Mother’s Day

I love stories about family in all its various forms. So, for Mother’s Day this year, I pulled together a list of great reads that all center around a mom.  There are romances on the list, as well as mysteries, humor, and women’s fiction.  Some are on sale, some are regular price.  All will delight you.

Enjoy!!  Pat Keelyn

STILL KICKING by Judith Arnold

(A Lainie Lovett Mystery: Book #1)

Lainie Lovett’s passions, in no particular order, are her son and daughter, the fourth-grade class she teaches, and the Rockettes, the recreational league women’s soccer team in the sleepy Boston suburb of Rockford, Massachusetts. When Lainie spots the husband of one of her Rockettes teammates canoodling with another woman under the electric jalapenos at El Camino Restaurant one night, she is discreet—until he turns up dead, shot with a nail gun in a half-built McMansion his construction company was developing. Could his betrayed wife have killed him? Or maybe his buxom girlfriend? Or his alienated teenage son, who had once been a student of Lainie’s? Or maybe one of the anti-development environmentalists trying to shut down his business? Or the hunky construction foreman who was always butting heads with him?

All Lainie wants to do is teach, make her gray hairs disappear and score against arch-rival Burlington in a soccer game—and maybe have a sex life, if that’s not asking too much. But once she becomes one of the Rockford Police Department’s prime suspects in Arthur Cavanagh’s murder, she’ll have to clear her name before she’ll ever be able to lace on her soccer cleats again.

Cozy Mystery

FREE First in Series

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ANGEL OF THE MORNING by Judith Arnold

(Magic Jukebox Series: Book #7)

A lot can change in six years. The last time Dylan Scott was in Brogan’s Point, he was a nobody. Now he’s rich and famous. But he still has memories of the charming seaside New England town where he’d spent one unforgettable night with Gwen Parker, a local shop clerk who’d wanted nothing more than a no-strings-attached fling. Six years later,  she’s still in town—only now she owns the shop. She’s practically engaged to be married. And she’s got a five-year-old daughter who looks an awful lot like Dylan.
One thing hasn’t changed in Brogan’s Point: the antique jukebox in the Faulk Street Tavern. It still plays oldies, and those oldies can still cast spells over the tavern’s patrons. When the jukebox plays “Angel of the Morning,” a plaintive ballad about love without commitment, Dylan and Gwen realize that walking away from what they’d once had might have been the biggest mistake of their lives. Now, six years later, is it too late to make things right?

Romance

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WINE IN MY SIPPY CUP by Deborah Dove

A sophisticated, put together career woman prior to having kids, now Liz Cartwright is lucky to go to the bathroom by herself, much less get out of the house wearing matching shoes and a clean shirt. While she is preoccupied with the sometimes mind-numbing responsibilities of motherhood, her husband is becoming increasingly distant and preoccupied with work, giving Liz the distinct impression that she is losing her husband along with her sense of identity. Armed with a book on spicing up her sex life purchased at a sex toy party and the help of her three best girlfriends, Liz embarks on an all-out attempt to rejuvenate her marriage and find personal fulfillment.

However, things in Liz’s life have a tendency to fail with hilarious results, and her attempts to woo her husband are no exceptions. Despite numerous setbacks—a pantiless tennis court seduction gone awry, a stolen vibrator and an unfortunate incident involving a thong—Liz is determined to reclaim her romantic mojo, until a chance encounter with her first love and a hobby that inadvertently turns into a job opportunity make Liz reevaluate what love inside marriage means and the price she is willing to pay to reclaim her sense of self-worth.

Humor

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REASON TO BELIEVE by Kathleen Eagle

Can their marriage survive the ultimate betrayal?

Young and passionately in love, Clara and Ben Pipestone came from vastly different worlds. She was a college student, studying the indigenous people of the Great Plains. He fixed cars in the winter and followed the amateur Indian rodeo circuit all summer. Ignoring those who doomed their relationship to failure, they married, settled into their life in Bismarck, North Dakota, and had a beautiful daughter, Anna.

But now, thirteen years later, Ben’s alcoholism blurs his judgment and lands him in the arms of another woman. The betrayal has torn their marriage apart, and their daughter is paying the price. Shoplifting, drinking, and running with a bad crowd, Anna is out of control. Determined to save their troubled teenage daughter, Clara and Ben take Anna and join a two week trek on horseback across an unforgiving winter terrain, a journey across sacred land in remembrance of Ben’s Lakota ancestors.

Can their journey bring them a better understanding of the past and each other? Can it heal their broken trust and unite them as a family?

Women’s Fiction

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JACK’S HEART by Patricia McLinn

(Wyoming Wildflowers)

Valerie Trimarco is very pregnant, very lost and very stuck. Her car is jammed in a snowy Wyoming ditch when a white knight in a cowboy hat shows up. Rancher Jack Ralston handles anything that needs handling with cool, quiet competence, including a baby who’s decided it’s time to come into the world.

A few years later, Valerie returns to Knighton, Wyoming, to  thank the man who rescued her and delivered her baby. Okay, she’s wondered about him a time or two over the years. How could she not?

Yes, Jack can handle anything. Except this open, energetic, talkative woman and her short-stuff kid who gets under his guard. Because they demand the one thing from him that he can’t handle – love.

Romance

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HER FOREVER COWBOY by Debra Salonen

(West Coast Happily-Ever-After: Book 1)

A bull rider and a New York executive walk into a Nevada B&B . . .

Single mom Anne Fraser has sacrificed plenty to get ahead in the world of corporate hotel management. Just ask her eight-year-old daughter, Zoey. When her stepfather asks Anne to fill her late mother’s shoes at the Silver Rose Guest Ranch, Anne can’t say no. Even if the job includes sharing the reins with the man whose kiss she’s never forgotten.

Will Cavanaugh planned to be the top bull rider in the country. He’s come close in his fifteen-year career, but now an injury has him sidelined for the summer. He answers his grandfather’s plea for help but soon realizes he’s facing a new dilemma. Could one summer with Anne and her daughter possibly be enough? Or is it just the beginning?

Battered and a bit disillusioned by life, Will and Anne return to the Silver Rose to repay old debts. To fall in love again. But, just for the summer.

Or, maybe . . .  for a lifetime

Romance

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THE PERFECT FAMILY by Kathryn Shay

NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author delivers heartfelt family scenes, biting social commentary and a unique look the healing power of forgiveness.

What happens to the perfect family when a teenage boy comes out? That’s the question the Davidson family must deal with. Jamie, the gay son, just wants to live his life out of the shadows. Maggie, mother, teacher and psychologist, will do anything to protect her child, even side with him against her husband. Mike, a loving, giving father can’t reconcile his beloved Catholic Church’s indictment of homosexuality with his deep unconditional love for his boy. And Brian longs for things to go back to the way they were before the jocks at school started to taunt his brother and turn against him. But when tragedy strikes Jamie’s new boyfriend, they all begin to look at their lives differently and work harder to save their perfect family.

Women’s Fiction

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