Mysteries
Thursday’s Mystery eBooks
Crime and Cherry Pits
by Amanda Flower
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.5 #ad
A cherry festival. A shocking death. A second chance for a beloved family farm—if Shiloh Bellamy can keep her name off the suspect list.
Shiloh has poured her soul into saving her family’s Michigan orchard, so finally landing a booth at the Traverse City Cherry Farm Market feels like a dream. But as rivalries simmer and secrets threaten to burst, the festival takes a sinister turn: a respected drama professor collapses during the famed cherry pit-spitting contest, and Shiloh is drawn straight into the heart of another small-town mystery.
“F” is for Fugitive
by Sue Grafton
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.5 #ad
Floral Beach wasn’t much of a town: six streets long and three deep, its only notable feature a strip of sand fronting the Pacific. It was on that sandy beach seventeen years ago that the strangled body of Jean Timberlake had been found.
The people of floral Beach didn’t pay a whole lot of mind to past history, especially when Bailey Fowler, the self-confessed killer, had been properly processed and convicted. They weren’t even unduly concerned when, a year after the murder, Fowler walked away from the men’s prison at San Luis Obispo, never to be seen again. After all, everyone knew Jean had been a wild kid.
EMP Deep Freeze
by Colton Lively
Kindle $0.99 Rating: 4.6 #ad
In the aftermath of an EMP that plunges the world into darkness, Susan will do anything to protect her younger brother, Ronnie. Battling through plane wreckage and chaos, their only hope lies in reaching a remote family cabin, but danger lurks at every turn.
When they join forces with a former soldier on his own desperate search, the stakes rise as ruthless militias and a mysterious “safe haven” threaten everything. As trust fades and a dark truth comes to light, Susan must fight not just to survive, but to lead.
By the Light of the Moon
by Dean Koontz
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.5 #ad
Dylan O’Connor is a gifted young artist just trying to do the right thing in life. He’s on his way to an arts festival in Santa Fe when he stops to get a room for himself and his twenty-year-old autistic brother, Shep.
But in a nightmarish instant, Dylan is attacked by a mysterious “doctor,” injected with a strange substance, and told that he is now a carrier of something that will either kill him…or transform his life in the most remarkable way. Then he is told that he must flee–before the doctor’s enemies hunt him down for the secret circulating through his body. No one can help him, the doctor says, not even the police.
Pale Gray for Guilt
by John D. MacDonald, Lee Child
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.5 #ad
From a beloved master of crime fiction, Pale Gray for Guilt is one of many classic novels featuring Travis McGee, the hard-boiled detective who lives on a houseboat.
Travis McGee’s old football buddy Tush Bannon is resisting pressure to sell off his floundering motel and marina to a group of influential movers and shakers. Then he’s found dead. For a big man, Tush was a pussycat: devoted to his wife and three kids and always optimistic about his business – even when things were at their worst. So even though his death is ruled a suicide, McGee suspects murder . . . and a vile conspiracy.
Carousel Grift
by David Lane Williams
Kindle $5.99 Rating: 4.9 #ad
Callie Wind, single mom and owner of a quirky Texas amusement park, dreams of a carousel life, but her dead patriarch is determined to keep her on a chaotic thrill ride. He delights in their spectral arguments from beyond the grave.
Her estranged daughter Sophie—now a televangelist with a knack for pyramid schemes—wriggles her way back into Callie’s life with plans to turn the park into a shrine to her own ego. Caught between the old man’s ghostly antics and Sophie’s snake oil scams, Callie’s life is like snow cone syrup on pony droppings.
Yuletide Threat
by Margaret Daley, Valerie Hansen, Laura Scott
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.8 #ad
Standoff at Christmas by Margaret Daley: Anchorage K-9 officer Jake Nichols returns home for Christmas to recover from the accident that almost killed him—and find some peace. But those plans are shattered when childhood friend Rachel Hart gets caught up in a drug-smuggling ring after her aunt is murdered…
Christmas Escape by Valerie Hansen: veterinary assistant Rachel Fielding and her niece spend the holidays hiding from a killer with her boss, Kyle Roarke, and a capable K-9.
