Thursday, April 3, 2025

The Accused by Cara Putman


 When a popular college student is murdered, her international roommate, Anneliese, becomes a prime suspect. But law professor Margeaux Robbins doesn't believe that the quiet, lonely German girl in her class is the killer.

Chase Crandall is a burned-out defense attorney ready to extricate himself from the grind of criminal law. After he loses a client to tragedy, he's ready for an in-house corporate position.

When Chase is assigned to Anneliese's case, Margeaux is horrified. She doesn’t want him to provide legal counsel—not after what happened to his past client. And not with the evidence incriminating Anneliese.

Despite their mutual misgivings, the lawyer and professor pair up to find the killer and prove Anneliese's innocence. Will they be able to untangle the mystery—and navigate their growing interest in one another—before the wrong person is charged with murder?
Pick up your copy here....                                                                                                                                  The Accused: Putman, Cara: 9780825448058: Amazon.com: Books

  Since the time I could read Nancy Drew, I have wanted to write mysteries. In 2005 I attended a book signing at my local Christian bookstore. The rest, as they say, is history. There I met Colleen Coble. With prompting from my husband, I shared my dream with Colleen. Since those infamous words, I've been writing award-winning books with the count currently climbing to 40 published and more in the works.
In addition to writing, I am a mom of four, attorney, Clinical Associate Professor at a Big Ten university who also runs a center, and all around crazy woman. Crazy about God, my husband, and my kids. I graduated with honors from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (Go Huskers!), George Mason Law School, and Purdue University's MBA program. You can learn more about my books on my website, which is easy to find because it's simply my name dot com. And if you'd like to read my legal suspense novella, Dying for Love, simply connect with me on my website, and I'll send you the link.

My Thoughts...
I am so particular about legal dramas, but this one is so well written and had me on the edge of my seat I had to know who did it. Putman is a pro at legal dramas, it's almost like she is a lawyer in another life, wait she is a lawyer. So, you get true events in her fiction she knows what she's talking about. I highly recommend this one.
I can't wait for the next book in this series.
Mary Reader received this book from the publisher for review. A favorable review was not required, and all views expressed are our own.

Wednesday, April 2, 2025

Lizzies Little Mouse by Anne Blackburne


 Lizzie Has Dreams That Won’t Be Deterred


Full of faith, hope, and romance, this series takes you into the Heart of Amish country.

Lizzie Miller has wanted to own a New Orleans-style French bakery since she attended a wedding in New Orleans at age fifteen. So with her parents’ and the bishop’s permission, she did a two-year internship in a French bakery in New Orleans. Then she came home and worked for several years in the local Amish bakery, buying the business when it became available. And now someone wants her out.

A string of unsettling events is surely meant to scare her away. But with the help of her friends, she will get to the bottom of why someone wishes her to fail in the bakery business. And along the way, she just may realize that sometimes dreams can be fulfilled unexpectedly—with the help of someone who was just waiting to be noticed.

Maybe all Lizzie needs is a little faith and a lot of love.

Pick up your copy here...


Anne Blackburne lives and works in Southeast Ohio as a newspaper editor and writer. She is the mother of five grown children, has one wonderful grandchild, and a spoiled poodle named Millie. For fun, when she isn’t working on Amish romance or sweet mysteries, Anne directs and acts in community theater productions and writes and directs original plays. She also enjoys reading, kayaking, swimming, searching for beach glass, and just sitting with a cup of coffee looking at large bodies of water. Her idea of the perfect vacation is cruising and seeing amazing new places with people she loves.

Romance and Mystery in one book, you can't go wrong. This was my first book by Blackburne and I really enjoyed it. I can't wait to see what else she has written.

Tuesday, April 1, 2025

A Mother Always Knows by Sarah Strohmeyer


 The beloved, award-winning author of Do I Know You? and We Love To Entertain returns with an electrifying novel of psychological suspense that explores the way our pasts shape our futures in so many unexpected ways.

Stella O'Neill is just your average millennial, working at a public library and worrying about making rent. No one would suspect she's been living under an assumed name or that she was raised in a Vermont commune of "diviners" where, and as a ten-year-old, she witnessed her mother’s brutal murder—a crime that has gone unsolved for years.

But her quiet, anonymous existence is upended when a true-crime obsessive posts her current name and location on the internet. Now, Stella has to get out of Boston before her mother’s killer can find her and finish the job he started all those years ago. Fed up with living in fear, she heads to the off-the-grid retreat of her childhood to confront her mother’s unhinged guru who controlled their lives for so long--the infamous Radcliffe MacBeath.

Stella has two powerful assets: determination and a supernatural gift. Relying on her mother’s beloved rose quartz pendulum, Stella will have to outwit the charismatic leader who’s ruined so many lives and discover once and for all the true identity of her mother's killer—before becoming his next victim.

Pick up your copy here...





