Power of the Matchmaker
Read the matchmaker’s story to find out where it all starts . . .
Mae Li has been in love with Chen Zhu for years, and he with her. But when the matchmaker arrives at the Zhu family home, she recommends another village girl for Chen.
Heartbroken, Mae Li watches as Chen does his duty by marrying another. Mae flees her village with the clothes on her back and her only possession—a pearl embedded comb, given to her as a goodbye gift from Chen Zhu.
Upon Mae’s arrival in Shanghai, she quickly learns that she’ll starve within days unless she sells her prized comb or joins a courtesan house. She goes to the Huangpu River and promises the River God that she’ll always be selfless if he will save her from becoming a prostitute . . . Her wish is granted when Ms. Tan, the matchmaker of Shanghai, finds Mae. But Mae must completely change her future and her name if she is to become the next matchmaker.
Emma (Coterie Classics with Free Audiobook)
Emma by Jane Austen Gogol from Coterie ClassicsAll Coterie Classics have been formatted for ereaders and devices and include a bonus link to the free audio book.
Perhaps the out-and-out funniest of Jane Austen’s books. Telling the story of a heroine Austen feared readers would actively dislike, Emma has turned out to be a character whose creation was necessary to the development of the spoiled rich kid genre of literature, TV and movies. Since Emma knows what’s best for everybody, she sets about trying to straighten the world out. It doesn’t work. Fortunately, before completely screwing up everyone else’s life, she gets her head screwed on straight and for the first time sees what it’s all about.
Mail Order Bride – Westward Dance (Montana Mail Order Brides Book 2)
A historical western cowboy romance novel about a mail order bride.
After Maddie O’Connor was brutally attacked, she sinks into a deep depression. Her older sister, Tessa, enlists the help of her brother-in-law, Seth Samuels, to coax Maddie into coming to Dawson to heal.
An accident leaves Seth severely injured. Maddie is intrigued by his enticing letters, and agrees to come west. They fall in love, but will their romance survive their different lifestyles?
Rath’s Deception (The Janus Group Book 1)
On the cut-throat streets of Tarkis, orphaned teens like Rath end up jailed … or dead. So when the shadowy Janus Group offers Rath a chance to earn riches beyond his wildest dreams, he seizes it. But the Janus Group is as ruthless as the elite assassins it controls. Rath will have to survive their grueling, off-world training, and fulfill all fifty kills in his contract before a single cent comes his way. And ending so many lives comes with a price Rath can’t anticipate. It’ll certainly cost him what’s left of his innocence. It may well cost him his life.
Vegetable Container Gardening: 7 Easy Steps To Healthy Harvests from Small Spaces
Almost everything edible that’s grown in a traditional garden can be grown in containers – and container gardening is a whole lot easier!
In fact, anyone, anywhere can enjoy container gardening: children, adults, people with limited mobility, people who have never planted anything before, ever, can see amazing results.
This step-by-step guide covers everything you’ll need to get started, including:
– sun, soil and water
– types of containers to use
– equipment needed
– seeds and propagation
– dealing with challenges of sun, wind and watering
Serena
Witty and refreshingly candid, lovely Serena has been capturing hearts young and old alike. Her guardian uncle worries, though, that at twenty-three she will soon become a spinster. He wants a better life for her than that, but she doesn’t want to make a match without her heart being in it.
And none of the men courting her have touched her heart—not Warren, the old friend who woos her even as he eyes other women; certainly not Eustace, the minister concerned more with appearances than compassion; not even Freddy, perhaps the most ardent of her suitors but at nineteen still a puppy.
Then Freddy’s uncle, the handsome Lord Pendleton, arrives to extract his nephew from the woman he expects Serena to be—one interested only in wealth and a title.
