Joyce Yarrow tops today’s Buffet with Russian Reckoning, a mystery featuring her Jo Epstein character.
Joyce’s published novels include ASK THE DEAD (Martin Brown Publishers) and RUSSIAN RECKONING – available in hard cover as THE LAST MATRYOSHKA (Five Star Mysteries Nov. March 2012). She is a Pushcart Nominee whose stories have appeared in Inkwell Journal, Whistling Shade, Descant, Arabesques, and Weber: The Contemporary West.
Joyce recently co-authored a romantic thriller with Indian writer Arindam Roy and has lectured on The Place of Place in Mystery Writing at the Allahabad Museum, the University of Allahabad, and at writing conferences in the Pacific Northwest.
As usual, each book listed here has gone FREE within the past 24 hours (except for the “Bargains” at the bottom of this page). Warning: Kindle book promotions can end without notice, so before downloading click the link “See Kindle price at Amazon” to verify that the book is still free. (Prices and availability may differ outside USA.)
Russian Reckoning: A Jo Epstein Mystery
Action & Adventure > Women’s Adventure
Author: Joyce Yarrow
Performance poet and private investigator, Jo Epstein, is roped into helping her Russian émigré stepfather, Nikolai, escape the clutches of a blackmailer. Jo enters a world where criminals enforce a 19th-century code of honor, threats arrive inside not-so-traditional Matryoshka (nesting) dolls, and fashion models adorn themselves with lewd prison tattoos.
From Vladimir Central Prison to the brooding Russian forest, Jo races against the clock to solve crimes committed on two continents.
Secret Seduction (Secret Series Romance Novels (Volume 1))
Romance > Mystery & Suspense
Author: Jill Sanders
To Katie life was simple. She wanted a little house in upper Boston, and four kids fathered by her best friend Jason, who she’s been infatuated with since she was eight. After a devastating family secret is exposed, all she wants now is to escape the media hype that follows her everywhere she turns. Leaving her family, friends, and Jason behind, she travels to places she’s only read about, to find a father she’s never known.
Jason is on a mission and he’s come halfway around the world to complete it. Despite his feelings for Katie, he won’t let her resistance deter him, even if it means she’ll never trust him again. As their world spirals out of control, their relationship will be tested and changed forever. If he can keep them alive and out of harm’s way, he may have a chance to make everything right.
Just One Damned Thing After Another (The Chronicles of St. Mary’s Series)
Fantasy > Historical
Author: Jodi Taylor
“History is just one damned thing after another” – Arnold Toynbee
A mapcap new slant on history that seems to be everyone’s cup of tea…
Behind the seemingly innocuous façade of St Mary’s, a different kind of historical research is taking place. They don’t do ‘time-travel’ – they ‘investigate major historical events in contemporary time’. Maintaining the appearance of harmless eccentrics is not always within their power – especially given their propensity for causing loud explosions when things get too quiet.
The DAMN Good Husband
General Humor
Author: Laurie Ann Cunningham
THE DAMN GOOD HUSBAND is the light-hearted story of Amy Goldstein, a woman approaching middle age with an attractive figure, a decent marriage, and a good-enough job. When all that comes to an unexpected halt, though, she comes face-to-face with her deadbeat ex-husband, a man she’s waited twelve years to confront. What she doesn’t expect is that he’s nothing like the handsome, charismatic man he once was. Now, unfortunately, he’s far better.
Alpha Girl (Book 1: The Wolfling Saga)
Fantasy > Paranormal
Author: Kate Bloomfield
Synopsis:
Rose Goldman has been highly unpopular in the close-minded town of Halfway ever since the attack when she was a little girl, which left her scarred – internally and externally. Feared, hated, and bullied, Rose is isolated at home and in school. However, life takes a turn when a new teacher starts at Halfway High. Mr. Stone, the quirky, charismatic, and slightly dorky English teacher is twice Rose’s age, but she feels an unexplainable pull towards him from day one. Despite her better judgement, Rose pursues a friendship with Mr. Stone, who seems unable to stay away from her.
What is pulling this unlikely pair together?
THE WINTER BARBEQUE
Biographies & Memoirs > Military
Author: Matt Cutugno
It’s a winter’s day, perhaps the last day of an old man’s existence.
Matt “Tug” Cutugno has lived a good life, that of a hard working family man. He has earned the right to a happy ending; he wants a pat on the back for a job well done. But just where is his reward?
Tug’s wife and children are gone and his dreams of a future are now memories of his past – the war; getting married and raising a family; his days as a working man.
