It started with the Brontë sisters and it hasn’t stopped yet — female novelists using male pseudonyms. The theory, of course, is that a book will sell better if people think it was written by a man.
The Brontës used the names Ellis, Acton, and Currer Bell. Louisa May Alcott used A.M. Barnard. Nora Roberts sometimes wrote as J.D. Robb. Mary Ann Evans was George Eliot, and Joanne Rowling became J.K. Rowling.
Today’s top pick comes from P.J. Parrish. Yeah, those two.
P. J. Parrish is the pseudonym used by sisters Kristy Montee (on the left) and Kelly Nichols, authors of the beloved Louis Kincaid series of thrillers.
Why the name P.J.? Predictably, their agent figured the books would sell faster if people thought a man was the author. Sure enough, the editor who bought their first book assumed P.J. Parrish was an African-American man. And many people still do, even some of the famous authors who provide blurbs for the back covers.
None of it really matters. The Kincaid series is a perfect example of critical acclaim and commercial success living in perfect harmony. The series has won 11 major crime-fiction awards while racking up impressive sales.
It took a while for this team to get rolling. Kelly spent 15 years working in Las Vegas casinos, and struggled for years before trashing her first mystery manuscript. Kristy worked as a newspaper reporter, then sold four romance novels before getting bored with the genre.
Nowadays this duo cranks out the hits like Lennon and McCartney. Indeed, the sisters liken their collaboration to a songwriting team who somehow makes magic because the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Their writing process is a freewheeling, hands-off-the-handlebars approach, Kristy says: “We start with an idea and usually a ‘what if’ — or a moment in a character’s life. And then we talk, talk, talk, until it starts to take shape as a story. From there, we literally take assignments for chapters or scenes based on which of us has a better feel for the work to be done.”
It works.
Dead of Winter, the book that started it all 12 years ago, is available for the first time on Kindle and tops today’s Buffet.
As usual, each book listed here has gone FREE within the past 24 hours (except for the “Kindle Daily Deals” on page 3). Warning: Kindle book promotions can end without notice, so before downloading click the link “See Kindle price at Amazon” to verify that the book is still free. (Prices and availability may differ outside USA.)
DEAD OF WINTER (Louis Kincaid/Joe Frye mystery series)
In the quaint tourist town of Loon Lake, Michigan, a killer is taking his vengeance. One by one, the bodies of Loon Lake’s police officers are found, brutally executed, with mysteriously coded death cards placed beside each corpse — the gruesome signature of a psychopath. And the only sound louder than doors and windows being locked against evil is the sound of hearts beating in terror.Detective Louis Kincaid had returned to Michigan to forget the horrors of what happened to him in Mississippi. But now, he has landed in the middle of an investigation that is more than a mystery. It is a warning of bad things to come…of a terrifying journey through a town’s fiercely protected heart of darkness…and into the nightmare mind of a madman.
Five Minutes on Mondays: Finding Unexpected Purpose, Peace, and Fulfillment at Work
Business & Investing
- $17.99 List Price
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Imagine the leaders of one of New York City’s top real-estate firms coming together every Monday morning to hear…the moral and spiritual thoughts of a Rabbi. Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall? To hear the paths Alan Lurie traced for his listeners, how he helped them bring together their spiritual and business lives, the sacred and the profane? This book compiles these talks for the first time, sharing Lurie’s deep and profound inspiration on the challenges we all face–at work, and in life.
Lurie draws on millennia of philosophy, theology, and science to help us answer our deepest questions, comfort our deepest yearnings, and become better people–more connected to each other, and to the Greater Purpose:
- Prosper while keeping your integrity
- Balance faith, honor, and ambition
- Use your workplace as your moral and spiritual “gymnasium”
- Find deeper meaning and purpose in your work
- Face your fears and failures, and keep going
Make More, Worry Less: Secrets from 18 Extraordinary People Who Created a Bigger Income and a Better Life
Advice & How-to
- $19.99 List Price
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Make More. Worry Less. Everyone wants to do that–but how? And how can you do it within the organization, where most people will spend their entire working lives? This book has the answers. No academic theory here: 18 riveting stories from people who’ve achieved both of these goals, gaining surprising wealth and real peace of mind along the way.
These aren’t superheroes. They’re ordinary people who’ve done the extraordinary: from fast-food worker Linda Robb, now earning a six-figure income at Aflac, to once lowly telemarketer Steve Hudson, now running business development at one of the most promising start-up companies in the nation. Author and radio host Wes Moss reveals the powerful lessons these individuals have learned. Better yet, he shows how you can use those lessons to take ownership of your life and career, earning more money than you ever thought possible.
