Thursday’s Mystery eBooks
Renewed for Murder
by Victoria Gilbert
Rating: 4.4 #ad
August in Taylorsford, Virginia finds library director Amy Webber and her new husband, dancer Richard Muir, settling into married life–and a new project. Richard and his dance partner, Karla, are choreographing a suite based on folk music and folk tales, while Amy scours the library’s resources to supply background information on the dance’s source material. But the mellifluous music comes to a jarring halt when an unknown woman’s body turns up in Zelda Shoemaker’s backyard gazebo.
Chief Deputy Brad Tucker puts Zelda at the top of his suspect list, thanks to a blackmail letter he finds in the dead woman’s pocket. Zelda’s best friend, Amy’s aunt Lydia Talbot, begs Amy to use her research skills to clear Zelda’s name. But the task is confounded by Zelda’s very out-of-character refusal to reveal why the victim might have blackmailed her.
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(A Blue Ridge Library Mysteries)
Dying Breath
by Liz Mistry
Rating: 4.7 #ad
The killer is closing in… can she find him before he finds her?
When Detective Nikki Parekh receives a set of threatening postcards, she knows it can only mean one thing… The man who escaped arrest after murdering her mother two years ago is back.
Each postcard has a similar message: You’re next Parekh.
As the post marks on the cards gradually get closer to Bradford, Nikki must do everything she can to protect her family and catch the killer before it’s too late.
Who Slays the Wicked
by C. S. Harris
Rating: 4.6 #ad
The death of a fiendish nobleman strikes close to home as Sebastian St. Cyr is tasked with finding the killer to save his young cousin from persecution in this riveting new historical mystery from the USA Today bestselling author of Why Kill the Innocent….
When the handsome but dissolute young gentleman Lord Ashworth is found brutally murdered, Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, is called in by Bow Street magistrate Sir Henry Lovejoy to help catch the killer. Just seven months before, Sebastian had suspected Ashworth of aiding one of his longtime friends and companions in the kidnapping and murder of a string of vulnerable street children. But Sebastian was never able to prove Ashworth’s complicity. Nor was he able to prevent his troubled, headstrong young niece Stephanie from entering into a disastrous marriage with the dangerous nobleman.
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(Sebastian St. Cyr Mysteries)
Bridge to Brigadoon
by Stephanie Parker McKean
Rating: 4.7 #ad
In one of the wackiest Miz Mike adventures ever, successful writer Michal Allison Rice is packed off to Scotland by her son and daughter-in-law for a vacation. They believe the trip will heal her broken heart—and hope that it will teach her to mind her own business. Mike does not want to go to Scotland. It is COLD there. And once in Scotland, she doesn’t want to stay. Hotdogs come in cans, dill pickles are non-existent and driving on the wrong side of the road terrifies her. However, when elderly Ross Granger is killed, Mike feels responsible and sets out in search of the killer.
Nearly killed herself, Mike is faced with a dilemma: no one believes her. She is viewed as “an American stushie-maker.” But the gravest danger of all proves to be the Reverend Alan Evan Kirkland, a Scottish widower who befriends her, then demands the one thing in repayment that she is unwilling to give – her heart.
Rosemarked
by Livia Blackburne
Rating: 4.4 #ad
A terminally ill healer… Zivah was once her village’s most promising young healer, mastering potions that altered both body and mind. But when she’s conscripted to treat a battalion of grievously ill soldiers, Zivah contracts the deadly rose plague. Now she’s doomed to a slow, solitary death, cut off from everyone she loves.
A broken warrior… Dineas grew up fighting to free his people from the Amparan empire, but capture and torture have left him shattered. Though he’s now escaped from the emperor’s dungeons, he cannot outrun the lingering effects of his trauma…
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(Umbertouched)
Afraid to Die
by Lisa Jackson
Rating: 4.6 #ad
The town of Grizzly Falls, Montana, is still on edge in the wake of a serial killer’s capture. Thanks to Detectives Selena Alvarez and Regan Pescoli, the nightmare is over. But a new one is about to unfold. There are two victims so far—their bodies found frozen solid and deliberately displayed. Both are women Selena knew. And each wears a piece of her jewelry.
