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When Dragons Came to Alice Street by Francesca Hampton


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High Rollers


Logan C. Kane - 2018
    University of Miami freshman Cameron McKinney is in dire need of cash. In a few years, he will graduate with over 100,000 dollars in student loan debt. To make matters worse, he is utterly ignored by the opposite sex. College isn't quite what he pictured back home in freezing-cold Chicago. Fortunately, Cameron has a brilliant mind for numbers. He decides to start a sports betting website with the help of fellow classmate Dylan Posner, a notorious campus party animal. Within weeks, hundreds of students sign up, and the business is a runaway success. Cameron begins making thousands of dollars of per week, tax-free. He uses the money to pay off his loans and fund his new South Beach lifestyle. As his operation grows, so does his ego. Cameron raises the stakes, taking on a group of jet-setting international students as customers. He begins dating Grace Cooper, the hard-drinking, purity ring-wearing daughter of a prominent Republican Party lobbyist. As the business grows, Cameron's problems multiply further. His dysfunctional romance and his business partner's reckless lifestyle threaten to take them all down.Do you love easy-to-read books filled with wealth, intrigue, and palm trees? If so, don't miss reading High Rollers!

Rooked


Caitlin Sara - 2018
    . . Despite her desire for control, Ara Hopkins has always felt like a pawn—constantly being maneuvered by those surrounding her. Carrying a riddled past of abandonment by her mother, a jealous step-sister and exploitation by men she was supposed to be able to trust, Ara craves a social media certified life. So, when she meets her husband, a New York congressman’s son, she believes she’s finally won her game. Secure in a life her mother would approve of—and having firmly shut the door on her chaotic and miscalculated past—Ara feels she’s thriving. Until the night her husband is murdered. Thrust into a game of deceit and lies, Ara realizes that nothing is as it seems and that the past can quickly return to the present. The facade crumbles as relationships are tested and family boundaries crossed. Faced with losing it all, she discovers what a person is really capable of. Because in this game of life, it's either rook or be rooked. An intricately braided plot with unforeseeable twists and a sucker-punch ending, Rooked is a captivating thriller that shatters all perceptions.

Karina


E.B. Mann - 2018
    Her life seems hopeless, until she stumbles upon a mysterious cave near her home. What she learns from the cave's extraordinary inhabitants will change her perspective–and her life–forever.

A Week at Most


Claudia Shelton - 2020
    Change can be even worse. But there comes a time in life when there's nothing else to do… Big-city newscaster Ashley Lanovan never envisioned herself divorced and unemployed by thirty-eight. She agrees to housesit a friend's property in small town USA, but rapidly realizes she's a fish out of water. Learning to adapt has never been her strong point, but the neglected community is friendly and needs her business savvy. A computer hack has put CIA agent Mark Garmund's life in danger, so he takes a few days refuge with friends in Nature's Crossing. His career secrets are dangerous and changing professions has been foremost in his thoughts lately. He realizes it's time to make a choice when a chance encounter with the woman his friends introduced him to years ago, leads to more than hello. But first, he has to make sure their future will be safe. Mark figures earning Ashley's trust may not be easy. He should have called her years ago…

The Almond Tree


Michelle Cohen Corasanti - 2012
    Living under occupation, the inhabitants of the village harbour a constant fear of losing their homes, jobs, belongings – and each other. On Ahmed’s twelfth birthday, that fear becomes a reality. With his father now imprisoned, his family’s home and possessions confiscated and his siblings quickly succumbing to hatred in the face of conflict, Ahmed embarks on a journey to liberate his loved ones from their hardship, using his prodigious intellect. In so doing, he begins to reclaim a love for others that had been lost over the course of a childhood rife with violence, and discovers new hope for the future.

The Holdouts (Detective Buddy Lock #2)


James Tucker - 2018
    Homicide cop Buddy Lock knows there isn’t a chance in hell that this is some tragic accident. But as soon as his investigation begins, so do the warnings to back off. They’re not only coming from within the NYPD; they’re hitting close to Buddy’s heart: his new family has become the killer’s target.When people start disappearing from Chinatown, Buddy finds himself on the trail of a killer whose motives are more twisting and far-reaching than the detective imagined. A killer who knows just how to get to him—by pursuing everyone he loves. Now Buddy can trust only himself—even as his relentless pursuit of justice plunges him into the most brutal waters of his career.

Growing from Depression


Neel Burton - 2010
    This is a book about how depression can have benefits as well as costs, and how to reap those benefits.

Snowed


Maria Alexander - 2016
    Everything changes when Charity's social worker mother brings home a sweet teen runaway named Aidan to foster for the holidays. Matched in every way, Charity and Aidan quickly fall in love. But it seems he's not the only new arrival: Charity soon finds the brutally slain corpse of her worst bully and she gets hard, haunting evidence that the killer is stalking Oak County. As she and her Skeptics Club investigate this death and others, they find at every turn the mystery only grows darker and more deadly. One thing's for certain: there's a bloody battle coming this holiday season that will change their lives -- and human history -- forever. Will they be ready?

