Friday’s Mystery eBooks
Antiques Chop
by Barbara Allan
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Brandy Borne and her dramatically ditzy mother, Vivian, are stars of the new reality show Antiques Sleuths. The season opens in a perfect location—a quaint old house echoing with the unsolved whispers of a sixty-year-old axe murder. But when the show’s producer meets a similarly grisly end, Brandy and Mother must chop around for clues, axe the right questions, and get the edge on a murderer’s mysterious motives. Otherwise our sharp-witted sleuths may face cancellation—on the cutting room floor!
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(A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Mysteries)
Anasazi Medium
by G G Collins
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Eight of the nine signs signaling the end of the Fourth World of the Hopi have come to pass. The ninth is hurtling toward Earth!Rachel is recruited by the spirit world to prevent a cataclysmic occurrence: the end of the Fourth World of the Hopi. The ancient spirit tells her: “Everyone you know and everyone you do not know will die. You will die. Your feline will die.” In this fourth Rachel Blackstone paranormal adventure, ancient peoples enlighten contemporary humankind in a mystery as old as time. As earthquakes occur in Santa Fe and a New Mexico supervolcano threatens to blow, it becomes imperative she discover the root of all evil. But can she stop the greedy men intent on having their way and willing to kill to achieve it?
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(Rachel Blackstone Paranormal Mysteries)
The Descent
by Jeff Long
Rating: 4.5 #ad
We are not alone. Some call them devils or demons. But they are real. They are down there. And they are waiting for us to find them.
In a cave in the Himalayas, a guide discovers a self-mutilated body with a warning: Satan exists. In the Kalahari Desert, a nun unearths evidence of a proto-human species and a deity called Older-than-Old. In Bosnia, something has been feeding upon the dead in a mass grave. So begins mankind’s most shocking realization: the underworld is a vast geological labyrinth populated by another race of beings.
Hidden Thrones:The Rise of Darkness
by Russ Scalzo
Rating: 4.6 #ad
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 attracted much attention. A powerful secret society desperately seeks to harness this mystical power.
Author and prayer warrior Jack Bennett can see evil. His unusual gift catapults him into a spiritual world of angels and demons. Jack’s unique ability makes him the FBI’s newest hire, serving as a consultant for their new Paranormal Division. With Special Agent Frank Lederman, they investigate the improbable and the unexplainable.
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(Hidden Thrones Mysteries)
What the Devil Knows
by C. S. Harris
Rating: 4.6 #ad
It’s October 1814. The war with France is finally over and Europe’s diplomats are convening in Vienna for a conference that will put their world back together. With peace finally at hand, London suddenly finds itself in the grip of a series of heinous murders eerily similar to the Ratcliffe Highway murders of three years before.
In 1811, two entire families were viciously murdered in their homes. A suspect–a young seaman named John Williams–was arrested. But before he could be brought to trial, Williams hanged himself in his cell.
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(Sebastian St. Cyr Mysteries)
Hawthorn Academy Complete Series
by D.R. Perry
Rating: 4.2 #ad
We all start as strangers. Why does that make me so nervous?
I can’t imagine life without Mom, Dad, Bubbe or my friends in Salem. And that’s what I’ll be living at Hawthorn Academy, the campus between worlds. But Hawthorn Academy’s the place to be if I want to join the family business as a veterinarian for magic critters.
It’s magi only at my new school, so I’m going without my besties. The only person I’ll know there is my snarky big brother. At least I’ve already bonded with a familiar. But my dragonet means I’m destined for above-average power levels.
The last thing I want to do is scare people off. You only get one chance at first impressions, after all.
Trouble in Mind
by Jeffery Deaver
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Fiendish suspense. Shocking twists. Twelve diabolical tales.
A devoted housekeeper embarks on a quest to find the truth behind her employer’s murder. A washed-up Hollywood actor gets one last, high-stakes chance to revive his career. A man makes an impulsive visit to his hometown, and learns more about his past than he bargained for. Two Olympic track hopefuls receive terrorist threats. And Deaver’s beloved series characters Lincoln Rhyme, Kathryn Dance, and John Pellam return in stories now in print for the first time.
A Dark and Bloody Ground
by Darcy O’Brien
Rating: 4.3 #ad
An Edgar Award–winning author’s true crime account of a grisly string of killings in Kentucky – and the shocking spectacle of greed that followed.
