Adelle didn’t expect her sixties to be boring. So when her travel-agent friend calls in a favor and asks her to guide a river cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam, the born people-pleaser jumps at the chance to give four women an unforgettable vacation. The Danube is spectacular, the cities are gorgeous, and this should be manageable. Then expensive jewelry goes missing, one of her happy travelers becomes the prime suspect, accusations start flying, and Adelle—who has the world’s lowest tolerance for confrontation—finds herself running an amateur investigation while also trying to keep an increasingly unruly group from capsizing the whole enterprise. Cheryl Dougan opens the River Cruise Cozies series with the cozy mystery that is exactly as delightful as it sounds. 🛳️
The no-murder premise is one of the series’ specific pleasures—this is a theft mystery with a gentle, warm atmosphere rather than a crime scene. Adelle works through Budapest, Vienna, Melk, Passau, Regensburg, Nuremberg, and Amsterdam, and the book works equally well as a vivid European travel companion and as a cozy puzzle. Reviewers note that the history of the Danube cities is woven in naturally, and that the friendship dynamics among the women are the real heart of the story. 🔍
Dougan is the author of the River Cruise Cozies, Ocean Cruise Cozies, and Northern Lights Cozy Mysteries—heartwarming whodunits built around travel, friendship, and gentle humor. Readers consistently describe this series as the perfect vacation reading companion or armchair travel experience. ⭐
Why this charms: A people-pleaser guiding four women down the Danube, a missing diamond set, and a river cruise that is decidedly not going according to plan—free.
The blood of legends runs in his veins—and Fieran Laesornysh has been hearing about it his entire life. Born with his father’s legendary elven magic, the half-elf has exactly one goal: stop being defined by who his father is and start becoming a legend of his own. With the Alliance Kingdoms and the power-hungry Mongavarian Empire teetering on the brink of all-out war, Fieran seizes the chance to take to the skies as a combat pilot. He just has to curb the cheekiness long enough to survive basic training first. Set 70 years after Grayce’s beloved Elven Alliance series, Wings of War opens the War of the Alliance trilogy as a fully standalone entry point for new readers. ✈️
The training arc builds Fieran’s found family around him—a band of fellow flying aces-in-training with their own distinct personalities—and introduces Pip, a half-dwarf mechanic with a heart so good she makes Fieran question things about himself he’d rather not examine. Grayce develops the slow-burn romance, the steampunk magical gadgetry, and the escalating war tensions simultaneously, with the humorous voice and the genuine emotional warmth that have made her one of fantasy romance’s most beloved authors. 💙
Grayce writes humorous fantasy with romance from her hundred-year-old farmhouse in the company of her chocolate lab Miss Kisses. Perfect for fans of Lindsay Buroker and K.M. Shea, this is action-packed steampunk fantasy with no explicit content. Reviewers call it “a coming-of-age story at the eve of their world’s WWI—with elves, dwarves, airships, and a sweet romance.” ⭐
Why this captivates: A half-elf son of a legend, a world on the brink of war, airship combat training, and the half-dwarf mechanic who might change everything—free.
Archaeology grad student Alexandra’s world tips sideways when her mother shares the deepest secret she’s kept for decades: she doesn’t know the true identity of Lex’s father. The revelation cracks something open in Lex—her dreams become too real, she’s seeing things she shouldn’t be able to see, knowing things that are terrifying and deadly. To distract herself from the surreal changes taking over her life, she joins an Egyptian excavation run by Oxford’s enigmatic Professor Marcus Bahur. The distraction turns out to be bigger than bargained for. While deciphering a mysterious stone tablet, Lex falls headlong into a prophecy created by a dying god four thousand years ago. Lindsey Sparks opens the Echo Trilogy with the Egyptian mythology time travel romance that has built one of indie fantasy’s most devoted followings. ✨
The professor running the excavation is considerably more than he appears, Lex’s terrifying new psychic powers are the key to uncovering a truth that predates recorded history, and the love story at the center of all of it is destined to shatter the boundaries of time. The novel weaves Egyptian mythology, paranormal romance, and time-travel adventure into a scope that sprawls across four millennia—gods at war, ancient prophecies, and two people whose connection refuses to respect the centuries between them. 🔍
Sparks is a Pacific Northwest bestselling indie author whose Echo Trilogy sparked a devoted following and spawned the Kat Dubois Chronicles and Atlantis Legacy series. InD’Tale Magazine called it “a superb novel.” Readers consistently describe the trilogy as spoiling them for other books—”the most well-crafted time travel series I’ve ever read.” ⭐
Why this captivates: An archaeology student, a dying god’s four-thousand-year-old prophecy, psychic powers she didn’t ask for, and a professor who is definitely not what he seems—free.
