Mysteries

Virtutis gloria merces. Translation: Glory is the reward of valor

Fed up with playing the normal game, recent university graduate, ex-cum laude, ex-soccer star, ex-popular and mostly broke Kera MacDonagh changes her life when she decides to research how to be a witch… And believes it.

Kera didn’t want to go back east and deal with her overbearing Mom. So, when university was done, she stayed behind in Los Angeles. Little did she realize how controlling moms can be from the other side of the country. Feeling a little desperate to make her own way, she buys a few books on business.

Haunted A Love Story
by Emmaline Givens
Rating: 4.7 #ad

A not so typical love story. A story that will make you laugh, cry, and laugh again. A story of family, loss, laughter and moving forward. My hope is that each reader takes away something from the story that they didn’t expect to find.

Kate and Matthew Chapman have spent their entire life together, and just celebrated their thirty-seventh wedding anniversary. High school sweethearts who raised a family and grew a business together… it was finally their time to find time to relax and reconnect. Although their four children have left the nest, between running their hardware store and Matthew’s volunteer work at the local fire house, their days had been full. But when tragedy strikes, Kate finds herself suddenly with too much time on her hands and too many opinions about what she should do next.

The Saracen’s Mark
by S. W. Perry
Rating: 4.5 #ad

Betrayal has many guises…London, 1593: Five years on from the Armada and England is taking its first faltering steps towards a future as a global power. Nicholas Shelby – reluctant spy and maverick physician – and his companion Bianca Merton are settling into a life on Bankside. But in London there is always a plot afoot…

Robert Cecil, the Queen’s spymaster, once again recruits Nicholas to embark on a dangerous undercover mission that will take him to the back alleys of Marrakech in search of a missing informer. However, while Nicholas hunts for the truth across the seas, plague returns once more to London – ravaging the streets and threatening those dearest to him.Can Bianca and Nicholas’ budding relationship weather the threats of pestilence and conspiracy?

Murder at the Mena House
by Erica Ruth Neubauer
Rating: 4.3 #ad

Well-heeled travelers from around the world flock to the Mena House Hotel—an exotic gem in the heart of Cairo where cocktails flow, adventure dispels the aftershocks of World War I, and deadly dangers wait in the shadows . . .

WINNER OF THE 2021 AGATHA AWARD

Egypt, 1926.Fiercely independent American Jane Wunderly has made up her mind: she won’t be swept off her feet on a trip abroad. Despite her Aunt Millie’s best efforts, the young widow would rather gaze at the Great Pyramids of Giza than into the eyes of a dashing stranger. Yet Jane’s plans to remain cool and indifferent become ancient history in the company of Mr. Redvers, a roguish banker she can’t quite figure out…

Check out:
(A Jane Wunderly Mysteries)

HELL
by Tom Lewis
Rating: 4.4 #ad

Evil Has a Child’s Face. A wave of occult-themed killings sweeps across Los Angeles, leaving a grisly trail of corpses in its wake. The only lead is a mysterious young girl caught at one of the crime scenes. A girl who scares the hell out of the police and the guards at the prison where she’s being kept. A girl with a terrifying secret. The power to raise the dead.

From the author of ‘Hell: The Possession and Exorcism of Cassie Stevens,’ comes a terrifying new tale of supernatural horror. Sometimes evil has a child’s face.

No Rest for the Dead
by Sandra Brown, David Baldacci, Lisa Scottoline…
Rating: 4.2 #ad

In this New York Times bestseller, twenty-six renowned thriller authors team up to create a first-rate serial novel—a collaboration that combines the skills of America’s greatest storytellers to produce a single gripping, spellbinding mystery.

Alexander McCall Smith. Sandra Brown. Faye Kellerman. J.A. Jance. Jeffery Deaver. Kathy Reichs. Lisa Scottoline. Jeff Lindsay. These are only a handful of the names that make up the all-star lineup of authors behind No Rest for the Dead, a tale of vengeance, greed, and love that flows seamlessly, in the words of David Baldacci, “as it passes from one creator’s mind to the next.”

