Mysteries
Wednesday’s Mystery eBooks
Recipes for Love and Murder
by Sally Andrew
Rating: 4.5 #ad
A bright new talent makes her fiction debut with this first entry in a delicious crime set in rural South Africa – a flavorful blend of The #1 Ladies Detective Agency and Goldie Schulz series, full of humor, romance, and recipes and featuring a charming cast of characters.
Tannie Maria (Tannie meaning Auntie, the respectful Afrikaans address for a woman older than you) is a middle-aged widow who likes to cook – and eat. She shares her culinary love as a recipe columnist for the local paper – until The Gazette decides its readers are hungrier for advice on matters of the heart rather than ideas for lunch and dinner.
Blood of Elves
by Andrzej Sapkowski
Rating: 4.5 #ad
For over a century, humans, dwarves, gnomes, and elves have lived together in relative peace. But that peace has now come to an end.
Geralt of Rivia, the hunter known as the Witcher, has been waiting for the birth of a prophesied child. The one who has the power to change the world for good – or for evil.
As the threat of war hangs over the land and the child is pursued for her extraordinary powers, it will become Geralt’s responsibility to protect them all. And the Witcher never accepts defeat.
Come Sundown
by Nora Roberts
Rating: 4.5 #ad
The Bodine ranch and resort in western Montana is a family business, an idyllic spot for vacationers. A little over thirty thousand acres and home to four generations, it’s kept running by Bodine Longbow with the help of a large staff, including new hire Callen Skinner. There was another member of the family once: Bodine’s aunt, Alice, who ran off before Bodine was born. She never returned, and the Longbows don’t talk about her much. The younger ones, who never met her, quietly presume she’s dead. But she isn’t. She is not far away, part of a new family, one she never chose—and her mind has been shattered…
The Memory Box
by Kathryn Hughes
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Jenny Tanner opens the box she has cherished for decades. Contained within are her most precious mementoes, amongst them a pebble, a carving and a newspaper cutting she can hardly bear to read. But Jenny knows the time is finally here. After the war, in a mountainside village in Italy, she left behind a piece of her heart. However painful, she must return to Cinque Alberi. And lay the past to rest.
After a troubled upbringing, Candice Barnes dreams of a future with the love of her life – but is he the man she believes him to be? When Candice is given the opportunity to travel to Italy with Jenny, she is unaware the trip will open her eyes to the truth she’s been too afraid to face. Could a place of goodbyes help her make a brave new beginning?
The White Cockade
by Mark James Miller
Rating: 4.4 #ad
“A fictional character intertwined with real-life historical figures and events creates an engaging, difficult-to-put-down read that will definitely leave you wanting more.” –Sublime Book Review
The first shots of the American Revolution. The battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill. The British Major at Lexington shouting, “Disperse, you damned rebels!” The American Colonel at Bunker Hill, calmly saying: “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes!”
The White Cockade is the story of the early days of the American Revolution and of the men and women caught up in it: Josiah, who doesn’t want war but can’t escape it. Hugo, once Josiah’s best friend but now his bitter enemy. Mercy, who dreams of marrying Josiah. Walter, eager to fight the British…
Dead Man’s Grip
by Peter James
Rating: 4.3 #ad
A university student is killed in a tragic traffic accident while riding their bicycle. When two of the drivers involved are hunted down by a sadistic killer, Grace knows that the third driver, Carly Chase, may be next.
Carly, a solicitor, believes hiding is not an option and heads to New York to speak with the cyclist’s mother. But Grace knows about the mother’s underworld connections and that the family will stop at nothing to take an eye for an eye . . .
The Knocker on Death’s Door
by Ellis Peters
Rating: 4.4 #ad
A news photographer is found dead at the threshold of the church of Saint Eata, his hand extended to the door’s great cast-iron knocker. Surely it is not a coincidence when a second victim is discovered in eerily similar circumstances?
