Wednesday, October 8, 2025

Faded Scars Kristi Copeland

 

Trust your instincts; intuition doesn’t lie.

Kennedy:

I thought I finally left my torrid past behind after my husband died. But now worry consumes me as a stalker fixates on a newcomer to Talkeetna. As each instance intensifies, I’m haunted by memories of the trauma I desperately tried to escape.

Together with our girls’ group, Faith and I work to uncover the shadowy figure’s identity. I’m determined to keep my community safe, so I force myself to face my fears head-on, even if it kills me.

Faith:
I fled the lower forty-eight after my manipulative ex introduced me to a life I didn’t want. Following in my mother’s footsteps, I hope I can create a better version of myself in Alaska without being completely obsessed, like she was. But as I get to know the locals, I wonder who I can trust.

In a small town, though, secrets are hard to keep and it’s almost impossible to hide. On the contrary, someone’s been watching me. I refuse to admit I have a stalker even as his actions grow bolder. It may be too late for anyone to help me, even Kennedy.

As the danger escalates in the shadows of the great Denali, Kennedy and Faith are forced to face their own faded scars. If you love Whiskey Scars, dive into the mystery of Faded Scars to continue the saga.

Pick up your copy here...


All my life, writing, sharing experiences through story-telling, and intensive research has interested me. All of these loves are combined to give my readers an experience through the written word. I reside in a small town in northeast Texas and originate from a small town in Michigan. Both MI and TX are prominent in my writing.

Everywhere I look, I see someone begging me to write about them. Music, every day life, and even my husband’s dreams inspire ideas about new books! Like so many of my favorite novels have done for me, I sincerely hope to connect with you through my writing. My simple communication style brings words off the page to a vision in your mind.

Join me as I create scenarios that could happen to anyone…and probably have. Maybe me, maybe you.

Sunday, October 5, 2025

Christmas Cheer Adult Coloring book


 A fun and festive resource for hours of Christmas crafting, with holiday-themed coloring pages and instructions for homemade paper gifts


Grab your glittery pens, get your playlist ready, and create your own ornaments, puzzle purses, chatterboxes, gift tags, and more! Each of the illustrations can simply be colored and left in the book, or they can be removed and folded into crafts for decorations or gifts. Instructions for folding Christmas tree ornaments, mini gift boxes, and personalized envelopes, and other nostalgic crafts are included.

The bleed-proof, bright white paper stock is heavy enough to use pencils, pens, or markers and light enough to fold easily into desired shapes. With festive illustrations and Christmas-themed crafts, this coloring book contains more than thirty creative projects and is a perfect gift, stocking stuffer, or holiday impulse buy!

From the creative studio of Ann-Margret Hovsepian, one of the illustrators who contributed to the bestselling 
Whatever Is Lovely, Choose Joy, and Peace, Be Still coloring books, Christmas Cheer is sure to become a holiday favorite for the whole family!

Pick up your copy here...


Ann-Margret Hovsepian is an award-winning writer and illustrator from Montreal, Quebec. She has had more than 300 articles featured in a variety of Canadian and U.S. print publications and has authored, co-authored, illustrated or contributed to multiple books. Her specialities are devotional books and colouring books.

Friday, October 3, 2025

Women of a Promiscuous Nature by Donna Everhart


 On a brisk February morning while walking to the diner where she works, 24 year-old Ruth Foster is stopped by the local sheriff. He insists she accompany him to a health clinic, threatening to arrest her if she doesn’t undergo testing in order to preserve decency and prevent the spread of sexual disease.


Though Ruth has never shared more than a chaste kiss with a man, by day’s end she is one of dozens of women held at the State Industrial Farm Colony for Women. Some are there because they were reported for promiscuity by neighbors, husbands, strangers. Some were accused of prostitution. Others were just pretty and unmarried. Or poor and “suspicious.” One was eating dinner alone in a restaurant. Another spoke to a soldier.

Josephine’s sin was running a business as a single woman. Maude’s was trying to drown her sorrows. Frances had lost her mind. Opal married a man with a mean streak. Some, like 15-year-old Stella, are brought in because they’re victims of assault. She’s too naive and broken to understand how unjust this imprisonment is.

Superintendent Dorothy Baker, convinced that she’s transforming degenerate souls into upstanding members of society, oversees the women’s medical treatment and “training” until they’re deemed ready for parole. Sooner or later, everyone at the Colony learns to abide by Mrs. Baker’s rule book or face the consequences—solitary confinement, grueling work assignments, and worse.

Pick up your copy here...


