by Julie Smith

3.9 stars – 851 reviews

Text-to-Speech and Lending: Enabled

Here’s the set-up:

Winner of the 1991 Edgar Allan Poe Award for best novel and the FIRST mystery in the highly acclaimed Skip Langdon series, New Orleans Mourning falls deliciously between the psychological suspense of Laura Lippman and the delicate drama of Tennessee Williams.

“Smith is a gifted writer.” –Washington Post Book World

MURDER, MARDI GRAS–AND MORE SECRETS THAN BEADS…

It’s Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and civic leader and socialite Chauncey St. Amant has been crowned Rex, King of Carnival. But his day of glory comes to an abrupt and bloody end when a parade-goer dressed as Dolly Parton guns him down. Is the killer his aimless, promiscuous daughter Marcelle? Homosexual, mistreated son Henry? Helpless, alcoholic wife Bitty? Or some unknown player? Turns out the king had enemies…

Enter resourceful heroine Skip Langdon, a rookie police officer and former debutante turned cynic of the Uptown crowd. Scouring the streets for clues, interviewing revelers and street people with names like Jo Jo, Hinky, and Cookie, and using her white glove contacts, the post-deb rebel cop encounters a tangled web of brooding clues and ancient secrets that could mean danger for her—and doom for the St. Amants.

Langdon, with her weight worries, insecurities, and yet overall toughness has long been a favorite of those who like their female sleuths bold, smart, and refreshingly human.

by L M Whitaker

4.7 stars – 10 reviews

Text-to-Speech and Lending: Enabled

Here’s the set-up:

The Crucible of Steele is a fast-paced techno-thriller filled with unexpected twists, ethical entanglements and provocative science.

To secure the earth for the perfect few, they need to rid the world of the imperfect many. Only one of their own can stop them ….

In a remote region of Honduras, Dr. Gene Young fears for his young patients. The extremely high teen birth rate has inexplicably dropped to zero, and he can’t find anyone who will listen. Only Frank Anderson, a discredited geneticist and pioneer of in-vitro fertilization, believes him.

In Atlanta, a successful technology consultant, Georgia Steele, makes a living protecting her client’s data, systems, and intellectual assets, while discreetly exposing embezzlement and corporate espionage. A multi-racial orphan in search of blood relatives, her keen ability to uncover hidden information has failed in her personal life.

Georgia’s luck changes after a brief encounter with a near-twin leads her to track down her estranged and paranoid godfather, Frank Anderson. He tells Georgia that she is the product of a 150-year plan to create a superior race. Furthermore, her progenitors are now trying to rid the world of “average” humans.

Driven to discover the truth, Georgia travels to Honduras to find Dr. Young. There she is faced with a dilemma – join her true family or to try to stop them before thousands of innocent people are killed and humanity forever changed.

by Judith Lucci, Fiona Quinn, Nick Thacker, Brett Battles, Jenifer Ruff, Dan Alatorre, Suzanne Jenkins, Tamara Ferguson, Chris Patchell, A.J. Scudiere

5.0 stars – 11 reviews

Text-to-Speech and Lending: Enabled

Here’s the set-up:

Fracturing the silence …

…it’s a battle of wills.

In the world of medical and psychological thrillers, this collection of authors is unequalled. Thirteen thrillers—written by NY Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Amazon bestsellers—load your Kindle with bold experience.

Medical malpractice, natural disaster, murderers and serial-killers, deviant minds on paths of destruction.

The truth cannot be hidden long.

It’s a fight for survival.

These thrillers will keep you turning the pages until the end, and don’t worry, the next book will be waiting to keep you entertained.

You’ll love this anthology, because the authors are veterans of the craft and the price is a bargain for so many riveting stories.

Which book will you start with first?

by Zali de Toledo

4.9 stars – 18 reviews

Text-to-Speech and Lending: Enabled

Here’s the set-up:

A powerful memoir about a secret life with the head of the mafiaOnly few people are well acquainted with Meyer Lansky, known as the ‘Mob’s Accountant’ who, in his youth, managed the investments of the New York mafia and was considered one of the leading figures of the city’s underworld.

Most of the stories known to the public are related to his past illegal activities. But as we are all aware, there is more than one side to every story.

The Other Side of the Story is a captivating biography that sheds a positive new light on the character of the “Gangster”.

Zali de Toledo was a teenager who arrived in Israel into a new culture, wishing simply to make a fresh start in her beloved country.

While working as a waitress in the “Dan” hotel lobby, the two met, as fate would have it. Soon, an intimate relationship developed between them and their secret love blossomed and flourished.

In this riveting unique memoir, de Toledo reveals the powerful love affair she had with Lansky, the hundreds of letters he wrote to her over the years, the other personality and sensitivity of the man who was, in the eyes of many, a criminal, the little things between him and her, and the tough decisions they had to make.

by Simone Leigh

4.2 stars – 82 reviews

Text-to-Speech and Lending: Enabled

Here’s the set-up:

by Alisa Woods

4.5 stars – 517 reviews

Text-to-Speech and Lending: Enabled

Here’s the set-up:

Owen’s an ex-Army bodyguard for a beautiful gaming heiress… and a man with a secret. Ex-Army Texas boy Owen Harding fears only one thing—his inner beast. A year in Agent Smith’s experimental cages has changed his wolf into something monstrous. But a hate group is hunting the Wilding pack, so Owen’s serving again, this time as bodyguard. If only the girl he’s protecting wasn’t so damn sexy… and completely off limits.

Nova Wilding’s father was assassinated, leaving her a gaming company to run, a new game to release, and a pack full of wolves who want her for a mate… including a beta who’s determined to have Nova and her company. When a bomb goes off in her car, Nova finds herself in her sexy bodyguard’s arms… but he’s absolutely the wrong man at the wrong time.

While Nova fights to keep her gaming company afloat, and Owen fights to keep her alive, the hate group circles closer and closer… until they both find that falling in love might be the most dangerous game of all.

WILD GAME is a complete novel with HEA, the first in the Wilding Pack Wolves series. All stories are standalone, but for maximum reader enjoyment, start with the Riverwise Private Security trilogy.

by Betta Ferrendelli

4.4 stars – 572 reviews

Text-to-Speech and Lending: Enabled

Here’s the set-up:

Snow isn’t all that’s falling in Denver, Colorado on Christmas Eve.
A beautiful, young district attorney tumbles from her balcony to her death.
Police suspect suicide, but the DA’s sister, newspaper reporter Samantha Church, isn’t buying it.
Samantha discovers evidence linking her sister to a drug smuggling case and quickly learns she has stumbled onto a major news story. She must summon the courage to not only face a cartel of criminals, but her own fears and shortcomings when she is confronted by the inescapable specter of a far greater enemy—her addiction to alcohol. Samantha’s dependency has not only cost her job at a major metropolitan daily, but, worse, custody of her daughter, April.
Samantha pursues her sister’s killers, maneuvering through a minefield of intrigue deliberately set out to divert her from the truth. Despite being betrayed, physically beaten and facing the possibility of sharing her sister’s fate, Samantha refuses to stop her investigation. However, when the killers threaten to harm April, Samantha realizes that, for her daughter’s sake, she can no longer continue the investigation on her own. She knows she must swallow her pride and turn to her ex-husband and police detective, Jonathan Church, for help.
Can Samantha ultimately prevail—find her sister’s killer, write the story of her career, confront her drinking problem, and finally begin to change her life, or will she and April become the killer’s next victims?