New York Times bestselling author Mel Comley tops today’s Buffet with Cruel Justice, the first installment in her “Justice” hard-boiled mystery series.
Mel is a British author who moved to France in 2002, and that’s when she turned her writing hobby into a career. She shares her home with two crazy dogs that like nothing better than to drag their masterful leader around the village. Her latest book, Harsh Justice, was published last month.
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Cruel Justice (Justice Series #1)
Mystery > Hard-Boiled
Author: M A Comley
The headless body of a wealthy widow is discovered decomposing in Chelling Forest. Then a second victim is found. Detective Inspector Lorne Simpkins and her partner, DS Pete Childs are assigned the case.
Before they can discover the identity of the killer they must make a connection between the two victims.
After a third murder, Lorne receives a grisly surprise. Clearly, a vicious serial killer is on a rampage…and Lorne has become the killer’s fixation.
Lorne can’t allow her failing marriage or her new boss–a man with whom she shares a sensuous secret–keep her from focusing on her job. She must catch the macabre murderer, or risk becoming the next victim.
Only In Dreams
Romance > New Adult & College
Author: Wendy Owens
Paige Parker thinks she has everything figured out. Even though her heart is broken, she manages to find love again, and she’s sure this time it’s for keeps.
Between planning her wedding and working on garments for her upcoming debut fashion show, Paige is overwhelmed. When her fiancé, Henry, suggests a couple months away from the hustle and bustle of the Big Apple to focus, she is thrilled to use the opportunity to reconnect with her best friend, Emmie.
Paige heads to Texas, ready to spend some quality time with Emmie and her baby girl, Olivia. When she arrives, she is shocked to find herself face-to-face with Christian Bennett, the man who broke her heart.
She finds herself confused. Is she truly over her first love? Is she making a mistake marrying Henry? Paige follows her heart, but this may be the most painful decision she ever makes. It leaves her wondering if true love is possible ONLY IN DREAMS.
The Blue-Ribbon Jalapeño Society Jubilee
Romantic Comedy
Author: Carolyn Brown
You Are Cordially Invited…Come early, eat until your buttons pop, and dance until you drop!
Miss Clawdy’s Café has won the Jubilee blue ribbon every year since the dawn of time. This year, town matron Violet Prescott is going after that ribbon with an iron-clad determination only thinly disguised by her perfect coiffure and flawless manners, bless her heart.
It’s time for café owners Cathy and Marty and their best friend Trixie to pull out their secret weapon. And this is where a lifetime of friendship, combined with just the right recipe at just the right time, might carry the day—or blow everything to smithereens.
Welcome to Cadillac, Texas, where the jalapeños are hot, the gossip is hotter, and at the end of the day, it’s the priceless friendships that are left standing…
The Bridge
Women’s Fiction > Short Stories
Author: Kay Bratt
In present day China, an old woman’s house sits opposite an ancient bridge. Not just any bridge–but a special one because it has always been known as The Lucky Bridge. In olden days it was said that to walk over it during a marriage ceremony, or at the beginning of the New Year would bring the traveler good luck.
Because of its reputation, over the years it has also become a popular place for young mothers to abandon their children. What to some may seem cruel is in reality their final gift to their offspring–one last chance to send them off to their new destinies with luck on their side. Jing, an old woman, is the unofficial and often reluctant guardian of the bridge. When no one else will, Jing steps in to prevent the children from frostbite, abuse and hunger, and then she delivers them safely to the orphanage. This has been her routine for many years, but what does Jing do when the latest child, a blind boy, burrows deep into her heart?
Darker Things (The Lockman Chronicles #1)
Horror > Dark Fantasy
Author: Rob Cornell
Craig Lockman…
No one had called him that in fifteen years. Not since his days at the Agency. Not since he was trained to kill creatures that were supposed to exist only in nightmares. Yet the teenage girl on his doorstep not only knows his real name, she claims she’s his daughter.
Before Lockman can learn how the girl found him, he’s attacked by a black-ops team of assassins. But these aren’t ordinary killers–they’re heavily armed vampires sent by his most hated enemy. Forced on the run, Lockman protects his daughter from an onslaught of horrors while searching for who betrayed him and why. The investigation leads him to Detroit, where he unwittingly sets a plan into motion that could trigger a paranormal apocalypse and cost him his soul.
You Smiled
Romance > Contemporary
Author: S. Jane Scheyder
One week to help her remember.
One week to make her smile.
One week to fall in love.
A romantic novella, set on the coast of Maine.
Crashing Into Tess (The McGreers)
Romance > Contemporary
Author: Lilly Christine
Ivy-educated veterinarian Tess Bamberger leaves suburbia for a new adventure in Green Junction, Colorado. Rural ranch work is tough, but satisfying; it’s her attraction to Jake that finds her in one debacle after another. Tess has always been confident and carefree, but suddenly her dreams seem to be eluding her.
Divorced, single-dad rancher Jake McGreer is accustomed to hard hits. He resists the allure of the talented, flirtatious new vet, but Tess fits in seamlessly with ranch life. She stitches up his favorite quarterhorse, and mends his daughter’s broken heart. His daughter adores her, his friends want a wedding, but her parent’s are certain he’s up to no good ~Will the vixen veterinarian decide that Jake is her one true love?
Opposites Attack: A Novel with Recipes Provencal
Women’s Fiction > Romance
Author: Jo Maeder
Alyce flew 4,000 miles to learn French, sophistication, and inspire jealousy in her ex-boyfriend. Enter the très different, exasperating Jean-Luc.
