Michelle Rao

The Pine Barrens Stratagem, a Smoldering and Timely Crime Thriller by Ken Harris

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The Bottom Line: A contemporary crime thriller that works on every level, from the smoldering investigation to the whipsaw banter between characters you’re bound to love. Ken Harris’ The Pine Barrens Stratagem centers around Steve Rockfish, a private detective hit so hard by the COVID-19 pandemic that he’s on the verge of losing everything. Creditors are even threatening to repossess his car, a 2015 Dodge […]

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The Doomsday Medallion, a Bewitching Political Thriller by Avanti Centrae

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The Bottom Line: An epic and bewitching mashup of historical suspense and political thriller. Perfect for fans of Steve Berry and James Rollins. Sixteenth-century French prophet Nostradamus is said to have predicted the Great Fire of London, the French Revolution, the rises of Napoleon and Adolf Hitler and both world wars. In Avanti Centrae’s The Doomsday Medallion, we learn that Nostradamus may have used a

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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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