As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Author: Mariana Zapata
FREE
Romantasy
Of all the things that could have landed in her yard… it had to be him. 🌟 For most people, finding a half-naked superbeing in their yard might be a dream come true, but for Gracie Castro, it’s the exact opposite—especially when he’s grouchy, rude, and showing absolutely no signs of leaving. But when a hero of mankind needs help, you do what you have to, even if it compromises everything you know and totally changes your life.
What makes this special: Mariana Zapata, the undisputed queen of slow-burn romance with millions of devoted readers worldwide, brings her signature patience and emotional depth to the romantasy genre. If you’ve been craving a grumpy-sunshine dynamic with actual supernatural stakes, where the relationship development feels earned rather than instant, this is your book. Zapata’s fans know she doesn’t rush anything—not the banter, not the tension, not the payoff—and that deliberate pacing combined with a crash-landed superbeing makes for an irresistible combination. Perfect for readers who loved From Blood and Ash but wished the romance built more gradually, or anyone who wants their fantasy heroes complicated and their heroines refreshingly practical.
This Christmas, home might be the best destination of all.
Jason Regan doesn’t do relationships or long-term commitments. His engineering firm keeps him constantly on the move, and that’s the way he likes it. But one quick trip to Holly, Montana, turns into an extended stay when a judge hands him community service at the town’s underfunded animal shelter.
Tess Evans traded courtroom battles for saving strays, pouring everything she has into the Forever Home Animal Shelter. With her make-or-break “Home for the Holidays” adoption event approaching, the last thing she needs is distraction… especially in the form of a broad-shouldered, maddeningly handsome volunteer who makes her pulse race.
Between fixing kennels, brushing shoulders in the supply closet, and chasing one mischievous terrier named Neville, their chemistry sparks hotter than a Christmas fire.
But Jason’s clock is ticking. Can a little holiday magic—and a lot of temptation—convince him that some things are worth staying for?
Shortly after midnight on April 15, 1912, the captain of the Carpathia, Arthur Rostron, is awakened by a distress signal from the RMS Titanic, which has struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage. Though information is scarce, Rostron leaps into action, determined to answer the call for help. But the Carpathia is more than four hours away, and there are more questions than answers: Will his ship hold together if pushed to never-before-tested speeds? What if he also strikes an iceberg? And with the freezing temperatures, will there be any survivors by the time the Carpathia arrives?
Kate Connolly is excited to join her sister in America and proud to be traveling on the grand Titanic. As a third-class passenger, she is among the last to receive instruction and help after Titanic hits an iceberg. Despite the chaos of abandoning ship, Kate is able to reach the upper decks and manages to board a lifeboat, though after seeing the Titanic sink into the abyss and hearing the cries from the hundreds of people still in the water, she wonders if any rescue is even possible.
Told in alternating chapters from both Captain Rostron on the Carpathia and Kate Connolly on the Titanic, this historical novel is a compelling, heart-pounding account of two eyewitnesses to an epic disaster. Rostron’s heroic and compassionate leadership, his methodical preparations for rescue, and his grit and determination to act honorably and selflessly to save lives and care for the survivors, sets the course for this awe-inspiring story.
FIRST IN AN EXPLOSIVE THRILLER SERIES, MILLIONS SOLD WORLDWIDE…
Lieutenant Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels is having a bad week. Her live-in boyfriend has left her for his personal trainer, chronic insomnia has caused her to max out her credit cards with late-night home shopping purchases, and a frightening killer who calls himself ‘The Gingerbread Man’ is dumping mutilated bodies in her district.
While avoiding the FBI and its moronic profiling computer, joining a dating service, mixing it up with street thugs, and parrying the advances of an uncouth PI, Jack and her binge-eating partner, Herb, must catch the maniac before he kills again…and Jack is next on his murder list.
Whiskey Sour is the first book in the bestselling Jack Daniels series, full of laugh-out-loud humor and edge-of-your-seat suspense.