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Masquerade (Scandalous Ballroom Encounters Book 1)
Margaret Seymour is bored by the stifling constraints of society dictating her behavior as a debutante in search of a husband. Her prospects are promising by the standards of London society, yet, not one of them causes her heart to flutter, or her head to fill with scintillating, forbidden fantasies. Those feelings are reserved for Camden Rycroft, Duke of Avonleah—a man who isn’t even aware of her existence.
While attending a scandalous Vauxhall Gardens masquerade, Margaret finds herself in the duke’s arms. His promise of a night of pleasure is tempting, but is it worth it when Avonleah is a known rake notorious for his short attention span and avoidance of marriage?
Camden Rycroft is intrigued by the masked vixen he encounters in the Gardens. After one night with her leaves him hungry for more, his desire for her turns into a fiery obsession.
Hunting Shadows: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery
A dangerous case with ties leading back to the battlefields of World War I dredges up dark memories for Scotland Yard Inspector Ian Rutledge in Hunting Shadows, a gripping and atmospheric historical mystery set in 1920s England, from acclaimedNew York Times bestselling author Charles Todd.
A society wedding at Ely Cathedral in Cambridgeshire becomes a crime scene when a man is murdered. After another body is found, the baffled local constabulary turns to Scotland Yard. Though the second crime had a witness, her description of the killer is so strange its unbelievable.
Despite his experience, Inspector Ian Rutledge has few answers of his own. The victims are so different that there is no rhyme or reason to their deaths.
Out of the Shadow (The Shadow Series Book 1)
A survivor of rape and her husband’s murder, all Becca Rosen wants to do is move on with her life, but how can she when she’s being stalked by a psychopath with an attitude—and an agenda. The police are no help because they’re convinced, with her history of mental illness, Becca has faked the rape to get away with murder. On top of that, Becca has begun to have flashbacks of childhood abuse, possibly at the hands of the rapist. Not knowing where to turn, and feeling like she might go crazy again, Becca hires Psychologist, Sarah Abrams.
Three men come into Becca’s life around the same time. While each of these men has his charms, could one of them be the perpetrator? Or could it be somebody else? Together Becca and Sarah start on a course of hypnotherapy to discover the abuser’s identity. Will their work reveal the real killer before it’s too late, or will Becca fall prey once again to this demented criminal?
Postcards from the Sky: Adventures of an Aviatrix
The aviation world is a man’s world—it always has been, and it continues to be so today. In fact, women make up a mere 5 to 6 percent of the total pilot population worldwide. But from the first time Erin Seidemann experienced what it was like to see the world from a small plane’s perspective, she was hooked—and she’s spent much of her time since then fighting her way into becoming one of that 5 to 6 percent.
Postcards from the Sky: Adventures of an Aviatrix tells of the struggles and adventures one encounters as a woman in the male-dominated space of aviation. With humor and equanimity, Seidemann recounts her varied experiences as a female pilot—from the chauvinistic flight instructor she makes the mistake of falling in love with to the many, many customs agents who insist she can’t possibly be her plane’s owner (“Where’s your boyfriend?”)—while at the same time giving insight about just what makes flying so incredible . . . and so very addictive.
House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East
In the summer of 2006, racing through Lebanon to report on the Israeli invasion, Anthony Shadid found himself in his family’s ancestral hometown of Marjayoun. There, he discovered his great-grandfather’s once magnificent estate in near ruins, devastated by war. One year later, Shadid returned to Marjayoun, not to chronicle the violence, but to rebuild in its wake.
So begins the story of a battle-scarred home and a journalist’s wounded spirit, and of how reconstructing the one came to fortify the other. In this bittersweet and resonant memoir, Shadid creates a mosaic of past and present, tracing the house’s renewal alongside the history of his family’s flight from Lebanon and resettlement in America around the turn of the twentieth century. In the process, he memorializes a lost world and provides profound insights into a shifting Middle East.
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Blind Justice
Jake Denney has hit rock bottom. His wife has left him. He’s drinking again. And his five-year-old daughter is in the middle of it all. When a judge calls him “a disgrace to the legal profession,” Jake starts thinking things might be better for everyone if he wasn’t around anymore.
