Saturday’s Mystery eBooks
Tied Up With a Bow
by Sheila Connolly
Rating: 4.2 #ad
Pub owner Maura Donovan is still learning the local customs of the Irish village she now calls home, and with the holidays approaching she’s unsure how much, or how little, to decorate. She’s also puzzled by the small construction project going on across the street, which is shrouded in secrecy and has the whole of West Cork guessing what it might be. But most troubling of all is the secretive young boy who shows up at the pub’s door, hinting that he and his mother had to leave Dublin–in a hurry.
Sensing danger, Maura becomes more alarmed when an unknown man shows up and begins lurking around the pub. With so many questions on her mind and so few answers…
The Intruders
by Brett McKay
Rating: 4.4 #ad
After an unexpected turn flushes his chosen career down the toilet, Dex Sanders is struggling to make ends meet as a used car salesman. Despite the drudgery of the job, he manages to put on a brave face for his wife, Reagan, and their two boys, until the day an unsettling encounter with a stranger coincides with a mysterious package appearing on their doorstep.
Later that night, Dex and his family are abducted by a group of armed men and taken to an underground bunker, where Dex is tortured. When Dex can’t answer any of their odd questions, the strangers conclude they’ve nabbed the wrong guy, and the entire family is marked for execution.
The Protector
by Gloria Repp
Rating: 4.7 #ad
A heart divided . . . An enemy unseen . . . A riddle of trust.
Lindsey Dumont, photographer, must defend her home in the Pine Barrens while she struggles to revive her career and salvage a long-distance romance. What is God doing? And who can she trust?
Summer Knight
by Jim Butcher
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Ever since his girlfriend left town to deal with her newly acquired taste for blood, Harry Dresden has been down and out in Chicago. He can’t pay his rent. He’s alienating his friends. He can’t even recall the last time he took a shower. The only professional wizard in the phone book has become a desperate man.
And just when it seems things can’t get any worse, in saunters the Winter Queen of Faerie. She has an offer Harry can’t refuse if he wants to free himself of the supernatural hold his faerie godmother has over him—and hopefully end his run of bad luck…
Havoc
by Carolina Mac
Rating: 4.5 #ad
With Ranger Blaine Blackmore recovering from lung surgery, Ranger Farrell Donovan takes over the reins of the new violent crime squad unit. Breaking in rookies can be challenging, especially when gang violence erupts at an alarming rate and a bizarre murder becomes their responsibility at the same time.
Follow the adventures of the new squad from the beginning as they learn to work together and bond as a unit.
Burn the Dawn
by Lisa Phillips
Rating: 4.5 #ad
A series of missing girls. Weeks after she got shot, Kenna is back. She’s living free of a past that held her in the grip of fear, determined to move on – and keep fighting. This PI isn’t going to let anything keep her from finding the lost and broken.
A town in the grip of fear. After a deadly setback, Kenna realizes the case is far more complicated than she first thought. With an elite organization in the shadows, Kenna has to solve the case while a powerful enemy dogs every step and the echoes of her past threaten to tear her apart.
Toxic Rage
by AJ Flick
Rating: 3.9 #ad
An eye-opening account of the shocking murder that has been featured on 48 Hours, Forensic Files, and Investigation Discovery’s Killing Time.
Brian Stidham fell in love with Tucson, Arizona, the minute he came to town. A young and talented eye surgeon, he accepted a job with an established eye surgeon to take over his pediatric patients.
“It’s a beautiful place,” Stidham told a friend. “I can live right there by the mountains and go hiking. It’s a great deal for me there. The partner I’ll be working with is ultracool. He’s giving me the keys to the kingdom.”
Brad Schwartz, the doctor who hired Brian, was ambitious and possessed surgical skills few others had. But he was a troubled man.
My MacArthur
by Cindy Fazzi
Rating: 4.1 #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…
Friday’s Mystery eBooks
Toucan Keep a Secret
by Donna Andrews
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Toucan keep a secret, if one of them is dead.
Meg Langslow is at Trinity Episcopal Church locking up after an event and checking on the toucan her friend Rev. Robyn Smith is fostering in her office. When she investigates the sound of hammering in the columbarium (the underground crypt where cremated remains are buried), Meg finds the murdered body of an elderly parishioner. Several niches have been chiseled open; several urns knocked out; and amid the spilled ashes is a gold ring with a huge red stone.
The curmudgeonly victim had become disgruntled with the church and ranted all over town about taking back his wife’s ashes. Did someone who had it in for him follow him to the columbarium?
