Buyer’s Guides

Grand Masquerade by Stephen C. Perkins

By Mystery Reads Curator Leave a Comment

Grand Masquerade by Stephen C. Perkins

Beware the terror lurking beneath a mask of smiles…
On an ancient ley line, deep within Vermont’s dark forests, lives a mysterious and frightening secret…
A forbidden door to a world beyond human perception.
And three hunters are about to become the hunted!
A high-tech executive and a US presidential candidate, who in public appear to be at odds, are covertly working together to flood a small Vermont town. The plan is to evacuate the townspeople to a federal camp where they will be implanted with a newly developed surveillance/mind control device called Minerva.
What they didn’t know, is that the town sits on an ancient ley line guarded by spiritual beings called the Others. There’s something going on in the Green Mountains of Vermont and it’s more than anyone can imagine.
Their visit to the small town, in the guise of a hunting expedition, quickly turns sour. They come face to face with their worst nightmares — coming back not just to haunt them, but coming alive to take revenge!
The executive’s playboy son and the town sheriff catches on to their fiendish plan and tries to stop them — and discover forces beyond comprehension!

Sailor Take Warning by M K Scott

By Mystery Reads Curator Leave a Comment

Sailor Take Warning by M K Scott

The commissioner banned citizen interference in investigations, but that’s never stopped Donna before and won’t stop her now.

A race yacht has capsized. A millionaire has gone missing. If that and the involvement of a would-be psychic aren’t reason enough to worry, adding Donna’s meddling mother to the mix will jeopardize Legacy’s reputation even further.

Can Donna rein in the chaos before it spells disaster for everyone?

RUN GIRL RUN by Willow Rose

By Mystery Reads Curator Leave a Comment

RUN GIRL RUN by Willow Rose

Willow Rose’s beloved detective, Harry Hunter is back in this thrilling second installment of the bestselling series.
When a mother and her child are pulled out of the harbor in their car, the case seems pretty straightforward for Miami PD and Detective Harry Hunter.

Everything points to a murder-suicide.

They were homeless, living in their car, and the mother decided to end it all for them both by driving into the water.

But the case is not what it looks like, Detective Harry Hunter soon realizes.

Harry’s daughter is carrying devastating knowledge about their deaths, and soon she becomes the killer’s next target.

As Harry races to protect her, he is betrayed by someone he thought he knew, leaving him terrified of trusting anyone in a town filled with liars.

The Frights of Fiji by Sunayna Prasad

By Mystery Reads Curator Leave a Comment

The Frights of Fiji by Sunayna Prasad

A world of magic and adventure awaits…

Sent to live with her strict, aloof, and uncaring uncle after her parents are killed in a car accident, twelve-year-old orphan Alyssa McCarthy longs for the life she used to have—one filled with fun and love. Then one stormy night, a message appears in the raindrops on the window that will change everything.

“Your life will never be the same again, as magic will interfere.”

Before long, Alyssa is kidnapped by Master Beau, a banished sorcerer with a mysterious connection to her who can only regain his power by weakening hers. Suddenly hurled into a world of wizardry filled with fantastical beasts and marvelous technology beyond her wildest imagination, Alyssa must defeat Master Beau if she ever wants to get home again. But Master Beau will stop at nothing, including using Alyssa’s friends, to ensure he is triumphant.

Originally titled “From Frights to Flaws”, this story is the exciting and enchanting first book in the “Magical Missions” series.

Burning Bridges by Anne Krist

By Mystery Reads Curator Leave a Comment

Burning Bridges by Anne Krist

Consider the role of strangers in our lives. An unknown postman in Virginia hides a bag of mail one day. His simple action set in motion untold consequences for many others—strangers—all over the country. How many bridges were burned in that forgotten mail pouch?

Sara Richards’s world is rocked when three love letters from 1970 are delivered decades late. The letters were written by Paul Steinert, a young sailor who took her innocence with whispered words of love and promises of forever before leaving for Vietnam. Sara is left behind, broken hearted and secretly pregnant, yearning for letters she never received.

Then Paul died.

Now, years later, she discovers the betrayal wasn’t Paul’s, when her mother confesses to a sin that changed their lives forever. How can Sara reveal to Paul’s parents that they have a granddaughter they’ve missed the chance to know? Even worse, how will she find the words to tell her daughter that she’s lived her life in the shadow of a lie?

Picking her way through the minefields of secrets, distrust, and betrayal, Sara finds that putting her life together again while crossing burning bridges will be the hardest thing she’s ever done.

