Saturdays at the Café

Saturdays at the Café is a weekly feature hosted here to talk about and discuss the books I’ve discovered during the past week, added to my shelf and am excited about reading. They may be new/scheduled releases I’ve seen on NetGalley, at the library, or from publishers or they may be older titles my friends have reviewed and shared on Goodreads or blogs.

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Indecent Proposal

Manwhore. That’s what the board of directors-and the tabloids-thinks of billionaire bachelor Reese Crane. Ordinarily he couldn’t care less, but his playboy past is preventing the board from naming him CEO of Crane Hotels. Nothing-and no one-will keep him from his life’s legacy. They want a settled man to lead the company? Then that’s exactly what he’ll give them.

Merina Van Heusen will do anything to get her parents’ funky boutique hotel back-even marry cold-as-ice-but-sexy-as-hell Reese Crane. It’s a simple business contract-six months of marriage, absolute secrecy, and the Van Heusen is all hers again. But when sparks fly between them, their passion quickly moves from the boardroom to the bedroom. And soon Merina is living her worst nightmare: falling in love with her husband . . .

I recommended this book to my library…two years ago! Let that be a lesson to never give up hope😏

 

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Nuri is a beekeeper and Afra, his wife, is an artist. Mornings, Nuri rises early to hear the call to prayer before driving to his hives in the countryside. On weekends, Afra sells her colorful landscape paintings at the open-air market. They live a simple life, rich in family and friends, in the hills of the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo—until the unthinkable happens. When all they love is destroyed by war, Nuri knows they have no choice except to leave their home. But escaping Syria will be no easy task: Afra has lost her sight, leaving Nuri to navigate her grief as well as a perilous journey through Turkey and Greece toward an uncertain future in Britain.

Nuri is sustained only by the knowledge that waiting for them is his cousin Mustafa, who has started an apiary in Yorkshire and is teaching fellow refugees beekeeping. As Nuri and Afra travel through a broken world, they must confront not only the pain of their own unspeakable loss but dangers that would overwhelm even the bravest souls. Above all, they must make the difficult journey back to each other, a path once so familiar yet rendered foreign by the heartache of displacement.

Moving, intimate, and beautifully written, The Beekeeper of Aleppo is a book for our times: a novel that at once reminds us that the most peaceful and ordinary lives can be utterly upended in unimaginable ways and brings a journey in faraway lands close to home, never to be forgotten.

One of my Goodreads friends recommended this book months ago and I decided to wait until the audiobook became available at my library. It freed up this week!

 

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Sometimes love is unpredictable…

Twenty-nine-year-old Charlotte Rosen has a secret: she’s a widow. Ever since the fateful day that leveled her world, Charlotte has worked hard to move forward. Great job at a hot social media analytics company? Check. Roommate with no knowledge of her past? Check. Adorable dog? Check. All the while, she’s faithfully data-crunched her way through life, calculating the probability of risk—so she can avoid it.

Yet Charlotte’s algorithms could never have predicted that her late husband’s ashes would land squarely on her doorstep five years later. Stunned but determined, Charlotte sets out to find meaning in this sudden twist of fate, even if that includes facing her perfectly coiffed, and perfectly difficult, ex-mother-in-law—and her husband’s best friend, who seems to become a fixture at her side whether she likes it or not.

But soon a shocking secret surfaces, forcing Charlotte to answer questions she never knew to ask and to consider the possibility of forgiveness. And when a chance at new love arises, she’ll have to decide once and for all whether to follow the numbers or trust her heart.

I got carried away by Suzanne @ The Bookish Libra’s review of this one. I recommended the audiobook at my library so fingers crossed 🤞

 

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Criminal profiler in training (and newlywed) Jessie Hunt, 29, discovers that dark secrets lurk in her new suburban town; when a body turns up dead, she finds herself caught in the crosshairs of her newfound friends, her husband’s secrets, her serial killer caseload—and the secrets of her own dark past.

