Author: Marian McCarthy
FREE
Paranormal Cozy Mystery
🪦 They dropped a corpse in her driveway. Will her unusual gifts help her deliver justice and lay the deceased to rest?
Perrie Spock has made a career out of being comfortable around cadavers. So the skilled Oklahoma undertaker barely bats an eye when the body of a young woman is dumped outside her funeral home in the small hours. But it feels less like a regular workday when she begins to receive beyond-the grave pleas from the newly arrived stiff.
With more shocking ghostly messages driving her to investigate further, Perrie reluctantly teams up with the local sheriff to solve the crime. And though she’s still in denial over her own growing psychic powers, a parade of suspects and disturbing small-town secrets are starting to give her the supernatural chills…
Can this magic-touched embalmer crack the case before the casket closes?
Murder and the Mortician is the exciting first book in The Psychic Last Responder paranormal cozy mystery series. If you like cunning characters, perplexing puzzles, and titanic twists, then you’ll love Marian McCarthy’s wicked whodunit.
What makes this a must-read: Marian McCarthy delivers a brilliantly original premise—a mortician who talks to dead people is basically the perfect detective. Perrie Spock (great name, by the way) is comfortable with corpses professionally, but when a body gets dumped at her funeral home and starts sending her messages from beyond the grave, she’s forced to become an amateur sleuth. The setup is pure cozy mystery gold: small-town Oklahoma setting, a reluctant psychic in denial about her powers, and a partnership with the local sheriff. If you love shows like Pushing Daisies or books by Juliet Blackwell, this FREE paranormal cozy offers the same blend of supernatural mystery and humor. The “Psychic Last Responder” series title alone is genius.
Author: Heather Horrocks
FREE
Sweet Romantic Comedy
☔ Pride and Precipitation ~ A sweet enemies-to-lovers romantic comedy.
Forecast: Romance with occasional bursts of laughter.
Breezy Jones is crazy about the weather—rain or shine—which makes her job as the local television station’s meteorologist perfect. She’s even hoping the new buyers of her Aspen Grove station will make some positive changes.
That’s before she meets the attractive new general manager, Noah Drake, who is determined to repackage everything—including Breezy’s down-home delivery and casual, girl-next-door appearance that seems too Pollyanna for him. He replaces her with a high-powered diva weathercaster and makes Breezy her off-screen assistant.
With a flood of angry emails from the community, plummeting ratings, and incessant demands from the diva, it doesn’t take long for Noah to see which way the wind is blowing.
Will the station survive the competitive clash between pride and precipitation?
More importantly, can their blossoming attraction survive?
Come join the Chick Flick Clique at Candy’s Café for a good serving of friendship, family, films, and flirty sweet romance. It’s the first book in a humorous, heartwarming series set in Aspen Grove.
Why this is pure fun: Heather Horrocks delivers a charming Jane Austen riff with perfect puns—Pride and Precipitation for a meteorologist heroine named Breezy Jones (come on, that’s delightful). The setup is classic enemies-to-lovers: new boss Noah Drake thinks Breezy’s girl-next-door authenticity is too unsophisticated, so he replaces her with a diva and demotes her to assistant. Naturally, this backfires spectacularly with angry viewers and plummeting ratings. What follows is a sweet romantic comedy (no spice, all heart) set in the small town of Aspen Grove, featuring the Chick Flick Clique meeting at Candy’s Café. If you love Hallmark-style romances with witty banter and happy endings, this FREE series starter is your forecast for a perfect reading day.
Author: Samantha Chase
FREE
Christmas Holiday Romance
🎄 A Small Town, Enemies to Lovers, Holiday Romance from New York Times bestselling author, Samantha Chase
Everyone in the building loved the bake shop a lot.
Except for the guy on the top floor, who most certainly did not.
If it were up to him, there wouldn’t be a hint of Christmas in the building.
For two months out of the year, Daphne Noelle got to live her dream of owning a bakery. Her little pop-up bake shop—one that looked just like a gingerbread house—brought joy to every customer who stopped by to enjoy her sweet treats. She loved meeting people and making them smile, and being in such a festive setting every day was just the icing on the cake! For the last three years, everything had gone smoothly, but this year, there was one guy who was determined to ruin it all.
One of the things Tristan appreciated most about the office complex where his architecture firm was located is how upscale and elegant it was. Unfortunately, every year for eight long weeks, a holiday shop set up in the lobby, turning it into the equivalent of a traveling circus, and the bake shop booth was the worst offender. The giant gingerbread house was an eyesore and the woman running it was too cheery for his liking. This year, he was determined to do everything he could to have her and her booth removed.
When Tristan finds himself in the middle of a delicate family situation, only Daphne can help him.
This is holiday romance perfection: New York Times bestselling author Samantha Chase knows exactly what readers want for Christmas, and it’s this: a grumpy architect versus a sunshine baker in a pop-up gingerbread house. The Grinch parallels are intentional and delightful—Tristan thinks Daphne’s festive cheer is an eyesore, while she’s literally spreading joy through cookies. The enemies-to-lovers setup practically crackles with tension, and when Tristan needs Daphne’s help with a family situation, you know that grumpy exterior is about to melt faster than frosting. This is the kind of FREE holiday romance that pairs perfectly with hot cocoa and twinkling lights. Chase delivers small-town charm, Christmas magic, and a guaranteed happy ending—everything you need for the season.