North of the Killing Hand
by Joni M Fisher
Rating: 4.8 #ad
Years after witnessing the murder of her parents, Nefi Jenkins pursues a career in law enforcement, but later must choose between the rule of law and the temptation of revenge.
North of the Killing Hand is the second book in the Compass Crimes collection and a prequel to South of Justice. A finalist in the 2016 Royal Palm Literary Awards Competition, and a finalist in the 2017 National Indie Excellence Awards in the suspense category, this story has overlapping characters from South of Justice.
After Nefi Jenkins witnesses her parents’ murder in Brazil, she bonds with her American rescuers. They bring her to the U.S. to live with her relatives where she must adapt to a radically different lifestyle. She dedicates her life to law enforcement, in large part to impress Vincent Gunnerson, one of her rescuers. As an adult, Nefi will be forced to choose between the rule of law and the temptation of revenge.
Wizard Storm
by Dee Maltby
Rating: 4.4 #ad
A fatherless wizard is no match for royalty. So Beneban, shaken by loss, leaves his noble lady, Laraynia, for a dangerous quest. With the Grand Lar and Trog as his traveling companions, he journeys to the remote Ogdol homeland on the far western shore of Larlion. Magic sword in hand, he battles many perils along the way. It seems that the black wizard Ztavin’s evil magic is gone, but who is threatening the Ogdol throne?
Laraynia is left behind as the new Lady of the Great Shrine. Uprooted from her beloved Forest and seemingly deserted by Beneban, she struggles to defend the Shrine from danger on every side. Her wizard father Nigeran, Queen Varakin, and Vari’s fierce ice dragons fight by her side, as does the handsome Mergol king, who offers his friendship… and more. Laraynia still longs for Beneban’s return, but how long will she wait?
Five Years in Yemen
by Luana Ehrlich
Rating: 4.8 #ad
A CIA contractor goes missing in Iraq. Five years later, he turns up in Yemen. Now, it’s up to Titus to find out if he’s a traitor or a patriot.
After Titus accepts an assignment to bring rogue CIA contractor Jacob Levin back to the States, he learns the operation has been put on hold pending Presidential approval. That’s fine with him. He’s looking forward to spending time in Oklahoma with his fiancée, Nikki Saxon.
But then, his boss needs a favor. After that, everything changes.
It begins in Springfield, Missouri . . . Where he interviews a former CIA employee about the missing Jacob Levin.
It continues in Detroit, Michigan . . . Where he and Nikki spend Thanksgiving with his relatives.
It leads to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia . . . Where he encounters a killer.
It ends in Somahi, Yemen . . .
The Hunting Wives
by May Cobb
Rating: 3.8 #ad
Sophie O’Neill left behind an envy-inspiring career and the stressful, competitive life of big-city Chicago to settle down with her husband and young son in a small Texas town. It seems like the perfect life with a beautiful home in an idyllic rural community. But Sophie soon realizes that life is now too quiet, and she’s feeling bored and restless.
Then she meets Margot Banks, an alluring socialite who is part of an elite clique secretly known as the Hunting Wives. Sophie finds herself completely drawn to Margot and swept into her mysterious world of late-night target practice and dangerous partying.
So Long
by Blake Pierce
Rating: 4.5 #ad
SO LONG is Book #1 in a long-anticipated new series by #1 bestseller and USA Today bestselling author Blake Pierce, whose bestseller Once Gone (a free download) has received over 7,000 five star ratings and reviews.
FBI Special Agent Faith Bold, hospitalized and haunted by her encounter with a serial killer, is ready to retire—when Turk, a K9 German Shepherd, himself traumatized, comes into her life. When a new serial killer strikes, leaving his victims at the bottom of isolated wells, Faith, this time with Turk at her side, will stop at nothing to hunt him down and save the next victim before it is too late.
Thursday’s Mystery eBooks
A Fatal Booking
by Victoria Gilbert
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Booklover Charlotte is delighted to welcome an eclectic group of guests to Chapters Bed and Breakfast for a book club retreat focused on fairy tales and classic children’s literature. But when one of the guests is poisoned at a Mad Hatter tea party, Charlotte realizes she’s fallen down a rather unpleasant rabbit hole
The victim – an opinionated busybody whose jewelry store sold original designs, along with some possibly “hot” merchandise – had plenty of enemies, spurring Charlotte and Ellen to offer their well-honed investigative skills to assist the local police.
The Teaching
by T. O. Paine
Rating: 3.8 #ad
Based on the author’s true-life experience living in a cult. Someone wanted her gone in the worst way.