Donna Everhart is the USA Today bestselling author of vivid, authentic Southern fiction, including the Southeastern Library Association Award-winning The Road to Bittersweet, the Indie Next Pick, Amazon Spotlight/Debut Pick, The Education of Dixie Dupree, The Forgiving Kind, and The Moonshiner’s Daughter. Her fifth novel, The Saints of Swallow Hill is out now.

Born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, she now lives with her husband just an hour away in the Sandhills area of the state. Please visit her online at DonnaEverhart.com.


Don't come at me, I know I say this about every book released, but this is Everhart's best book yet. I learn so much from every book. She is an author that I can't recommend enough. This is a 5-star two times book. I highly recommend it.
Mary Reader received this book from the publisher for review. A favorable review was not required, and all views expressed are our own.

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

Book of Forbidden Words by Louise Fein


 1552, Paris: Against a backdrop of turmoil, suspicion, and paranoia, the printing press is quickly spreading new ideas across Europe, threatening the power of church and state and unleashing a wave of book burning and heretic hunting. When frightened ex-nun Lysbette Angiers arrives one day at Charlotte Guillard’s famous printing shop with her manuscript, neither woman knows just how far the powerful elite will go to prevent the spread of Lysbette’s audacious ideas.

1952, New York: Milly Bennett, lonely and unmoored, is a seemingly ordinary housewife with a secretive past. Balancing the day-to-day boredom of keeping house and struggling to find her way with the mothers at her children’s school, she finds her life taking an unexpected turn as conspiracies spread amidst the paranoid clamors of McCarthy’s America. When a relic from her past presents her with a 400-year-old manuscript to decipher, she is reluctantly pulled into a vortex of danger that threatens to shatter her world.

From the risky backstreets of sixteenth-century Paris to the unpredictable suburbs of mid-twentieth century New York, the stakes couldn’t be higher when, 400 years apart, Milly, Lysbette, and Charlotte each face a reality where the spread of ideas are feared and every effort is made to suppress them.

Dramatic and affecting, and inspired by the real-life encrypted Voynich manuscript, Book of Forbidden Words is both an engrossing story about a timeless struggle that echoes through the ages and a testament to the indomitable spirit of those who dare to let their words be heard.

Pick up your copy here...


Louise writes historical fiction, focusing on unheard voices or from unusual perspectives. Her debut novel, Daughter of the Reich (entitled People Like Us in the UK edition) was published in 2020 into 13 territories and is set in 1930’s Leipzig. The book was shortlisted for the RSL Christopher Bland Prize 2021 and the RNA Historical Novel of the Year Award, 2021. Louise's second novel, The Hidden Child, was published in 2021 and is centered around the eugenics movement in 1920’s England and America. It was a Globe & Mail bestseller in Canada. Her third novel, The London Bookshop Affair, about one woman’s journey to uncover secrets of her past, set against a backdrop of espionage and looming nuclear war in 1962 London, will be published in January 2024.

Louise, previously a lawyer and banker, holds an MA in Creative Writing from St Mary’s University and now writes full time. Equally passionate about historical research and writing, she loves to look for themes which have resonance with today’s world. Louise lives in the Surrey countryside, UK, with her family, and is a slave to the daily demands of her pets.

For more information, go to https://www.louisefein.com and sign up to Louise's newsletter. She also posts regularly to her blog at

https://www.louisefein.com/blog-and-news, or follow her on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/louisefeinauthor; Twitter, https://twitter.com/FeinLouise; or Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/louisefeinauthor

Tuesday, September 23, 2025

The Secret of Orange blossom Cake By Rachel Linden


 Rising star Jules Costa loves re-creating vintage recipes for her popular online cooking show. But when personal and professional disaster strikes, her only chance to save her career is to complete her new cookbook before the end of the summer. Panicked, Jules returns to her family’s beloved olive farm on the shores of Italy’s stunning Lake Garda. Seeking culinary inspiration, she’s hoping to convince her spunky eighty-year-old Nonna Bruna to share her precious collection of family recipes.

 
Jules’s plans quickly go awry as she discovers that Nonna’s cookbook has magical and unpredictable powers. It reveals only one recipe at a time, offering a cooking experience guaranteed to satisfy the chef’s palate and bring clarity to their life. Yet the pages remain stubbornly blank for Jules. To make matters worse, the olive farm is in deep financial trouble, and Jules soon uncovers a web of family secrets involving the cookbook and a lost recipe for orange blossom cake that holds the key to everything. Then there’s Nicolo, the boy next door, who broke her young heart years ago. He is now all grown up, even more attractive, and the only person poised to help Jules find answers. 
 
