Michael Z. Williamson is a science fiction and military fiction author. Born in Birkenhead, England, he and his family emigrated to Canada, then the United States in 1978.
Michael tops today’s Buffet with his debut novel, Freehold, first published as a Baen paperback in 2003. The novel is set in a future wherein the United Nations is a fascist empire.
Williamson frequently uses the pen names “Mad Mike” and “Crazy Einar”. He is retired from the United States Air Force.
Michael is a state-ranked competitive shooter in combat rifle and combat pistol. He currently lives near Indianapolis with his wife Gail (also a veteran), their two children, and various cats that are not to be trusted.
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Freehold (Freehold Series)
Science Fiction > Adventure
Author: Michael Z. Williamson
Sergeant Kendra Pacelli is innocent, but that doesn’t matter to the repressive government pursuing her. Mistakes might be made, but they are never acknowledged, especially when billions of embezzled dollars earned from illegal weapons sales are at stake.
But where does one run when all Earth and most settled planets are under the aegis of one government Answer: The Freehold of Grainne, the only developed system that belongs to neither the UNES nor the Colonial Alliance. There, one may seek asylum and build a new life in a society that doesn’t track its residents’ every move, which is just what Pacelli has done. But now things are about to go royally to hell. Because Earth’s government has found out where she is . . .
space
Black Flagged (Black Flagged Series, Book 1)
Thrillers > Spy Stories & Tales of Intrigue
Author: Steven Konkoly
A graduate of the Department of Defense’s experimental Black Flag program, Daniel Petrovich carries a secret he’s taken extreme measures to keep buried. A secret hidden in the deepest vaults of the Pentagon.
Someone is trying to raise the fallen program from the ashes and bring Daniel back with it. Someone who holds the key to Daniel’s darkest secrets…and has pulled his strings before.
In exchange for the promise of a clean slate, and a chance to keep the life he has built with the woman he loves, Daniel agrees to carry out one final mission: the seemingly uncomplicated assassination of a confirmed terrorist financier.
Daniel’s life is about to disintegrate, as he becomes the focus of a relentless federal manhunt, and the target of a ruthlessly vengeful CIA agent. To survive, he’ll be forced to release a dark side he’d fought for years to suppress. A dark side critical to his former puppet master’s intricate plan to revive the Black Flag program.
Jane Austen Girl
Contemporary Romance
Author: Inglath Cooper
The very last thing on Grier McAllister’s Someday List is going back to Timbell Creek, Virginia, the town where she grew up. Timbell Creek holds too many bad memories for her, memories finally put to rest with a successful image consultant business in New York City and a hefty therapy bill. When an opportunity to choose a “Jane Austen Girl” for a visiting duke falls in her lap, the only catch that she must be from Grier’s hometown, Grier tells herself she’ll do what she needs to do and then leave it all behind for good.
But Grier doesn’t count on finding that her mother is no longer the person she used to be. She certainly doesn’t plan on falling for an old boyfriend’s really hot brother! And it isn’t long before she begins to realize Timbell Creek is not only a part of who she was, but might be a part of who she is as well.
What Did Jesus Really Mean When He Said Follow Me?
Religion & Spirituality > Christianity
Author: David Platt
You may think you are a Christian—but are you sure? Jesus’ call to follow him is more than an invitation to pray a prayer. It is a summons to lose your life and find new life and ultimate joy in him. In David Platt’s book Follow Me: A Call to Die. A Call to Live he asks the question, “What did Jesus really mean when he said, ‘Follow me’?” What if we really listened to Jesus’ words and heard what he is saying? When people truly engage with Jesus’ personal invitation to follow him, everything changes, for he is worthy of all our trust and affections.
What Did Jesus Really Mean When He Said Follow Me? builds on the message of Follow Me to motivate readers to experience our grand purpose: to exalt the glory of God by spreading Christ’s gospel—to make disciples who are making disciples. This booklet is a great resource to share with others to discuss crucial faith questions in a personal and grace-filled manner and engage others to be disciple-makers in obedience to Jesus. Ideal for small groups or personal and mass evangelism.
