Book picks similar to
The Man in the Cinder Clouds by Rick Daley
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Shoes on the Stairs
Jan Steele - 2019
She takes the reader on a journey of both laughter and tears while learning even the smallest of gestures can make a significant and lasting impact.* * *Claire Blackwell can’t find that damn white light. Thanks to a mishap at an intersection, she’s dead and stuck somewhere between Heaven and what seems like Hell as she is forced to watch her husband and children unravel without her. While she struggles to find answers for her limbo state, her family begins to see her, offering what she believes, is a gift of second chances. As she navigates through this new, untouchable world and the challenges it creates, she is forced to face some sad and potentially dangerous truths. Determined, she works to mend her relationship with her family, but her stubborn teenage son refuses to acknowledge her, and when tensions escalate with his long-time bully, her inability to control the physical world around her leaves her fearing for her family’s safety. With her time running out, she must find a way to save them before the progress she has made is lost and she fades from this world forever.
Tidelands
Philippa Gregory - 2019
A dangerous time for a woman to be different . . .Midsummer’s Eve, 1648, and England is in the grip of civil war between renegade King and rebellious Parliament. The struggle reaches every corner of the kingdom, even to the remote Tidelands – the marshy landscape of the south coast. Alinor, a descendant of wise women, crushed by poverty and superstition, waits in the graveyard under the full moon for a ghost who will declare her free from her abusive husband. Instead she meets James, a young man on the run, and shows him the secret ways across the treacherous marsh, not knowing that she is leading disaster into the heart of her life.Suspected of possessing dark secrets in superstitious times, Alinor’s ambition and determination mark her out from her neighbours. This is the time of witch-mania, and Alinor, a woman without a husband, skilled with herbs, suddenly enriched, arouses envy in her rivals and fear among the villagers, who are ready to take lethal action into their own hands.
The Christmas Promise
Sue Moorcroft - 2016
Sparks fly, and not necessarily the good ones.Times are tough for Ava – she’s struggling to make ends meet, her ex-boyfriend is a bully, and worst of all, it’s nearly Christmas.So when Sam commissions Ava to make a hat for someone special, she makes a promise that will change her life. She just doesn’t know it yet…Curl up with this gorgeous, festive read – the perfect treat for fans of Katie Fforde, Carole Matthews and Trisha Ashley.
On Santa's Lap
N.K. Pockett
Even till the age of seventeen she believed that Father Christmas existed somewhere, but just before her 18th Christmas her world changed and so did her beliefs and thoughts. That's till she runs into the plaza's Santa who sported a very sexy six pack under that pot stomach of his, not that she cared. She didn't. But with all the christmas spirit in the air, he was a dose of a miracle that she needed. Even if it was just for Christmas, she can let loose...right?
Chasing Amanda
Melissa Foster - 2011
One child murdered, another missing. Potentially lethal small town secrets revealed. Dealing with parenting, a mother's love, and trusting one's faith--CHASING AMANDA comes at you at breakneck speed and just a touch of the paranormal. *** Nine years ago, Molly Tanner witnessed a young girl's abduction in the busy city of Philadelphia, shifting her occasional clairvoyance into overdrive. Two days later, the girl's body was found, and Molly's life fell apart. Consumed by guilt for not acting upon her visions, and on the brink of losing her family, Molly escaped the torturous reminders in the city, fleeing to the safety of the close-knit rural community of Boyds, Maryland. Molly's life is back on track, her son has begun college, and she and her husband have finally rekindled their relationship. Their fresh start is shattered when a seven-year-old girl disappears from a local park near Molly's home. Unable to turn her back on another child and troubled by memories of the past, Molly sets out to find her, jeopardizing the marriage she'd fought so hard to hold together. While unearthing clues and struggling to decipher her visions, Molly discovers another side of Boyds, where the residents--and the land itself--hold potentially lethal secrets, and exposes another side of her husband, one that threatens to tear them apart. CHASING AMANDA has the emotional draw of a Jodi Picoult book, with the family drama and suspense of Lisa Scottoline.
