Charlotte Paul (1916 – 1989) tops today’s Buffet with Phoenix Island, part techno-thriller, part romance, part wilderness survival story, and part utopian novel. This book sold more than a million copies when it was released during the 1970s. It’s been out of print for many years, but has been re-issued for the Kindle in a 35th Anniversary Edition.
Charlotte led a life marked by the pursuit of numerous careers — news editor, wife, back-to-the-lander, freelance writer, mother, novelist, rural newspaper proprietor, memoirist, parole board official — and usually several of these at once. Living mostly in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, with a multi-year stint in Washington, D.C., she spent her final two decades on Lopez Island, one of Washington State’s enchanting San Juan Islands. On these she modeled chief locales of what became her most popular novel, Phoenix Island.
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Phoenix Island: A Tale of Disaster, Survival, and Rebirth
One lonely island, one tidal wave, nine survivors…
A tsunami is one of the last things Dr. Andrew Held expects while entertaining guests on Phoenix Island, the tiny, isolated outpost of Washington State he has made his private home. But when a French nuclear bomb test in the South Pacific goes awry, the ensuing tidal wave destroys his island estate and severs all ties to the mainland.
The survivors are nine: Andrew Held himself, the brilliant Hungarian-born nuclear physicist who helped create the bombs he now campaigns against. Donald Campbell, steward to Dr. Held but secretly a fugitive from justice, with hungers he can barely contain. Diana Lindgren, the lovely yet emotionally damaged young girl hired to help with the guests, and Rolf Morgan, her Native American boyfriend, impelled by love to follow her to Phoenix in his fishing boat.
There’s Carlo Minatti, a Hawaiian musician with a winning manner and easygoing style. The sculptor Warren Brock, urbane, hedonistic, openly gay, with a barbed wit that takes no prisoners. Blake and Norma Mansfield, a New York middle-class couple, likeable to everyone but each other. And Felicia Stowe Held — Andrew’s estranged wife — a ravishing socialite whom he pushed away in a moment always regretted and who has now come seeking divorce.
Nine individuals with little in common and histories setting them far apart, yet each with unique, unexpected strengths, virtues, and talents. As hopes of quick rescue dim, their only chance of survival is to bridge their differences, transcend their conflicts, and learn to live in harmony with each other — and in some cases, with themselves.
The Gates Of Trevalyan
Family. Faith. Love. War. The Gates of Trevalyan brings the turbulent years before, during and after the Civil War to vivid and passionate life. Trevalyan, the beautiful central-Georgia plantation where idealistic young Jenny Mobley and aristocratic Charles King marry and build a life together, becomes a symbol of the heartache and division brought by the nation’s bitter wounds.
Author Jacquelyn Cook weaves the King family’s story into a tapestry featuring the most compelling figures of the time–from charismatic statesman Alexander Stephens and his doomed love for Elizabeth Craig to Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis and many others. Richly detailed and intensely researched, THE GATES OF TREVALYAN breathes the spirit of great storytelling into a fascinating historical era.
Poison Town: A Novel (The Crittendon Files)
Caversham’s Bride (The Caversham Chronicles Book 1)
What would you do to save the ones you love most?
Sold into slavery by the men who were supposed to kill her, Angelia Gualtiero must now convince the man who purchased her to help her. Lia would do anything to save her little brother from her murderous aunt, even marry a man she knows wants nothing more than use of her body.
Marcus Renfield Halden, Ninth Duke of Caversham, needs an heir to secure his legacy and the futures of his young sisters from a desperate cousin whom he suspects of targeting him in pursuit of the title and fortune. When he sees a woman running from her guard in a market in Tangier, he is at first captivated by her beauty. After Ren learns her story, he’s in awe of her bravery. He then makes Lia an offer she cannot refuse.
Her brother for an heir.
What neither expected was to fall in love.
Holding You
Free-spirited Addy Brecken is Milwaukee’s most talented vegan chef and co-owner of Sage Leaf Café. She has a genius IQ, a padded savings account, an amazing view of Lake Michigan, and a heart that won’t stop beating.
An early April morning finds her drowning in the seductive fragrance of lilacs and the warmth of the morning sun when she’s nearly hit by a car in front of her café. The peaceful existence she’s desperately tried to maintain after the horrific loss of her family is suddenly shaken by the Range Rover driving, arrogant, sex-on-legs Quinn Cohen.
A successful, Latino businessman from New York, Quinn has a taste for the finer things in life. A typical playboy, he has the money, the houses, the cars, and the women. Quinn is everything Addy avoids. Where she lives simply and prefers to help the less fortunate, he has no problem spending an obscene amount of money on a briefcase. Their opposite personalities lend to several heated encounters, and Addy finds herself propositioning Quinn for the one thing she never imagined needing … sex.
Chaos at Crescent City Medical Center
It’s Mardi Gras season in post-Katrina New Orleans. With only one week until the big day, thousands of tourists have flocked to the city, paralyzing traffic and jamming the French Quarter with drunken crowds and garbage. City officials are hoping for record crowds and record revenues to generate the biggest boost to the Crescent City since the “big storm.”
