Sally Mandel tops today’s Buffet with Out of the Blue, a poignant and provocative romance about a remarkable leap of faith. As one reviewer put it, this romance is “funny, sad, tender, and triumphant.”
Sally’s book Change of Heart was on The New York Times bestseller list for ten weeks and the film rights were sold to Columbia Pictures. She spent two years writing for television’s “Guiding Light” and was awarded an Emmy in 1992. Two of her screenplays have been optioned and she is a two-time winner of the Montage/HBO Screenwriting Competition.
Sally lives in New York City with her husband, and is at work on a new novel.
As usual, each book listed here has gone FREE within the past 24 hours (except for the “Bargain Books” at the bottom of this page). 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.)
Out of the Blue
Anna Bolles is a born athlete whose life was irrevocably changed after a multiple sclerosis diagnosis five years ago. Anna fills her days with the vibrancy of life in New York City, teaching at a private school, but shutting the door on any possible romance. Until Joe Malone enters her life.
A businessman, pilot, and amateur photographer, Joe Malone has it all–except happiness. He sees far more in Anna than just her MS diagnosis, and takes Anna on a roller coaster of love, hope, and hanging on.
At once heart-wrenching and funny, poignant and provocative, here is a rare novel about finding the courage to take a remarkable leap of faith. Smart, funny Anna Bolles, a born athlete and a dynamic teacher, figures God decided to have the last laugh when her life was tragically and irrevocably changed five years ago. Since then she has kept herself firmly grounded in the present with the door marked “future” shut.
Anna’s days are filled with the vibrancy of summer in New York City where she takes joy in the details, the sensual assault of an air-conditioned museum and a perfectly baked muffin. She relishes her role as an observer to the dramas played out around her–from the adolescent courtships of her private school students to the turbulent love affairs of friends and colleagues. Yet Anna never dares to open her heart, except to the father who has drifted from her and the mother who sustains her, until the one thing she didn’t think could happen becomes a twist of fate that may just set her free. Until Joe Malone.
Joe Malone, pilot, businessman, amateur photographer, is a man who has everything except happiness. Though he’s notorious for his short attention span, he sees in Anna a world of possibilities. Maybe Joe, a man who has only been skimming the surface of life, has finally found a perfect place to land. He thinks he wants a life with Anna no matter what and seems willing to risk everything to be with her. But can he trust himself enough to give their deepest dreams the chance to flourish?
SuperGal vs. GOD
2 Parts Memoir
1 Part Fiction
1 jigger of love story
+ 1 dollop of humor
= SuperGal vs. GOD!
SUPERGAL
Prideful ~ Successful ~ Stressed Out
She could do ANYTHING, but felt the pressure to do EVERYTHING!
LOVE ~ JOY ~ TRAGEDY
Finding new love begins to change her heart, but what happens when that joy is quickly followed by tragedy and her SuperPowers fail?
One Chance To Love
Allison does not think she has the courage to love again. Though she is a beautiful woman, she hardly expects a New Year’s romance. Normally this time of year, she is planning her New Year’s resolutions. But life gets complicated when she loses her job, and meets a very handsome stranger. This stirs some familiar but confusing emotions for her. She may have another chance, if she can just open her heart.
Katie Ingersoll has not always written Christian Romance novels. After going through her own personal trials and crisis of faith, she emerged spiritually transformed. Now she writes Christian Romance as a way of telling beautiful love stories, and as a way of sharing the real power of God in people’s lives.
Torn Apart (Hero series novel, Book 1)
Everyone understands about the no-go districts–areas of the city so overrun with gang violence even the police stay away. In this book, the first in a new series, DI Hero Nelson sets out to combat the issue.
When Saskia Hartley and her nine-year-old son are run down outside a restaurant, DI Nelson knows it is no ordinary hit-and-run incident. He’s looking at a homicide case… and the evidence points to the brutal Krull Gang. When two prostitutes are murdered, but little interest is given to the women on the Krull’s payroll, Nelson connects the dots.