Kentucky never deserved its Indian appellation “A Dark and Bloody Ground” more than when a small-town physician, seventy-seven-year-old Roscoe Acker, called in an emergency on a sweltering evening in August 1985. Acker’s own life hung in the balance, but it was already too late for his college-age daughter, Tammy, savagely stabbed eleven times and pinned by a kitchen knife to her bedroom floor. Three men had breached Dr. Acker’s alarm and security systems and made off with the fortune he had stashed away over his lifetime…
Thursday’s Mystery eBooks
Death Comes to the Rectory
by Catherine Lloyd
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Murder casts a dark shadow over the christening of Lady Lucy and Major Sir Robert Kurland’s daughter Elizabeth—even more so when Lucy’s own father, the rector, falls under suspicion for the crime . . .
Lucy and Robert’s joy in christening their new daughter, surrounded by extended family and loved ones who have gathered in the village of Kurland St. Mary, is only enhanced when Robert’s aunt Rose—now the second wife of Lucy’s father Ambrose—announces that she is with child. However, not everyone is happy about the news, in particular Rose’s adult daughter Henrietta and her husband, who fear for their inheritance.
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(A Kurland St. Mary Mysteries)
The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog
by Elizabeth Peters
Rating: 4.7 #ad
The 19th-century Egyptologist must rescue her kidnapped husband, find the culprit, and save her marriage in this delightful seventh adventure for beloved heroine Amelia Peabody.
With Nefret, now a ward of Amelia and Emerson, and Ramses at home pursuing their studies, the couple returns to Amarna in 1898 for a dig that promises to be just like old times. The trip turns out to be more like old times than they plan, however, when they become the targets of a Master Criminal’s evil plot. Emerson is kidnapped, and Amelia rescues him to discover that he has lost his memory. Tantalizingly close to her most important discovery yet, a tomb that may have been Nefertiti’s, Amelia needs to turn her attention to regaining her husband’s love.
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(Amelia Peabody Mysteries)
Miss Moriarty, I Presume?
by Sherry Thomas
Rating: 4.5 #ad
A most unexpected client shows up at Charlotte Holmes’s doorstep: Moriarty himself. Moriarty fears that tragedy has befallen his daughter and wants Charlotte to find out the truth.
Charlotte and Mrs. Watson travel to a remote community of occult practitioners where Moriarty’s daughter was last seen, a place full of lies and liars. Meanwhile, Charlotte’s sister Livia tries to make sense of a mysterious message from her beau Mr. Marbleton. And Charlotte’s longtime friend and ally Lord Ingram at last turns his seductive prowess on Charlotte—or is it the other way around?
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(The Lady Sherlock Mysteries)
A Taste for Death
by P. D. James
Rating: 4.4 #ad
When the quiet Little Vestry of St. Matthew’s Church becomes the blood-soaked scene of a double murder, Scotland Yard Commander Adam Dalgliesh faces an intriguing conundrum: How did an upper-crust Minister come to lie, slit throat to slit throat, next to a neighborhood derelict of the lowest order? Challenged with the investigation of a crime that appears to have endless motives, Dalgliesh explores the sinister web spun around a half-burnt diary and a violet-eyed widow who is pregnant and full of malice–all the while hoping to fill the gap of logic that joined these two disparate men in bright red death. . . .
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(Adam Dalgliesh Mysteries)
An Acceptable Sacrifice
by Jeffery Deaver
Rating: 4.3 #ad
A pair of federal agents from either side of the US–Mexico border target a cartel kingpin.
They call him “Cuchillo,” the Knife. Not because he kills with a blade—he has plenty of men to do that kind of work for him—but because his mind is so sharp. As Mexico’s government wages war on the drug cartels, it takes brains to survive, and Cuchillo has not just survived—he has prospered. But when Cuchillo begins to cut too deeply, the federal police of both the United States and Mexico step in to dull his blade. P. Z. Evans and Alejo Díaz know the Hermosillo cartel is planning an attack on a tourist bus in Sonora, and they know they will have to capture or kill Cuchillo to stop it.
