Wednesday’s Mystery eBooks
Formals, Fortune Cookies & Fraud
by Catherine Bruns
Rating: 4.8 #ad
Ten years before Sally Muccio became the owner of a a novelty cookie shop in Western New York, she had other things on her mind…namely, the senior prom. With a lovely pink gown, the enchanting fortune theme and handsome beau Mike Donovan by her side, Sal’s got all the necessary ingredients for a perfect evening.
How did everything manage to go so wrong?
Small Town Danger Collection
by Multiple Authors
Rating: 5.0 #ad
10 Full-Length Romantic Suspense & Mystery Novels
More than lives are in danger when small town tranquility meets heart pounding suspense in this collection of ten brand-new novels from some of the genre’s most explosive romantic suspense authors!
Join Mary Alford, Liz Bradford, June Foster, Therese Heckenkamp, Cynthia Hickey, Gina Holder, Edie James, Ann Malley, Carol Nemeth and Colleen Snyder as mystery, suspense, and faith combine to keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end.
Wild Fire
by Ann Cleeves
Rating: 4.6 #ad
The betrayal of those closest burns most of all . . .
Hoping for a fresh start, an English family moves to the remote Shetland islands, eager to give their autistic son a better life.
But when a young nanny’s body is found hanging in the barn beside their home, rumors of her affair with the husband spread like wildfire. As suspicion and resentment of the family blazes in the community, Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez is called in to investigate. He knows it will mean his boss, Willow Reeves, returning to run the investigation, and confronting their complex relationship.
Check out:
(Shetland Island Mysteries)
Enemy
by K. Eason
Rating: 3.9 #ad
On the border of the Illhari Republic… Snowdenaelikk, conjuror and heretic, lives on the edge of the Republic–and the law–as a cartel enforcer. Then a smuggling deal goes bad, a village burns, and she finds herself on the wrong side of a legion patrol.
Veiko Nyrikki is an outlaw and an outlander, just trying to survive……until his sense of honor–and his ax–get between Snow and the legion. Now he’s got new enemies and new allies and survival’s gotten complicated. But Snow and Veiko soon discover the legion is the least of their problems.
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(On the Bones of Gods Mysteries)
Riverwoman’s Dragon
by Candace Robb
Rating: 4.5 #ad
When the wise woman Magda Digby is suspected of murder, Owen Archer sets out to prove her innocence in this intricately plotted medieval mystery.
May, 1375. Owen Archer returns from London to find York in chaos. While the citizens are living in terror of the pestilence which is spreading throughout the land, a new physician has arrived, whipping up fear and suspicion against traditional healers and midwives. With the backing of the new archbishop, he is especially hostile towards Magda Digby, the wise woman who has helped and healed the people of York for many years. At the same time, Magda is uneasy about the arrival of two long-lost kinsfolk. Though they say they are seeking her help, she senses a hidden agenda.
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(An Owen Archer Mysteries)
My Heart Is a Chainsaw
by Stephen Graham Jones
Rating: 4.1 #ad
“Some girls just don’t know how to die…”
Shirley Jackson meets Friday the 13th in My Heart Is a Chainsaw, written by the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians Stephen Graham Jones, called “a literary master” by National Book Award winner Tananarive Due and “one of our most talented living writers” by Tommy Orange.
Alma Katsu calls My Heart Is a Chainsaw “a homage to slasher films that also manages to defy and transcend genre.” On the surface is a story of murder in small-town America. But beneath is its beating heart: a biting critique of American colonialism, Indigenous displacement, and gentrification, and a heartbreaking portrait of a broken young girl who uses horror movies to cope with the horror of her own life.
Adrift
by Brian Murphy
Rating: 4.3 #ad
A story of tragedy at sea where every desperate act meant life or death
The small ship making the Liverpool-to-New York trip in the early months of 1856 carried mail, crates of dry goods, and more than one hundred passengers, mostly Irish emigrants. Suddenly an iceberg tore the ship asunder and five lifeboats were lowered. As four lifeboats drifted into the fog and icy water, never to be heard from again, the last boat wrenched away from the sinking ship with a few blankets, some water and biscuits, and thirteen souls. Only one would survive. This is his story.
Using Nye’s firsthand descriptions and later newspaper accounts, ship’s logs, assorted diaries, and family archives, Brian Murphy chronicles the horrific nine days that thirteen people suffered adrift on the cold gray Atlantic.
The Mother-in-Law
by Kiersten Modglin
Rating: 4.3 #ad
There’s something strange about Loren’s new mother-in-law…
When Loren meets Jack, she’s sure he’s the man she’s been waiting for—a perfect husband and a father for her young daughter. Shortly after their wedding, their plans to start a life together are put on hold when the couple receives word that Jack’s father has died.
In an effort to appease her new husband, Loren invites her mother-in-law, Coralee, to stay with them while she grieves. When strange things begin to occur just after her arrival, Loren questions how much she knows about the woman she invited into her home.
Daddy Protector
by Jacqueline Diamond
Rating: 4.3 #ad
He’s a wild and crazy guy—but dead serious about saving a child’s life.
Detective Hale Crandall’s party lifestyle annoys Connie, his beautiful, prickly next-door neighbor, until he races into a burning building to rescue the little boy she’s trying to adopt. She’s grateful but cautious, he’s struggling against a newfound yearning for love and daddyhood… and then someone threatens her safety.
Is the stalker her ex-husband, a fellow police office who’s Hale’s buddy? Or someone neither of them suspects? Hale’s instinct to protect Connie and her new son draws them together. But can these opposites find a happily-ever-after?