Broken Beauty: Piecing Together Lives Shattered by Early-Onset Alzheimer's


Sarah B. Smith - 2019
    Smith was a young mother in her thirties when her own mother’s illness struck, so the family’s shock and pain at the disease’s manifestations is nearly unbearable. Not only is Beauty still young and fit; she is also Sarah’s best friend. This powerful and personal story about a daughter facing the unthinkable and the love she found to carry her through will touch the hearts of everyone who reads it. Sarah Bearden Smith is a housewife, mother of three, and a woman of deep faith, who has lived in Texas all her life. Sarah was born and raised in the Houston area, and remained there until her departure for the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a speech communications major, varsity cheerleader, and a member of Tri Delta sorority. After her marriage to Thad Smith in 2002, the couple moved to Dallas, Texas. During their years in Dallas, Sarah and her husband have served on various boards and committees, including the Greer Garson Gala, Presbyterian Hospital Healthcare Foundation, East-West Ministries, AWARE Dallas, and Providence Christian School of Texas. They actively serve with their children in assisted living and memory care facilities and support organizations such as Council for Life, Alzheimer’s Association, Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement, and Community Bible Study. Sarah and her family are members of Watermark Community Church.

The Color of Rock


Sandra Cavallo Miller - 2017
    Abby Wilmore, attempts to escape her past by starting over at the Grand Canyon Clinic. Silently battling her own health issues, Abby struggles with adjusting to the demands of this unique rural location. She encounters everything from squirrel bites to suicides to an office plagued by strong personalities. While tending to unprepared tourists, underserved locals, and her own mental trials, Abby finds herself entangled in an unexpected romance and trapped amidst a danger even more treacherous than the foreboding desert landscape.Sandra Cavallo Miller’s debut novel transports readers to the beautiful depths of Arizona and weaves an adventurous and heartwarming tale of the courage and strength it takes to overcome personal demons and to find love.

The Perfect 10: A Palm Beach Murder Mystery


Eric O'Keefe - 2020
    IT’S A BLOOD SPORT IN THE PERFECT 10.The final of the US Open is just days away, and Juancito Harrington, the world’s best polo player, is found dead in a posh Palm Beach hotel suite.The good news is that Palm Beach P.D. quickly identifies the trophy wife of Juancito’s team owner as the primary suspect. The bad news is that everyone in polo knows that Kelly Dick doesn’t murder her lovers. She recycles them.Only one man can crack the case: Rick Hunt, a West Point graduate currently assigned to the White House. Hunt is no detective, but he’s a lifelong polo player who needs no introduction to the world’s top pros. Or his ex-fiancée. Or her new boyfriend, an old teammate with a score to settle.

The Diamond Empire


K'wan - 2017
    While an ambitious rival has taken over Diamonds's crew, Diamonds lies in wait in exile, carefully planning his next move to comeback and reclaim his position as king of the streets of New York for good. But when an unexpected enemy from the past one-ups Diamonds and beats him at his own game, Diamonds needs to dig deep into his bag of tricks--and make an unlikely alliance--in order to climb back to the top.After opening her heart to Diamonds and then having him disappear, Pearl lives her days in a very dark place. But when her father's empire is toppled and a gaping power vacuum needs to be filled, Pearl is drawn into the very life her father so desperately wanted to shield her from. Pearl needs to fight tooth and nail to become queen of her father's kingdom, as Diamonds claws his way back to Pearl.

H-17 The Morningstar Abduction


Jake Vickers - 2017
    The class of child genius Gabby Morningstar is interrupted by the news that her parents have been murdered. The detective assigned to the homicide then abducts her. Before Gabby can piece together her situation, she's sold to a mysterious group of individuals lurking off of an unmarked highway exit. Gabby's feral runaway sister, Nikki, will stop at nothing to find her.

The Petpost Secret


Radhika R. Dhariwal - 2014
    But not in the way he thinks.Though he is just thirteen, Squirrel is the PetPost slave—the last slave in the animal town of Bimmau. Every morning,he puts on his PetPost uniform and delivers the mail for hislazy mongoose boss. But when Squirrel swigs someforbidden wine at a wedding, his mother's voice speaks tohim. 'Start your journey that leads to long-lost Brittle’s Key,' she urges. 'Go find, my son, your destiny.'Brittle's Key—with the power to set him free and turnanyone in the land into a slave—can be Squirrel's. But, tofind the key, he must find and sip three mysterious liquids.With his friend Des and a crow, Azulfa, he sets off on adangerous quest. He travels from the walled city of beesto the fireless mice tea-estate to the treacherous desert,while fleeing the savage Kowa army and outsmarting thevicious Colonel who wants the key for himself.Will Squirrel succeed? For not only his fate, but alsothe fate of the land hangs in the balance . . .

A Cross of Crocuses


Ken Ross - 2018
    There are many surprises, and shocks too, as events steer them on an unpredictable course. They learn that their children are not the individuals they had imagined them to be; their perception of each changes and they suffer bitter disappointment. Is there any escape for either of them, and if there is, will their health allow it?