Selena, Regan, and the entire department are on the case, as is P.I. Dylan O’Keefe—a man Selena got too close to once before. But this killer already knows too much about Selena’s secret terror, her flaws, and the past she’s tried to outrun. And soon he’ll show her that she has every reason to be afraid.
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(An Alvarez & Pescoli Mysteries)
Wastelands
by Multiple Authors
Rating: 4.6 #ad
In WASTELANDS: THE NEW APOCALYPSE, veteran anthology editor John Joseph Adams is once again our guide through the wastelands using his genre and editorial expertise to curate his finest collection of post-apocalyptic short fiction yet. Whether the end comes via nuclear war, pandemic, climate change, or cosmological disaster, these stories explore the extraordinary trials and tribulations of those who survive.
Featuring never-before-published tales by: Veronica Roth, Hugh Howey, Jonathan Maberry, Seanan McGuire, Tananarive Due, Richard Kadrey, Scott Sigler, Elizabeth Bear, Tobias S. Buckell, Meg Elison, Greg van Eekhout, Wendy N. Wagner, Jeremiah Tolbert, and Violet Allen–plus, recent reprints by: Carmen Maria Machado, Carrie Vaughn, Ken Liu, Paolo Bacigalupi, Kami Garcia, Charlie Jane Anders, Catherynne M. Valente, Jack Skillingstead, Sofia Samatar, Maureen F. McHugh, Nisi Shawl, Adam-Troy Castro, Dale Bailey, Susan Jane Bigelow, Corinne Duyvis, Shaenon K. Garrity, Nicole Kornher-Stace, Darcie Little Badger, Timothy Mudie, and Emma Osborne.
Essential Grief
by Kathleen Flynn
Rating: 5.0 #ad
This book’s stories are focused on grieving losses from the death of humans and pets. There is a myriad of losses such as loss of: a job; dreams; aging; relationships; and many more
What Kathleen Flynn shares here can be applied toward many types of loss.
As a chaplain, minister, and grief counselor, Flynn chooses to focus on death, as it seems to be that loss, perhaps the finality of it, paralyzes us from taking action to mediate our grief. It is the finality of death, often with related trauma and with suddenness, that can immobilize us. All losses have contributed to the author’s understanding of the essentials of grief.
Wednesday’s Mystery eBooks
Puzzle at Peacock Perch
by Suzanne Rudd Hamilton
Rating: 4.0 #ad
Can a group of senior amateur detectives solve the mystery and find their missing neighbor?
Willow Wisteria disappeared, but not without a trace. Now it’s up to Madame Sleuth and the members of the Secret Senior Sleuths Society of Peacock Perch to find out what happened to her. They’ve set aside their bingo and bridge games and daily tennis and pickle ball matches to investigate “The Case of the Vanishing Vixen.” They’ll use all their cunning, life experience and the knowledge from their former occupations to follow the trail of gossip and social media posts about Willow to gather clues and find suspects with means, motive and opportunity.
Chasing Whispers
by Jennifer Youngblood
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Chasing Whispers will draw you in from the first page with its mystery and intrigue. The matters of the heart will leave a promise of hope that will stay with you long after the last page has been turned.
Not only is Talon dangerously handsome with his crooked smile and adorable dimple, but he also happens to be the oldest son of one of the wealthiest families on the East Coast. The more Effie tries to evade Talon, the harder he pursues her.
Effie is reluctant to get involved with Talon because of their work relationship and also because of the whispers of suspicion surrounding his ex-wife’s disappearance.
Check out:
(The Honeysuckle Island Mysteries)
Choppy Water
by Stuart Woods
Rating: 4.4 #ad
In this exhilarating new thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Stuart Woods, Stone Barrington must go up against an enemy with deadly intentions–and ideologies.