The Violet Hour
Daniel Judson - 2009
A natural problem-solver, he earns good money as an off-the-books auto mechanic, working side-by-side with his friend Lebell in a Bridgehampton garage owned by a wealthy businessman named Eric Carver. But Cal’s idyllic existence is turned upside down when dark forces target the pregnant friend he is sheltering. And when his two closest friends are revealed to be more than what they claim, Cal’s innate survival skills are put to the test. Forced to do battle with a sudden onslaught of enemies that include a brutal thug, an abusive and powerful ex-husband, and a well-funded female assassin seeking her own personal redemption, Cal’s only hope is the darkness that has always dwelled within him—a darkness he must now unleash if he is to save the one life he has sworn to protect. Set over the course of three days—Mischief Night, Halloween, and the Day of the Dead—The Violet Hour is a powerful and unrelenting thriller in the tradition of such classics as The Postman Always Rings Twice and Marathon Man.
Quaker's War (The Long Fuse Book 1)
Jason Born - 2021
He breathes fresh life into familiar characters while introducing a host of new actors, both dear and detested.1752 A.D. What makes a pacifist from Pennsylvania suddenly take up the war hatchet? Runaway and Quaker, Ephraim, finds out quickly on a peaceful summer morning. Thereafter, he meets two very different men who may be able to help him on his sudden quest for revenge. One, an Iroquois Half King, has a similar ax to grind against a certain French officer. The other, a callow Virginian, is motivated not for revenge, but by his own inferiority to his deceased brother. The results of that bloody morn and Ephraim's single-minded pursuit set in motion a chain of events that ensnares evermore of the world's population in a dreadful war. Many will suffer. A few will benefit.Each of these lives collide with one another and history, proving that individuals can affect the fate of nations. Quaker's War begins with a bang. It ends in a torrent. It is a magnificent yarn that instantly transports the reader into the hearts and minds of those souls who battled their way through the birth pangs of a nation.
Falling
Jane Green - 2016
When Emma Montague left the strict confines of upper-crust British life for New York, she felt sure it would make her happy. Away from her parents and expectations, she felt liberated, throwing herself into Manhattan life replete with a high-paying job, a gorgeous apartment, and a string of successful boyfriends. But the cutthroat world of finance and relentless pursuit of more began to take its toll. This wasn’t the life she wanted either. On the move again, Emma settles in the picturesque waterfront town of Westport, Connecticut, a world apart from both England and Manhattan. It is here that she begins to confront what it is she really wants from her life. With no job, and knowing only one person in town, she channels her passion for creating beautiful spaces into remaking the dilapidated cottage she rents from Dominic, a local handyman who lives next door with his six-year-old son. Unlike any man Emma has ever known, Dominic is confident, grounded, and committed to being present for his son whose mother fled shortly after he was born. They become friends, and slowly much more, as Emma finds herself feeling at home in a way she never has before. But just as they start to imagine a life together as a family, fate intervenes in the most shocking of ways. For the first time, Emma has to stay and fight for what she loves, for the truth she has discovered about herself, or risk losing it all. In a novel of changing seasons, shifting lives, and selfless love, a story unfolds—of one woman’s far-reaching journey to discover who she is truly meant to be…
Invincible Summer
Alice Adams - 2016
Twenty years. One unexpected journey. Inseparable throughout college, Eva, Benedict, Sylvie, and Lucien graduate in 1997, into an exhilarating world on the brink of a new millennium. Hopelessly in love with playboy Lucien and eager to shrug off the socialist politics of her upbringing, Eva breaks away to work for a big bank. Benedict, a budding scientist who's pined for Eva for years, stays on to complete his PhD in physics, devoting his life to chasing particles as elusive as the object of his affection. Siblings Sylvie and Lucien, never much inclined toward mortgages or monogamy, pursue more bohemian existences-she as an aspiring artist and he as a club promoter and professional partyer. But as their twenties give way to their thirties, the group struggles to navigate their thwarted dreams. Scattered across Europe and no longer convinced they are truly the masters of their fates, the once close-knit friends find themselves filled with longing for their youth- and for one another. Broken hearts and broken careers draw the foursome together again, but in ways they never could have imagined. A dazzling depiction of the highs and lows of adulthood, Invincible Summer is a story about finding the courage to carry on in the wake of disappointment, and a powerful testament to love and friendship as the constants in an ever-changing world.