Yuletide Target by Laura Scott: someone’s gunning for Senior Airman Jacey Burke and her trusty K-9. But Staff Sergeant Sean Morris will do anything to keep her safe for Christmas.
The Spectacular
by Fiona Davis
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.4 #ad
New York City, 1956: Nineteen-year-old Marion Brooks knows she should be happy. Her high school sweetheart is about to propose and sweep her off to the life everyone has always expected they’d have together: a quiet house in the suburbs, Marion staying home to raise their future children. But instead, Marion finds herself feeling trapped. So when she comes across an opportunity to audition for the famous Radio City Rockettes – the glamorous precision-dancing troupe – she jumps at the chance to exchange her predictable future for the dazzling life of a performer.
The Blacksmith
by Frank Wheeler
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 5.0 #ad
A classic western novel from Frank Wheeler with non-stop epic adventure and a blend of western romance
Five years ago Tobias “TJ” Jackman shot a corrupt marshal in self-defense. He served five years for it, and now that he’s out, he’s never going back. Once, he was a blacksmith. Now, he’s a man trying to stay ahead of his own mistakes.
When he rides into San Carvo, all he wants is a fresh start and honest work. Instead, he finds Alyssa Welch. She’s sharp-minded, stubborn, and running a freight yard on the edge of ruin. Alyssa hires him out of desperation, not trust. He stays for the same reason.
The Cat Who Saved Books
by Sosuke Natsukawa, Louise Heal Kawai
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.2
From the #1 bestselling author in Japan comes a celebration of books, cats, and the people who love them, infused with the heartwarming spirit of The Guest Cat and The Travelling Cat Chronicles.
Bookish high school student Rintaro Natsuki is about to close the secondhand bookstore he inherited from his beloved bookworm grandfather. Then, a talking cat appears with an unusual request. The feline asks for—or rather, demands—the teenager’s help in saving books with him. The world is full of lonely books left unread and unloved, and the cat and Rintaro must liberate them from their neglectful owners.
Wednesday’s Mystery eBooks
Strangers Among Us
by L.R. Wright
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.3 #ad
A teenager arrested for his parents’ murder has a Canadian cop investigating the dark heart of his sunny seaside village in this acclaimed mystery series.
Vancouver’s “Sunshine Coast” is famous for its beautiful vistas, but closer inspection reveals a strong dose of dysfunction among its quaint villages. Eliot Gardener is maddeningly sullen as only an angry fourteen-year-old can be. He’s also, apparently, a double-murderer, having whacked both of his parents with a machete. At least it’s an open and shut case for Canadian Mountie Karl Alberg. Or is it?
Poor Table Manners
by Steve Sheppard
Kindle $0.99 Rating: 4.8 #ad
Dawson and Lucy hit Cape Town… and Cape Town hits back
When their new employer dies in a suspicious road accident and his brother, a South African government lawyer disappears in Cape Town, Dawson and Lucy are recalled to MI6. For once their mission is straightforward: liaise with Rebecca Erasmus of South African State Security and find the missing lawyer. Then Rebecca is kidnapped. Surely this has nothing to do with the forthcoming presidential election and the vengeful Chinese assassin in town…
Code Name Camelot
by David Archer
Kindle $0.99 Rating: 4.1 #ad
After witnessing the murder-suicide of his parents as a child, Noah suffers from a form of PTSD that has left him without emotion, without a conscience and without the ability to function as a normal human being. With the help of childhood friends, he learns to watch others around him and mimic their behaviors, in order to conceal the fact that his mind operates more like a computer that he has spent years programming. That program is what allows Noah to pass himself off as normal, by establishing parameters of right and wrong that are completely inviolable to him.
“H” is for Homicide
by Sue Grafton
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.4 #ad
His name was Parnell Perkins, and until shortly after midnight, he’d been a claims adjustor for California Fidelity. Then someone came along and put paid to that line of work. And to any other. Parnell Perkins had been shot at close range and left for dead in the parking lot outside California Fidelity’s offices.
To the cops, it looked like a robbery gone sour. To Kinsey Millhone, it looked like the cops were walking away from the case. She didn’t like the idea that a colleague and sometime drinking companion had been murdered. Or the idea that his murderer was loose and on the prowl. It made her feel exposed. Vulnerable.
