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Author: McLinn, Patricia
FREE
Amateur Sleuth Mysteries

Divorce a husband, disrupt a career … grapple with a murder.
TV journalist Elizabeth “E.M.” Danniher will tell you she committed two sins — she didn’t stay young, and she made an enemy of a powerful news executive — her ex. She used to break national news. Now her top story as the “Helping Out!” reporter at dinky KWMT-TV in Sherman, Wyoming is getting a defective toaster repaired.

Tough, funny and determined, Elizabeth wrestles with isolation, keeping a professional edge, and an evolving self-image. Is Wyoming — the land of cattle, cowboys, tumbleweeds, and fewer than six people per square mile — her new home or a road to permanent obscurity?

Soon she’s in a battle of wills with ex-football player turned journalist Mike Paycik, who might see her as a handy rung on his career ladder or a romantic partner or both. And there’s the matter of a deputy sheriff—missing or murdered? Elizabeth finds herself investigating at the insistence of a girl who’s set on proving her father’s innocence. Not that enigmatic rancher Thomas Burrell makes investigating easy for an amateur sleuth.

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Author: Claflin, Stacy
FREE
Crime Thrillers

He gave up his daughter years ago, but now he’ll risk his life to save hers.

Alex Mercer is no stranger to kidnappings. The emotional scars still run deep from his sister’s disappearance years earlier. His daughter Ariana remains safe long after her adoption, and he cherishes the few times a year he gets to see her. The joy is palpable when he takes her on their first one-on-one outing. At least until he pauses to answer a text and Ariana disappears…

Wracked with guilt and determined to find answers, Alex teams up with an unlikely ally at the police department. As the clues reveal a pattern of missing girls, the kidnapping case becomes a race against time to save Ariana. What cost is Alex willing to pay to keep his daughter alive?

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Author: Clifford, Joe
FREE
Noir Crime

On the heels of a divorce, a midlist mystery writer returns to his hometown in Central CT and is dragged back into a decades-old, unsolved case involving former missing classmates to expose the horrific secrets of a quaint, idyllic New England town.

Fusing the modern domestic psychological thriller with popular unsolved mysteries (Girl on the Train meets In Cold Blood), this meta blend of true crime and fiction plays with expectations and perspective before its mind-blowing conclusion.

Enchanted by Noble Lords (affiliate link)

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Author: Agar, Abigail
FREE
Historical Regency Romance

Mismatched with an Earl
As the young and intelligent Selena returns home with her father, fate awaits. After witnessing a train robbery along with Lord Ainsworth and his mother, the lives of all four of them are entwined forever. Selena’s father finds love in Lady Ainsworth, but Selena sees an insufferable tease in her son, the Earl. As their fractious interactions aggravate one another, a mission to separate their parents begins, leading to an unexpected romance. Once their little act is revealed, will they be able to let go of their pride, or will they choose love over restraint?

A Duke’s Secret Romance
The dashing Emma’s debut into high society proves to be a disaster when she encounters Duke John Kennerley, her childhood crush. Determined to forget him once and for all, she will be surprised to know that his enigmatic behaviour is hiding his long-lasting love for her. As they will soon be forced to face their hidden feelings, a whirlwind of doubt, honour and evil antagonists will risk their union. Will the two soulmates finally get their happily ever after, or are they doomed to love each other from a distance?

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Author: MacLean, Julianne
FREE
Victorian Historical Romance

American heiress Sophia Wilson leaves Old New York for a Season in London. Her goal: to marry into the English aristocracy and help improve her family’s social standing in America. Sophia knows her marriage will be a business transaction—her father will provide a generous financial settlement in exchange for a title—but secretly, what she desires most of all is to marry for love.

Love is the last thing on James Langdon’s mind. The darkly handsome Duke of Wentworth comes from a menacing past and has learned to avoid his passions at all cost. But his castle in the north is falling into disrepair and what he needs is a swift cash infusion, not to mention an heir. A business transaction with a beautiful American heiress seems the perfect solution.

All goes according to plan until James finds himself enchanted by his spirited new wife, who demands far more from him than the title of duchess. Sophia wants his heart, but his heart is hidden away, shrouded in the darkness of ominous family secrets.

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Author: Carbo, Denise
FREE
Romantic Comedy

A second chance at love or heartbreak…

Socially awkward and prone to accidents, Franny Dawson has a brand new project—herself. Owning the local bakery, The Sweet Spot, has taken all her time and energy and she’s neglected the social aspects of her life. The small lakeside town of Granite Cove, New Hampshire is full of quirky residents eager to help and hinder her new plan.

Mitch Atwater, her first love, returns to town. He has an agenda of his own and is wreaking havoc with her goals and her heart.

Can Franny outwit her nemesis, overcome her perfect sister’s surprise return, and escape the cocoon of her own insecurities to take a chance on love and get her very own happily ever after?

Hunter (affiliate link)

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Author: Huggins, James Byron
Regularly $8.99, Today $1.99
Fantasy Adventure Fiction

A skilled tracker must take down a science experiment gone wrong in the Alaskan wilderness in this thriller from the bestselling author of Dark Visions.

In an experiment to extend human life, scientists accidentally tap into the deepest recesses of the human mind and unleash a force that might well be a terrible curse. For in their desire to use a power they did not understand, they unintentionally unleash a force that will spell the end of Mankind if it cannot be destroyed.