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(Bibliomysteries Mysteries)
Mulberry Mischief
by Sharon Farrow
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Autumn has arrived on the shores of Lake Michigan, but Marlee Jacob, proprietor of The Berry Basket, is feeling a chill for other reasons …
With the Harvest Health Fair in full swing, Marlee makes sure to stock up on elderberry products for cold and flu season. But this year there’s also a run on mulberry when an eccentric customer wants to use the dried berries to ward off evil forces. True, it’s almost Halloween, but something else seems to be spooking Leticia the Lake Lady, Oriole Point’s oddest resident. She believes someone plans to kill her—and the ghost. Only mulberries can protect them. Marlee doesn’t take her fears seriously until a man named Felix Bonaventure arrives in the village, asking questions about a mysterious woman.
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(A Berry Basket Mysteries)
The 6:20 Man
by David Baldacci
Rating: 4.5 #ad
A cryptic murder pulls a former soldier turned financial analyst deep into the corruption and menace that prowl beneath the opulent world of finance, in this #1 New York Times bestselling thriller from David Baldacci.
Every day without fail, Travis Devine puts on a cheap suit, grabs his faux-leather briefcase, and boards the 6:20 commuter train to Manhattan, where he works as an entry-level analyst at the city’s most prestigious investment firm. In the mornings, he gazes out the train window at the lavish homes of the uberwealthy, dreaming about joining their ranks. In the evenings, he listens to the fiscal news on his phone, already preparing for the next grueling day in the cutthroat realm of finance. Then one morning Devine’s tedious routine is shattered by an anonymous email: She is dead.
Into the Firestorm
by Kat Martin
Rating: 4.6 #ad
M. Cassidy—Luke Brodie had heard the name before, some novice bounty hunter working Seattle, catching tricky skips with more success than a newcomer should expect. But the dark curls, sparkly top, and impressive cleavage were not what Brodie had pictured.
Emma Cassidy is tough and smart and sexy as hell. She’s also popping up a step ahead of him every time he’s close to the capture he wants most . . . and there’s no room for learning on the trail of this monster.
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(BOSS, Inc. Mysteries)
Dark Kiss Collection
by Multiple Authors
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Ready for romance stories that send a chill down your spine while making your heartbeat quicken in an entirely different way? Sink your teeth into Dark Kiss, a multi-author box set of Vampire Romance written by NY Times, USA Today, and bestselling authors. Find a new author to love!
Sober Daughter
by Fawna Asfaw
Rating: 4.9 #ad
An empowering account of a lost daughter’s fight for her identity and sobriety—and her mission to help others.
The only child of a doting Ethiopian father and a strong-willed African American mother, Fawna Asfaw felt her life shatter when she lost both her parents to illness. As grief pulled her into a downward spiral of addiction and shame, Fawna had to learn to harness her power and rebuild her life with a new perspective that changed everything.
In this emotional memoir, Fawna recounts feeling paralyzed by the monumental task of advocating for her parents’ medical needs and eventual hospice care. After their heartbreaking premature deaths, she buckled under the realization that she had no idea how to live without them.
Wednesday’s Mystery eBooks
Deserts, Driving, and Derelicts
by Tonya Kappes
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Welcome to Normal, Kentucky where NOTHING is normal.
Mae West is getting settled into the RV lifestyle as the owner of a campground in Normal, Kentucky.
Happy Trails Campground, located in Daniel Boone National Park, has started to attract late summer vacationing families who love to hike, swim, fish, and enjoy being outdoors.
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(A Camper & Criminals Cozy Mysteries)
Special Agent Kandice
by Mimi Barbour
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Powerful, thrilling and character-driven, this romantic suspense is a real page-turner.
Special Agent indeed, Kandice Warner is everyone’s best friend. Talk about a Barbie doll! This female might have the same pretty-girl looks but even though she has a tender heart, she also has the resilience needed for a very successful FBI Hostage Negotiator. Feelings of inadequacy constantly force her to prove that she’s tough, and she demonstrates her courage when dealing with a murderous bank robber, a desperate jumper, being stalked, kidnapped and beaten. But her tender heart can get her in trouble and she needs to grow a thicker skin. Almost impossible when her obstinate new boss, for reasons of his own, interferes in everything she does.
