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Lacey Luzzi Box Set: Books 1-6 (Lacey Luzzi Mafia Mysteries) (affiliate link)
Lacey Luzzi’s rollercoaster of a life has been filled with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. She just never expected the lows to be so… sparkly.
After falling on her face during an attempt to follow in her recently-deceased mother’s stripper-boots, Lacey realizes she’s not cut out for life on stage. She sets out on a year-long investigation to find her true family, never expecting she’ll find it with a capital “F.”
With a rumbling stomach, a need for money (check engine lights don’t fix themselves!), and a conscience that operates at 78% on a good day, Lacey is sucked into a whirlwind of Family secrets, hard-as-cement cookies, and mysterious, sexy men who unfortunately shoot guns, sometimes aimed at her face. The long-lost-granddaughter of Carlos Luzzi, the Godfather of the Italian Mafia, Lacey accepts her first assignment for the mob: finding fifteen million dollars of ‘the good stuff.’
Double Down (The Blackmore Agency Book 1) (affiliate link)
Worthe’s Village (Haunted Village Series Book 1) (affiliate link)
A ghastly experiment takes a sinister turn…
Professor Abel Worthe is brilliant, wealthy, and utterly immoral. He is an expert in a very particular field: the study of fear and death. Using his vast resources, Worthe has purchased a collection of haunted houses and paranormal sites, hidden across the world. And he intends to subject a captive to each location in his collection of horror, all in the name of science.
All he needs is a test subject, a human lab rat to undergo his experiment in terror. And the target of his sinister attention is Marcus Holt. A veteran of the Vietnam War, the tough old soldier is haunted by nightmares of brutal conflict. Marcus soon finds himself kidnapped from his own home, and forced to endure a never-ending barrage of horror.
But Marcus is no stranger to fear and death. He’s a fighter. And he is determined to survive long enough to find and kill his malicious captor.
Amidst a Snowstorm of Love (Love and Valor on the Frontier) (affiliate link)
Abby Clayton feels devastated by her parents’ decision to move from Chicago to Montana. Desperate to escape the grim reality of her new life away from everyone she loves, she often finds comfort in wandering the woods. There, she meets a mysterious Native man and from that moment on, Abby is drawn into a forbidden friendship that brings her more joy than she could ever imagine. Yet will she be able to open up her heart to a man who is shunned by the rest of society?
Absurd as she knows it to be, she may have already fallen utterly in love…
Keme struggles with his interest in the white settlers and their fascinating way of life. His people and theirs have not been getting along for quite some time, and lately, tensions are high. So when he crosses paths with an intriguing white woman in the forest, he is more than caught off guard. He can’t stop thinking about her and soon, he is attracted to the white man’s world in a whole new way.
Ghost Mortem (Ghost Detective Book 1) (affiliate link)
Whoever said that ghosts exist must be out of their mind.
Oh, wait. That was me. I said that. If you’d told me yesterday that ghosts were real I would have smiled, nodded, and called a shrink to fix your deluded little mind. Now it’s my turn to question my sanity when the ghost of my best friend turns up in my apartment. Was it the tequila shots the night before causing this apparition? Or one too many bumps to the head — let’s face it, clumsy is my middle name, it really wouldn’t surprise me if I’d done some irreparable damage to my grey matter over the years.
Now I have to accept that the paranormal does, in fact, exist. But sadly, my ghost friend is lacking something besides his body. His memory. He doesn’t know how he died but suspects foul play and he wants my help to find his killer. I can’t refuse, I’m a sucker for a good mystery and the chance to bring my friend’s killer to justice is too good to pass up.
Carson’s Vendetta (affiliate link)
Sheriff Roy Carson can no longer ignore his dark family secret…
Genoa, Nevada, 1865. Arriving at his hometown after the bloody Civil War, the former sheriff Roy Carson finds his family murdered. The only remaining survivors are his prejudiced grandfather and his rival stepbrother, Pete. With Pete suspected of vile trafficking crimes, Roy steps up as sheriff once again. As the new sheriff, he appoints his black friend Barry as deputy, stirring tension in the community. When a fiery woman seeks work, Roy’s instincts kick in. Can he restore justice and save his town, or will the shadows of his own making bring about his downfall?