Wednesday’s Mystery eBooks

January 26, 2022

Tails, You Lose
by Carol J. Perry
Rating: 4.5 #ad

After losing her job as a TV psychic, Lee Barrett has decided to volunteer her talents as an instructor at the Tabitha Trumbull Academy of the Arts—known as “The Tabby” —in her hometown of Salem, Massachusetts. But when the school’s handyman turns up dead under seemingly inexplicable circumstances on Christmas night, Lee’s clairvoyant capabilities begin bubbling to the surface once again.

The Tabby is housed in the long-vacant Trumbull’s Department Store. As Lee and her intrepid students begin work on a documentary charting the store’s history, they unravel a century of family secrets, deathbed whispers—and a mysterious labyrinth of tunnels hidden right below the streets of Salem.

Check out:
(A Witch City Mysteries)

The Kate Hamilton Mysteries Boxed Set
by Fiona Quinn
Rating: 4.6 #ad

Join teacher Kate Hamilton as she puzzles her way through crimes from rural Virginia to inner city Washington D.C. in this USA Today bestselling series.

MINE
YOURS
OURS

“I have read this whole series and really enjoyed these books. Fiona Quinn is a very gifted writer. She has the rare talent of truly bringing her characters to life. I become so involved in her stories that it truly breaks my heart when I get to the end of her books knowing I now have to wait for the next one to be written. “ by Amazon Customer

The Forbidden
by Heather Graham
Rating: 4.6 #ad

She is someone’s darkest desire. Playing the victim of a vampire king on an island off New Orleans is actress Avalon Morgan’s creepiest role to date. It’s also scary good fun—until the victim of a real killer is discovered on set, laid out for all to see. With production shut down, Avalon can’t stop thinking about the chilling crime scene, or Grayson Avery, the investigator working the case.

With a rising body count and zero leads, Gray can’t help but be impressed by Avalon’s amateur sleuthing, which takes her to the darkest corners of the internet, where killers confess their crimes.

Check out:
(Krewe of Hunters Mysteries)

Hidden Thrones: The Rise of Darkness
by Russ Scalzo
Rating: 4.6 #ad

For our fight is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:12

As current as this morning’s newspaper, this series will challenge the reader’s belief system, introduce him or her to the invisible world of spiritual warfare, and ensure that the reader will never look at the world in quite the same light ever again

The spirit world is astir as the coming of the Lord draws near. The mystery swirling around the rise in supernatural activity has drawn much attention. A powerful secret society desperately seeks to harness this mystical power for its own gain.

Author and prayer warrior Jack Bennett can see evil. His unusual gift catapults him into a spiritual world of angels and demons. Jack’s special ability makes him the FBI’s newest hire, serving as a consultant for their new Paranormal Division. Together with Special Agent Frank Lederman, they investigate the improbable and the unexplainable.

Check out:
(Hidden Thrones Series)

The Kill Clause
by Gregg Hurwitz
Rating: 4.4 #ad

A riveting and explosive novel, The Kill Clause is a brilliantly inventive tour de force by a powerful new master of suspense.

Tim Rackley is a dangerous man of honor, a deputy U.S. marshal who is very good at his job—until everything he believes in is shattered by the brutal murder of his own daughter.

Betrayed by an imperfect judicial system, Rackley watches helplessly as the killer walks free on a legal technicality. Devastated, furious, and burning with a righteous need for vengeance, he is suddenly forced to explore his own deadly options—a quest that leads him into a shadowy no-man’s-land between justice and the law . . . and into the welcoming fold of “the Commission.”

Wounded Hearts
by Jacquie Biggar
Rating: 4.1 #ad

Join the men and women of Tidal Falls as they learn love can conquer any odds. Adventure Romance Super Bundle. Four action-adventure romance stories set in the quaint little town of Tidal Falls, Washington, where all is not what it seems.