Legend holds that sinners who seize the knocker have their hands burned by the cold iron, but Gerry Bracewell didn’t die of burns, and neither did the second victim. Did they knock on death’s door, or is a more down-to-earth killer at large? Detective Chief Inspector George Felse watched the ceremony to rededicate the door, but little did he know that he would be called back to Mottisham to investigate murder. . . .
Tuesday’s Mystery eBooks
On Borrowed Crime
by Kate Young
Rating: 4.3 #ad
The Jane Doe book club enjoys guessing whodunit, but when murder happens in their midst, they discover solving crimes isn’t fun and games…
Lyla Moody loves her sleepy little town of Sweet Mountain, Georgia. She likes her job as receptionist for her uncle’s private investigative firm, her fellow true crime obsessed Jane Doe members are the friends she’s always wanted, and her parents just celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary. But recently, with her best friend Melanie on vacation, and her ex-boyfriend and horrible cousin becoming an item and moving in next door to her, her idyllic life is on the fritz.
Sooley
by John Grisham
Rating: 4.5 #ad
In the summer of his seventeenth year, Samuel Sooleymon gets the chance of a lifetime: a trip to the United States with his South Sudanese teammates to play in a showcase basketball tournament. He has never been away from home, nor has he ever been on an airplane. The opportunity to be scouted by dozens of college coaches is a dream come true.
Samuel is an amazing athlete, with speed, quickness, and an astonishing vertical leap. The rest of his game, though, needs work, and the American coaches are less than impressed.
Picasso’s Motorcycle
by Marc Sercomb
Rating: 4.4 #ad
France, 1940.
An unexpected gift of an old motorcycle with a tragically romantic past hurls a young orphan into the thick of things as war breaks out and his life changes forever. Half-French/half-German Daniel must find a way to survive in a world that mercy seems to have abandoned. This book transports the reader to Nazi-occupied France, where Daniel unwittingly and unexpectedly finds himself working for the Resistance, and ultimately to the Russian Front in a twist of fate so startling that no one can see it coming. In turn quirky, heartwarming, beguiling and uncompromising, author Marc Sercomb weaves together many moods and colors to tell young Daniel’s story.
The Practical Navigator
by Chris Crowley
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Membership in the Great Arcadia, an exclusive East Coast yacht club, is pretty much limited to the rich and powerful in 1980s business, finance, and politics. But the sexually charged murder of Greek billionaire George Minot during their annual regatta off the coast of Maine opens a door into a secret world of addictive sexuality and excess beneath the starched sheets of the East Coast establishment.
Tim Bigelow is looking forward to spending a week at sea with the magical Cassie Sears, who has suddenly appeared in his life. He’s also there to celebrate his older brother, Harry—the retiring commodore of the Great Arcadia who’s on course for a major role in the White House.
Hollow Moon
by Shawn Luther
Rating: 3.3 #ad
There’s a dark side to every story.
Famed author William Edward Penn might be the most talked-about writer in America. He’s written a novel. A terrifying novel. The images are hauntingly vivid, and the details seem all too real, as if they’d been plucked from memory. Each page transports him to a life he once knew, a world he’d rather leave behind. He still wakes up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat. He can still picture their faces, even in his nightmares.
After years of replaying the events in his head, past recollections begin to merge with fantasy. Even now, he struggles to piece it all together. And time is running out. Today marks his first television appearance. He will have to look his audience in the eye. He will have to answer for what he’s done.
Ghost Eaters
by Clay Chapman
Rating: 3.8 #ad
Erin hasn’t been able to set a single boundary with her charismatic but reckless college ex-boyfriend, Silas. When he asks her to bail him out of rehab—again—she knows she needs to cut him off. But days after he gets out, Silas turns up dead of an overdose in their hometown of Richmond, Virginia, and Erin’s world falls apart.
Then a friend tells her about Ghost, a new drug that allows users to see the dead. Wanna get haunted? he asks. Grieving and desperate for closure with Silas, Erin agrees to a pill-popping “séance.” But the drug has unfathomable side effects—and once you take it, you can never go back.
