💝 Author: Kris Michaels
💰 Regularly $4.99, Today $2.49
Military Romance

Forty years old and starting over. And not sure where home was going to be.

Chief Master Sergeant Cameron Freeland had a few job prospects but nothing that sparked much interest. And now… his flight was grounded, and he was stranded in an airport. At least, he could kill time in the USO.

A chance meeting there altered his decision, and he boarded his plane to Hope City with an interview for the job of his dreams.

Single mom, Mercy Cahill faced life and death struggles every day to protect herself and her daughter. Now hiding under a bridge in a homeless community, she needed was a break, a job, and a home somewhere her ex couldn’t reach them.

Cam’s new job as a special investigator took him to the cardboard cottages, where he met Destiny, the little girl with the big green eyes and her mother. Involving himself deeper with the mother and daughter was a mistake but leaving them in that place was impossible. If only Mercy would trust him, he’d give her shattered heart a home.

Kris Michaels writes military and romantic suspense that centers on alpha heroes who use their skills to protect rather than dominate, and heroines facing genuine danger rather than manufactured drama. Her Long Road Home series has attracted readers who want their military romance grounded in real-world issues—homelessness, domestic violence, PTSD—while still delivering the protective hero and hard-won happy ending the genre promises. Michaels doesn’t shy away from depicting the harsh realities her characters face, making their eventual happiness feel earned rather than inevitable.

Here’s what you’re getting: Cameron is forty and retiring from the Air Force, facing the disorienting question of what comes next when your entire adult identity has been military. The chance encounter at the USO that changes his trajectory suggests fate bringing together two people who desperately need each other. Mercy and her daughter Destiny are living under a bridge in a homeless encampment, running from an ex dangerous enough that homelessness feels safer than being found. When Cam’s new job as a special investigator takes him into that world, he meets the little girl with big green eyes and her protective mother—and can’t walk away. The “involving himself was a mistake” acknowledgment shows Cam knows he’s crossing professional boundaries, but leaving a woman and child in that situation is impossible for a man trained to protect. The domestic violence undertones (Mercy’s dangerous ex, her inability to trust) add genuine stakes beyond “will they get together”—Mercy needs to heal enough to let someone in, and Cam needs to prove he’s safe when her entire life has taught her that men are threats. If you’ve loved Suzanne Brockmann’s military romance with real danger, Susan Stoker’s protective SEALs, or Marliss Melton’s Navy SEAL series, Michaels delivers similar alpha heroes and genuinely vulnerable heroines. At $2.49, you’re getting a series starter that promises both heart and heat, where the romance can’t happen until very real problems get solved.

📺 Author: Bill Zehme
💰 Regularly $14.99, Today $3.99
Biography

The definitive biography of Johnny Carson, the entertainer who redefined late-night television and American culture, told through intimate insights and riveting accounts of his legendary career and complex personal life.

In 2002, Bill Zehme landed one of the most coveted assignments for a magazine writer: an interview with Johnny Carson—the only one he’d granted since retiring from The Tonight Show a decade earlier. Zehme was tapped for the Esquire feature story thanks to his years of legendary celebrity profiles, and the resulting piece portrayed Carson as more human being than American TV icon. Following Carson’s passing in 2005, Zehme embarked on an exhaustive nearly decade-long research journey, interviewing dozens of Carson’s colleagues and friends to craft this “immensely informative and insightful” (The Minnesota Star Tribune) biography, although his efforts were halted by a cancer diagnosis. When he died in 2023 his obituaries mentioned the Carson book, with New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman calling it “one of the great unfinished biographies.”

Yet the hundreds of pages Zehme managed to complete are astounding both for the caliber of their writing and how they illuminate one of the most legendary talk show hosts of all time: A man who brought so much joy and laughter to so many millions, but was himself exceedingly shy and private. Zehme traces Carson’s rise from a magic-obsessed Nebraska boy to Navy ensign in World War II to a burgeoning radio and TV personality to, eventually, host of The Tonight Show—which he transformed, along with the entirety of American popular culture, over the next three decades. Without Carson, there would be no late-night television as we know it. On a much more intimate level, Zehme also captures the turmoil and anguish that accompanied the success: four marriages, troubles with alcohol, and the devastating loss of a child.

Bill Zehme was one of the most celebrated celebrity profile writers of his generation, contributing to Esquire, Rolling Stone, and other major publications with pieces that captured not just what famous people did but who they actually were. His 2002 Johnny Carson interview—Carson’s only substantial interview after retirement—demonstrated Zehme’s unique ability to get past the public persona to the complicated human underneath. When Zehme died in 2023 after a long battle with cancer, the Carson biography he’d been working on for nearly two decades remained unfinished, prompting New York Times critic Jason Zinoman to call it “one of the great unfinished biographies.” What Zehme completed before his death has been shaped into this book—incomplete, but extraordinary.

