As an Amazon Associate we earn commissions from qualifying purchases.
The 8 Mistakes of Amy Maxwell (Amy Maxwell Book 1) (affiliate link)
Amy Maxwell’s got four kids, a useless husband and crusted applesauce on her yoga pants that haven’t seen the inside of a gym in over a decade. She’s convinced her teenage daughter is up to no good, her ten year old can’t stop chattering in her ear and her oldest son has befriended a teenaged boy twice his age who is a tad bit strange. And don’t even get her started on having a toddler when you’re in your late thirties. She just can’t keep up. Forget tired; she’s exhausted and feeling unfulfilled, dissatisfied and like a disappointment to everyone; her kids, her parents and most of all, herself.
To relieve her stress, Amy finds herself fantasizing about everything from the pool boy next door to finding out that her daughter was switched at birth. She can’t help her thoughts, but she figures, if they’re in her head, they can’t hurt anyone else, right? When Jason, a very sexy forty something year old single father moves in across the street, Amy finds her fantasy world has gone into overdrive.
The Devil’s Garden: A Novel (affiliate link)
In Occupied France, a small squad of wounded misfits has one mission: eliminating rapists.
Read Chuck Driskell’s newest historical thriller, The Devil’s Garden, a sweeping saga following a team of discarded wounded in WWII Occupied France. The team are known as Les Invalides—a squad hell bent on punishing sexual predators operating under the fog of war.
Les Invalides’ leader, Boss Bourdon, has had a miserable year. He lost part of his arm during a rescue operation. His lady left him. And he now finds himself at the end of his rope, unable to propel his life forward. On a mission in Occupied France, Boss rescues a woman from being raped. She brings him out of his depths, helping him assemble Les Invalides who, together, fulfill a higher calling.
Bon Bons to Yoga Pants (The Health and Happiness Society Book 1) (affiliate link)
Lexie Greene has always had such a pretty face.
Unfortunately, that’s where it seemed to stop. She’s grown up hearing her Mother constantly remind her that she needs to lose weight. And twenty-two-year-old Lexie knows she’s overweight.
With her younger sister’s wedding on the horizon and a crush to stalk on Facebook, Lexie’s had enough. She gives up her constant daydreams about food and joins a dieting group. As the pounds melt away at the gym, she finds that life on the other side of junk food isn’t what she thought.
Bon Bons to Yoga Pants is an inspirational hit about a girl coming to terms with herself, and her past, all while navigating a world of food and fitness.
Loving Jake (Almost Perfect Series Book 1) (affiliate link)
Kimberly Urbane has been in love with Jake Taylor since junior high. Too bad Jake has always thought of her as one of his best friend’s little sisters, and Kimberly has always been too shy to prove him otherwise. That is until he unexpectedly comes back into town, needing a room to rent, and Kimberly has one available. Well, sort of.
Jake Taylor is no longer interested in love thanks to a bitter divorce years ago. His life as an international journalist, traveling around the world with nothing to tie him down, suits him just fine – until a visit back to his hometown threatens to change his mind.
Jake never paid much attention to his friend’s kid sister and her obvious crush on him, but now they’re both all grown up and she’s so much harder to resist. Jake knows he can’t possibly give Kimberly the future and family she wants and deserves, but as his feelings for her grow so does his fear of ultimately letting her down.
The Watson Girl (Tess Winnett) (affiliate link)
She’s unharmed but not unscathed
For fifteen years Laura Watson believed her family’s killer had been caught and was awaiting execution on death row. While she moves on with life with her adoptive family, she also lives in terror and uncertainty of the fear that she will one day remember what really happened that night.
She’s The Watson Girl
As a therapist conducts regression session treatments in an attempt to bring back Laura’s lost memories, little does she know that the closer she gets to the truth, the less time she has to remain alive. Now, the real killer is ready to silence her for good, before she can remember the details of that horrifying night.
She’s a serial killer’s loose end
Smart, relentless and short-fused FBI Special Agent Tess Winnett and her team now search for the serial killer who has managed to stay hidden, but who is now ready to strike once more to silence one last remaining witness.