In this gripping tale of loss and love, inspired by C.J. Petit’s and Zane Grey’s favorite tales, Roy’s quest for peace challenges the very essence of his spirit.
The Ember Blade (The Darkwater Legacy Book 1) (affiliate link)
Empires rise, civilisations fall and one culture comes to subsume another. It’s the way of the world . . . sometimes ways of life are improved, sometimes they are not. But the progression of change is huge and – usually – unstoppable.
In this story, the Ossian way of life is fading and the Dachen way is taking its place and Aren is comfortable with that. Even when his parents are accused of treason he supports the establishment and maintains there’s been some mistake . . . which is all it takes to get himself and his best friend arrested . . .
Thrown into a prison mine they plan their escape – only to be overtaken by events when they’re rescued, and promptly find themselves in the middle of an ambush. By the time they’ve escaped, they’re unavoidably linked to Garric – their unwelcome saviour – and his quest to overturn to Dachen way of life.
If they leave Garric now, they’ll be arrested or killed by their pursuers. If they turn him in, Garric will kill them. If they stay with him, they’ll be abetting a murderous quest they don’t believe in. There are no good options – but Aren will still have to choose a path . . .
The Collector (affiliate link)
Zero Hour (Eddie Virgo Thrillers Book 1) (affiliate link)
Want a guy who plays by the rules? Don’t pick Virgo.
Special forces veteran Eddie Virgo is doing hard time for taking the law into his own hands. But now he is offered an early release if he agrees to work one last job…
Stacy, daughter of wealthy senator Daniel Donovan, has been kidnapped. And Virgo’s lethal skills seem to offer the best shot at getting her safely home.
But when the kidnapper makes an impossible demand, Virgo is catapulted into a deadly race against time.
Teaming up with LAPD detective, Jennifer Accardi, Virgo leads the hunt for Stacy and realizes he has stumbled on a sinister plot which threatens to compromise national security.
Now, up against a deadly combination of ruthless gangsters and powerful DC players, Virgo is looking at some pretty long odds.
The Floating Amsterdam Flower Shop (The Floating Shop series Book 1) (affiliate link)
One fresh start. One unexpected encounter. Can love bridge the gap?
When Rosie leaves behind her ordinary life in England to open a flower shop on Amsterdam’s water, she expects nothing less than a fairytale.
Max, her handsome but brooding new neighbour, prefers to keep the world at arm’s length – and living on the houseboat next door, he’s not too thrilled about the new company.
As Rosie’s business blossoms, so do her feelings for Max. But Rosie isn’t sure she’s ready for a relationship, and Max is still nursing a broken heart.
Then a rival in the flower market threatens her dreams, Rosie discovers that the most beautiful things can bloom when you learn to go with the flow – and allow someone to stand by your side.
A husband. A father. A killer.
Chris Watts was a family man. Everybody, including his family, believed that. Yet, on August 13, 2018, he murdered Shanann, his pregnant wife, and two young daughters, burying Shanann and their unborn son in a shallow grave and dumping their daughters’ bodies in separate oil tanks.
As terrible as his story is, it is also a warning because, to this day, living behind bars, Watts is still acting out the character traits that made him kill in the first place.
In this, the first and only psychological exploration of the Watts family murders, psychotherapist Lena Derhally has pieced together the crime, the events leading to it, and most of all, her beliefs about the “why,” including the fact that Chris Watts—now a self-described “man of God”—is not in the least remorseful about killing his family.
Using police discovery and other sources, Derhally recreates the night of the murders and the investigation that followed. She explores the childhoods, families of origin, meeting, and early relationship of Shanann and Chris Watts. She also examines Watts’s double life and duplicity regarding his well-publicized affair with a co-worker, who, although she claimed their affair was casual, was searching online for wedding dresses at the time of the murders.
… See the rest of today ‘s Book Picks here on page 2Page 2