Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Contemporary Fiction and Drama

Morning Fans! It's chilly and fall is on it's way. There's nothing better than curling up with a good book. Especially since kids are back at school now! I love it! The leaves turn, the weather is perfect for a hoodie and blanket. Tea and Coffee are my best friends. So let's see if we can find you something to read! 

Oh, and don't forget to check out our new author spotlight and giveaway with author Angela Graham!!~ 


Now, on to the Contemporary Fiction and Drama. 

Enjoy!!



The Women of Tenacity
Nook Link

Welcome to Tenacity! Meet the stubborn, independent women who live here and the wild, rugged men who love them in this short story prelude to The Women of Tenacity series. 
Callan Matthews lives a hectic life balancing a demanding job as she works to start her own business. Her husband Clay, the consummate prankster, decides it is up to him to get Callan to lighten up and have a little fun. 
Jenna Carver is a confirmed city girl even if her husband Josh conveniently forgets that fact as he drags her from one farm adventure to another.
Laken Johnson loves her two kids, but when her husband Tyler unexpectedly drops them off at her gift shop, she doesn't know if she or the store will survive. 






Back To Me (Back To Love 1)
When Mattie meets David, sparks fly, romance ensues, and love blooms. When David moves across the country and Mattie remains, she discovers something that changes everything. 


A story of a lifelong, enduring love that neither Mattie or David can ever fully walk away from.









Totlandia: The Onesies, Book 1 (Fall)

$0.99 Nook Link

The Pacific Heights Moms & Tots Club is the most exclusive children’s playgroup in all of San Francisco. For the city’s ultra-competitive elite, the club’s ten annual spots are the ultimate parenting prize.

But not everyone is PHM&TC material. The club’s founder, Bettina Connaught Cross, adheres to strict membership rules: Moms only. No single parents or working mothers allowed. Membership is an arduous commitment. And there’s no room in the club for scandal, bad behavior, or imperfection…from tots or their moms.

In a world of power and prestige, no one has more than Bettina. And as every mom in Pacific Heights knows, you simply cannot cross her. But this year’s admissions process is more rigorous than ever, pitting prospective members against each other to prove their mettle.

But four of the six candidates vying for the remaining four slots have a secret that would knock them out of the running. Jade is a former stripper and porn actress, who has been absent for most of her son’s life. Jillian’s husband cleaned out their joint accounts and left her for his pregnant assistant. Ally never even had a husband—just a sperm donor—and she’s hiding a high-ranking corporate job. And Lorna fears that her son may have special needs… just the excuse her sister-in-law, Bettina, needs to deny her entry to the club.

Can these hopeful moms keep up appearances long enough to outlast the competition? Or will their chances—and their private lives—go up in flames?





Among Women
Trust is always the first thing to go, and the hardest thing to find.

Abandoned in New Orleans and left with $50 and the clothes on her back, after six weeks, Pearl believes she’s found a way to reclaim her life.

She couldn’t have been more wrong.

Arrested and jailed in the Orleans Parish Women’s Correctional Center without any way to reach the outside world, Pearl retreats into her own frantic thoughts until slowly the voices of her fellow prisoners reach past her fear.

No longer alone, Pearl begins to listen to their stories—stories that must be told. Through their tales Pearl finds her own voice, a source of strength and a way out.






The Broken Road (The Broken Road Series)
Megan Connors’s life is not going in the direction she thought it would. With her love life in the dumps,she doesn’t think it could get any worse until her long-time crush, Shane asks to move in. After all, he has no clue that she’s been in love with him for the past ten years. But fate has a way of turning things around. 

As their relationship goes from “just friends” to lovers, life takes a turn for the unexpected. Shane isn’t the person that Megan once fell in love with all those years ago. Shane has a past; murder and drugs is a portion of what he’s been hiding and is only revealed once the FBI knocks on Megan’s door. 

Secrets, tragedy, and deceit force Shane—and Megan—to make choices that will change their lives forever. Once Megan learns the truth, will she still want to be with Shane? Or will someone else be at the end of her broken road?







The Kommandant's Mistress
The rumors spread by the Camp's inmates, other Nazi
officers, and the Kommandant's own family insist that she was his
"mistress", but was she, voluntarily? Told from three different
perspectives - that of the formerly idealistic Kommandant, the young Jewish
inmate who captivates him, and the ostensibly objective historical biographies
of the protagonists - this novel examines one troubling moral question over and
over: if your staying alive was the only "good" during the War, if
your survival was your sole purpose in this horrific world of the Concentration
Camps - whether you were Nazi or Jewish - what, exactly, would you do to
survive?  Would you lie, cheat, steal,
kill, submit? 






