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Release Date: January 10, 2017 Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark Format: Kindle Pages: 400 pages Genre: Mystery Buy: Paperback | Kindle  Synopsis:  The perfect family. The perfect house. The perfect life. All gone now. What could cause a man, when all the stars of fortune are shining upon him, to suddenly snap and destroy everything he has built? This is the question that haunts Sergeant Ryan DeMarco after the wife and children of beloved college professor and bestselling author Thomas Huston are found slaughtered in their home. Huston himself has disappeared and so is immediately cast as the prime suspect. DeMarco knows-or thinks he knows-that Huston couldn't have been capable of murdering his family. But if Huston is innocent, why is he on the run? And does the half-finished manuscript he left behind contain clues to the mystery of his family's killer? Review: This is a book that keeps you guessing, just when you think you have it figured out you find...

Release Date: June 28, 2016 Publisher: Harper Format: Hardcover Pages: 272 pages Genre: memoir Buy: Hardcover | Kindle   Synopsis: The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.’s grandparents were “dirt poor and in love,” and moved north from Kentucky’s Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually their grandchild (the author) would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of  Hillbilly Elegy  plays out, we learn that this is only the short, superficial version. Vance’s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother, struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, and were never able to fully escape the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. Vance piercingly shows...

Release Date: December 6, 2016 Publisher: Grand Central Publishing Format: Kindle Pages: 416 Genre: Mystery / Crime Buy: Hardcover | Kindle Synopsis: On a cold December day in northern upstate New York, the body of high school senior Joy Enright is discovered in the woods at the edge of a pond. She had been presumed drowned, but an autopsy shows that she was, in fact, strangled. As the investigation unfolds, four characters tell the story from widely divergent perspectives: Susanne, Joy's mother and a professor at the local art college; Martin, a black graduate student suspected of the murder; Harper, Joy's best friend and a potential eyewitness; and Tom, a rescue diver and son-in-law of the town's police chief. As a web of small-town secrets comes to light, a dramatic conclusion reveals the truth about Joy's death. Review: This book is told from 4 different perspectives, and from a time before the murder and the time after the murder.  It was interest...

Release Date: August 6, 2016 Publisher: Random House Audio Format: Audible Length: 10 hours 11 minutes Narrator:  Bahni Turpin Genre: Historical Fiction Buy: Audible | Kindle | Paperback  Synopsis: Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.  In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially se...

Release Date: November 10, 2015 Publisher: MacMillan Audio Format: Audio Narrator: Rebecca Soler Length: 23 hours 30 minutes Genre: Fantasy Buy: Audible | Kindle | Paperback   Synopsis:  Winter despises her stepmother, and knows Levana won't approve of her feelings for her childhood friend--the handsome palace guard, Jacin. But Winter isn't as weak as Levana believes her to be and she's been undermining her stepmother's wishes for years. Together with the cyborg mechanic, Cinder, and her allies, Winter might even have the power to launch a revolution and win a war that's been raging for far too long. Can Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter defeat Levana and find their happily ever afters? Review: This was an amazing ending to the Lunar Chronicles.  All of the story lines get wrapped up in a satisfactory way and yet the story kept you on the edge of your seat.  Meyer has an uncanny way of featuring the main character yet also giving all the ot...

Release Date: December 8, 2016 Publisher: Midnight Ink Format: Kindle Pages: 288 pages Genre: Mystery Buy: Kindle | Paperback Synopsis:  Amanda Sinclair has to fight harder than most for everything she has after fleeing the cult that left her brother dead at her mother’s hand. Amanda works a quiet job in quality control for a small cosmetics company, trying to leave her past behind her—until she learns that her mother has committed suicide in the mental ward where she’s been locked away for the past ten years. At first, Amanda believes that her mother killed herself, but when she looks through the personal belongings left behind, it seems her death may be related to the upcoming parole hearing for cult leader Patrick Collier. Teaming up with her mother’s psychologist, Amanda starts to peel away the layers of secrets that she’s built between herself and her own past, and what she finds is a truth that’s almost too big to believe. Review: Amanda still struggles w...

