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Ace Atkins

He is only in his early thirties, but now Quinn Colson is jobless—voted out of office as sheriff of Tibbehah County, Mississippi, thanks to the machinations of county kingpin Johnny Stagg. He has offers, in bigger and better places, but before he goes, he’s got one more job to do—bring down Stagg’s criminal operations for good.

At least that’s the plan. But in the middle of the long, hot summer, a trio of criminals stage a bold, wall-smashing break-in at the home of a local lumber mill owner, making off with a million dollars in cash from his safe, which is curious, because the mill owner is wealthy—but not that wealthy. None of this has anything to do with Colson, but during the investigation, two men are killed, one of them the new sheriff. His friend, acting sheriff Lillie Virgil, and a dangerous former flame, Anna Lee Stevens, both ask him to step in, and reluctantly he does, only to discover that that safe contained more than just money—it held secrets.
Secrets that could either save Colson—or destroy him once and for all.

Ace Atkins

What started out as a joke landed seventeen-year-old Dillon Yates in a lockdown juvenile facility in Boston Harbor. When he set up a prank Twitter account for his vice principal, he never dreamed he could be brought up on criminal charges, but that’s exactly what happened. This is Blackburn, Massachusetts, where zero tolerance for minors is a way of life.

Leading the movement is tough-as-nails Judge Joe Scali, who gives speeches about getting tough on today’s wild youth. But Dillon’s mother, who knows other Blackburn kids who are doing hard time for minor infractions, isn’t buying Scali’s line. She hires Spenser to find the truth behind the draconian sentencing.

From the Harbor Islands to a gated Florida community, Spenser and trusted ally Hawk follow a trail through the Boston underworld with links to a shadowy corporation that runs New England’s private prisons. They eventually uncover a culture of corruption and cover-ups in the old mill town, where hundreds of kids are sent off to for-profit juvie jails.

Elizabeth Adler

What begins as a beautiful evening at a party on a yacht ends with attempted murder…and a quest for revenge. Ellen never expected a dream vacation to turn so ugly. One moment she was standing on the deck of a fifty-foot yacht and then next, she felt a burning sting in her side. A stab wound. And then a push. She is in the water. She can see people on the yacht, but they have not noticed she is gone, and all seem to have deliberately turned their backs, as the yacht begins slowly to pull away from her. The waves wash over her, sending her further to doom. These are her friends and one is her love. Each one had a reason for getting rid of her though she would not have put murder on that list. Until now. Revenge burns so deeply inside her she knows she will survive this somehow. She will get them. Each one of them—and there are three men, one woman. She will get them. One way or another. Told with Elizabeth Adler’s trademark attention to luxurious detail of people and places, One Way or Another is a glamorous, twisty novel of vengeance and vindication.

Thayne

Nothing short of a miracle can restore Eliza Hayward’s Christmas cheer. The job she pinned her dreams on has gone up in smoke—literally—and now she’s stuck in an unfamiliar, if breathtaking, small town. Precariously close to being destitute, Eliza needs a helping hand…for her sick young daughter’s sake as well as her own. But she’s not expecting her holiday hero to almost run her down with his car!

Rescuing Eliza is pure instinct for tech genius Aidan Caine. At first, putting the renovation of his lakeside guest lodge in Eliza’s hands assuages his guilt—until he sees how quickly he could fall for her. Having focused solely on his business for years, he never knew that what his life was missing was Eliza and her little girl. But is he willing to risk hoping for a yuletide romance that could lead to forever?

John Wilcox

1903. The British Empire has reached its probable apogee: so much of the world map is coloured red and the sun never set on its boundaries. But Lord Curzon, the ambitious Viceroy of India, has different views. Tibet, the mountainous region on the Raj’s borders, irritates him: the Dalai Lama never replies to his letters and border disputes multiply.He decides to invade and recruits Simon Fonthill, veteran of so many of ‘Queen Victoria’s Little Wars,’ to lead 2000 men over the ice-bound Himalayan passes to Lhasa. Fonthill sets out on another expedition with his wife Alice, reporting for the Morning Post, and his old comrade, ‘352’ Jenkins.It is machine guns against muskets as the cruel and brave monks, fighting on their own terrain among the clouds, oppose the invasion. When Alice is captured, treachery is revealed, and Fonthill and Jenkins must gallop to her aid in their most arduous and thrilling adventure yet.

Ashley Weaver

Amory Ames is a wealthy young woman who regrets her marriage to her notoriously charming playboy husband, Milo. Looking for a change, she accepts a request for help from her former fiancé, Gil Trent, not knowing that she’ll soon become embroiled in a murder investigation that will test not only her friendship with Gil, but will upset the status quo with her husband.

