maine for good, Josh is free to chase some dreams of his own.
As the daughter of the lodge’s longtime housekeeper, Katie Davis grew up alongside the Kowalski kids. Though she’s always been “one of the guys”, her feelings for Josh are anything but sisterly. And after a hot late-night encounter in the kitchen, it’s clear Josh finally sees her as the woman she is.
Katie’s been waiting years for Josh to notice her, but now that he has, she’s afraid it’s too late. Giving her heart to a man who can’t wait to leave town is one sure way to have it broken. But Josh keeps coming up with excuses not to leave—could it be that everything he’s ever wanted is closer than he could have imagined?
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2