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Always Room for Cupcakes (Delilah Horton Book 1) (affiliate link)
One day I was be-bopping along jamming to the music in my head while wondering if my thighs could handle grabbing a cupcake on the way home. The next thing I knew, my entire world crashed and burned.
I used to wake up at night in a sweat, crying because I’d dreamt my husband was cheating on me, or he hated me, and resented our kids. He’d always hold me close and tell me it was all just a dream, that he loved me and our family and he’d never let us go.
He was a f*cking liar.
Now I spend my days taking photos of scum just like him, trying to be a champion for others who are being taken advantage of by the losers in our town, and my nights being a single mom to my beautiful twins.
Balanced on the Blade’s Edge (Dragon Blood Book 1) (affiliate link)
Deep Space Boogie Bundle: Warp Riders Books 1 & 2 (affiliate link)
When it hits the fan, you call in the best. Unfortunately for planet Earth, the best were busy.
Humanity had won the Great War, joining forces with a band of alien rebels to overcome their mutual enemy, a vicious race who had very nearly driven them to extinction. When the dust finally settled, humanity had survived, but only just. Teams of explorers were rapidly deployed to the distant reaches of the galaxy, hopeful they might discover peaceful new alien worlds to join their alliance.
But not all aliens were friendly. A fact made quite clear when a strange attack ship warped from the depths of space and assaulted them with no provocation. It seemed Earth had a new enemy to deal with, but they had no idea who these aggressors were or where they came from.
Under Ten Thousand Stars (affiliate link)
Julia Falconer is an artist married to a successful winemaker in the coastal hinterland of southern Victoria. From the outside, it looks like Julia and Michael have it all ‒ but things are never as they seem. A storm has destroyed a major crop, Michael is devastated, and is taking it out on Julia. And Julia retreats into herself, taking solace in her work, wine … and the comfort of her friend Christopher.
Having stopped communicating almost entirely with Michael, Julia finds herself grappling with how her feelings towards Christopher are changing. He listens, he cares, he talks. But what does he really want?
In the Time of Covid: One Hospital’s Struggles and Triumphs (affiliate link)
Following the Spanish flu, a group of doctors and nuns banded together to establish a hospital to prepare for the next pandemic. It took a hundred years, but when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Holy Name Hospital found itself at ground zero. In the Time of Covid highlights the innovation, creativity and help from unexpected people and places that allowed the hospital to secure PPE and equipment, completely redesign the hospital, handle the growing number of dead, and treat what seemed like unending waves of new Covid-19 patients.
Using rich and impactful stories to illustrate his points, Dr. Jarrett uses easy-to-understand language to weave in information on the origins of Covid-19, current treatments and studies, lessons learned and innovation undertaken by “heroes without capes” (and how this innovation saved lives).
Unraveling You (The Unraveling You Series Book 1) (affiliate link)
Lyric Scott has always had a good life, yet she feels like something has been missing from it. Then she meets her mysterious and sweet next-door neighbor Ayden Gregory, and she realizes he’s exactly what she needs to fill the void in her life.
Ayden Gregory has been through more than most people and believes his life will always be rocky, so when he’s suddenly adopted, he’s thrown for a turn. But even with a new, loving family, he still finds himself haunted by memories of his old life. The only breath of fresh air is when he’s with his best friend, Lyric.
Parade: A Folktale (affiliate link)
“On a summer afternoon, Tsukiko and her former high school teacher have prepared and eaten somen noodles together.
“Tell me a story from long ago,” Sensei says.
“I wasn’t alive long ago,” Tsukiko says, “but should I tell you a story from when I was little?”
“Please do,” Sensei replies, and so Tsukiko tells him that, when she was a child, she awakened one day to find something with a pale red face and something with a dark red face in her room, arguing with each other. They had human bodies, long noses, and wings. They were tengu, creatures that appear in Japanese folktales.
The tengu attach themselves to Tsukiko and begin to follow her everywhere. Where did they come from and why are they here? And what other invisible and unacknowledged forces are acting upon Tsukiko’s seemingly peaceful world?”
Land Girls: The Homecoming (Land Girls, Book 1) (affiliate link)
Land Girl Connie Carter thought she’d finally left her past behind once and for all when she married Henry Jameson, Helmstead’s vicar and the love of her life. Headstrong Connie and mild-mannered Henry might be different as chalk and cheese, but she’s determined to be the best wife she can be and prove the village gossips wrong! But Connie doesn’t really believe that she belongs in Henry’s genteel world of tea-drinking and jam-making, and the cracks are already starting to show.
When Connie’s heroism makes her front page news, her past comes back to haunt her in a terrifying way. A different kind of war has come to Helmstead, and soon it’s a fight for both their marriage and their lives…
Map’s Edge: The Tethered Citadel Book 1 (affiliate link)
Soldier, sorcerer and exiled nobleman Raythe Vyre has run out of places to hide. When the all-conquering Bolgravian Empire invaded, Raythe grabbed his daughter Zar and after taking part in a disastrous rebellion, they washed up on the edge of the continent.
Now he’s found a chance of redemption for himself and the precociously talented Zar: a map showing a hitherto unknown place that’s rich in istariol, the rare mineral that fuels sorcery. Mining it will need people, but luckily there are plenty of outcasts, ne’er-do-wells and loners desperate enough to brave haunted roads through the ruins of an ancient, long-dead civilisation, to seek wealth and freedom.
Clara’s War: One Girl’s Story of Survival (affiliate link)
In the classic vein of The Diary of Anne Frank—a heart-wrenching and inspiring story of a life lived in fear and cramped quarters—Clara’s War is a true story of the Holocaust.
Cara Kramer was a typical Polish-Jewish teenager from a small town at the outbreak of the Second World War. When the Germans invaded, Clara’s family was taken in by the Becks, a Volksdeutsche (ethnically German) family from their town. Mrs. Beck worked as Clara’s family’s housekeeper. Mr. Beck was known to be an alcoholic, a womanizer, and a vocal anti-Semite. But on hearing that Jewish families were being led into the woods and shot, Beck sheltered the Kramers and two other Jewish families.
Pippo and Clara (affiliate link)
A country torn apart by war. Two siblings divided by fate.
Italy, 1938. Mussolini is in power and war is not far away . . .
Clara and Pippo are just children: quiet, thoughtful Clara is the older sister; Pippo, the younger brother, is forever chatting. The family has only recently arrived in the city carrying their few possessions.
When Mamma goes missing early one morning, both Clara and Pippo go in search of her. Clara turns right; Pippo left.
As a result of the choices they make that morning, their lives will be changed forever.
A Severed Wasp: A Novel (affiliate link)
Now in her seventies, Katherine Vigneras, née Forrester, has returned to New York City after a successful career touring as a concert pianist in Europe. Much has changed for Katherine: She is widowed and retired, and has lived through the harrowing years of World War II.
But when she encounters an old face from her youth in Greenwich Village, Katherine finds herself agreeing to perform at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, an endeavor that proves to be unexpectedly rewarding—and challenging.
Touching and thought-provoking, A Severed Wasp explores the ebbs and flows in the life of an artist, and continues the story of the singular character who began Madeleine L’Engle’s accomplished career as a writer in her debut novel, The Small Rain.
… See the rest of today ‘s Book Picks here on page 2Page 2