Gift Guide – Page 2

Buyer’s Guide: Money Power and Poison by Reggi Allder

Targeted Age Group:: adult
Category: Romantic Mystery
Book Price Ranges
Print book: 11.99
Audiobook:
eBook: 2.99

About Money Power and Poison:
Romantic suspense, Money Power and Poison
5 STAR REVIEW By Mimi Barbour – New York Times and USA Today Best-selling Author
Business owner, Kathryn Carlyle, has a tremendous shock when billionaire software developer Connor Harrison drops dead at the party she’s catered. The police consider her a “person of interest.” In other words, they tell her in no uncertain terms – don’t leave town. It’s the last thing they say when they drop her off after interrogating her for hours. Then if the day isn’t bad enough, some wacko in a truck almost runs her over and doesn’t bother to stick around to see if she survives. Holt Rand, an out-of-work reporter sent by her uncle, arrives on the scene and rescues her. From this point on her life spirals out of control and getting the story is what keeps her only friend close …has it all. Fast-paced, plot-driven conflicts and characters that you can’t tear yourself away lift it from an ordinary story to a darn good read.

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Buyer’s Guide: Murder on Potrero Hill by ML Hamilton

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Targeted Age Group:: Adult
Category: Police Procedurals
Book Price Ranges
Print book: 10.50
Audiobook: 17.46
eBook: 0.99

About Murder on Potrero Hill:
Peyton knows the first suspect is always the husband, but Jake Ryder isn’t acting like a typical suspect. Jake truly loved his wife. So what went wrong?

Stepping into the circle of the social elite, Peyton finds that things work differently when you’re at the top. And Jake Ryder seems to be caught in the epicenter.

Ultimately, Peyton finds that you never know what darkness lurks in the human mind and that some will murder to keep that darkness hidden.

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Buyer’s Guide: Nick of Time A Nick Donahue Adventure by Cathi Stoler

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Targeted Age Group:: 25+
Category: International Mystery & Crime
Book Price Ranges
Print book: 7.99
Audiobook:
eBook: .99 cents to 2.99

About Nick of Time A Nick Donahue Adventure:
NICK DONAHUE, an American gambler living in London, is in Venice enjoying life at the blackjack tables when he meets a beautiful and mysterious woman, MARINA PIETRO. Marina seduces Nick, then reveals she is an undercover insurance investigator in desperate need of help in recovering a cache of stolen jewels and capturing the thieves, an International gang headed by a man named “Clouseau.” She tells Nick that his friend in London, NIGEL PHILLIPS, has suggested he could be of service.

Smitten with Marina, Nick contacts Nigel, who has ties with various government agencies and who vouches for Marina and her scheme. The plan entails Nick pretending to be a desperate gambler losing big at the Palazzo Ducale Casino and going to Guillermo Gennaro, the managing director, and known fence for the gang, to ask for credit. Gennaro obliges Nick with a loan, but demands a quid pro quo in return: Nick must deliver a small package to Prague.

The next day, Nick leaves on the fast train to Rome and transfers for the train to the Czech Republic carrying Gennaro’s package. When he arrives, he travels to the address he was given and waits while the people there examine the package. Moments later, he is assaulted and taken prisoner. Nick realizes the package of jewels he was transporting must have been switched during a brief encounter on the train. He believes it was Marina’s doing and that she has betrayed him. Nick is held captive and beaten. He believes he will be killed when he’s suddenly released with a warning from Clouseau for Marina, who Nick now realizes has given back the jewels to save him and has disappeared.