Stone Barrington and his friends are vacationing in Maine when their leisure is suddenly disrupted by extreme weather. To make matters worse, the inclement conditions allow for a menacing adversary to sneak in unnoticed and deliver a chilling message. Soon it becomes clear that the target of the incident is one of Stone’s closest companions, and that these enemies have a grander scheme in mind.
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(A Stone Barrington Mysteries)
“F” is for Fugitive
by Sue Grafton
Rating: 4.4 #ad
Floral Beach wasn’t much of a town: six streets long and three deep, its only notable feature a strip of sand fronting the Pacific. It was on that sandy beach seventeen years ago that the strangled body of Jean Timberlake had been found.
The people of floral Beach didn’t pay a whole lot of mind to past history, especially when Bailey Fowler, the self-confessed killer, had been properly processed and convicted. They weren’t even unduly concerned when, a year after the murder, Fowler walked away from the men’s prison at San Luis Obispo, never to be seen again. After all, everyone knew Jean had been a wild kid. “Like mother, like daughter,” some said–though never within hearing of Shana Timberlake, who, whatever her faults, still mourned her murdered child.
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(Kinsey Millhone Mysteries)
Rescue My Heart
by Lorana Hoopes
Rating: 4.6 #ad
Find out in this gripping romantic suspense by USA Today best-selling author Lorana Hoopes. Fans of Alana Terry, Susan May Warren, and Margaret Daly will love this spine-tingling ride filled with danger, intrigue, tension, and the tough topic of Human Trafficking.
Can she save her sister in a race against time? Detective Al Parker’ hasn’t spoken with her sister in weeks, but when she finds out Nicole has gone missing, she’ll do whatever it takes to find her. However, she didn’t plan on having to team up with the man she thought was out of her life forever.
Grant Dickson thought he’d left his past behind and it would never resurface, but when he’s forced to return to the place that broke his heart, will he be able to do his job?
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(The Men of Fire Beach Mysteries)
Going Rogue
by Janet Evanovich
Rating: 4.8 #ad
A BRAND NEW RELEASE
Monday mornings aren’t supposed to be fun, but they should be predictable. However, on this particular Monday, Stephanie Plum knows that something is amiss when she turns up for work at Vinnie’s Bail Bonds to find that longtime office manager Connie Rosolli, who is as reliable as the tides in Atlantic City, hasn’t shown up.
Stephanie’s worst fears are confirmed when she gets a call from Connie’s abductor. He says he will only release her in exchange for a mysterious coin that a recently murdered man left as collateral for his bail. Unfortunately, this coin, which should be in the office – just like Connie – is nowhere to be found.
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(Stephanie Plum Mysteries)
Finding Home
by Lorhainne Eckhart
Rating: 4.5 #ad
What happens when a family loses everything and has no place to go?
Terrance Mack has a wife and two young boys. Never in a million years did he expect to find his family living on the streets, with no home, no jobs, in a position where everything they owned has been taken from them in the cruelest of ways. As the family struggles to stay together, they encounter a hard and unfriendly way of life, having to move from town to town, being harassed by the police and by locals, and confronting danger each day. Living on the streets is nothing as he expected.
All Terrance wants for his family is for someone to give them a chance—a chance for a new beginning, a roof over their heads, the opportunity to once again build a life without constant fear, having to look over their shoulders, feeling as if the rug will continue to be yanked out from under them again and again.
Demystifying Enlightenment
by Dennis Macy
Rating: 4.1 #ad
Do you long to know how your loved ones are doing in Heaven? Are you curious about the afterlife? Do you miss your late family members and yearn to ask them about their heavenly existence? Intrigued by the astonishing wisdom of other celestial residents? Dennis Macy, who possesses highly sensitive enhanced abilities, has helped countless individuals by delivering messages from the other side. Now he’s here to provide you with the comfort and understanding that comes from communicating with those who have passed on. Demystifying Enlightenment is a glimpse into what angels, spirits, and our dearly departed want us to know. With answers to the most frequently asked questions entwined with accounts of his real encounters to support them, Macy offers an insight into the world we live in and the one to come. You’ll be prepared to make the right decisions to shape a better future for yourself and others.