I haven’t mentioned my partner in crime and my bees for a long time. Unfortunately the update is not a pleasant one. We lost the hives to mites and possibly robber bees. We are not completely sure. It was a very hard hit and really upsetting. We followed a mentors methods, and it just didn’t work out. This week we decided pick ourselves back up, dust ourselves off, and try again. I ordered two new colonies that should be ready in April, and we have plans to modify our methods. I am even getting excited about cleaning out the old bee boxes and painting them a few fun colors and patterns. We made a few mistakes, we are going to learn from them, and we are going to try again. I feel like I should do some sort of cheer. I will work on that later.

Outage Boxed Set: Books 1-3 (Outage Horror Suspense Series)
by T.W. Piperbrook
4.4 Stars (366 Reviews)
Genre: Science Fiction | Fantasy | Action & Adventure

FREE for a limited time

**For a few days only, the OUTAGE Boxed Set (Books 1-3) is FREE, and Books 4, 5, and the Epilogue story Control are also on sale for $0.99!**

Over 500 5-star reviews across the series!

This specially-priced bundle contains the first three books in the OUTAGE series:
*Outage
*Outage 2: The Awakening
*Outage 3: Vengeance

ABOUT OUTAGE:When an early snow ravages the small town of Plainfield, the residents are stripped of heat, power, and mobility. They’ll soon wish they had protection. Somewhere outside, something else is lurking. Waiting for the chance to strike…

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Friends Like These
by Hannah Ellis
4.4 Stars (134 Reviews)
Genre: Literature & Fiction | British

FREE for a limited time

Finding new friends shouldn’t be so difficult…

When newly single Marie decides to shake up her social life she knows exactly what she wants: stylish, sophisticated friends and no romantic complications.

But a chance encounter brings some unlikely characters into her life, throwing her plans way off course. She just can’t seem to get rid of this bunch of misfits!

And then there’s Brian, whose good looks and charm might just distract Marie from her ideas about staying single…

This wonderfully quirky British rom com is sure to leave you smiling.

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Keeper (The Morphid Chronicles Book 1)
by Ingrid Seymour
4.5 Stars (161 Reviews)
Genre: Teen & Young Adult

FREE for a limited time

“I will be transformed into something beautiful, but at what cost?”

My name is Samantha, but I prefer Sam.

I’m ordinary, which is fine. It’s just I want to be ordinary somewhere else — not here in this small town, living with my too-busy-to-care parents.

But ordinary ends the day Greg Papilio — a dark-haired, blue-eyed hottie — saves me from myself and a mysterious, magical stranger who blows up my car and swears he’ll be back to finish the job.

Turns out, I’m not ordinary. In fact, Greg says I’m not even human, but the member of a dying race. He says I’ll soon change and lose my free will. But that’s crazy, no one can live enslaved by their own instincts and the whims of Fate.

To drive the final screw into ordinary and prove me wrong, another stranger shows up claiming to be my fated mate. He’s cute, but no thank you. I make my own decisions, and they don’t involve moving into his fancy castle or becoming the leader of his people.

I’ll carve my own path, even if it kills me.

Keeper has magic, forbidden love and adventure, and will appeal to lovers of paranormal romance, urban fantasy, and The Mortal Instruments series.

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Cordial Killing: A Backyard Farming Mystery (cozy mystery)
by Vikki Walton
4.6 Stars (20 Reviews)
Genre: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense | Mystery | Women’s Fiction

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Snuggle up with a cozy mystery that will keep you guessing!

Cordial Killing (A Backyard Farming Mystery)

Anne is excited for the opening of the Brandywine Inn. Kandi and Hope are her partners in the bed-and-breakfast in Carolan Springs, Colorado, where they also provide homesteading and herbal workshops for guests.

As soon as the guests arrive, it’s plain that the five old college chums have bad blood between them. When Anne finds a threatening note, it’s clear that someone is out for revenge. Then they find a guest dead. At first, the death appears to be natural, but suspicions begin to grow.

When a blizzard threatens the Inn, will it trap them all with a killer and no way out?

Cordial Killing is a classic who-dun-it with a twist. Set in the fictional small town of Carolan Springs, you will enjoy an armchair getaway into beautiful Colorado.

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A Prairie Cookbook: Memories and Recipes
by Philip Wik
3.7 Stars (21 Reviews)
Genre: Cookbooks, Food & Wine | Nonfiction

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In Our Story, I describe the immigration of my ancestors from Sweden to South Dakota in the late 19th century. A Prairie Cookbook expands on that narrative. I copied dozens of recipes from cards and scraps of paper that date from those days. They were used to satisfy the hunger of pioneering families in the Midwestern United States.
I must frame your expectations before you read this book. These aren’t Old Country recipes. They’re recipes from the Midwest from the turn of the last century. You’ll find better recipes on how to make ox-tail soup, for example, on the internet and from other books, complete with full-spread glossy color illustrations. If you read this book for culinary how to instructions or the art of gourmet, you’ll be missing the point. Rather, my goal is to open a window into a vanishing world through the doorway of taste.
This book provides another dimension to understanding the lives of our ancestors. These recipes are as simple and as unpolished as those who worked the land. And yet they invoke an atmosphere that other histories may not fully capture. They become a kind of a time portal into the past. Crushed tomato leaves are an example for me. Their smell magically transports me back to my grandmother’s tomato garden when I was five years old. For you, it might be the smell of a holiday dinner or freshly baked cookies.
I’ve also included in this book photographs and memoirs written by those from those days, primarily in the first two decades of the 20th century. A part of my grandmother Emma Wik’s memoirs Sweden to America: A Story of Pioneering on the American Frontier and the writings of three of her children are in this book.
Despite the hardships they faced, the people of the plains had high aspirations and ideals. In 1918, Emma’s husband died, perhaps the Spanish flu epidemic that raged at the time. And yet she saw all eleven of her children go to college before and during the Great Depression. Many of her children went on to become educators and some got advanced degrees. Emma’s children also had strong literary skills, some of whom went on to write many articles and books. Emma’s children bore the middle names of writers and poets, an indication of the importance that education had to that family. My father’s middle name, for example, was Tennyson, perhaps also because he was the tenth in the family.
These memoirs help provide the context in which these meals were lovingly prepared, for children, grandparents, and field hands, and for holidays, weddings, funerals, and for daily life. Both these recipes and the memoirs give us a glimpse of an important time in the history of our nation and give us insight into the simple but strong character of the homesteaders of the Midwest.

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