Dumped in the woods outside of Prague, Nick doesn’t know what to believe as he makes his way into the city. Calling on his brother ALEX, a banker at SuisseBank in Geneva, for assistance, Nick soon finds himself involved in Alex’s own problem – the murder of his boss Didier Schneider who Alex believes uncovered the bank’s involvement in a worldwide money-laundering scheme. Nick, Alex and Alex’s girlfriend Simone, discover a clue Didier has left: a link to his safe deposit box in the Bank du Roget & Cie in Basel. They travel to the bank where Nick poses as Didier and retrieves the damning information the banker has hidden. As Nick is exiting the bank the receptionist is gesturing for two of its guards to follow him. He knows they’re onto him and he becomes frantic. Rushing outside, Nick is surprised as a car screeches to a halt in front of him. He jumps in and finds Alex and Simone, who hands him a letter from Marina. She has saved him once again.

Back in London, Nick tries to find Marina but she has disappeared again. He goes to Nigel with the information Didier collected and they blow the whistle on SuisseBank. Its main client, the New York mob, is none too happy with his interference or their loss of revenue. Somehow, the head of the New York family, Tomasso “Tommy B” Bonnanniao has found out Nick was responsible and approaches him with an ultimatum: get their money back and destroy the head of the bank, Florian Emminger, in the process, or Marina, who he is now holding captive, will die.

Tommy B proposes that Nick follow Emminger to Monte Carlo, where the banker has fled and where he is scheduled to play in a ten million dollar winner-take-all game of Baccarat at the Hotel Metropole Monte Carlo. Tommy B will provide the one million dollars that each of the ten players must put up to buy into the game.

Nick has no choice but to agree and makes his plans. Disguised and under an assumed name, he arrives in Monaco and deposits his stake in the casino. Facing off against the other nine players, he uses all his gambling know-how to stay in the game until only two players remain: himself and Emminger. It has come down to one last hand and with the flick of a card, Nick wins. As an enraged Emminger leaves the table, Nick thinks he sees Nigel in the casino and realizes the game must have been fixed. He collects the check for his winnings and turns it over to Tommy B’s associate hoping that the mobster will keep his promise and let Marina go.

Nick walks through the city looking for Nigel and finally decides to returns to his hotel, hoping for news of Marin

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Buyer’s Guide: Not as it Seems by Marilyn Meredith

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Targeted Age Group:: late teens and all adult
Category: Mystery Books
Book Price Ranges
Print book: 11.98
Audiobook:
eBook: 4.99

About Not as it Seems:
Native American Deputy Tempe Crabtree and her pastor husband Hutch travel to Morro Bay for son Blair’s wedding, but when the maid-of-honor disappears, Tempe tries to find her. The search is complicated by ghosts and Indian spirits.

Review Snippets:

By Lorna Collins
…I adore it when Tempe’s Native American spirituality helps her solve crimes. I have read lots of the books in this series, and was looking forward to Blair’s wedding. When the maid of honor goes missing, Tempe’s commitment to justice can’t be suppressed. This book is set in and around Morro Bay, an area I know and love. Marilyn Meredith captures the places perfectly while still telling a compelling story. Keep ’em coming!

by Billie Johnson

…The author created Blair’s new in-laws with an unique background (Ethiopian) and tantalizes readers with ethnic foods and customs, which adds to the interest for the novel. She also ‘name drops’ many attractions and dining establishments in the San Luis Obispo area…

by Tony Piazza
. …It is not only Tempe’s gift as an investigator that eventually solves the case but her remarkable ability to communicate with the spiritual worlds, and in this case the coastal Indian tribes, who gives her valuable hints toward the solution of the intriguing puzzles. Speaking of puzzles, this one was a challenge to Tempe and the reader, but the solution is more than satisfying…

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Buyer’s Guide: THE GIRL IN RED PAJAMAS by CHRIS BIRDY

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Targeted Age Group:: 18+
Category: Mystery/Suspense/Thriller Series
Book Price Ranges
Print book: 12.50
Audiobook:
eBook: 2.99

About THE GIRL IN RED PAJAMAS:
The Girl in Red Pajamas begins when two lesbians have a smack down in a Boston restaurant. After one is found dead stuffed in the back of the other’s SUV, their families line up and point fingers. Tensions mount as relatives question religious beliefs, and the police gather evidence to build a case against the survivor. Bogie McGruder becomes deeply involved in the investigation because one woman is his sister and the other, his old girlfriend. This third book in the Pajamas Trilogy brings the series to a glorious end.

