Adult

Romance Authors Love Veterans

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veteran

One of the wonderful things about Romance authors is that they write about relevant, current, everyday topics.  Lately, many contemporary Romance authors are writing about our wounded warriors.   Romance authors have picked up on the heroic sacrifices our Veterans have made and have written authentic, smart, sensitive, emotional, heartwarming, and uplifting stories that touch all of our hearts.   Two new releases are highlighted below.

USA Today best selling author RaeAnne Thayne continues her series, Hope’s Crossing, with book number six, Christmas In Snowflake Canyon.  

Dylan Caine is a wounded war vet, losing an eye and part of his arm in Afghanistan.  He lands back in Hope’s Crossing, but heads up to an isolated cabin in Snowflake Canyon to get away from his large, loving, and smothering family.  He finally agrees to meet his brother at the local bar in town.

Genevieve Beaumont is the daughter of Hope’s Crossing’s mayor – a spoiled, rich, pompous brat who has spent the last several years in Paris – overspending and overindulging.  When she discovers her fiance has been cheating on her, she breaks their engagement.  Her parents pull her back to Hope’s Crossing, cutting her off from her trust fund until she can get her act together.  She’s banished to live in her late grandmother’s run down house,  and feeling sorry for herself, she heads off to the local bar.

When Genevieve ends up in a bar room brawl, Dylan reluctantly comes to her rescue.  Both are arrested and are assigned community service at the local Wounded Warriors facility.

What follows is a painful, emotional, uplifting journey that brings these two unlikely characters together.  Through emotional and physical trials, both characters transform from people you don’t quite like, to people you want to invite into your home.  The two main characters are supported by a wonderfully written cast of supporting characters.  Ms. Thayne does a beautiful job describing all the characters, the exquisite scenery and expertly shows us the courageous struggle of our wounded soldiers.  A wonderfully written journey of loss and hurt replaced with healing and love.

The Way Home by Cindy Gerard – Killed in Action – the most dreaded words imaginable for a soldier’s wife. Jess Albert has been living with them for four years, since the death of her husband in Afghanistan. Finding blessed numbness in routine, she doesn’t dare to look ahead, any more than she can bear to look back. Then Tyler Brown, a former special-ops warrior, shows up at her small general store in Minnesota North Woods, jarring her back to life. Jess knows better than to fall in love with another man who places duty to his country before love of his wife- but there’s no denying the longing and the hope for a future that Ty makes her feel.

A world away, a man ravaged by years of captivity and torture, a man with no memories, finally escapes- clinging to life and sanity in a hostile land. In his darkest hour, he awakes in a lantern-lit cave to find a woman at his side. Dark-haired and dark-eyes, her touch is caring, despite the resentment he hears in her voice and sees on her face. Rabia is bound by honor to save the lost American soldier in her keeping, this broken warrior from a war that has brought so much devastation to her land. But is it honor igniting her compassion for her enemy, or is it something more?

A beautifully written story of love, honor,  and loyalty and the sacrifices of our soldiers and their families.

Check out some other Romance authors who have written military themed books:  Suzanne Brockmann, Robyn Carr,  Laura Griffin,  Elle Kennedy, Penny McCall, Lindsay McKenna, JoAnn Ross, Roxanne St. Clair, Julie Ann Walker.

Reading Around the Globe – For Book Clubs

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worldDo the members of your book club like to travel?  Or do they like to “travel” via books?  Here are some books that will take them on a trip around the world.

Touching the Void: The True Story of One Man’s Miraculous Survival by Joe Simpson (Biography)

Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder (Biography)

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick (Non-fiction)

The Sweet Life in Paris: Delicious Adventures in the World’s Most Glorious – and Perplexing – City by David Lebovitz (Non-fiction)

Country Driving: A Chinese Road Trip by Peter Hessler (Non-fiction)

A Beautiful Place to Die: An Emmanuel Cooper Mystery by Mall Nunn (Mystery)

Twenty Fragments of a Ravenous Youth by Xiaolu Guo (Fiction)

A Guide to the Birds of East Africaby Nicholas Drayson (Fiction)

Babylon Rollingby Amanda Boyden (Fiction)

The Sound of Waterby Sanjay Bahadur (Fiction)

Librarians Pick The Top Ten New Books for November

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Every month, librarians from around the country pick the top ten new books they’d most like to share with readers. The results are published on LibraryReads.org. One of the goals of LibraryReads is to highlight the important role public libraries play in building buzz for new books and new authors. So click through to read more about what new and upcoming books librarians consider buzzworthy this month…

  1. Bellman & Black by Diane Setterfield

  2. Through the Evil Days by Julia Spencer-Fleming

  3. The Death of Santini by Pat Conroy

  4. Someone Else’s Love Story by Joshilyn Jackson

  5. The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan

  6. Lies You Wanted To Hear by James Whitfield Thomson

  7. Parasite by Mira Grant

  8. The Raven’s Eye by Barry Maitland

  9. Death of a Nightingale by Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis

  10. The Cartographer of No Man’s Land by P. S. Duffy

Seven Novels That Will Creep You Out

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Do you like the creepiness of Halloween?  Do you like books that scare the dickens out of you?  Here are seven novels that will creep you out.

