A year after his brother is killed in the line of duty, former homicide detective Brandon Mattson returns to Forks, Washington to take command of his hometown’s fledgling police force—seeking respite from the world of violent death that cost him his brother. The respite ends quickly when a body washes ashore on the nearby Quileute Reservation. Vicious fang marks on the victim’s neck and an ominous warning to the town’s residents point toward a local cult. 🔍
Brandon is not convinced that wannabe vampires are to blame—and it soon becomes evident that more than one person had reason to murder the young woman. The Forks, Washington setting is a deliberate and clever choice: the Pacific Northwest rain forest town made famous by Twilight gives the series its atmospheric backdrop and its built-in vampire mythology context, which the Brandon Mattson Mysteries uses as a red herring rather than a supernatural premise. The real investigation is a small-town murder with human motives buried under theatrical misdirection. 💀
R.L. Ryker writes with the Pacific Northwest atmospheric density and procedural patience that small-town mystery rewards when its detective has genuine personal stakes in the community he is protecting. Brandon’s grief over his brother, his complicated homecoming, and his skeptical investigative instincts give the series its character foundation, and the Quileute Reservation setting gives the first case its specific cultural and geographic texture. ⚡
What makes this gripping: R.L. Ryker launches the Brandon Mattson Mysteries with a Pacific Northwest small-town murder mystery of genuine atmospheric tension—a former homicide detective returning to Forks after his brother’s death, a body with fang marks on the Quileute Reservation, and a cult that may be exactly the red herring it appears to be. 🌟
Drew Milton left January Cove behind and built a successful career in New York City—until his father’s injury calls him home to help run the family’s beloved ice cream shop, Sprinkles. Returning means confronting old memories and lingering heartache tied to his high school love, Kate, and the life he left when he chose the city over everything else. 💛
Cat Morgan, a physical therapist from Whiskey Ridge, arrives in January Cove for a fresh start—taking on the job of helping Drew’s father recover. She is determined to prove herself professionally, but the more time she spends with the Milton family and with Drew himself, the harder it becomes to keep her focus where it belongs. As sparks develop between them, both must face their pasts and decide whether their hearts are ready for something new—or still waiting for something else entirely. 🌊
Rachel Hanna writes the January Cove series with the clean wholesome romance warmth and small coastal town community atmosphere that have made her one of the most widely read authors in the genre. The Sprinkles ice cream shop setting gives the novella its particular charm, Drew’s complicated homecoming gives it its emotional grounding, and the question of whether hearts waiting for the past can open to the present gives it its central romantic tension. The January Cove world rewards readers who follow the full series, and this novella delivers the series’ established pleasures in its most accessible format. ⚡
What makes this heartwarming: Rachel Hanna delivers a January Cove novella of pure coastal charm—a man who left his hometown for New York forced back to run the family ice cream shop, a physical therapist arriving for a fresh start, and two people carrying old heartaches discovering each other at exactly the right moment. 🌟
Former SEAL Sawyer Banks lost his entire team in a nightmare attack. Now he prefers the company of the woods surrounding his secluded home to the company of people—which makes being stuck teaching all things winter to a sexy writer a particularly unwelcome assignment, arranged to appease his sister. The writer, however, turns out to have an inner strength that outmuscles everyone around her, and a past that may hold more shadows than his own. 💛
Before either of them can fully process what is developing between them, they find themselves in the middle of something dangerous: a butchered wolf whose killer shows every sign of turning his attention toward them next. The Bloo Moose Romance series builds its romantic suspense on the wounded veteran and the deceptively strong civilian premise—two people whose damage is differently sourced but similarly deep, thrown together by circumstance into a situation that requires exactly the skills both of them have been using to survive their respective solitudes. 🐺
Jemi Fraser writes with the wilderness romantic suspense atmosphere and SEAL hero emotional intelligence that give the Bloo Moose series its particular flavor—the winter setting rendered with the specific beauty and danger of the Canadian wilderness, and the mystery of the butchered wolf giving the romance its suspense backbone. The series title suggests the warmth and slight irreverence that keeps the darker elements from becoming overwhelming. ⚡
What makes this captivating: Jemi Fraser launches the Bloo Moose Romance series with a wilderness romantic suspense of genuine tension—a reclusive former SEAL reluctantly teaching winter survival to a writer whose hidden strength matches his own, and a predator targeting wolves who has started watching them. 🌟
Tears of Betrayal (Kentucky Bluegrass Series Book 1)
