Welcome to my inaugural holiday book giving gift guide! This isn’t a list of holiday books. Instead, these are all amazing books that deserve a spot on the bookshelf (virtual or real) of every book lover on your gift giving list (including yourself). This collection of 20 books spans 8 genres. Every book on the list was written by Kansas City based authors. Whether you’re looking to support local (and mostly indie) authors or just want to read a great story from someone who may just be your neighbor, I invite you to take a look, and find your next favorite book.
Children’s Books
Our Gift of Grace
By Dayonne Nicole
We all need a little grace in our life – including you! In this heart-felt children’s book, you will learn about a little girl named Grace who becomes an example how we should be more kind to ourselves and show love to others. No matter what giants you face, there’s always room for grace!
Sullen Sally
By Jim “Mr. Stinky Feet” Cosgrove
Sullen Sally is a celebration of friendship and uses a mix of lyrical rhymes and colorful illustrations to remind children that nobody is expected to feel happy all the time. The story provides an opportunity for adults and children to talk about feelings and the meaning of true friendship.
The Stick & Mr. Pig
By Daniel Hobart & Julie Heide
Bring your early reader along on the first adventure of ace pet detectives The Stick & Mr. Pig as they investigate the Case of the Missing Marbles!For even more fun – you get to PICK YOUR ENDING!This story is a great resource for parents and educators alike as a fun way to teach kids about making good choices.
Dystopian / Fantasy
Falling & Uprising
By Natalie Cammaratta
Serenity Ward is the golden girl of Kaycie. She never questioned her city’s status as the last dry land on earth. The Establishment takes care of its citizens…or so she thought. But now she’s seen the map.
Why would they lie about other islands just beyond the horizon? In a city built on falsehood, figuring out who to trust is its own challenge, but Serenity pulls together a feisty group who all want the same thing—an end to the government which has hidden a world from them.
Heresy: Book 1 of The Heretics Saga
By C.A. Campbell
In Arcadia, being different is HERESY.
Heresy is DEATH.
To survive, citizens must live, dress, and even love according to the United Council’s will. Their power is absolute—until a rebel bomb ignites at a national ceremony and unites the lives of three unlikely people. When the bombing goes wrong, Nicolette Howell, a young heretic, finds herself alone and on the run, bearing secrets that Arcadia would kill for. When she’s captured, she must escape, but how can she, when her best chance lies with the son of her sworn enemy?
Literary Fiction
Thin Blue Smoke
By Doug Worgul
An epic American redemption tale about love and loss, hope and despair, God and whiskey, barbecue and the blues. LaVerne Williams is a ruined ex-big league ballplayer, an ex-felon with an attitude problem, and the owner of a barbecue joint he has to run. Ferguson Glen is an Episcopal priest, a fading literary star with a drinking problem, and a past he is running from. A.B. Clayton and Sammy Merzeti are two lost souls in need of love, understanding, and another cigarette. Hilarious and heart-rending, sacred and profane, this book marks the emergence of a vital new voice in American fiction.
Twelve and a Half Hearts
By Ian Cahill
She is perfect. She is beautiful. She has a secret.
Follow Sue Anderson and the relationships she forms along the way from high school valedictorian through her thirties as she attempts to overcome a devastating discovery. Hear her story through the eyes of those that cross her path. They share in her joys and pains as she pushes and pulls them in and out of her life.
Mysteries
Pilate’s Cross: Book 1 of The John Pilate Mystery Series
By J. Alexander Greenwood
He needed a fresh start…what he got was murder.
Will this embattled college professor risk it all?
John Pilate has had a tough run and when the opportunity presents itself, opts for a fresh start in a sleepy college town. It’s the new beginning he needs, to cleanse himself from a bitter divorce. But murder is the last thing he expects to find in the middle of nowhere, with a conspiracy to match, as he uncovers a brutal truth about a long-standing cold case. With the odds stacked against him and a mystery threatening to drag him in over his head, will John risk everything to set things right?
The Price of Conceit
By J.J. Falco
Arrogance has a price. Small town life in rural Texas suits Detective Dan Kibirli. He has the respect and admiration of the people living there and the cases he investigates are as straightforward as it gets. But when he finds himself trapped in a baffling secret room in the basement of the Claremonte County Courthouse with no memory of how he got there, Kibirli begins to see that his life in Claremonte may not be quite as simple as he perceives it to be. Saddled with the inept deputy, Frank Wells, and the unsolicited advice from his alcoholic friend, Dr. Darwin Canton, Kibirli tries to discover the identity of the person who trapped him all while trying to keep his most recent case from being thrown out of court.
Nonfiction
Expedition of Thirst: Exploring Breweries, Wineries, and Distilleries Across The Heart of Kansas and Missouri
By Pete Dulin
This travel guidebook explores 150 breweries, wineries, and distilleries across eastern Kansas and western Missouri, and introduces the men and women behind the craft. The routes explore the landscape beyond the interstate highway. I share insight into the history, culture, and geography of this midwestern territory. The travel guidebook is filled with color photography, travel notes, and recommendations. An extensive index makes it easy to find destinations or reference grapes grown, wines and spirits produced, and beer styles available in the region. Grab this book, plot a course, and hit the road on your own adventure.
