Friday’s Mystery eBooks
Flowers and Foul Play
by Amanda Flower
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Reeling from the loss of her fiancé and flower shop, Fiona Knox is surprised to find her new-found inheritance comes with magic, mystery, and murder.
Florist Fiona Knox’s life isn’t smelling so sweet these days. Her fiancé left her for their cake decorator. Then, her flower shop wilted after a chain florist opened next door. So when her godfather, Ian MacCallister, leaves her a cottage in Scotland, Fiona jumps on the next plane to Edinburgh. Ian, after all, is the one who taught her to love flowers. But when Ian’s elderly caretaker Hamish MacGregor shows her to the cottage upon her arrival, she finds the once resplendent grounds of Duncreigan in a dreadful shambles—with a dead body in the garden.
Junkyard Dogs
by Craig Johnson
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Junkyard Dogs, the sixth installment in the New York Times bestselling Longmire Mystery Series, the basis for LONGMIRE, the hit Netflix original drama series, takes us to Durant, Wyoming. It’s a volatile new economy in Durant when the owners of a multimillion-dollar development of ranchettes want to get rid of the adjacent Stewart junkyard. Meeting the notorious Stewart clan is an adventure unto itself, and when conflict erupts—and someone ends up dead—Sheriff Walt Longmire, his lifelong friend Henry Standing Bear, and deputies Santiago Saizarbitoria and Victoria Moretti find themselves in a small town that feels more and more like a high-plains pressure cooker.
Broken Rhodes
by Kimber Silver
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Kinsley Rhodes blows into Harlow, Kansas like a tornado, twisting Sheriff Lincoln James’ life into knots. Her grandfather has been murdered and she wants answers.
As if the town’s first homicide in twenty years wasn’t enough, the beleaguered sheriff now has to deal with Henry Rhodes’ bobcat of a granddaughter, plunging his life deeper into chaos. As a dark storm threatens, long-held secrets are exposed, placing Kinsley directly in harm’s way.
In a race against time, Lincoln’s prime objective is to discover the killer’s identity before Miss Rhodes becomes the next victim…
THE GARDENER IN THE GRAVEYARD
by LIS HOWELL
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Suzy Spencer is branching out — she’s working with local retiree gardeners on a podcast about rewilding the graveyard garden in Norbridge. But a body is found in a wheelie bin and chaos begins . . .
Queen bee of the gardening gang, Lorna Duxford, discovers the dead woman. She’s been bludgeoned to death.
It turns out the victim wasn’t local – nobody knew her. So why did Lorna whisper ‘Deirdre’ when she saw her? Then the wife of another gardener dies in a car crash. But the police quickly discover that this was no accident.
Sentenced to War
by J.N. Chaney, Jonathan P. Brazee
Rating: 4.4 #ad
2021 Dragon Award Nominee for Best Military Science Fiction
Sit in prison or join the military. The choice is yours.
Convicted of a minor traffic violation, Rev Pelletier is conscripted into the Perseus Union Marine Corps… for up to a thirty-year term of service. Anxious to get back to his civilian life and job, he opts for a shorter term as a Marine Raider, taking the fight to the enemy.
But with extremely high mortality rates, can he and his friends survive until their term of service is over?
The Perfect Escape
by Daniel Hurst
Rating: 4.0 #ad
I just wanted a place where we could get away from it all. But coming here was one of the worst mistakes of my life…
After the year Aidan and I have had, we needed some respite. My husband is overworked, whilst I’m anxious about the past, so renting a night at this converted barn house in the countryside seems like the perfect place for the pair of us to relax and unwind. It might be situated at the bottom of a large garden, but it’s private enough that we don’t have to mingle with the homeowners who live nearby. Or at least that’s what I thought…
Dark Force Rising
by Timothy Zahn
Rating: 4.7 #ad
In this essential Star Wars Legends novel, the sequel to Heir to the Empire, Grand Admiral Thrawn’s sinister plan threatens to spell doom for the fledgling New Republic and its most iconic heroes.
