Did you know that there are theories tracing the origin of April Fools' day to Chaucher's ‘The Canterbury Tales’?
With this in mind we thought we would celebrate April fools' day with some good reads!
Not sure what you want to read? Why not try clicking pause on the video to choose your next book?
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Raven's Redemption: A Cybertech Thriller by John D. Trudel
Durham had been a disaster. Everyone on Raven's team had been seriously wounded, and now Josie, the woman he loves and a major American asset due to her paranormal abilities, is in a drug-induced stupor at a medical facility. Wracked with guilt over his inability to have adequately anticipated and prepared for the danger, Raven is recuperating at the remote private estate in California known by the resident staff as “the Ranch.” However, when his boss, Dr. Goldfarb, wants him to extract Josie quickly and quietly from her hospital, he doesn't have to be asked twice. Although he doesn't know it at the time, the mission will be the crucial first step Raven will need to take to redeem himself in his own eyes.
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The Opal Dragon by James A. Calderwood
The Dragon starts his life in the Philippines on one of the smaller islands. Ali is the son of one of the town’s local prostitutes Zeena. He works the markets looking for customers for his mother, who is starting to lose her looks due to her age and the volatile lifestyle she has lead over the years. Drugs in her early years did not help. Zeena’s lifestyle has not helped Ali in his upbringing. He has been beaten by her customers on many occasions as he has tried to stop his mother being beaten by violent customers.
Ali launches into a life of crime after robbing and stabbing an elderly jewellery trader on his way home from work one night. The police are looking for Ali who slips out of town to stay with his aunt Sasha in the mountains. He is with Sasha for a long time and has met a nice girl in the village. For the first time in his life the eighteen year old Ali is happy. Gentle Sasha is murdered by a young terrorist. Ali catches him and stabs him. Ali and Zeena leave their island town for Manilla. A sense of normality finds its way into their life only to be shattered by a chance meeting with a violent customer from her past.
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The Pernicious Pachyderm: A Duncan Dewar Mystery by Victoria Benchley
When a boutique circus arrives in Taye, tourism is on the rise, but so is murder. Preparing for his upcoming nuptials and refurbishing his cottage aren't enough to keep Duncan occupied. A gruesome crime intrudes on the idyllic village, and as the detective becomes embroiled in the murky case, a specter from the past returns, threatening his happy ending. Can Duncan absolve an elephant accused of killing his ringmaster? Can he find the real killer before he or she strikes again? Will a jealous spirit from ancient Clan Neish hinder the Scotsman's wedding and harm his fiancée? Suspects abound as Dewar returns, joined by the usual cast of family and friends and several newcomers in his latest mystery set in beautiful Perthshire, Scotland.
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Children of the Enemy by D.J. Swykert
Jude St. Onge is a man on the run. He is an addict who has stolen a large cache of drugs from Detroit drug kingpin Mitchell Parson, who is determined to retrieve the drugs and take his revenge on Jude. After the torture slaying of Jude’s wife, and the kidnapping of Jude’s daughter, Angelina, the last thing Mitchell Parson expected to hear when he picked up the phone was: “I have your sons.” Raymond Little, with a murder conviction in his past, and newspaper reporter Ted Rogers have become unusual allies with Jude in an attempt to rescue his daughter. Together they kidnap Parson’s two boys, hoping to secure Angelina’s release. Risks for both hostage-takers skyrocket as the two sides square off, while Detroit Homicide Detectives work the case unaware of all that is at stake in the investigation. Only Ray and Ted can save the endangered children in Children of the Enemy.
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Blood and Thorne: Eva Thorne Book 3 by Lorel Clayton
Eva Thorne thought facing a werewolf, betrayal, and the army of Death was bad. She learns there are all new kinds of evil—and more enemies, as well as allies, than she ever imagined. All of them have an agenda, and all of them want the one thing she needs to defeat the Dead God and save her world from annihilation. Can she claim the First Soul before they do?
The bad guys all want her dead. Fortunately, some want the First Soul more, and they need her to get it. They hope it will make them a god. She wants it for her own reasons. It summoned the God of Death, and it can send Him back to the Void before His armies ‘cleanse’ everything she’s ever known from existence. The last strongholds of humanity have fallen. Only the Three Kingdoms of Avian, Dwarf and Elf still stand. Eva is running out of time, because even that alliance is crumbling, and the Elf King, Fharen, is hatching a desperate plan of his own to win the war, one that sacrifices everyone Eva cares about.
