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A Short Time to Stay Here

Terry Roberts

The summer of 1917 should have been a summer like any other. Stephen Robbins should have been doing the same thing he'd been doing for years past. As a young boy he'd fled his life in a secluded mountain cove and risen through the ranks to become the manager of the South's finest resort, the elegant Mountain Park Hotel. By all rights, he should have spent this summer as host to some of the wealthiest gentry on the East Coast. Hans Ruser, German Commodore of the world's largest and most luxurious cruise liner, Vaderland, should have been sailing yet again with his elite passengers to the far corners of the world. And Anna Ulmann, captivating and beautiful, should have been at home in her New York mansion planning yet another lavish dinner party for her famous husband and his rich and powerful friends. She should have idled away her spare time by taking perfectly staged photographic portraits of the very same people.

But war will change everything that should have been in that summer of 1917— the U.S. enters WWI and the Mountain Park Hotel is pressed into service as an internment camp for over 2,000 German nationals, including Ruser and his men. This sudden collision of lives and cultures in the small town of Hot Springs, North Carolina is both frightening and exhilarating. And the unlikely alliance that forms between Hans Ruser and Stephen Robbins will force each to decide just how far they are willing to go to keep peace in the beautiful and isolated mountains. Feisty Anna Ulmann, seeking to assert her independence in a male-dominated world, mysteriously flees south to devote her life to documentary photography. When she steps off the train at the Hot Springs depot one sultry summer day, she could not have imagined the passionate journey that will result when she matches wits with Stephen Robbins. Haunted by demons both past and present, they will face heartbreaking tragedy. Yet together they will discover the true meaning of imprisonment and escape.

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Drinks and Sinkholes

S. Usher Evans

Warm beds, quaint mysteries, and the best rosemary bread this side of Pigsend Creek. Welcome to the Weary Dragon Inn.

Bev may not know who she was before she showed up in the quaint village of Pigsend five years ago, but that doesn't bother her much. She's made a tidy little life for herself as the proprietor of the Weary Dragon Inn, where the most notable event is when she makes her famous rosemary bread.

But when earthquakes and sinkholes start appearing all over town, including near Bev's front door, she's got to put on her sleuthing hat to figure out what—or who—might be causing them before the entire town disappears.

Drinks and Sinkholes is the first book in the Weary Dragon Inn Series, a cozy fantasy by two-time award-winning author S. Usher Evans.

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The Little Beach Café

Sarah Hope

Escape to The Little Beach Café with bestselling author Sarah Hope

Love, friendship and new beginnings... It's all waiting for Pippa Jenkins at The Little Beach Café...

When Pippa's aunt leaves her a cafe by the beach, it doesn't take her long to jump at the chance of a new start. Waving goodbye to mounting debt, threatening bailiffs and never-ending shifts at a job she hates, she and her young son, Joshua, prepare for their new life.

But as Pippa strives to make her new business a success, the arrival of her ex makes her question everything. Will she succumb to his charms, or will Joe, the local plumber, be able to repair Pippa's heart?

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Broiler

Eli Cranor

Gabriela Menchaca and Edwin Saucedo are hardworking, undocumented employees at the Detmer Foods chicken plant in Springdale, Arkansas, just a stone’s throw from the trailer park where they’ve lived together for seven years. While dealing with personal tragedies of their own, the young couple endures the brutal, dehumanizing conditions at the plant in exchange for barebones pay.

When the plant manager, Luke Jackson, fires Edwin to set an example for the rest of the workers—and to show the higherups that he’s ready for a major promotion—Edwin is determined to get revenge on Luke and his wife, Mimi, a new mother who stays at home with her six-month-old son. Edwin’s impulsive action sets in motion a devastating chain of events that illuminates the deeply entrenched power dynamics between those who revel at the top and those who toil at the bottom.

From the nationally bestselling and Edgar Award–winning author of Don’t Know Tough and Ozark Dogs comes another edge-of-your-seat noir thriller that exposes the dark, bloody heart of life on the margins in the American South and the bleak underside of a bygone American Dream.

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Stag

Dane Bahr

To stop a serial killer terrorizing the hills of rural Washington state, retired sheriff Amos Fielding must re-enter a world he’s tried desperately to escape.

It’s 1989 and Amos Fielding, onetime sheriff of Oscar, Iowa, is in his early seventies and grieving the recent loss of his wife, Sara. He packs up his few belongings and heads to a ranch in the far northwest corner of Washington State.The farther he can get from Oscar and his years there as sheriff, the better. Eager to escape painful memories, Fielding throws himself into the daily chores of a gentleman rancher. But there is evil afoot, as dark as any he faced in Oscar.

A cold-blooded, amoral psychopath has been stalking troubled young women in the surrounding woods, staging elaborate scenes of his crimes. The local chief of police has turned a blind eye to the cases. In fact, the only law enforcement agents genuinely concerned about justice are Dee Batey (a recovering alcoholic and former detective turned wildlife officer) and Philip Wilson (an overly ambitious and weirdly obsessed young Seattle FBI agent). It is Batey and Fielding's growing friendship that provides the lure that will pull Fielding back into the world he so desperately wants to escape as the three team up to hunt a killer and stop the predator from finding new prey.

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Foul Play at Seal Bay

Judy Leigh

It was meant to be the start of quiet season in the sleepy Cornish village of Seal Bay, but not for sexagenarian librarian and wild swimming enthusiast Morwenna Mutton.

Because when a local businessman is found on the beach with a bread knife is his back, bungling police officer DI Rick Tremayne is soon out of his depth. Morwenna knows it's going to be down to her to crack the case.

