Diane Moody tops today’s Buffet with Tea With Emma, the first installment in her inspirational “Teacup Novellas” series based on a family heirloom collection of vintage teacups. Each delicate cup and saucer inspires a unique stand-alone story, whether it’s set in a college town in Texas, a quaint seaside village in Oregon, or a small rural town just down the road from Nashville. .
Born in Texas and raised in Oklahoma, Diane is a graduate of Oklahoma State University. She lives with her husband Ken in the rolling hills just outside of Nashville. They are the proud parents of two grown and extraordinary children, Hannah and Ben.
When she’s not reading or writing, Diane enjoys an eclectic taste in music and movies, great coffee, the company of good friends, and the adoration of a peculiar little pooch named Darby.
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.)
Tea With Emma (The Teacup Novellas Book 1)
Fresh from a Jane Austen tour in England, Maddie Cooper returns home to Texas, determined to bring a touch of “Austen to Austin.” She dreams of opening an authentic English tea room and, like Austen’s Emma, put into practice her self-proclaimed gift as a matchmaker. But an airport mishap with a cranky Englishman gets her off on the wrong foot (quite literally), especially when he moves into the university guest house across the street. Can Maddie find a love for her unapproachable new neighbor, or has she finally met her match?
Being Coached: Group and Team Coaching From the Inside
Have you ever been coached? In a group or in a team? If you could observe a group coaching session, would you get the full picture? Being Coached is not a how-to manual, nor is it narrowly focused on the role of the coach. In fact, the coach’s touch is light. Breakthroughs occur when leaders are in the middle of leading, engaging in peer coaching, or even in quiet reflection.
Written from the multiple viewpoints of eight leaders in a group coaching program and six executives on a leadership team, Being Coached illustrates how creating a learning community promotes growth by making space for vulnerability and risk-taking. Simply put, it answers the question, “What is being coached like?”
Botanicaust
The only crop left … is human.
After genetically altered weeds devastate Earth’s croplands, Dr. Tula Macoby believes photosynthetic skin can save the human race. Her people single-mindedly embark on a mission to convert the cannibals roaming what’s left of Earth. But when Levi, a peaceful stranger, refuses alteration, Tula doesn’t think the only options should be conversion or death.
Levi Kraybill, a devout member of the Old Order, left his Holdout farmland to seek a cure for his terminally ill son. Genetic manipulation is a sin, but Levi will do almost anything for the life of his child. When he’s captured, he’s sure he’s damned, and his only escape will be death.
Do As I Say (The Bennett Mills Mystery Series Book 1)
Agent Bennett Mills is a member of a special security detail charged with the protection of a prominent Arizona senator…until the senator is assassinated. With the suspected assassin having taken his own life it appears to be an open and shut case, but something doesn’t sit well with Agent Mills. While waiting for reassignment, he takes some vacation time making a less than enthusiastic trip home to see his family. A chance meeting leads Mills on the trail of a madman that is often fraught with more questions than answers. Who can be trusted? Every step forward leads to another dead end.
Deadline
From the award-winning author of Village Books comes this fast-paced and quirky thriller about a college reporter chasing the biggest story of his life – provided he’s still alive to write it.
When a body is found in front of the campus arts building, both the police and the school are quick to write it off as just another jealous boyfriend who went over the edge, but reporter Colin Mitchell immediately suspects that there’s more to the case than the authorities would like to believe.
His first clue is the severed hand that shows up in his inbox, sent by a killer who knows Colin is one of the only people who can identify the victim. The second is the strange symbol found at the scene of the crime.
The symbol appears to match the seal of a bloodthirsty and mysterious military religious order founded almost a thousand years ago during the Crusades – a powerful and secretive organization with possible connections to every historical horror from the Inquisition to Jack the Ripper.
Lather (The Moore Series Book 1)
Eighteen year old Emily Jenkins is from a small town in Central Indiana. She just graduated high school and has plans of moving on with her life. But, before she even gets a chance to start college, unforeseen events thrust her right back in to the life of her ex. Will she survive him and be able to continue with her life or will she be drawn back to him?
Logan Moore has just returned home from College for the summer. He has had a rough first year, all of his own making. He wants to right some of the wrongs that he has created over the last year, but it is proving more difficult than he thought. After a tragic accident, that he feels is his fault, Logan tries to cope with the guilt and is offered help by someone he least expects.
Will their lives ever be the same?
Winter of the Heart
Brutalized by a man she can never love, Megan Connors flees her Virginia home to start a new life as a schoolteacher on a South Carolina ranch. Steeped in the serenity of her new surroundings, Megan feels her dreams of a good life are finally coming true. Indeed, life would be perfect if not for her infuriatingly rude employer, the wealthy ranch owner Charles Donavan.