Nothing Hidden
In the quiet landscape of the Upper Great Plains in North Dakota, good people keep up appearances: Through holy works, and by imbibing in the spirit of bootleg moonshine, they navigate the waters between Heaven and Hell. It’s a place where love triangles cross rivers and religious lines at the same time, and when a lover is spurned, the local medicine woman can join herbs and the fruits of the land into a potion that can cure anything—perhaps even a broken heart. In a landscape with few places to hide, it’s a place where there’s Nothing Hidden, but even murders can go unsolved—for generations.







Craven Place
The author. The psychic. The vagrant. The hack.

An invitation to a crumbling cottage in the lonely wilds. The legend of the witch who haunts it still. A disappearance from a locked room and the rising, ancient power that may be culprit. The hag has waited long for visitors, and guests are encouraged to extend their stay.

For whatever remains of their lives.

Welcome… to Craven Place.






THE SEAL (Rosicrucian Quartet)
It is the year 1307 and the ancient Order of the Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon is in grave danger. The King of France and Pope Clement V are plotting its destruction and scheming to appropriate the Order's most sacred relic.  Etienne de Congost, a battle-weary but incorruptible man is ordered to flee with it, dodging plots and papal spies in a life and death struggle to keep its secret from evil hands. The outcome of Etienne's desperate journey is discovered 700 years later by a writer who visits Lockenhaus Castle in Austria to research a book on the Templars. Together with an eccentric local woman he begins to untangle the web of destiny that binds them both to the mystery of the Seal.





Socially Awkward: A Novel
$2.99 Nook Link

Jennifer Smith spends most of her time wishing she had a more exciting name, lived a more exciting life, or that she could just become someone else for a while. With her sister Claire’s help, Jennifer channels her life’s desires into the perfect graduate research program: a fake Facebook identity that allows her to “study” the world’s reaction to perceived beauty. Making up a new name, designing a new personality, and doctoring a photo or two seems like the perfect plan; how could it possibly backfire? Especially if it helps her get the attention of a long-time school crush…

Lost in her new-found “popularity” as Olivia Saunders, Jennifer’s real life starts to slip out of her grasp piece by piece. Before long, she finds herself caught in a love square–where one of the four corners is an imaginary person. While Olivia’s life has all the glitz, glamour, and guys she could ever have wanted, Jennifer has to decide if she can walk away and learn how to be okay living life as herself.






Almost a Bride (Wyoming Wildflowers Book 1)
Nook Link

Wyoming Wildflowers -- Book 1 -- Indian Paintbrush

Dave Currick was everything Matty Brennan wanted for as along as she could remember. Right up until he broke her heart six years ago. Now that she's returned to Wyoming for good, what she wants more than anything is to save her family's ranch. Even if that means swallowing her pride and asking Dave to marry her.

Matty's up to something - Dave knows that much. Just as he knows that Matty needs help, so of course he'll provide it, just as he has all her life. Doing what's best for Matty is second nature. Even when it comes to marrying her in name only. Although he can't resist one hot-blooded kiss after the I-dos.

Maybe - just maybe - his Matty will become more to him than Almost a Bride.

Wyoming Wildflowers Trilogy






Remembering April
April Marsh had resigned herself to being off the dating scene forever after her last disastrous relationship. She just wanted a nice, normal guy who would treat her decently but it seemed to be too much to ask for.

Rich, somewhat famous and utterly bored with the usual socialites he met at parties, Dean Randle found himself wanting more than just a quick tumble with beautiful but fake women. He wanted to find a normal yet exciting woman who would love him for his personality rather than for his bank account.

Against the advice of his business manager, Dean goes undercover in an effort to find the perfect woman. The change from being the boss to being little more than a copy boy is difficult to adjust to but he is determined to stick to his plan.

When April runs into Dean in the dreaded photocopier room she is instantly attracted to him. If she’d still been dating, he would have been exactly the type of man she’d have fallen for. When she witnesses him being shot down after asking one of their colleagues out on a date, she agrees to help him find love.

Dean is embarrassed to be so dismal at dating and is grateful when April and her high strung best friend, Adam offer to assist him. He has a feeling that if anyone can help him find the woman of his dreams, it is this quirky pair.

The instant Adam meets Dean, he knows that April and the new guy are perfect for each other. His best friend deserves better than the dismal run of relationships she’d been through and Adam will do anything he can to make sure April finds happiness.






Imperfect Pairings
An encounter with an Italian leads a woman down a path of love and self discovery. 