The Terror by Dan Simmons – The men on board HMS Terror have every expectation of finding the Northwest Passage. When the expedition’s leader, Sir John Franklin, meets a terrible death, Captain Francis Crozier takes command and leads his surviving crewmen on a last, desperate attempt to flee south across the ice. But as another winter approaches, as scurvy and starvation grow more terrible, and as the Terror on the ice stalks them southward, Crozier and his men begin to fear there is no escape. A haunting, gripping story based on actual historical events.

The Demonologist by Andrew Pyper – You won’t be able to put down this spellbinding literary horror story in which a Columbia professor must use his knowledge of demonic mythology to rescue his daughter from the Underworld.

The Last Policemanby Ben H. Winters – A fascinating portrait of a pre-apocalyptic United States. The economy spirals downward while crops rot in the fields. Churches and synagogues are packed. People all over the world are walking off the job—but not Hank Palace. He’s investigating a death by hanging in a city that sees a dozen suicides every week—except this one feels suspicious, and Palace is the only cop who cares.

Your House Is On Fire, Your Children All Goneby Stefan Kiesbye – A village on the Devil‘s Moor: a place untouched by time and shrouded in superstition. There is the grand manor house whose occupants despise the villagers, the small pub whose regulars talk of revenants, the old mill no one dares to mention. This is where four young friends come of age—in an atmosphere thick with fear and suspicion. Their innocent games soon bring them face-to-face with the village‘s darkest secrets in this eerily dispassionate, astonishingly assured novel.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters –  Dr. Faraday, the son of a maid who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country physician, is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once impressive and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. Its owners—mother, son, and daughter—are struggling to keep pace with a changing society, as well as with conflicts of their own. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become intimately entwined with his.

A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O’Nan – One neighbor after another succumbs to a creeping, always fatal disease. Our sole witness to this epidemic is Jacob Hansen,  sheriff, undertaker, and pastor. As the disease engulfs the town, Jacob must find a humane way to govern, as well as take care of his wife and baby daughter.  And what of the tramps slipping nightly through the tinder-dry woods, the spiritualists from the city camped on the edge of town with their charismatic leader Chase? Who-will bury the dead properly, if not Jacob?

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy – An epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America’s westward expansion.  Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennesseean who stumbles into the nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving.

On Our Shelves: New Paperbacks

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We’ve got three new Mysteries and three new Romances for your reading pleasure.

Poisoned Prose (A Books by the Bay Mystery) by Ellery Adams – When Olivia Limoges and other Oyster Bay patrons of the arts sponsor a retreat for famous storytellers, one of them is going to have a very unhappy ending.

Final Catcall (A Magical Cats Mystery) by Sofie Kelly – Small-town librarian Kathleen Paulson gets plenty of entertainment from her extraordinary cats, Owen and Hercules. But when a theatre troupe stumbles into more tragedy than it bargained for, it’s up to Kathleen to play detective.

Rubbed Out (A Memphis BBQ Mystery) by Riley Adams – Even Lulu Taylor—proprietress of Aunt Pat’s Barbeque Restaurant in the heart of Memphis, Tennessee—needs to get out of the kitchen now and then. But at the Rock and Ribs festival, she finds more than a taste of trouble.

Cowboy Justice (Catcher Creek) by Melissa Cutler – Transforming their parents’ rundown ranch in the small town of Catcher Creek, New Mexico, into a tourist destination is the toughest challenge the three Sorentino sisters ever faced. But now one of them has another fight on her hands – to keep from falling for the sexy town sheriff – again.

Anything But Love (A Cupcake Lovers Novel) by Beth Ciotta – For Reagan Deveraux, Sugar Creek, Vermont, and the Cupcake Lovers are a dream come true: A cozy little town where family and friends come before everything else. She’s never experienced anything like it—especially not growing up with her mother, a fickle, fame-hungry heiress. But Rae’s plan to hide out in anonymity for a year until she can claim her inheritance—and her independence—changes with one kiss from gorgeous pub owner Luke Monroe.

Blue Forever (Men in Uniform) by Nina Bruhns – Dashing and devilish Major Kiptyn Llowell is the opposite of reasonable. But when his top secret mission on exotic Hainan Island, China, goes belly up, Kip throws himself on the mercy of the eminently sensible (and irresistibly sexy) DeAnne Lovejoy to hitch a ride to his rendezvous point. But he gets far more than he bargained for.