Cursed (
$3.79 Kindle), the twelfth novel in the
Regan Reilly series by Carol Higgins Clark [Simon and Schuster]
Book Description
Private Investigator Regan Reilly moved from Los Angeles to New York City when she married her husband, Jack "no relation" Reilly, head of the NYPD Major Case Squad. To help a friend she ends up taking on a case that calls her back to her old stomping ground...
Cursed opens on a cold and gray January morning. Sleet and snow are swirling as Regan arrives at a warehouse in Long Island City with a trunk full of her old case files from Los Angeles. After carting all her boxes into a storage unit, she heads back out into the snow, and her cell phone rings.
Abigail Feeney, a young woman who had lived across the hall from Regan in an apartment complex in the Hollywood Hills, is on the line. Abigail believes her life has been cursed since birth. She was born on Friday the 13th of January, and her parents gave her a name with 13 letters. A hairdresser on movie sets, Abigail was recently injured at work when a piece of scaffolding fell and knocked her over, and her arm was broken in two places. But that isn't why she is calling. "Regan!" she exclaims. "The 'no good bum' has been spotted in town. I desperately need the money he owes me. Can you please come out here and help me find him?"
Regan immediately knows the identity of the "no good bum." From her L.A. apartment, Regan had often seen Abigail's ex, Cody Castle, sitting by the pool, bent over his cell phone, text messaging nonstop. Before he disappeared three months ago, he borrowed $100,000 from Abigail. He promised to pay her back in three months.
"Find him?" Regan asks.
"Yes! My grandmother is flying here tomorrow. There's a condo she wants to buy me. But we need that money. She can't find out I don't have it. Regan, can't you spend a few days with me?"
If Regan weren't freezing, she might have made an excuse. But Jack was away at a seminar, Regan had never liked the "no good bum," and Abigail had brought her chicken soup when she'd had the flu last winter. Within hours Regan is on a flight to Los Angeles where her adventure with Abigail will take her from the beaches of Malibu, to the mountains north of the city, to the renovated lofts of downtown L.A.
Regan starts to feel Abigail's curse is contagious as she encounters a cast of characters who aren't always welcoming. Some are downright dangerous. And there's one who is the most dangerous of all...
Mass Effect: Revelation (
$0.99 Kindle), by Drew Karpyshyn [Del Rey]
Book Description
Every advanced society in the galaxy relies on the technology of the Protheans, an ancient species that vanished fifty thousand years ago. After discovering a cache of Prothean technology on Mars in 2148, humanity is spreading to the stars; the newest interstellar species, struggling to carve out its place in the greater galactic community.
On the edge of colonized space, ship commander and Alliance war hero David Anderson investigates the remains of a top secret military research station; smoking ruins littered with bodies and unanswered questions. Who attacked this post and for what purpose? And where is Kahlee Sanders, the young scientist who mysteriously vanished from the base–hours before her colleagues were slaughtered?
Sanders is now the prime suspect, but finding her creates more problems for Anderson than it solves. Partnered with a rogue alien agent he can’t trust and pursued by an assassin he can’t escape, Anderson battles impossible odds on uncharted worlds to uncover a sinister conspiracy . . . one he won’t live to tell about. Or so the enemy thinks.
Welcome Back to Pie Town (
$1.99 Kindle), by Lynne Hinton [HarperCollins]
Book Description
Lynne Hinton of Friendship Cake fame delighted readers everywhere when she invited them to experience the simple joys and small triumphs of the endearing residents of Pie Town—a tiny New Mexico community once renowned for its unsurpassable baked desserts. And now, Welcome Back to Pie Town for a second slice of small-town life, as sweet and tasty as the first. The recently rejuvenated Pie Town is a tiny speck of heaven on earth for most of its inhabitants, but not for one recently returned veteran of the war in Afghanistan, who now feels ill at ease and out of place—and it will take the love of a good woman and the support of the whole town to truly bring him back home again. As an extra added treat, Welcome Back to Pie Town features recipes from the novel…for mouth-watering pies, of course.
A trio of books by Roxanne St. Claire [Simon and Schuster] have dropped in price (from the $15 range).
Tropical Getaway (
$3.79 Kindle)
Roxanne St. Claire brings to life the beauty and danger of the Caribbean in her stunning debut novel, blending intrigue with white-hot passion for a suspenseful, sultry read.
Ava Santori is cooking up a storm in the family restaurant in Boston's North End when a call from the Coast Guard brings shattering news: her beloved brother was lost in a shipwreck. Determined to find out why the ship was steered into a hurricane, Ava packs her bags for the lush isle of St. Barts -- where she puts the blame squarely on the broad shoulders of the ship's owner.