Every Living Thing (All Creatures Great and Small Book 5) (affiliate link)
The Barbara Pym Collection Volume One: A Glass of Blessings, Some Tame Gazelle, and Jane and Prudence (affiliate link)
A Glass of Blessings: Wilmet Forsyth is bored with her everyday routine: teatimes, local gossip, even with her husband, Rodney, a civil servant who dotes on her. But Wilmet’s conventional life takes a turn when she runs into the enigmatic brother of a close friend. Piers Longridge is a mystery Wilmet is determined to solve. Driven by a fantasy of romance, the sheltered, naïve Englishwoman sets out to seduce Piers—only to discover that he isn’t the man she thinks he is.
Some Tame Gazelle: Pym’s debut novel invites readers to “step into the Jane Austen–like lives of Harriet and Belinda Bede,” sisters who live together in a small English village (The Christian Science Monitor). Shy, sensible Belinda has been secretly in love with the married archdeacon of their church for thirty years. Meanwhile Belinda’s more confident younger sister, Harriet, is herself pursued by an Italian count whose proposals of marriage are always graciously declined. But it’s a new arrival in their midst who has everyone talking. For now, in this poignant novel of unrequited love, that is enough.
Gone to Soldiers: A Novel (affiliate link)
Epic in scope, Marge Piercy’s sweeping novel encompasses the wide range of people and places marked by the Second World War. Each of her ten narrators has a unique and compelling story that powerfully depicts his or her personality, desires, and fears. Special attention is given to the women of the war effort, like Bernice, who rebels against her domineering father to become a fighter pilot, and Naomi, a Parisian Jew sent to live with relatives in Detroit, whose twin sister, Jacqueline—still in France—joins the resistance against Nazi rule.
The horrors of the concentration camps; the heroism of soldiers on the beaches of Okinawa, the skies above London, and the seas of the Mediterranean; the brilliance of code breakers; and the resilience of families waiting for the return of sons, brothers, and fathers are all conveyed through powerful, poignant prose that resonates beyond the page. Gone to Soldiers is a testament to the ordinary people, with their flaws and inner strife, who rose to defend liberty during the most extraordinary times.
In The Longest Road, one of America’s most respected writers takes an epic journey across America, Airstream in tow, and asks everyday Americans what unites and divides a country as endlessly diverse as it is large.
Standing on a wind-scoured island off the Alaskan coast, Philip Caputo marveled that its Inupiat Eskimo schoolchildren pledge allegiance to the same flag as the children of Cuban immigrants in Key West, six thousand miles away. And a question began to take shape: How does the United States, peopled by every race on earth, remain united? Caputo resolved that one day he’d drive from the nation’s southernmost point to the northernmost point reachable by road, talking to everyday Americans about their lives and asking how they would answer his question.
So it was that in 2011, in an America more divided than in living memory, Caputo, his wife, and their two English setters made their way in a truck and classic trailer (hereafter known as “Fred” and “Ethel”) from Key West, Florida, to Deadhorse, Alaska, covering 16,000 miles. He spoke to everyone from a West Virginia couple saving souls to a Native American shaman and taco entrepreneur. What he found is a story that will entertain and inspire readers as much as it informs them about the state of today’s United States, the glue that holds us all together, and the conflicts that could cause us to pull apart.
After All (Cape Harbor Book 1) (affiliate link)
Brooklyn Hewett hasn’t set foot in Cape Harbor for fifteen years—not since an accident claimed the love of her life, Austin Woods. Desperate to move forward, Brooklyn has focused on raising her daughter for the past fourteen years. But when the opportunity comes along to renovate the old Driftwood Inn, Brooklyn knows it’s time to go home.
But it won’t be easy. For one, Austin’s best friend, Bowie Holmes, still lives in Cape Harbor. Brooklyn hasn’t quite been able to forget him: not since the night they spent together—the same night they both lost Austin. Separated by tragedy and guilt, they’re brought together by the Driftwood project. And as they rebuild the inn, they discover they’re also rebuilding something else.
Brooklyn’s always been desperate to move on, not knowing that she first needs to reconcile past transgressions. She can’t forget, but she can forgive—Austin, Bowie, and herself—on her way toward long-awaited happiness.
… See the rest of today ‘s Book Picks here on page 2Page 2