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(Cops & Kids Mysteries)
Bridge Back
by Stephanie Parker McKean
Rating: 4.9 #ad
Finally, a wedding instead of a mystery! Detective writer Michal Allison Rice, better known as Miz Mike in her hometown of Three Prongs, Texas, arrives in Scotland to marry Reverend Alan Evan Kirkland. But on their first walk along the beach, Mike discovers a sinking boat…and a murder victim.
Mike left Egan Firewalker Quartz and his bossy teen daughter Flame behind in the Nevada desert when she flew to Scotland to marry her “traditional minister” in a “traditional Scottish wedding” and live the “traditionally happy-ever-after” life. But once in Scotland, Mike fears she made a mistake. She loves Flame as if the child were her own. Worse yet, she may still be in love with Flame’s father…
Tuesday’s Mystery eBooks
Dance of the Winnebagos
by Ann Charles
Rating: 4.3 #ad
When Claire’s grandfather and his army buddies converge in the Arizona desert, it’s her thankless job to keep them out of trouble with the opposite sex. But when she finds a human leg bone and partners with a reluctant geotechnician to dig up secrets from the past, trouble finds her. If she doesn’t stop digging, she could wind up dead.
Check out:
(Jackrabbit Junction Humorous Mysteries)
The Protector: The Complete Series
by Laura Domino
Rating: 4.7 #ad
Perfection in Sharla’s life comes to an end when sudden deaths in the family change everything. Sharla’s search for truth gets her very few answers. Wishing she knew who was behind the deception and why doesn’t help her. When Sharla’s world turns upside down, who can she rely on? Should she trust the billionaire or the bodyguard?
In book two, Dorian needs Max to assist, but will he be helpful enough? Are they safe or are they sitting ducks?
In book three, Max gets his chance to be a hero. When he’s lied to about the reason he was hired, how will he save the lives of those at the party – especially Penny?
The White-Luck Warrior
by R. Scott Bakker
Rating: 4.5 #ad
The Aspect-Emperor trilogy follows on from the acclaimed Prince of Nothing saga, and The White-Luck Warrior is the chilling second book in the new series. Ruler Anasurimbor Kellhus and his Great Ordeal march ever farther into the Ancient North, as his consort Esmenet finds herself at war. Exiled wizard Achamian, meanwhile, leads his own ragtag mission to the legendary ruins of Sauglish. Into this tumult walks the White-Luck Warrior, assassin and messiah both . . . . . . In this ambitious volume, Bakker delves even further into his richly imagined universe of myth, violence, and sorcery.
Check out:
(The Aspect-Emperor Trilogy)
The Waxing Moon
by Elli Morgan
Rating: 5.0 #ad
Lilah Neumann has longed for something beyond the mundane for as long as she can remember. A chance meeting with a mysterious and sexy vampire turns her dreams into a reality filled with adventure and excitement. She has no plans to return to her previous dull life.
After spending 400 years as a lone mercenary, Cain finds more than a companion in 19-year-old Lilah. Yet he can’t shake his past and struggles to suppress his feelings to protect her from the dangers and temptations his kind offers.
When Cain abandons her to keep her safe, Lilah finds herself on a journey through Europe to overcome her human limits and fight for a place by his side. But can a human survive in a vampire’s world?
The Creeper
by A.M. Shine
Rating: 4.2 #ad
The Creeper is a masterful tale of horror and suspense from one of Ireland’s most talented emerging authors. Superstitions only survive if people believe in them…
Renowned academic Dr Sparling seeks help with his project on a remote Irish village. Historical researchers Ben and Chloe are thrilled to be chosen – until they arrive.
The village is isolated and forgotten. There is no record of its history, its stories. There is no friendliness from the locals, only wary looks and whispers. The villagers lock down their homes at sundown…
THE WAITING HOUSE
by Lisette Brodey
Rating: 4.9 #ad
Once an opulent hotel for lovers of the Hollywood lifestyle, today the imposing building survives, somewhere, as an apartment house for those who wait. Not all know what they’re waiting for, but the residents live in flawed concert with those of undetermined existence, among relics of the past, as they wait for answers, for lost loved ones, and for purpose.
While the stories feature different characters, many of whom are recurring, each tale couples with its own unique reality … and is narrated by Conrad, the “grand master.” There is an overall story arc: part literary fiction, part Twilight Zone … both with a healthy dose of dark humor.
Deadline
by Fern Michaels
Rating: 4.5 #ad
No sooner have Toots Loudenberry and her three best friends–Sophie, Ida, and Mavis–returned from Sacramento, where Sophie provided some much-needed psychic advice to the First Lady of California, than another situation demands their attention. . .
Laura Leigh, a Hollywood starlet whose main talent seems to be landing in trouble, is missing. Toots’ daughter, Abby, has both a personal and professional stake in the story. Not only is she editor-in-chief at gossip magazine The Informer, but entertainment attorney Chris Clay, Abby’s would-be beau, was the last person seen with Laura. And now he’s missing, too.
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(Godmothers Mysteries)
The Melody of the Mulberries
by Tonya Jewel Blessing
Rating: 4.3 #ad
As local merchants unite to attract tourists for a much anticipated weekend quilting event, business is sure to spill over into eateries like Daisy’s Tea Garden. Gorgeous craftwork is hanging everywhere – but among the quilts, potholders, and placemats, one gallery owner is wrapped up in some dangerous affairs . . .