Dane Erikson built the luxurious Utopia Adventures cruise line from the ground up and he's not about to let it sink. Enlisting Ava to help discover the truth about the doomed Paradisio, he finds himself unbearably tempted by this fiery, impetuous woman. And as their investigation causes danger to close in, he and Ava find their hearts leading them to the same place...straight into each other's arms.
French Twist (
$3.79 Kindle)
Following her white-hot debut novel, Tropical Getaway, Roxanne St. Claire captures the passion and intrigue of France in a dazzling romantic suspense adventure.
Janine Coulter has just gotten her big chance to prove herself, managing a prestigious exhibit at the Palace of Versailles -- and Luc Tremont, the security specialist, is clearly trouble. He's making decisions without her, under-cutting her authority. He's also too smooth, too virile, too dangerously handsome, too...well...French! And Janine has the uneasy suspicion he's not all that he seems.
Luc resolutely ignores the powerful sizzle of attraction he feels when he meets Janine -- the quintessential California girl with her blond hair, blue eyes, and legs that seem to go on forever. But when thieves steal priceless treasures from the exhibit, and Luc and Janine give chase across the lush Burgundy countryside, their forced intimacy ignites the passion both have tried to ignore. Luc wonders what will happen when Janine learns his true identity -- but with dangerous men pursuing them, they may not live to find out....
Killer Curves (
$3.99 Kindle)
He's fast. She's furious. They're in for the ride of their lives.
Rising star Roxanne St. Claire puts the pedal to the metal in a story of intrigue and passion that will get your heart racing!
When sexy NASCAR racer Beau Lansing tracks down high society debutante Celeste Bennett, it's a matter of life or death. Stunned at the secret Beau reveals, Celeste is forced to make a life-altering decision. But with her love life on the skids and her family life in a tailspin, escaping incognito into Beau's world is just what she needs -- especially if she can get answers about her past.
Beau needs Celeste to save a man's life -- he never expected a high-octane attraction that could wreck his well-protected heart. And when Celeste's life is threatened by someone who clearly knows her real identity, Beau has to risk everything -- including his own life -- to save her. With menacing forces in the driver's seat and time ticking too fast, the two must win the biggest race of all...the race for their lives and their love.
Not Your Mother's Midlife: A Ten-Step Guide to Fearless Aging (
$3.82 Kindle), by Nancy Alspaugh and Marilyn Kentz [Andrews McMeel]
Book Description
Aging ain't what it used to be. For one thing, people are staying younger longer. For another, countless baby boomers are rising up against the notion that with age comes worthlessness.In fact, Not Your Mother's Mid-Life: A Ten-Step Guide to Fearless Aging is more than a book; it's a movement. This gloriously gutsy volume challenges society's worn-out perceptions that women become less valuable as they age. Instead, authors Nancy Alspaugh and Marilyn Kentz celebrate the fact that today's women can be more powerful, more efficient, more capable, and even more desirable as they age.In Not Your Mother's Mid-Life, readers will find 10 practical recommendations to help women face middle age with confidence and a positive attitude. From chapters like Let Go of What's Not Working, Shore Up Spiritually, and Find a New Passion, Not Your Mother's Mid-Life contains personal growth exercises, humorous and poignant stories, and questions and visualizations to inspire new ways of thinking.Not Your Mother's Mid-Life takes the crisis out of mid-life, replacing it with passion, fearlessness, and unlimited possibilities.
Hangman's Holiday (
$3.49 Kindle), the ninth
Peter Wimsey Mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers [Open Road Media], joins
the three titles I previously reported (which are still on sale).
Book Description
A trove of short stories featuring two of the Jazz Age’s most famous sleuths
In the annals of mystery writing, Lord Peter Wimsey and Montague Egg are among the most memorable detectives. Lord Peter—noble by birth, brilliant by nature—is a fly in the ointment of criminals across Britain, turning up whenever the police ask him to lend his quick wit and keen eye to an investigation. Montague Egg is a free-spirited figure, a traveling wine salesman with an unfortunate habit of stumbling over murder scenes. Both are inimitably charming, and neither has ever failed to catch his man.
In this collection of stories, the two detectives confront cat killers, American zombies, and—most horrible of all—a poisoned bottle of fine old port. Several decades after their first publication, mystery maven Dorothy L. Sayers’s chilling puzzles remain as engaging as ever.
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Dorothy L. Sayers including rare images from the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College.
