Book picks similar to
Smörgåsbord of Musings by Rathnakumar Raghunath
tbr
first-reads
poetry
Rebel
Nona Day - 2017
Her only care in the world is fast money, partying and designer labels. She doesn’t have real responsibilities or plans for the future. As far as she was concerned, only today was important. She will worry about tomorrow when it comes. No one is going to stop her from enjoying her life to the fullest. She refused to live the life she watched her mother endure by the hands of her father. Her and her brother, Tone struggled together after their parent’s death. Jiera is determined to make up for all the years she struggled as a young girl. No one else's opinions about her life mattered to her. King Owens is a twenty-five-year-old, handsome rich man. He was taken from his unfit mother and raised by his father and stepmom. King wants out of the life his father was determined he inherit. He doesn’t want the throne to his father’s drug empire. For now, he is living the life that he's determined to get away from. He has a beautiful, career-oriented woman in his life. A successful career, wealth, and a beautiful family was his goals in life. He is determined to have everything he wants, even if it means going against his father’s wishes. King and Jiera have totally different plans for their future. Upon laying eyes on Jiera, King couldn’t deny himself from having her for just one night. What happens when one night of passion binds the two together for the rest of their lives? The ones that supposed to love them the most are the ones trying to hurt them the most. Will lies, betrayal and deceit take the two on a journey together? Or will it tear them apart?
Buried in the Backwater (A Sheriff Elven Hallie Mystery #1)
Drew Strickland - 2021
Her body washes away with the rain.Her killer remains a mystery.Sheriff Elven Hallie has been longing for a new case that would add some excitement to his small-town life.But a dead girl wasn’t what he expected.On the last murder case he worked, he was just a deputy with an experienced Sheriff to guide him and they were looking for an outsider.This time, he’s in charge, and the killer is part of their community.Short-staffed, and newly elected, Elven has an entire West Virginia county to police. With the help of his new deputy, Maddison Cook, Elven must navigate between Dupray’s rich and poor.It’s an uphill battle the entire way.With pressures mounting from the townspeople, county officials, and his own sense of duty, will he be able to catch the killer? Or will another body surface, pulling Elven in over his head?If you’re a fan of C.J. Box’s Joe Pickett, Craig Johnson’s Longmire, Jeff Carson’s David Wolf and Patrick Logan’s Damien Drake, then you will be sucked into this page-turning mystery with an ending that you’ll never see coming!
In Love with a Street Menace: Braydon & Jaxyn
Londyn Lenz - 2021
Smoke 'N Gunz: A South Side Love Story
Leondra LeRae - 2019
That was until Keylon committed the ultimate betrayal and Jalisa finally decided she’d had enough. She swore off trying to be with someone until she met Smoke. Smoke was probably the most gorgeous man she had laid eyes on. After experiencing heartbreak, Jalisa wasn’t sure moving on with Smoke was smart, until she realized she was connected with Smoke long before she laid eyes on him. Cortez ‘Smoke’ Campbell is hood royalty. After experiencing tragedy at a young age, Smoke did what he had to do to take the financial burden off of his Granny. Smoke is hesitant on giving his heart out until he and Jalisa ran into each other... literally. Being crossed by the last person he ever expected, Smoke realizes Jalisa is more for him than he could have ever imagined. Or is she? Even though they both had trust issues and were skeptical at first, Smoke and Gunz decided to give love a chance. Take a ride on this love journey to see if Jalisa is really ready to move on wholeheartedly or will her past destroy the new future she wants so desperately. Some say love conquers all, but does it?
Deputies of Dos Brazos: A Boxset
Dee Bridgnorth - 2019
PART I When Deputy Carson Wheeler goes to the One Hart Ranch to investigate a report of cattle rustling, he finds himself face to face with Melody Hart. Melody is the last of the Harts left to run the old ranching operation. She’s fierce and hardworking and Carson finds himself fascinated in spite of how prickly she seems with him. But they’re going to have to work together to unravel the case of the animal rights activists looking to shut down what they see as an abomination against cattle and the ranching tradition itself. PART II One of Deputy Lilliana Martinez’s favorite stops every morning is at the food truck parked not far from the sheriff’s office. There are Burrito Trucks everywhere in the valley. But lately, there have been several very strange robberies. When Lilli witnesses a robbery, she takes a personal interest in the case. Lilli thinks that it’s an inside job and she even has her suspect. Oscar Garcia certainly looks the part. But the more Lilli gets to know Oscar, the more she realizes that he only looks like a thug on the outside. On the inside, he’s a prince among men. And in fact, it’s the one who looks like a prince that is really the devil in disguise. PART III Deputy Rico Attencio is not a big fan of art and yoga weekends. Maybe that’s why he’s not all that surprised to get a phone call from the artists’ retreat saying that they have a problem. What Rico could never predict was how attractive he finds the owner. Sara Sellers is nothing like what Rico expected. Sara is absolutely sure that someone is poisoning her guests. But it will take more than a little bit of sleuthing and good old fashioned common sense to find the culprit before someone winds up dead. PART IV Deputy Tom Mason is just as supportive of this resurgence of the homestead movement as anyone else. That is until it starts to spawn a herd of livestock and children who seem determined to wander through the streets of Dos Brazos. First chickens. Then a bull. And then eventually there are goats and children roaming just about everywhere around town and getting in the way of normal things like traffic. When Florence Fiskars from the Department of Social Services asks Deputy Tom for a hand, he is sure that the state is just going to make a mess of things. It does not take long for them to discover they’ve stumbled onto a little more than the average negligence case. Tom always heard about the “orphan train” in history class as a boy. He just never thought he’d discover that someone was attempting to use orphan labor in the here and now. PART V There have been a lot of changes in the valley, but when someone starts putting pressure on Clarissa Maestas to sell her family’s farm, she digs in her heels and says no. Then a string of strange things begins to happen within the Maestas family’s Farm to Table operation. That’s when Clarissa calls in the help of her oldest school friend, now sheriff of the Dos Brazos Valley. What Wyatt and Clarissa dig up has them realizing that someone has huge plans for the valley that leaves no room for any of the locals. It’s up to Clarissa and Wyatt to put aside their childhood quarrels and put a stop to the Hollywood invasion before it’s too late.
