Mysteries
Friday’s Mystery eBooks
Murder Wears White
by Stephanie Blackmoore
Rating: 4.5 #ad
A bridal party is less than festive when one their own drops dead at a food tasting in the second book in the series that started with Engaged in Death.
For wedding planner Mallory Shepard, murder isn’t on the agenda . . .
Mallory hopes to unveil her new B&B just in time for her first ceremony as a wedding planner. The renovations to Thistle Park—the mansion she inherited in small-town Port Quincy, Pennsylvania—are almost complete. But what Mallory didn’t plan on is the bride’s aunt being poisoned at the wedding tasting and her perfect venue becoming a crime scene.
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(A Wedding Planner Mysteries)
ONCE UPON A MURDEROUS DELUSION
by A.G. Russo
Rating: 4.3 #ad
The year is 1980 in a small, sleepy New England town. Out of nowhere, a series of devastating murders threaten the safety and well-being of the community. A serial killer has begun a deadly game of catch-me-if-you-can with local police, who have dubbed the carnage, “The Mommy Murders.”
Frightened residents are certain the violent rape/murders are in some way connected to the psychiatric unit of Parkhirst General Hospital. Nella, a nurse angst-ridden by her service during the Vietnam War, is new to the area and the hospital. She joins the tight-knit group of nurses on the evening shift. Val, the leader of the group, with her own history of trauma, believes it stems from the prejudice their patients suffer from a community unsympathetic to mental illness. Or is evil closer to home than they think?
Lion in the Valley
by Elizabeth Peters
Rating: 4.7 #ad
The 1895-96 season promises to be an exceptional one for Amelia Peabody, her dashing Egyptologist husband Emerson, and their wild and precocious eight-year-old son Ramses. The much-coveted burial chamber of the Black Pyramid in Dahshoor is theirs for the digging. But there is a great evil in the wind that roils the hot sands sweeping through the bustling streets and marketplace of Cairo. The brazen moonlight abduction of Ramses—and an expedition subsequently cursed by misfortune and death—have alerted Amelia to the likly presence of her arch nemesis the Master Criminal, notorious looter of the living and the dead.
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(An Amelia Peabody Mysteries)
No More Darkness
by Stacey Wilk
Rating: 4.2 #ad
Wedding Planner Aria Scirocco has her life on track after her divorce. She’s engaged to a stable and pragmatic man. Her company is doing well, and her biggest client is getting married this weekend. Nothing can jeopardize all her hard work. Except a snowstorm derails her plans and dumps her ex-husband and their unfinished business in her path.
Hawk Egan wants his ex-wife back. When the storm strands Aria, he jumps at the opportunity to come to her rescue. Getting stuck in a hotel without power is a bonus. As long as the snow continues to fall, he has a shot to make her love him again.
For the first time in her life, Aria takes a chance and invites Hawk into her bed. But when the snow stops, and the power comes back on, she will have to choose between the man who lights the way, and the one who has left her in the dark.
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(Winter at the Shore Mysteries)
Burning Down Boise
by Franklin Horton
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Sometimes the story of an apocalypse isn’t one of tragedy, but one of opportunity…
Dan Slaughter has given up on appearances. With his wife dead and his kids grown, he’s slowly reverting back to the east Tennessee boy he used to be three decades earlier. He quit cutting his hair and started smoking pot. He drinks when he wants to and sings along with the classic songs of his lost youth.
When his childhood friend Carl dies suddenly, Dan agrees to help Carl’s mother with the estate, even when it means traveling across the country to Boise, Idaho. Worse yet, Dan has to fly and that’s no easy task for a paranoid hillbilly not used to following rules.
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(The Way of Dan Mysteries)
The Naked Viscount
by Sally MacKenzie
Rating: 4.2 #ad
A Lady formerly on the prowl for a husband lands herself a prowler in this Regency romance by the author of The Naked Baron.
After eight Seasons in London, Lady Jane Parker-Roth is ready to quit the dull search for a husband in favor of more exciting pursuits. So when she encounters an intruder in her host’s townhouse, she’s not about to let the scoundrel escape. Until she discovers she’s wrestling a viscount—Edmund Smyth, the one noble she wouldn’t mind meeting in the dark. And when their struggle shatters a randy statue of the god Pan, even more mischief ensues . . .
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(Naked Nobility Mysteries)
The Hometown Hero
by Lorhainne Eckhart
Rating: 4.1 #ad
Eighteen years ago his father disappeared, and Owen swore to keep that night a secret. But sometimes, secrets get revealed in the most scandalous of ways.
NY Times & USA Today bestselling author Lorhainne Eckhart brings you a shocking O’Connell family novel that is filled with family secrets, romance and suspense when a brother’s secret is exposed, opening up old wounds and creating a scandal that could rock the community.
