**Kallie Andreas is a mystery, even to herself.** Seven years ago Kallie woke up in a New York City museum, injured and traumatized, with no memory of who she was or how she got there. Alone and unclaimed by anyone who recognized her, the hospital gave her a name, social services gave her a fresh start, and she gave herself a new life. Despite her shattered memories and the persistent feeling that something crucial is missing, she’s made a quiet life for herself as museum curator—safe, controlled, predictable. 🏛️
But then **the blackouts start.** Lost time where hours disappear, stranded in terrifying danger she doesn’t remember entering, frantic visions of ancient places that can’t be real but feel like memories. And now **Kallie’s journal has morphed into something else**—what began as her attempt to track her amnesia symptoms becomes a romantic fairy tale she doesn’t remember writing, then transforms into the tale of a woman plunged into crisis in the ancient misty islands of Minoan Greece, home to myth and legend. Is she writing fiction or remembering something impossible? 📖
When **a mysterious billionaire invites Kallie to scour the black market with him for the most valuable of all Minoan treasures,** Kallie can’t resist despite every rational voice screaming danger. Dimitri is wealthy, charming and good-looking, but she’s not interested—not in someone who’s clearly hiding secrets of his own while asking her to help track down artifacts that shouldn’t exist. Between investigating her blackouts, deciphering her impossible journal, partnering with a billionaire who knows more than he’s saying, and discovering that Minoan Greece might not be as mythical as she thought, Kallie learns that sometimes amnesia isn’t about forgetting the past—it’s about surviving it. ✨
What makes this mysterious: Kallie Andreas waking up seven years ago in NYC museum injured with no memory, making quiet life as curator despite shattered memories, blackouts starting with lost time and terrifying danger, journal morphing into tale of woman in ancient Minoan Greece, and mysterious billionaire Dimitri inviting her to scour black market for most valuable Minoan treasures.
On an island full of intrigue, a killer’s identity is the best-kept secret. **Policewoman Christine Lane felt the humiliation like a slap.** Transferred to a sleepy island station after a career-ending mistake on the mainland, she could almost hear her professional ambitions screeching to a halt. Toronto Island was supposed to be punishment disguised as reassignment—dealing with noise complaints and lost tourists instead of real police work. 🏝️
During a violent protest on Toronto Island, **a resident is found dead and Christine is hurt** trying to intervene. Her boss threatens to sack her for incompetence, using the incident as proof she doesn’t belong in law enforcement at all. She vows to maintain a low profile, to keep her head down and survive this exile without making things worse. But when the homicide leads dry up and investigators move on to their next case, **Christine is shocked when they close the file.** So she secretly gathers information on suspects, digging up local dirt that tourists never see. 🔍
When Christine is ambushed while pursuing the investigation alone, she knows **she is closing in on the perpetrator.** Can she flush out the murderer before she is shut down for good by superiors who think she’s obsessed, before the killer eliminates the one cop who won’t let the case die, and before her career ends in disgrace? Between navigating island politics where everyone protects their own, investigating a murder her bosses want forgotten, surviving an ambush that proves someone’s watching her investigation, and deciding whether solving the case is worth her badge, Christine discovers that on a small island, the most dangerous secret is the one everyone’s determined to keep. 🚨
What makes this tense: Policewoman Christine Lane feeling humiliation like slap transferred to sleepy island station, resident found dead during violent Toronto Island protest with Christine hurt, boss threatening to sack her for incompetence, shocked when homicide investigators move on, and ambushed proving she’s closing in on perpetrator before shut down for good.
**It’s not stealing if you’re stealing it back…** Ari had a game plan for life that was working perfectly: shoot people for money, get paid handsomely for his assassin skills, and hang out with fellow criminal friends who understand that morality is negotiable. He saw absolutely no reason to change that plan—**until one dark night in Memphis, when a little girl reached out to him with pocket change and a desperate plea for help.** The kid was bruised, terrified, and offering him everything she had (seventy-three cents) to save her from the man who’d been hurting her. 💰
**Adopting an abused little girl off the streets was, needless to say, not part of the plan.** Ari has no idea what to do with an eight-year-old who’s never had a bedtime story, doesn’t know what safety feels like, and thinks assassins are normal father figures. Things get more complicated when **a mercenary, Carter Harrison, approaches him with a job.** He needs Ari’s expertise to get into the very high-security museum and steal back Monet’s *Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies*—yes, steal it *back*, because apparently someone stole it from Carter’s client first. 🎨
**The job isn’t an easy one.** It will take more than the two of them to make it happen—they’ll need a whole crew of specialists. The situation is further complicated because Ari’s not sure what to do with his new daughter while working this job (daycare for assassins isn’t a thing). **And for that matter, how’s he supposed to handle the sexy mercenary** who keeps looking at him like Ari’s more interesting than the Monet? Between raising an eight-year-old, assembling a heist crew, stealing back a priceless painting, and not falling for Carter, Ari discovers that the most dangerous job isn’t breaking into museums—it’s letting people into your heart. 💕
What makes this unique: Not stealing if you’re stealing it back when assassin Ari’s game plan disrupted by little girl with pocket change and desperate plea, adopting abused eight-year-old off streets not part of plan, sexy mercenary Carter Harrison needing expertise to steal back Monet from high-security museum, and handling new daughter while working job and not falling for mercenary.
