Michelle Rao

Ark of the Apocalypse, a Cinematic Sci-Fi Epic by Tobin Marks

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The Bottom Line: A buzzworthy sci-fi epic that sprawls cinematically across timelines and solar systems. Highly recommended. Tobin Marks’ Ark of the Apocalypse begins on 1930s-era Earth as a metallurgist braves genocide and impending war to acquire red amber from the Baltic Sea and green amber from Norway. He smuggles the material into Russia, where he eventually creates two medallions (“dragon eyes”) which he fits

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Hattie Vavaseur, a Deliciously Supernatural Mystery by M. Rebecca Wildsmith

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The Bottom Line: A deliciously supernatural mystery and love story best paired with a glass of a sherry, a crackling fire and a keen eye for secret messages hidden throughout. Readers may start the eponymously named Hattie Vavaseur thinking they’ve seen a character like Hattie before: a rather prim woman of a certain age in a post Great War-era being driven around by a chauffeur, traipsing through

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Strangers’ Kingdom, a Big-Hearted Police Procedural by Brandon Barrows

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The Bottom Line: A small town police procedural with a big heart and a shocking finale. Set in the early 1990s, Strangers’ Kingdom tells the story of police detective Luke Campbell’s quest for a fresh start. The former Albany cop had the city’s second-highest closure rate in the major crimes division before he shot a politician’s son in self-defense, leading to a career-threatening internal affairs

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Paraiso Lost, an Entertaining Thriller about the Power of Cult Leaders by Jack Polo

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The Bottom Line: An entertaining thriller about the power of cult leaders, and a must-read for fans of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Seventeen-year-old Charlene Dillard is a straight-A student with lush blond hair, Icelandic blue eyes and a seductive smile. According to her parents, billionaires Charles and wife Oksanna, she’s also been missing for 13 months. The teenage runaway’s status has purportedly been

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Ancient Dreams, a Miraculous and Magical Witch Tale by JP Roth

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The Bottom Line: A heady potion of pure magic awaits readers of this modern-day witch tale. What do you do when you’re the daughter of witches, but all you want is to be normal? Literature student Cara Wynter has inherited the gift of psychometry, a form of extra sensory perception which allows her to touch an object and not only know its provenance, but the

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The Reisman Case, a Highly Recommended Detective Thriller by Andrew Diamond

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The Bottom Line: A truly original detective thriller that delivers a relentless cadence of mind-blowing revelations. Highly recommended. Andrew Diamond’s second Claire Chastain mystery delivers an explosive first chapter that all but guarantees to hook all who read it. In nearly all detective fiction, first meetings between private investigators and clients are notoriously quiet affairs in which the detective for hire observes passively as the client

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The Body in the Road, an Engrossing Teen Suspense Thriller by Donna M. Zadunajsky

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The Bottom Line: This engrossing teen suspense thriller puts the fictional town of Craven Falls on the map. Fans of Natalie D. Richards’ small town mysteries may fall for this tale of a teen who makes an unfortunate turn. Seventeen-year-old Ohio girl Sara Nelson is deathly afraid of her psycho boyfriend, Brad. Fearing for her life, she takes her Grandmother’s car in the middle of

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Falling, a Must-Read Psychological Thriller by T.J. Newman

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In T.J. Newman’s new thriller, a commercial aircraft pilot is leaving his home just as a repairman shows up to fix the Internet. He doesn’t give it much thought, distracted by his wife’s ire over the fact that he’s missing his son’s game. What neither of him understand is that the repairman is in fact a psychopath who has already blackmailed the pilot’s colleague to

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Stalker Stalked, a Hugely Entertaining Thriller by Lee Matthew Goldberg

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The Bottom line: Goldberg turns the conventional stalker thriller on its head with a tale that is fresh, suspenseful and hugely entertaining. Lexi Mazur is every bit as awkward, relatable and dysfunctional as Bridget Jones. Thirty-year-old pharmacy sales rep Lexi Mazur has practically made a profession out of stalking boyfriends. But what happens when the hunter becomes the hunted? The novel opens with a breathless

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Crickets, a Stunning Debut Thriller by Lee Chappel

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The Bottom Line: A small-town psychological thriller with a big-time payoff. This stunning debut novel is a must-read for Gillian Flynn fans. “Mine’s one of those stories that can’t be true,” says Kara Peterson in the first chapter of Crickets. Kara, the daughter of Paige, Ohio’s former Sheriff, accused Dalton Rolenfeld of rape a decade earlier. Her father’s sudden death has brought her back to

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