FBI civilian analyst Lacy Merrick manages the threat of terror every day from her desk, analyzing patterns and data to keep Americans safe. When terror strikes home in a tragic incident that shatters her sense of security, she’s faced with a new reality and a new enemy that’s far more personal than abstract threat assessments. After the attack, she crosses paths with Special Agent Will Caison, and Lacy begins to unravel a furtive plot to discredit not only herself but her husband Jay Merrick, a cybersecurity expert whose work may have made him a target. 💻

The conspiracy she discovers balances on the tip of a deeply embedded secret that has the potential to destroy a nation—information so dangerous that powerful people will do anything to keep it buried. Lacy recruits FBI Agent Caison and long-time friend Aaron Hunter, a hacker whose skills operate in moral grey areas, to help her find those responsible for taking the lives of so many Americans. She must clear the cloud of suspicion around her family and reveal a truth that will inflame a fearful public already on edge about terrorism and national security. 🕵️

But powerful enemies surround her every move and will employ all necessary resources to keep Lacy and everyone she loves silent forever. Robin Mahle launches the Lacy Merrick series with espionage thriller examining what happens when an analyst becomes the target, when professional expertise in identifying threats becomes personal survival skill, and when uncovering the truth means risking everything you love. 🔥

What makes this essential: An espionage thriller launching Lacy Merrick series where FBI civilian analyst faces terror striking home, crossing paths with Special Agent Will Caison to unravel a plot discrediting her and cybersecurity expert husband—recruiting a hacker friend to expose a deeply embedded national secret while powerful enemies employ all resources to silence her family forever.

A dream getaway turns into a deadly trap when Tiffany, her boyfriend Stone, and her best friend Rosie stumble upon a chilling family secret at what was supposed to be a relaxing weekend retreat. Stranded in a secluded B&B after a shocking murder transforms their vacation into a nightmare, the trio must unravel the truth before the killer strikes again. What started as romantic escape becomes locked-room mystery where nobody can leave and everyone’s a suspect. 🏚️

With poisonings, gunshots, and hidden motives lurking in every shadow of the isolated bed and breakfast, can they expose the murderer before they become the next victims? The family running the B&B has secrets that go back generations, feuds that have simmered for years, and grudges that have finally boiled over into violence. Tiffany must use her investigative instincts to separate family drama from genuine danger while trapped with a killer who knows the property far better than the guests do. 🔪

A.R. Winters launches the Tiffany Black series with cozy culinary mystery that combines vacation-gone-wrong setup with classic locked-room tension. The secluded B&B setting provides both isolation and intimacy—nowhere to run, forced proximity to suspects, limited resources for investigation. This is cozy mystery that delivers genuine danger alongside the amateur sleuthing, where being stranded means the killer can’t escape but neither can the investigators. ☕

What makes this essential: A cozy culinary mystery launching Tiffany Black series where a dream getaway with boyfriend Stone and best friend Rosie becomes deadly trap at secluded B&B, stranded after shocking murder forces them to unravel chilling family secrets—exposing the killer among poisonings, gunshots, and hidden motives before becoming the next victims themselves.

A brutal murder. A cryptic crime scene. A killer who rewrites the rules. Detective Inspector Joe Hogarth faces a chilling puzzle in the twentieth installment of this series—a victim bound to a chair, stabbed viciously in what appears to be gangland execution, yet eerily at peace before the end. It looks like organized crime payback, but why did the killer first administer a blissful overdose that left the victim calm and sedated before the violent finale? The contradiction doesn’t make sense unless the killer has a very specific psychological profile or message. 🔪

Then another body turns up with the same gruesome details and ruthless precision—bound, drugged into peaceful stupor, then brutally murdered. As the body count rises with victims who die both peacefully and violently, Hogarth must untangle a web of deception, greed, and buried secrets before the next victim falls. The pattern suggests a killer with access to both drugs and victims, someone methodical enough to sedate before killing, someone who wants the murders to look like gang hits while adding their own disturbing signature. ⚠️

But danger isn’t only on the case—someone from Hogarth’s past has returned with unfinished business, and they’re out for only one thing: revenge. With time running out and enemies closing in from both the investigation and his personal history, Hogarth must track a methodical killer while watching his own back. Because justice comes at a price, and this time it’s personal. Solomon Carter delivers the twentieth DI Hogarth thriller where past and present collide in the worst possible way. 🎯

What makes this essential: The twentieth DI Hogarth crime thriller where Detective Inspector Joe Hogarth investigates brutal murders with cryptic signatures—victims bound, peacefully drugged, then viciously stabbed—while someone from his past returns seeking revenge, forcing him to untangle deception and greed before the next victim falls while watching his own back as enemies close in.