Release Date: November 15, 2016 Publisher: Createspace Format: Kindle Pages: 146 pages Genre: Fantasy Buy: Kindle | Paperback Synopsis:  "Keep your mind right, put your body in action and let your spirit guide you.” These are the words keeping her sane after her husband kidnaps her, tearing her away from her life in India and keeping her captive in Northern Canada. But after three months with only a servant, a television and the screams of another captive keeping her company, she begins to lose touch with reality - even forgetting her own name. In her struggle to escape, she discovers an inner strength and powers previously unknown realigning her past, present and future. Review: This was a really interesting read.  Noor is a newlywed and is being held hostage by her husband.  He seems to really like her and doesn't seem cruel so why he is holding her against her will is a mystery.  Like the main character I wasn't sure what was going on at fi...

Release Date: October 16, 2016 Publisher: Createspace Format: Kindle Pages: 224 pages Genre: Fantasy Buy: Kindle | Paperback Synopsis: They came after The Great Storm, the Espers. Feared and hunted by society, there are those who use their powers for good, and those who use them for evil. When an experiment goes wrong in Victorian London, Espers, people with supernatural abilities are created. In order to counter this new potential threat, the Institute is set up to teach Espers how to use their abilities for good and how to hunt down those who want to use their powers for evil. Gifted with a formidable but self-destructive ability, Nathan is one of the Institute’s top agents. When the evil Baron executes his plan to control the minds of London’s political leaders, peace is dependent on Nathan and his team. Will he learn to control his powers in time to save the world? Or will he succumb to their self-destructive nature? Review:  This book is like a combinat...

Release Date: December 1, 2016 in Australia (no date for USA yet) Publisher: Random House Australia Format: Paperback Pages: 252 pages Genre: Thriller, crime Buy: Kindle | Paperback Synopsis: If Detective Frank Bennett tries hard enough, he can sometimes forget that Eden Archer, his partner in the Homicide Department, is also a moonlighting serial killer . . . Thankfully their latest case is proving a good distraction. Someone is angry at Sydney's beautiful people - and the results are anything but pretty. On the rain-soaked running tracks of Sydney's parks, a predator is lurking, and it's not long before night-time jogs become a race to stay alive. While Frank and Eden chase shadows, a different kind of danger grows closer to home. Frank's new girlfriend Imogen Stone is fascinated by cold cases, and her latest project – the disappearance of the two Tanner children more than twenty years ago – is leading her straight to Eden's door. And, as Frank ...

Release Date: August 2, 2016 Publisher: WW Norton & Co Format: Paperback Pages: 320 pages Genre: Mystery Buy: Kindle | Paperback Synopsis:  Robert, an Oakland cop, still can't let go of Suzy, the enigmatic Vietnamese wife who left him two years ago. Now she's disappeared from her new husband, Sonny, a violent Vietnamese smuggler and gambler who's blackmailing Robert into finding her for him. As he pursues her through the sleek and seamy gambling dens of Las Vegas, shadowed by Sonny's sadistic son, "Junior," and assisted by unexpected and reluctant allies, Robert learns more about his ex-wife than he ever did during their marriage. He finds himself chasing the ghosts of her past, one that reaches back to a refugee camp in Malaysia after the fall of Saigon, as his investigation soon uncovers the existence of an elusive packet of her secret letters to someone she left behind long ago. Although Robert starts illuminating the dark corners of Suzy’...