Midlife Bites
By Jen Mann
Jen Mann had what appeared to be the perfect life: a successful career as a bestselling author and award-winning blogger, a devoted husband, teenage kids who weren’t total jerks, and a badass minivan. So imagine her surprise when, at forty-seven years old, a midlife crisis kicked her straight in the ladybits.
Our Journey to El Dorado: Two Women, Two Immigrants, Two Worlds Collide— A True Story of Faith and Freedom from Human Trafficking
By M.F. Renée
An unexpected encounter changes the lives of two women—both immigrants searching for purpose and a better life. Through their interwoven journey, both will question and embrace their faith.
When one is asked to be the Arabic translator for a Moroccan woman newly arrived at a Spanish safe house, she has no idea of the journey upon which she is embarking. Born into privilege, she will come face to face with the ugly, dark side of the world, the suffering so many endure. She will also discover the joy and heartbreak of loving broken women, joining forces with them, fighting back to survive and thrive.
Poetry
Concentrate
By Courtney Faye Taylor
In her virtuosic debut, Courtney Faye Taylor explores the under-told history of the murder of Latasha Harlins―a fifteen-year-old Black girl killed by a Korean shop owner, Soon Ja Du, after being falsely accused of shoplifting a bottle of orange juice. Harlins’s murder and the following trial, which resulted in no prison time for Du, were inciting incidents of the 1992 Los Angeles uprising, and came to exemplify the long-fraught relationship between Black and Asian American communities in the United States. Through a collage-like approach to collective history and storytelling, Taylor’s poems present a profound look into the insidious points at which violence originates against―and between―women of color.
Erring in Circles
By Amy Zoellers
Seventeen Morning Drives
Let’s go for a ride — to high school! — with a countdown to dropout status!
Pizza Box Nudes
(the lone remedy)
(our only hope)
Poetry and art collide again in this latest life-and-death-gorged collection, fat with hometown ghosts, by Amy Zoellers, your favorite cool-breeze hysteric!
Still Growing Wildflowers
By Alisha Christensen
Here’s the thing about wildflowers…they dance, even when it seems there is nothing worth dancing for. They bloom with or without you.
Readers who love “Milk and Honey”, “The things I didn’t say in therapy”, and “The Princess Saves Herself in This One” will relate to Still Growing Wildflowers: a poetry collection that journeys through past trauma, death, and grief to find a path to healing.
Romance
Never Cross a Highlander
By Lisa Rayne
Ailsa Connery has waited three long years to finally escape her enslavement at Stirling Castle and reunite with her clan. But her carefully laid plans are completely destroyed by the arrival of the infamous Highland warrior known as Dubh Mahoun, the Black Devil…who has plans of his own.
Kallum MacNeill’s fearsome reputation has long allowed him to keep hidden his secret double life of freeing enslaved captives across the land. It’s only when he kidnaps a servant lass―quite by accident―that he finds himself facing a wee predicament. He must accompany the lass home or risk her exposing his true identity. It’d be easy enough…if the feisty hellion didn’t fight him at every turn.
Stealing Chaos: Book 1 of Honorable Criminals Series
By Sarah Leyton
Roman Blinov might have rescued her this time, but Anna “Sway” Tyler isn’t about to give him what he wants or confide in him the secrets she carries. She’s on a mission, and he’s in her way.
Roman doesn’t trust criminals, especially not ones who change their identity as quickly and effectively as Sway. As they say, there is no honor among thieves. Forced to work together on a mission from Interpol to capture Sway’s financier, the man who taught her everything she knows, Sway and Roman must decide if trusting each other is worth the risk.
Thrillers/Suspense
A Killer Secret
By Jeff Berney
Would you kill to keep a secret?
That’s the question haunting three people whose lives become inescapably intertwined by the secrets that define them and ultimately threaten to tear them apart.
A disgraced professor, a disenchanted psychologist and a deceitful patient are about to learn more than they expected about each other and themselves. Will their relationships survive their secrets? Will they?
Everyone has secrets.
Some are just darker than others.
And some, well, they’re worth killing to keep.
The Colorado Killer
By Breanna McGinnis
Recently single Charlotte travels to Colorado after her fiancé calls off their wedding. After being stranded in a blizzard, she is rescued by Liam, the mysterious hunting guide wanted for 13 murders.
Liam moved to Redbrook to leave his past behind. With a new name, he is now the town’s hunting guide, leading tourists on wild game hunts. With his secretive past and lack of an alibi, he is the first suspect when one of his tourist is found murdered. And not just any suspect, this murder has been tied to 12 previous deaths and the killer has been coined The Colorado Killer.
Is Charlotte truly rescued or simply set up for an even worse fate than freezing to death?
The Fall of Faith
By Jeff Berney
How strong is your faith?
“The Fall of Faith” is a gritty domestic thriller about love, faith and the consequences of doing whatever it takes to survive. The book follows Jimmy, a trucker on his last run who has nothing to go home to. When his truck breaks down in Eden, Missouri, Jimmy learns the hard way that the small town is nothing like its biblical namesake. And he soon finds himself falling in love with a local woman as danger closes in on him from every angle.