“As the mystery of what happened at the school deepens, loyalties to family and friends are tested.” Rebmay
Owen O’Connell has always been the responsible older brother.
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(The O’Connells Mysteries)
My MacArthur
by Cindy Fazzi
Rating: 4.2 #ad
The year is 1930. The place: Manila. Douglas MacArthur is the most powerful man in the Philippines, a United States colony. He’s fifty years old, divorced, and he falls in love at first sight with a ravishing young Filipino woman. He writes her a love note on the spot. Her name is Isabel Rosario Cooper, an aspiring movie actress. One glance at his note and she thinks of him as my MacArthur.
MacArthur pursues his romantic obsession even though he’s breaking numerous taboos. She reciprocates his affection because he could open doors for her financially struggling family. That MacArthur happens to be handsome compensates for the fact that he’s as old as her father.
When MacArthur is appointed the U.S. Army chief of staff, he becomes the youngest four-star general and one of America’s most powerful men. Out of hubris, he takes Isabel with him to America without marrying her.
Thursday’s Mystery eBooks
In Hot Water
by Kate Kingsbury
Rating: 4.1 #ad
Vivian Wainwright is living her dream. The middle-aged widow owns the Misty Bay Tearoom, a quaint, English-accented shop on the Oregon coast. But on the eve of the tearoom’s second anniversary, the dream turns nightmarish when a man falls to his death from a hotel balcony.
The body belongs to Dean Ramsey, ex-husband of Vivian’s assistant, Jenna. Detective Tony Messina quickly zeroes in on Jenna as prime suspect, since she was seen leaving the hotel shortly before the body was found.
A Beaufont Collection
by Sarah Noffke, Michael Anderle
Rating: 5.0 #ad
The Mysterious Plato: Who would suspect that one of the most powerful entities in the world is a black and white cat? Few know that most historical events in the last several centuries were orchestrated by this innocuous feline. Plato isn’t an ordinary cat. He’s a magical lynx with extraordinary powers…
The Fantastic Lunis: Dragons were created to bring justice to the world—but some do way more than that. When Lunis, the wise-cracking, bad joke-telling dragon, is summoned to Mexico, he doesn’t hesitate to answer the call. It just so happens that he’s been lured there under false pretenses.
The Phenomenal Faraday: A mystery like no other can only be solved by one. A talking squirrel. When a scientific mystery comes into question, there’s no one better for the case than Faraday—the squirrel who knows the complexities hidden from most.
Waverly Hills Incursion
by Bryce Warren
Rating: 3.9 #ad
“Whatever roams the hallways up on the Hill . . . it isn’t alone.”
Waverly Hills Sanatorium has been converted into apartments. But only half of it is completed because of the bad economy. Ben Clausen, an adjunct professor at the University of Louisville, is moving in because the rent is so cheap. There’s a reason why. Waverly Hills is still haunted.
Tell Me, Pretty Maiden
by Rhys Bowen
Rating: 4.5 #ad
It’s wintertime in New York, and for the first time since Irish immigrant Molly Murphy started her early-twentieth-century detective agency, she is completely snowed in with work. While she’s proving to be quite the entrepreneur and is very much in demand by some of Broadway’s brightest stars and Fifth Avenue’s richest families, she has to grudgingly admit that if she’s going to work more than one case at a time, then she’s going to need some help. Molly’s beau, the recently and wrongly suspended police captain Daniel Sullivan, would make an ideal associate, but before they can agree on the terms of his employment, they stumble upon a young woman lying unconscious in the middle of a snow-covered Central Park.
Double Mint
by Gretchen Archer
Rating: 4.7 #ad
NEW MONEY, OLD SINS, AND BACK TO JAIL
It’s convention season at the Bellissimo Resort and Casino, and Davis Way barely notices. It’s hard to pay attention when you live in a Jambalaya Junkyard. But when Special Events Coordinator Holder Darby walks out the backdoor just as five hundred Alabama bankers pour in the front, Davis steps up. Her reward? A cat.
(A cat?) Not only has the convention director vanished, but a Bellissimo guest is missing. One who forgot to pack the million dollars he left in the bathtub. It looks like our redhead newlywed Super Secret Spy’s lazy summer is over for sure when the Bellissimo vault is robbed.
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(A Davis Way Crime Caper Mysteries)
The Murder List
by Jackie Kabler
Rating: 4.3 #ad
The brand new psychological thriller from the author of Am I Guilty, The Perfect Couple and The Happy Family
When Mary receives a blank diary as a present, she thinks nothing of it. Until she opens the diary, and sees it’s not blank after all…
1st January MURDER LISA, OXFORD
1st February MURDER JANE, BIRMINGHAM
1st March MURDER DAVID, CARDIFF
1st April MURDER MARY, CHELTENHAM
Is this a sick joke? But…it’s the end of January now. And a woman called Lisa was murdered in Oxford on 1st January.