His present is filled by winter barbeques of grilled kielbasa for breakfast, grilled chicken for lunch and grilled zucchini and hot dogs for dinner.
The Ian Fleming Files: Operation Armada (Book 1 of The Ian Fleming Files)
Spy Stories & Tales of Intrigue
Author: Damian Stevenson
Before James Bond there was Commander Ian Fleming or ‘17F’ as he was known during World War 2 when the young British author served as an intelligence officer in Great Britain’s Naval Intelligence Department.
In his startling debut novel, Ian Fleming scholar Damian Stevenson has crafted the ultimate origin story for one of popular culture’s most beloved icons. Everything that inspired the James Bond books is here: the suave and ruthless central character, his demanding boss, a bevy of beautiful femme fatales, formidable villains bent on world domination, their homicidal henchmen, exotic locations, crackling wit and all the cool cars, guns, gadgets and hardware one would expect in a story about the author of ‘Casino Royale,’ ‘Live and Let Die,’ ‘Moonraker,’ ‘The Spy Who Loved Me,’ ‘Diamonds Are Forever,’ ‘Goldfinger,’ ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ and many other timeless 007 adventures.
TODAY’S BARGAINS……………What’s this?
Dark Lover (Black Dagger Brotherhood, Book 1)
Romance > Paranormal > Vampires
Author: J.R. Ward
Regularly $7.99, Today $1.99
In the shadows of the night in Caldwell, New York, there’s a deadly turf war going on between vampires and their slayers. There exists a secret band of brothers like no other-six vampire warriors, defenders of their race. Yet none of them relishes killing more than Wrath, the leader of The Black Dagger Brotherhood.
The only purebred vampire left on earth, Wrath has a score to settle with the slayers who murdered his parents centuries ago. But, when one of his most trusted fighters is killed-leaving his half-breed daughter unaware of his existence or her fate-Wrath must usher her into the world of the undead-a world of sensuality beyond her wildest dreams.
Lover Eternal (Black Dagger Brotherhood, Book 2)
Romance > Paranormal > Vampires
Author: J.R. Ward
Regularly $7.99, Today $1.99
Within the brotherhood, Rhage is the vampire with the strongest appetites. He’s the best fighter, the quickest to act on his impulses, and the most voracious lover—for inside him burns a ferocious curse cast by the Scribe Virgin. Possessed by this dark side, Rhage fears the times when his inner dragon is unleashed, making him a danger to everyone around him.
Mary Luce, a survivor of many hardships, is unwittingly thrown into the vampire world and reliant on Rhage’s protection. With a life-threatening curse of her own, Mary is not looking for love. Her faith in miracles was lost years ago. But when Rhage’s intense animal attraction turns into something more emotional, he knows that he must make Mary his alone. And while their enemies close in, Mary fights desperately to gain life eternal with the one she loves…
Lover Avenged: A Novel of the Black Dagger Brotherhood
Romance > Paranormal > Vampires
Author: J.R. Ward
Regularly $7.99, Today $1.99
Rehvenge is used to living in the shadows and dealing with the roughest night walkers around—including the Black Dagger Brotherhood. As his secret identity as a sympath is threatened, he turns to the only light in his ever darkening world—a female vampire untouched by corruption, who’s the only thing standing between him and eternal damnation.
The Witch and the Gentleman (The Witches Trilogy: Book 1)
Fantasy > Paranormal & Urban
Author: J.R. Rain
Regularly $3.99, Today $1.99
Allison Lopez is not your everyday Psychic Hotline operator. She’s a real psychic with real abilities that seem to grow daily, thanks to her close association with an immortal friend. Now, as her abilities continue to grow, Allison meets a very strange woman who reveals a starling secret to her. Life, for Allison Lopez, is about to get even stranger…and more fantastic.
And when she gets a phone call from a distraught father seeking answers to his daughter’s murder, Allison finds herself in unfamiliar territory: looking for a cold-blooded killer. It will take all of Allison’s abilities, both old and new, to catch an animal who preys on the innocent. And as the case unfolds, Allison is about to discover that not all is as it seems and life still has a few tricks up its sleeve.
Triangle of Deception (Dan Gordon Intelligence Thrillers)
International Mystery & Crime
Author: Haggai Carmon
Regularly $4.99, Today $1.99
Dan Gordon goes undercover to infiltrate and destroy an international Hezbollah funding plot. But when his cover is blown he wonders if he’s been a sacrificial lamb for the CIA all along.
Dan Gordon goes undercover to infiltrate and destroy an international Hezbollah funding plot. But when his cover is blown he wonders if he’s been a sacrificial lamb for the CIA all along.
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2