Alburquerque
Abrán González is a young Mexican American boxer who discovers that his biological mother—an Anglo woman—is dying and wants to meet him before she goes. What she tells him changes everything: he is the forbidden product of an interracial love affair, raised in the barrio with no knowledge of his white roots or his biological father. The title restores the missing R to Albuquerque’s original Spanish spelling—and that act of restoration is the novel’s central metaphor. Rudolfo Anaya, the godfather of Chicano literature and winner of the PEN West Fiction Award, builds from this personal quest into a portrait of the entire city of New Mexico during the 1990s, caught between its ancient heritage and the forces of economic development and political corruption determined to obliterate it. 📚
The driving plot follows Abrán’s search for his biological father through a world of greed and political ambition spearheaded by Frank Dominic, a con artist running for mayor with visions of building El Dorado on the Rio Grande. With the help of his girlfriend Lucinda and Joe, a Vietnam veteran, Abrán is plunged from the barrio into this larger contest over what the city will become. Anaya weaves in the magic realism that runs through all his work—a prescient curandera who gives Abrán the answer to his identity with the phrase “tú eres tú” (you are you) at the novel’s opening—and the full weight of the Southwest’s indigenous, Mexican, and Anglo history. 🔍
Anaya is the author of Bless Me, Ultima, considered the foundational text of Chicano literature. The National Endowment for the Humanities recognized him as one of the giants of Latino literature and a recipient of the National Medal of Arts. World Literature Today called Alburquerque “a novel about many cultures intersecting at a power-filled crossroads.” ⭐
Why this endures: A boxer searching for his father, a city fighting for its soul, and the magic realism of America’s most storied Chicano novelist—Rudolfo Anaya’s PEN Award-winning Alburquerque, for $2.99.
Wood pellet smokers give backyard cooks a precisely controlled cooking system capable of low-and-slow smoking, cold-smoke techniques, and wood-fired baking that traditional grills simply cannot replicate—and this cookbook unlocks the full potential of the technology. Peter Jautaikis covers everything: picking the right pellet flavors for each protein and technique, maximizing what your smoker-grill can actually do, mastering cold-smoke and slow-roast methods, and understanding how different wood varieties—hickory, mesquite, maple, apple, cherry, and pecan—each contribute their specific flavor profile to different foods. 🔥
The recipes span the full range of what a wood pellet cooker does best: Cajun Spatchcock Chicken, Teriyaki Smoked Drumsticks, Hickory New York Strip Roast, Texas-Style Brisket, Alder Wood-Smoked Trout, St. Louis-Style Ribs, wood-fired pizza, and much more. Over 100 color photos document every dish, and the step-by-step presentation makes each recipe approachable for backyard cooks at any skill level. Sections also cover vegetables and even baked goods—because the wood-fire flavor enhancement that makes smoked meat irresistible works remarkably well on foods most smoker owners never think to try. 💙
This is the essential guide for anyone who owns a Traeger, Pit Boss, or other wood pellet cooker—the kind of book that turns an expensive piece of equipment into something that earns its place in the backyard every weekend. Reviewers consistently praise both the recipe quality and the genuine technical instruction that sets this apart from general barbecue cookbooks. At $3.99, marked down from $25.99, this is exceptional value. ⭐
Why this belongs in your kitchen: The complete wood pellet smoker guide—pellet selection, cold-smoke and slow-roast techniques, and 100+ recipes with step-by-step color photos—for $3.99.
When Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Pope Francis in March 2013, he was virtually unknown outside Argentina. Within weeks, he had captivated the world with his rejection of papal pomp, his embrace of the poor and marginalized, his fearless critiques of institutional corruption, and reforms that sent shockwaves through the Catholic Church. Austen Ivereigh—a London-based journalist with a PhD from Oxford, a former deputy editor of The Tablet, and a former Jesuit himself—had the access, the Argentine expertise, and the Catholic institutional knowledge to write the first truly authoritative biography of how this man became this pope. The Great Reformer remains the definitive English-language biography of Francis. 📚
Ivereigh traces Bergoglio from his Buenos Aires childhood through his Jesuit formation, his controversial leadership of the Argentine Jesuits, his internal exile from the order, his years as Archbishop of Buenos Aires working directly with the poor in the city’s villas miserias, and the two conclaves of 2005 and 2013—offering the first behind-the-scenes account of Francis’s election and the reform vision he brought to the papacy. The Argentine context—the Dirty War, the Catholic Church’s role in it, Bergoglio’s complicated place in that history—is explored with the nuance it requires. 🔍
The New York Times Book Review called it “the best English-language biography of the pope to date.” Timothy Cardinal Dolan called it the essential text for understanding Francis’s vision. With the death of Pope Francis in April 2025, this biography has taken on new historical significance as the definitive account of his formation. At $2.99 this is exceptional value. ⭐
Why this matters: The definitive biography of Pope Francis—his Argentine formation, his Jesuit exile, his rise to pope, and the radical reform vision that changed the Catholic Church—for $2.99.
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