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I Love Rock and Roll (Underground Granny Matchmakers Book 1) (affiliate link)
I promise that kiss was an accident… both times.
Even when she’s drenched from head to toe, Harmony Rivers manages to be the most adorable woman I’ve ever seen.
But here’s the kicker: she’s playing the role of my rockstar brother’s girlfriend.
And guess what? This whole crazy fake-dating idea? Yeah, you guessed it right, it was totally my brainchild. Ugh!
The one time I managed to foil my meddling grandmother’s plans, it backfired on me.
Duke of Darkness: A Novel (The Four Dukes Book 1) (affiliate link)
As if his scars are not enough, just the sight of Duke Duncan’s mask terrifies everyone. Until an irresistible minx dares to ask him for a kiss… and the beast within him cannot resist her.
Desperate for one moment of passion, Lady Alice ends up in the arms of an alluring stranger. Yet her first kiss turns into a scandal! Leaving her no choice but to marry the cruelest man of the ton…
When Duncan vows to never claim her, Alice sees it as a challenge: she must seduce her husband. Even if the beast beneath the mask corrupts her in ways she never expects…
Played to Death (Scott Drayco Book 1) (affiliate link)
Former piano prodigy-turned FBI agent Scott Drayco is tormented by nightmares from his last case as a private consultant. Adding insult to injury, he’s saddled with an unwanted, dilapidated Opera House in Cape Unity, a once-glamorous seaside village now in decline. Hoping for a quick sale, Drayco’s plans are shattered when a potential new client is found murdered on the Opera House stage, a taunting “G” carved into his chest.
Teaming up with a wary Sheriff, Drayco navigates a treacherous maze of illicit affairs, immigration tensions, and coastal development disputes to clear his name and solve the murder. But his resolve is tested by the flirtatious wife of a Town Councilman, who had an affair with the victim and tries to seduce Drayco, further complicating the investigation.
Love at Wild Harbor (Wild Harbor Beach Book 1) (affiliate link)
One chocolate shop. Two fixer uppers. Three feisty sisters. One sweet love story to bring it all together.
Lily Woods never expected to start life over again at thirty. But when she opens a chocolate shop and buys a dilapidated beach cottage in Wild Harbor, she’s ready to begin a new chapter, spending her days and nights creating fabulous chocolate treats.
TV star Alex Briggs isn’t about to put his heart on the line. He’s finally landed his dream job as the host of a wildly popular home renovation show. Now he’s returning to Wild Harbor to flip a beach cottage, but he never imagined the project would land him next to the captivating girl who rejected him in high school.
Alex never recovered the piece of his heart he gave to Lily all those years ago. How will he keep his distance now that he can’t escape the girl next door?
Cut Out: The Green Berets: Dave Riley #4 (affiliate link)
Green Beret Dave Riley returns in this taut thriller set in the shadowy world of the federal witness protection program. Riley and his friend, police detective Donna Giannini, are asked to protect a friend whose life is in danger, and find themselves ensnared in the same web: Professional hit-men are stalking them, and the killers seem to know their every move. Bodies disappear; phones are tapped; computer programs are compromised.
Who is behind it? Who can they trust? And how can they escape when they don’t know who the enemy is? It all leads from Chicago to an explosive climax high in the Smoky Mountains.
The Promise (Pencallyn – Wartime Cornwall Book 1) (affiliate link)
In windswept and beautiful 1940s Cornwall, love, war, and dark secrets collide in a heart-wrenching story that stays with you long after the last page is turned.
When Nell Summers discovers a faded photograph of a young soldier among her late father’s belongings, she is soon caught in a web of mystery that changes everything she thought she knew. Desperate for answers, she journeys to Cornwall where the remains of a neglected garden and crumbling World War II fortifications hint at a past buried in shadows but closer enough to touch. But the truth Nell uncovers is more devastating and far darker than she could ever imagine.
In the chaos of wartime, American GIs flood into Cornwall, bringing with them excitement and danger. Amidst the turmoil, Estella Kellow, a young woman with a heart full of forbidden hope, falls in love with a young man she is forbidden from associating with.
Kiss the Girls and Make Them Cry: A Novel (affiliate link)
When investigative journalist Gina Kane receives an email from a “CRyan” describing her “terrible experience” while working at REL, a high-profile television news network, Gina knows she has to pursue the story. But when Ryan goes silent, Gina is shocked to discover the young woman has died tragically in a jet ski accident while on holiday.