Moss also shows how to handle your increased success with less stress, fewer worries, and greater happiness.
The Concrete Maze
Mystery & Thrillers
When 13-year-old Jasmine Ramos goes missing, one man — her father — races desperately to save her from the horrors of life and death on the streets of New York City. Can he rescue his daughter from the pitiless concrete maze, or will he be swallowed whole?
Riversong
Romance
- $2.99 List Price
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When Lee Tucker’s husband commits suicide, he leaves her pregnant and one million dollars in debt to a loan shark. Out of options, she escapes to her deceased mother’s dilapidated house located in a small Oregon town that, like her, is financially ruined, heartbroken and in desperate need of a fresh start. Lee’s resilience leads to a plan for a destination restaurant named Riversong, to new chances for passion and love, and to danger from her dead husband’s debt as her business blooms.
One Blood
Horror
Lincoln Baker, born a ward of the state, has gone from orphan, to gang banger, to basketball superstar, to lifer at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in the space of eighteen years. During his prison term, he meets Panama X, a powerful and mysterious father figure who gives him a reason for living – he must assassinate Randy Lafitte, the sitting Governor of Louisiana.
Noah (5th Street #1)
Contemporary Fiction
Veronica Cruz has been through hell and back. After disconnecting with the world two years ago to be at the side of her dying mother, she’s left alone, unemployed, overweight, and feeling a decade older than her twenty-eight years. When her best friend coaxes her into joining the local gym to ditch her depression and rejuvenate her life, she meets Noah. Assigned to help Veronica lose weight, Noah is everything she expected a young trainer to be—perfectly chiseled, supportive and motivating. There’s just one glaring problem: Noah is eight years younger.
The Annihilation of Foreverland
Science Fiction
When kids awake on an island, they’re told there was an accident. Before they can go home, they will visit Foreverland, an alternate reality that will heal their minds.
Reed dreams of a girl that tells him to resist Foreverland. He doesn’t remember her name, but knows he once loved her. He’ll have to endure great suffering and trust his dream. And trust he’s not insane.
Super Soldier – The 7 Top Health & Fitness Secrets Used By The World’s Toughest Commandos To Kill Joint Pain, Heal Injury, Digest Scar Tissue, And Burn Disease Right Out Of Your Body
Advice & How-to
They leap, sprint, and attack with ultra-human strength and speed.
They take out other well-trained, super-strong, world-class enemy combatants — often with their bare hands.
Inside this amazing report, you’ll learn how elite Special Forces troops eat, sleep, work out, and the nutritional supplements they use.
Progeny (The Children of the White Lions)
Fantasy
- $4.99 List Price
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Nikalys and his sister Kenders have grown up living a peaceful life in the small village of Yellow Mud.
On a blistering hot day, brother and sister head to the lake for a swim. There, they witness a mysterious stranger send forth a massive, living wave that swallows their village. Believing they are the sole survivors, the two strike out on their own, hoping to discover why their home and family have been destroyed. They must make their way through a countryside where magic is outlawed while struggling with the revelation that one of them can “weave the Strands.”
A Magic Broken
Fantasy
A Magic Broken is a tale of ruthlessness, courage and deceit. The novella tells the story of Captain Nicolas du Mere, an exile fleeing the death of his rebel lord, and Lodi, son of Dunmorin, a brave dwarf dedicated to rescuing his fellow dwarves from slavery. Their dangerous paths meet, but in a manner that is anything but predictable.
The Twenty Dollar Bill
Contemporary Fiction
- $1.99 List Price
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Follow the path of a twenty dollar bill as it is stolen, given, spent or otherwise passed from person to person, traveling from place to place.
No bombastic explosions, steamy sex scenes, political intrigue or cosmic encounters. Just slices of life from the people you walk by every day – glimpses into how ordinary people interact, how they think, how they feel and how they love.
Ever Shade (A Dark Faerie Tale #1)
Children’s eBooks
The evil Unseelie Queen and her treacherous allies are around every corner as Shade makes her way across the breathtaking landscapes of the world of Faerie, which exists alongside the mundane human world. Shade discovers her own uncharted magic and meets some of the most powerful warriors in Faerie while battling evil dryads, conniving Teleen guards and challenges on her life with every step in a world where nothing can be taken for granted.