The dying Empire’s most cunning and ruthless warlord, Grand Admiral Thrawn, has taken command of the remnants of the Imperial Fleet and launched a massive campaign aimed at the New Republic’s destruction. Meanwhile, Han Solo and Lando Calrissian race against time to find proof of treason inside the highest Republic Council—only to discover instead a ghostly fleet of warships that could bring doom to their friends and victory to their enemies.
Thursday’s Mystery eBooks
Freshly Ground Murder
by Tonya Kappes
Rating: 4.6 #ad
The holidays have arrived, and nothing is going to steal the joy of Roxanne Bloom’s first Christmas in Honey Springs. The town’s annual Christmas in the Park is underway and includes a Christmas Pawrade that’ll help the furry residents at Pet Palace get a home for Christmas. It’s not the four-legged creatures that steal the show, it’s the pair of legs sticking out from the Christmas tree lighting ceremony that has all the town talking. The suspects are piling up faster than the falling snow, while a murderer is on the loose. Roxy can’t let this ruin her first Christmas in Honey Springs and soon realizes it’s the ghosts of Christmas past that holds the real clues…
Calculated Risk
by Lynn Shannon
Rating: 4.7 #ad
He carries the burden of his mistakes. The wounds on Jason Gonzalez’s body are nothing compared to the ones on his heart. The former Marine avoids getting close to anyone new, especially his gorgeous next-door neighbor. Until he hears a scream coming from her house in the middle of the night.
Her enemies are too numerous to count. Addison Foster escaped an abusive marriage and has become an advocate for others. When an intruder breaks into her home and nearly kills her, Addison is rescued by an unlikely protector. But the threats against her aren’t over and she needs help.
Danger around every corner.
Don’t Let Go
by Harlan Coben
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Suburban New Jersey Detective Napoleon “Nap” Dumas hasn’t been the same since senior year of high school, when his twin brother Leo and Leo’s girlfriend Diana were found dead on the railroad tracks—and Maura, the girl Nap considered the love of his life, broke up with him and disappeared without explanation. For fifteen years, Nap has been searching, both for Maura and for the real reason behind his brother’s death. And now, it looks as though he may finally find what he’s been looking for.
Say Something
by N. Gemini Sasson
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Love – especially a dog’s love – can change a person.
Not yet sixteen, Bellamy Larson – or Beam, as she’d rather be called – remembers everything. Truthfully, there’s a lot she’d just rather forget. Beam never knew her father and doesn’t ever want to. Her little brother died while saving her. And her mother self-medicates, leaving Beam to fend for herself.
Desperate for a normal life, Beam carjacks a rusty pickup and drives south to live with her grandparents in Faderville, Kentucky. Unfortunately, as Beam soon figures out, ‘normal’ doesn’t exist. She could use a friend, but friends are hard to come by when you’re an outsider.
One Foot in the Grave
by Jeaniene Frost
Rating: 4.6 #ad
You can run from the grave, but you can’t hide . . .
Half-vampire Cat Crawfield is now Special Agent Cat Crawfield, working for the government to rid the world of the rogue undead. She’s still using everything Bones, her sexy and dangerous ex, taught her, but when Cat is targeted for assassination, the only man who can help her is the vampire she left behind.
Being around him awakens all her emotions, from the adrenaline kick of slaying vamps side by side to the reckless passion that consumed them…
I Know Where You Live
by Gregg Olsen
Rating: 4.0 #ad
Violet knows that time is a futile healer. When she thinks of her happily married grandfather—a predator lovingly referred to as Papa—the feelings of rage and betrayal still swell. Her younger sister, Lily, just discovered the numbing truth about him. Their mother, Rose? She can’t believe it. Not Papa. Leave it alone, Violet. Focus on the now.
When Papa suffers a sudden, and suspicious, fatal heart attack at Violet’s wedding, she can barely conceal her joy. Maybe the fellow survivor at her support group is right: moving on is possible only when monsters are removed from society permanently. Violet is focusing on the now. Even if doing so calls for extremes.
A Memory of Summer
by Grace Draven
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Spinsterhood has never bothered or embarrassed the independent Emerence Ipsan, and the winter festival of Delyalda keeps her far too busy managing her father’s shops to worry about matters as trivial as marriage.
Until the arrival of a young Quereci warrior with old eyes and an admiring gaze makes her question that notion.