Meanwhile, REL counsel Michael Carter finds himself in a tricky spot as several more female employees have come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct. Carter approaches the CEO, offering to persuade the victims to accept settlements in exchange for their silence. It’s a risky endeavor, but it could well make him rich.
As more allegations emerge, Carter’s attempts to keep the story from making headlines are matched only by Gina Kane’s determination to uncover the truth. Was Ryan’s death truly an accident? And when another accuser turns up dead, Gina realizes someone—or some people—will go to depraved lengths to keep the story from seeing the light.
Never Again (affiliate link)
She should probably be concerned that the incredibly handsome man that she’d screwed over years ago had finally found her, and she was, but at the moment, Bailey had more important things to worry about, like how she was going to finish this project on time, figure out what her brother was hiding from her and how she was going to get her hands on more caffeine.
That was going to be a problem with her brother hiring Quinn to watch her every move, but that was fine because she had a plan, one that, unfortunately for her, didn’t exactly go the way that she’d hoped. And now…
She had no choice but to take matters into her own hands and figure out who’d betrayed her before it was too late.
Helltown: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer on Cape Cod (affiliate link)
1969: The hippie scene is vibrant in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Long-haired teenagers roam the streets, strumming guitars and preaching about peace and love… and Tony Costa is at the center of it all. To a certain group of smitten young women, he is known as Sire—the leader of their counter-culture movement, the charming man who speaks eloquently and hands out hallucinogenic drugs like candy. But beneath his benign persona lies a twisted and uncontrollable rage that threatens to break loose at any moment. Tony Costa is the most dangerous man on Cape Cod, and no one who crosses his path is safe.
When young women begin to disappear, Costa’s natural charisma and good looks initially protect him from suspicion. But as the bodies are discovered, the police close in on him as the key suspect.
Harvest Home: A Novel (affiliate link)
After watching his asthmatic daughter suffer in the foul city air, Theodore Constantine decides to get back to the land. When he and his wife search New England for the perfect nineteenth-century home, they find no township more charming, no countryside more idyllic than the farming village of Cornwall Coombe. Here they begin a new life: simple, pure, close to nature—and ultimately more terrifying than Manhattan’s darkest alley.
When the Constantines win the friendship of the town matriarch, the mysterious Widow Fortune, they are invited to join the ancient festival of Harvest Home, a ceremony whose quaintness disguises dark intentions. In this bucolic hamlet, where bootleggers work by moonlight and all of the villagers seem to share the same last name, the past is more present than outsiders can fathom—and something far more sinister than the annual harvest is about to rise out of the earth.
How to Be Idle: A Loafer’s Manifesto (affiliate link)
From the founding editor of the celebrated magazine about the freedom and fine art of doing nothing, The Idler, comes not simply a book, but an antidote to our work-obsessed culture. In How to Be Idle, Hodgkinson presents his learned yet whimsical argument for a new, universal standard of living: being happy doing nothing. He covers a whole spectrum of issues affecting the modern idler—sleep, work, pleasure, relationships—bemoaning the cultural skepticism of idleness while reflecting on the writing of such famous apologists for it as Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Johnson, and Nietzsche—all of whom have admitted to doing their very best work in bed.
It’s a well-known fact that Europeans spend fewer hours at work a week than Americans. So it’s only befitting that one of them—the very clever, extremely engaging, and quite hilarious Tom Hodgkinson—should have the wittiest and most useful insights into the fun and nature of being idle.
Board games have been with us even longer than the written word. But what is it about this pastime that continues to captivate us well into the age of smartphones and instant gratification?
In It’s All a Game, Tristan Donovan, British journalist and author of Replay: The History of Video Games, opens the box on the incredible and often surprising history and psychology of board games. He traces the evolution of the game across cultures, time periods, and continents, from the paranoid Chicago toy genius behind classics like Operation and Mouse Trap, to the role of Monopoly in helping prisoners of war escape the Nazis, and even the scientific use of board games today to teach artificial intelligence how to reason and how to win. With these compelling stories and characters, Donovan ultimately reveals why board games—from chess to Monopoly to Risk and more—have captured hearts and minds all over the world for generations.
… See the rest of today ‘s Book Picks here on page 2Page 2