Troublemaker
by Linda Howard
Rating: 4.4 #ad
A thrilling, fast-paced novel of romantic suspense from sensational New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Linda Howard.
For Morgan Yancy, an operative and team leader in a paramilitary group, nothing comes before his job. But when he’s ambushed and almost killed, his supervisor is determined to find out who’s after the members of his elite squad – and why. Due to worries that this unknown enemy will strike again, Morgan is sent to a remote location and told to lay low and stay vigilant. But between a tempting housemate he’s determined to protect and a deadly threat waiting in the shadows, keeping under the radar is proving to be his most dangerous mission yet.
Mistborn
by Brandon Sanderson
Rating: 4.7 #ad
For a thousand years the ash fell and no flowers bloomed. For a thousand years the Skaa slaved in misery and lived in fear. For a thousand years the Lord Ruler, the “Sliver of Infinity,” reigned with absolute power and ultimate terror, divinely invincible. Then, when hope was so long lost that not even its memory remained, a terribly scarred, heart-broken half-Skaa rediscovered it in the depths of the Lord Ruler’s most hellish prison. Kelsier “snapped” and found in himself the powers of a Mistborn. A brilliant thief and natural leader, he turned his talents to the ultimate caper, with the Lord Ruler himself as the mark.
Monday’s Mystery eBooks
Caramel Pecan Roll Murder
by Joanne Fluke
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Embracing a sweet escape from her usual routine at The Cookie Jar, Hannah gets asked for her help in baking pastries at the local inn for a flashy fishing competition with big prizes and even bigger names. But the fun stops when she spots a runway boat on the water and, on board, the lifeless body of the event’s renowned celebrity spokesperson…
Famed TV show host Sonny Bowman wasn’t humble about his ability to reel in winning catches, and no one knew that better than his tragically overworked sidekick, Joey. Did Joey finally take bloody revenge on his pompous boss—or was Sonny killed by a jealous contestant?
IRON
by Madisyn Carlin
Rating: 4.8 #ad
Enforcing justice comes with a price.
Detective Redwyn “Red” Deathan will stop at nothing to uncover those behind the ruthless kidnappings of multiple children. But things are not as they seem, and Red’s efforts are thwarted at every turn.
With each discovery the danger grows, putting Red and the lives of those she cares about at risk. Can she reveal the mastermind’s identity before she herself becomes a target?
In Plain Sight
by Fern Michaels
Rating: 4.6 #ad
For years Myra Rutledge and Annie de Silva, founding members of the Sisterhood, have funded an underground network run by a former Supreme Court Justice to help women escape abusive relationships. When two clients fail to report for their weekly check-in, the Sisterhood and their allies begin a search for French model Amalie Laurent and her one-time maid. Amalie’s estranged husband, Lincoln Moss, is a distant cousin of the President of the United States and one of his closest advisers. Moss’s power is matched by the violent streak he hides from the world, and he beat Amalie viciously until she finally escaped with her maid’s help. Moss is accustomed to doing exactly what he wants without fear of consequence. But Moss has never faced an adversary like the Sisterhood . . .
Lost for Murder
by Stephanie Parker McKean
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Kymber Allan might get lost in a cardboard box, but she has no problem finding trouble. After she gets fired on her second day at work for getting lost—she finds a dead body. That discovery thrusts her into a path of danger and dark secrets. From attempts on her life to thefts from her aunt’s art collection, Kymber struggles to stay one step ahead of the menace stalking her.
Finding a murder victim while being lost might be an unusual beginning for romance, but in this little Scottish village, the unusual is usual. The crook and the copper. Two men vie for her love and she must choose which one to believe.
The red-headed girl from Texas is determined to turn her famous artist aunt’s home into a museum for the Scottish village her aunt loved. That would prove a lot easier without a killer stalking her, and a next door neighbor who is quick to blame her for repeated damage to her dahlias.
