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GLASS DOLLS (Detective Dove Milson Book 1) (affiliate link)
D. E. White’s hotly anticipated Glass Dolls is the utterly gripping new book starring Detective Dove Milson.
Detective Dove Milson is called out to a chilling murder scene by the coast. A teenage girl is found murdered, encased in glass.
The murder is a replica of the work of a serial killer known as the Glass Doll murderer, who entombed his victims in glass to watch them die. He would be the prime suspect but . . .
HE’S ALREADY DEAD.
The kicker?
Dove’s own niece was one of the original Glass Doll victims.
The Lies She Told (affiliate link)
Karly Winters has waited ten long years to have the man of her dreams, the handsome but duplicitous Jacob Cruthers. From her home in Glasgow she pines for the Londoner who casually keeps her dangling, never with a thought of giving her what she wants and never with any intention of leaving his wife.
For her part, Karly has no intentions of being second best any longer and she hatches an artful plan of devious intent that she is certain will work in her favour. Now, embarking on her dangerous game of high stakes, she is all too aware that someone is likely to get hurt. But for the winner, the prize will be incalculable.
But Karly hasn’t reckoned for new and equally underhanded forces that are at work. Lurking in the shadows are others, with their own agendas to follow and equally ruthless in their objectives. With various factions hurtling towards a confrontation that none of them saw coming, someone is going to pay the price of infatuation.
The Christmas Bargain (Hardman Holidays Book 1) (affiliate link)
One Old West Cinderella discovers
Prince Charming is a . . . Cowboy?
The death of her mother left Philamena Booth grieving and at the mercy of her drunken father. After spending more than a decade held captive on their run-down farm, she’s left speechless and dazed when her father strikes a bargain to settle a long overdue debt. In lieu of payment, a handsome cowboy agrees to take her. Mortified yet relieved to leave the farm, Philamena unexpectedly finds herself married to a charismatic, caring man.
Luke Granger might own Hardman’s bank and the fanciest house in this Eastern Oregon town, but he’d much rather be outside riding his horses or wrangling his herd of cattle than keeping his account books straight. In a strange, unsettling turn of events, he finds himself accepting a farmer’s daughter instead of money to cover a loan. If the man hadn’t threatened to sell her to the saloon owner, Luke might have refused. He has no idea what to do with beautiful Filly or their marriage of convenience, but he’s about to get far more than he bargained for.
Murder in the Smithsonian (Capital Crimes) (affiliate link)
Dr. Lewis Tunney, a brilliant historian who had stumbled onto an international art scandal, was brutally murdered in front of two hundred guests at an elegant party at the Smithsonian.
Taking the case, DC police Cpt. Mac Hanrahan begins to uncover a web of secrets, lies, and revenge surrounding the historian’s killing. From the deceased Tunney’s strong-willed fiancée, Heather McBean, to the congressmen with secrets to hide, Hanrahan finds himself unsure who to believe. Soon after, two more murders add to the intrigue.
Murder in the Smithsonian is the fourth volume in Margaret Truman’s beloved Capital Crimes series, in which Truman enlivens history with her first-hand knowledge as the daughter of US President Harry S. Truman. Each of the novels revolve around Washington, DC, and its landmarks. The Smithsonian’s museums, with their quirky staff, forensic scientists, and sometimes-spooky exhibits are the perfect setting for a thrilling political crime novel.
Hell Is Too Crowded (affiliate link)
Matthew Brady was just out for a good time. After a long dry spell working in the deserts of Kuwait, the young engineer was ready to let loose in merry old London. So when a beautiful young woman drifts out of the fog and asks him to accompany her to her apartment, it seems like a dream come true for the happily muddled American.His drunken dream soon becomes a waking nightmare when he comes to with the mysterious woman dead on the floor, the police ready to pin a murder on him, and absolutely no memory of what happened.
Running for his life, Brady knows his only chance for freedom is to clear his name. But to do so he will have to descend into the twisted London underworld, where money isn’t the only currency, death is a final payment, and the man behind the set-up is waiting with a bullet just for him.
On All Fronts: The Education of a Journalist (affiliate link)
The recipient of multiple Peabody and Murrow awards, Clarissa Ward is a world-renowned conflict reporter. In this strange age of crisis where there really is no front line, she has moved from one hot zone to the next. With multiple assignments in Syria, Egypt, and Afghanistan, Ward, who speaks seven languages, has been based in Baghdad, Beirut, Beijing, and Moscow. She has seen and documented the violent remaking of the world at close range. With her deep empathy, Ward finds a way to tell the hardest stories. On All Fronts is the riveting account of Ward’s singular career and of journalism in this age of extremism.
Following a privileged but lonely childhood, Ward found her calling as an international war correspondent in the aftermath of 9/11. From her early days in the field, she was embedding with marines at the height of the Iraq War and was soon on assignment all over the globe. But nowhere does Ward make her mark more than in war-torn Syria, which she has covered extensively with courage and compassion.
City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (affiliate link)
No metropolis has been more loved or more hated. To its official boosters, “Los Angeles brings it all together.” To detractors, L.A. is a sunlit mortuary where “you can rot without feeling it.” To Mike Davis, the author of this fiercely elegant and wide- ranging work of social history, Los Angeles is both utopia and dystopia, a place where the last Joshua trees are being plowed under to make room for model communities in the desert, where the rich have hired their own police to fend off street gangs, as well as armed Beirut militias.
In City of Quartz, Davis reconstructs L.A.’s shadow history and dissects its ethereal economy. He tells us who has the power and how they hold on to it. He gives us a city of Dickensian extremes, Pynchonesque conspiracies, and a desperation straight out of Nathaniel West—a city in which we may glimpse our own future mirrored with terrifying clarity. In this new edition, Davis provides a dazzling update on the city’s current status.
Desert Flowers (affiliate link)
Rose and Elmer have created an idyllic sanctuary for themselves and their five daughters in Mexico’s Baja California desert. Out there in the middle of nowhere, blissfully cut off from the burdens of modern society, they’re free to raise their beautiful family…and preserve its secret.
And they’re never giving it up.
Then a young hiker named Rick comes looking for a place to stay. It’s just for the night, he says—but long enough for Rose and Elmer to fear they’ve made a horrible mistake. As the stranger grows more intrusive and more suspicious, the couple know they must do what they can to protect themselves. What they don’t know is that Rick has a secret, too. Soon, home and family will prove to be as cold and dark as the desert nights. And even with so many places to run, there’s still no escape from the past that binds them.
The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism (affiliate link)
Elizabeth, Mary, and Sophia Peabody were in many ways the American Brontës. The story of these remarkable sisters—and their central role in shaping the thinking of their day—has never before been fully told. Twenty years in the making, Megan Marshall’s monumental biography brings the era of creative ferment known as American Romanticism to new life.
Elizabeth Peabody, the oldest sister, was a mind-on-fire influence on the great writers of the era—Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau among them—who also published some of their earliest works; it was she who prodded these newly minted Transcendentalists away from Emerson’s individualism and toward a greater connection to others. Middle sister Mary Peabody was a passionate reformer who finally found her soul mate in the great educator Horace Mann. And the frail Sophia, an admired painter among the preeminent society artists of the day, married Nathaniel Hawthorne—but not before Hawthorne threw the delicate dynamics among the sisters into disarray.
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