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Buried Deep in our Hearts by Tracie Barton-Barrett
“They are our companions on Life’s journey…and our memories of them will always be buried deep in our hearts.”
In Woodhaven Run, Michigan, Nivie Emerson, Bryn Troxell and Jacqueline Stanton have animals who touch their lives in many ways. As important members of their families, these steadfast companions bring joy and compassion into their homes through the ebbs and flows of life. But, when a beloved animal dies, the painful inevitability triggers grief and soul-searching. In the process of memorializing the animals, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, children and friends are connected to one another. A community solution is then created to foster healing and celebrate their animals’ lives.
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Murder in Madden by Raegan Teller
Enid Blackwell thinks she has discovered the perfect story to revive her journalism career. Her husband's cousin, Rose Marie Garrett, was brutally murdered ten years ago in a small town in South Carolina, and the killer was never found. Everyone in the family seems eager to forget Rosie because of her “bad girl” reputation, but Enid is determined to tell the story of the young girl’s tragic life. But bringing the truth to light may cost Enid more than she bargained for. When Rosie’s killer targets Enid, she knows the only way to save herself is to bring Rosie’s killer to justice.
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The Autobiography of Satan: Authorized Edition by William A. Glasser
From the moment of his first emergence as a single spark in the dimness of prehistory, to the more enlightening force into which he evolves across the full span of human existence, Satan, as he now clearly illustrates, has been urging human beings to open their eyes to the world around them, and to continue seeking, with unfettered minds, for ultimate answers, yet to be found. To do so he must struggle against the persistent attempts to stifle that urge by the “spoon feeders,” as he calls them, individuals who have insisted, within every age, and often with a bloody fist, that they, and they alone, are the possessors of the only beliefs that every human being should accept and live by, without question. As Satan traces the history of their many attempts to stop human beings from thinking for themselves, he also takes his readers on a search for the ultimate source of all evil in this world. Readers will obviously enter the book with the standard concept of Satan as a supernatural figure of evil. They will leave the book, however, with a better understanding of how such mind-twisting concepts have been used to keep people away from the “forbidden” knowledge that lies beyond the borders of entrenched beliefs.
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Blessings and Sudden Intimacies: Musings of a Pediatric Intensivist by Greg Stidham M.D.
This memoir follows the journey of a pediatric ICU physician, with recollections of many specific patients and their families, and the relationships he developed with them. It also chronicles his growth as a young adult preparing for a medical career, through parenthood, and finally grandparenthood. Dr. Stidham recalls moments that are tender and touching, others that are painful or frightening, and some that are just hilarious. Dr. Stidham’s journey is really two journeys, in parallel. One is his journey in medicine, as a deeply feeling pediatrician, specially trained to care for the most critically ill children and their families. The other is his journey as a husband, father, and finally grandfather. There is something in the story of these two journeys that will resonate with readers of many different types and backgrounds.
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Station Alpha: (Soldiering On #1) by Aislinn Kearns
A single phone call shatters her life…
Christine Ramirez’s phone rings in the dead of night. A man’s voice – unfamiliar and urgent – tells her to run.
She flees, but deadly, unknown assailants pursue her through the night. Her only saviour is the gruff stranger on the other end of the line.
Paul has a secret. He’s been watching her – maybe a little more than the assignment strictly requires. He shouldn’t reveal himself, but he can’t let anything happen to Christine. Even if it costs him the job that means the world to him.
With the mysterious villains still pursuing Christine, Paul whisks her away to a Soldiering On safe house. There, passion flares between them, hot and undeniable. And they are powerless to resist its lure, even as the villains get ever closer to finding them…
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Return to Me: God's Heart Cry by N.A. Newlan
Return to Me; God's Heart Cry starts by introducing the prophets, their life, experiences and their messages. It is written in an interactive style that through your imagine allows you to experience what they have and by a series of questions brings their world into yours. For example, how would you respond to being abandoned, found by a king's daughter and raised as royalty or what if you were eaten by a big fish only to be spit out on the beach, how would you feel? Would you be calm standing before hungry lions with no fear? Would you stand up for what you believed in even if you knew, if you did, you would be thrown in a furnace to be burned alive? How would you feel and what would you do in those circumstances?
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The Ice Racer by Richard Cozicar
The 23rd century. The climate has changed. Extreme winds, deadly sub-attic temperatures and towering, shifting drifts of snow roll across the face of the planet. Erupting volcanoes spew columns of dust and ash skyward. The air is toxic and the sun hasn't broken through the mass of clouds for millennia. Life is no longer able to inhabit the surface. The few remaining pockets of survivors live far beneath the ice cap in caves and air pockets formed when the climate collapsed.