Unable to deny her growing attraction to Charles, Megan soon discovers the chilling secret behind his grim existence. Determined to help Charles free himself from the ghosts of his past, Megan soon finds herself a target for the wrath of another who stakes a claim to Charles’ love. Megan must defeat a powerful enemy, and confront the demons of her own past if she and Charles are to find happiness and escape the dark shadow that falls across them both.
The Divine Apprentice (The Divine Series Book 1)
Kade looks up at his executioner with no fear or hate, watching . . .waiting. At six months old, he could hardly do much more as his grandfather agonizes over the task of taking the life of his only grandson.
Born with the rare ability to control the Divine, Kade has the potential to become one of the most powerful Chosen to ever exist. Taken from his parents, at the age of ten, by his grandfather, a Master Chosen, Kade is taught to harness the power of the Divine for good. After a decade of training, Kade learns the harsh reality of the dangerous world he is about to be thrust into, as his Master is brutally murdered right before his eyes. Kade soon realizes he is next.
With the help of a dragon, a species thought to have been a myth, and a feisty Essence Guardian, Kade must discover who – or what – is trying to eradicate his kind, before the Chosen are brought to extinction.
River God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt (Novels of Ancient Egypt)
Tanus is the fair-haired young lion of a warrior whom the gods have decreed will lead Egypt’s army in a bold attempt to reunite the Kingdom’s shattered halves. But Tanus will have to defy the same gods to attain the reward they have forbidden him, an object more prized than battle’s glory: possession of the Lady Lostris, a rare beauty with skin the color of oiled cedar–destined for the adoration of a nation, and the love of one extraordinary man.
International bestselling author Wilbur Smith, creator of over two dozen highly acclaimed novels, draws readers into a magnificent, richly imagined Egyptian saga. Exploding with all the drama, mystery, and rage of ancient Egypt, River God is a masterpiece from a storyteller at the height of his powers.
Uncertain Magic
Roderica Delamore is an heiress and should be a prize catch—except for an embarrassing and magical secret. She has the ability to hear the thoughts of those around her and has never been able to trust anyone as a result. So she dedicates herself to raising her family’s prize Thoroughbreds and resigns herself to a life without romance—until she meets Faelan Savigar, the Earl of Iveragh, a mysterious, roguish Irishman whose thoughts are entirely closed to her unusual perceptions. She discovers that she has finally met the man she has been waiting her whole life to discover.
He is called “the Devil Earl” and is as enigmatic to everyone else as he turns out to be to Roderica. He is also impoverished, damned in society by dark rumor and innuendo, and, for all she knows, he could be a liar, a swindler, or worse, but his secrets stir her and Roderica is prepared to entrust her life—and her heart—to an enchanting stranger.
Bluebeard: The Autobiography of Rabo Karabekian (1916-1988)
Bluebeard, published in 1987, is Vonnegut’s meditation on art, artists, surrealism, and disaster. Meet Rabo Karabekian, a moderately successful surrealist painter, who we meet late in life and see struggling (like all of Vonnegut’s key characters), with the dregs of unresolved pain and the consequences of brutality. Loosely based on the legend of Bluebeard (best realized in Bela Bartok’s one-act opera), the novel follows Karabekian through the last events in his life that is heavy with women, painting, artistic ambition, artistic fraudulence, and as of yet unknown consequence.
Vonnegut’s intention here is not so much satirical (although the contemporary art scene would be easy enough to deconstruct), nor is it documentary (although Karabekian does carry elements of Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko). Instead, Vonnegut is using art for the same purpose he used science fiction cliches in Slaughterhouse-Five; as a filter through which he can illuminate the savagery, cruelty, and the essentially comic misdirection of human existence.
Marvel 5-Minute Stories (5 Minute Stories)
Marvel Super Heroes are quite busy saving the day—from battling crooks and robbers to evil alien invaders, mutants, and super villains! Each of these twelve stories is the perfect length for reading aloud in about five minutes, making them perfect for jam-packed days. This treasury stars all your favorite Marvel Super Heroes—including Spider-Man and Iron Man—and features action-packed, full-page and spot illustrations. Now the Super Heroes’s adventures are the way to go before bedtime, on the go, or any moment!
A Woman of Substance (Harte Family Saga Book 1)
This record-shattering New York Times bestseller was Barbara Taylor Bradford’s breakout novel. It tells the story of a determined woman who will face betrayal from those closest to her, as well as the loss of a great love, only to emerge triumphant.
From the servants’ quarters of a manor house on the brooding Yorkshire moors to the helm of a profitable international business, Emma Harte’s life is a sweeping saga of unbreakable spirit and resolve. Rising from abject poverty to glittering wealth at the upper echelons of society, there is only one man the indomitable Emma cannot have–and only one she yearns for. The novel was also the subject of a popular 1984 miniseries starring Jenny Seagrove and Deborah Kerr.
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2