Friday’s Mystery eBooks
The German Suitcase
by Greg Dinallo
Rating: 4.5 #ad
A vintage suitcase is pulled from the trash by a young New York advertising executive brainstorming a campaign on her way to work. The account is Steinbach Luggage, the German answer to Louis Vuitton and Hermes. There is only one problem with the vintage bag—like Steinbach’s CEO, it is a Holocaust survivor, as evidenced by the name and other personal data painted on it.
The suitcase is hallowed memorabilia, and no one dares open it until it is determined if the owner is still alive. The Holocaust survivor turns out to be an eighty-nine-year-old member of New York’s Jewish aristocracy, a prominent philanthropist and surgeon…
Song of Echoes
by R.E. Palmer
Rating: 4.4 #ad
For three hundred years, the people of the Five Realms have lived in relative peace, protected by their great leader, the Archon. Yet, far to the north, in the frozen lands beyond the Draegalen Trench, the Ruuk stir, driven by a rising evil, long believed banished from the world. But rumors questioning the Archon’s ability to defend the realms once more, persist.
Elodi, the Lady Harlyn, uneasy in her new role following the death of her father, and Toryn, a farmworker and outsider in his village, must discover a way to fight an enemy that all but defeated their ancestors.
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(Age of Shadows)
Level Zero
by Dan McDowell
Rating: 4.2 #ad
Despite not operating as such for years, a haphazard acquisition of the facility leads Chris Wilkerson down a dark path to uncover its mysteries as he forms a call-center specializing in horror stories. A sinister character lurks in an abandoned tunnel just beneath, manipulating Chris as he struggles to walk a fine line between his love for the dark and the macabre and a collapsing marriage.
Todd Adams, a manic depressive financial advisor, awakens from a coma along with 53 others, fighting to understand unexplained phantom memories that plague them. As each work to unravel their meaning, they begin to disappear into a labyrinth beneath the hotel at the torment of a bizarre captor.
Immortal’s Honor
by Rebecca Zanetti
Rating: 4.7 #ad
From award-winning author Rebecca Zanetti comes the newest wildly thrilling Dark Protectors novel with an immortal hero to die for.
First comes danger . . . When Vampire-Demon Sam Kyllwood discovers he’s the keeper of some mysterious circle, he laughs it off. When he finds out that his younger brother is supposed to fight to the death in said circle, he snaps right to furious. And that’s before he starts uncontrollably making things explode —it turns out it’s never too late to develop deadly new immortal abilities. But even those explosions are nothing compared to what happens when he tries to handle a very suspicious, brilliant and beyond sexy human female whose piercing eyes ignite a heat that rages deliciously outside even his unbreakable control… Then comes desire . . .
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(Dark Protectors Series)
The Alaskan Laundry
by Brendan Jones
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Tara Marconi has made her way from Philadelphia to “the Rock,” a remote island in Alaska governed by the seasons. Her mother’s death left her unmoored, with a seemingly impassable rift between her and her father. But in this majestic, rugged frontier she works her way up the commercial fishing ladder—from hatchery assistant all the way to king crabber. Disciplined from years as a young boxer, she learns anew what it means to work, to connect, and—through an unlikely old tugboat—how to make a home she knows is her own.
A testament to the places that shape us and the places that change us, The Alaskan Laundry tells one woman’s unforgettable journey in waters as far and icy as the Bering Sea, back to the possibility of love.
Flame and Crystal Thorns
by Kay L Moody
Rating: 4.6 #ad
She vowed she’d never return to Faerie… But vows were made to be broken.
As a human girl, Chloe is perfectly happy being back in the mortal realm where she belongs. She’s even become the town apothecary. When a fae from her past shows up begging her to return to Faerie, she utterly refuses.
But then she finds out an angry group of mortals are using iron to hold an entire castle full of fae hostage. And of course, the hostages include Chloe’s older sister and her sister’s beloved. Reluctantly, Chloe packs a bag for what is supposed to be a short trip to Faerie.
Fate’s Keep
by T. Rae Mitchell
Rating: 4.3 #ad
She will die trying to return to him. He will sell his soul to be with her.
Fate escaped the deadly fairy tale world of the Book of Fables, but at a terrible cost. Finn remains a prisoner of the cursed book. Or so she thinks, because Finn was freed and is searching for her. As far as Fate knows, her only way back to him is through a gateway within the mysterious Keep–an ancient storehouse of magical objects too powerful for ordinary realms.
But when Fate reaches the Keep she discovers the truth of her heritage and the blood oath she must take as Keep Guardian. Even though her heart is sworn to saving Finn above all else, the oath demands a battle against unimaginable creatures of myth threatening to destroy the Keep.
Thursday’s Mystery eBooks
Claws for Alarm
by Cate Conte
Rating: 4.3 #ad
Maddie James has finally given in to her friend Katrina’s pleas to open up her cat cafe to more than ten felines: they’re now up to fifteen purring friends. In fact, JJ’s House of Purrs is making such a splash that she’s getting national attention. The Shoreline Animal Rescue League is quite interested in the cafe, and so Maddie accepts a request to meet with Jillian Allen, the executive director. Jillian shows up at the cafe and asks Maddie if they can partner on a fundraiser to support the local rescue efforts—and she offers up her celebrity endorser and her celebrity cat to sweeten the deal. Maddie, caught up in the prospect, offers up her sister Val to help plan the event.