The unforgiving planet is the world 21-year old Mike Ryan was born into. Home is a community near the base of Mount St. Helens called the New Capital. Crews of Ice Racers transport scavenged cargoes of fuel and food, supplies vital for the city's existence, across the icy, frozen realm topside back to the Capital. Few people are brave enough to venture into this hostile environment. Mike Ryan is one of them.
Lost on a voyage and separated from his ship, Ryan faces certain death in the midst of a monster storm driven by hurricane winds. His troubles compound when the ice he rests on fractures sending him hurtling deep beneath the crust of packed snow.
Far from home, he awakens in a massive cavern with a river of red and a shiny city of unfathomable resources populated by a civilization thought extinct centuries earlier. Ryan discovers the leaders of this hidden paradise are determined to keep the city and its people secret at all costs.
A young woman with a startling admission adds intrigue and challenge to the adventure and for Mike. To return home Ryan must battle both the deadly cold of the surface and a repressed society ruled by tyrants.
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Beats Me: Love, Poetry, Censorship, from Chicago to Appalachia by Maryrose Carroll
Beats Me is quintessentially a love story and a “fascinating account of some of the most vibrant, stormy and controversial times” in American literature including attempted censorship by the US Post Office.
The stories, told nightly, progress like Scheherazade's through the course of the last year of my husband, Paul Carroll's life, and include his wounded friendship with Allen Ginsberg.
After winning the censorship case. the history continues with his Big Table Books, including The Poem in its Skin and Young American Poets.
One of his great friendships started in 1959, with James Dickey who described his visits with Paul in Chicago as “I do sincerely believe that was the happiest I ever was in my life. The happiest.'
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Unfinished Justice by Janis Hutchinson
In this 1935 historical suspense novel, praised as “riveting and gripping” (Robert Dugoni, NY Times Best Seller), Ed Bowman, small town reporter for the Casey Clarion in Virginia, is unjustly convicted for the murder of his wife, committed by an escaped prisoner whose murder trial he just covered with an exclusive article that virtually guaranteed a guilty verdict.
Sentenced to life in the State Penitentiary, and losing faith in God to right his situation, he determines to redeem his shattered life and makes a daring escape to track down the killer in a high-risk chase across six states to the salt flats of Wendover, Utah. But an unexpected betrayal by a befriended Mormon leader brings his plans to a sudden stop, leaving him with no hope short of a miracle.
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Goddess by R.J. Castille
Leila King leads a double life…
In reality, she is a normal woman with everyday problems. A tough job as the Executive Assistant to an overbearing boss, Mr. Gordon Roth, whose sole purpose in life seems to be to make her life miserable.
As a powerful dominatrix in her other world, Leila takes on the persona of Goddess. In her fantasy world, Goddess rules with an iron fist and it begs for her mercy.
When her two worlds collide one night at the Red Velvet Room, a local BDSM club founded by her mentor and teacher, Master Jason, she is faced with a choice. Should she play along and usher her new subject into her world of domination and submission?
Goddess portrays a power-struggle that spills over into both Leila’s worlds culminating in a plethora of difficulties she must deal with while juggling her new play-thing, Gordon and her faithful servant, Matthew. A love triangle that is sure to have Leila on the edge of chaos.
How long can Leila ride the line between her fantasy and reality worlds undiscovered? We shall see…
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The Dragon Orb (The Alaris Chronicles Book 1) by Mike Shelton
The fate of a kingdom rests on the shoulders of three young wizards who couldn't be more different.
Bakari is a brilliant scholar wizard who's more at home in a library than a battlefield. Alli is a beautiful young battle wizard whose grace in battle is both enchanting and deadly. Roland is a counselor wizard with a seemingly limitless depth of untapped power — and the ego to match it.
As the magical barrier protecting the kingdom of Alaris from dangerous outsiders begins to fail, and a fomenting rebellion threatens to divide the country in a civil war, the three wizards are thrust into the middle of a power struggle.
When the barrier comes down, the truth comes out. Was everything they were taught about their kingdom based on a lie? Will they all choose to fight on the same side, or end up enemies in the battle over who should rule Alaris?
