I’ve always been intrigued with books containing paranormal twists—I’m talking ghosts, mysticism, time travel. I also have, what I like to call, a healthy curiosity about spirits. Having gone on ghost tours in York (England), Salem (MA), and New Orleans, I’ve yet to spot one. But I know what some of you may be saying—be careful what you wish for! My writing career began later in life, when I realized the stories in my head demanded to be released into the world. From the start I attempted writing a straight-up mystery, but paranormal aspects crept into my chapters, and I decided to let them stay.
This book, originally published in the late eighties, has always held a place on my bookshelf. It ties in a dual timeline, a mystical chess set possessing magical properties, and a variety of wonderful characters. Katherine Neville casts an intriguing spell mixing her fictional characters with historical figures. All are on a quest to solve a mystery in modern times as well as two hundred years prior. The Eight is a grand adventure and has returned to my TBR pile more than a few times.
A fantasy novel from the author of A CALCULATED RISK. The secret of the Eight is a puzzle whose solution has challenged the most brilliant minds known to humanity. Catherine Velis is manipulated into using her unrivalled problem-solving skills to find and reassemble to legendary chess set.
I enjoyed the sassy main character, Pepper, who suddenly acquires the ability to interact with the dead. The first book in a series, her current project, an entertaining mafia don, tasks her to solve his thirty-year-old murder. His persistence made me chuckle at his refusal to leave until Pepper helped him. While struggling with life in general, mainly rich girl turned pauper, she finds herself in sticky situations. Her job as a cemetery tour guide adds its own comedy to the story.
Beautiful, smart, and chic, Pepper Martin never had to work a day in her life -- until her surgeon daddy was convicted of fraud, her wealthy fiancé took a powder, and the family fortune ran bone dry.
Suddenly desperate, the inexperienced ex-rich girl was forced to take the only job she could get: as a tour guide in a cemetery. But a grave situation took a turn for the worse when a head-on collision with a headstone left her with an unwanted ability to communicate with the disgruntled deceased . . . and now Pepper has…
This intriguing mystery drew me in, especially having read the first two books of the trilogy. Lightening and Mayan folklore are the paranormal aspects, which I found to be truly unique. These themes wound through the previous books also. Dani, the main character, has a prophetic grandmother who passes on a ring purporting it will show her the way. Stories focusing on solving a mystery while drawing clues from items or family histories from the past are some of my favorite reads.
From #1 NYT Bestselling Author Barbara Freethy comes the third and final book in the Lightning Strikes Romantic Suspense Trilogy. Action, suspense, romance and family secrets lead to an explosive conclusion!
Danielle Monroe is determined to use her new job in DC as a stepping-stone to a high-powered political career. But the secrets surrounding her father's death continue to overshadow her goals. Her family thinks she holds the final piece of the puzzle, but she doesn't even know what the puzzle is…until an attractive and possibly dangerous stranger shows up in her life.
Another series starter which I’m happy to have found. I can’t get enough of characters talking to dead people while trying to resolve the spirit’s issues. It leads to sticky, sometimes awkward, situations relying on the main character’s wit and tenacity to see them through to the end. Of course, the living aren’t always a delightful picnic to deal with either. Sorting out a victim of a ninety-year-old murder requires some interesting digging into the past, and Bobbi Holmes doesn’t disappoint.
When Danielle Boatman inherits Marlow House, she dreams of turning it into a seaside bed and breakfast. Since she’s never visited the property, Danielle’s not sure what awaits her in Oregon. She certainly doesn’t expect to find one of the house’s previous owners still in residence. After all, the man has been dead for almost ninety years—shouldn’t he have moved on by now?Charming Walt Marlow convinces Danielle the only way he can move on is if she solves the mystery of his death. Danielle soon discovers her real problems may come from the living—those who have their sights on Marlow…
The Nonsuch Lure is another book I read years ago, when it came out in the late seventies, but has stuck with me. The paranormal twist has a modern man being hypnotized to find out he’s lived two other lifetimes, each 200 years apart, in England. His soul has loved and lost the same woman over four centuries because of an unknown force. At the time I read this, I was fascinated with visiting England, which I did several times over the following decade. Nonsuch Castle, where the story centers around, actually existed and had been built by King Henry VIII on confiscated land. The three timelines depicted drew me into the mystery and broken romance, while I rooted for the modern main character to break the sad chain of events.
Beyond Chance, Beyond Time, Beyond Forgetting... The 18th-century journal of a young man's tragic love affair...The four-hundred-year-old portrait of a beautiful woman, inexplicably familiar... Wealthy jet-setter Andrew Moffat is led to the ruined walls of a [16]th-century palace by what seems an alluring series of coincidences. But once inside those haunted walls, he discovers it was destiny that lured him to Nonsuch Palace--to begin a journey deep into the past, to vanquish an evil which has twice destroyed him...to consummate a love he has found and lost throughout the centuries, but which he means to have and to hold for…
Marni Legend is about to publish her thirteenth novel. Gus Zuckerman has been hanging around since his death in nineteen-ninety-five. With her deadline looming and her recently deceased mother refusing to move on, can Marni dispatch both spirits and still have time for romance?
Armed with sarcasm and a warped sense of humor, her innate ability to stumble into awkward situations lands Marni in the midst of a car theft ring. Juggling a hot new beau with one hand and rekindling an old flame with the other, she may need to put on the brakes with one. Should she pick the probable criminal who may know Gus’s fate or play it safe with the sweetheart from her past?
Edge of the Known World is a near-future love and adventure story about a brilliant young refugee caught in era when genetic screening tests like 23AndMe make it impossible to hide a secret identity. The novel is distributed by Simon & Schuster. It is a USA Today Bestseller and 2024 American Fiction Awards Winner in multiple categories, including Best New Fiction, Political Thriller, and Science Fiction: General.
Alexandra is a gifted student, adoring daughter, and exuberant prankster. She is also hiding in the open. After a blissful childhood, Alex learned she’s an illegal refugee from a brutal regime, smuggled into…
Fans of Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake will be swept away by this riveting speculative fiction adventure and love story about family, genetic privacy, and the onrushing future of surveillance technology.
2024 American Fiction Awards Winner in multiple categories, including Best New Fiction, Political Thriller, and Science Fiction
Alexandra Tashen is a brilliant student, adoring daughter, merry wit, and exuberant prankster. After a blissful childhood on a Texas ranch, she learns the truth: She is a refusé, an illegal refugee smuggled into the Allied Nations as an infant. Everyone from her birth region carries a harmless but detectable bit of…
