Paul Kemprecos is author of several acclaimed mysteries and adventure stories. He has written six underwater detective thrillers, and has been co-writing with Clive Cussler the “NUMA Files” novels, which focus on Kurt Austin, head of NUMA’s Special Assignments Team and his adventures.
Paul tops today’s Buffet with Cool Blue Tomb, which won the 1991 Shamus detective-fiction award for “Best Paperback Novel.” Publisher’s Weekly called it “a fast-paced enjoyable yarn” and Clive Cussler called it “absolutely the best private-eye mystery I’ve read.”
Paul lives on Cape Cod in an 1865 farmhouse with is wife Christi, who operates her own financial services business.
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Cool Blue Tomb (Soc Series)
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Historical
Author: Paul Kemprecos
Life’s a Beach—Until Murder Rolls in With the Tide.
A 50-million-dollar salvage operation. An expert diver dead at the bottom of the sea. An elegant mermaid in a black Porsche—and an open invitation to dip into the troubled waters of her marriage. Cape Cod’s Aristotle “Soc” Socarides, part-time fisherman, part-time private eye, is swimming with the sharks. Only problem is, he’s the bait…and blood is beginning to boil to the surface.
Soc didn’t think he could get in much deeper, but he’d better think again. A family debt of honor comes due—a debt only he can settle—plunging him into the middle of a lethal search for buried treasure. Now Soc’s about to discover how deadly the Cape’s currents can be. Snarled in a net of smuggling, treachery, and revenge, he’s finding out that no matter how far down you go, nothing’s harder to salvage than the truth.
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Going Shogun
Science Fiction > Post-Apocalyptic
Author: Ernie Lindsey
On the run. Out of time. A brownie recipe worth millions.
Lovable loser Chris waits tables by day and dreams of making something better of himself by night. But, under the almighty, oppressive rule of The Board and their divisive caste system, it’s nearly impossible. That is until his super-geek pal and fellow waiter, Forklift, hits upon a foolproof scheme: steal their employer’s ultra-popular, top secret recipes and sell them on a black market internet site.
It’s all fun and games until the mysterious death of a local hacker shatters their surefire plan, sending them on a fast-paced adventure through the city’s seedy underground, where they hope to salvage what’s left and avoid capture by the Board Agents at all costs. Nobody comes back from that. Nobody.
Love Amid the Ashes
Christian Fiction > Historical Romance
Author: Mesu Andrews
Readers often think of Job sitting on the ash heap, his life in shambles. But how did he get there? What was Job’s life like before tragedy struck? What did he think as his world came crashing down around him? And what was life like after God restored his wealth, health, and family?
Through painstaking research and a writer’s creative mind, Mesu Andrews weaves an emotional and stirring account of this well-known story told through the eyes of the women who loved him. Drawing together the account of Job with those of Esau’s tribe and Jacob’s daughter Dinah, Love Amid the Ashes breathes life, romance, and passion into the classic biblical story of suffering and steadfast faith.
A Perfect Fit (DiCarlo Brides, Book 1)
Romance > Contemporary
Author: Heather Tullis
Cami DiCarlo doesn’t agree with her father that her life has been stuck in a rut, so she is not happy when he forces her hand into heading up guest services at his newest five-star hotel. The fact that he unveils the existence of four half-sisters at the same time, and insists that they live together while they launch the new resort, only makes things worse.
When she meets Vince Talmadge, the sweet, sexy landscaper her father would never have approved of, Cami can’t say no. If only she could be sure she is on the right track—and that they will be able to stop the person who is trying to destroy everything she and her sisters are working to build.
Ever Since Eve (Keeping Secrets Series, Book 1)
Romance > Contemporary
Author: Pamela Browning
Eve Triopolous is unemployed with a disabled father to support. When she spots an ad for a surrogate mother, she impulsively responds. But it’s the longing on the faces of Derek and Kelly Lang that puts her signature on the bottom line.
Then tragedy strikes, leaving Derek a widower and Eve with a task she didn’t expect: prove that she is the best mommy for the precious life growing beneath her heart, and convince Derek that he’s the love of her life.
Sex in the Title – a Comedy about Dating, Sex, and Romance in NYC
Romantic Comedy
Author: Zack Love
New York City, May 2000. The Internet bubble has burst, and Evan’s boss fires him with an email. The next day, his girlfriend dumps him, also via email. Afraid to check any more emails, Evan desperately seeks a rebound romance but the catastrophes that ensue go from bad to hilariously worse. Fortunately, Evan meets someone whose legendary disasters with females eclipse even his own.