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(Undercover FBI Mysteries)
Dragon Haven
by Robin Hobb
Rating: 4.6 #ad
One of the world’s most acclaimed fantasists, New York Times bestselling author Robin Hobb returns to the world of her popular “Tawny Man” trilogy with Dragon Haven—the second book, following Dragon Keeper (“Imaginative, literate, and compassionate from first page to last” —Booklist) in an epic adventure about the resurgence of dragons in a world that both needs and fears them. Hobb, whose Soldier Son Trilogy (Shaman’s Crossing, Forest Mage, Renegade’s Magic) has won raves from critics, fans, and peers alike, returns to the Rain Wilds with Dragon Haven, and readers of Raymond Feist, Terry Brooks, and Lois McMaster Bujold will eagerly follow.
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(Rain Wilds Chronicles)
Deputy Bart
by William Black
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Bart Fulton feels compelled by fate to pin on a deputy’s badge in Arizona Territory’s Plain Creek. The young twenty-two-year old has drawn an almost impossible first challenge – putting an end to the evil and murderous ways of criminal Weed Meadows.
Weed doesn’t bat an eye killing innocent people and threatening others. He wants to expand a silver mine he stole. To do that he’ll have to get land from two families, the Lees and the Rileys. There’s one problem – both families have been feuding for years. Bart knows about Weed’s nefarious plans. But convincing the Lees and the Rileys and getting them to stop fighting among themselves is another challenge.
The Girl in the Mirror
by Rose Carlyle
Rating: 4.1 #ad
Twin sisters Iris and Summer are startlingly alike, but beyond what the eye can see lies a darkness that sets them apart. Cynical and insecure, Iris has long been envious of Summer’s seemingly never-ending good fortune, including her perfect husband Adam.
Called to Thailand to help her sister sail the family yacht to the Seychelles, Iris nurtures her own secret hopes for what might happen on the journey. But when she unexpectedly finds herself alone in the middle of the Indian Ocean, everything changes. When she makes it to land, Iris allows herself to be swept up by Adam, who assumes that she is Summer.
Blood Water Falls
by TG Reid
Rating: 4.2 #ad
When the brutally murdered body of a local geography teacher is discovered at Kilwinnoch’s famous beauty spot, Blood Water Falls, the community is rocked to its core.
For DCI Duncan Bone, the killing appears to be an open and shut case. But it’s not long before a sinister clue unleashes dark and deadly forces, blowing the investigation wide open, and putting Bone and his team in grave danger.
With the town baying for blood, and too many suspects and not enough answers, DCI Bone faces not only the toughest case of his career, but the battle of his life to defeat the psychological demons determined to destroy him once and for all.
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(DCI Bone Scottish Crime Thrillers)
When She Weeps
by Jon Athan
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Vanessa Ramirez, a 28-year-old employee at a beauty salon, wants to leave Mexico for greener pastures in the United States with her children, 10-year-old Lucía and 5-year-old Joaquín. With cartel violence spilling closer and closer to her doorstep every day, she seeks the help of the local coyotes—people smugglers—but is unable to afford the rising fees for their services. So, she reluctantly turns to Mexico’s criminal underworld to fund her escape and finds herself intertwined with the cartels she was so desperate to avoid.
A world of lust, greed, barbaric violence, and heartbreaking tragedy awaits her. Tragedy that will send her down the path to becoming a terrifying legend…
Ender’s Game
by Orson Scott Card
Rating: 4.6 #ad
In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race’s next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn’t make the cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.
Ender’s skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity.
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(Ender Quintet Mysteries)
Tuesday’s Mystery eBooks
Twisted Vows
by Bonita Y. McCoy
Rating: 5.0 #ad
A mob boss attending the nuptials. A groom holding a bloody knife. A reverend lying dead in his office. Who says weddings can’t be fun?
When Amy Kate attends the wedding of a close friend, the groom is found hovering over the dead body of the reverend holding a bloody knife. It looks like an open and shut case until the bride convinces Amy Kate that the groom is innocent…
Who would want the reverend dead, and why now?
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(An Amy Kate Mysteries)
Breath of Malice
by Karen Fenech
Rating: 4.4 #ad
A gripping novel of romantic suspense from USA Today bestselling author Karen Fenech.
It’s a game of cat and mouse. And she is losing . . .
FBI Special Agent Paige Carson hoped she’d be able to start a new life in small-town South Carolina. But when a senator’s sister is murdered and a blank postcard is left next to the body, Paige realizes that a killer from her past has found her–and is sending her a very personal message.
From the moment he hired her, FBI Special Agent in Charge Sam McKade knew Paige was hiding something. Prompted by this recent threat, she finally opens up: one year ago, she caught the eye of suspected serial killer Todd Thames. Now he’s come back to pull her into his game, whether she wants to play or not.