DI Nelson has to decide whether he’s dealing with a turf war or something far more sinister.
Free Kindle Books and How to Find Them
From the author of the Amazon Kindle best-selling blog “Free Kindle Books and Tips” comes this update to your definitive guide to millions of free books online! Rather than limit yourself to the offerings at Amazon, there are literally thousands upon thousands of books, short stories, and more available to you for no charge which you can transfer directly to your Kindle or other eBook reader, download via the Kindle’s WhisperNet service or email directly to your Kindle.
Sure, you could spend several hours performing the same research, but save yourself the time and frustration as this guide will show you where to look and find thousands of books so you can read to your heart’s content!
Everyone enjoys receiving free stuff – the author included. This guide shows you where you can receive several hundred thousand (actually over a million) free books, blogs, short stories, and other content. Theoretically, you will never have to pay another cent for Kindle reading content again.
Saving Forever (The Ever Trilogy: Book 3)
Ever and Cade, Sorry I vanished like I did. I’m not sure I can even explain things. I don’t know when I’ll be back. IF I’ll be back. I’m not sure of anything, except that I love you, Ever. You’re my twin, my best friend, and leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I know you don’t understand. Maybe you never will. I hope you don’t, honestly. It would be easier that way. That’s cowardly, I’m sure. Cade, take care of her. Love her, the way she deserves. The way you always have, for forever and always. If I could ask you anything, it’s that you remember me as I was, and forget me as I am. I’m sorry, and goodbye, and I love you. Eden
The Moonglow Cafe: A Paige MacKenzie Mystery
New York reporter Paige MacKenzie has a hidden motive when she heads to the small town of Timberton, Montana. Assigned to research the area’s unique Yogo sapphires for the Manhattan Post, she hopes to reconnect romantically with handsome cowboy Jake Norris. The local gem gallery offers the material needed for the article, but the discovery of an old diary, hidden inside the wall of a historic hotel, soon sends her on a detour into the underworld of art and deception.
Each of the town’s residents holds a key to untangling more than one long-buried secret, from the hippie chick owner of a new age café to the mute homeless man in the town park. As the worlds of western art and sapphire mining collide, Paige finds herself juggling research, romance and danger. With stolen sapphires and shady characters thrown into the mix, will Paige escape the consequences of her own curiosity?
Kissing In Cars (Kiss & Make Up #1)
Will she, or won’t she…
Studious and (mostly) sensible, the only thing Molly Wakefield wants to do is get through Senior Year and graduate. Well, that and hit the beach in her spare time. Okay, fine – and go shopping every once in a while for a new dress… (and who could blame her?)
And things are going according to plan – until the day she spies Weston McGrath, handsome start athlete and scholar, spying on her in study hall.
A tad creepy? Maybe.
Thrilling? Absolutely.
TODAY’S BARGAINS……………What’s this?
The Best of Us: A Novel
An all-expense-paid week at a luxury villa in Jamaica—it’s the invitation of a lifetime for a group of old college friends. All four women are desperate not just for a reunion, but for an escape: Tina is drowning under the demands of mothering four young children. Allie is shattered by the news that a genetic illness runs in her family. Savannah is carrying the secret of her husband’s infidelity. And, finally, there’s Pauline, who spares no expense to throw her wealthy husband an unforgettable thirty-fifth birthday celebration, hoping it will gloss over the cracks already splitting apart their new marriage.
Languid hours on a private beach, gourmet dinners, and late nights of drinking kick off an idyllic week for the women and their husbands. But as a powerful hurricane bears down on the island, turmoil swirls inside the villa, forcing each of the women to reevaluate everything she knows about her friends—and herself.
Send Me No Flowers
When she was known as an overweight kid from a “loony” family, he often rescued her from bullies. Now she’s come back home all grownup and gorgeous, and he’s the one who will need rescuing.
