D. M. Mitchell has been compared to Ruth Rendell, Martina Cole, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Linwood Barclay, Dickens and even the Bronte sisters. This wide array of writing styles is appropriate – though Mitchell is known for his psychological thrillers, he is determined that each of them will be different, so they might be set in different eras, may be straightforward thrillers or have a supernatural or horror twist, and he avoids like the plague the standard and unimaginative serial killer format.
D.M. tops today’s Buffet with Black Down. Set in Regency England following the end of the Napoleonic wars, ‘Blackdown’ is D. M. Mitchell at his creative best, crafting a believable world of strange, larger-than-life characters, with his trademark intricate plotting and surprise ending. It’s a novel that is a rollicking good thriller, horror and adventure story rolled into one.
As usual, each book listed here has gone FREE within the past 24 hours (except for the “Kindle Daily Deals” on page 3). 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.)
LACKDOWN (a thriller and murder mystery)
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
Author: D. M. Mitchell
It is 1817, Regency England. Thomas Blackdown, a thieftaker and ex-soldier, receives word that his brother and father are in deep trouble and need his help. But Blackdown is a man that harbours bitter memories; a man banished from his homeland because of a terrible accident, and so is reluctant to return to his ancestral home in Somerset.
However, once there he discovers that his brother has been savagely murdered – torn to shreds, some say by a mythical creature the locals call the Blackdown Beast. Thomas Blackdown does not believe in any creature of fantasy, and is determined to bring to justice his brother’s murderer, encouraged by his brother’s fiancé, Julianne Tresham, and aided by the faithful servant Addison.
But Blackdown is quickly drawn deep into a complicated web of deceit, power, greed and murder involving Lord Tresham – Julianne’s father – and the cold Sir Peter Lansdowne. What is the mysterious Lupercal Club? Why do ex-soldiers go missing from Commodore Pettigrew’s travelling theatre? What strange thing is happening in Devilbowl Wood where Blackdown’s brother was found mutilated? And does a savage, hellish creature really prowl the night?
Soon, Blackdown must fight for his own life and face up to his demons both imaginary and real. He will need all his wits and skills to survive if he is ever to discover the shocking truth behind the evil that has penetrated as far as the government itself.
Werewolf Dreams: Book 1 in the Taming the Wolf Series
Romance > Paranormal > Werewolves & Shifters
Author: Katie Lee O’Guinn
Ava Paskell is not your normal young woman. She’s twice as strong as girls her age and she has a problem controlling her emotions. When her dad insists they spend the summer together in a small, strange Canadian town, she knows her life is about to change. But one of the biggest life changing moments is meeting Cyrus Carlston. The powerful bond they share from the very beginning scares her as much as it thrills her. As her life is put in danger and she gets closer an closer to the truth, one thing is clear, Ava’s dreams are about to become her reality.
Bet in the Dark: A Romantic Comedy
Romantic Comedy
Author: Rachel Higginson
All Ellie Harris wanted was a life of her own.
In a shortsighted decision, she follows her high school boyfriend to college, only to get cheated on and then dumped. And to add insult to injury, her overprotective family is suddenly clinging to her again, fighting to control every part of her life.
Bad luck follows her hasty decision and when her roommate steals her identity and leaves town, Ellie is left to clean up a gigantic mess.
Fin Hunter insists Ellie owes him seven thousand dollars from an online poker game and he won’t stop until he collects it. Determined to keep her family out of her life, Ellie agrees to work for Fin in his illegal online poker operation. He’s given her six weeks to pay off the debt.
Soon sparks are flying between them and the only thing keeping her from falling for him is the debt she still owes and the money she doesn’t have.
At the end of those six weeks, Ellie will have to pay the mistaken debt or bet in the dark that her feelings for Fin will be worth more than the money.
Rock-a-bye Baby
Horror > Short Stories
Author: Willow Rose
Lisa Rasmussen just had a baby and everything in her life seems perfect at this point. Only she wishes that everyone else around her would be as flawless as she is and stop getting in her way. And if they won’t listen, then she’ll make them.
ROCK-A-BYE BABY, is a thriller novella from Willow Rose, author of the International Bestselling horror-series starring the Danish reporter Rebekka Franck. It is not for the faint at heart.