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Buyer’s Guide: RATS by Joe Klingler

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Targeted Age Group:: 25+
Category: Thriller
Book Price Ranges
Print book: 16.00-18.00
Audiobook:
eBook: 3.99

About RATS:
2015 Finalist – International Book Awards — Fiction: Thriller/Adventure
2015 Finalist – Beverly Hills Book Awards — Political Thriller

A masterfully crafted, intense, wild ride from Alaska to Washington to Vietnam with imagery and dialog that have the reader riveted to the page for the entire thrilling adventure.

Summer greets the land of the midnight sun as a lone rider races across the last American wilderness, delivering on a promise he made long ago. He has many names, but the world only knows a shadow called the Demon. Soon to be drawn into the Demon’s world, Claire Ferreti, an Army sniper, sips sake in Washington, DC with her lover, a young, ambitious General whose geosecurity specialty remains classified. When a boy finds a small machine, Claire embarks on a a black-ops mission that leads to a test of skill, a clash of ideologies, and her unconscious body lying in a typhoon-ravaged jungle. In that instant she becomes the hunted, the Demon’s tool for survival, and an unforeseen threat. As the General pursues them into a labyrinth of cyber-secrets, political necessity and financial reality collide like a fireball piercing steel.

Joe Klingler’s award winning techno-thriller is filled with fierce writing and fully fleshed out characters. It explodes from the remnants of a war long past to headlines of Washington secrets masquerading as corporate incompetence when two modern-day warriors face off. Both skilled at violence. And deception. Both accustomed to winning.

“RATS succeeds… it is a fun romp-and-motorcycle-ride through intrigue, explosions, action, betrayal, politics, and victory. The journalists’ story, especially, is an excellent, humorous counterpoint to the military action of the rest of the book. Non-military readers will thoroughly enjoy it. ” – San Francisco Book Review (4 Stars)

“A nuanced techno-thriller with both brains and brawn.” – Kirkus Reviews (Kirkus Recommended list)

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Buyer’s Guide: The Former World by Jessica Grace Coleman

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Targeted Age Group:: 13+
Category: Paranormal
Book Price Ranges
Print book: $15-$16
Audiobook: N/A
eBook: Free

About The Former World:
The Former World: Book One in the Little Forest paranormal mystery series.

If you’d like to get the next Little Forest novel – Memento Mori – for free, sign up for the mailing list at www.jessicagracecoleman.com. You can also get the first four novels in the Little Forest series for a discounted price by buying the box set of The Former World, Memento Mori, The Exalted and Carnival Masquerade.

“Little Forest is the only place I’ve ever lived, and it’s the place where I’m going to die. Tonight.” These are the words of Beth Powers, long-time resident of Little Forest. On the surface, she’s just an ordinary English girl in a typical English village, but appearances can be deceiving… extremely deceiving.

There’s something lurking beneath the picturesque façade of the English village of Little Forest, something dark and disconcerting, something which the vast majority of the residents are refusing to see…

Fed up with living in the tiny, gossip-fuelled village, twenty-one year old Beth resolves to escape to London with her best friend, Veronica Summers. That is, until something throws a spanner in the works. A rather large spanner. A dead body, to be exact. A dead body found early one morning in the spooky surroundings of the Great Specton Woods.

The apparently accidental death of Beth’s work colleague sets off the small community’s well-oiled rumour mill, and Beth soon finds herself in the middle of a bizarre village conspiracy. Potential suspects start appearing in all shapes and sizes – including the handsome new resident, mystery man Connor Maguire, who has conveniently just arrived in Little Forest – and with the police refusing to consider murder, Beth takes it upon herself to investigate. At least it’s a good distraction from the other strange and unusual things that have started happening in her generally boring life; let’s just say that Beth’s work colleague isn’t the only dead person she has to deal with these days. After all, it isn’t always something as innocent as the ghosts of past memories that come to get you…

With the help of rather unlikely ally Will Wolseley, Beth delves into the village’s sinister secrets and, in turn, uncovers a terrifying truth about herself that could change her life forever.