Unleashing Magic
by D. J. Dalton
Rating: 5.0 #ad
She changed the fate of the land. Can she survive the terrifying consequences?
Keren Stewart’s fight has just begun. With the elf that kidnapped her best friends still on the run, she devises a daring rescue. But they aren’t the only ones in need of saving. When a mysterious illness befalls her fire-breathing friends, she rebels against the elder sorcerer to fight for the dragon races’ very existence.
Embarking on a doomed adventure, she refuses to give up on family, friends, and the ailing hatchlings fighting for their lives. But with traitors on her team and deadly clifftop battles, Keren’s rescue quest feels destined for disaster.
Can she free her loved ones and cure the dragons’ illness before death claims them all?
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(Twisted Curse Mysteries)
Dead And Buried
by Corey Mitchell
Rating: 4.1 #ad
The Face Of Death
On the night of November 12, 1998, in San Luis Obispo, California, attractive blonde college student Rachel New house was walking home alone when suddenly a stranger appeared in front of her. His visage was a skull-face: a grotesque Halloween mask. Beating her unconscious with his fists, the attacker threw her into his pick-up truck, took her to his secluded canyon cabin and raped her – still wearing the mask. Newhouse was hog-tied and left to strangle to death. On March 11, 1999, in the same town, a stalker who had been shadowing college student Aundria Crawford, 20, broke into her apartment, pummeled her into insensibility, and carried her away in his truck to his canyon lair. There, she was raped, tortured, and murdered.
A Grave Issue
by Lillian Bell
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Disgraced journalist Desiree Turner gets more than she bargained for when she takes over her family’s funeral home—and winds up at the center of a murder investigation
After an on-air gaffe goes viral and jeopardizes her career, journalist Desiree Turner retreats home to Verbena, California for some peace and quiet. She begins working one of the quietest jobs around: presiding over funerals for her great-grandfather’s funeral parlor. But the action seems to follow her as a fistfight breaks out between neighbors Rosemarie Brewer and Lola Hansen at one of the first funerals she’s in charge of running. It exposes a nasty dispute and Rosemarie’s husband, Alan, is found murdered shortly after.
Myths and Mortals
by Charlie N. Holmberg
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Sandis has escaped Kazen’s grasp, but she finds herself unmoored, reeling from her thief friend Rone’s betrayal.
Kazen has been hurt but not stopped, and he’ll do anything to summon the monster that could lay waste to the entire world. Sandis knows she must be the one to stop him, but with her own trusted numen now bound to another, and finding herself with no one she can trust, she is in desperate need of allies. Rone seems determined to help her, but Sandis has no intention of letting him get close to her again. What she doesn’t know is how much Rone gave up to protect her. Or how much more he is willing to give up to keep her safe.
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(Numina Mysteries)
Under Currents
by Nora Roberts
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Zane Bigelow grew up in a beautiful, perfectly kept house in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Strangers and even Zane’s own aunt across the lake see his parents as a successful surgeon and his stylish wife, making appearances at their children’s ballet recitals and baseball games. Only Zane and his sister know the truth, until one brutal night finally reveals cracks in the facade, and Zane escapes for college without a thought of looking back…
Years later, Zane returns to his hometown determined to reconnect with the place and people that mean so much to him, despite the painful memories. As he resumes life in the colorful town, he meets a gifted landscape artist named Darby, who is on the run from ghosts of her own.
Once a Thief
by Christopher Reich
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Simon Riske sits in sun-dappled Napa Valley, toasting the record hundred-million-dollar sale of a rare 1963 Ferrari which he restored himself. The buyer, a sophisticated French woman, Sylvie Bettencourt, has purchased the car for an unnamed client whose anonymity she will guard at all costs. Riske enjoys her company and the flowing champagne until Sylvie’s formidable Russian bodyguard storms in, claiming the vehicle is a fake. Riske is given an ultimatum. Prove the car is the real thing…or else.
Meanwhile, in Lugano, Switzerland, Carl Bildt, banker to the rich and nefarious, is killed by a powerful car bomb, moments before he can deliver evidence to the authorities and disappear into witness protection. His beautiful and headstrong daughter, Anna, rushes to Switzerland to investigate her father’s violent death.
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(Simon Riske Mysteries)