Is it ever too late for a second chance of love? Seventy-five years have passed since Lily Nancarrow lost her heart to the handsome American officer stationed in Cornwall during the Allied preparations for D-Day. Long since retired to the fishing village where they fell in love a lifetime before, Lily is content with her life and at peace with the choices she made—the practical marriage, the children raised, the quiet existence she’s built. Until a long-lost Christmas card arrives in the post, crossing decades to reach her and reopening a door she thought closed forever. 💌

Full of haunting nostalgia, The Last Card is a heart-warming novella of family secrets and lost love with a poignant ending that will linger in the reader’s mind. Set against the stunning backdrop of the Cornish landscape, Ruth Saberton explores whether some loves are so powerful they transcend time, whether the choices we made decades ago can be revisited with wisdom and perspective, and what happens when the past arrives in your mailbox requesting acknowledgment. 🌊

The Christmas card becomes a catalyst for Lily to reflect on the road not taken, the American officer she loved but couldn’t follow, the life she chose instead of the one that felt destined. Saberton handles the wartime romance with sensitivity to both the passion of young love during wartime uncertainty and the complex reality of choices made under pressure of circumstance. This is military romance that acknowledges love doesn’t always conquer all—sometimes practicality, family obligation, or fear of the unknown wins instead. ✨

What makes this essential: A wartime Cornwall military romance novella where seventy-five years after Lily Nancarrow lost her heart to a handsome American officer during D-Day preparations, a long-lost Christmas card arrives in the fishing village where they fell in love—reopening family secrets and lost love with haunting nostalgia and poignant ending against stunning Cornish landscape.

A sleepy town in southwest Virginia wakes up to a nightmare of untimely deaths. Not safe at home in Boston where danger has found her, science teacher Kate Hamilton seeks refuge in the small Virginia town where she was born and raised, hoping that returning to her roots will provide the safety and peace that eluded her in the city. Scarborough is no longer the bucolic village that she remembered from childhood—pleasantries are only skin deep as big city issues and the politics of the world roil just under the surface of small-town friendliness. 🏘️

A string of untimely deaths has the whole town grieving, each loss seemingly unconnected but troubling in their frequency and timing. Only Kate thinks something nefarious is afoot, her scientific training making her suspicious of coincidences that everyone else accepts as tragic bad luck. Can Kate convince the local police that coincidences like these are only found in fiction, that the pattern she’s seeing isn’t paranoia but evidence of something sinister happening in Scarborough? 🔍

Fiona Quinn delivers mystery anthology boxed set where Kate’s outsider-insider status—local girl who left and returned—gives her unique perspective on changes in Scarborough that longtime residents have normalized. Her science teacher background provides analytical skills the local police lack, while her personal danger in Boston adds urgency to uncovering threats before they reach her in Virginia. This is small-town mystery examining how violence and corruption seep into communities that believe themselves immune. 🕵️

What makes this essential: A mystery anthology boxed set where science teacher Kate Hamilton flees danger in Boston for her Virginia hometown Scarborough, only to wake the sleepy town with a nightmare of untimely deaths—using her analytical skills to convince local police that coincidences exist only in fiction while big city issues roil beneath small-town pleasantries.

The last three years of my life have been hell. I’ve lost my mother, my brother and my best friend—the only people I cared about, I was taken away from through death or forced separation orchestrated by someone who wanted me isolated. Life was bleak with no friends, just beatings and being kicked down if a spark of my old self returned. I closed myself off to new people except the occasional too-alike-to-me-to-turn-away kindred spirit, because the threat of my father going after those closest to me is too high a price to pay. 💔

Until they came along. Jace, Luc, Alec, Dominic, Maverick and Mason make me long for more—to break out from under my father’s thumb and fight for those I lost. They see past the beaten-down version of me to whoever I used to be before three years of abuse tried to erase my personality. The road to their love is grave and those three years changed me fundamentally, but these six men are worth fighting for even when fighting means risking my father’s retaliation. 💪

C Kennedy launches the Worth Fighting For series with polyamory romance examining recovery from prolonged abuse and whether love from multiple partners can help someone reclaim their identity. This is reverse harem territory where the protagonist’s closed-off heart slowly opens to six different men who each offer something needed for healing. The father’s threat adds genuine danger—this isn’t just emotional stakes but physical safety concerns that make every relationship risk potentially lethal. 🔥

What makes this essential: A polyamory romance launching Worth Fighting For where three hellish years of abuse and loss leave the protagonist isolated until six men—Jace, Luc, Alec, Dominic, Maverick and Mason—make breaking free from an abusive father worth the grave road ahead, offering love that helps reclaim lost identity despite dangerous consequences.