When Evil Rules: A True Story of Vengeance and Murder on Cape Cod
Michele R. McPhee
Regularly $17.99, Today $2.99
Biographies & Memoirs of Criminals
The true crime story of a notorious arsonist and murderer who kept a Cape Cod town in fear thanks to crooked cops. 🔥
The Cape Cod beach town of Falmouth seemed like a lovely place to visit. 🏖️ But those who lived there year-round knew its other, darker side… Local businessman and infamous bully Melvin Reine had started setting the homes of his so-called enemies on fire. 😱 Few of his victims—or even the police—ever dared to implicate him. Because those who did would pay the price…
Mysterious events kept creeping up in Falmouth. 💀 The disappearance of Melvin’s wife, a dead man found in a cranberry bog, a teenager slated to testify against Melvin who boarded a ferry, never to be seen again—was Melvin somehow responsible? Only one police officer, John Busby, had the guts to press him for answers. 💪 One day he found himself on the wrong end of a sawed-off shotgun…but managed to survive the attack. This is the shocking true story about what can happen to an all-American town when evil rules. 🔫
What you’re getting: Michele R. McPhee exposes the terrifying true story of Melvin Reine, a Cape Cod businessman who terrorized Falmouth with arson and murder while crooked cops looked the other way, until one brave officer dared to stand up to him. If you love true crime that reveals how evil can take over an entire community, this chilling account is essential reading!
Ronlyn Domingue
Regularly $5.99, Today $2.99
Magical Realism
In 1920s New Orleans, Raziela Nolan’s magnificent love affair is interrupted by her untimely and tragic death. 💔 Immediately after, she chooses to stay between — a realm that exists after life and before whatever lies beyond it. From this remarkable vantage point, Razi narrates the story of her lost love as well as of the relationship of Amy and Scott, a young couple whose house she haunts seventy years later. 👻
It is their own troubled story that finally compels Razi to slowly unravel the mystery of what happened to her first and only passion, Andrew, and to confront a long-hidden secret. 💕
The Mercy of Thin Air entwines two heartbreaking and redemptive love stories that echo across three generations and culminates in a finish that will leave readers breathless. ✨ It is a poignant and brilliant first novel that beautifully captures the nature of love and shows how it transcends all barriers—even death. 🌟
Here’s why this matters: Ronlyn Domingue crafts a luminous debut that weaves together two love stories across three generations, following a woman who died in 1920s New Orleans and remains “between” to narrate both her lost romance and the troubled relationship of the couple whose house she haunts seventy years later. Perfect for readers who love magical realism that explores how love transcends death itself!
David J. Helfand
Regularly $17.99, Today $2.99
Propaganda & Political Psychology
Learning how to tell news from fake news from fake fake news: An “important and timely” book on protecting ourselves, and society, from the infodemic (Library Journal). 📰
We have billions of bytes of data at our fingertips. But how much of it is misinformation—or even disinformation? 🤔 A lot of it is, and your search engine can’t tell the difference.
As a result, an avalanche of misinformation threatens to overwhelm the discourse we so desperately need to address complex social problems such as climate change, the food and water crises, biodiversity collapse, and emerging threats to public health. 🌍 This book provides an inoculation against the misinformation epidemic by cultivating scientific habits of mind. Anyone can do it—indeed, everyone must do it if our species is to survive on this crowded and finite planet. 🧠
This survival guide supplies an essential set of apps for the prefrontal cortex while making science both accessible and entertaining. 🔬 It will dissolve your fear of numbers, demystify graphs, and elucidate the key concepts of probability, all while celebrating the precise use of language and logic. David Helfand, one of our nation’s leading astronomers and science educators, has taught scientific habits of mind to generations in the classroom, where he continues to wage a provocative battle against sloppy thinking and the encroachment of misinformation. ⭐
What drew me in: Leading astronomer and science educator David J. Helfand delivers an essential survival guide for the misinformation age, teaching readers how to cultivate scientific habits of mind—dissolving fear of numbers, demystifying graphs, and sharpening logic—to navigate the avalanche of fake news threatening rational discourse. If you want to inoculate yourself against misinformation while making science entertaining, this is your essential toolkit!