In a whirlwind summer beyond her imagination, Jules begins to unravel the mysteries baked into her family’s history and discovers the essential ingredients to create the future of her dreams.

Pick up your copy here...


Rachel Mae Linden (who also writes as Rachel Linden) is a novelist and international aid worker whose adventures in over fifty countries around the world provide excellent grist for her writing. She is the author of Recipe for a Charmed Life, The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie, and several other novels. Currently Rachel lives with her family on a sweet little island near Seattle, WA where she enjoys creating stories about hope, courage and connection with a hint of romance and a touch of whimsy.

To learn more about Rachel Linden, visit her website or find her on Facebook or Instagram.

Monday, September 22, 2025

Mortal Zin by Diane Schaffer

 

A crusading attorney’s death. Sabotage at a family winery. Secrets buried in California’s past…

When corporate attorney Noli Cooper visits her godparents’ Santa Cruz Mountain winery, she’s hoping for a few quiet days to consider her future. But the future will have to wait. The body of her childhood mentor, a crusading social justice lawyer and local hero, is discovered in a rocky ocean cove. The sheriff is quick to call it suicide. Noli knows he’s wrong. Teaming up with PI Luz Alvarado, Noli dives into a world where nothing is as it seems.

As threats mount and the winery teeters on the brink of ruin, Noli and Luz must navigate a treacherous landscape of greed, revenge, and long-buried secrets. Their investigation weaves through the rich tapestry of California’s vineyard history, the mystery of zinfandel grapes, and the haunting legacy of the Vietnam War. With a murderer on the loose, predatory neighbors circling, and Noli’s godfather framed for murder, the clock is ticking. Can two fearless women from different worlds unravel the truth before it’s too late?

Pick up your copy here...                                                                                                                                     Mortal Zin: A Mystery Novel (A Mortal Zin Mystery, 1): Schaffer, Diane: 9781960573933: Amazon.com: Books


No author headshot provided.
Diane Schaffer, a Stanford PhD, is a retired professor and longtime resident of Santa Cruz County. Mortal Zin, her first mystery novel, is rooted in her summer work in a Santa Cruz zinfandel winery, where she became fascinated with the unique history of zinfandel, California’s mystery grape. When she’s not writing, she’s hiking, river kayaking, or reading a good mystery novel. She now lives in Ashland, Oregon, with her husband.

Friday, September 19, 2025

Christmas for the Heart by Cheryl Barker


Christmas stirs countless longings in our hearts. Longings for a joyful, peaceful season. For merry moments with loved ones. For nostalgic moments and sweet memories. For meaningful moments of worship.

Simply put, we long for the beauty and wonder of Christmas. But so much interferes with that desire. Packed schedules, the urge to do everything Christmas, seasonal commercialism, and life situations all hinder these longings from becoming reality.

Cheryl Barker wants to help you change that with her new Advent devotional Christmas for the Heart. The quotes, reflections, original poetry, Scriptures, and special features in each chapter help you reclaim the beauty and wonder of the season. Her heartfelt words lead you to rejoice in the greatest gift ever given and inspire you to give the King of Kings the worship he’s due. The guided journaling makes this beautiful devotional book a perfect keepsake gift. 

Pick up your copy here...

Cheryl Barker is a writer from Kansas who loves the Lord and longs for her words to be a blessing to others. Her heart’s desire is to refresh spirits and nourish souls.

Cheryl is the author of Christmas for the Heart: 25 Devotions Reclaiming the Beauty and Wonder of the Season and also Mother of the Bride: Refreshment and Wisdom for the Mother of the Bride. Her work has also appeared in magazines, compilation books, and other publications as well as in Blue Mountain Arts greeting cards and also their gift book anthologies and calendars. Her website features her inspirational blog and a blog for mothers of the bride.

Cheryl is married to Don and mom to adult daughters Kristin and Kelli and mom-in-law to Shawn and Jake. Each couple has a set of twin sons so Cheryl is now one busy grandma to two sets of twin grandsons (Isaiah and James and Samuel and Silas) and loves every minute of it.

When she’s not writing or tending to life’s chores, Cheryl loves to spend time with family and friends, take photos, read, and stay involved in her church and her writers group. Last, but certainly not least, she loves to indulge in chocolate. Connect with Cheryl on her website where you will find her newsletter sign-up and her social media buttons.

My Thoughts...
I am enjoying this each morning. It's gorgeous and the perfect hostess gift. Or it would be great to gift to give your small group. It's a gift that keeps giving.
This should be on everyone's list this year.
Mary Reader received this book from the publisher for review. A favorable review was not required, and all views expressed are our own.