Fleeing to a total-immersion language school in the idyllic South of France, Alyce puts love and her failed career on hold to do an extreme makeover on herself. While she struggles to learn French and attain some degree of chic, she attracts the attention of several locals, with disastrous results. Tension escalates to a new level when she’s forced to stay at the guest cottage of the enigmatic author Jean-Luc. She finds herself strangely attracted to him, though he seems to despise her and they communicate mostly through bickering. Soon, Alyce must choose between what she thought she wanted and something totally different. Set against the alluring background of the Mediterranean with recipes inspired by Provence, Opposites Attack is a fast-paced romantic comedy with a French twist.
TODAY’S BARGAINS……………What’s this?
The Boleyn Inheritance
Historical Romance
Author: Philippa Gregory
Regularly $7.99, Today $1.99
From “the queen of royal fiction” comes this New York Times bestseller featuring three very different women whose fates are each bound by a bloody curse: the legacy of the Boleyn family.
After the death of his third wife, Jane Seymour, King Henry VIII of England decides to take a new wife, but this time, not for love. The Boleyn Inheritance follows three women whose lives are forever changed because of the king’s decision, as they must balance precariously in an already shaky Tudor Court.
Anne of Cleves is to be married to Henry to form a political alliance, though the rocky relationship she has to the king does not bode well for her or for England.
Katherine Howard is the young, beautiful woman who captures Henry’s eye, even though he is set to marry Anne. Her spirit runs free and her passions run hot—though her affections may not be returned upon the King.
Jane Rochford was married to George Boleyn, and it was her testimony that sent her husband and infamous sister-in-law Anne to their deaths. Throughout the country, her name is known for malice, jealousy, and twisted lust.
Scorched (Tracers)
Romance > Mystery & Suspense
Author: Laura Griffin
Regularly $7.99, Today $1.99
The sixth thrilling Tracers novel from bestselling and award-winning author Laura Griffin features a forensic anthropologist and a Navy Seal who work together to find a killer before the killer finds them.
Kelsey Quinn has traveled the world unearthing heartbreaking secrets, but nothing prepares her for the trauma of her latest discovery. While on a human rights dig in the Philippines, the forensic anthropologist uncovers a set of human remains, touching off a chain of deadly events back on American soil. After a terrifying attack, Kelsey goes into hiding while she tries to unravel the mystery of two seemingly unconnected murders. The odds are stacked against her, but Kelsey has the help of her colleagues at the Delphi Center crime lab… and the unexpected protection of the only man she ever loved.
Navy SEAL Gage Brewer knows his relationship with Kelsey is over and done. But when he learns she’s being targeted by a killer, he risks everything—including his career as a spec ops warrior—to get her out of harm’s way. Gage tracks down Kelsey and believes he’s accomplished his goal. But as the threats against her escalate, it becomes clear that the enemy they’re fighting is more lethal than anyone ever imagined. And the most dangerous mission is only beginning.
Babel-17
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Author: Samuel R. Delany
Regularly $9.99, Today $1.99
In a war-riven world, why will saving humanity require . . . a poet?
At twenty-six, Rydra Wong is the most popular poet in the five settled galaxies. Almost telepathically perceptive, she has written poems that capture the mood of mankind after two decades of savage war. Since the invasion, Earth has endured famine, plague, and cannibalism—but its greatest catastrophe will be Babel-17.
Sabotage threatens to undermine the war effort, and the military calls in Rydra. Random attacks lay waste to warships, weapons factories, and munitions dumps, and all are tied together by strings of sound, broadcast over the radio before and after each accident. In that gibberish Rydra recognizes a coherent message, with all of the beauty, persuasive power, and order that only language possesses. To save humanity, she will master this strange tongue. But the more she learns, the more she is tempted to join the other side . . .
Chronicles: Volume One: 1
Biographies & Memoirs > Composers & Musicians
Author: Bob Dylan
Regularly $9.99, Today $2.99
“I’d come from a long ways off and had started a long ways down. But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else.”
So writes Bob Dylan in Chronicles: Volume One, his remarkable book exploring critical junctures in his life and career. Through Dylan’s eyes and open mind, we see Greenwich Village, circa 1961, when he first arrives in Manhattan. Dylan’s New York is a magical city of possibilities — smoky, nightlong parties; literary awakenings; transient loves and unbreakable friendships. Elegiac observations are punctuated by jabs of memories, penetrating and tough. With the book’s side trips to New Orleans, Woodstock, Minnesota and points west, Chronicles: Volume One is an intimate and intensely personal recollection of extraordinary times.
By turns revealing, poetical, passionate and witty, Chronicles: Volume One is a mesmerizing window on Bob Dylan’s thoughts and influences. Dylan’s voice is distinctively American: generous of spirit, engaged, fanciful and rhythmic. Utilizing his unparalleled gifts of storytelling and the exquisite expressiveness that are the hallmarks of his music, Bob Dylan turns Chronicles: Volume One into a poignant reflection on life, and the people and places that helped shape the man and the art.
Lost
Author: Jacqueline Davies
Regularly $3.99, Today $2.00
Essie can tell from the moment she lays eyes on Harriet Abbott: this is a woman who has taken a wrong turn in life. Why else would an educated, well-dressed, clearly upper-crust girl end up in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory setting sleeves for six dollars a day? But Harriet isn’t the only one who is lost. Essie wanders between the opposing emotions of her love for the young would-be lawyer who lives next door and her hatred for her mother who seems determined to take away every bit of happiness that Essie hopes to find. As the unlikely friendship between Essie and Harriet grows, so does the weight of the question hanging between them: Who is lost? And who will be found?
This is a powerful novel about friendship, loss, and the resiliency of the human spirit, set against the backdrop of the teeming crowds and scrappy landscape of the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the early 1900s.
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2