Burning Bridges is a love story begun in Virginia Beach as the Vietnam War is winding down—though no one knew that at the time—and ending in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, where two soul mates find each other again. Do they stay together? I’ve already said it’s a love story, but sometimes, even true love has a way of not quite lasting.

The Accident by Nancy Roe

By Mystery Reads Curator Leave a Comment

The Accident by Nancy Roe

Two murders. One night. Darnell Dixon, Horseshoe Corner’s extraordinary cupcake baker, the intended victim.

Who wants Darnell dead and why?

The investigation leads to an accident that happened seventeen years ago and a family secret. Will Darnell find the truth or die trying?

Beautiful Monsters by Brian Anthony and Bill Walker

By Mystery Reads Curator Leave a Comment

Beautiful Monsters by Brian Anthony and Bill Walker

Beautiful Monsters, a novel by Brian Anthony & Bill Walker, with illustrations by Rick Geary

In London, in the year 1916, an ailing Sherlock Holmes is attended by his old friend and colleague Dr. John Watson. Sensing that time is short, Holmes relays one final, remarkable story to his biographer, that of Holmes’s own mentor, Professor Harry Nelson Beadle.

In 1874 thirty-year-old Professor Beadle, laureate at Cambridge University with degrees in biology, anthropology, and sociology, is widely respected by faculty and students alike. But the Professor’s obsession with his theories concerning the cross-evolution of humans and insects–beautiful monsters—proves to be his undoing. Based on a spurious piece of evidence, the Professor spends years researching and writing a tome, which is eventually published to some acclaim. But the price is high; his obsession costs the Professor his position at the University, his wife, and his young daughter.

Jim Beam, an American, a former student, and an unwitting participant in the deceit, belatedly reveals the terrible truth to the Professor: that the empirical evidence was fake! Thus, begins a forty-year odyssey in which Professor Beadle, aided and abetted by his former student, searches the world for the thousand printed copies of his book, Beautiful Monsters—buying, begging, and sometimes stealing them, with the goal of eventually destroying every last copy.

Early in their journey, Beam meets a lovely young woman, Mabel, and the couple wed. Mabel is initially sympathetic to the Professor’s plight, but as the obsession with tracking down the book grows and takes hold of her husband, their marriage begins to suffer. The impending tragedy is completely lost on Beam, but not on the Professor, who sees an eerie similarity to his own failed marriage. Could the book—with its terrible invocation of insect-men—be cursed?

In his quest to erase “this published monument to my own stupidity,” the Professor and Beam cross paths with an odd assortment of characters, including Thomas Edison, a giant, George Méliès, and on the final leg of their bizarre journey, Sherlock Holmes himself.

Cursed indeed!

Hostile Witness by Rebecca Forster

By Mystery Reads Curator Leave a Comment

Hostile Witness by Rebecca Forster

A judge is brutally murdered; a sixteen year-old girl is accused. Josie Bates, an attorney who left her high powered law practice when her skill inadvertently led to the deaths of two small children, cannot turn her back on this one. Reluctantly she takes on a case that will put both their lives on the line and change one of them forever.

The Gingerbread House by Pamela Ackerson

By Mystery Reads Curator Leave a Comment

The Gingerbread House by Pamela Ackerson

Falling in love was not on her to-do list.

Left in debt after the tragic death of her husband, Tricia Adams struggled to keep a roof over her family’s heads. With the help of the Grandmothers Four, she’d finally gotten everything under control.She was happy and more comfortable than she’d been in years. When Carol’s son, Eric Elliott, agreed to help renovate the guest house, mysterious and things began to happen. The dashing and handsome man held a bowl full of secrets, and she was going to get to the bottom of it.What could possibly go wrong?

The PI series books are all stand-alone. Grab your copy today.

Secret Gifts by Satin Russell

By Mystery Reads Curator Leave a Comment

Secret Gifts by Satin Russell

Tom wants to move their relationship to the next level, but will Jackie’s past get in the way of their future?

Jackie Davis is no stranger to hardship. After a strict upbringing, her parents abandoned her when she got pregnant out of wedlock. Years later, she’s the co-owner of a successful café, mother to a beautiful six-year-old daughter named Abby, and dating a man who makes her heart race. For the first time in a while, she’s actually excited for the holidays.

When Tom Molsem applied as a cook at the local café, he wasn’t looking for a relationship. Haunted by demons from his military service, he was just happy to have a job he could handle. Now he’s the co-owner of that same restaurant and dating a woman who helped lay those ghosts to rest. With the past buried, he wants to build a future with his newfound family.

Tom and Jackie are eager to celebrate Christmas, but when Abby goes missing, the two must band together and discover the true gifts of the season: love, forgiveness, and new beginnings.