The Value Path: Embedding Innovation in Everyday Business When the Customer Makes the Rules
Business & Money > Management & Leadership
Author: Ronald O. Williams, Peter G.W. G.W. Keen
The only measure of innovation is the value it creates. The challenge is to generate value today and be able to sustain it when you can’t predict change. The starting point is to take a fresh look at “value.” It isn’t fixed but a moving target that is a function of an expanding choice space for customers and providers.
“Innovate or Die” is the mantra of our times. But can your firm be sure that it will not innovate and die? Why do companies like Amazon, Li & Fung, Google, Bharti Airtel, Apple and Tesco thrive in a changing environment while others like Dell, Nokia, RIM, Sony and Gap, once as much the competitive stars as these, find themselves struggling?
The explanation is deceptively simple; it’s all about how firms view and target value. The Value Path reviews companies like Amazon, Google, Tesco, Bharti Airtel, FedEx, Zara, Apple, and Ryanair in detail. We show the common patterns in how such leaders manage their resources that you can apply to your own business to make innovation part of everyday business life rather than special and high investment/high risk initiatives.
These archetypes all have a value architecture built for delivery today and adaptation for tomorrow: (1) a value narrative about how and where it plans to create value both for the customer of today and of tomorrow; (2) a value engine that makes sure it can deliver and balance value for both customers, the company, partners and investors; and (3) an opportunity platform that enables the company to adaptively exploit the forces of change through innovation. Every firm needs such a value architecture, but most have only business models about what they want to be with no clear value path for getting there and moving on beyond the model.
Sudden Hope (Hope Series)
Literature & Fiction
Author: Mira Garland
When your nightmares become reality and you can’t wake up, what do you do? Celeste is a normal teenage girl. After the loss of her father, her life seems to be in constant turmoil. She realizes her worst nightmares are occurring while she’s still awake. Just as it looks like her life is on the right path, things go terribly wrong and leave her in a spiraling whirlwind of emotion. Trying to find her father’s killer and dealing with an ex that will do anything to get revenge, she feels like she is falling. The only thing that is holding her together is her support system, her friends and Danny. Celeste loves Danny more than life itself, although now just feels as if it’s not the time to be with him. He is the answer to her dreams. He is her one true love and most importantly her sudden hope. Only life isn’t fair and doesn’t play by the rules.
Spitfire (Puffin Cove)
Romance > Contemporary
Author: Carla Doolin
Kane has friends. He is content. He carves his celebrated birds and farms on his little slice of heaven in Puffin Cove, Newfoundland, and heals from the tragedy that sent him fleeing from his homeland. But one look at a beautiful redhead in a quiet pub, and the life he has so carefully rebuilt tilts on its axis.
Laura knows there must be something better out there. This is the only life she is going to get, and dammit, she isn’t going to waste one more day. When she runs away from home she certainly doesn’t expect to fall instantly in love with a small east coast town, and a crusty, sexy Irishman.
As Kane and Laura explore the beauty of the land and a love that they never knew could exist, their fears for the future and the scars of the past threaten to tear apart a perfect forever.
TODAY’S BARGAINS……………What’s this?
The Way Life Should Be
Contemporary Fiction > Women’s Fiction
Author: Christina Baker Kline
Regularly $9.99, Today $1.99
Angela Russo is thirty-three years old and single, stuck in a job she doesn’t love and a life that seems, somehow, to have just happened. Though she inherited a flair for Italian cooking from her grandmother, she never has the time; for the past six months, her oven has held only sweaters. Tacked to her office bulletin board is a picture torn from a magazine of a cottage on the coast of Maine, a reminder to Angela that there are other ways to live, even if she can’t seem to figure them out.
One day at work, Angela clicks on a tiny advertisement in the corner of her computer screen—“Do Soulmates Exist?”—and finds herself at a dating website, where she stumbles upon “MaineCatch,” a thirty-five-year-old sailing instructor with ice-blue eyes. To her great surprise, she strikes up a dizzying correspondence with MaineCatch—yet as her online relationship progresses, life in the real world takes a nosedive. Interpreting this confluence of events as a sign, Angela impulsively decides to risk it all and move to Maine.
But things don’t work out quite as she expected. Far from everything familiar, and with little to return to, Angela begins to rebuild her life from the ground up, moving into a tiny cottage and finding work at a local coffee shop. To make friends and make ends meet, she leads a cooking class, slowly discovering the pleasures and secrets of her new small community, and—perhaps—a way to connect her heritage to a future she is only beginning to envision.