Sheriff Rob Townsend of Daredevil, South Carolina remembers Jenny Creighton as the girl mean kids called “Jumbo Jenny.” He was compelled to protect her on more than one occasion, a brand of heroic kindness Jenny never forgot. Jenny’s returned to the small town to claim an inheritance and open a flower shop. On the inside, however, she’s still the chubby girl who doesn’t want anyone to remember her humiliating past.
Rob has turned into a hunk with a painful history of his own—one that makes him the biggest heartbreaker south of the Mason-Dixon line. When he becomes her best customer—buying flowers as goodbye gifts for a growing line-up of ex-girlfriends—the women in Daredevil begin to run from Jenny and her kiss-goodbye bouquets. How can she build a business when all the single gals in town are scared to see her on their doorsteps? And what are the secrets behind her childhood hero’s love-’em-and-leave-’em lifestyle?
The Sentinel Mage
In a distant corner of the Seven Kingdoms, an ancient curse festers and grows, consuming everything in its path. Only one man can break it: Harkeld of Osgaard, a prince with mage’s blood in his veins. But Prince Harkeld has a bounty on his head–and assassins at his heels.
Her magic may be the only thing that can save a prince–and the Seven Kingdoms. In a distant corner of the Seven Kingdoms, an ancient curse festers and grows, consuming everything in its path. Only one man can break it: Harkeld of Osgaard, a prince with mage’s blood in his veins. But Prince Harkeld has a bounty on his head–and assassins at his heels. Innis is a gifted shapeshifter. Now she must do the forbidden: become a man. She must stand at Prince Harkeld’s side as his armsman, protecting and deceiving him. But the deserts of Masse are more dangerous than the assassins hunting the prince. The curse has woken deadly creatures, and the magic Prince Harkeld loathes may be the only thing standing between him and death.
Tune In Tokyo:The Gaijin Diaries
Everyone wants to escape their boring, stagnant lives full of inertia and regret. But so few people actually have the bravery to run – run away from everything and selflessly seek out personal fulfillment on the other side of the world where they don’t understand anything and won’t be expected to. The world is full of cowards. Tim Anderson was pushing thirty and working a string of dead-end jobs when he made the spontaneous decision to pack his bags and move to Japan.
It was a gutsy move, especially for a tall, white, gay Southerner who didn’t speak a lick of Japanese. But his life desperately needed a shot of adrenaline, and what better way to get one than to leave behind his boyfriend, his cat, and his Siouxsie and the Banshees box set to move to “a tiny, overcrowded island heaving with clever, sensibly proportioned people who make him look fat”? In Tokyo, Tim became a “gaijin,” an outsider whose stumbling progression through Japanese culture is minutely chronicled in these sixteen hilarious stories. Despite the steep learning curve and the seemingly constant humiliation, the gaijin from North Carolina gradually begins to find his way.
Whether playing drums on the fly in an otherwise all-Japanese noise band or attempting to keep his English classroom clean when it’s invaded by an older female student with a dirty mind, Tim comes to realize that living a meaningful life is about expecting the unexpected…right when he least expects it.
Axeman’s Jazz (Skip Langdon Series, Book 2)
What’s the perfect killing field for a murderer?
A place where he (or maybe she) can learn your secrets from your own mouth and then make friends over coffee. A supposedly “safe” place where anonymity is the norm. The horror who calls himself The Axeman has figured it out and claimed his territory—he’s cherry-picking his victims in the 12-Step programs of New Orleans.
And he’s had the gall to name himself after a historical serial killer. He just needs to go down, and fast, because this is New Aw’lins, dawlin’—half the town is either alcoholic or co-dependent!
Who better to take him out than tall, funny, social-misfit Skip Langdon, now a homicide detective on the Axeman team, a gig that takes her into the 12-Step groups to meet the suspects (giving author Julie Smith a chance for gentle satire). As Skip threads her fascinated way from one self-help group to another, she finds she has more in common with the twelve-steppers than just the murder—her mother, for one thing, whom she encounters at Overeaters Anonymous! And she knows what they do not: that among their anonymous numbers is a murderous, and dangerously attractive psychopath…
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2