Wraith
Children’s eBooks
Freak. Weird. Crazy. These are the names tossed around seventeen-year old Jane Watts by her fellow classmates. But things aren’t always as they seem. Sometimes there’s a reason for talking to yourself in the hallway at school.
Jane struggles with adjusting to her new home and school after an abrupt move. She wants one thing in life—to be like everyone else at school, but that’s hard to do when you’re the new kid. But she does manage to make one friend, Evan—he’s sixteen, charming, and protective. Everything a girl could want in a best friend…with one minor caveat.
He’s dead.
The Rules of Work, Expanded Edition: A Definitive Code for Personal Success (2nd Edition) (Richard Templar’s Rules)
Business & Investing
- $15.99 List Price
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Some people are simply great at their job; they always seem to say or do the right thing. They are mentioned in every conversation. Everybody likes them. They get promoted. They get pay raises. They get along with the boss. And somehow, they do all these things without being unpleasant, breaking much of a sweat or seeming to put in excess effort. And when they are offered another step up the corporate ladder or a fabulous new job, no one is surprised. After all, they have ‘potential’ written all over them. How do they do it? Do they know some secret we don’t? Yes, they know The Rules of Work.
Marketing Metrics: The Definitive Guide to Measuring Marketing Performance (2nd Edition)
Business & Investing
- $31.99 List Price
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The definitive guide to today’s most valuable marketing metrics. Four leading marketing researchers show exactly how to choose the right metrics for every challenge and expand their treatment of social marketing, web metrics, and brand equity. They also give readers new systems for organizing marketing metrics into models and dashboards that translate numbers into management insight.
The authors show how to use marketing dashboards to view market dynamics from multiple perspectives, maximize accuracy, and “triangulate” to optimal solutions. You’ll discover high-value metrics for virtually every facet of marketing: promotional strategy, advertising, and distribution; customer perceptions; market share; competitors’ power; margins and pricing; products and portfolios; customer profitability; sales forces and channels; and more.
Identity: Your Passport to Success
Advice & How-to
Have you ever thought about the connection between knowing who you are and success? Identity can serve as your greatest asset. Enduringly successful people know who they are, are clear about what matters to them, have established powerful identities, and create value in the world.
In this book, the process for discovering and understanding your identity is brought to life through Stedman Graham’s personal experiences and the stories of individuals who’ve resolved their questions of identity, building a life that matters to themselves and those around them.
The Resume is Dead
Business & Investing
One summer day, Matt Epstein applied to 20 different companies on LinkedIn to find work. He waited.
He never heard back a single response. Fear began to creep in. He couldn’t find a job because of one simple reason: He was blending in with the masses. Panic began to race through his mind. “Seriously, what the hell am I doing here?” He took a deep breath, stepped back and assessed the situation.
And then a stroke of genius hit him.
How is it that Matt was able to get publicity from just about every big name media outlet, generate a massive fan base and garner 80 interview offers from top tier, innovative companies while so many of us have to beg for a single interview?
Trifling
Contemporary Fiction
Being the fiance’ of a caked up hustler isn’t always sweet, but Sparkle keeps her game-face on. She resides in a nice home with her fiance’ Sayveon, an infamous, well known drug dealer. He has everything on lock from his hometown of Jackson, Mississippi to South Florida.
Because of Sayveon’s drug empire and lifestyle, Sparkle finds herself constantly being included in dramatic situations with his random chicks. He’s one of the most wanted men in the Dirty South by the ladies.Sayveon forces Sparkle to believe that if she’s that ‘ride or die’ chick, that he needs on his team, everything will end in her favor. However, unknown to Sayveon, Sparkle suddenly has a change of heart and falls in love with someone from her past.
Making Sense of People: Decoding the Mysteries of Personality (FT Press Science)
Advice & How-to
- $25.99 List Price
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Every day, we evaluate the people around us: It’s one of the most important things we ever do. This book provides the scientific frameworks and tools we need to improve our intuition, and assess people more consciously, systematically, and effectively.
Leading neuroscientist Samuel H. Barondes explains the research behind each standard personality category: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness. He shows readers how to use these traits and assessments to do a better job of deciding who they’ll enjoy spending time with, whom to trust, and whom to keep at a distance.