Amory accompanies Gil to the Brightwell Hotel in an attempt to circumvent the marriage of his sister, Emmeline, to Rupert Howe, a disreputable ladies’ man. Amory sees in the situation a grim reflection of her own floundering marriage. There is more than her happiness at stake, however, when Rupert is murdered and Gil is arrested for the crime. Amory is determined to prove his innocence and find the real killer, despite attempted dissuasion from the disapproving police inspector on the case. Matters are further complicated by Milo’s unexpected arrival, and the two form an uneasy alliance as Amory enlists his reluctant aid in clearing Gil’s name. As the stakes grow higher and the line between friend and foe becomes less clear, Amory must decide where her heart lies and catch the killer before she, too, becomes a victim.

Murder at the Brightwell is a delicious mystery in which murder invades polite society and romance springs in unexpected places. Weaver has penned a debut in the tradition of Jacqueline Winspear.

Julian Stockwin

Forced to flee Rome from the barbaric rampages of the Ostrogoths, merchant Nicander meets an unlikely ally in the form of Marius, a fierce Roman legionary. Escaping to a new life in Constantinople, the two land upon its shores lonely and penniless. Needing to make money fast, they plot and plan a number of outrageous money-making schemes, until they chance upon their greatest idea yet.Armed with a wicked plan to steal precious silk seeds from the faraway land of Seres, Nicander and Marius must embark upon a terrifyingly treacherous journey across unknown lands, never before completed. But first they must deceive the powerful emperor Justinian and the rest of his formidable Byzantine Empire in order to begin their journey into the unknown…An adventurous tale of mischief, humour and deception, Nicander and Marius face danger of the highest order, where nothing in the land of the Roman Empire is quite what it seems.

Charlie Newton

The drums of war beat amid global economic ruin. The skies, not the trenches, will decide the survivors. Rich men marshal their resources as all sides race to acquire 100-octane aviation gasoline, an unproven, unstable witches’ brew that could fuel the fastest attack aircraft. In a brutal maze of corporate treason, personal blackmail, and imperfect heroism, a young, brilliant petroleum engineer battling the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma may hold the key.

Eight years ago in Jerusalem, schoolgirl Saba Hassouneh survived the murder of her family. Sentenced to the barbaric refugee camps, Saba is freed by a legendary Bedouin freedom-fighter. She embraces his life of a bandit/rebel, evolving into a fearsome Arab nationalist femme de guerrehunted by the colonial powers and religious mullahs. Saba has one mission: free her people.

An epic historical thriller from acclaimed author Charlie Newton, Traitor’s Gate races toward the first shot of WWII. As the world’s true rulers vie for dominion, two unlikely lovers collide. Their attraction is immediate, their goals opposite.

Deborah Lawrenson

Romance, suspense, and World War II mystery are woven together in three artfully linked novellas-rich in drama and steeped in atmosphere-from the critically acclaimed author of The Lantern.

THE SEA GARDEN
On the lush Mediterranean island of Porquerolles off the French coast, Ellie Brooke, an award-winning British landscape designer, has been hired to restore a memorial garden. Unsettled by its haunted air and the bitterness of the garden’s owner, an elderly woman who seems intent on undermining her, Ellie finds that her only ally on the island is an elusive war historian …

THE LAVENDER FIELD
Near the end of World War II, Marthe Lincel, a young blind woman newly apprenticed at a perfume factory in Nazi-occupied Provence, finds herself at the center of a Resistance cell. When tragedy strikes, she faces the most difficult choice of her life . . . and discovers a breathtaking courage she never expected.

A SHADOW LIFE
Iris Nightingale, a junior British intelligence officer in wartime London, falls for a French agent. But after a secret landing in Provence results in terrible Nazi reprisals, he vanishes. When France is liberated, Iris is determined to uncover the truth. Was he the man he claimed to be?

Ingeniously interconnected, this spellbinding triptych weaves three parallel narratives into one unique tale of love, mystery, and murder. The Sea Garden is a vivid and absorbing chronicle of love and loss in the fog of war-and a penetrating and perceptive examination of the impulses and circumstances that shape our lives.

Hazel Holt

Eva Jackson is Rosemary’s cousin (‘umpteen times removed’) and she has moved back to her childhood home in Taviscombe after the untimely death of her beloved husband Alan. As is the way of the village, Eva has been pounced upon by the local charities, and it is during a coffee morning that she mentions to Sheila Malory that she fears Alan might have died an unnatural death …Sheila is intrigued and sets out to find out more. But when Eva’s body is discovered after a supposed insulin overdose, Sheila wonders if the killer might still be at large in the charming Devon countryside ..