Tidal Falls
The Rebel’s Redemption
Twilight’s Encore
The Sheriff Meets His Match

Cold Blooded
by Toni Anderson
Rating: 4.6 #ad

“With Cold Blooded, the talented Toni Anderson has penned yet another nail-biter. From beginning to end, the pages sizzle with thrilling suspense and romantic tension.” —Melinda Leigh, Wall Street Journal bestselling author.

A journalist searching for the truth about her best friend’s death—and the FBI agent who needs her to stop.

Disgraced investigative journalist Pip West is devastated when she discovers her best friend’s body face-down in a tranquil lake. When cops and federal agents determine that her friend overdosed then drowned, Pip knows they’re mistaken and intends to prove it.

Check out:
(Cold Justice Mysteries)

Mirrorland
by Carole Johnstone
Rating: 4.1 #ad

Cat lives in Los Angeles, far from 36 Westeryk Road, the imposing gothic house in Edinburgh where she and her estranged twin sister, El, grew up. As girls, they invented Mirrorland, a dark, imaginary place under the pantry stairs, full of pirates, witches, and clowns. These days, Cat rarely thinks about their childhood home, or the fact that El now lives there with her husband, Ross.

But when El mysteriously disappears after going out on her sailboat, Cat is forced to return to 36 Westeryk Road, which hasn’t changed in twenty years. The grand old house is still full of shadowy corners, and at every turn Cat finds herself stumbling on long-held secrets and terrifying ghosts from the past. Because someone—El?—has left Cat clues: a treasure hunt that leads back to Mirrorland, where the truth lies waiting…

Tuesday’s Mystery eBooks

January 25, 2022

The Murder Before Christmas
by Michele PW
Rating: 4.1 #ad

If you’ve got a problem, Charlie Kingsley probably has a tea that’ll help make it right.

EXCEPT when it comes to love. She does NOT do love potions. Not even for Courtney, her pregnant new client who showed up three weeks before Christmas seeking a love potion because her husband was cheating on her.

So, Courtney asked about poison, instead. She said she was joking. That’s what happens between wives and husbands. They get angry and talk about killing each other. They don’t really mean it.

Check out:
(Charlie Kingsley Mysteries)

Keeper Tyree
by S. Cox
Rating: 4.4 #ad

Keeper Tyree is an aging bounty hunter who lives by his own set of rules. He’s a hard man, but just, and his word is his bond. He’s a loner and likes it that way. Then Cathleen O’Donnell catapults into his life looking to hire his gun. Josiah Pardee has killed her boy, and she’s out for vengeance. Somehow all his hard and fast rules, including working alone and minding his own business, crumbles in the face of the immovable widow he now works for.

He finds himself rescuing soiled doves, a myopic bookworm more suited to city life than the Wild West, and an hombre being dragged to death by angry cardplayers, as he tracks down the murdering sidewinder Josiah Pardee.

The Harvest King
by Paula Quinn
Rating: 4.4 #ad

Commander Caleb Desai, leader of the famed Warriors has three goals in life, to bring God and rain back to the barren wasteland of Predaria, and to make the previous king’s usurper and the man responsible for destroying his country pay. But when the new king escapes his hands, Caleb is forced to take his daughter with him on his journey home across the plains.

Dragging a pampered princess through the arid Plains of Predaria proves to be quite a challenge, even for a man of Caleb’s patience. The woman doesn’t know of the dangers on the plains, of the Catchers, the fires, the baking sun. She’s foolish and spoiled, beautiful and innocent about God and His Son, and life without water. As she’s exposed to the dying world her father left in his wake, she lets Caleb each her how to live…

Running Scared
by Lisa Jackson
Rating: 4.5 #ad

Kate Summers’ teenage son, Jon, has been having nightmares. Someone is chasing him, the footsteps drawing relentlessly nearer. Jon can’t see the man’s face. He only senses that danger is coming—and there’s no way to stop it.