Now an infected creature is loose in the Alaskan wilderness, and the America military is forced to ask the world’s greatest tracker, Nathaniel Hunter, to locate the beast and destroy it before it reaches a populated area.

Hunter can track anything, anywhere, anytime. But he is both horrified and shocked as he begins to follow the creature’s bloody path leading directly toward a city. For the beast is both more powerful and more merciless than any animal Hunter has tracked before. In fact, it seems to embody the most ancient and darkest heart of Man—a power that Mankind has always feared as the greatest Beast of Prey.

And as Hunter closes on the beast and the final, bloody battle approaches, he frantically realizes that the scientists may have succeeded all too well in their experiment to extend human life for it may have become unkillable….

Brazzaville Beach: A Novel (affiliate link)

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Author: Boyd, William
Regularly $19.99, Today $2.99
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

William Boyd’s classic Brazzaville Beach has been called a “bold seamless blend of philosophy and suspense . . . [that] nevertheless remains accessible to general readers on a level of pure entertainment.” (Boston Globe).

When her marriage to a brilliant but unstable mathematician finally shatters, Hope Clearwater leaves England to join a team of primate researchers in a remote African country. Though she is there to study chimps, the greater challenge is her attempt to grapple with her own recent past—as well as her fellow scientists. And when she discovers evidence of supposedly peaceful chimps engaging in extreme violence, Hope finds herself drawn into a war of desperate egos and ruthless ambitions.

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Author: Moore, Ann
Regularly $26.99, Today $3.99
Historical Irish Fiction

Ann Moore’s trilogy of breathtaking historical novels covers Gracelin O’Malley’s life from the 1845 Famine and the Young Ireland movement to the mass emigration to America, culminating in the wild frontier of 1850s California.

Gracelin O’Malley: As the potato famine devastates Ireland, Gracelin openly defies her English husband by feeding the desperate souls who come to their door, and secretly sides with the rebels who call themselves the Young Irelanders—including her beloved brother, Sean—as they fight to free their homeland from the yoke of English rule.

Leaving Ireland: Forced to flee Ireland, Gracelin takes her young daughter with her on an arduous transatlantic voyage to New York City. As she tries to make a new life for herself and her daughter, she reunites with her brother and befriends a runaway slave, getting swept up into the volatile abolitionist movement.

The Mirror (affiliate link)

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Author: Millhiser, Marlys
Regularly $11.99, Today $1.99
Time Travel Fiction

A woman faints on the eve of her wedding—and awakens at the turn of the century in her grandmother’s body . . .

The night before she is supposed to get married, Shay Garrett has no idea that a glimpse into her grandmother’s antique Chinese mirror will completely transform her seemingly ordinary life. But after a bizarre blackout, she wakes up to find herself in the same house—but in the year 1900. Even stranger, she realizes she is now living in the body of her grandmother, Brandy McCabe, as a young woman. Meanwhile, Brandy, having looked into the same mirror, awakens in Shay’s body in the present day—and discovers herself pregnant.

As Rachael—the woman who links these two generations, mother to one and daughter to another—weaves back and forth between two time periods, this imaginative thriller explores questions of family, identity, and love. Courageous, compassionate Shay finds herself fighting against the confines of a society still decades away from women’s liberation, while Brandy struggles to adapt to the modern world she has suddenly been thrust into. The truth behind this inexplicable turn of events is more complex than either woman can imagine—and The Mirror is a tribute to the triumph of the female spirit, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

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Author: Lett, Travis
Regularly $22.39, Today $2.99
California Cooking, Food & Wine

Travis Lett’s new American cuisine from Los Angeles’s most talked-about restaurant.

Standout cookbook featuring 125+ rustic and delicious dishes: Gjelina in Venice Beach, California is lauded by critics from London to New York to San Francisco. It is beloved by stars, locals, and out-of-towners alike for its seductive simplicity and seasonal New American menu created by talented chef Travis Lett.
• With 125 rustic and utterly delicious salads, toasts, pizzas, vegetable and grain dishes, pastas, fish and meat mains, and desserts that have had fans clamoring for a table at Gjelina since the restaurant burst onto the scene in 2008.
• More than 150 color photographs from acclaimed photographer Michael Graydon and stylist Nikole Herriott. The tactile and artisanal packaging of this recipe book evoke the vibe of Venice Beach and the Gjelina (the G’s silent) aesthetic, and showcase the beautiful plated food of chef Travis Lett’s ingredient-based, vegetable-centric cooking.

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Author: Brown, Claire Waite
Regularly $14.99, Today $2.99
Watercolor Painting

The stylish design of this book, along with the interior photographs, illustrations and diagrams, make the learning process simple and fun for beginning painters and provides useful tips for more advanced artists.

This book is divided into three sections. In the first section, you will find practical advice on choosing the necessary tools and equiopment as well as hints on mixing colors—one of the trickier skills to master until you have learned some of the basic properties of color. Next, the techniques used in watercolor painting are explained in detail, from the most basic like laying washes and reserving highlights to some of the more unusual and exciting methods like wax-resist or spattering paint.

Tutorials and more than 100 step-by-step sequences demonstrate how to paint a wide range of subjects, including landscapes, buildings, people and still life. Over 180,000 copies sold worldwide.

… See the rest of today ‘s Book Picks here on page 2Page 2