The Typewriter and the Guillotine: An American Journalist, a German Serial Killer, and Paris on the Eve of WWII
In 1925, the Indianapolis-born **Janet Flanner took an assignment to write a regular “Letter from Paris” for a lighthearted humor magazine called *The New Yorker*.** She’d come to Paris with dreams of writing about “Beauty with a Capital B”—art galleries, fashion shows, literary salons, all the glamorous surface of 1920s Paris. Her employer, self-consciously apolitical, sought only breezy reports on French art and culture. But as she woke to the frightening signs of rising extremism, economic turmoil, and widespread discontent in Europe, Flanner ignored her editor’s directives, reinventing herself, her assignment, and *The New Yorker* in the process. 📰
While working tirelessly to alert American readers to the dangers of the Third Reich before most Americans cared, Flanner became gripped by the disturbing crimes of **a man who embodied all of the darkness she was being forced to confront. Eugen Weidmann, a German con-man and murderer, and the last man to be publicly executed in France—mere weeks before the outbreak of WWII.** Flanner covered his crimes, capture, and highly politicized trial, seeing the case as a metaphor for understanding the tumultuous years through which she’d just passed and to prepare herself for the dangers to come. ⚖️
Between documenting Weidmann’s brutal murders across France, witnessing the spectacle of his public guillotining in June 1939, covering the rise of fascism her editors didn’t want to acknowledge, and transforming from society columnist to serious political journalist, Flanner’s parallel coverage of a serial killer and a continent descending into war revealed uncomfortable truths. **Mark Braude weaves together true crime, journalistic history, and the gathering storm of WWII** in this gripping account of how one woman’s determination to tell the truth changed American journalism forever. The typewriter and the guillotine—tools of truth and tools of death—defined an era. 🗼
What makes this fascinating: Janet Flanner taking 1925 assignment writing “Letter from Paris” for lighthearted *New Yorker*, ignoring editor’s directives to alert Americans about Third Reich dangers, becoming gripped by German serial killer Eugen Weidmann’s crimes, last man publicly executed in France weeks before WWII, and Mark Braude weaving true crime with journalistic history and gathering war storm.
Yes, it’s that book. The one everyone says you should read. **The original toxic love story that spawned entire genres of dark romance.** Here’s the thing: *Wuthering Heights* is unhinged, devastating, and has been absolutely wrecking readers for 175 years. It’s a masterpiece of obsessive passion, revenge that spans generations, and love that destroys everything it touches. The Victorian prose, though? That’s the part that makes it feel like homework instead of the emotional rollercoaster it actually is. 📖
**This edition fixes that.** Same gothic moors where the wind never stops howling. Same obsessive passion between Heathcliff and Catherine that makes modern toxic relationships look healthy. Same “wait, did that just happen?” moments that make you question everything you thought you knew about love. Just in language that doesn’t require you to stop and decode every other sentence or keep a dictionary handy. No scenes cut. No plot watered down. No study guide summary pretending to be the actual novel. **Every chapter, every character, every devastating moment, just written so you can actually experience why this book has been breaking hearts since 1847.** 💔
You get the full story without “hitherto,” “countenance,” and sentences that take three reads to figure out. **You get Brontë’s genius without the barrier.** Between Heathcliff’s all-consuming obsession, Catherine’s impossible choices, revenge plots spanning two generations, the haunting atmosphere of the Yorkshire moors, and emotional devastation on every page, this is the *Wuthering Heights* that reads like the page-turner it always was. For readers who want to understand what the fuss is about without needing a literature degree to get through it. The toxic love story that invented toxic love stories, now accessible to everyone. 🌪️
What makes this essential: Original toxic love story spawning entire dark romance genres, unhinged and devastating masterpiece wrecking readers for 175 years, same gothic moors and obsessive passion in modern language without Victorian prose barrier, every chapter and character preserved, and Brontë’s genius accessible without “hitherto” and undecipherable sentences.
**She’s the one who got away. He’s always been off-limits.** A secret romance with my brother’s hockey star best friend wasn’t part of my plan when I desperately asked him to invest in my bakery. I just needed a business partner before my dream shop went under, before years of perfecting recipes and building a customer base disappeared because of bad luck and worse timing. And when the bossy, protective single dad athlete said yes, I didn’t think that one knee-weakening time he’d kissed me senseless (and then some) would get in the way of us baking cakes. 🏒
But just try working with **a sinfully handsome, incredibly generous, and dangerously flirty hockey player who’s good with his hands in and out of the kitchen.** We set a rule: don’t mix business with pleasure. Again. Except Corbin doesn’t do anything halfway. When he’s not scoring goals on the ice, he stays up late with me to test tempting recipes, braids my hair before we bake like it’s foreplay, gives me his jersey to wear to games, and looks at me like I’m the answer to his dreams instead of his business partner and best friend’s little sister. 🧁
**Falling for my business partner—my brother’s best friend—could cost me everything:** the bakery we’re building together, our friendship that’s lasted years, and the family who’s already doubting me. But when Corbin shows up after closing one night and tells me he can’t stop thinking about me and hasn’t been able to for years? I’m ready to break every rule. Between late-night recipe testing, hair braiding as foreplay, wearing his jersey, and fighting feelings that could destroy everything, we discover that some rules are made to be broken. Especially when breaking them tastes this sweet. 💕
What makes this delicious: Secret romance with brother’s hockey star best friend who invested in failing bakery, bossy protective single dad athlete good with hands in and out of kitchen, rule not to mix business with pleasure again, Corbin staying late testing recipes and braiding hair like foreplay, and showing up after closing admitting he can’t stop thinking about her for years.