In THE PERFECT WIFE (A Jessie Hunt Psychological Suspense Thriller—Book One), Criminal profiler-in-training Jessie Hunt is sure she’s finally put the darkness of her childhood behind her. She and her husband, Kyle, just moved from a cramped downtown Los Angeles apartment into a Westport Beach mansion. Kyle’s promotion has them swimming in money. And Jessie is on the verge of getting her Master’s degree in forensic psychology, the last step in her dream of becoming a criminal profiler.

But soon after their arrival, Jessie begins to notice a series of strange developments. The neighbors—and their au pairs—all seem to be hiding secrets. The mysterious yacht club Kyle is desperate to join is rife with cheating spouses, and with troubling rules of its own. And the notorious serial killer being held at the psychiatric hospital where Jessie is completing her degree seems to know more about her life than is normal—or safe.

As her world starts to unravel, Jessie begins to question everything around her—including her own sanity. Has she truly uncovered a disturbing conspiracy buried within a sunny, wealthy Southern California beach town? Does the mass murderer she’s studying really somehow know the origin of her private nightmares?

Or has her tortured past finally come back to claim her?

A fast-paced psychological suspense thriller with unforgettable characters and heart-pounding suspense, THE PERFECT WIFE is book #1 in a riveting new series that will leave you turning pages late into the night.

This showed up as a kindle freebie in my BookBub feed and I took the bait. New author and new series.

 

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Deep in upstate New York, in the heart of the Hudson River Valley, lies a small town where five brothers, all world-weary and battered by life, are about to find the loves of their lives … at Journey’s End.

Widower James Harper is a loner who spends his time running his outdoor gear shop and avoiding emotional entanglements of any kind. Until the day beautiful Miranda Lowe moves to Journey’s End, opens the coffee house down the street, and knocks his safe world right off its axis. Sexy, smart, warm and funny, Miranda is the answer to prayers James didn’t know he had, which is exactly why she terrifies him so much.

Now, on a stormy New Year’s Eve, James will find himself snowbound in front of a crackling fire with the intriguing woman he’s tried to avoid — the only person who can help him overcome his fear and unlock the secrets of his heart.

I’ve collected books by this author and this showed up in her newsletter as a kindle freebie. Easy one-click!

 

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He barely knew her, and he can’t forget her…
It’s the dead of winter on Gansett Island, and Riley McCarthy’s mood matches the lousy weather as he and his family work to bring their new business, McCarthy’s Wayfarer, back to life. He can’t deny that he’s been in a funk since Nikki Stokes and her twin sister, Jordan, left the island last fall without saying goodbye. Riley, who’d been hired to fix the leaking roof at their grandmother’s home, had liked talking to Nikki and had been looking forward to getting to know her better when she disappeared. Months later, he still thinks of her every day, even if he wishes he didn’t. She’s hard to forget.

As the manager for Jordan’s reality TV career, Nikki finds herself square in the middle of the kind of drama she’s had more than enough of, especially since her sister plans to go back to the husband who released a sex tape that devastated Jordan last fall. Enough is enough for Nikki, who quits her job and heads for her happy place—her grandmother’s oceanfront home on Gansett Island, hoping she might run into the sweet, sexy guy who fixed the roof last fall. She liked talking to him and wonders if he stayed on the island for the winter. She really hopes he’s still there.

The minute Riley hears that Nikki has come back to Gansett Island, he has to see her. He has to know if the spark of attraction he’d felt for her is still there, and more than anything, he’d love to know why he’s thought more about a woman he met exactly twice than he ever has about anyone else. Come back to Gansett Island for Riley and Nikki’s sweet, sexy story and catch up with many of your favorites, including Mac and Maddie, Adam and Abby, Shane and Katie and Kevin and Chelsea!

I’m close to halfway through this series and enjoying it! This is the latest release to Gansett Island and I recommended it for library purchase.

 

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What books did YOU add to your shelves this week?