As an Amazon Associate we earn commissions from qualifying purchases.
On the Rocks (A Ruby Steele Mystery—Book 1) (affiliate link)
Ruby Steele, 30, beautiful, fit, seems just like any other ex-pat hiding out in the Bahamas and playing local bartender. But unruly patrons find out the hard way: Ruby is a mixed-martial-arts pro, and not one you’d want to cross.
In fact, Ruby would be a champion if she hadn’t been forced to walk away and hide out in the Bahamas.
Because Ruby knows too much. She knows where the bodies are buried. And she knows when it’s time to get out of town.
But what Ruby doesn’t know is why there is a dead tourist in the dumpster behind her seedy bar.
Just Another Drummer: Thirty Years as an Orchestral Musician (affiliate link)
Martin Willis is the Principal Percussionist with one of Scotland’s five national professional orchestras and also one of the country’s top freelance players.
This is his memoir of thirty years not only as an orchestral player, but also as a drummer in various rock bands during that time, playing to audiences ranging from thousands across Europe and around the world, to twelve people and a bored dog in his home city of Glasgow.
In turn hilarious, poignant, controversial and surprisingly informative, this explodes the myth of the ‘stuffy’ orchestral musician and delivers a heartfelt and honest view of Orchestra-World and some of the players, both sane and otherwise, who inhabit it.
Murder Over Easy (A Sunny Side Up Cozy Mystery Book 1) (affiliate link)
When Sunny Charles arrives in small-town Parfait, Florida, the last thing she expects is a note from her aunt instructing her to take control of the famous Sunny Side Up Café. After going through a vicious divorce, losing her entire life savings, and, oh yeah, having the Russian mob on her tail, Sunny’s willing to give it a shot, even if it means trying her hand at cooking. Let’s face it, eggs over easy aren’t exactly ‘easy’ to make, but they beat facing off against armed men with guns.
All things considered, her first day in the café goes well, that is, until one of the customers, a food vlogger, tries her aunt’s eggs over easy and drops dead on the spot. Sunny’s set to lose the café unless she can prove her innocence.
The Other Hotel (affiliate link)
It should have been simple. Go in and steal the cash. But no job is simple when the two guys named Lenny and their buddy Hot Sauce are involved.
Sprinkle in a backpacker who is not what she seems, some cashed-up tourists who don’t speak English, a couple enduring the night from hell, not to mention the mysterious Jack the problem solver and you have a night full of sex, drugs and misadventure.
Surviving: A Kent State Memoir (affiliate link)
An eyewitness account to an event that changed history
Nerdy innocent Patty is desperate to escape the confines of a conservative upbringing, but when she enrolls at Kent State University can she survive the upheaval of the Seventies Vietnam War era?
When she narrowly escapes the bullets fired at students on May 4, 1970, she resolves to dedicate her life to her new husband and her unborn child.
Is it too late when she realizes she’s put herself in even greater danger?
In a stunning parallel to our own times, Surviving: A Kent State Memoir, explores the coming of age of a young adult.
Dark Rogue: The Vampire Voss (The Draculia Vampire Trilogy Book 1) (affiliate link)
Enter the world of the Draculia, where
In 19th Century London, vampires live alongside the uppercrust members of Society…
Even after centuries of lust, hedonism, and women, Voss, the Viscount Dewhurst, rarely finds himself bored. As a member of the Dracule, he is a rogue of the first order, a man who loves nothing more than a warm woman, excellent vintage, and even a puzzling challenge to keep his mind active.
But when one of his seemingly harmless manipulations sets him on the path to seduce the beautiful Miss Angelica Woodmore, things become a little less simple…a lot more passionate…and definitely more complicated.
Don’t Give Up, Don’t Give In: Lessons from an Extraordinary Life (affiliate link)
Completed just two days before Louis Zamperini’s death at age ninety-seven, Don’t Give Up, Don’t Give In shares a lifetime of wisdom, insight, and humor from “one of the most incredible American lives of the past century” (People). Zamperini’s story has touched millions through Laura Hillenbrand’s biography Unbroken and its blockbuster movie adaptation directed by Angelina Jolie. Now, in his own words, Zamperini reveals with warmth and great charm the essential values and lessons that sustained him throughout his remarkable journey.
He was a youthful troublemaker from California who turned his life around to become a 1936 Olympian. Putting aside his track career, he volunteered for the army before Pearl Harbor and was thrust into World War II as a B-24 bombardier. While on a rescue mission, his plane went down in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where he survived against all odds, drifting two thousand miles in a small raft for forty-seven days.
Quiver: A Novel (affiliate link)
It’s not easy being a parent these days. There are bills to pay. Kids to feed. And hordes of undead monsters to keep at bay.
There are plenty of guides out there about how to survive the zombie apocalypse. All of them assume readers are young, fit, and unencumbered by children. In that scenario, the only living humans left will be smug, outdoorsy Millennials. That’s hell on earth, even without the zombies.
Only Dead on the Inside is the answer for the rest of us.
