In The Beast Prince by Alix Nichols, readers are introduced to Elise, a quiet, outdoorsy glassblower in Chambéry, who walks into a dark hotel room with the intention of repaying a family debt, only to discover the person she thought would be there isn’t. Cue...

The Brighter the Light, the Darker the Shadow is an intriguing story about spirituality and life by Verlin Darrow, in which a spiritual leader follows the signs from the universe that lead him through the challenges of being human. Kade Tobin is a mentor in...

The Washashore by Christopher Mirabile opens on a storm-lashed morning in Provincetown, where newly appointed police chief Silas Lopez responds to a foundered boat before dawn. The uneasy calm shatters when a body is discovered near Town Hall, brutally injured in what first appears to...

Sydney Hughes goes to Dickens, New England, to help her Aunt Irma recover from hip surgery. Sydney works as an insurance actuary and lives a very structured life, so she figures the trip to her aunt’s place will be calm and uneventful. However, that plan...

Kalyani Adusumilli’s The Invisible Canvas begins in the throes of a medical emergency caused by an overdose, where Jansi, a wife and mother living in Texas, is admitted to a psychiatric facility for evaluation and treatment. What begins as a brief hospitalization becomes an extended...

The Drowned Queen by Elspeth Gregorsdóttir introduces us to Myr’Caenith, a woman who survives a century of captivity in the deathless realm of the Duskhold. She goes into the Whispering Sea, where her body dissolves and reforms with command over shadow and starlight. She crosses...

In The Iron Tithe by Robert W. Riley, we meet Knight Commander Cedrik Theramond, who serves as the King’s Shield and has the grueling charge of collecting mandatory grain levies. The crux is that these come from famine-struck villages to supply the King's army of...

The Shadow of Death: A Tragedy of Yellow Fever by McKenna Rowell is set in 1793 Philadelphia, where Deborah Allard becomes entangled in a dispute that threatens David Byrne’s family after Mr. Foster accuses his father of a ruinous debt. Just when Deborah uncovers a...

Carrie Rubin’s The Missing Au Pair is set in 1985 Paris, when Kelly Burke arrives in the city of lights to start her new job as an au pair for Camille and Philippe Garron, right in the heart of the posh sixteenth arrondissement. From her...

The Badass Widows by Valerie Saul is an excellent book. The widows are not your typical mature women. One fixes boat engines. Another is a tech guru. The main character, Beth, is a retired FBI agent, which puts her in a formidable league of her...