Release Date: September 20, 2016 Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks Format: Paperback Pages: 368 pages Genre: Fiction Buy: Kindle | Paperback   Synopsis: Nina Redmond is a literary matchmaker. Pairing a reader with that perfect book is her passion… and also her job. Or at least it was. Until yesterday, she was a librarian in the hectic city. But now the job she loved is no more. Determined to make a new life for herself, Nina moves to a sleepy village many miles away. There she buys a van and transforms it into a bookmobile—a mobile bookshop that she drives from neighborhood to neighborhood, changing one life after another with the power of storytelling. From helping her grumpy landlord deliver a lamb, to sharing picnics with a charming train conductor who serenades her with poetry, Nina discovers there’s plenty of adventure, magic, and soul in a place that’s beginning to feel like home… a place where she just might be able to write her own happy ending. Re...

On November 16, 2016 Inkitt is launching an app for ipad and iphones which looks really great.  I don't often read on my tablet because I have a kindle but my kids use their Ipads and phones and this app looks promising. Nothing like being able to access FREE books at your fingertips that were hand selected to your reading style. Download it here “As more people read digitally we want to make it easier and faster for people to access great literature wherever they are, whether on the go or relaxing at home,” says Inkitt’s Founder and CEO, Ali Albazaz. “Inkitt’s iOS app will better enable emerging authors to share their work with test readership groups and give readers globally the opportunity to turn the page on one of the world’s next best sellers.” Key features include: Access to 80,000 stories in every genre: fantasy, sci-fi, romance, thriller, horror, adventure, action and more Personalized suggestions: hand-picked novels based on reader’s preferences App cus...

Release Date: October 25, 2016 (reprint) Publisher: Vintage Format: Paperback Pages: 336 pages Genre: Fiction Buy: Kindle | Paperback Synopsis: When Kristin Chapman agrees to let her husband, Richard, host his brother's bachelor party, she expects a certain amount of debauchery. She takes their young daughter to Manhattan for the evening, leaving her Westchester home to the men and their hired entertainment. What she does not expect is that the entertainment—two scared young women brought there by force—will kill their captors and drive off into the night. With their house now a crime scene, Kristin's and Richard’s life spirals into nightmare. Kristin is unable to forgive her husband for his lapses in judgement, or for the moment he shared with a dark-haired girl in the guest room. But for the dark-haired girl, Alexandra, the danger is just beginning. Review:  Talk about a bachelor party gone wrong...this is The Hangover times 10.  Alternating chapters betw...

Release Date:  November 15, 2016 Publisher:  Boldstroke Books Format:  Kindle Pages:  288 pages Genre:  LGBT, supernatural romance Buy:   Kindle  |  Paperback   Synopsis:  The evil lies dormant, waiting to be awakened. Brenna Taylor relocates to Arizona to nurse her grief and takes possession of a decrepit century-old home sitting among two hundred acres of dead citrus trees. But she unknowingly rouses an evil and stirs the darkness inside herself, a curse she’s carried since childhood. With the help of Alejandra Santana, the charismatic contractor to whom she is drawn, Brenna uncovers the violent history of the land she’s inherited. As the tormented spirits of massacred migrant workers call out for revenge, the malevolent force that imprisons their souls begins to lure Brenna into its hell. But Alex’s love may not be enough to stand between Brenna and death. Review:  Tortured by the death of her husband and child Bre...

Release Date: November 1, 2016 Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire Format: Kindle Pages: 288 pages Genre: YA Fiction Buy: Kindle | Hardcover Synopsis:  Victoria Zell doesn't fit in, not that she cares what anyone thinks. She and her homeschooled boyfriend, Andrew, are inseparable. All they need is each other. That is, until Zachary Zimmerman joins her homeroom. Within an hour of meeting, he convinces good-girl Vic to cut class. And she can't get enough of that rush. Despite Vic's loyalty to Andrew, she finds her life slowly entwining with Z's. Soon she's lying to everyone she knows in an effort to unravel Z's secrets. Except Z's not the only one with a past. Victoria's hiding her own secrets, secrets that will come back to haunt her...and destroy everything in her path. Review: Wow what a disturbing story of obsession and mental illness. There isn't much I can say about this book without giving away parts that I don't want to give away. ...