Smart, career driven Jamie had not intended to fall in love. And to a foreigner no less, an Italian who doesn't reveal his heritage at first. Jack is short for John, he tells her, but she soon discovers that John is short for Giovanni. Insanely handsome and intense but unreadable, Giovanni is a man of few words. When after two months together she accompanies him to his cousin s wedding in Italy, Jamie learns that he hasn't been back to the troubled family estate in ten years, but with one step upon the rich Italian soil covered in ancient vines, it's as if he never left. Suddenly his language is no longer her language, and Jamie is drawn inexplicably into an Italy that outsiders rarely see--a crumbling villa, an old family scandal, a tragic mother, an estranged father, and a host of spirited Italian cousins. Jack is finally forced to face the destiny he's been renouncing; and Jamie makes a rash decision, unaware that it will change her life forever.






Cheapies



Fetching Raymond: A Story from the Ford County Collection $0.99 Amazon
Wheelchair-bound Inez Graney and her two older sons, Leon and Butch, take a bizarre road trip through the Mississippi Delta to visit the youngest Graney brother, Raymond, who’s been locked away on death row for eleven years . . . and it could well be their last visit. Going back to Ford County, Mississippi, the setting of his first novel, A Time to Kill, Grisham brings the Graneys and their world to vivid and colorful life, making it abundantly clear why he is our most popular storyteller.



Jessica (The Manhattan Stories) $0.99 Amazon
Jessica McCarthy’s only Christmas wish is for a home of her own and children. All her friends are already married and had children. Believing that true love will never come her way, she settles for the man she sees as her last chance to realize her dream, handsome, charming, ne'er-do-well, Zachary Belk. 
Jessica’s father, one of the most successful businessmen in 1860’s Manhattan, warns her that he isn't a good prospect for a husband. Jessica seldom goes against his advice, but Zachary is the only man in New York who has courted her. 
His own firm is on the edge of bankruptcy and he desperately needs a financial lifeline. Jessica believes she is only being realistic when she agrees to be Zachary’s wife, but she soon finds out her carousing husband doesn’t share her hopes for domestic life. 
The stock market crash of 1869 changes all their lives. Born into wealth, Jessica never had to ask the price of anything. Now the cost of simply putting food on the table is the first thing on her mind when she awakes every morning. Jessica must adapt drastically to being penniless. 
She calls upon her faith in God, her friends both old and new, and her own determination, not only to survive, but to find peace, happiness, security, and a real love.





Changing Lanes: A Novel $1.99 Amazon
Abby Halladay has the perfect life. Or, rather, she will…as long as everything goes exactly according to plan. Abby never leaves anything to chance—not her job as a syndicated columnist, not her engagement to her fiancé, Fred, and certainly not her impending wedding in Paris (New Jersey, that is).
Unfortunately for Abby, even the best-laid plans often go awry—like when Fred runs away to Paris (France, that is), her column is canned, and her dream home is diagnosed with termites. Forced to move back in with her parents and drive her dad’s cab, Abby’s perfect life has now officially become the perfect disaster. 
Then a funny thing happens. Slowly but surely, Abby begins letting go of her dreams of perfection. As she does, the messy, imperfect life she thought she never wanted starts to feel exactly like the one she needs.




The Hangman's Daughter $3.99 Amazon
Germany, 1660: When a dying boy is pulled from the river with a mark crudely tattooed on his shoulder, hangman Jakob Kuisl is called upon to investigate whether witchcraft is at play. So beginsThe Hangman's Daughter--the chillingly detailed, fast-paced historical thriller from German television screenwriter, Oliver Pötzsch--a descendent of the Kuisls, a famous Bavarian executioner clan.



My Unexpected Forever (The Beaumont Series) $3.99 Amazon
I expected a life of music.
I expected to raise my son.
It took one look to make everything change.
I never expected happiness.

I never expected to find her.
I never expected to feel desire.
I never expected I’d be a family man.
I never expected to be loved.
I never expected to fall in love.

They say you should expect the unexpected, I didn’t realize my unexpected would be the forever kind.





Jane's Melody $3.99 Amazon
What boundaries would you cross for a true love that knows no age?

That's the question a grieving mother must answer when she takes in a young street musician to learn about her daughter's death and finds herself falling for him. A sexy but touching love story that will have you equally tantalized and in tears, Jane's Melody follows a forty-year-old woman on a romantic journey of rediscovery after years of struggling alone.

Sometimes our greatest gifts come from our greatest pain. And now Jane must decide if it's too late for her to start over, or if true love really knows no age.




Breakdown $3.99 Amazon

An influenza plague decimates humanity...
A man loses his wife and baby daughter...
Six years after a pandemic devastates the human population, former rock star Chris Price finally makes it from New York to Britain to reunite with his brother. His passage leaves him scarred, in body and mind, by exposure to humankind at its most desperate and dangerous. But another ordeal awaits him beyond the urban ruins, in an idyllic country refuge where Chris meets a woman, Pauline, who is largely untouched by the world’s horrors. Together, Chris and Pauline undertake the most difficult facet of Chris’s journey: confronting grief, violence, and the man Chris has become. They will discover whether the human spirit is capable of surviving and loving again in this darker, harder world.