On the day of her husband’s funeral, in the midst of grief, Amber is blindsided with divorce papers—served only hours before the service. The betrayal forces her to face how deeply flawed her marriage actually was, the lies and deceit that were present from the very foundation of the relationship she has been grieving. Beginning to process the truth of what she has lost—and what she was never really given—is its own kind of mourning. 💔
Dalton is a ruggedly handsome Kentucky horse breeder who lost his beloved wife shortly after the birth of their child, and who has spent four years knowing something is missing from his life without being able to name it—until he meets Amber. The Kentucky Bluegrass Series builds its second chance romance on the specific emotional territory of people who have survived genuine loss and genuine betrayal: not the manufactured obstacles of first-love stories but the harder, more particular damage that comes from having trusted completely and been proven wrong. 💛
Sherry A. Burton writes with the Kentucky horse country setting and second chance romance emotional depth that give the series its particular flavor—the Bluegrass landscape rendered with the warmth of a writer who knows her setting, and both protagonists given the specific histories that make their eventual connection feel earned rather than convenient. The question the novel poses honestly—whether Amber can see clearly through her tears of betrayal—is one the series takes its time answering. ⚡
What makes this compelling: Sherry A. Burton launches the Kentucky Bluegrass Series with a second chance romance of genuine emotional honesty—a woman served divorce papers on her husband’s funeral day forced to face the lies at her marriage’s foundation, and a Kentucky horse breeder who has been waiting without knowing it for exactly her. 🌟
Donald Miller grew his small business from four employees in a basement to a fifteen million dollar operation—sixfold revenue growth in six years. As he built it, he realized that nobody had put together a simple, step-by-step playbook for growing a business. The book that should have existed did not exist. So he wrote it. The result is a six-step plan that produces dependable, predictable results rather than the stress, discouragement, and uncertainty that define most small business owners’ experience of trying to scale. 💡
The six steps cover casting a company vision with three economic priorities, clarifying the marketing message, installing a sales framework that makes customers the hero, optimizing the product offering, and running a management and productivity playbook that aligns the entire team. The output of working through the book is a completed Flight Plan—a concrete document that gives the owner something to execute rather than simply principles to consider. The distinction between actionable framework and inspirational advice is what separates this from the majority of the business growth genre. 📖
Donald Miller—the author of Building a StoryBrand, one of the most influential marketing books of the past decade—writes with the clarity and narrative intelligence that have made his frameworks some of the most widely adopted in small business. How to Grow Your Small Business delivers the operational extension of the StoryBrand methodology: what to do after the message is clear, when the actual work of building a sustainable business begins. 🌟
What makes this essential: Donald Miller delivers the six-step small business growth playbook that he built himself—from four employees in a basement to fifteen million dollars in six years—giving entrepreneurs the Flight Plan and the framework to stop drowning in details and start producing predictable results. 🌟
Everybody in Las Vegas knew Bill Rundle. A story written by his son Richie earned him the title of Las Vegas’s Father of the Year—a bittersweet honor given that Richie died at eleven after saving another child from a drunk driver while waiting for the school bus. The entire city mourned with Bill and his wife Shirley. He was the grieving father of a local hero—one of the most sympathetic figures the city had ever known. 💔
Fifteen years later, Bill and Shirley vanished from their Vegas home. Authorities were at a loss until they found Shirley’s corpse and discovered that Bill’s mother was missing as well. The investigation that followed revealed a Bill Rundle nobody knew existed—a manipulative con man, professional thug, and savage killer whose crimes reached back through the decades. The man the city had embraced as a grieving father had been hiding a cold-blooded capacity for violence behind the most sympathetic public identity imaginable. 💀
Glenn Puit writes with the Las Vegas investigative journalism specificity and true crime narrative authority that give Father of the Year its particular force—the community trust and public sympathy that Bill Rundle cultivated making his eventual exposure more disturbing than a straightforward criminal case would be. The gap between the Father of the Year and the man behind it is the book’s central horror. 🔍
What makes this gripping: Glenn Puit delivers a Las Vegas true crime of devastating irony—the city’s beloved Father of the Year whose son died a local hero, whose public grief made him untouchable, and whose hidden life as a manipulative killer was buried beneath one of the most sympathetic identities anyone could construct. 🌟
… See the rest of today ‘s Book Picks here on page 3Page 3