Release Date: Nov 1, 2016 Publisher: Disney/Hyperion/Freeform Format: Kindle Pages: 320 pages Genre: YA/mystery Buy: Kindle | Hardcover Synopsis: As soon as Seneca Frazier sees the post on the Case Not Closed website about Helena Kelly, she's hooked. Helena's high-profile disappearance five years earlier is the one that originally got Seneca addicted to true crime. It's the reason she's a member of the site in the first place. So when Maddy Wright, her best friend from the CNC site, invites Seneca to spend spring break in Connecticut looking into the cold case, she immediately packs her bag. But the moment she steps off the train in trendy, glamorous Dexby, things begin to go wrong. Maddy is nothing like she expected, and Helena's sister, Aerin Kelly, seems completely hostile and totally uninterested in helping with their murder investigation. But when Brett, another super user from the site, joins Seneca and Maddy in Dexby, Aerin starts to come around...

Release Date: November 1, 2016 Publisher: Aurea Blue Publishing Format: Kindle Pages: 351 pages Genre: Romance, Mystery Buy: Kindle  Synopsis:  His secrets almost killed her. Her secrets may destroy them both. Kai is recovering from a near-death experience when she realizes something isn’t right. Her body is healing, but her mind no longer feels quite like her own. Her telepathic powers are changing, too. She can’t trust herself. The darkness growing inside of her pushes her to use her telepathy as a weapon. Oliver clings to the hope that he can save their marriage, even though he was the one who put her life in jeopardy. As his wife slips further and further away from him, he becomes increasingly obsessed with bringing the man who ruined his life to justice. Review: Kai survived her abduction and Lukas is safe but her marriage with Oliver is imploding and the Fuch family is front and center. Lukas' mom, Mickey still pines for Oliver, and Oliver is either to...

Release Date: September 10, 2016 Publisher: Tina Carlson Dreffin Format: Kindle Pages:  266 pages Genre: Memoir Buy: Paperback | Kindle Synopsis: Bluewater Walkabout: Into Africa is a memoir about a much-anticipated sailing adventure that the author, Tina, and her family embark upon. But when her sons bring along two friends who upset the family balance, rogue waves and large sharks threaten the family’s safety, and Tina begins to deal with mysterious and health problems, the perils of life at sea become very real. The book begins with an adventurous safari through Africa, during which Tina reflects on the challenges that a life lived differently can bring. Half running from an early adulthood fraught with sexual trauma, and half running towards a dream, Tina met her husband and the two of them decided to live a life at sea. This story is candid, moving, heartfelt and beautifully written. What sets it aside from other sailing memoirs is that it is about so much more tha...

Release Date: October 18, 2016 Publisher: Mulholland Books Format: Kindle Pages: 336 pages Genre: crime fiction Buy: kindle | hardcover Synopsis: East Long Beach. The LAPD is barely keeping up with the neighborhood's high crime rate. Murders go unsolved, lost children unrecovered. But someone from the neighborhood has taken it upon himself to help solve the cases the police can't or won't touch. They call him IQ. He's a loner and a high school dropout, his unassuming nature disguising a relentless determination and a fierce intelligence. He charges his clients whatever they can afford, which might be a set of tires or a homemade casserole. To get by, he's forced to take on clients that can pay. This time, it's a rap mogul whose life is in danger. As Isaiah investigates, he encounters a vengeful ex-wife, a crew of notorious cutthroats, a monstrous attack dog, and a hit man who even other hit men say is a lunatic. The deeper Isaiah digs, the ...