To reverse their fortunes, they recruit their friends into a group of five guys who take on Manhattan in pursuit of dates, sex, and adventure. With musings about life, relationships, and human psychology, this quintessential New York story about the search for happiness follows five men on their comical paths to trouble, self-discovery, and love.
The Amazing Monarch: Secret Wintering Grounds of an Endangered Butterfly
Biological Sciences > Butterflies
Author: Windle Turley
Author and photographer Windle Turley chronicles the life cycle of the monarch butterfly. Replete with page after page of full-color photographs, the book shows the monarch’s rarely captured destination wintering grounds. The contrast of the orange and black pops off the page as the reader goes on a visual tour in the high mountains of Mexico. The multifaceted work also contains poems and quotations focusing on the beauty of these tiny animals that weigh only .02 of an ounce.
With carefully researched text and consultation with leading entomologists, The Amazing Monarch tracks the monarch’s migration and interesting life spans. Amazingly, this migration only takes place every three to five generations, but somehow, by the last week of October, they arrive at the same small groups of oyamel fir trees their ancestors populated the year before. The handful of roosting sites, located at about 10,000 feet altitude, each may contain 20 to 30 million monarchs in a single site only a few acres in size.
Granted almost unprecedented access by Mexican wildlife officials, Turley photographed the insects in their natural habitats at their sanctuaries in Los Saucos near Valle de Bravo, State of Mexico and at the Sierra Chincua Sanctuary near Mineral de Anganguo, State of Michoacan—areas unknown to outsiders until 1975.
The UnTied Kingdom
Romance > Paranormal
Author: Kate Johnson
When Eve Carpenter lands with a splash in the Thames, it’s not the London or England she’s used to. No one has a telephone or knows what a computer is. England’s a third world country and Princess Di is still alive. But worst of all, everyone thinks Eve’s a spy.
Including Major Harker who has his own problems. His sworn enemy is looking for a promotion. The general wants him to undertake some ridiculous mission to capture a computer, which Harker vaguely envisions running wild somewhere in Yorkshire. Turns out the best person to help him is Eve.
She claims to be a popstar. Harker doesn’t know what a popstar is, although he suspects it’s a fancy foreign word for ‘spy’. Eve knows all about computers, and electricity. Eve is dangerous. There’s every possibility she’s mad. And Harker is falling in love with her.
Pretty Little Lies
Romantic Comedy > Coming of Age
Author: Jennifer Miller
A little lie can change the course of everything. . .
Like every other eighteen-year-old in love, Olivia has dreams of spending forever with the love of her life. Luke is all she’s ever wanted – until she overhears something she was never meant to. In a matter of seconds, Olivia’s heart is shattered. Olivia handles it the only way she knows how – she runs- leaving behind her family, friends and the boy she loves.
Seeking comfort and an escape, Olivia finds it in resident bad boy Deacon. He’s everything Luke isn’t – and that’s fine with Olivia.
Now, seven years later, Olivia is older, wiser and headed back to Chicago looking forward to a fresh start and reconnecting with her best friend Pyper. What she doesn’t expect, is to come face to face with the boy she left behind and discover that even though she may have left, her feelings for him didn’t.
Can Olivia put aside the pain in her heart and trust Luke? Will the ties to her past ever let her go, or will she continue to let her life be affected by pretty little lies?
1,001 Best Hot and Spicy Recipes
Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Cooking by Ingredient
Author: Dave DeWitt
The latest addition to Agate Surrey’s beloved 1001 series of cookbooks is its hottest ever. The largest and most comprehensive cookbook ever published on this subject, 1001 Best Hot and Spicy Recipesis composed of the very best dishes from author Dave DeWitt’s collection of chili pepper–laden recipes. Created from his globe-trotting travels, from colleagues, and from research in authentic, obscure, and out-of-print cookbooks from all over the world, the book is loaded with a huge variety of soups, stews, chilies, and gumbos. It also includes a broad selection of barbecue dishes for the grill, a lengthy list of meatless entrees and vegetable options, and even a surprising array of zesty beverages, desserts, and breakfasts.
Recipes are organized according to the region from which the chili peppers come: South and Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean, the United States, Europe, the Mediterranean and Middle East, Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and Asia and the Pacific. A treasury of the very best the world has to offer of great spicy foods, no serious cook should be without this jam-packed trove.
TODAY’S BARGAINS……………What’s this?