Alexander Lee Destephano, legal counsel for Crescent City Medical Center, a world-class hospital, is excitedly anticipating her third Mardi Gras Season and most of all, her date with dashing art historian Mitch Landry. The couple has tickets to the Endymion Extravaganza, the biggest Mardi Gras Ball in New Orleans at the Super Dome on Saturday evening. After many months, life is good again and Alex is determined to experience and appreciate everything it has to offer. She can hardly wait until Saturday evening.
But, things change. Alex is stat-paged to the Medical Center at 6:00 am on Monday morning only to learn from her boss, Don Montgomery and her former husband, Dr. Robert Bonnet that Grace Raccine, a cancer patient at CCMC and the first lady of Louisiana has been found unconscious in her room covered with blood with no visible injury.
Dead on the Vine: (Violet Vineyard Murder Mysteries #1)
Everyone liked Kevin Harlan, even the person who beat him to death with a rusty shovel… Claire de Montagne, proprietress of St. Helena’s Violet Vineyards, has a husband who would rather date a teenager than raise one, an emotionally unstable daughter with a violent ex-boyfriend and a staff of two who treat her more like a mother than a boss. But she can handle all of that. After all, things could be worse. Much worse.
Claire is preparing for the bottling of Violet’s Vintner’s Reserve, hoping to stave off bankruptcy for one more year, when her neighbor, Kevin Harlan, is found murdered in her vineyard. That’s awful enough, but when her daughter is arrested for the murder Claire is forced to take the law into her own hands.
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Hard Target
National-bestselling author Alan Jacobson returns with a story as fresh as the headlines, a novel—his best in years—that moves him into the thriller writer elite
Hard Target by Alan Jacobson is a ticking time bomb that will keep you clinging to the edge of your seat . . . and turning the pages.
An explosion pulverizes the president-elect’s helicopter on election night. It soon becomes clear that the group behind the assassination attempt possesses far greater reach than the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force has yet encountered—and a plot so deeply interwoven in the country’s fabric that it threatens to upend America’s political system.
Thornbrook Park (A Thornbrook Park Romance)
Fans of Downton Abbey will adore this brand-new Edwardian-period romance series set at the grand estate of Thornbrook Park, seat of the Earl of Averford.
In a world poised for epic change…
Disowned for marrying beneath her, Eve Kendal has returned to England destitute after her husband’s death and the mysterious disappearance of their savings. She’s looking for survival, not romance. But from London to the Yorkshire countryside to the elegant estate of Thornbrook Park, Eve’s path seems destined to cross that of the dashing but violent Captain Marcus Thorne.
Anything can happen
For Marcus, a return home means facing the demons that drove him to war in the first place. As he and Eve begin a steamy affair, tensions that had been simmering just beneath the surface threaten to explode and shake the very foundations of Thornbrook Park.
A Thousand Perfect Things
Kay Kenyon’s The Empire and the Rose was hailed as “a star-maker”, “a magnificent book”, “audacious”, and “the most ambitious science fiction epic of the current decade”, garnering starred reviews and comparisons to Larry Nivens and Stephen R. Donaldson.
In this epic new work, the award-winning Kenyon creates an alternate 19th century; two continents on an alternate earth: scientific Anglica (England) and magical Bharata (India.)
To claim the powers of the legendary golden lotus, Tori Harding, a Victorian woman, must journey to Bharata, with its magics, intrigues and ghosts, to claim her fate, and face a choice between two suitors and two irreconcilable realms.
It is 1857. After millennia of seafaring, and harried by the kraken of the deep, in a monumental feat of engineering Anglica has built a stupendous bridge to Bharata. Bharata’s magical powers are despised as superstition, but its diamonds and cotton are eagerly exploited by Anglic colonials. Seething with unrest over its subjugation, Bharata strikes back with bloody acts of magical terrorism.
The Joy of Vegan Baking: The Compassionate Cooks’ Traditional Treats and Sinful Sweets
Whether you want to bake dairy- and egg-free for health, ethical, or environmental reasons, The Joy of Vegan Baking lets you have your cake and eat it, too! Featuring 150 familiar favorites — from cakes, cookies, and crepes to pies, puddings, and pastries — this book will show you just how easy, convenient, and delectable baking without eggs and dairy can be.
- Chocolate Chip Scones
- Cranberry Nut Bread
- Lemon Cheesecake
- Dessert Crepes
- Strawberry Pie with Chocolate Chunks
- Cinnamon Coffee Cake
- Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes
- Raspberry Sorbet
- Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
- Soft Pretzels
- Blueberry Cobbler
- Chocolate Almond Brittle
The Atlantis Plague: A Thriller (The Origin Mystery, Book 2)
In Marbella, Spain, Dr. Kate Warner awakens to a horrifying reality: the human race stands on the brink of extinction. A pandemic unlike any before it has swept the globe. Nearly a billion people are dead–and those the Atlantis Plague doesn’t kill, it transforms at the genetic level. A few rapidly evolve. The remainder devolve.
As the world slips into chaos, radical solutions emerge. Industrialized nations offer a miracle drug, Orchid, which they mass produce and distribute to refugee camps around the world. But Orchid is merely a way to buy time. It treats the symptoms of the plague but never cures the disease.
Immari International offers a different approach: do nothing. Let the plague run its course. The Immari envision a world populated by the genetically superior survivors–a new human race, ready to fulfill its destiny.
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2