Why I’m including this: Johnny Carson dominated American culture for thirty years but remained fundamentally unknowable—the man who made millions laugh every night was himself shy, private, and emotionally remote. Zehme’s biography is poignant not just for what it reveals about Carson but for its own backstory: a dying writer spending his final years trying to capture the essence of a man who brought joy to millions but struggled with his own darkness. The fact that Zehme interviewed Carson himself (the only substantial interview Carson gave after retirement) and then spent nearly two decades interviewing everyone else in Carson’s orbit means this biography has both intimacy and comprehensiveness that no other could match. Zehme explores the paradoxes: the magic-obsessed kid from Nebraska who became the most powerful figure in entertainment, the man whose timing and wit seemed effortless but who struggled with alcohol and failed marriages, the icon who launched careers for countless comedians but couldn’t sustain intimate relationships in his own life. The “devastating loss of a child” (Carson’s son Richard died in a car accident) provides tragic context for Carson’s emotional reserve. Without Carson, there is no Letterman, no Leno, no Colbert, no Fallon—he invented the template for late-night TV and American comedy. If you’ve loved Walter Isaacson’s biographies that capture complex genius, Robert Caro’s exhaustive research, or any biography that goes beyond hagiography to show both brilliance and brokenness, this delivers similar depth. At $3.99, you’re getting a book that shouldn’t exist (the author died before finishing it) but does, offering the only truly intimate portrait of one of America’s most beloved and mysterious entertainers.

🧠 Author: Michael Gervais
💰 Regularly $29.99, Today $1.99
Personal Success

A USA Today Bestseller

High-performance psychologist Michael Gervais presents a groundbreaking guide for overcoming what may be the single greatest constrictor of human potential: our fear of people’s opinions (FOPO).

FOPO shows up almost everywhere in our lives—and the consequences are great. When we let FOPO take control, we play it safe and small because we’re afraid of what will happen on the other side of critique. When challenged, we surrender our viewpoint. We trade in authenticity for approval. We please rather than provoke. We chase the dreams of others rather than our own.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

In The First Rule of Mastery, Michael Gervais shows us that the key to leading a high-performance life is to redirect our attention from the world outside us to the world inside us. He reveals the mental skills and practices we need to overcome FOPO—the same skills he’s taught to the top performers in the world, including sports MVPs, world-renowned artists and musicians, and Fortune 100 leaders and teams.

Filled with fascinating stories from the worlds of sports and business, leading-edge science, and insights from the frontier of human performance, The First Rule of Mastery is a much-needed wake-up call that when we give more value to other people’s opinions than we do our own, we live life on their terms, not ours.

Michael Gervais is a high-performance psychologist who has worked with some of the world’s most elite athletes and performers, including Super Bowl champions, Olympic gold medalists, and Fortune 100 CEOs. As co-host of the Finding Mastery podcast, Gervais has conducted hundreds of conversations with top performers about the mental skills that separate good from great. His work focuses on helping people perform under pressure while maintaining their authentic selves—a balance that requires overcoming the fear of judgment that holds most people back.

What makes this special: Gervais gives a name to something that quietly destroys potential across every area of life: Fear Of People’s Opinions (FOPO). It’s why talented people don’t share their work, why leaders make safe decisions instead of bold ones, why we perform in relationships instead of showing up authentically. Gervais’s insight is that FOPO isn’t just about stage fright or social anxiety—it’s the invisible force that makes us betray our own values, dreams, and instincts because we’re more worried about external validation than internal alignment. The book draws on his work with elite performers to reveal the mental skills they use to overcome this fear: MVPs who perform under stadium scrutiny, artists who create despite critics, business leaders who make billion-dollar bets knowing they’ll be judged. These aren’t people without fear—they’re people who’ve learned to stop letting other people’s opinions dictate their choices. The science Gervais presents explains why FOPO is so powerful (our brains are wired for social acceptance as a survival mechanism) and how we can rewire those patterns. If you’ve read Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly about vulnerability and shame, Susan Cain’s Quiet about reclaiming your authentic self, or Ryan Holiday’s Ego Is the Enemy about getting out of your own way, Gervais offers complementary insights with more practical application for high performers. At $1.99 (down from $29.99), you’re getting a USA Today bestseller that could fundamentally change how you make decisions, pursue goals, and show up in the world—for less than the cost of worrying about what someone thinks of your coffee order.