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Airliner Down by John Etzil
Flight 2262 is bound for paradise, but a rogue terrorist could send it to the bottom of the ocean…
Kevin can’t wait to land in Hawaii for a romantic getaway. But when the off-duty pilot takes a glance at his GPS, he’s in for a surprise: the plane is headed to the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And he’s the only one who knows it…
Expecting the worst, Kevin heads to the cockpit. Before he can take the controls, he’s got a rookie air marshal, a stewardess with a grudge, and a barricade to get through. With a storm on the way and limited fuel, Kevin must recruit the support of the frightened passengers to save the day. As long as he can survive the one person on board who won’t rest until all of them are dead…
Airliner Down is a fast-paced tech thriller that brings terror to the friendly skies. If you like pulse-pounding reads with compelling characters and chillingly real plots, then you’ll love John Etzil’s turbulent tale.
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Calliope Jones and The Last World Diver by Haylie Machado Hanson
Babysitter. Peacekeeper. Middle child. Ignored. That's sixteen-year-old Calliope Jones, the oddball “average” kid in a family of ultra-talented siblings. Being ordinary is just fine by Callie, who prefers to spend her days surfing the waters of California and trying to survive the dramas of high school. But when a rogue storm washes a mysterious, glowing object into the surf, she begins to discover she isn't as ordinary as she thought. Callie is drawn into the fantastical world of Dr. Ormonde and the giant World Diver, filled with stories of Navigators, Seers, living robots, gateways to other worlds, and ominous, deadly Shadowmancers. Callie is skeptical of Dr. Ormonde's strange theories, until a dark presence comes hunting her, threatening to hurt those she holds dear. She must decide if she is truly the ordinary teenager she thought she was, or if she and the World Diver share a destiny greater than she can imagine.
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The Chronocar by Steve Bellinger
Simmie Johnson was born the son of a slave. He was also a genius. After earning a PhD in physics from Tuskegee Institute, he wrote a paper outlining a theory for time travel, including plans for a time machine—called a chronocar—which was published in a scientific journal in the early 1900s . Since the technology required to build the chronocar did not yet exist, the paper and its brilliant writer faded into obscurity.
A century later, a young Illinois Tech student, Tony Carpenter, discovers the journal article and decides to build a chronocar so he can travel back to 1919 to meet the black scientist he hopes to emulate.
Unfortunately, time is not on his side.
Dr. Johnson is living in Chicago’s Black Belt with his beautiful daughter—and Tony arrives just in time for the bloodiest race riot in the city’s history. Can Tony use the chronocar to save his new friends, or will his attempt forever alter the future he hopes to return to?
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The Rejected Writers' Book Club by Suzanne Kelman
Librarian Janet Johnson is puzzled when she is invited—and practically dragged—to her first meeting of the Rejected Writers’ Book Club. This quirky group of women would much rather celebrate one another’s rejected manuscripts over cups of tea and slices of lemon cake than actually publish a book. But good friends are exactly what Janet needs after moving to the small town of Southlea Bay, Washington. Just as the ladies are about to raise a teacup to their five hundredth rejection letter, they receive bad news that could destroy one member’s reputation—and disband the group forever. To save the club, Janet joins her fellow writers on a wild road trip to San Francisco in search of the local publisher who holds the key to a long-buried secret. As they race to the finish line, they’ll face their fears—landslides, haunted houses, handsome strangers, ungrateful children—and have the time of their lives.
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Dear Maude by Denis Liebig
Life is safe for Emily Stanton, with a loving family and a full college scholarship. But a single phone call from her mother a day before her graduation brings her world to an end—her grandfather is dead, and suddenly, her childhood.
With her safety net crumbling with every step, Emily leaves the comfort of her family to fulfill a requirement of her college scholarship—to work for her sponsor, Evergreen Research Corporation.
Here, she must make the difficult decision to accept a job offer for a Top Secret project, without knowledge of her position, or repay the scholarship in full. Unwilling to put her family in an uncomfortable financial situation, Emily accepts the job.
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Chilrens Books
Ethel's New Home by Kathy Rogo
Ethel's New Home is a heartwarming story about a dwarf hamster who lives in a hamster tank with seven brothers and sisters. But Ethel has a problem, she is getting tired of having to share all the time with them. Ethel can't eat, drink, or sleep when she wants because her brothers and sisters are always in the way. Ethel decides the answer is to escape from the tank and find a new, more spacious place to live by herself. What waits outside of the tank for Ethel? Will she ever make her way home again? A story with a theme that both parents and children will enjoy reading together especially if they come from a large family.
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