I Know Where You Live
by Gregg Olsen
Rating: 4.0 #ad
Violet knows that time is a futile healer. When she thinks of her happily married grandfather—a predator lovingly referred to as Papa—the feelings of rage and betrayal still swell. Her younger sister, Lily, just discovered the numbing truth about him. Their mother, Rose? She can’t believe it. Not Papa. Leave it alone, Violet. Focus on the now.
When Papa suffers a sudden, and suspicious, fatal heart attack at Violet’s wedding, she can barely conceal her joy. Maybe the fellow survivor at her support group is right: moving on is possible only when monsters are removed from society permanently. Violet is focusing on the now. Even if doing so calls for extremes.
REIMAGINING BEN
by Panayotis Cacoyannis
Rating: 4.7 #ad
“The foulmouthed George is a celebrity biographer who flamboyantly reinvents his subjects’ lives for his readers. All he says and does is equal parts clever and crushing, and he rarely lets up on his brother for being born mere minutes before he was. In contrast, Jay is a librarian and serial apologizer, envious of George’s good looks and his confidence as a gay man… Early on, George notes that ‘nonsense is the meaning of life,’ a welcoming nod to the good time that awaits readers.” Kirkus Reviews
Feeling strangely elated after a phone call arranged by his gay non-identical twin brother George (author of sensationally semi-fictional biographies of dead celebrities) in which he has agreed to spend an hour naked in bed with a stranger, 33-year-old Jay (assistant librarian, allegedly straight) embarks on a short, sharp journey of belated self-discovery. In the midst of a hot London summer’s explosive encounters, dramatic revelations and unfolding chaotic events, old brotherly antagonisms and contrasting mother issues return to the surface as various relationships form and then become fluid.
Just One Damned Thing After Another
by Jodi Taylor
Rating: 4.3 #ad
If the whole of History lay before you, where would you go?
When Dr Madeleine Maxwell is recruited by the St Mary’s Institute of Historical Research, she discovers the historians there don’t just study the past – they revisit it.
But one wrong move and History will fight back – to the death. And Max soon discovers it’s not just History she’s fighting…
Tarnished Icons
by Stuart M. Kaminsky
Rating: 4.5 #ad
During the widespread corruption of the Yeltsin era, violent crime has risen in Moscow by 200 to 300 percent, keeping Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov and his team at the Office of Special Investigation busier than ever. So it’s fortunate that having his bad leg amputated six months ago and replaced by a prosthetic limb has not slowed down the veteran Moscow cop one bit.
Now he’s investigating a hate-fueled crime wave, as a bloodthirsty gunman wages a campaign to systematically exterminate the city’s Jews. At the same time, a knife-wielding rapist is running rampant.
Mae’s Second Chance Series
by Jacie Middlemann
Rating: 4.8 #ad
For the Engstrom family, the adventure of living in a ghost town with a huge mansion, saloon, jail cell, and its very own mystery is bittersweet as they struggle with inspiring determination to carry on after a tragic loss.
This includes:
Home to the Valley
Treasures Found
Valley Secrets
Journey of Faith
by Esther Brant
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Journey of Faith: Finding Purpose Through Grief & Loss provides healing scriptures and comforting illustrations to strengthen your faith during times of grief and loss. It will allow you to see God at work during the struggles and find hope and peace as you discover God’s promises and purpose for your life.
In Journey of Faith: Finding Purpose Through Grief & Loss, Dr. Brant shares personal stories of finding her purpose while experiencing tremendous loss.
Sunday’s Mystery eBooks
Dead Editor File
by G G Collins
Rating: 4.4 #ad
“My favorite character, hands down, has to be the cantankerous cat, Oscar.” — Marcelle Valentine, Reviewer
Preston Endicott, Jr. was hated by most of the staff at his book publishing house. At least until he turned up dead in his locked office in this debut of the Taylor Browning Cozy Mystery series. Taylor, the new mystery editor at the Santa Fe, New Mexico book publisher, sees plenty of possible perps right in the office suite. But the employees are hardly the only people to count as suspects. Dominique Boucher, their bestselling author, just submitted her latest manuscript. It’s a locked-room mystery with a similar story line to the real life puzzle. His ex-wife wasn’t a fan either. And there is the matter of a large inheritance: a successful company and many financial assets…
The Museum of Extraordinary Things
by Alice Hoffman
Rating: 4.2 #ad
Coralie Sardie is the daughter of the sinister impresario behind The Museum of Extraordinary Things, a Coney Island freak show that thrills the masses. An exceptional swimmer, Coralie appears as the Mermaid in her father’s “museum,” alongside performers like the Wolfman and the Butterfly Girl. One night Coralie stumbles upon a striking young man taking pictures of moonlit trees in the woods off the Hudson River.