Unfortunately, she might not have much of ‘forever’ left, as when it comes right down to it, it’s not a question of whether or not she’ll decide to leave her childhood home. The question is whether or not Little Forest will let her go.

The Former World is reminiscent of a good old-fashioned English mystery thriller, updated to the twenty-first Century but still relying on the quaint locations of the beautiful English countryside: close-knit villages, local pubs, ancient castles, large, looming forests and magnificent Stately homes. This enchanting rural environment gives Beth the perfect setting to explore the ominous events that threaten to shake up her small village and her life.

“Jessica Grace Coleman is one of the most exciting new writers around. Her stories inspire, entertain and mesmerise. An absolute must-read.” – Adam Croft, English author.

Jessica Grace Coleman brings you the first novel in the paranormal mystery ‘Little Forest’ series, setting the stage for the follow ups: ‘Memento Mori’, ‘The Exalted’, ‘Carnival Masquerade’ and ‘The Gloaming’.

A fan of mystery books and horror writers, Coleman delves into the world of legends and paranormal activity in this supernatural series, leading her own investigation into the fictional fantasy landscape that permeates readers’ darkest fears. The Little Forest series isn’t just concerned with spirits of the dead or other ghost stories, it’s about how we would react if these terrifying spectres actually did come into our world. How would you react?

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Buyer’s Guide: On the Road to Where the Bells Toll by M. J. Williams

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Targeted Age Group:: Adults of all ages
Category: Mystery Books
Book Price Ranges
Print book: $11.49
Audiobook:
eBook: $2.99

About On the Road to Where the Bells Toll:
Emily and Stan Remington pack up the RV and head to Boston for some R & R with the grandkids and a chance to immerse themselves in colonial history. But their Fourth of July celebration comes to an abrupt halt when they stumble over a body on the Boston Esplanade and then another hanging in the steeple of the Old North Church. Now the couple must unravel a tangle of forged clues and flush out the perpetrator before their own untimely epitaphs are written onto the historical landscape. “A clever blend of history, tourism, Bean Town traffic, and murder rockets this new Emily and Stan adventure into the category of wickedly fun entertainment.” ~ Maddy Hunter, author of the Peril to Passport Mystery series.

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Gift Guide: Melody Madson – May It Please the Court? by Jodie Toohey

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Targeted Age Group:: 10-16
Category: Children and Young Adult Books

About Melody Madson – May It Please the Court?:
Weeks pass before Melody finally gets her big break when senior partner at Lazlo, Marshdon and Brown assigns her first real case. Melody’s relationship with her best friend, Jewel, becomes strained as her friendship with another associate, Maggie, advances and she develops romantic feelings for her boss’ son, Eric. Her feelings for Eric deepen, her relationship with Jewel sours, the key medical record in her case is lost, and Melody feels her life is crumbling.

After working the entire weekend before trial, Melody finds the record, but before she can celebrate, the record thief catches her. Jewel attempts to free Melody but she is caught and the friends are tied to an office chair, driven out to the middle of nowhere, and left alone. Will they be able to save the case – or themselves?

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Gift Guide: Spirit Shapes by Marilyn Meredith

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Targeted Age Group:: Older teens and adults.
Category: Mystery Books

About Spirit Shapes:
While filming a movie on the Bear Creek Indian Reservation, the film crew trespasses on sacred ground, threats are made against the female star, a missing woman is found by the Hairy Man, an actor is murdered and Deputy Tempe Crabtree has no idea who is guilty. Once again, the elusive and legendary Hairy Man plays an important role in this newest Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery.

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