Raine Harkins believes everything the Teaching tells her – forgiveness is freedom, there are no dead, and there is no dying. She has lived her entire life in the Haven, a small religious community buried in the hills of northern Nevada, and it’s been a good life.
But when she discovers a frightened teenage girl hiding in the forest, everything changes. Raine offers to help the girl, but gunshots ring out, and the girl runs away, never to be seen again.
Bridge to Desert Desire
by Stephanie Parker McKean
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Texas Miz Mike regrets the shattered romances scattered through her life like wind-thrashed flower petals. She resolves to end dystopian relationships by outdistancing the mysteries that seem to stalk her even when she is busy minding her own business. Little can she afford another mystery to sweep into her life and separate her from her new love, Scottish Reverend Alan Evan Kirkland, who is already separated from her by the ocean until she receives her United Kingdom Visa. She flees to the Nevada desert to visit an artsy friend, expecting the empty desert to shield her from murder, mystery, and mayhem.
The desert proves far from empty and the secrets it guards are deadly. Mike must not only save her own life, but also that of a rebellious teen who hates her, does not believe in God, and is determined to engineer the same level of dystopia that Mike fled to the desert to avoid.
River of Fallen Angels
by Laura Joh Rowland
Rating: 4.4 #ad
London, April 1891. When the severed torso of a woman washes up on the bank of the river Thames, London believes a serial killer from the past has struck again. Crime photographer and investigator Sarah Bain Barrett is on the scene with her friends Mick O’Reilly and Lord Hugh Staunton. This is their chance to solve a grisly cold case and deliver a monster to belated justice, with help from Sarah’s husband Detective Sergeant Thomas Barrett; her sister Sally Albert, an intrepid newspaper reporter; and Hugh’s psychologist, Dr. Joshua Lewes, who’s a pioneer in the new science of criminal profiling.
DIRT
by Wendy Potocki
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Dirt. A plot of ground in Prescott Park is messing with Cal Hart’s head. Ever since hearing the rumor of what happened on the land now covered by a toolshed, he’s become obsessed with the urban legend. Children don’t just disappear after being pushed into barren soil, not even when that soil is nicknamed ‘the place where nothing grows’. But one did, and so he turns to the local sheriff’s office for assistance.
The authorities are adamant that nothing supernatural was at work, and that it was a transient with a long record of arrests that got hold of the diminutive second-grader and lured her away from home. But a town historian disputes the sanitized version of the incident and hints that more sinister forces are to blame – sinister forces that are yet to be named. Because of the confusion and his own need to know, Cal launches his own investigation.
Below the Bones
by Kendra Elliot
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Former FBI special agent Cate Wilde is a new bakery and bookstore owner—and retirement is now complete with a doctor boyfriend. Although she struggles with PTSD, the sweet life she’s living is a far cry from the gruesome work she left behind six months ago.
But when skeletal remains turn up on Widow’s Island—and the MO of the killer is too familiar to Cate—the dream comes to an abrupt end. What if the case she solved eight years ago isn’t as closed as she thought? Her hometown needs her, and despite her mental health and her boyfriend’s protests, she has no choice but to return to her dangerous past life.
Stalkers
by Eileen Ormsby
Rating: 4.2 #ad
Deluded narcissists. Obsessed fans. Sinister internet trolls. Stalkers who turned deadly
A Hollywood starlet on a smash-hit sitcom enjoys rising fame, unaware that her greatest fan is hell-bent on meeting his crush. When she films a love scene, his adoration turns into a quest to see her punished
A gameshow winner turns to writing books. When one is given a scathing review, he tracks down the reviewer with bloody results
A teenage boy enjoys online chatrooms. When he meets a sexy Secret Service operative, she convinces him he has been chosen to be a spy with a licence to kill… and his first target is his own best friend.
Wednesday’s Mystery eBooks
Dead Giveaway
by Brenda Novak
Rating: 4.6 #ad
New York Times–Bestselling Author: A police detective comes home to Mississippi to make a new start—but soon finds herself pulled into an old mystery . . .
Every town has its secrets—and Stillwater, Mississippi, has more than most. Starting with the disappearance of the Reverend Lee Barker nineteen years ago. The locals are convinced he was murdered by his stepson, Clay Montgomery. But only Clay—and his mother and sisters—can say for sure. They were the only ones there that fateful night, the only ones who know what really happened. And they’re not talking…
The Hawkes
by Laurel O’Donnell
Rating: 4.6 #ad
A decoded set of directions. A book of maps. A key. What does it all mean?