Jingle Bell Jam
Pamela Kelley - 2021
He's been indulging more often than he should lately, turning to comfort food and focusing on work to keep his mind off a recent breakup. When he injures his back, his doctor reads him the riot act, and he agrees to see a personal trainer to get in shape. When he meets Melanie, he thinks she is great, but knows there is no way the pretty new personal trainer would ever look at him twice.But she does. Melanie isn't put off by Bryan's teddy bear figure at all. He's handsome and nice and she wants to get to know him better. But his ex, Amy, is a new member at the gym and she doesn't hesitate to point out that it's against the rules for staff to date clients. And when Melanie hires Bryan to design her a house, it becomes even more impossible because Bryan has the same policy for his clients. Can they find their way to happiness somehow?
A Very London Christmas
Sara Madderson - 2021
She’s scored the best nannying role ever, to four-year-old Bea, and they plan to take festive London by storm. Cue hot chocolate! Ice skating! Father Christmas at Harrods! It’s like a fairytale, except for the part where Saoirse starts to fall for her boss, Bea’s dad. Divorced. Unreasonably gorgeous. Loaded. And either completely heartbroken, or the love child of Scrooge and The Grinch. She can’t decide which.Miles is determined to give Bea a proper Christmas this year. Last Christmas--the year her mother left them and the world shut down--was a disaster. So he’s hired a sweet, bubbly, Christmas-obsessed nanny to be her companion. Which seems smart, because he couldn't be less festive. But he feels a lot less smart when Saoirse’s warm heart, endless enthusiasm and angelic looks play havoc with his heart (and his trousers). His heart is not open for business. It is firmly, irreversibly shut. Besides, he could never be serious about a woman who buys a Mrs Claus seat cover for the toilet in his penthouse.WARNING: A Very London Christmas is a grumpy sunshine, single dad, nanny-boss romance containing enough festivity to warm the Scroogiest hearts, and a sprinkling of Christmas spice!
White Plains
David Hicks - 2017
But in the aftermath of 9/11, Flynn leaves his wife and children, resigns his teaching position and heads west, only to get lost in his guilt and in the mountains of Colorado. When he ends up stuck overnight in a snow drift during a blizzard on the Continental Divide, he realizes he needs to remake himself into the kind of man his children need him to be. With wit and insight, David Hicks turns a compassionate but unblinking eye on what it means to be human—to be lost while putting yourself back together again, to be cowardly while being brave, to fail and fail again on the way to something that might be success.With wit and insight, David Hicks turns a compassionate but unblinking eye on what it means to be human—to be lost while putting yourself back together again, to be cowardly while being brave, to fail and fail again on the way to something that might be success.
All the Time in the World
Caroline Angell - 2016
At first, the nanny gig is just a way of tiding herself over until she has licked her wounds and figured out her next move as a composer in New York; she doesn't mean to stay with the family for long. But, as the reader quickly becomes aware, Charlotte is naturally gifted with children and as deeply fond of the two little boys as they are of her. When an unthinkable tragedy leaves the McLeans bereft, Charlotte is not the only one who realizes that she's the key to holding little George and Matty's world together. She finds herself facing an impossible choice between her lifelong dreams and a torn-apart family she's come to love as her own. By turns funny, sexy, and heartrending, Caroline Angell's generous and unforgettable debut is the story of a young woman's discovery of the things that matter most.
The Christmas Wedding Guest
Susan Mallery - 2021
Reggie hasn’t been home since the end of the world’s shortest engagement. When her parents decide to renew their vows, she buffs up her twinkle to help with the Christmas wedding. Unexpectedly, Toby, her first love, is back too, and the spark between them shines as brightly as ever. In the spirit of the season, will they let go of past hurts and greet the New Year together?Done waiting for the one, Dena is pregnant and on her own—on purpose. But then a gorgeous, sad-eyed songwriter checks in to a room at her inn. Micah, unable to write since he lost his wife, finds inspiration in Dena’s determination to be a mom. One snowflake-speckled kiss and he’s a goner. But Dena is afraid to believe that a rock star could fall for a cookie-cutter small-town girl like her.As the Christmas wedding draws closer, these two sisters just might unwrap the most treasured gift of all—love.And don’t forget to preorder Susan’s upcoming new book, Home Sweet Christmas, now!You won’t want to miss the story of two friends who find love in a town called Wishing Tree…told with Susan’s trademark twinkling humor and filled with heartfelt Christmas spirit! Wishing Tree Series:Book 1 : Say You’ll StayBook 1 : The Christmas Wedding GuestBook 2 : Home Sweet Christmas