Buried Hope (Spes)
Science Fiction > High Tech
Author: XJ Selman
The world is dead… and for a thousand years, they’ve hidden.
The citizens claim they love Spes, the underground city where they evade the deadly toxins of the surface world, but the walls never end and the guards never cease to watch. There is a longing to escape, and a hope that someday the world might live again.
But how do the people know what they are told is truth? How far will they go to trust the unknown, and how much will they fight for that they cannot have?
Leaving Green Island
Genre Fiction > Coming of Age
Author: Em Barrett
With a new job at a prestigious Chicago law firm and an engagement ring on her finger, everything seems to be falling into place for Brecken Pereira these days. However, all this perfection quickly unravels when Reed Whalen, Brecken’s first love, unexpectedly resurfaces. The complicated history of the enigmatic Reed unfolds as the two summers that Brecken spent as a teenager on posh, exclusive Green Island in northern Michigan are interspersed with her relatable and humorous modern day trials and tribulations.
After Reed’s reappearance, Brecken is torn between her longing for the past and the life she has carefully built for herself since Reed vanished years before. Her true-to-life and complex relationships with her two best friends provide the backbone that supports Brecken, both as the life she knows quickly dissolves around her and as she struggles to pick up the pieces.
Desired to Death (The Empty Nest Can Be Murder)
Mystery > Women Sleuths
Author: J. M. Maison
The empty nest can be murder! Just ask stay-at-home mom Maggie True whose daughter has just left for college—leaving Maggie with a burning question for her husband Joe: “Now what am I going to do with the rest of my life?”
Never in her wildest dreams does small-town Maggie imagine the answer will come in the form of a middle-of-the-night call for help from an estranged friend who has just been arrested for the lurid murder of a much-younger lover: A.J. Traverso, AKA Tattoo Boy—a sexy kickboxing instructor who had captured the fancy of all the women in Halfway Bay, Maine.
But solving this mystery will be no walk in the dog park. For below the surface of her sleepy coastal town, resides a dark world of secret lusts and desires that Maggie has never imagined. And when an anonymous tip to the police suggests that happily-married Maggie was involved with A.J. Traverso, the investigation becomes more than just a curiosity. For Maggie True, the solution to the mystery of what to do with the rest of her life—and the identity of the cold-blooded killer—might be closer than she thinks…
THE JESUIT PAPERS
Genre Fiction > Action & Adventure
Author: A.B. Fowler
Kat Hamilton is in big trouble. While seeking her missing father, she is arrested in Asunción and forced to decode a mysterious Jesuit journal in order to continue her search. A slim clue from its ancient pages leads her into the dark heart of the Chaco—the jungle Paraguayan natives call the Green Hell—where she must defy a jealous deity who stands guard over a hidden treasure. Before it’s over, she encounters intrigue, treachery, ancient civilizations and
unexpected romance.
TODAY’S BARGAINS……………What’s this?
Crazy Little Thing (A Bell Harbor Novel)
Romantic Comedy
Author: Tracy Brogan
Regularly $9.99, Today $1.99
If Sadie Turner is good at anything, it’s putting stuff in order. So when she finds her “perfect” life in disarray, she hopes a summer vacation at her aunt’s lake house will help her piece it back together. She wants to relax, reboot, and heal the wounds left by her cheating ex-husband. And that requires time away from men. All men.
Or so she thinks.
With two slobbering dogs and two cousins living there—one a flamboyant decorator intent on making over Sadie—it’s hard to get a moment’s peace at eccentric Aunt Dody’s house, especially with everyone so determined to set her up with Desmond, the sexy new neighbor.
Desmond is Sadie’s worst nightmare. Tall, tanned, muscular…and to top it off, he’s great with her kids. But he must have a flaw—he’s a man—so Sadie vows to keep her distance.
