Wednesday, April 23, 2025

A trip to a local store, and a book haul

April 22, 2025


We have a couple stores in town that remind me of Hastings. Do you remember Hastings? The really super cool store that sold music, books and videos?  Used to be one of our favorites anytime we visited my in laws in Lawton, Oklahoma.  
 
Well Entertainmart is a similar store, that also sells comic books, Funko Pops and tons of retro things.  It's just a neat store to walk around and browse.
 
We went there on Saturday to find some things for Jasmine, and were met with the news that it is permanently closing in May.  What a bummer!
 
With that said, all their books are on sale for 99c.  I couldn't pass up that opportunity, of course, so I grabbed 10 and do plan on heading back this weekend to find some more.  Let me show you what I got, including the surprise of author signed books that I was not expecting to see, when I brought the books home.
 
In the first picture above:
 
On her last escapade, Charlotte unintentionally witnessed a murder and found herself embroiled in a dangerous chain of events. Now, Charlotte returns in a stunning sequel that takes the reader into the most sinister institution in London: Bedlam. With the death of her siblings and far from home, Charlotte has few people to trust. Struggling with romantic entanglements and her stressful rise to prominence on the literary scene, she is more alone than ever. On a visit to London, Charlotte goes on a tour of London¹s most famous hospital for the mad, Bedlam. She is sure she recognizes a struggling Mr. Slade, her long-missing ex-lover, strapped to one of the stretchers. Charlotte starts digging, and soon finds herself trying to reveal a secret that high-powered men would (and do) kill to protect. It is up to Charlotte to find the truth and expose a plot of global proportion. But what if the conspirators get to her first?
 
Strasbourg, 1518. In the midst of a blisteringly hot summer, a lone woman begins to dance in the city square. She dances for days without pause or rest, and when hundreds of other women join her, the men running the city declare a state of emergency and hire musicians to play the Devil out of the mob. Outside the city, pregnant Lisbet lives with her husband and mother-in-law, tending the bees that are the family’s livelihood. Though Lisbet is removed from the frenzy of the dancing plague afflicting the city’s women, her own quiet life is upended by the arrival of her sister-in-law. Nethe has been away for seven years, serving a penance in the mountains for a crime no one will name.

It is a secret Lisbet is determined to uncover. As the city buckles under the beat of a thousand feet, Lisbet becomes caught in a dangerous web of deceit and clandestine passion. Like the women of Strasbourg, she too, is dancing to a dangerous tune. . . .

Set in an era of superstition, hysteria, and extraordinary change, and inspired by true events, The Dance Tree is an impassioned story of family secrets, forbidden love, and women pushed to the edge.

 
 April 22, 2025

Frances Pierce is a simple, plain country girl who enters Lady Anne Boleyn’s circle after shielding her from an angry mob. Anne is beloved by King Henry VIII, and queen in all but name. And Henry is determined to put aside his wife Catherine, marry Anne, and mak her his lawful queen—no matter the consequences.
 
Frances delights Anne with her poetry and her forthright ways, and soon becomes a favorite. Dazzled by her new life and the glamour of the court, and besotted with Anne’s brother George, she pays scant attention to the intrigues that swirl around her mistress. But when the king’s favor shifts, Frances will learn just how quickly those who rise far and fast can meet their downfall.  
 
Convinced that his stepmother and half brothers have been wrongfully evicted by cattle king Eli Dearing, Asher Ellis uses the cover of an extravagant ball to break into the Three Cedars' ranch house to search for proof. On the verge of discovery, he flees, but a boy's cry compels him to make a daring rescue.

Spunky and independent Samantha Dearing balks when she learns the ball her father is hosting is nothing more than a matrimonial ambush. Taking a break from unwanted suitors, Samantha spots a thief fleeing her home. When the stranger ends up saving her brother's life, she hides the only clue to his identity left behind--his boot--and resolves to find him herself.

When Samantha encounters the older brother of a student she tutors, all thoughts of the bootless mystery man vanish. Asher values family above wealth, a rare trait that opens her heart. Afraid she will discover his past misconduct, Asher tries to keep his distance, but when a series of suspicious accidents befall her, he vows to protect her, even though saving her life could mean losing her love.
 

April 22, 2025

Present day: Emma Lovett, who has dedicated her career to breathing new life into long-neglected gardens, has just been given the opportunity of a lifetime: to restore the gardens of the famed Highbury House estate, designed in 1907 by her hero Venetia Smith. But as Emma dives deeper into the gardens’ past, she begins to uncover secrets that have long lain hidden.

1907: A talented artist with a growing reputation for her work, Venetia Smith has carved out a niche for herself as a garden designer to industrialists, solicitors, and bankers looking to show off their wealth with sumptuous country houses. When she is hired to design the gardens of Highbury House, she is determined to make them a triumph, but the gardens—and the people she meets—promise to change her life forever.