The Teacher Who Saved Christmas: A Historical Western Romance Book
Aurora Hanson - 2021
Her desire to give the children the same love she once received as an orphan shines through her work as a teacher. In an instant though, her life turns upside down when a seemingly simple school trip turns into a harrowing ordeal on Christmas Day. The moment one of the children disappears, she is forced to rely on the sheriff for help as her desperate search begins...If only she knew this encounter would also make her heart flutter for the first time…Virgil Cooper is excited about the prospect of retiring from his role as sheriff, eager to put a life of violence and hardship behind him. Even though love has never been on the cards for him, he doesn’t want to be alone any longer. Yet when the mayor asks him to go on one last mission in search of a lost child, he finds it impossible to refuse. Little does he know he is about to cross paths with the most beautiful and kind woman he has ever known...When the chance comes, will Coop be brave enough to follow his heart and voice his feelings?A perfect Christmas seems to be falling apart, but Delia and Coop are determined to untangle the mystery together. The puzzle pieces will slowly start to fall into place, revealing the truth about the child and maybe even about themselves. Will they be able to find the missing boy? At the end of the day, could they also find true love along the way?"The Teacher Who Saved Christmas" is a historical western romance novel of approximately 80,000 words. No cheating, no cliffhangers, and a guaranteed happily ever after.
Subtropical High
Gregory S. Dew - 2014
With a street value over eight million dollars, the grungy duo sets up a buyer then rumbles through Florida in their 1973 El Camino to unload the square grouper and end their financial woes. Unfortunately, in their efforts to make the rendezvous, they become unexpectedly entangled with a host of unsavory characters, including an expatriate haunted by his single testicle, a destitute real estate developer with a penchant for GMILFs, a toupee-wearing pederast, Florida’s first closet-gay Governor, and a game warden turned eco-maniac, all of whom must be dealt with as a Category 5 hurricane, Cyclone Tyrone, spins ashore.
The Manor: The Enemy Is Close To Home In This Gritty Gangland Thriller From Top Five Bestseller Jessie Keane
Jessie Keane - 2020
Christmas With Nurse Millie
Jean Fullerton - 2013
Christmas is approaching - but for Nurse Millie and Nurse Annie babies are still being born, and in the East End of London, new mothers still need all the care and support they can give.Vividly summing up all the friendship of a close-knit community - both for the midwives and for the families - CHRISTMAS WITH NURSE MILLIE powerfully brings to life post-War London - with a heartwarming festive twist.
No Justice: A heart wrenching true story of abuse of a twelve-year-old child
Angelica Soul - 2017
Things changed for her when the family moved to Oxfordshire. Lew was a doting, loving father who turned into an alcoholic and mentally and physically abused Agnes, his wife. She spent time in prison for a crime she didn’t commit, that’s when it all started. At the age of twelve Tina was being bullied at school, sexually, mentally and physically abused by Lew, and as a punishment he sodomised her. Over a period of two years he persistently raped her and beat her. When Agnes was released from prison Lew carried on raping Tina. Agnes never knew. Eventually Agnes plucked up the courage to divorce him. Tina couldn’t tell Agnes about the abuse, thinking she may not be believed. Everything got too much for Tina, she ran away from home and hitched hiked up to Scotland where the rest of the family lived, but got caught by the police in Edinburgh and returned home. She kept running away and ended up in Birmingham, where she got raped and impregnated by the rapist, she had a baby girl who died eight hours after birth. Tina was kept being put in hostels but kept absconding from them. She had a relationship with Alan and had his child but he denied it was his because his mother told him Tina had an affair with a black man and the baby was black. She met Dan and got into a relationship with him, she had his child and he ended up beating her. Tina married Keith who took on the two eldest children as his own. Tina found him out to be a serial adulterer and had a messy divorce with him going for custody of Naomi and not the other four. Tina married Omar, an Egyptian. He took her into hospital for an operation and after she came round they told her she had cervical cancer. Omar disappeared and came back two days later with no explanation where he’d been, and when she came home no one had seen him for a week. She phoned his friends to find out if they had seen him, they told her that he’d gone back to Egypt for a couple of weeks because his family needed him. The marriage lasted for another two years and eventually ended in divorce. Tina found out her abuser - her father - was in hospital dying with cancer. She went to make sure he was dying and ask him why he did what he did? She went to his funeral just to make sure he was dead and buried. As she passed his coffin she spat on it. Twenty-five years later the truth came out. Tina wasn’t a victim anymore, but the truth divided the family. Ann and Marie called Tina a liar and wouldn’t believe her because Marie asked Lew and he blamed Tina.
