Eighteen-year-old Stella Sandell stands accused of the brutal murder of a man almost fifteen years her senior. She is an ordinary teenager from an upstanding local family. What reason could she have to know a shady businessman, let alone to kill him? Stella’s father, a pastor, and mother, a criminal defense attorney, find their moral compasses tested as they defend their daughter, while struggling to understand why she is a suspect. Told in an unusual three-part structure, A Nearly Normal Family asks the questions: How well do you know your own children? How far would you go to protect them?
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Spotlight Book: Winter At The Beach – Sheila Roberts
Jenna Jones, manager of the Driftwood Inn, a vintage motel in the Washington beach town of Moonlight Harbor, is convinced that a winter festival would be a great way to draw visitors (and tourist business) to town during those off-season months. Everyone in the local chamber of commerce is on board with her Seaside with Santa festival idea except one naysayer, local sour lemon, Susan Frank, who owns a women’s clothing boutique in town. The beach gets hit with storms in the winter, no one will come, too close to Christmas. Blah, blah. What does Susan know?
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Book Review – The Secrets We Carried – Mary McNear
A young woman travels home to Butternut Lake, confronting her past and the tragedy she and her friends have silently carried with them for over a decade while also facing an unknown future Butternut Lake is an idyllic place—but for one woman, her return to the lake town she once called home is bittersweet… Sometimes life changes in an instant.
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Book Review – A Little Bird Told Me by Marianne Holmes
Besides, if you were one half evil, wouldn’t you want to know about the other half? In the scorching summer of 1976, Robyn spends her days swimming at the Lido and tagging after her brother. It’s the perfect holiday – except for the crying women her mum keeps bringing home. As the heatwave boils on, tensions in the town begin to simmer. Everyone is gossiping about her mum, a strange man is following her around, and worst of all, no one will tell Robyn the truth. But this town isn’t good at keeping secrets… Twelve years later, Robyn returns home, to a house that has stood empty for years and…
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Giveaway|Book Review – The Last Weekend of the Summer by Peter Murphy
They have been coming to their grandmother Gloria's lake cottage since they were babies. Now Johnnie and Buddy have families of their own and C.C. has a life full of adult drama and adventure. And this trip – the only stated purpose of which is to bring the family together for the last weekend of the summer – seems full of portent. Gloria has been hinting that there's more on the agenda than grilling and swimming, and when the three siblings learn that their estranged father will also be in attendance, it becomes clear that this weekend will have implications that last far beyond the final days of the season.
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Excerpt – The Last Weekend Of The Summer by Peter Murphy
Excerpt | The Last Weekend Of The Summer by Peter Murphy As the truck slithered to a halt on the gravel road, Susie and Joey took off. It was one of their cottage rituals, running to Gloria who stood waving from the veranda. For the last few years, Joey had let Susie win but had always made it look like he was running as fast as he could. Johnnie and Carol sat back and watched. They always gave the kids a few moments with Gloria before they joined them. “So, what’s really going on?” Carol asked without looking over at him. “What do you mean?” “There’s a little dark…
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Book Review – Three Days Missing – Kimberly Belle
It’s every parent’s worst nightmare: the call that comes in the middle of the night. When Kat Jenkins awakens to the police on her doorstep, her greatest fear is realized. Her nine-year-old son, Ethan, is missing—vanished from the cabin where he’d been on an overnight class trip. Shocked and distraught, Kat rushes to the campground, but she’s too late; the authorities have returned from their search empty-handed after losing Ethan’s trail in the mountain forest.
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The Higher Purpose Of Marriage
Most of us have the vaguest idea about life and future. We all these superficial, almost-fantasy dreams, don’t we? That’s the beauty of dreams. They can be absolutely superficial, and not every dream has to come true!
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Attachment and Love!
Love! It gets polluted by demands and expectations, possessiveness and jealousy, insecurity and suspicion. when you love each other ‘because of’ something, then of that cause goes away, the love also vanishes. The Cause for alarm!
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Book Review – Pretty Ugly Lies by Pamela Crane
Pretty Ugly Lies by Pamela Crane Published: 01 Aug 2018 by BloodHound Books Swathi's Rating: 4.5/5 Verdict: A perfect mix of crime and domestic chaos illustrated through sensible writing. Plot: A mother sits in a pool of blood—the blood of her family.