Miss Fortune (The Fancy Lives of the Lear Sisters)
Women’s Fiction > Romance
Author: Julia London
Regularly $3.99, Today $1.99
In the third book of The Fancy Lives of the Lear Sisters trilogy, a dreamy, sheltered heiress finds herself thrust into the real world, never imagining a cold dose of reality holds the key to her happily ever after.
Rachel Lear is a dreamer, content to spend her days curled up with a romantic novel or dabbling at the dissertation she can’t seem to finish. But then her overbearing father, fed up with Rachel’s aimlessness, decides to shock her back to reality by cutting her off from the family fortune. Suddenly Rachel needs a plan—and, more importantly, a job. Fortunately her best friend (who dabbles in magic) has an idea: cast a spell to bring prosperity and love into Rachel’s life. Something so crazy can’t possibly work…can it?
Handsome, charming, and with an English accent to boot, Flynn Oliver is like a real-life Prince Charming. A man that sexy could have any woman he wants. But when fate places him in Rachel Lear’s path, it doesn’t take long for Flynn to realize she’s the only woman for him. There’s just one catch: Flynn isn’t like the characters in her romance novels. He’s a real man, with real shortcomings and secrets. Secrets that could dash Rachel’s dreams—or give her the perfect ending after all.
This Explains Everything: 150 Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works
Behavioral Sciences > Cognitive Psychology
Author: John Brockman
Regularly $9.99, Today $1.99
In This Explains Everything, John Brockman, founder and publisher of Edge.org, asked experts in numerous fields and disciplines to come up with their favorite explanations for everyday occurrences. Why do we recognize patterns? Is there such a thing as positive stress? Are we genetically programmed to be in conflict with each other? Those are just some of the 150 questions that the world’s best scientific minds answer with elegant simplicity.
With contributions from Jared Diamond, Richard Dawkins, Nassim Taleb, Brian Eno, Steven Pinker, and more, everything is explained in fun, uncomplicated terms that make the most complex concepts easy to comprehend.
Anxious for Nothing: God’s Cure for the Cares of Your Soul (John Macarthur Study)
Christian Living > Personal Growth
Author: Jr., John MacArthur
Regularly $14.99, Today $0.99
Stress has become part of our daily lives. We worry about our jobs, our relationships, and our families. And while there’s no lack of remedies for anxiety, no solution seems to offer true peace of mind.
John MacArthur, Jr. believes that peace is not only possible, it’s a divine mandate. Drawing from a rich legacy of teaching and ministry, MacArthur puts aside cultural cures to uncover the source of our anxiety and stress. Based on solid Biblical insights, Anxious for Nothing shares how we can overcome uncertainty, defeat doubt, and be truly worry-free.
This revised and updated edition includes a guide for both personal and group study and features discovery questions, suggestions for prayer, and activities, all designed to connect life-changing truths with everyday living.
The Tribune: A Novel of Ancient Rome (Book 1 of The Tribune Series)
Historical Fiction
Author: Patrick Larkin
Regularly $2.99, Today $0.99
“My name is Lucius Aurelius Valens, and I am a soldier in the service of Rome.”
A young Roman officer with a strong sense of justice and duty thwarts corrupt officials plundering the province of Syria and is marked for death. To save his life, he is sent to command a cavalry regiment stationed in ever-restless Judea. He expects only the thankless task of maintaining the Roman peace in a land where he and his soldiers are despised and feared. But this peace is shattered when he and his men discover the massacre of a detachment of Praetorian Guards and the man they were protecting—a member of the Roman Senate and an ally of the emperor Tiberius himself. Plunged straight into a deadly web of murder and intrigue, Valens soon realizes far more is at stake than just his own life and honor.
“I can only tell you what I saw and heard and felt and learned.”
Valens must find those truly responsible. If he fails, he will be forced to destroy the nearest village in savage reprisal. But time is running out fast and there are many—including some under his own command—who are sure the Roman peace can only be maintained by terror and the use of overwhelming force. To save innocent lives, he must first pierce the veil of secrecy surrounding the senator’s strange journey through one of the empire’s most dreary backwaters. What was Decimus Junius Silanus seeking? And why was he killed?
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2