1944: When land girl Beth Pedley arrives at a farm on the outskirts of the village of Highbury, all she wants is to find a place she can call home. Cook Stella Adderton, on the other hand, is desperate to leave Highbury House to pursue her own dreams. And widow Diana Symonds, the mistress of the grand house, is anxiously trying to cling to her pre-war life now that her home has been requisitioned and transformed into a convalescent hospital for wounded soldiers. But when war threatens Highbury House’s treasured gardens, these three very different women are drawn together by a secret that will last for decades.
 
An Echo in the Darkness by Francine Rivers (Book 2  in the Mark of the Lion Series)
Believed dead, Hadassah finds employment helping a doctor in the poor section of first-century Rome and discovers an ability to heal others through the power of her faith. When Julia falls ill, Hadassah is forced to confront a difficult decision: should she return to the Valerian household, risking exposure and death, to help her former tormentor in the Christian tradition?

Continuing to search for meaning and faith, Marcus turns away from the opulence of Rome, led by a whispering voice from the past into a journey that could set him free from the darkness of his soul.

 

April 22, 2025

A.D. 69. The Roman Empire is up for the taking. Everything will change—especially the lives of two sisters with a very personal stake in the outcome.

Elegant and ambitious, Cornelia embodies the essence of the perfect Roman wife. She lives to one day see her loyal husband as Emperor. Her sister Marcella is more aloof, content to witness history rather than make it. But when a bloody coup turns their world upside-down, both women must maneuver carefully just to stay alive. As Cornelia tries to pick up the pieces of her shattered dreams, Marcella discovers a hidden talent for influencing the most powerful men in Rome. In the end, though, there can only be one Emperor...and one Empress.
 

April 22, 2025

These 3 books are all signed by the author.  I got such a surprise when I opened the first page and saw the signature.  How neat!
 
They are part of a 4 book series, and I only managed to find books 1, 2 and 4.  But I went to Paperbackswap and immediately found the missing #3, so that one is on the way.  Yay!
 
By the way, all 3 of these are available for free through Kindle Unlimited, so if you have it on Amazon and want to give them a read, go on over and grab them while they're available.
 
 
Salina Hastings’ sixteenth birthday came on the heels of Jeremy Barnes’ return from California in August 1862. It was the summer Ethan, Salina’s older brother, asked Taylor Sue Carey to be his bride—not long before the day the Rebels and Yankees clashed at the Battle of Chantilly.

Salina inherited a keen sense of adventure from her father, a Confederate captain and spy. As the war drags on, loyalty and survival draw Salina into risking her life in service of Captain Hastings’ “Network.” In spite of mounting danger, Salina gathers her courage, determined to do what she can to restore the days she loved—precious time with her family, her friends, and Jeremy—Virginia as it was prior to secession and invasion.

Captain Duncan Grant, a Union secret agent, has orders to stop the flow of information to the South. His assignment takes him on a search for the leader of this circle of Southern civilian spies. Captain Grant’s persistent search is not only for information, but also for anyone who might lead him to the stolen documents he must recover for the North.
 
The War Between the States has created a stage where true character will be tried and revealed. In this unfolding drama of conflict, the Hastings family contends with life and death, loyalty and disloyalty, and hope for a future tinged with the knowledge nothing will never be the same. Each decision will bring honor or dishonor, trust or distrust, truth or deception.

Risking her life, Salina Hastings kept her word of honor to her father and to a struggling Confederacy by delivering secret documents to a Rebel contact in San Francisco. Following the darkness of Alcatraz and a treacherous journey back to her beloved Virginia, Salina faces the threat of execution as a Confederate spy for her refusal to abandon the deep-seated loyalty to all she holds dear.

Reunited, Salina and Jeremy’s relationship is sorely tried by questionable allegiances, doubt, miscommunication, and deliberate lies as they weather the ongoing war. Their trust in God and in one another is the only way they can withstand the turmoil which besets them.
 
The fighting between the Confederacy and the Union evolved from a “gentlemanly conflict” to indiscriminate treachery. Measured in terms of human life, costly battles, lightning-quick raids, and secret missions effect the inevitable end of the War Between the States as President Lincoln has a commander in Ulysses S. Grant who will fight Robert E. Lee without mercy.

Returning to Virginia a young wife and expectant mother, homecoming at Shadowcreek is not what Salina Rose Hastings Barnes imagined. Yankee Major John Barnes—corrupted by a decades-old vendetta—has sworn to annihilate not only the Hastings family and the land they hold dear, but also Salina’s husband, Captain Jeremy Barnes. The love Jeremy and Salina share, combined with their faith in the Almighty, produces the strength required to endure perilous trials.

Unable to serve as an active operative in her late father’s spy ring, Salina’s war contributions seem limited to knitting socks for Southern soldiers and nursing in a Richmond hospital. As anticipated victory eludes the defiant Confederacy, Salina dreams of life beyond the conflict and harbors hopes of solving the mystery surrounding the identity of Jeremy’s natural father. The fall of Richmond and the Army of Northern Virginia’s eventual surrender exact a heavy toll, but Jeremy and Salina continue to acknowledge God alone is worthy of the glory and honor for the great things He has done.
 

0 Comments: