The only thing better than a good book? A good book that you don’t have to spend a lot of money on. Check out the Beaufort titles that were selected for the Barnes and Noble Under $2.99 Sale, ending April 27.
Red Hotel by Ed Fuller and Gary Grossman
Sale Price: $2.99
When a bomb rips the façade off the Kensington Hotel in Tokyo, dozens are killed and injured while one man walks calmly away from the wreckage, a coy smile playing on his lips. Former Army intelligence officer Dan Reilly, now an international hotel executive with high level access to the CIA, makes it his mission to track him down. He begins a jet-setting search for answers as the clock ticks down to a climactic event that threatens NATO and the very security of member nations. Reilly begins mining old contacts and resources in an effort to delve deeper into the motive behind these attacks, and fast. Through his connections he learns that the Tokyo bomber is not acting alone. But the organization behind the perpetrator is not who they expect.
Facilitated by the official government from a fearsome global superpower, the implications and reasons for these attacks are well beyond anything Reilly or his sources in the CIA and State Department could have imagined, and point not to random acts of terror, but calculated acts of war. RED Hotel is an incredibly timely globe-trotting thriller that’s fiction on the edge of reality.
North of the Tension Line by J.F. Riordan
Sale Price: $0.99
Fiona Campbell is a newcomer to tiny Ephraim, Wisconsin. Populated with artists and summer tourists, Ephraim has just enough going on to satisfy her city tastes. But she is fascinated and repelled by the furthest tip of Door County peninsula, Washington Island, utterly removed from the hubbub of modern life. Fiona’s visits there leave her refreshed in spirit, but convinced that only lunatics and hermits could survive a winter in its frigid isolation.
In a moment of weakness, Fiona is goaded into accepting a dare that she cannot survive the winter on the island in a decrepit, old house. Armed with some very fine single malt scotch and a copy of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, Fiona sets out to win the dare, and discovers that small town life is not nearly as dull as she had foreseen. Abandoning the things she has always thought important, she encounters the vicious politics of small town life, a ruthless neighbor, persistent animals, a haunted ferry captain, and the peculiar spiritual renewal of life “north of the tension line.”
That Good Night by Richard Probert
Sale Price: $2.99
Condemned to spend his “Golden Years” cooped up in Sunset Nursing Home, 84-year-old Charlie Lambert refuses this ending for himself. With the help of an old sailing buddy living in Maine, Charlie plans to go AWOL permanently, buy a boat, and hit the high seas, where he will live out the remainder of his life on his own terms.
Nothing ever goes quite as planned, though, and as Charlie heads towards Maine on a 46-foot sailboat, he strikes up an unexpected romance with Abigail, a woman decades his junior. Things take a darker turn, though, when he discovers a former FBI agent-turned-insurance-investigator hot on his trail. Agent Roberts has been hired to find out what happened to Charlie: bring him back if he’s alive, or determine he’s dead so his estranged sons can collect on his life insurance policy. Roberts doesn’t expect a fight from the old man, but that’s just what he gets. Because Charlie has no intention of ever returning to Sunset, whether in handcuffs or a pine box.
Funny, heart-warming, and heart-breaking, That Good Night tells the story of a man who, rather than rail against going “gentle into that good night,” as Dylan Thomas wrote, instead wishes to simply sail into a sunset of his own choosing.
Game of Inches by Webb Hubbell
Sale Price: $1.99
Billy Hopper’s life is pretty damn good. He’s a wide receiver for the Los Angeles Lobos and he’s just been named Rookie of the Year. But he’s about to lose it all. On a frigid March morning at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., Billy wakes up to find that he’s been sleeping with a dead girl. And now he’s got her blood on his hands, literally. But he’s also got Jack Patterson: a D.C. lawyer who’s determined to get to the bottom of the murder and prove Billy’s innocence. There’s only one problem. They’re at war with a powerful, sinister man, and the people closest to Jack are in the line of fire. Can Jack and his team solve this case before his family pays the ultimate price? This latest Jack Patterson thriller exposes the underbelly of the NFL and the role of big money in shady D.C. politics. Believe it or not, murder is just the tip of the iceberg.
Floreana by Margret Wittmer
Sale Price: $2.99
The remarkable first-hand account of Margret Wittmer, who settled the island of Floreana in the Galapagos-600 miles from the mainland of Ecuador. It took Wittmer and her family weeks to travel to the island in 1932; they battled with the ties for three full days before they could land.
Wittmer and her husband left their home and family in Germany, seeking a new life in a place not yet touched by civilization. Their first home was a cave, previously abandoned by pirates. They planted their first garden, only to find it torn up continually by wild boars.
Five months pregnant when she arrived, Wittmer found the beauty of the tropical island constantly tempered by the traumas of attempting everyday life in a wild and lonely spot. From the mysterious disappearance of a stranger linked to another recluse on the island, to a missed opportunity to meet President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 56 years recalled in this memoir are full of exotic adventures and the joys and tragedies of a lifetime.
Red Carpets and White Lies by Lea Black**
Sale Price: $2.99
In a city known for its never-ending parties, Miami socialite Leigh Anatole White’s annual Charity Ball, an extravagant star-studded benefit for troubled teens, is the most highly anticipated event of the season.
This year the pressure is on: At the tenth anniversary of the Ball, Leigh is going to give Miami one last blowout before relinquishing her title as hostess. With help from her committee, a few close friends, a masterful personal assistant and her supportive husband, Leigh is poised to deliver. Even the dirty secrets and entanglements of pseudo-friends, gossip girls, drag queens, and botoxed backstabbers, can’t slow her down.
When an influential art dealer shows up, offering to provide high-end artwork for the Charity Ball’s auction, Leigh is thrilled. This is just what the gala needs to set it apart from previous years, and after all of Leigh’s hard work, it looks as though the last Charity Ball may just live up to the hype. But as always in the world of Miami’s rich and shameless, a scandal is never far off, and this one hits everyone close to home.
**On sale May 1-May 17
In the Company of Legends by Joan Kramer and David Heeley**
Sale Price: $2.99
In The Company Of Legends is an insider’s view of Hollywood’s famous and powerful: behind-the-scenes stories of Katharine Hepburn, Johnny Carson, Frank Sinatra, Lew Wasserman, Richard Dreyfuss, Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Jane Fonda, Elizabeth Taylor, Audrey Hepburn, James Stewart, and Bette Davis, among others.
Starting with their award-winning profiles of Fred Astaire in 1980, Joan Kramer and David Heeley produced film portraits of the lives and careers of many Hollywood legends, establishing a reputation for finding the un-findable, persuading the reluctant, and maintaining unique relationships long after the end credits rolled. Their stories of the productions and the personalities involved are often amusing, sometimes moving, always revealing, and most of all have never been told before. The book also features more than two dozen raw and never before seen photos!
**On sale May 18-May 31