Sarah Strohmeyer is the award-winning, nationally bestselling author of eighteen novels for adults and young adults, including the Bubbles Yablonsky mystery series and The Cinderella Pact which was made into the Lifetime movie, Lying To Be Perfect. A former newspaper reporter, she is currently the elected Town Clerk of Middlesex, Vermont where she lives with her husband and cat. Two adult children occasionally drop by. For more info or to contact, please go to sarahstrohmeyer.com.

Monday, March 31, 2025

The Teacher of Auschwitz by Wendy Holden

 

Fredy built a wall against suffering in their hearts . . .

Amid the brutality of the Holocaust, one bright spot shone inside the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz. In the shadows of the smokestacks was a wooden hut where children sang, staged plays, wrote poetry, and learned about the world. Within those four walls, brightly adorned with hand-painted cartoons, the youngest prisoners were kept vermin-free, received better food, and were even taught to imagine having full stomachs and a day without fear. Their guiding light was a twenty-seven-year-old gay, Jewish athlete: Fredy Hirsch.

Being a teacher in a brutal concentration camp was no mean feat. Forced to beg senior SS officers for better provisions, Fredy risked his life every day to protect his beloved children from mortal danger.

But time was running out for Fredy and the hundreds in his care. Could this kind, compassionate, and brave man find a way to teach them the one lesson they really needed to know: how to survive?

The Teacher of Auschwitz shines a light on a truly remarkable individual and tells the inspiring story of how he fought to protect innocence and hope amid depravity and despair.

Pick up your copy here...


Wendy Holden (aka Taylor Holden) is a novelist, non-fiction author, historical biographer and ghostwriter as well as a former journalist for the London Daily Telegraph. Her books have sold two million copies, have been adapted for television and radio, and some have been adopted into the schools curriculum. Two of her titles are about to be made into major Hollywood films.

Since leaving newspapers in 1996, Wendy has written more than forty books, including sixteen international bestsellers and the acclaimed novel The Sense of Paper, published by Random House, New York, now available as an ebook. Her bestselling title is Born Survivors, the true story of three young mothers who hid their pregnancies from the Nazis and gave birth in the camps. This has now been published in 22 countries and translated into 16 languages and was released in a special VE Day 75 edition in 2020. She also wrote the memoir Tomorrow Will Be A Good Day and his Life Lessons with Captain Sir Tom Moore, both of which became top ten bestsellers and remained in the charts for over eight months.

A reporter for eighteen years, Wendy covered news events at home and abroad, including conflicts in the Middle East, Communist Europe, and Northern Ireland. Her non-fiction titles have chiefly been the autobiographies of remarkable women, many with wartime experiences such as Zuzana Ruzickova, who survived three concentration camps and slave labour to become one of the world's leading musicians (now an award winning documentary), and Edna Adan Ismail, an inspirational midwife, First Lady, civil war survivor, and builder of hospitals. Wendy also wrote Tomorrow to be Brave, about the only woman in the French Foreign Legion during World War II (soon to be a film). Her book Behind Enemy Lines was about a young Jewish woman who repeatedly crossed German lines as a spy (now an award winning animation); and Til the Sun Grows Cold tells of a British mother whose daughter was killed in troubled Sudan. She also wrote Lady Blue Eyes, the memoir of Frank Sinatra's widow Barbara, A Lotus Grows in the Mud, the best-selling autobiography of Hollywood actress Goldie Hawn, and Memories Are Made of This, a biography of Dean Martin as seen through the eyes of his daughter Deana.

She penned Ten Mindful Minutes with Goldie Hawn, an international bestseller on mindfulness for parents, and she wrote an ebook for children and adults entitled Mr. Scraps about a dog caught up in the London Blitz. In 2012 she conceived and wrote the bestselling memoir of Uggie, the dog from the Oscar winning movie The Artist, published in 12 countries, and she also wrote Haatchi & Little B, the remarkable story of the relationship between a disabled boy and his three legged-dog, which was a number 1 bestseller in the UK, Portugal, and the US as it melted hearts around the world.

Other works have included the bestselling novelisations of the films The Full Monty and Waking Ned, as well as an Antarctic travel guide with comedian Billy Connolly. She wrote Smile Though Your Heart Is Breaking with Pauline Prescott, and Heaven and Hell with Don Felder, co-founder of The Eagles. Her book Shell Shock, a searing investigation into the trauma of conflict from the World War One to the Gulf War, was published in conjunction with a four-part television documentary.

Several of her books have been serialised in national newspapers and magazines around the globe, selected for audio extracts on BBC Radio's Book of the Week and elsewhere, adopted for the curriculum in schools and colleges and transferred to both commercial television and radio drama. Four of her books have been optioned for film. She also writes screenplays, is an international public speaker, literary festival chair, and teaches creative writing online and at exclusive venues in Italy, Dubai, and around the UK.