Then a childhood friend’s mother phones him. Her son, Howie, has been accused of murdering his wife. Jake takes the seemingly hopeless case in a last-ditch effort to save his client and his fading career.
Meanwhile, Howie’s little sister, Lindsay, has grown into a beautiful woman. Though Jake is drawn to her, there’s something about her he doesn’t understand, even though it may be the very thing he needs to reclaim his humanity.
With the evidence mounting against his client, and a web of corruption closing around them both, Jake Denney faces the fight of his life–not only in the courtroom, but in the depths of his own soul.
Chasing Claire (Hells Saints Motorcycle Cub)
Claire Winston knows she’s lucky to be alive—and even luckier to have the love and protection of a man like Prosper, her adoptive father and leader of the Hells Saints Motorcycle Club. Yet, try as she may, she can’t leave yesterday behind. She’s still haunted by Reno, the bad-boy biker her heart loves but her spirit fears. And she can’t seem to escape the terrifying memories of a night filled with blood, bullets, and brutality.
Hells Saints soldier Reno has tried everything with liquor and lace to get Claire off his mind. But he just can’t forget her freckles, her fierce fragility, and her tender heart. He knows he’s the only man who can give her the love she truly deserves.
As Claire and Reno spiral back into each other’s lives, they wonder if happiness is finally in their cards. But when violence once again explodes around them, Claire must decide if she really can trust Reno and commit to life with him—or if she’ll stay chained to her past forever.
Parents Who Think Too Much: Why We Do It, How to Stop It
With the baby boom generation came the genre of parenting books that told parents how to teach their kids everything from toilet training to developing self-esteem. Generally the message has been: go easy on your child, but hard on yourself. It is starting to become apparent, especially in the best of families, that giving your kids lots of choices, validating their feelings at great peril to your own and providing “enough” individual attention for each child is creating a generation of kids over whom we have no control.
Cassidy argues that this comes from over-thinking our role as parents. We’ve pondered every step so much that the juice, the joy, and worst of all, our confidence is gone. The reasons are clear: We have fewer children later in life so we’ve had more time to ponder. We’ve grown up just as research on infant and child development has come of age, so there’s no shortage of material to think about. As a generation we’ve prided ourselves on self-improvement and we bring the same zeal to child improvement.
The Accidental Alchemist (An Accidental Alchemist Mystery)
Unpacking her belongings in her new hometown of Portland, Oregon, herbalist and reformed alchemist Zoe Faust can’t help but notice she’s picked up a stowaway. Dorian Robert-Houdin is a living, breathing three-and-half-foot gargoyle—not to mention a master of French cuisine—and he needs Zoe’s expertise to decipher a centuries-old text. Zoe, who’s trying to put her old life behind her, isn’t so sure she wants to reopen her alchemical past . . . until the dead man on her porch leaves her no choice.
Includes recipes!
Never Tear Us Apart
Crazy how eight years can disappear in an instant. One look at Katie Watts, and I’m a fifteen-year-old again–the one who risked everything to save a terrified girl from her twisted kidnapper. She’s grown-up now–beautiful, quiet, composed–and telling her story to the world. A story that involves me in more ways than you can imagine. She used to call me her guardian angel. Sure, I risked my life, but she was worth dying for.
I need to make contact with her. Just to ensure that she’s safe.
Somehow we reconnect. We become friends . . . but I want more. I want to make her mine. And she wants me too. Does she know who I am? Has she figured me out? Not yet. But she will. In the meantime, I need to make sure that whatever hold that animal had on her is gone.
So, yeah, I’m stealing these moments with her. Savoring them. Knowing, dreading, that she’ll soon find out who I really am. And everything will fall apart. All because of that twisted, perverted monster sitting on death row. Her kidnapper. A convicted serial killer.
My father.
… See the rest of today’s Book Picks here on page 2Page 2
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