The Stranger You Seek (
$0.99 Kindle), by Amanda Kyle Williams [Random House]
Book Description
In the sweltering heat of an Atlanta summer, a killer is pushing the city to its breaking point, preying on the unsuspecting, writing taunting letters to the media, promising more death. Desperate to stop the Wishbone Killer, A.P.D. lieutenant Aaron Rauser turns to the one person he knows can penetrate a deranged mind: Keye Street, an ex–FBI profiler and former addict who now picks up jobs where she can get them. But the last thing Keye wants is to be pulled into the firestorm of Atlanta’s worst nightmare. And then it suddenly becomes clear that the hunter has become the hunted—and the stranger she seeks is far closer than she ever dared imagine.
Bread Alone (
$1.99 Kindle), a novel by Judith R. Hendricks [William Morrow/ HarperCollins]
Book Description
The life of 31-year-old trophy wife Wynter Morrison suddenly changes course when her husband announces one evening that their marriage is over. Emotionally devastated and desperate for a change of scenery, Wyn moves to Seattle where she spends aimless hours at a local bakery, sipping coffee and inhaling the sweet aromas of freshly-made bread. These visits bring back memories of her long-ago apprenticeship at a French boulangerie, and when offered a position at the bakery, Wyn quickly accepts -- hoping that the rituals of baking will help her move on.
Working long hours among the bakery's cluster of eclectic women -- Linda, the irascible bread baker; earth mother Ellen and her partner Diane; and Tyler, the blue-haired barista -- Wyn awakens to the truths that she missed while living the good life in Hancock Park.
Soon Wyn discovers that making bread possesses an unexpected and wondrous healing power, helping her to rediscover that nothing stays the same... bread rises, pain fades, the heart heals, and the future beckons.
The Roots of the Olive Tree (
$1.99 Kindle), by Courtney Miller Santo [William Morrow/ HarperCollins]
Book Description
An extraordinary new voice in contemporary woman’s fiction, Courtney Miller Santo makes her magnificent debut with The Roots of the Olive Tree, a novel that will delight fans of Sarah Blake’s The Postmistress, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, and the works of Kristin Hannah.
Set in a house on an olive grove in northern California, The Roots of the Olive Tree is a beautiful, touching story that brings to life five generations of women—including an unforgettable 112-year-old matriarch determined to break all Guinness longevity records—the secrets and lies that divide them and the love that ultimately ties them together.
Although you can pick up the self-published (in the US)
Cooper & Fry Series Twin Pack - Books 1 & 2 , by Stephen Booth, for $5.99 on Kindle, you may instead want to grab the Avon/ HarperCollins pre-orders for the individual titles,
Black Dog and
Dancing with the Virgins, for $2.99 each (although if you do, you'll have to wait until October/November to read them). While you are ordering, you might as well grab the third in the series,
Blood on the Tongue, also currently a $2.99 pre-order.
Meet young Derbyshire police detectives DC Ben Cooper and DS Diane Fry, who operate in England's beautfiul and atmospheric Peak District.
Black Dog
Winner of the Barry Award for Best British Crime Novel. Finalist for an Anthony Award for Best First Mystery
It's been a long, hot summer in England's beautiful Peak District national park. But summer comes to an end when the body of missing teenager Laura Vernon is found.
For young police detective Ben Cooper, the work has just begun. His community is hiding a young girl's killer, and a past as dark as the Derbyshire night. It seems Laura was the keeper of secrets beyond her years and, in a case where no-one is innocent, everyone is a suspect.
But Cooper's local knowledge and instincts are about to face an even greater challenge. The ambitious DC Diane Fry has been transferred from a nearby city, a woman as ruthless as she is attractive…
Dancing with the Virgins
Winner of the Barry Award for Best British Crime Novel. Finalist for the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel.
An award-winning psychological thriller, the sequel to Stephen Booth's debut Cooper & Fry novel BLACK DOG.
In a remote part of England's Peak District stand the Nine Virgins, a ring of stones overshadowed by a dark legend. Now, as winter closes in, a tenth figure is added to the circle - the body of Jenny Weston is discovered, her limbs arranged so she appears to be dancing.
Weeks earlier another woman had been attacked on the moors. Maggie Crew was found by a local farmer's wife, severely traumatized, her face savagely cut open. Is there a maniac on the loose, knifing women at random?
Unlocking the memories trapped in Maggie's mind is now a matter of utmost urgency for the detectives of Derbyshire 'E' Division. But while DS Diane Fry attempts to draw out the truth, DC Ben Cooper is left with too many lines of enquiry leading to too few answers.
As they struggle to make sense of a murder that seems motiveless, it becomes clear that the moors have witnessed more bloodshed than either Ben or Diane could imagine. And there is more to come before an answer can be found...
Blood on the Tongue
Guilt, sacrifice and redemption in a freezing Peak District winter all feature in this tense psychological thriller from the acclaimed author of BLACK DOG and DANCING WITH THE VIRGINS.