Release Date: October 26, 2014 Publisher: Create Space Format: Kindle Pages: 136 pages Genre: Paranormal Romance Buy: Kindle Synopsis: An outcast hiding from the world. A leprechaun ashamed of being different. When outside forces threaten what they most cherish, will their magic be enough to save the day?  Over a thousand years ago, Erik and his Viking brothers were cursed. With useless, immense wings sprouting from his back, Erik is forced to flee from town to town from angry mobs. Tired of running, Eric hides out at a theme park where he can stay close to the one person in the world he cares about: his best friend, Siobhan. Sarcastic, efficient, and beautiful, Siobhan is an immortal leprechaun who works as the Chief Financial Officer of a small theme park, the Winter Wondernasium. She would do anything for her oldest friend, Erik, including hiding her feelings to protect him from the forces who hunt her. When an illicit scandal at the park threatens Erik and Siob...

Release Date: October 1, 2016 Publisher: Greyson Media Associates Format: Kindle Pages: 260 pages Genre: Mystery, Thriller Buy: Paperback | Kindle Synopsis: What's done in the dark will be brought to the light... The silhouette stood at the edge of the woods like a spider watching a fly enter its carefully crafted web. Only a few more steps and she'd be within its grasp. Stacy Shaw has her whole life ahead of her. New job, new house and now a baby on the way—everything she's ever hoped for is finally coming true. But on a warm summer night on the way home from work, she vanishes. The police race to find her, but the clues don't add up. Conflicting facts emerge as her story twists and turns, sending the trail spiraling in all directions. A hometown hero with a heart of gold, Jack Stratton was raised in a whorehouse by his prostitute mother. Jack seemed destined to become another statistic, but now his life has taken a turn for the better. Determined to...

Release Date: September 23, 2016 Publisher: Createspace Format: Kindle Pages: 216 pages Genre: Romance Buy: Paperback Synopsis: Evelyn thought that the smaller jobs were always just enough to fill her pockets, but with each robbery successfully ticked off, she had created quite a long list of pleased clients - and these things didn't go unnoticed by some. A growing list of clientele lead to extra responsibilities, and extra responsibilities meant that there is no backing down when being presented with the chance of becoming a millionaire. In Jodie Manhattans irresistible debut contemporary romance novel, Indecent Proposal, Evelyn runs headlong into the night on a true make-it or break-it mission to retrieve the Dragon's Heart from notorious billionaire Armand Bronson's chateau in The Drives. However after falling into an ambivalent bond with Armand, in which she cannot understand how she landed, someone from his past arrives. Review: Evelyn ...

Release Date: October 11, 2016 Publisher: Ballantine Books Format: Kindle Pages: 480 pages Genre: Fiction Buy: Kindle | Hardcover  Synopsis:  Ruth Jefferson is a labor and delivery nurse at a Connecticut hospital with more than twenty years’ experience. During her shift, Ruth begins a routine checkup on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that she’s been reassigned to another patient. The parents are white supremacists and don’t want Ruth, who is African American, to touch their child. The hospital complies with their request, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Does she obey orders or does she intervene? Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a serious crime. Kennedy McQuarrie, a white public defender, takes her case but gives unexpected advice: Kennedy insists that mentioning race in the courtroom is not a winning strategy. Conflicted by Kennedy’s counsel, Ruth tri...

Release Date: September 1, 2016 Publisher: Twisted Road Publications Format: Kindle Pages: 336 pages Genre: Fiction Buy: Kindle | Paperback  Synopsis:  Two young men, one bi-racial and the other white, meet in an overnight lockup and begin their shared twenty-year downward spiral into alcoholism and homelessness. LeRoy and Harmon work together, drink together, brawl together, and as Harmon suffers from his final illness, they both bed Edna, a wealthy widow who, out of pity, curiosity, and loneliness, takes them into her vacation home by the river. Through episodes rendered from shifting, multiple points of view, a series of flashbacks, and LeRoy's adventure stories this very smart but uneducated man's attempts at fantasy writing we learn of the people and tragedies that shaped their lives and those whose lives unravel along with theirs at the seams of race, class, and religion, and where no one ever quite tells the truth. Review: In my opinion this was more a...