The Faraway Horses: The Adventures and Wisdom of One of America’s Most Renowned Horsemen
Individual Sports > Horses > Equestrian
Author: Buck Brannaman
Regularly $13.50, Today $1.99
Brannaman shares his methods for training and provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse of Robert Redford’s movie The Horse Whisperer, for which he was the technical advisor.
I’ve started horses since I was 12 years old and have been bit, kicked, bucked off and run over. I’ve tried every physical means to contain my horse in an effort to keep from getting myself killed. I started to realize that things would come much easier for me once I learned why a horse does what he does. This method works well for me because of the kinship that develops between horse and rider. ” –Buck Brannaman
The Edge of the Earth: A Novel
Genre Fiction > Coming of Age
Author: Christina Schwarz
Regularly $9.99, Today $2.99
In 1898, a woman forsakes the comfort of home and family for a love that takes her to a remote lighthouse on the wild coast of California. What she finds at the edge of the earth, hidden between the sea and the fog, will change her life irrevocably.
Trudy, who can argue Kant over dinner and play a respectable portion of Mozart’s Serenade in G major, has been raised to marry her childhood friend and assume a life of bourgeois comfort in Milwaukee. She knows she should be pleased, but she’s restless instead, yearning for something she lacks even the vocabulary to articulate. When she falls in love with enigmatic and ambitious Oskar, she believes she’s found her escape from the banality of her preordained life.
But escape turns out to be more fraught than Trudy had imagined. Alienated from family and friends, the couple moves across the country to take a job at a lighthouse at Point Lucia, California—an unnervingly isolated outcropping, trapped between the ocean and hundreds of miles of inaccessible wilderness. There they meet the light station’s only inhabitants—the formidable and guarded Crawleys. In this unfamiliar place, Trudy will find that nothing is as she might have predicted, especially after she discovers what hides among the rocks.
Grace, Gold, and Glory My Leap of Faith
Memoirs > Individual Sports > Gymnastics
Author: Gabrielle Douglas
Regularly $9.99, Today $1.99
In the 2012 London Olympics, U.S. gymnast Gabrielle Douglas stole hearts and flew high as the All-Around Gold Medal winner, as well as acting as a critical member of the US gold-medal-winning women gymnastics team. In this personal autobiography, Gabrielle tells her story of faith, perseverance, and determination, demonstrating you can reach your dreams if you let yourself soar.
Origins
Science Fiction > Alternate History
Author: Mark Henrikson
Regularly $3.99, Today $0.99
Dr. Holmes was thoroughly bored with his psychiatric profession until he met Hastelloy. The man is named after a durable metal capable of surviving under high-stress service where more common materials fail; ironic considering he’s an insane asylum patient.
Hastelloy is convinced he’s locked in a battle for the survival of mankind with the mysterious species Alpha. This conflict supposedly began when Hastelloy and his alien crew crashed on Earth during the time of ancient Egypt. Dr. Holmes listens with understandable skepticism to the patient’s story about his involvement with building the Great Pyramid and Sphinx, bringing about the rise of Pharaohs, and even assisting Moses with the slave exodus to the Promised Land. Is Hastelloy crazy, or is it crazy to ignore him?
Meanwhile, a group of archeologists make new discoveries in the Giza plateau. While investigating previously unknown chambers found inside the Great Pyramid and Sphinx they come face to face with elements intent on preserving those secrets. Egypt’s recorded history, and Hastelloy’s true mental state, are drawn into question by what they find.
Tall Man in Ray-Bans (A John Tall Wolf Novel)
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
Author: Joseph Flynn
Regularly $3.99, Today $1.99
Out for a day’s adventure exploring the dry bed of Lake Travis in Austin, Texas, two young boys stumble upon a skeleton. It might be all that remains of a fugitive named Randy Bear Heart. Wanted for robbing three banks and killing three cops, Bear Heart was never brought to justice.
The FBI is called on to determine how the outlaw avoided arrest for twenty-five years and who put him in the lake wearing chains. The BIA — Bureau of Indian Affairs — gets the very same job. Special Agent John Tall Wolf is put on the case because one of the dead cops was a Native American who worked at the Mercy Ridge Reservation.
The FBI wants John to “coordinate all your efforts” through SAC Gilbert Melvin. John is having none of that, saying, “I’ll conduct my investigation as I see fit.” He doesn’t even get along with his own boss, Marlene Flower Moon, head of the BIA’s Office of Justice Services.
… See the rest of today’s Editor’s Picks here on page 2