“Never tell anyone he’s not your boy,” was the warning. And Kate hasn’t. Not since the day fifteen years ago when she was offered what she most wanted—a healthy newborn baby. He was hers to keep, provided she moved far away, for good. She’s kept her word, raising Jon in a small Oregon town, lying to him for both their sakes. Despite his gift—or curse—of premonition, Jon hasn’t divined that he was adopted illegally. But now Kate’s long-ago choices are engulfing the life she’s tried to build.

Edge of Defiance
by Kyla Stone
Rating: 4.6 #ad

Amid chaos, tyranny rises. Freedom demands a price… As the United States unravels, the town of Fall Creek, Michigan struggles to survive. Hannah, Liam, and the others have endured the brutal winter and ruthless adversaries, but the threat has never been greater.

Enemies from within have wrested control of the town–including what little remains of the food. Isolated, overpowered, and on the verge of starvation, the townspeople are faced with a desperate choice. To be free, Fall Creek may have to sacrifice more than they ever thought possible.

Check out:
(Edge of Collapse Mysteries)

THE GIRL IN THE WOODS
Patricia Macdonald
Rating: 4.4 #ad

A NAIL-BITING DOMESTIC THRILLER FROM A BESTSELLING AUTHOR.

How many lives can one lie devastate?

Fifteen years ago, Blair’s best friend was murdered as she walked home through the woods. Now Blair’s dying sister confesses that the wrong man was sent to prison. If he didn’t kill her, who did?

I Promise You This
by Patricia Sands
Rating: 4.5 #ad

Suddenly single after twenty-two years of marriage, the calm of Katherine Price’s midlife has turned upside down. Seeking to find her true self, she took a chance on starting over. A year later, she is certain of this: she’s in love with Philippe and adores his idyllic French homeland, where he wants her to live with him.

But all that feels like a fantasy far removed from Toronto, where she’s helping her friend Molly, hospitalized after a life-threatening accident. Staying in her childhood home full of memories, Katherine wonders: Is she really ready to leave everything behind for an unknown life abroad? And if all her happiness lies with Philippe, will it last? Can she trust in love again?

The Quiet People
by Paul Cleave
Rating: 4.4 #ad

Cameron and Lisa Murdoch are successful crime writers. They have been on the promotional circuit, joking that no one knows how to get away with crime like they do. After all, they write about it for a living.

So when their seven-year-old son Zach goes missing, the police and the public naturally wonder if they have finally decided to prove what they have been saying all this time… Are they trying to show how they can commit the perfect crime?

Monday’s Mystery eBooks

January 24, 2022

The Lost Girls
by Elle Gray
Rating: 4.6 #ad

Whatever you do, don’t look back.

After learning the shocking truth behind the man she fell for, Blake feels lost at sea. She feels adrift. And is punishing herself for not realizing who Mark was or his true motive by her side.

While trying to solve the secrets of her own personal life, FBI Agent Blake Wilder and her team are forced into action by Kathryn Hedlund, a woman who is the opposite of Blake in nearly every way. Blake is appalled by the woman but is given no choice except to help find her daughter, who has gone missing…

Check out:
(Blake Wilder FBI Mysteries)

Bollywood P.I. California Dreaming
by Priya Khajuria
Rating: 5.0 #ad

“An immensely satisfying mystery…”

Jita Patel punches numbers and coddles patients at a health clinic in Santa Barbara, California. Her only excitement is a daily dose of Bollywood P.I. (starring a senior citizen), and dodging her mother’s matchmaking attempts (“no” and “wtf” don’t seem to work).

Jita’s cousin mysteriously disappears and her attempts to find answers are blocked. Armed with a wonky firearm and a dodgy P.I. certification, she strikes out on her own, only to be joined by a collection of misfits along the way…and a dangerous cop, whose motives are as questionable as his activities…

Saints of the Shadow Bible
by Ian Rankin
Rating: 4.6 #ad

Rebus is back on the force, albeit with a demotion and a chip on his shoulder. He is investigating a car accident when news arrives that a case from 30 years ago is being reopened. Rebus’s team from those days is suspected of helping a murderer escape justice to further their own ends.

