Mysteries
Monday’s Mystery eBooks
Baking Up Trouble
by Gretchen Allen
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Family ties… Can put you in a real bind.
One thing that retiree and amateur sleuth, Loretta Barksdale loves almost as much as whipping up culinary delights with her group, the Clubhouse Cooks, is eating. So, when the group decides to do a bake sale in their peaceful Breezy Lake, FL, community, she’s all about it.
Things go awry, however, when the brother of one of her friends shows up, looking raggedy and acting oddly. He seems convinced that he’s being pursued, and winds up getting side-eyed by many community members, but Loretta believes that something else might be prompting his strange behavior.
The Carriage House
by Carla Neggers
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Fun and a little hard work. That’s all Tess Haviland has in mind when Ike Grantham pays her for her graphic design work with the run-down nineteenth-century carriage house on Boston’s North Shore.
Then Ike disappears, and Tess finds herself with much more than a simple weekend project to get her out of the city. It’s not just the rumors that the carriage house is haunted—it’s the neighbors: six-year-old Dolly Thorne, her reclusive babysitter, Harley Beckett . . . and especially Dolly’s father, Andrew Thorne, who has his own ideas about why Tess has turned up next door.
The Near-Death Experience of Justin Parks
by R.A. Williams
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Every year, thousands of people cheat death and come back to life. Many people have near-death experiences that offer a glimpse of Heaven. But none of these can compare to the remarkable near-death experience of Justin Parks.
The past three years haven’t been easy for Justin, causing him to lose faith in a loving, personal God. His fiancée gets killed by a drunk driver a week before their wedding. A year later, after enrolling in the police academy in a misguided effort to avenge his fiancée’s death, he mistakes a Black church pastor for an armed robber, shoots him in the chest, and nearly kills him. In the following months, he struggles with the backlash from the public outrage caused by negative media attention. And just when his life has seemingly returned to normal, a blow to the head sends him to a watery death, only for him to be revived by paramedics a few minutes later.
Mortal Dilemma
by H. Terrell Griffin
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Matt Royal meets the meanest man he has ever faced
Jock Algren arrives on Longboat Key in a state of depression and hopelessness. His most recent mission for his secretive U.S. government intelligence agency has been disastrous, and his friends Matt Royal and J.D. Duncan aren’t sure they’ll be able to pull him out of his despair—then the bad guys show up and danger erupts on all fronts.
W. E. B. Griffin The Devil’s Weapons
by Peter Kirsanow
Rating: 4.1 #ad
April 1940. By terms of the Soviet Nazi Nonaggression pact, the two dictatorships divided the helpless nation of Poland. Now, the Russians are rounding up enemies of the state in their occupation zone, but one essential target slips away. Dr. Sebastian Kapsky had spent years working with Walter Riedel and Werner von Braun in the early days of rocket science, but as a man with a conscience he refused to continue when he saw the perversion of their work by the Nazis. That makes him the most knowledgeable person about German superweapons outside of Germany.
The Stories of Ray Bradbury
by Ray Bradbury
Rating: 4.7 #ad
An extensive collection of imaginative short stories by a National Medal of the Arts–winning author of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and suspense.
Fly to Mars and explore the mysteries of the red planet. Journey through time to futures ruled by cold computers and hear the deafening roar of dinosaurs in the past. Sing the body electric and look into the mechanical eyes of androids that want to replace human life as we know it. Visit idyllic landscapes and nostalgic towns that hide sinister secrets. Available in one massive collection for the first time digitally, experience the wondrous mind of Ray Bradbury through one hundred of his all-time greatest tales. These are the stories that ask “What if?,” the stories that make the mind turn, and those that are, in the true spirit of Ray Bradbury, best read under the safety of a blanket.
Across Great Divides
by Monique Roy
Rating: 4.1 #ad
Across Great Divides is a timeless, World War II story of the upheavals of war, the power of family, and the resiliency of human spirit. When Hitler comes to power in 1933, one Jewish family refuses to be destroyed and defies the Nazis only to come up against another struggle—confronting Apartheid in South Africa.
Sixteen-year-old Eva and her twin sister, Inge, witness their lives in Berlin change before their eyes. Their best friend, Trudy, betrays them when she becomes a member of the Hitler Youth. A valuable family heirloom, a beautiful emerald and diamond pendant necklace, is confiscated by the Nazis as they harass Jewish families and businesses.