It wasn’t the easiest way to commit suicide. Marie Tennent seems to have curled up in the freezing snow on Irontongue Hill and stayed there until her body was frosted over like a supermarket chicken. And hers isn’t the only death the Derbyshire police have to contend with – not after the discovery of a baby in the wreckage of an old Airforce bomber, and the body of a man dumped by the roadside.
As if three bodies on her hands isn’t enough, snow and ice have left half of ‘E’ Division out of action, and Detective Sergeant Diane Fry is forced to partner with DC Gavin Murfin. She and Ben Cooper were never a match made in heaven - but, next to Murfin, working with Ben starts to look like a dream.
Cooper is on a trail of his own, though – and one as cold as the Peak District January.
In an equally bitter winter in 1945 an RAF bomber crashed on Irontongue Hill, killing everyone except the pilot, who walked away and disappeared. Now the pilot's grand-daughter is in Derbyshire desperate to clear his name, and Ben can’t help taking an interest.
But is a fifty-year-old mystery really the best use of police time? Or does a vicious attack in the dark Edendale back streets prove that the trail isn't quite so cold as he thought?
Could the past be the only clue to present violence as an icy winter looks set to get even chillier?
The Dragon's Path (
$2.99 Kindle), the first novel in
The Dagger and Coin series by Daniel Abraham [Orbit], has been on sale before; for those that missed it, you get two books in one, as this also includes an advance reading copy of
Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey. If you already have it, the the
companion audiobook is available for $3.99.
Book Description
All paths lead to war...
Marcus' hero days are behind him. He knows too well that even the smallest war still means somebody's death. When his men are impressed into a doomed army, staying out of a battle he wants no part of requires some unorthodox steps.
Cithrin is an orphan, ward of a banking house. Her job is to smuggle a nation's wealth across a war zone, hiding the gold from both sides. She knows the secret life of commerce like a second language, but the strategies of trade will not defend her from swords.
Geder, sole scion of a noble house, has more interest in philosophy than in swordplay. A poor excuse for a soldier, he is a pawn in these games. No one can predict what he will become.
Falling pebbles can start a landslide. A spat between the Free Cities and the Severed Throne is spiraling out of control. A new player rises from the depths of history, fanning the flames that will sweep the entire region onto The Dragon's Path-the path to war.
This e-book edition of The Dragon's Path includes an advance reading copy of Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey
Welcome to the future.
Humanity has colonized the solar system - Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond - but the stars are still out of our reach.
Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, The Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for - and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.
Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to The Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.
Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations - and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.
A Soldier of the Great War (
$2.51 Kindle), by Mark Helprin [Houghton Mifflin Harcourt]
Book Description
For Alessandro Giullani, the young son of a prosperous Roman Lawyer, golden trees shimmer in the sun beneath a sky of perfect blue. At night the moon is amber and the city of Rome seethes with light. He races horses across the country to the sea, and in the Alps he practices the precise and sublime art of mountain climbing. At the ancient university in Bologna he is a student of painting and the science of beauty. And he falls in love. His is a world of adventure and dreams, of music, storm, and the spirit. Then the Great War intervenes.
Half a century later, in August of 1964, Alessandro, a white-haired professor, still tall and proud, finds himself unexpectedly on the road with an illiterate young factory worker. As they walk toward Monte Prato, a village seventy kilometers distant, the old man tells the story of his life. How he became a soldier. A hero. A prisoner. A deserter. A wanderer in the hell that claimed Europe. And how he tragically lost one family and gained another.
The boy is dazzled by the action and envious of the richness and color of the story, and realizes that the old man's magnificent tale of love and war is more than a tale: it is the recapitulation of his life, his reckoning with mortality, and above all, a love song for his family.
Today's Kindle Daily Deal is Subterranean ($1.99), by James Rollins [HarperCollins].
Today's Kindle Romance Daily Deal is From Notting Hill with Love...Actually ($1.99), by Ali McNamara [Sourcebooks Landmark]. This is a pretty good deal, if you missed it when it was free last December, as Sourcebooks seldoms seems to repeat freebies (and has slowed way down on having them, anyway).
Today's Kindle SciFi/Fantasy Daily Deal is all three Legends of Muirwood books ($0.99 each), by Jeff Wheeler [47North]. Even if you already have the series in your library (as I do), you may want to pick up these new editions, published by one of Amazon's imprints (and probably a bit more polished and proofed), just for access to the companion audiobooks (2 of 3 so far and I suspect all three eventually will be Whispersync compatible).
Today's Kindle Teen Daily Deal is Starting From Here ($1.99), by Lisa Jenn Bigelow [Skyscape - an Amazon Children's Publishing imprint].