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(Cat Cafe Mysteries)
Cash and Nettie
by Frank Wheeler
Rating: 4.5 #ad
Cash Summers spent most of his life working his father’s ranch. When Hitch Gunner sends the Gomez brothers to raid the place, only a handful of people survive the attack. Cash’s mother and sister aren’t two of them. Struggling to find justice in an unjust world, Cash and his brothers set out to tear down the men who unraveled their family. Along for the ride is their Uncle Jem, who promises to keep them safe.
Hitch Gunner has made it no secret that he wants Cash dead, and he’s willing to pay a high price to the man who does the job. Born without morals, Hitch’s own family is scared of him.
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(Cat Cafe Mysteries)
The Bone Code
by Kathy Reichs
Rating: 4.5 #ad
On the way to hurricane-ravaged Isle of Palms, a barrier island off the South Carolina coast, Tempe receives a call from the Charleston coroner. The storm has tossed ashore a medical waste container. Inside are two decomposed bodies wrapped in plastic and bound with electrical wire. Tempe recognizes many of the details as identical to those of an unsolved case she handled in Quebec fifteen years earlier. With a growing sense of foreboding, she travels to Montreal to gather evidence.
Meanwhile, health authorities in South Carolina become increasingly alarmed as a human flesh-eating contagion spreads. So focused is Tempe on identifying the container victims that, initially, she doesn’t register how their murders and the pestilence may be related. But she does recognize one unsettling fact.
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(Temperance Brennan Mysteries)
The Cutting Edge
by Jeffery Deaver
Rating: 4.5 #ad
In the early hours of a quiet, weekend morning in Manhattan’s Diamond District, a brutal triple murder shocks the city. Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs quickly take the case. Curiously, the killer has left behind a half-million dollars’ worth of gems at the murder scene, a jewelry store on 47th street. As more crimes follow, it becomes clear that the killer’s target is not gems, but engaged couples themselves.
The Promisor vows to take the lives of men and women during their most precious moments–midway through the purchase of an engagement ring, after a meeting with a wedding planner, trying on the perfect gown for a day that will never come. The Promisor arrives silently, armed with knife or gun, and a time of bliss is transformed, in an instant, to one of horror.
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(Lincoln Rhyme Mysteries)
Megan’s Way
by Melissa Foster
Rating: 3.9 #ad
What would you give up for the people you love?
When Megan Taylor, a single mother and artist living on Cape Cod, receives the shocking news that her cancer has returned, she’s faced with the most difficult decision she’s ever had to make. The love she has for her daughter, Olivia, and her closest friends will be stretched and frayed.
Megan’s illness reawakens her best friend, Holly Townsend’s, torment of a long-held secret and years of betrayal. How does one choose between a daughter and a life-long best friend? Can the secret she has been keeping be revealed after years of lying without destroying everyone in its wake?
Love and Death Among the Cheetahs
by Rhys Bowen
Rating: 4.5 #ad
I was so excited when Darcy announced out of the blue that we were flying to Kenya for our extended honeymoon. Now that we are here, I suspect he has actually been sent to fulfill another secret mission. I am trying very hard not to pick a fight about it, because after all, we are in paradise! Darcy finally confides that there have been robberies in London and Paris. It seems the thief was a member of the aristocracy and may have fled to Kenya. Since we are staying in the Happy Valley—the center of upper-class English life—we are well positioned to hunt for clues and ferret out possible suspects.
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(A Royal Spyness Mysteries)
Cold as Hell
by Lilja Sigurdardottir
Rating: 4.1 #ad
Icelandic sisters ÁrÓra and Ísafold live in different countries and aren’t on speaking terms, but when their mother loses contact with Ísafold, ÁrÓra reluctantly returns to Iceland to find her sister. But she soon realizes that her sister isn’t avoiding her … she has disappeared, without trace.
As she confronts Ísafold’s abusive, drug-dealing boyfriend BjÖrn, and begins to probe her sister’s reclusive neighbours – who have their own reasons for staying out of sight – ÁrÓra is led into an ever-darker web of intrigue and manipulation.
The Other Side of Midnight
by Sidney Sheldon
Rating: 4.6 #ad
The Other Side of Midnight is Sidney Sheldon at his best.
This page-turner is full of tortured romantic entanglements, reverses of fortune, thrilling suspense, and ultimate justice. In Paris, Washington, and a fabulous villa in Greece, an innocent American becomes a bewildered, horror-stricken pawn in a game of vengeance and betrayal. She is Catherine Douglas, a woman caught in a web of four lives intertwined by passion as her handsome husband pursues an incredibly beautiful film star . . . and as Constantin Demeris, a legendary Greek tycoon, tightens the strands that control them all.