As summer blazes on, the life Sadie is trying so hard to simplify only becomes more complicated—a new career presents itself, her evil ex haunts her, and Aunt Dody reveals a tragic secret—but maybe a little chaos is just what Sadie needs to get her life back in order.
Not Quite Dating (Not Quite series)
Romance > Contemporary
Author: Catherine Bybee
Regularly $9.99, Today $1.99
Waitress and single mom Jessica “Jessie” Mann is practical to a fault. Even if she had time to date, which she doesn’t, she’d be determined to provide her son with a more secure upbringing than the one she had—and that would mean a husband with big bucks. When Jack Morrison—a sexy-as-sin, seemingly broke customer with a cowboy hat and a seductive grin—tries to flirt with her, she shoots him down. She doubts a carefree dreamer like Jack can provide the financial stability she needs. Yet with Christmas just weeks away, and Jessie not wanting to spend it alone, the charming Texan is proving hard to resist.
As the heir to the Morrison luxury hotel empire, Jack is used to being fawned over. But Jack needs someone who will fall in love with him—not his wealth. He’s set his sights on Jessie, though her hardened heart just might get in the way…To be sure, he conceals his true identity and offers to help Jessie find the rich husband she seeks. But Jack’s daring charade may rob him of the holiday wish he wants most of all…
The Golem and the Jinni (P.S.)
Literature & Fiction > Jewish American
Author: Helene Wecker
Regularly $9.99, Today $1.99
A chance meeting between mythical beings takes readers on a dazzling journey through cultures in turn-of-the-century New York.
Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life to by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic and dies at sea on the voyage from Poland. Chava is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York harbor in 1899.
Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire born in the ancient Syrian desert, trapped in an old copper flask, and released in New York City, though still not entirely free
Ahmad and Chava become unlikely friends and soul mates with a mystical connection. Marvelous and compulsively readable, Helene Wecker’s debut novel The Golem and the Jinni weaves strands of Yiddish and Middle Eastern literature, historical fiction and magical fable, into a wondrously inventive and unforgettable tale.
Arctic Fire (Red Cell Series, Book 1)
Thrillers > Espionage
Author: Stephen W. Frey
Regularly $9.99, Today $1.99
Troy Jensen could do it all: he conquered the Seven Summits, sailed solo around the world twice, and even fought a bull in a Mexican slum on a dare. So when word comes that a rogue wave has swept Troy off a crab fishing boat in the Bering Sea and into a watery grave, his brother, Jack, doesn’t buy it.
Against his better judgment, Jack decides to quit his job as a Wall Street trader and head to Dutch Harbor, Alaska, to investigate. Minutes after revealing his plan in his father’s New York City office, Jack is nearly run down in the street. He doesn’t think much of it at the time, but as he digs deeper into Troy’s disappearance, Jack unearths information about RED-CELL-SEVEN (RCS), a super-secret American intelligence group that has operated for forty years in almost total secrecy and with complete impunity—and its leaders intend to keep it that way at any cost.
An adrenaline-pumping tale of one man’s descent into a hellish underworld populated by terrorists, assassins, and very bad “good guys,” Arctic Fire explores the disturbing difference between doing what is good and doing what is right when it comes to protecting America from her greatest enemies.
In Search of Lucy: A Novel
Women’s Fiction > Sisters
Author: Lia Fairchild
Regularly $9.99, Today $1.99
Lucy Lang’s life is spiraling out of control. For years she sacrificed her own needs to care for her half sister and alcoholic mother, only to be abandoned by both. Now, at age 30, Lucy finds herself held back by memories and regret as she struggles to find her own purpose in life. But when her sister needs a kidney transplant, Lucy is the only one who can save her life.
With the help of new friends and a man who won’t give up on her, Lucy sets out on a journey to reunite with her sister and find the answers she so desperately needs. Can she get past her emotions and have a chance at happiness? With its colorful and endearing cast of characters, In Search of Lucytakes readers on a rollercoaster of emotions from sadness and heartache to happiness and hope.
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2