100 Recipes Every Woman Should Know: Engagement Chicken and 99 Other Fabulous Dishes to Get You Everything You Want In Life
Author: Cindi Leive
Regularly $17.99, Today $2.99
Cooking, Food & Wine Reference
🍗 Dip into the power of delicious, homemade food with the New York Times bestselling cookbook that reveals Glamour’s legendary roast chicken recipe.
“Recently I met some beautiful young women from Glamour magazine. They make a roast chicken they call ‘Engagement Chicken’ because every time one of them makes it for her boyfriend, she gets engaged! How wonderful is that! That’s the best reason I ever heard to make a roast chicken.”—Ina Garten
Of course, there is more to life than weddings. And there’s more to this cookbook than Engagement Chicken. 100 Recipes Every Woman Should Know also includes 99 of the magazine’s other most-loved, best-reviewed dishes, all designed to get you exactly what you want in life, exactly when you want it. From Prove to Mom You’re Not Going to Starve Meat Loaf to Impress His Family Chardonnay Cake, these recipes will help you cook with passion and persuasion. And they’re all written with your real life and real needs in mind. Because whether you’re a novice or an expert, cooking should never be intimidating—and it should always be fun.
Don’t miss these easy, essential recipes: He Stayed Over Omelet Skinny Jeans Scallops No Guy Required Grilled Steak Let’s Make a Baby Pasta Forget the Mistake You Made at Work Margarita Bribe a Kid Brownies Hers and His Cupcakes
What I love about this collection: Former Glamour editor-in-chief Cindi Leive brings humor and personality to practical cooking. The recipe names alone are worth the price—they’re honest about what we actually use food for in our lives. This isn’t stuffy culinary school instruction; it’s a friend helping you navigate everything from first-date dinners to family gatherings with delicious, confidence-building recipes.
Author: Jim Thompson
Regularly $14.99, Today $1.99
Hard-Boiled Mysteries
🎭 The hardboiled sequel to the autobiographical Bad Boy, from the author Stephen King calls “my favorite crime novelist—often imitated but never duplicated.”
By the time Jim Thompson was sixteen years old, he had been a newspaper boy, a burlesque show hawker, a plumber’s helper, a comedian in two-reel pictures, a night bellboy in a luxury hotel and over a dozen other occupations. By the time he was eighteen, he was driving across America in a broken-down Ford without a penny to his name and his mother and his kid sister Freddie in tow, looking for just one more paycheck to keep them all alive.
A bittersweet comedy of a hard-won American life, Roughneck chronicles the many jobs, near-criminal escapades, and downright unlawful grifts of the man who would become one of crime fiction’s most enduring writers, in a larger-than-life literary memoir—or wildly entertaining tall tale—as only Thompson could tell it. Hard times have never sounded so good.
Praise for Jim Thompson:
“The best suspense writer going, bar none.” ―The New York Times
“The most hard-boiled of all the American writers of crime fiction.” ―Chicago Tribune
“If Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Cornell Woolrich would have joined together in some ungodly union and produced a literary offspring, Jim Thompson would be it . . . His work . . . casts a dazzling light on the human condition.” ―The Washington Post
Why Thompson matters: Before he became noir fiction’s darkest voice, Thompson lived the kind of Depression-era American life that sounds too wild to be true. This autobiographical work captures that journey with the same sharp prose and moral ambiguity that made his crime novels legendary. If you love Stephen King (who adores Thompson) or classic noir, this glimpse into the real-life experiences that shaped one of crime fiction’s masters is essential reading.
Author: Jennifer Ryan
Regularly $13.49 Today $1.99
Frontier Romance
💕 If you love Jill Shalvis, Lori Wilde, and Susan Mallery, then you won’t want to miss New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Ryan’s riveting new novel about family, secrets, and a woman ready to embrace who she really is by facing down her past.
As Sarah Anderson drives up to the house in Carmel, she knows she’s on an impossible quest to make peace with the one person who truly hates her. For years, Sarah has hidden the truth about her late husband’s lies from their children and their grandmother. When her mother-in-law, Margaret, threatens her with legal action to see the boys, Sarah strikes a bargain: she’ll bring them for a six-week visit, hoping the boys, at least, will find connection and happiness with their extended family.
It doesn’t help that attorney and part-time rancher Luke Thompson lives right next door, and as an old friend of the family’s he’s agreed to investigate Sarah’s past. Luke doesn’t feel comfortable poking around in the very successful tech CEO’s private life. What he finds is a truth very different from the one he’s been led to believe. Far from being cold and unloving, Sarah is devoted to her boys and as at home on the ranch as she is in a boardroom.
All Sarah ever wanted was a family, and all Luke wants now is her love. The time has come to reveal the terrible secrets that have been kept for so long. In losing the past, a new love—and family—can be found.
Perfect for your next escape: Ryan delivers exactly what contemporary romance readers crave—a strong, successful heroine with real problems, a swoon-worthy hero who sees past the lies, and the healing power of family and second chances. Sarah’s journey from isolated widow to woman who finally allows herself love and connection hits all the emotional notes. Great for fans of Susan Mallery’s small-town romances with heart.
… See the rest of today ‘s Book Picks here on page 3Page 3