Malcolm Fox, in what will be his last case as an internal affairs cop, is tasked with finding out the truth. Past and present are about to collide in shocking and murderous fashion…

Check out:
(Inspector Rebus Mysteries)

Lifeline
by Michelle Heard
Rating: 5.0 #ad

From USA Today & Wall Street Journal bestselling author Michelle Heard comes a new standalone, full-length dark romance suspense novel.

I was her partner. Her ride or die. She was my lifeline. My sanity. Until I did the unspeakable.

The unforgivable. I thought I was strong enough, but I was wrong. I became the monster I was sent to take down. Losing my lifeline… there’s no surviving without her.

Deep Freeze
by Lisa Jackson
Rating: 4.5 #ad

When she wakes up, she’s very cold. Colder than she’s ever been in her life. She can’t move or speak. And then she sees him—the one who took her. And before she dies, she wishes she could scream.

Former movie star Jenna Hughes left Hollywood for a remote farm in Oregon to escape the confines of fame. But someone has followed her—an obsessed fan whose letters are shockingly personal and deeply disturbing. And while Jenna’s already shaken up by what she’s seen on paper, she’d be terrified if she knew what Sheriff Shane Carter is investigating…

Check out:
(West Coast Mysteries)

Entwined Fates
by D. J. Dalton
Rating: 4.8 #ad

KINDLENOOKKOBO APPLE

Flames of revenge. Rediscovered pasts. Will her powerful gifts save her from the embers of history?

Keren Stewart feels a part of her is missing. Weakened after sending an ancient artifact into the elemental realm, she’s been putting off attempting magic for the sake of a moment’s rest. But she’s plunged into chaos when a sorcerer claims her actions have unleashed bloodthirsty dragons in Las Vegas.

Wary of the man’s intent and fearful of making another deadly error, her feeble attempts to control the creatures backfire when she accidentally summons the twin sister she’d thought was dead back from the elemental realm.

Check out:
(Fallen Shroud)

A Dark Matter
by Doug Johnstone
Rating: 4.0 #ad

Meet the Skelfs: well-known Edinburgh family, proprietors of a long-established funeral-home business, and private investigators…

When patriarch Jim dies, it’s left to his wife Dorothy, daughter Jenny and granddaughter Hannah to take charge of both businesses, kicking off an unexpected series of events.

Dorothy discovers mysterious payments to another woman, suggesting that Jim wasn’t the husband she thought he was. Hannah’s best friend Mel has vanished from university, and the simple adultery case that Jenny takes on leads to something stranger and far darker than any of them could have imagined.

Check out:
(The Skelfs Mysteries)

Behold Collection
by Multiple Authors
Rating: 4.0 #ad

KINDLENOOKKOBO APPLE

***Winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in the Anthology category***

Want to see something weird? Embrace the odd? Satisfy your curiosity? Surrender to wonder?

From Crystal Lake Publishing and the Bram Stoker Award-winning co-editor of the smash hit Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories comes Behold! Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders.

Sixteen stories and two poems take you into the spaces between the ordinary—and the imaginations of some of today’s masters of dark and thrilling fiction.

Dialogues of the Dead
by Reginald Hill
Rating: 4.4 #ad

Normally, there would be nothing sinister about a death by drowning and a motorcycle fatality—had these tragic occurrences not been predicted before the fact in a pair of macabre “Dialogues” submitted to a Yorkshire short story competition. Yet the local police department is slow to act—until the arrival of a third Dialogue…and another corpse.

A darkness is settling over a terrorized community, brought on by a genius fiend who hides clues to his horrific acts in complex riddles and brilliant wordplay. Now two seasoned CID investigators, Peter Pascoe and “Fat Andy” Dalziel, are racing against a clock whose every tick signals more blood and outrage, caught in the twisted game of a diabolical killer who is turning their jurisdiction into a slaughterhouse.

Check out:
(The Dalziel and Pascoe Mysteries)

Beauty Beyond the Thorns
by Darci J. Steiner
Rating: 4.9 #ad