Having found their true loves, the Hawke sisters, Sage, Raven, and Willow, reunite for the adventure of a lifetime. Fleeing from King Philip as he arrests and persecutes the Templar Knights in his unending pursuit of their treasure, the group struggle to unravel a secret puzzle.
Sage has broken the code and deciphered a book. But where do the directions start and where do they end? Willow was given a book of maps. What is she to do with the book? Where is she supposed to go? And why?
Blood Moon
by Linda Castillo
Rating: 4.4 #ad
On a foggy spring night, an Amish man crashes his buggy after a large, unidentified animal spooks his horse. Kate Burkholder arrives on scene to find the man shaken and bleeding, claiming he was attacked by a large beast. But his description of the creature sounds like something straight out of the Amish folklore from Kate’s childhood. Throughout the night, more incidents of an aggressive animal on the loose are reported, putting the citizens of Painters Mill on edge. There’s a monster menacing the countryside, and Kate must follow its tracks into the dark woods along Painters Creek before violence tips over into tragedy.
The Devil and the Dark Water
by Stuart Turton
Rating: 4.2 #ad
A murder on the high seas. A remarkable detective duo. A demon who may or may not exist.
It’s 1634, and Samuel Pipps, the world’s greatest detective, is being transported to Amsterdam to be executed for a crime he may, or may not, have committed. Traveling with him is his loyal bodyguard, Arent Hayes, who is determined to prove his friend innocent. Among the other guests is Sara Wessel, a noblewoman with a secret.
But no sooner is their ship out to sea than devilry begins to blight the voyage. A strange symbol appears on the sail. A dead leper stalks the decks. Livestock dies in the night.
Double Jeopardy
by Stuart Woods
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Stone Barrington faces down danger on all sides in the latest thriller from perennial fan favorite Stuart Woods.
Stone Barrington is settling in for a stretch in New York when he receives news that demands immediate action. An old family matter has unexpectedly resurfaced, and Stone must decamp to the craggy shores of Maine to address the issue head-on.
There, Stone finds that a dual-pronged threat is hiding in plain sight among the stately houses and exclusive coastal clubs, and the incursion isn’t easily rebuffed.
The Shifting Current
by Dani Pettrey
Rating: 4.8 #ad
An elusive killer. A false identity. A deadly maze of lies.
When Coast Guard Investigative Service Special Agent LOGAN PERRY’s beloved grandfather is murdered, Logan races to his hometown of Cauldron Creek, New Mexico to investigate the murder. His teammate and friend, EMMY THORTON, insists on joining him. Not a good idea—not when he loves her, but carries a secret that he knows will tear them apart.
Emmy knows Logan will pursue the investigation no matter the cost, and she won’t let the man she loves plunge into a dangerous situation alone. She needs to be at his side, even if he believes friendship is her only reason for joining him.
The Boss’s Unexpected Surprise
by Ava Gray
Rating: 4.1 #ad
My new boss had no idea that I was the same girl that grew up in his house as the hired help’s daughter…
Well, surprise surprise. Our mothers hated each other. But that didn’t stop me from accepting the new job offer and working for his family. The big paycheck justified the same bad decision that my mother had made years ago.
Aaron, with his piercing blue eyes, would never recognize me. Or so I thought. Aaron is way older than me, but somehow, I forget that when I let him hold me. It’s impossible for him to stop staring at my curves. I also forget that I hate his mother, and she would stop at nothing to destroy me. One bad decision led to several disasters.
The Pain Tourist
by Paul Cleave
Rating: 4.2 #ad
James Garrett was critically injured when he was shot following his parents’ execution, and no one expected him to waken from a deep, traumatic coma. When he does, nine years later, Detective Inspector Rebecca Kent is tasked with closing the case that her now retired colleague, Theodore Tate, failed to solve all those years ago.
But between that, and hunting for Copy Joe – a murderer on a spree, who’ s imitating Christchurch’ s most notorious serial killer – she’ s going to need Tate’ s help … especially when they learn that James has lived out another life in his nine-year coma, and there are things he couldn’ t possibly know, including the fact that Copy Joe isn’ t the only serial killer in town…
Into the Broken Lands
by Tanya Huff
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Shattered by mage wars, the Broken Lands will test the bonds of family and friendship, strength and sanity. To save their people, the Heirs of Marsan have no choice but to enter, trusting their lives and the lives of everyone they Protect to someone who shouldn’t exist, who can’t be controlled, and who will challenge everything they believe about themselves.
Into the Broken Lands is an evocative fantasy adventure through a singular landscape, taking a new perspective on the consequences of magic through a character-driven narrative.