Their younger brother, Max, a member of the underground resistance, sees even greater danger ahead.
Their father, Oskar, refuses to leave his beloved Germany and believes Hitler will eventually fail.
Farewell Gift
by Zvika Zilbermintz
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Can letting go of a piece of yourself make you whole again?
When Zvika loses his teenage daughter in a tragic accident, it feels as though the only life he’s ever known is slipping through his fingers. Grieving and devastated, he takes off for India on a spiritual quest to heal his heart.
Guided by the Teacher, a spiritual guru, Zvika digs deep to find himself again in the wake of tragedy, all the while trying to hold his fragile, grieving family together.
Sunday’s Mystery eBooks
The Salvation Project
by Joe Rothstein
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Finalist for Political Thriller of The Year!–Pacific Reviews
U.S. President Isabel Aragon Tennyson (“Tenny,” as the world knows her) is running for reelection, unaware that her opponent is a Manchurian-like candidate created by a shadowy group that calls itself the Salvation Project, bent on taking control of the United States. The election will determine not just who will be president, but likely the future of humanity.
Project Hail Mary
by Andy Weir
Rating: 4.7 #ad
“If you loved The Martian, you’ll go crazy for Weir’s latest.” – The Washington Post
Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission – and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.
All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.
A Conjuring of Ravens
by Azalea Ellis
Rating: 4.5 #ad
In a world where magic is a science, Siobhan is a genius. But even geniuses need schooling.
When Siobhan stumbled into the theft of a priceless magical book, she thought her dreams of becoming the world’s most powerful sorcerer were destroyed. But then a mysterious spell changed her life forever…
Siobhan is now wearing the body of a strange man and has a new identity – Sebastien. With a new chance for a new start, she allies herself with a local gang – secretly a revolutionary party funding itself through crime. Now, she is bound by vow to repay them in magic and favors.
Dreaming Spies
by Laurie R. King
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Laurie R. King’s novels of suspense featuring Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, are critically acclaimed and beloved by readers for the author’s adept interplay of history and adventure. Now the intrepid duo is finally trying to take a little time for themselves—only to be swept up in a baffling case that will lead them from the idyllic panoramas of Japan to the depths of Oxford’s most revered institution.
After a lengthy case that had the couple traipsing all over India, Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes are on their way to California to deal with some family business that Russell has been neglecting for far too long. Along the way, they plan to break up the long voyage with a sojourn in southern Japan…
The Missing Piece
by John Lescroart
Rating: 4.4 #ad
The beloved New York Times bestselling Dismas Hardy series returns with a “perfect piece of entertainment from a master storyteller” (Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author) about a relentlessly twisty murder mystery.
No one mourned when San Francisco DA Wes Farrell put Paul Riley in prison eleven years ago for the rape and murder of his girlfriend. And no one is particularly happy to see him again when he’s released after The Exoneration Initiative uncovered evidence that pinned the crime on someone else. In fact, Riley soon turns up murdered, surrounded by the loot from his latest scam. But if Riley was innocent all along, who wanted him dead?
The Alien Chronicles Collection
by Multiple Authors
Rating: 4.1 #ad
Intelligent life on other planets: it’s the brass ring of space exploration. Do extra-terrestrial species exist? Will we ever make contact? Perhaps, have we made contact already?
In the latest addition to the Future Chronicles series of sci-fi anthologies, the answer to all of these questions is a resounding yes. From first contact to last stand, these original short stories range from quiet tales of personal connection to adrenaline-infused inter-species space conflicts. Each tale promises to present you with a different look at what intelligent alien life might be like — and how we Earthlings might respond to it.
The Fearless Moral Inventory of Elsie Finch
by Lynn Byk
Rating: 4.1 #ad
There’s a filigree setting for every family secret. What Elsie covets is the truth. Consequences come with being an heir of the Finch family estate, consequences no one bargained for.
This story is the story of one woman learning to grieve.
Finalist in The SOMERSET Book Awards recognizes emerging talent and outstanding works in the genre of Literary and Contemporary Fiction. The Somerset Book Awards is a genre division of the Chanticleer International Book Awards (The CIBAs). This story delivers.
Richard and Gail Finch designed their estate to carry ramifications for misplaced loyalties, but there are results neither one contemplated. When the third generation aims for a cache of treasure, someone is expendable…