The list of people the victim upset is long, the evidence is slight, and an arrest illusive. Morwenna has plenty to occupy her time what with ghostly goings-on at the library and skullduggery at her granddaughter's school, but she could never resist a challenge. And even the most ruthless of murderers should quake at the sight of this amateur sleuth getting on her bike to track them down.

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Anne, 36, Mom of 1, Pirate Queen

Joseph Malott

She's 36, a mom of one, and her life is about as exciting as the artisanal cat litter she markets for a living... until she decides to become a pirate.

Anne Devereaux is adrift. One year post-divorce, stuck in a soul-crushing marketing job in sunny Tampa, Florida, she's failing spectacularly at modern app-based dating and generally feeling like she's walking the plank of mid-life mediocrity. Her only real adventure? Navigating her pirate-obsessed eight-year-old son, Max, through the treacherous waters of third grade.

But when a disastrous sailboat date (the guy was a barnacle, but the sailing? That was treasure) and a bizarre confession from her mom support group—about the thrilling little secret of "innocuous" shoplifting from "The Man"—plant a wildly outlandish seed, Anne's life is about to get a serious jolt of oomph.

Inspired by Max, her own seafaring ancestry, and a desperate need for something more, Anne trades her spreadsheets for a sailboat (dubbed "The Second Chance"), her sensible cardigans for a cheap eye patch and a surprisingly empowering bikini, and her mundane existence for a hilariously thrilling new career: becoming Tampa Bay's most unlikely Pirate Queen.

Armed with a gifted ceremonial sword, a crew of supportive (if bewildered) gal pals, a salty seadog mentor, and eventually, a (surprisingly functional) antique cannon bought off eBay, Anne begins a laugh-out-loud campaign of petty plunder. Her targets? The obnoxious, entitled elite of the Tampa/Clearwater yachting scene. Her loot? Mostly their dignity, a few tacky deck ornaments (hello, giant inflatable flamingo!), and some very expensive, "liberated" craft beer and cheese.

But as "Captain Annie's" local legend grows (#TampaPirateQueen is trending!), keeping her swashbuckling alter ego a secret from her observant son, her suspicious ex-husband, and a charming new marine biologist who definitely wouldn't understand her preferred method of "resource acquisition" becomes a whole new adventure.

Can Anne navigate the choppy waters of single motherhood, find love, make peace with her past, and learn to love herself, all while trying to remember where she buried that hideous abstract sculpture she "rescued"?

If you love laugh-out-loud stories about strong women taking the helm of their own lives, second chances that come with a side of minor larceny, and finding adventure (and yourself) in the most unexpected of coves, then climb aboard for "Anne, 36, Mom of 1, Pirate Queen"! It's a feel-good, whimsical romp that proves it's never too late to hoist the mainsail on a new life... even if you have to "borrow" the anchor.

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Remote: The Six

Eric Rickstad

A serial killer is rampaging across the country, tying families to chairs—arranged in puzzling tableaus—then murdering them, without leaving a trace of evidence.

FBI Special Agent Lukas Stark has been hunting the Tableau Killer for eighteen months but is always two steps behind in a maze of dead ends. He has no understanding of why the killer stages the scenes so meticulously or chooses entire families. Burning out, Stark is forced to take on a new partner, Gilles Garnier.

Garnier, an odd loner with a vague past, claims he's a remote viewer who "sees" people, places, and events far away—remote—as if they're right in front of him. Stark knows this sort. Cons. Wannabes desperate to worm their way onto a sensational case. Stark dismisses his new partner as a fraud ... until Garnier precisely describes a new Tableau Killer crime scene from hundreds of miles away.

As Stark and Garnier track the Tableau Killer across the country, they start to believe they finally have the advantage. But Garnier's ability to remote-view fails him and leaves him ill and weak. Then Stark realizes how the killer has stayed ahead of them all this time. The reason is more terrifying than either man can fathom.

They face a killer who may be unstoppable, and stand at the abyss of a conspiracy so ominous, it shakes their reality to the core.

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Stuck in the Midlife With You

Freya Kennedy

Your forties just got fabulous...

Becca Burnside is going to make this the year she turns her forties around, and creates a life her 16-year-old self would be proud of... A smidgen of romance wouldn't go amiss either.

And with a new job, and a blossoming friendship with handsome Conal, she's off to a great start. Or at least, she was, until her youngest son dropped the mother of all bombshells: his girlfriend, who just happens to be the daughter of Becca's best friend Niamh, is pregnant. Now Becca and Niamh find themselves not only facing the usual problems that come with being women of a certain age, they're going to be grannies.

So when Becca's new job invites them on a weekend retreat, it seems the perfect way to distract themselves from 'the Situation'. But will wild water swimming and yoga be enough to help the women face the biggest challenge of their adult lives? And can their friendship survive the chaos of a new baby?

Make sure you join the most fabulous club in town, and find out what happens when Derry Girls become Derry Women...

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The Agent's Demon

L E Medlock

IT TAKES A DEMON TO CATCH A DEMON

LONDON, 1888

When her mentor is brutally murdered, Hazel Locke is dragged into the investigation as the newest agent at Her Majesty's Paranormal Investigation Agency. To solve the case, she must summon a demon partner called a Hound, a creature who can track down others of its kind. But the demon she summons is unlike any she's encountered before, and he wants nothing to do with her or the Agency.

As the body count rises, Hazel realizes there's more at stake than getting justice for her mentor. A ruthless killer haunts the streets of London, and to stop them, she and her demon will have to put their differences aside and work together to solve the crime - no matter where the journey takes her...

The Agent's Demon is the first book in the historical paranormal series, Locke & Steel.

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