Books I'm sticking in stockings this year
Discover the best books to stuff in stockings this year! Find perfect reads for every book lover on your list with our curated holiday gift guide.
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Visions of Sugar Plums
by Janet Evanovich
It's five days before Christmas and things are not looking merry for Fugitive Apprehension Agent Stephanie Plum. She hasn't got a tree. She hasn't bought any presents. The malls are jam-packed with staggering shoppers. There's not a twinkle light anywhere to be seen in her apartment. And there's a strange man in her kitchen. Sure, this has happened to Stephanie Plum before. Strangers, weirdos, felons, creeps, and lunatics are always finding their way to her front door. But this guy is different. This guy is mysterious, sexy-and he has his own agenda. His name is Diesel and he is a man on a mission. And Diesel is unlike anyone Stephanie has ever met before in her life. The question is, what does he want with her? Can he help her find a little old toy maker who has skipped out on his bail right before Christmas? Can he survive the Plum family holiday dinner? Can he get Stephanie a tree that doesn't look like it was grown next to a nuclear power plant? These questions and more are keeping Stephanie awake at night. Not to mention the fact that she needs to find a bunch of nasty elves, her sister Valerie has a Christmas "surprise" for the Plums, her niece Mary Alice doesn't believe in Santa anymore, and Grandma Mazur has a new stud muffin. So bring out the plastic reindeer, strap on your jingle bells, and get ready to celebrate the holidays-Jersey style. Visions of Sugar Plums-the world of Plum has never been merrier!
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The Janson Directive
by Robert Ludlum
One of the world's greatest men has been kidnapped. Nobel laureate, international financier, and philanthropist Peter Novak - a billionaire who has committed his life and fortune to fostering democracy around the world through his Liberty Foundation - has been captured by the forces led by the near-mythical terrorist known as The Caliph. Holding Novak in a near impenetrable fortress, The Caliph has refused to negotiate for his release, planning instead to brutally execute Novak in a matter of days. Running out of time and hope, Novak's people turn to a man with a long history of defeating impossible odds: Paul Janson. For decades, Janson was an operative and assassin whose skills and exploits made him a legend in the notorious U.S. covert agency Consular Operatations. No longer able to live with the brutality, bloodshed, and personal loss that marked his career, Janson has retired from the field and nothing could lure him back. Nothing except Peter Novak, a man who once saved Janson's life when everyone else was powerless to help. With the considerable resources of The Liberty Foundation at his disposal, Janson hastily assembles a crack extraction team, setting in motion an ingenious rescue operation. But the operation goes horribly wrong and Janson is marked for death, the target of a "beyond salvage" order issued from the highest level of the government. Now he is running for his life, pursued by Jessica Kincaid, a young agent of astonishing ability who - as a student of Janson's own lethal arsenal of tactics and techniques - can anticipate and counter his every move. To survive, Janson must outrace a conspiracy that has gone beyond the control of its originators. To win, he must counter it with a conspiracy of his own. With mere days, perhaps only hours, remaining, and shadowed by a secret that links Janson's violent life with that of the visionary peacemaker Peter Novak, Janson's only hope is to uncover the nearly unimaginable truth behind these events - a truth that has the power to foment wars, topple governments, and change the very course of history.
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Precinct Puerto Rico
by Steven Torres
Near RincĂłn, Puerto Rico, 1987. Even a tropical paradise may have its little murders. In his years as sheriff of Angustias, a small town nestled in Puerto Rico's mountainous heart, Luis Gonzalo has seen his share of violence. People kill for love and money in Angustias just as they do anywhere else. But it is during a visit to his wife's family in the seaside town of RincĂłn that Gonzalo encounters his greatest challenge. A midnight call brings Gonzalo to a beach where bodies are washing ashore, victims of a shipwreck, victims of the illegal traffic in humans from the Dominican Republic. When he discovers evidence that the shipwreck was no accident, that the ship's captain was murdered, Gonzalo's life is threatened. When he discovers proof that Puerto Rican police were involved in the deaths of the illegal immigrants, the lives of his wife and children are threatened. The murder of one of his deputies brings Gonzalo no closer to the bottom of this mystery-- a mystery no other law enforcement agency wants to help him solve. The first in a series of police procedural mysteries featuring Luis Gonzalo and the citizens and cops of Angustias, Precinct Puerto Rico: Book One is a brilliant beginning to a continuing story from a long overdue locale.