Wendy divides her time between the UK, US and Italy but lives mostly in Suffolk, England, with her husband and dogs where she likes to relax in her award-winning garden. She also writes occasional articles for newspapers and magazines, including The Guardian, Daily Mail and The Lady. Follow her on Twitter @wendholden, on Instagram @wendyholdenbestsellingauthor, via her website www.wendyholden.com, or her Facebook fan page (https://www.facebook.com/wendyholdenfanpage/?ref=bookmarks). She is an occasional podcaster (http://wendyholden.buzzsprout.com). She has her own Youtube channel - https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCl-hBBGrQhBDQaV2yFqqyug, is her own literary agent, mentor to aspiring writers, and owns a company that develops and publishes e-books and book-related apps.

What a must read this is. I hope everyone gets a chance to read this one.

Sunday, March 30, 2025

God With Us by Matt Mikalatos

 

Follow God’s story of love, hope, and rescue from Genesis to the Gospels in this captivating graphic novel—through stories told by Jesus himself.

The long walk home after celebrating Passover in Jerusalem should be a joyful journey, but this year the travelers are sad and afraid. Then a mysterious stranger shows up and starts telling stories—from many years ago all the way up to the recent death of Yeshua (Jesus) on the cross—and the friends can’t wait to hear more.

This intriguing, funny, and heartfelt journey explores Scripture from Creation to the Resurrection through the eyes of curious children (and grown-ups!) walking with Yeshua on the Road to Emmaus.

Pick up your copy here...


Matt Mikalatos is an author and screenwriter who lives near Portland, Oregon, with his wife, three daughters, and a giant rabbit named Bruce.

You can also follow him on Twitter (twitter.com/mattmikalatos), Facebook (facebook.com/mikalatosbooks) or check out The Fascinating Podcast (http://www.norvillerogers.com/podcast/fascinating/) and Matt's website (http://www.mikalatos.com).

Thursday, March 27, 2025

Everyday Creativity by Jena Holliday


 From the celebrated artist behind Sacred Creativity and Spoonful of Faith comes an interactive guide and journal that will help hone and honor your creative gifts from start to finish.


Artist and mentor Jena Holliday guides you through your creative journey in this fun and practical journal for the dreamer, the writer, the artist, the maker, and anyone in between. This five-part guide helps bring your creative ideas to life, providing you with

• practical ways to get you out of your head
• blank slates to encourage brain dumps
• space to create mood boards and set goals
• challenges to unlock new thoughts and ideas
• reflections and celebrations to mark your journey

Each prompt will propel you forward, keep you from getting stuck along the way, and help your creativity flourish.

Something beautiful happens when we take ideas from concept to completion: We get to walk in the beauty of living and breathing everyday creativity, just as our Creator intended.

Pick up your copy here...


Jena Holliday is a full-time artist, writer, entrepreneur and storyteller. She is the creator and owner of Spoonful of Faith illustration and design studio. With just a bit of faith, she walked away from her mainstream marketing job to embrace her passion for art. What started as a hobby eventually evolved into a full-time commitment of spreading kindness and hope through her artwork and words. That commitment blossomed into a blog and shop, aptly named Spoonful of Faith, and has become a successful business.

Holliday wants her journey and her illustrations to motivate others, especially women to think big, hope and create in this world. She and her husband Adrian love finding pockets of joy in the everyday and are grateful parents to their two children.

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

When I talk to God, I talk about Feelings by Chrissy Metz


 From Chrissy Metz, star of the hit NBC television show This Is Us, and Bradley Collins comes a second heartwarming picture book in the New York Times bestselling series. All about using faith and prayer to explore the ups and downs of feelings!


"A tender book to help little ones make sense of the emotions around prayer."--
Kirkus reviews

When I talk to God every day,
there are so many things I want to say.
Each day has its own special meaning.
When I talk to God, I talk about feelings.

From bear and wolf cubs to raccoons and squirrels, these animals pray to God describing the many feelings they experience each day. With warm and touching illustrations from Lisa Fields, this is a perfect introduction to prayer that allows little ones to learn about emotions through gentle and affirming reflection.

Perfect for fans of When God Made You by Matthew Paul Turner, What Is God Like? by Rachel Held Evans, as well as Big Feelings by Alexandra Penfold.

Pick up your copy here...


Emmy and two-time Golden Globe nominee CHRISSY METZ found critical acclaim portraying the heart-centered Kate Pearson in NBC's award-winning series This Is Us. Chrissy is the New York Times bestselling author of her memoir, This Is Me: Learning to Love Yourself for Who You Are Today. She is also an author of the New York Times bestselling picture book When I Talk to God, I Talk About You. Chrissy’s other credits include SuperstoreThe Last OGAmerican Horror Story: Freak ShowMy Name Is EarlEntourage, and Sierra Burgess Is a Loser, to name a few. You can visit Chrissy Metz online at ChrissyMetzMusic.com or follow her on Twitter and Instagram @ChrissyMetz.