Mystery & Thrillers
- $2.99 List Price
- See Kindle Price at Amazon.com
It’s every parent’s worst nightmare: A child fails to return home. As hours turn to days, all they can do is hope. Some children never come back…
Driven by the need to know why, a mother confronts the man accused of her daughter’s murder, he presents a compelling defence, convincing Claire not only that he is innocent of harming her daughter, but that his previous convictions were not what they seemed. Teaming up with a second-year psychology student and a fourteen year-old truant schoolboy, this is the story of a mother’s fight to bring one man’s reign of terror to an end.
Romeo and Juliet: A Vampire and Werewolf Love Story
Romance
The year is 2099, and New York City, now renamed Verona, has been turned upside down. Three sides have risen up and two of them are immortals. The vampires are led by the House of Capulet, and Juliet’s father is the head honcho. The werewolves are led by Lord Montague of the House of Montague, Romeo’s father. Lastly, there are warlocks and witches who roam the city, using magic as a last resort to protect their mortality.
The two star-crossed lovers from opposing families find one another and fall hopelessly in love. Romeo and Juliet find a magnificent love that goes completely against all the odds of such a great union ever happening. Their love overflows to the point that they decide they must take the ultimate risk and reveal their love to all.
Gateway (The Gateway Trilogy, Book 1)
Fantasy
- $0.99 List Price
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Ember has always known she doesn’t belong in this world, but when she tries to correct the mistake, she wakes to find herself in a mental institution.
There she draws the attention of Taren, a mysterious boy who isn’t what he seems.
When chaos erupts, they are forced to flee the institution together, and the secret Taren has been keeping brings Ember closer to understanding her own.
Happy Animals. A Children’s Animal Picture Book
Children’s eBooks
- $2.99 List Price
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Happy cat.
Happy dog.
Happy frog, on a log.
Happy owl, in a tree.
Happy ducks. One, two, three.
Playing Nice
Teens
Martina “Marty” Hart is really nice. At least, that’s what people think.
It’s Marty’s junior year at Minster High. Minster’s a small town where making great grades, smiling pretty, helping old people, running the new-student Welcoming Committee, and putting up decorations for all the dances–including the totally awful Hot Shot fall hunting celebration–gets you … what? Marty’s not sure. Instead of dreaming about a sororities-and-frats future at nearby University of Michigan, she’s restless, searching for a way out of the box her controlling mother and best frenemy Sarah have locked her in.
Pretending to Love: How to Cheat Your Way to Relationship Bliss!
Humor
A ridiculously tongue-in-cheek guide to navigating the perils and pitfalls of a modern relationship, this book will teach you how to attract the right sort of partner, trick them into liking you, manipulate their feelings to suit your own needs, and then dump them in an appropriate fashion when you get bored and/or hungry.
Dominant Species Volume Three — Acquired Traits (Dominant Species Series)
Horror
Branded as murderers and forced into hiding in the jungle planet’s deepest recesses, pilot John Soledad, biologist Rachel Sanders, and medic Donna Applegate survive on their wits, frequent field remedies applied by Donna, and late-night raids on the colony’s storage warehouses for needed supplies.
While the trio struggles to survive, another threat–one more virulent than the jungle’s life forms–threatens the very survival of the new colony. Rachel’s venom-induced visions are telling her something–revealing the terrible nature of the danger–and awakening memories of things and events ancient, dark and monstrous.
Light, Bright and Polite: How Businesses And Professionals Can Safely And Effectively Navigate Social Media
Business & Investing
Ochs outlines many of his counter-intuitive marketing techniques he has used on over 36+ brands in multiple industries. Josh also shares dozens of grassroots techniques and tips he has developed to unite thousands of people at his international networking events that bring together professionals in over 15 cities, 4 countries, and 3 languages. He also shows brands how to keep their social media messaging safe by reminding them to always keep it Light, Bright and Polite.
Thirty Days Hath…
Religious Fiction
Blind Dates Are for Wimps! At least, that’s what Adric Garrison thinks. Can you blame him? Thanks to his sister and brother-in-law, Adric is about to embark on a year of month-long, chaperoned, blind dates. awkward.
He didn’t ask for it. But Adric still finds himself living what seems more like a bad TV reality show than a new life in Fairbury.
Sir Alex and the Missing Toys
Children’s eBooks
Alex is bored! He doesn’t want to clean up the house, he just wants to play. Then, Alex gets an idea. He will be Sir Alex! He’ll ride on his horse and travel to the village, where a Toy-Stealing Terrible Troll has been seen. Why is the Troll stealing toys? What will Alex do to get the toys back? Find out in this light and fun bedtime story.