Could there really be a killer out there, planning to commit a new murder each month? And is the Mary due to be killed on 1st April her?
Redemption
by Frank Wheeler
Rating: 4.0 #ad
She tried to stop the blood, but it only flowed faster. “Shannon, find Noble Scott. Tell him what’s happened. He needs to know that Creed Conway is alive.”
“Yes. I promise I’ll find him.”
Fourteen years ago, Creed Conway took everything from him. Today, Noble Scott will fight to stop him from doing it again.
Creed Conway had a reputation to uphold. Pain. Death. Destruction.
Revel In You
by Scarlett Se Leva
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Simone Goodman. The only girl I’ve loved. Until she ripped my heart out.
It’s been five years since I’ve laid eyes on her. Five years since she was mine.
I told myself never again. But truth be told I still yearn to indulge in her. To get lost in her touch.
I plan to own the one thing she’s denied me. Her heart.
Wednesday’s Mystery eBooks
The Guests on South Battery
by Karen White
Rating: 4.7 #ad
With her extended maternity leave at its end, Melanie Trenholm is less than thrilled to leave her new husband and beautiful twins to return to work, especially when she’s awoken by a phone call with no voice on the other end—and the uneasy feeling that the ghostly apparitions that have stayed silent for more than a year are about to invade her life once more.
But her return to the realty office goes better than she could have hoped, with a new client eager to sell the home she recently inherited on South Battery.
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(Tradd Street Mysteries)
False Illusions
by Jennifer Youngblood
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Is he the answer to her troubles or an intoxicating illusion that could turn deadly?
Single mom Olivia Burkhart struggles to rebuild her life after the murder of her fiancé, Brent Allen, a deputy on Honeysuckle Island. She vows to never get involved with another cop, and then Flynn Yates enters her life with his playful smile and penetrating blue eyes.
As Olivia tries to come to terms with her feelings for Flynn, life delivers some hard blows that resurface her fears with a vengeance.
Then fate gives her the chance to work six weeks at an exclusive art gallery in charming and quaint Carmel, California by the sea.
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(The Honeysuckle Island Mysteries)
The Past Never Dies
by P.C. James
Rating: 4.6 #ad
A baffling burglary. A suspicious death. Can an up-and-coming amateur sleuth sort coincidence from crime?
Northern England, 1954. Miss Pauline Riddell is determined to stay busy. Grieving for her fiancé killed in Korea, the churchgoing young woman welcomes the distraction of viewing a priceless religious treasure on loan to her local cathedral. But when her inspector friend approaches her for unofficial assistance, she’s horrified to learn the artifact on exhibit is a replica… and the original has gone missing.
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(Miss Riddell Cozy Mysteries)
Dear Child
by Romy Hausmann
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Bustle Best Books of Fall 2020. Publishers Weekly Top 10 Mysteries & Thrillers of Fall 2020. She Reads Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2020
A woman held captive finally escapes—but can she ever really get away? Gone Girl meets Room in this page-turning, #1 internationally bestselling thriller from one of Germany’s hottest new talents
A windowless shack in the woods. A dash to safety. But when a woman finally escapes her captor, the end of the story is only the beginning of her nightmare.
She says her name is Lena. Lena, who disappeared without a trace 14 years prior. She fits the profile. She has the distinctive scar. But her family swears that she isn’t their Lena.
The Vacant Lot
by Dennis Higgins
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Ian had reached a higher level of love for Eunice, a love that was pure. His feelings for her were beyond that of a friend, sister, or lover. It was a love, devoid of the labels most people need to put to their feelings. That’s what he told her the last time he saw her back in 2019 or was it 1984 since Ian believed Eunice was a time-traveler. She came to him when he was eight years old in a vacant lot near his house, and when she left, he spent the rest of his days searching for her.
He solicited the help of a friend, Jill, a fragrance expert who discovered through the use of scents and the moon, they could transport to the past in search of his lost love.
Keep Her Quiet
by Emma Curtis
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Jenny has just given birth to the baby she’s always wanted. She’s never been this happy.
Her husband, Leo, knows this baby girl can’t be his. He’s never felt so betrayed.
The same night, a vulnerable young woman, Hannah, wakes to find her newborn lifeless beside her. She’s crazed with grief.
When chance throws Hannah into Leo’s path, they make a plan that will have shattering consequences for all of them.
Mastodon
by Steve Stred
Rating: 3.7 #ad
On that day, his mother disappeared, never to be seen again. Now, history repeats itself.
On the 17th anniversary of her disappearance, Tyler’s father is flying home when the plane he’s on disappears – in the same area where his mother was last seen.
Undeterred by officials, Tyler decides to hike into the area in search of his father, hoping to find him alive and bring him back to safety.