This step-by-step manual teaches you how to raise happy, healthy children in a world overrun by the undead. Motivated moms and dads want it all, and that won’t change at the end of the world. There’s no reason you can’t be a zombie killing machine AND parent of the year, but you have to work for it.
Self-driving cars sound fantastical and futuristic and yet they’ll soon be on every street in America. Whether it’s Tesla’s Autopilot, Google’s Waymo, Mercedes’s Distronic, or Uber’s modified Volvos, companies around the world are developing autonomous cars. But why? And what will they mean for the auto industry and humanity at large?
In Robot, Take the Wheel, famed automotive expert Jason Torchinsky gives a colorful account of the development of autonomous vehicles and their likely implications. Torchinsky encourages us to think of self-driving cars as an entirely new machine, something beyond cars as we understand them today.
All Hell Can’t Stop Them: The Battles for Chattanooga—Missionary Ridge and Ringgold (affiliate link)
To many of the Federal soldiers watching the Stars and Stripes unfurl atop Lookout Mountain on the morning of November 25, 1863, it seemed that the battle to relieve Chattanooga was complete. The Union Army of the Cumberland was no longer trapped in the city, subsisting on short rations and awaiting rescue; instead, they were again on the attack.
Ulysses S. Grant did not share their certainty. For Grant, the job he had been sent to accomplish was only half-finished. Braxton Bragg’s Confederate Army of Tennessee still held Missionary Ridge, with other Rebels under James Longstreet threatening more Federals in Knoxville, Tennessee. Grant’s greatest fear was that the Rebels would slip away before he could deliver the final blows necessary to crush Bragg completely.
Amateur Hour: Motherhood in Essays and Swear Words (affiliate link)
“Being a mother is a gift.”
Where’s my receipt?
Welcome to essayist Kimberly Harrington’s poetic and funny world of motherhood, womanhood, and humanhood, not necessarily in that order. It’s a place of loud parenting, fierce loving, too much social media, and occasional inner monologues where timeless debates are resolved such as Pro/Con: Caving to PTO Bake Sale Pressure (“PRO: Skim the crappiest brownies for myself. CON: They’re really crappy.”) With accessibility and wit, she captures the emotions around parenthood in artful and earnest ways, highlighting this time in the middle—midlife, the middle years of childhood, how women are stuck in the middle of so much. It’s a place of elation, exhaustion, and time whipping past at warp speed.
Mr. Selfridge in Chicago: Marshall Field’s, the Windy City & the Making of a Merchant Prince (affiliate link)
It’s Your Move: My Million Dollar Method for Taking Risks with Confidence and Succeeding at Work and Life (affiliate link)
One of the stars of Bravo’s hit series Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles reveals his trade secrets, offering aspiring entrepreneurs and established professionals tips and insights to help them outsmart the competition.
Josh “the Shark” Altman has achieved extraordinary success in a traditional industry and in the most competitive real estate market in the country—all without being “discovered” or catching the proverbial big break. He worked for it. He figured it out. He failed. He learned. He wrote his own script.
The key to his success? Confidence—informed, intelligent, calculated confidence. Calculated confidence means training yourself in your chosen field, knowing it so well that you can trust your gut instincts to guide you towards the best possible option. When key opportunities present themselves, you are ready to seize them.
Vulcan’s Glory: The Original Series: Vulcan’s Glory (Star Trek: The Original Series Book 44) (affiliate link)
Years before he came to be known as the best first officer in the fleet, Spock was a conflicted young ensign, serving on the Starship Enterprise™ under Captain Christopher Pike. Struggling to reconcile his many obligations—those forced on him by his Vulcan heritage, and those chosen by him upon his enrollment in Starfleet Academy—Spock must also balance the desires of his own heart.
Those conflicting demands intersect during a mission to retrieve one of his world’s most sacred artifacts, a relic of Vulcan’s ancient past—the search for which will reveal dark and deadly secrets, forever altering the course of Spock’s life and defining the man he became.
The Illustrated Guide to Financial Independence (affiliate link)
Are you tired of the day-to-day grind of trying to make ends meet? Are your bills stacking up while saving money has become only a distant dream? Do you seem to go from money disaster to money disaster, never making any real progress? Do you fully understand that your finances need serious work, but you just don’t know where to start? Most importantly, would you like to never have to deal with these issues again?
The Illustrated Guide to Financial Independence offers step-by-step strategies (or “stair steps”) that help you build a strong financial framework. Additionally, each chapter in the book is also summarized with illustrations.
Vanished Years (affiliate link)
Rupert Everett’s first memoir – Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins – was an international bestseller and an instant classic on publication in 2006. Reviewers compared him to Evelyn Waugh, David Niven, Noel Coward and Lord Byron. But Rupert Everett is – of course – one of a kind.
Mischievous, touching and nothing less than brilliant, this new memoir is filled with stories, from childhood to the present. Astonishing encounters; tragedy and comedy; vivid portraits of friends and rivals; razor-sharp observations of the celebrity circus from LA to London and beyond… there is something extraordinary on every page.
… See the rest of today ‘s Book Picks here on page 2Page 2