May 16, 2025
New Fiction
The Murder Machine by Heather Graham -This state-of-the-art smart home has everything: a next-generation entertainment system, an ultramodern kitchen where every appliance is online and even a personal AI to control it all. Standing above its owner’s lifeless body, FBI agent Jude Mackenzie is faced with the daunting task of discovering how the woman who was killed by her own home. How do you catch a murderer that doesn’t leave any fingerprints? Enter Special Agent Victoria Tennant, whose familiarity with cybercrime reveals the stark truth: a machine can only do what it’s been directed to. As the number of grisly “accidents” begins to rise, the pair must race to uncover the perpetrator even as they find themselves caught in their digital crosshairs! There’s nowhere to hide when danger may be as close as the very phones in their pockets.
Favourite Daughter by Morgan Dick – After her father abandoned Mickey and her mother for his new family, Mickey resolved never to think of him again. Years later, she’s fine without him. Yes, she drinks, but only sometimes – and, really, she can’t not. But with only $181 to her name, she’s not above attending some mandated therapy to access the not-insignificant inheritance he’s left her in the wake of his death. She’ll happily kneel at the Kleenex altar if it means she’ll soon be bingeing Bridgeton with a bottle of Russian Standard, five million dollars richer. One town over, Arlo has more issues than most of her clients. Being a therapist has not prepared her for grief. She adored her father – his laughter, his charm, the smell of his cologne. She thought he adored her, too, but now he’s given his inheritance to a daughter no one knows, and Arlo is at a loss. But unbeknownst to either woman, their problematic father had one dying wish, throwing them together on a crash course that will either break – or save- them both.
If Two Are Dead by Rick Mofina – Driving alone at night in a wild rainstorm, Luke Conway strikes something – or someone. He and his wife, Carrie, recently moved back to Clear River to help take care of her ailing father, and after a tragedy at his previous job, this move is their last chance at a new life. Now, standing in the downpour on this Texas road, Luke, an off-duty cop, has a decision to make – and he has to make it fast. No one else is around. No witnesses. And he can’t find a body. Wanting to believe he’s being paranoid, that he’s just seeing things, Luke panics and leaves, deciding not to report the incident but rather to secretly investigate it. He can’t put more stress on Carrie, who’s already haunted by the unsolved attack and murder of two teenage girls that happened years ago in Clear River, a horrific crime in which she was the sole survivor. The killer has not been found, but Carrie and Luke’s anguished search for answers will slowly reveal the horrific truth.
The Amalfi Curse by Sarah Penner – Haven Ambrose, a trailblazer nautical archaeologist, has come to the sun soaked village of Positano to investigate the mysterious shipwrecks along the Amalfi Coast. But Haven is hoping to find more than old artifacts beneath the azure waters; she is secretly on a quest to locate a trove of priceless gemstones her late father spotted on his final dive. Upon Haven’s arrival, strange maelstroms and misfortunes start plaguing the town. Is it nature or something more sinister at work? As Haven searches for her father’s sunken treasure, she begins to unearth a centuries-old tale of ancient sorcery and one woman’s quest to save her lover and her village by using the legendary art of stregheria, a magical ability to harness the ocean. Could this magic be behind Positano’s latest calamities? Haven must unravel the Amalfi Curse before the region is destroyed forever.