Today’s Steals and Deals at AAR…..
Whoa! This one got an A+, rare at AAR.
Next of Kin is the first in Sala’s Rebel Ridge series. It’s a romantic suspense that pits organized crime against a rural Kentucky clan with a sort of ramped up Deliverance with PTSD feel. Beth Venable was whisked away from Rebel Ridge by her parents a decade earlier in the wake of a scandal. Now her parents are dead, and her life as an adult is centered in Los Angeles, her mountain kin left in her past. An unfortunate set of circumstances puts Beth in FBI protective custody, but Ike Pappas, the crime boss she witnessed murdering his ex-wife, manages to breach the protection time after time, until Beth escapes back to her kinfolk.
It’s on sale for 1.99 here.
Richman is making a name for herself in historical fiction. Readers give this one 4.5 stars.
During the last moments of calm in prewar Prague, Lenka, a young art student, and Josef, who is studying medicine, fall in love. With the promise of a better future, they marry—only to have their dreams shattered by the imminent Nazi invasion. Like so many others, they are torn apart by the currents of war.
Now a successful obstetrician in America, Josef has never forgotten the wife he believes died in the war. But in the Nazi ghetto of Terezín, Lenka survived, relying on her skills as an artist and the memories of a husband she would never see again. Then, decades later and thousands of miles away, an unexpected encounter in New York leads to an inescapable glance of recognition, and the realization that providence has given Lenka and Josef one more chance.
From the glamorous ease of life in Prague before the occupation to the horrors of Nazi Europe, The Lost Wife explores the power of first love, the resilience of the human spirit, and our capacity to remember.
It’s on sale for 1.99 here.
Looking for a good time? Here you go!
The book opens with a young woman’s fall from a helicopter. Everyone thinks it’s just another suicide, but Lucky isn’t so sure. When both her mother, who happens to be a well-known madame, and her boss try to stop her from looking into what happened, Lucky is pretty sure a lot of people are hiding something. She makes it her business to find out exactly what it is. In the process, she manages to dig up deeply buried secrets, involving Vegas itself, as well as her own family.
Coonts’ book is populated with a delightful cast of supporting characters. We meet Theodore – the top female impersonator in Vegas, a private investigator everyone calls “The Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock”, Detective Romeo – a rather naive police detective, and many, many others. It was this set of characters, more than the book’s actual plot, that kept me listening. I wanted to know how things would turn out for them.
It’s free here.
A Dangerous Duet is a fine mystery, but it’s also perfectly successful as a cross-examination of the intersection where thrillers, historical fiction and character studies meet. That the novel works as all three genres is the highest compliment I can pay it. A wonderful and enthralling piece of work, it captures the attention of the reader and holds on to it as Nell’s world contracts and expands against the rhythm of the mystery that surrounds her.
Nell is an interesting heroine, ambitious, in love with music and with justice and with Jack – and she and Jack have a unique friction that perfumes their interactions, well-interspersed with a lovely, deep sense of understanding and affinity. Marceline is the best drawn of the minor characters, but oh, did I love the interesting Doctor Everett, whose ridiculous counterpoints about Nell’s nervous prostration was counterbalanced by his deep caring for Nell and Matthew and his belief in her talents and Matthew’s investigative abilities.
It’s on sale for 1.99 here.