South of Bixby Bridge $3.99 Amazon
2011 Breakout Novel -- About to turn 30 and being discharged from drug rehab, Trevor Roberts is sure he's hit bottom with nowhere to go but up. He soon learns that sometimes the "bottom" is just the beginning. With more twists than California's Highway 1, the intimate narrative follows a young man on a wild month-long ride to the dizzying, drunken heights of Napa Valley excess where he falls fast for his new boss's intoxicating wife and becomes entangled in a strange threesome affair. But things soon begin to unravel as Trevor is drawn into a secret world of sex and scandal, only to have his lust for success drag him down again through a phantasmagoria of hedonistic hell. "Shocking and unapologetic", South of Bixby Bridge barrels along with the "frenetic pace of a Hollywood blockbuster," delivering "poetic prose loaded with images". With gripping drama, witty dialogue, and sexy, jaw-dropping glimpses into the nouveau-riche underworld of California's wealthy elite, you won't be able to put this riveting new novel down. Buckle up and enjoy the read!



Broken Laces $3.99 Amazon
Everyone deserves a second chance.

Jack "The Cannon" Kennedy thinks he's living the American Dream. A fancy house in the Houston suburbs. A promising career. And a loving wife who tolerates his long hours and selfish ways.

In one horrific instant, he loses his wife. Then his job. Then his hope. And that just leaves Kellen, the young son Jack hardly knows or understands.

Jack realizes he must reconnect with Kellen or they'll never get past their shared grief. But Jack's biggest obstacle is staring back from the mirror.

Desperate to reach Kellen, he turns to baseball, the game he once loved. With Jack, a win-at-all-costs former star pitcher, coaching his son's Little League team, what could possibly go wrong?





Women's Minyan $4.99 Amazon
Naomi Ragen's first play, which premiered in July 2002 at Habima National Theater in Tel Aviv. It is based on a true story: a Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) woman, wife of a rabbi, mother of 12, leaves her home and stays with a friend. The community's "modesty squad" tries in vain to force her to go back. Her friend is physically attacked, her arm and leg broken. The rabbi's wife is punished: she is cut off from her children, against her will.



Poughkeepsie $4.99 Amazon
He counts her smiles every day and night at the train station. And morning and evening, the beautiful commuter acknowledges him—just like she does everyone else on the platform. But Blake Hartt is not like the others . . . he’s homeless. Memories of a broken childhood have robbed him of peace and twisted delusions into his soul. He stays secluded from the sun, sure the world would run from him in the harsh light of day.

Each day, Livia McHugh smiles politely and acknowledges her fellow commuters as she waits for the train to the city. She dismisses this kindness as nothing special, just like her. She’s the same as a million other girls—certainly no one to be cherished. But special or not, she smiles every day, never imagining that someone would rely on the simple gesture as if it were air to breathe.

When the moment comes that Livia must do more than smile, without hesitation she steps into the fray to defend the homeless man. And she's surprised to discover an inexplicable connection with her new friend. After danger subsides, their smiles become conversation. Their words usher in a friendship, which awakens something in each of them. But it’s not long before their bond must prove its strength. Entanglements from the past challenge both their love and their lives.
Blake’s heart beats for Livia’s, even if her hands have to keep its rhythm. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love never fails. Love never fails, right?

In an interwoven tale of unlikely loves and relationships forged by fire, Debra Anastasia takes readers into the darkest corners of human existence, only to show them the radiant power of pure adoration and true sacrifice. Complicated families and confused souls find their way to light in this novel, which manages to be racy, profane, funny, and reverent all at once.




The Storyteller $7.50 Amazon
Some stories live forever . . . 

Sage Singer is a baker. She works through the night, preparing the day’s breads and pastries, trying to escape a reality of loneliness, bad memories, and the shadow of her mother’s death. When Josef Weber, an elderly man in Sage’s grief support group, begins stopping by the bakery, they strike up an unlikely friendship. Despite their differences, they see in each other the hidden scars that others can’t, and they become companions.

Everything changes on the day that Josef confesses a long-buried and shameful secret—one that nobody else in town would ever suspect—and asks Sage for an extraordinary favor. If she says yes, she faces not only moral repercussions, but potentially legal ones as well. With her own identity suddenly challenged, and the integrity of the closest friend she’s ever had clouded, Sage begins to question the assumptions and expectations she’s made about her life and her family. When does a moral choice become a moral imperative? And where does one draw the line between punishment and justice, forgiveness and mercy?

In this searingly honest novel, Jodi Picoult gracefully explores the lengths we will go in order to protect our families and to keep the past from dictating the future.

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