Max Burrows thought she’d finally found “the one” in Tyler. But when he gets the opportunity of a lifetime and leaves Bluebird Bay for Paris, she can’t bring herself to join him. She worked like a dog to make her own dream come true by opening the bookstore, and she won’t give that up—not for Tyler, not for anyone. So when she gets a notice from the new landlord that her shop’s lease is being terminated, it’s like the rug has been yanked out from under her yet again. 📚

Rather than curl up and accept her fate, she makes it her mission to get Ian Thackery to change his mind, no matter what it takes. As she gets to know him though, she finds he’s more than just the devil incarnate intent on ruining her life. He’s also funny, charming, smart, and way too handsome for her own good. She might be in deeper than she thought as their antagonistic relationship transforms into something neither expected. 💕

Denise Grover Swank and Christine Gael deliver Bluebird Bay sisters fiction where Max must choose between keeping her bookstore dream alive and exploring connection with the landlord threatening to end it. Max found love before and lost it—will she find forever this time, or will protecting her independence cost her the relationship she didn’t know she needed? ✨

What makes this essential: A Bluebird Bay sisters novel where bookstore owner Max Burrows refuses to follow Tyler to Paris after working hard for her dream, only to face lease termination from new landlord Ian Thackery—forcing her mission to change his mind into discovery that the devil incarnate is actually funny, charming, and dangerously handsome.

Three unusually gifted sisters in Georgian Scotland must protect their family fortress from those who would steal its rumored treasures—and their hearts. In the months since their father Rory died, the MacLeod sisters have had to contend with bands of smugglers convinced he left a treasure buried within the walls of their home at Castle Cairncross. Only the most mystifying occurrences have foiled the thieves, stirring whispers that the sisters are sorceresses. Yet they have no treasure, nor are they witches—however, each inexplicably possesses a unique ability. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

The eldest, Catriona, is a brilliant healer and alchemist, a skill she’s about to put to unforeseen use when Hamish Muir, the charismatic Marquess of Ballantyne and son of Rory’s business partner, comes to claim his share of the treasure. When he spies fiery-haired Cat in the village, he follows her with intentions of confronting her about his rightful inheritance. But the tables turn, and Hamish finds himself at Castle Cairncross emerging from a daze with no memory of how he got there. ⚗️

Anna Bradley launches the Cairncross Castle series with Georgian Scottish historical romance for readers of India Holton, Lex Crocher, Manda Collins, and Evie Dunmore. The three sisters with unique abilities defending their castle from treasure hunters creates adventure-filled foundation, while Cat’s alchemist skills and Hamish’s mysterious daze suggest their meeting wasn’t entirely accidental. 💕

What makes this essential: A Georgian Scottish romance launching Cairncross Castle where three gifted MacLeod sisters defend their fortress from treasure-hunting smugglers, and eldest Catriona—brilliant healer and alchemist—uses her skills on charismatic Marquess Hamish Muir when he arrives claiming treasure, only to find himself at the castle in a mysterious daze.

Three Roads to the Alamo is the definitive book about the lives of David Crockett, James Bowie and William Barret Travis—the legendary frontiersmen and fighters who met their destiny at the Alamo in one of the most famous and tragic battles in American history—and about what really happened in that battle. William C. Davis strips away decades of mythology to reveal the actual men behind the legends: Crockett the failed politician reinventing himself as frontier hero, Bowie the land speculator and slave trader whose Bowie knife made him famous, and Travis the young hothead whose leadership would be tested in the most extreme circumstances. 🏛️

The book traces three separate biographical paths that converge at the Alamo in 1836, showing how different American archetypes—the frontiersman, the entrepreneur, and the idealist—came together in doomed defense of Texas independence. Davis examines what really happened during the thirteen-day siege and final assault, separating historical fact from the romantic mythology that’s dominated Alamo narratives for generations. This is American history that challenges comfortable legends while honoring the complexity of the men who became symbols. 📚

What makes this essential: The definitive account of David Crockett, James Bowie, and William Barret Travis tracing three separate lives that converged at the Alamo, stripping away mythology to reveal the actual frontiersmen, fighters, and what really happened in the famous 1836 battle that’s been romanticized for generations.

A singular figure in the annals of the American underworld, Johnny Rosselli’s career flourished for an extraordinary fifty years, from the bloody years of bootlegging in the Roaring Twenties as the last protégé of Al Capone to the modern era of organized crime as a dominant corporate power. The Mob’s “Man in Hollywood,” Johnny Rosselli introduced big-time crime to the movie industry, corrupting unions and robbing moguls in the biggest extortion plot in history while befriending some of the biggest names in the movie capital and seducing its greatest female stars, including Jean Harlow and Marilyn Monroe. 🎬

In a remarkable turn, Johnny himself would become a Hollywood filmmaker, producing two of the best film noirs of the 1940s. Following years in federal prison, Rosselli began a new venture overseeing the birth and heyday of Las Vegas, running the gambling mecca from his suites at the Tropicana and Desert Inn, enjoying Rat Pack nightlife with pals Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. Lee Server delivers biography that spans fifty years of American crime, from Prohibition to CIA assassination plots, revealing how one charismatic gangster moved seamlessly between underworld violence and Hollywood glamour. 🎰

What makes this essential: A biography of Johnny Rosselli spanning fifty years from Al Capone’s last protégé to Hollywood’s “Man in the Mob,” corrupting unions, producing film noirs, seducing stars like Jean Harlow and Marilyn Monroe, then overseeing Las Vegas’s heyday with the Rat Pack—revealing organized crime’s evolution into corporate power.