The dashing photographer is Eddie Cohen, a Russian immigrant who has run away from his community and his job as a tailor’s apprentice. When Eddie photographs the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, he becomes embroiled in the mystery behind a young woman’s disappearance. And he ignites the heart of Coralie.
Side Hustle in Savannah
by Hope Callaghan
Rating: 4.8 #ad
After Tony is beaten and robbed at gunpoint while delivering food for his mother’s Italian restaurant, he vows to find his attackers and serve them an extra-large order of Garlucci “family style” revenge.
BONUS: RECIPE INCLUDED!
Carlita Garlucci is thrilled that Ravello’s Italian Eatery’s new venture—food delivery—is going gangbusters. Unfortunately, she’s having trouble finding an employee who will stick with it, so she decides to make the deliveries herself.
Wrath of the Gods
by J. Robert Kennedy
Rating: 4.6 #ad
A strange people land on the shores of the Mayan Empire, triggering a battle for the very survival of a civilization already in upheaval from a punishing drought, the fight falling to a young chieftain left to face what he believes is the wrath of gods angered by a loss of faith.
A thousand years later, Archaeology Professors James Acton and Laura Palmer are invited to an incredible discovery that reveals the truth of what happened in those fateful days 400 years before Columbus. Yet before they can fully explore this amazing find, they are thrust into the middle of the Mexican drug war, Acton and Interpol Agent Hugh Reading taken hostage, leaving it up to Laura to save them.
Dodge
by Jeffery Deaver
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Nothing can stop an avenging vigilante from channeling her rage—or pursuing her prey. Not the relentless cops in her rearview. Not the cunning and elusive sociopath she’s closing in on.
A robbery goes awry. A female deputy is tortured and murdered. The killer, hiding in plain sight, has officials in rural Wisconsin under his thumb—except for Special Agent Constant Marlowe, on an unsanctioned mission to avenge her friend’s death. Constant isn’t letting a notorious sadist like Paul Offenbach get away. Traps are set. A cat-and-mouse game begins. Both hunter and hunted are ready to play.
Seattle’s Forgotten Serial Killer
by Cloyd Steiger
Rating: 4.1 #ad
In 1969, the body of a young woman was discovered in the woods of Renton, Washington, rocking the communities along Puget Sound. Three more brutal murders followed, drawing the attention of multiple police agencies as they tried to piece together the meager clues left behind. The seemingly unrelated cases challenged detectives, who struggled to realize they were all connected to one man: Gary Gene Grant. Before the term “serial killer” was even coined, Grant stalked his prey, destroying lives and families while walking unseen among the masses. Decades later, his crimes have all but been forgotten.
Such a Beautiful Thing to Behold
by Umar Turaki
Rating: 3.9 #ad
An inexplicable sickness. A small town cut off from the world. An unexpected community of survivors forges a family out of the despair, struggling against things known and unknown for survival and hope.
A mysterious plague known as the Grey grips the small village of Pilam, which the world has quarantined without pity. Laying waste to Pilam’s residents, the sickness saps its victims of strength, drains the color from their eyes, and kills all promise. Only the young are immune. But beyond the barricades and walls of soldiers—the manifestation of a nation’s terror—there are rumors of a cure. Dunka, the eldest son of a family reeling from the Grey, takes on the daunting task of leaving Pilam to find that cure for his siblings and save them before it’s too late.