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Nobody Knows
by Mary Jane Clark
With her career shortened by accusations of "ambitious reporting," former Washington journalist Cassie Sheridan is banished to Miami, where she stumbles across a body--and a mystery--while reporting on a hurricane.
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Somebody Else's Music
by Jane Haddam
Jane Haddam's stylishly written novels featuring Gregor Demarkian, retired chief of the FBI's Behavioral Sciences Unit, have thrilled and delighted an ever-increasing number of readers over the years. Now, with Somebody Else's Music, Haddam delivers her most compelling crime novel to date - a brilliant exploration of how the past affects the present and the twisted workings of human psyche. Elizabeth Toliver, now an acclaimed author with a rock star lover, was a too-smart, fashion-impaired teen who was the target of abuse from a circle of popular high school girls. The abuse escalated until one summer night she was nailed into an outhouse with over twenty snakes and, while she beat herself into a coma trying to escape, a local teenage boy was murdered just outside. Still haunted by nightmares of that night, Toliver returns to her hometown for the first time in almost 30 years, triggering a deadly chain of events.
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Paper Doll
by Robert B. Parker
Boston PI Spenser investigates the perfect murder in this New York Times bestselling mystery in Robert B. Parker’s acclaimed series. She was a model wife and mother, bludgeoned with a hammer on the streets of Beacon Hill. Spenser's searching for a motive and a murderer—and finding more secrets than meet the eye... “Among the best Spensers...Parker's at the top of his game!”—Boston Globe
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Rejar
by Dara Joy
There is only one thing a woman can think of when looking at a man like him. Sex. But Lilac never guesses that bringing a stray cat into her home will soon have her stroking the most wanted man in 1811 London.
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Fantasy
by Christine Feehan
Give in to your desires with this collection of stories from four of today's hottest romance authors—including #1 New York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan. You have nothing to lose...but your inhibitions. In the Leopard novella “The Awakening,” a beautiful naturalist’s dream to live among the feral jungle creatures comes true under the blazing heat of the Borneo sun. But an untamed, irresistible beast of another sort forces her to explore her own wild side... Join Sabrina Jeffries at “The Widow’s Auction” where adventurous ladies in Victorian London are available to the highest bidder. Yet how far will a modest widow go to fulfill her fantasy of being auctioned off as a rake’s midnight plaything? In Emma Holly’s “Luisa’s Desire,” a child of midnight has arrived in a spiritual Tibetan refuge to rid herself of wicked desires. Here this ageless beauty meets the one man who can save her—or damn her soul forever... And in Elda Minger’s “Mr. Speedy,” a private, all-male school for seduction sets the stage for a tenacious woman who might just graduate with honors—if she can maintain her disguise long enough to give the man of her dreams a few lessons...
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The Maze
by Catherine Coulter
In this FBI Thriller Special Agent Dillon Savich teams up with new agent Lacey Sherlock in a case that leads them back to the murder of Sherlock's sister seven years ago—and puts both their lives on the line. As the head of the FBI’s Criminal Apprehension Unit, Dillon Savich has developed predictive analogue programs to aid in the capture of serial killers. Enter Lacey Sherlock, a very well-qualified new agent who seems bright and eager and on the up-and-up. But is she really? When there’s a vicious murder in Boston, she’s off like a shot, lying to Savich. When Savich finds out what’s going on, he realizes they’ll all be in deep trouble, maybe even victims themselves, if he and Sherlock don’t find out who murdered her sister seven years before....