The Soho Noir Series: Books 1-3
Mark Dawson - 2014
Houses, shops and entire streets are wiped from the map. The underworld is in flux: the Italian criminals who dominated the West End have been interned and now their rivals are fighting to replace them. Meanwhile, hidden in the shadows, the Black-Out Ripper sharpens his knife and sets to his grisly work.Henry Irving is a disgraced reporter on a Fleet Street scandal rag. Genius detective sergeant Charlie Murphy is a fresh face in the Metropolitan police, hunting corrupt colleagues but blinkered by ambition and jealousy. His brother, detective inspector Frank Murphy, searches frantically for his runaway daughter, terrified that she will be the killer's next victim.As the Ripper stalks the terrified streets, the three men discover that his handiwork is not quite what it seems. Conspirators are afoot, taking advantage of the chaos to settle old scores. The murders invade the lives of the victims and victimizers on both sides of the law, as everyone is sucked deeper and deeper into Soho's black heart.GASLIGHT (Book 2)It's London, 1920. Newly demobilized soldiers have flooded the capital's streets but an ungrateful country isn't ready for them. Harry Costello has returned from the horrors of the Somme to no job, no money and no prospects. Desperate times demand desperate measures and when an opportunity to burgle a house presents itself, Harry seizes the chance.When Harry and his brother Frank are blackmailed into paying off a local hood they decide to take care of the problem themselves. But when all of London's underworld is in thrall to the man's boss, was their plan audacious or the most foolish thing that they could possibly have done?You think crime doesn't pay? Meet the Costelllos - the kind of criminal family that might make you change your mind.THE IMPOSTER (Book 3)VE Day, London, 1945: a city on its knees and ripe for plunder. Rationing has created a monstrous black market that needs to be fed. It's the perfect time to make a killing.Meet the Costellos. Violet is in charge - ruthless, brilliant, heartless. Threaten her family and it'll be the last thing you do. Joseph is the soldier the army doesn't want and so he joins the family business instead. Brutish Frank fronts violence with rough charm and seedy glamour. The family has a box at the Opera and a South London lock-up no-one wants to visit.War hero Edward Fabian finds himself drawn into the Costello's web of vice and soon he is an accomplice to the family's scheming. But he's not the man they think he is--he's far more dangerous than they could possibly imagine.
A Young Rich Boss Captured My Heart
Allie Marie - 2020
After fifteen years of marriage, Kameron is demanding a divorce on the night of their anniversary, leaving Camille shattered and confused. Needing a relief from the pain and anger that seems to now live where her heart once lived, Camille finds herself in the bed of a handsome stranger. Despite her one night of unforgettable relief, Camille runs for the hill the next morning, making sure not to awaken the man that she only knows by the name of, DJ. Even after things between Camille and Kameron comes to an end, Kameron continues to shake her world with his lies and betrayals. Dion ‘DJ’ Roberts is a twenty-five-year-old NFL quarterback, who had made up in his mind that he is done with love and relationships. After learning the woman that he once loved, loved the money and fame more than him, DJ vowed to never be weakened by the four letter word again. To DJ, the only woman that was worth loving is his sister, until a one-night stand left him wondering… On a night out in the town, DJ and Camille finds themselves in the same club, and neither had not forgotten one detail of the night of passion they shared together. This time, DJ refused to let the lovely Camille disappear without a trace. Even though Camille is finally now divorced, her life is still far from drama free. Will DJ be able to put the broken pieces of Camille’s heart back together, or will his own trust issues alone with obstacles in the form of people make them both walk away, sticking to their vows to never love again?
Rumi, Day by Day
Maryam Mafi - 2014
These poems have been selected on the basis of the poignancy of their message and their relevance to contemporary life.This is timeless wisdom translated for modern readers. It is a guide for meditation and a light switch that you can turn on to make your daily connection with spirit. Use these words as tools to better your life each day, to draw continued guidance, inspiration and spiritual wealth.