The Moth Catcher
by Ann Cleeves
Kindle $2.99 Rating: 4.5 #ad
Life seems perfect in the quiet community of Valley Farm. Then a shocking discovery shatters the silence. The owners of a big country house have employed a house-sitter, a young ecologist, to look after the place while they’re away. But his dead body is found by the side of the lane—a lonely place to die.
When DI Vera Stanhope arrives on the scene, she finds the body of a second man. What the two victims seem to have in common is a fascination with studying moths—and with catching these beautiful, intriguing creatures.
McNally’s Chance
by Lawrence Sanders, Vincent Lardo
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.5 #ad
Bestselling author Sabrina Wright wants dapper detective Archy McNally to find her husband, who vanished while looking for her MIA daughter—it may seem like a simple case, but McNally knows it’s never that easy.
Thirty-year-old Gillian Wright ran off to find her birth father, opening a Pandora’s box of scandalous revelations the tabloids can’t resist. It seems that Sabrina’s life was a bigger fiction than her bodice-ripping romances. Before her story is over, three powerful men with damning secrets could be outed . . . and murder will be the denouement. As McNally stumbles on one cover-up after another, he has one last chance to catch a killer who will stop at nothing to protect his name.
Dark Angel
by John Sandford
Kindle $1.99 Rating: 4.5 #ad
Letty Davenport’s days working a desk job at are behind her. Her previous actions at a gunfight in Texas—and her incredible skills with firearms—draw the attention of several branches of the US government, and make her a perfect fit for even more dangerous work. The Department of Homeland Security and the NSA have tasked her with infiltrating a hacker group, known only as Ordinary People, that is intent on wreaking havoc. Letty and her reluctant partner from the NSA pose as free-spirited programmers for hire and embark on a cross country road trip to the group’s California headquarters.
Fairy Tale
by Stephen King
Kindle $4.99 Rating: 4.6 #ad
Master storyteller Stephen King goes into the deepest well of his imagination in this #1 New York Times bestselling and spellbinding novel about a young man who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher—for that world or ours.
Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a horrific accident when he was seven, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself—and his dad. When Charlie is seventeen, he meets a dog named Radar and her aging master, Howard Bowditch, a recluse in a big house at the top of a big hill, with a locked shed in the backyard. Sometimes strange sounds emerge from that shed.
Owen
by William Black
Kindle $0.99 Rating: 5.0 #ad
Owen rides into Buffalo Springs looking for a new beginning. What he finds is hell on earth.
Buffalo Springs, Texas, 1868: Judge Thad Sinclair rules with bullets and fear. His hired guns patrol the streets, his mines bleed Spiderback Canyon dry, and no one who tries to leave survives.
For the townsfolk, freedom is a dream paid for in blood.
A Confederate veteran hardened by war, Owen Kirkland won’t stand by while innocents suffer. With his frontier cunning and unflinching aim, he becomes the spark of rebellion against Sinclair’s empire of greed.
The 4 Forces of Growth
by Kevin N. Lawrence
Kindle $0.99 Rating: 5.0 #ad
Why do some companies keep growing while others stall?
Like pilots navigating turbulence, CEOs must handle the invisible forces that want to drag their companies down and learn to take advantage of the ones that keep them soaring. Drawing from three decades as a growth advisor to CEOs around the world, Kevin Lawrence explains how even exceptional leaders can become victims of their own success and reveals what it takes to keep a company on course.
Filled with on-the-ground examples from real CEOs, The 4 Forces of Growth offers a clear path to achieving real, consistent, and scalable growth by harnessing a few simple tools and avoiding common pitfalls.
The Threads of Becoming
by Tamara Hill
Kindle $0.99 Rating: 5.0 #ad
A debut poetry collection that offers an intimate exploration of modern womanhood.
As a single mother, successful businesswoman, and global traveler, Tamara Hill doesn’t back down from hardship. In the face of sorrow, she’s become only more resilient and creative. In The Threads of Becoming, Tamara shares her hard-earned life lessons through a poetic lens that reflects on love and loss. “I have carved a life that is wholly mine,” she writes. “I am not waiting for rescue.”