But there’s a reason that area is prohibited to enter and even though Tyler doesn’t care, he’ll soon find out that the wilderness can hide some of the deepest, darkest fears known to man.
Tuesday’s Mystery eBooks
Death of a Red-Hot Rancher
by Mimi Granger
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Love meets murder in this new cozy mystery series set in a quirky romance bookstore, with a heroine to die for.
Lizzie Hale may be the lucky owner of a successful romance bookshop, Love Under the Covers, but she’s decidedly un-lucky in love. Though she’s read almost every famous romance novelist, from Jane Austen to Nora Roberts, none have helped her figure out how to get – and keep – a man.
But Lizzie has bigger problems to worry about. Like murder.
The Vendetta Defense
by Lisa Scottoline
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Judy Carrier takes the case of her career to defend Anthony Lucia, fondly known as “Pigeon Tony,” who freely admits to killing his lifelong enemy in order to settle a personal vendetta. Her client’s guilt, however, is only the beginning of Judy’s problems. The victim’s family wants revenge and is determined to finish off Pigeon Tony and Judy before the case goes to trial. Then there’s Pigeon Tony’s hunky grandson, who makes Judy think about everything but the law. In a case steeped in blood and memory, it will take brains and a lot of luck to save Pigeon Tony.
Check out:
(A Rosato & Associates Mysteries)
Broken
by T.G. Brown
Rating: 4.5 #ad
At first glance, the figure could have been construed as a large cocoon hanging from the church rafters. But as one moved closer, the outline of a man came into focus, his body strung upside down . . . his thick torso squirming against his restraints as though he was about to be reborn.
While bullfrog hunting on a cloud-covered night in the Louisiana Bayou JOSH INGRAM had no way of knowing the cogs of a grisly nightmare had already begun to turn. A nightmare that takes root with the murder of a priest in Northern Ireland only to find its way to a schoolyard in Louisiana.
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(Josh Ingram Mysteries)
The Infiltrator
by Robert Mazur
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Robert Mazur spent years undercover infiltrating the Medellín Cartel’s criminal hierarchy. The dirty bankers and businessmen he befriended — some of whom still shape power across the globe — knew him as Bob Musella, a wealthy, mob-connected big shot living the good life. Together they partied in $1,000-per-night hotel suites, drank bottles of the world’s finest champagne, drove Rolls-Royce convertibles, and flew in private jets. But under Mazur’s Armani suits and in his Renwick briefcase, recorders whirred silently, capturing the damning evidence of their crimes.
Dead Man’s Pose
by Susan Rogers, John Roosen
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Dead Man’s Pose is a tension-reliever in yoga. Not this time!
A spirited yoga teacher teams up with a dark horse partner (determined to right wrongs); and together they seek closure on the sudden and mysterious death of a friend.
Throw in a cast of quirky characters that includes a savvy outback detective, an eccentric academic, a highly observant (but sight-challenged) witness, an exotic hairdresser, a Falstaffian nomad, crooked officials, and some assorted mob thugs.
Add some heat between the investigators, plus Ric’s wry humour and Elaina’s smart dialogue, while they both tumble into chase scenes to avoid sharks, cruise through a darkened saloon and conduct late-night spying on a ‘high roller’ that floats.
The Crushing Depths
by Dani Pettrey
Rating: 4.7 #ad
When an accident claims the life of an oil-rig worker on the first drilling platform off the North Carolina coast, Coast Guard investigators Rissi Dawson and Mason Rogers are sent to take the case. Tensions surrounding the oil rig are high and the death has everyone on edge. Environmental activists are threatening to do whatever it takes to stop the structure from being completed, while rumors are being whispered about ancient curses surrounding this part of the ocean.
Mounting evidence shows the death may not have been an accident at all. Was he killed by one of the activists or, perhaps more frighteningly, a member of his own crew?
Find Her
by Lisa Gardner
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Seven years ago, carefree college student Flora Dane was kidnapped while on spring break. For 472 days, Flora learned just how much one person can endure.
Miraculously alive after her ordeal, Flora has spent the past five years reacquainting herself with the rhythms of normal life, working with her FBI victim advocate, Samuel Keynes. She has a mother who’s never stopped loving her, a brother who is scared of the person she’s become, and a bedroom wall covered with photos of other girls who’ve never made it home.
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(D.D. Warren Mysteries)
140 Days to Hiroshima
by David Dean Barrett
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Seven years ago, carefree college student Flora Dane was kidnapped while on spring break. For 472 days, Flora learned just how much one person can endure.
Miraculously alive after her ordeal, Flora has spent the past five years reacquainting herself with the rhythms of normal life, working with her FBI victim advocate, Samuel Keynes. She has a mother who’s never stopped loving her, a brother who is scared of the person she’s become, and a bedroom wall covered with photos of other girls who’ve never made it home.