Alex Beecroft
Regularly $11.99, Today $1.99
Military Romance
1762, The Georgian Age of Sail: For his first command, John Cavendish is given a ship—the HMS Meteor—and a crew, both in need of repair and discipline. ⚓ He’s determined to make a success of their first mission, and hopes the well-liked lieutenant Alfred Donwell will stand by his side as he leads his new crew into battle: stopping the slave trade off the coast of Algiers. 🌊
Alfie knows their mission is futile, and that their superiors back in England will use the demise of this crew as impetus for war with the Ottoman Empire. 😤 But the darker secret he keeps is his growing attraction for his commanding officer—a secret punishable by death. 💔
With the arrival of his former captain—and lover—on the scene of the disastrous mission, Alfie is torn between the security of his past and the uncertain promise of a future with the straight-laced John. 🔥
Against a backdrop of war, intrigue, and personal betrayal, the high seas will carry these men through dangerous waters from England to Africa to the West Indies in search of a safe harbor. 🏴☠️
Here’s the deal: Alex Beecroft delivers a sweeping Georgian-era naval romance where a new captain and his lieutenant navigate dangerous waters—both literal and emotional—as they battle slave traders off the Algerian coast while hiding a forbidden attraction punishable by death. Perfect for fans of Patrick O’Brian-style naval adventures with LGBTQ+ romance, historical authenticity, and high-seas drama!
Phyllis A. Whitney
Regularly $22.99, Today $3.99
Gothic Romance
The Turquoise Mask: Manhattan illustrator Amanda Austin is summoned to her grandfather’s Santa Fe hacienda to get to know distant relatives of her late mother, who died years ago under mysterious circumstances. 🎨 But once there, everyone greets her like an unwelcome guest. After a little investigating, she begins to fear the real reason she was invited . . . 😱
The Trembling Hills: In 1906, Sara Bishop is off to San Francisco to win back her childhood sweetheart, Ritchie Temple. 💕 Her mother, however, is not only concerned with her daughter’s pursuit of an elusive romance, but also with the city itself—and the secret she and Sara’s father buried there years ago . . . 🌁
The Quicksilver Pool: After the Civil War, Lora, a young Confederate bride moves north to live with Wade, her Union soldier husband, in his Staten Island mansion. 💍 Waiting for her there are a bitterly unwelcoming family and the shadows of Wade’s past. 👻
What you’re getting: This collection brings together three classic gothic romances from Phyllis A. Whitney, featuring heroines who journey to Santa Fe haciendas, earthquake-threatened San Francisco, and post-Civil War Staten Island mansions, where family secrets, mysterious deaths, and unwelcoming relatives await. If you love atmospheric gothic mysteries with strong female protagonists uncovering dangerous truths, this three-in-one volume is perfect!
Meghan Daum
Regularly $17.99, Today $3.99
Literary Criticism
Nearly fifteen years after her debut collection, My Misspent Youth, captured the ambitions and anxieties of a generation, Meghan Daum returns to the personal essay with The Unspeakable, a powerful collection of ten new works. 📚
Where her previous collection explores what it is to be a struggling twenty-something urban dweller with an overdrawn bank account and oversized ambition, The Unspeakable contends with parental death, the decision not to have children, and more—a new set of challenges tackled by a writer at her best, investigated in the same uncompromising voice that made Daum one of the most engaging thinkers writing today. ✍️
In The Unspeakable, Daum pushes back against the false sentimentality and shrink-wrapped platitudes that surround so much of the contemporary American experience. 💪 But Daum also operates in a comic register. With perfect precision, she reveals the absurdities of the New Age search for the “Best Possible Experience,” champions the merits of cream-of-mushroom-soup casserole, and gleefully recounts a quintessential “only-in-L.A.” story of playing charades at a famous person’s home. 😂
Combining the piercing insight of Joan Didion with humor reminiscent of Nora Ephron’s, Daum dissects our culture’s most dangerous illusions while retaining her own joy and compassion. ✨ Through it all, she dramatizes the search for an authentic self in a world where achieving an identity is never simple and never complete. 🌟
Here’s why this matters: Meghan Daum returns fifteen years after her generation-defining debut with ten essays tackling parental death, childlessness, and cultural platitudes with the piercing insight of Joan Didion and the humor of Nora Ephron. If you love personal essays that push back against false sentimentality while celebrating cream-of-mushroom-soup casserole, this is essential contemporary nonfiction!
… See the rest of today ‘s Book Picks here on page 2Page 2