Xi Force series, Book 4 Triptych / S. C. Mitchell / 262 pages

Fourth book in the Xi Force series.  Maggie O'Donnell dreamed of becoming an astronaut, and instead she ends up flying the Xi Force super jet shuttling their superheroes around when needed. But when her grandmother passes away and she inherits the powers of the Irish goddess Morrigan from her, she is able to split herself in three to become the three aspects of Morrigan, the healer, the warrior, and the sorceress.  But she also inherited her ancestor’s enemy. Whenever the power is passed on the prison holding The Fae Queen Genevieve weakens and she can escape to cause havoc. As Maggie steps into an even bigger role with the super team Xi Force she also has to deal with her family’s ancient enemy who's out to destroy her and anyone close to her. Paul Tompkins is leader of Pike's rangers, the Xi Force support team. He’s required to keep Maggie in the friend zone because of his job, but her new position in Xi Force suddenly changes everything now that she’s a civilian contract and not part of the rangers. If all that’s isn’t enough when an earthquake causes cracks and crevices in the Xi Force base’s foundation it reveals that there’s some weird spaceship with aliens inside under the base. Narrated by Larry Gorman 7h 20min.

Hid from Our Eyes/ Julia Spencer-Fleming/ 445 pgs

This is book 9 in the long-standing Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne series. Due to tragic circumstances it's been 7 years since the last book came out but this one does not disappoint. Clare and Russ are the proud parents of a new baby and Clare, especially, is dealing with juggling a baby, her marriage, her job, and childcare.This series has never shied away from the messier emotions in life and doesn't do so now. The mystery actually spans three different time periods. Three unknown young women are found murdered on the same road in town--one in the 1950s, one in the 1970s, and one in present day. The story follows all three timelines, though the focus is mostly on the present. In addition to that, the town of Millers Kill is taking a vote on whether or not to keep funding their police force, which means Russ's job is on the line. All of the major players are present in this story and their lives pick up right where the last book left off. This is an excellent continuation of this series. I read an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) of this title. It will be released on 4/7/2020.

Watching from the Dark/ Gytha Lodge/ 352 pgs

I enjoyed Lodge's first book in this police procedural series and was excited to see this second book come out. This series takes place outside of London, in the Southampton area of the southern coast with DCI Jonah Sheens as the lead investigator. A college student by the name of Zoe ends up dead in her apartment. The only witness is her boyfriend who had Skyped in to talk to her and "heard" the murder, though did not see the murderer. As the police investigate, there are a number of suspects, including the boyfriend who happens to be a married, older man. There is an interesting cast of characters here and some great police work. While I guessed who the murderer was fairly early on due to some early subtle clues, the solution was by no means obvious. This is a solid new series for fans of British police procedurals.

The Sun Down Motel/ Simone St. James/ 327 pgs

Simone St. James delivers again with a spooky, creepy emotional tale. The Sun Down Motel is not only the title of the book but also a character unto itself in the story. In 1982, Vivian Delaney took off from her home in Illinois to become an actress in New York City. That was the vague plan, but she ended up in an upstate New York town called Fell and worked the night shift at the Sun Down Motel. Months later she disappeared. Thirty-five years later, her niece Carly heads to Fell to try to find out what happened to her aunt. Carly discovers, as Vivian did, that someone is killing young women and it all started when one of the women, Betty, was killed and dumped on the construction site of the motel. Betty, and others, haunt the hotel. This is downright creepy but it's also fascinating that the characters in the book just accept the existence of the ghosts without question. The story alternates between Vivian and Carly's points of view as they each work to achieve justice for the murdered women. This book has layers upon layers and is an all-around fantastic read.

Guild Codex: Spellbound Series, Book 5 The Alchemist And An Amaretto / Annette Marie/ 296 pages

As a guild bartender, Tori can handle pretty much anything thrown her way, mages, sorcerers, druids, witches, the occasional demon. But anything family-related and she’d rather run for the hills. So why on earth did she agree to spend the holiday with her three best guy friends Aaron, Ezra, and Kai at Aaron family’s home, which is a giant castle that is also a school.  Meeting his famous parents is already terrifying enough, but there are bigger problems. Students of Aaron’s family's renowned mage academy are being attacked on the grounds and somehow no one has seen a single assailant. Unexplained tracks litter the nearby woods, rumors of forbidden alchemy are circulating the campus, Ezra has been acting strangely since they arrived, and Aaron is falling back into his old way surrounded by the upper class elite at the school.  Something deadly is brewing in the shadow of Sinclair Academy, and the longer Tori and her friends take to uncover it, the more dangerous it becomes. But no matter the risk, they’re determined to protect the students. And Aaron's parents too, If they have to. Narrated by Cris Dukehart 6h 55min.

Gwendy's Magic Feather / Richard Chizmar / 328 pages

This is the sequel to the book Stephen King and Richard Chizmar co-wrote, Gwendy's Button Box.  Gwendy Peterson is now thirty-seven years old and is a representative in the United States Congress.  She returns to office in Washington one day after a meeting and finds the mysterious button box of her childhood sitting on her desk.  The box was entrusted to her one summer by Richard Farris, a mysterious stranger.  The buttons if pressed could cause catastrophic events in any part of the world.  Gwendy takes the box home with her over the Christmas holidays.  The box has effects over her mother's battle with cancer and with the disappearance of three girls from the town.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time / Mark Haddon / 226 pages

This book is about a mathematically gifted autistic boy, Christopher,  living in England.  The author tells the story from Christopher's point of view. Christopher's mother has left him and his father to live in London with another man.  She can no longer cope with raising an autistic child.  Christopher's father tells him his mother is sick in the hospital and then that she has died.  One day Christopher is in his neighbor's backyard and discovers that the neighbor's dog has been murdered.  Christopher sets out to be a detective and track down clues to solve the dog's murder.  In the process he stumbles on evidence that his father has lied to him about his mother and that she is living in London.  Angry with his father Christopher takes off on his own to London to find his mother.

Nightshade Paranormal Cozy Series, Book 1 Witch You Were Here / Lori Woods / 196 pages

Late one night Suzy Maycomber hears a strange noise in her house and goes to investigate it only to find a man trying to steal her grandmother’s old silver drinking cup, when she goes to hit him with an old broom the man disappears through the wall.  Thinking she imagined it or is going crazy she goes back to bed. The next day on a routine trip to the vet she hears a voice crying for help and Suzy Maycomber and her cat, Snowball, take a shortcut through the cemetery only to find themselves in the mystical land of Nightshade, where magic exists and cats talk, and her broom is magical.  Only the librarian, Rachel, the most powerful witch in Nightshade, can help Suzy get home, only problem, Rachel's just been murdered. Desperate to find her way home, Suzy reluctantly agrees to take Rachel's place as Nightshade's resident witch and librarian where she'll have access to the spell books that might hold the answers she needs. But her search for the truth draws Suzy ever deeper into danger. There is someone-or something-in Nightshade that doesn't want Suzy to get home. Rachel's murderer is prepared to kill again-and Suzy may be next. If Suzy wants to get home, she'll have to learn to be a witch first. Narrated by Rebecca Mitchell 5h 49min.

Lords of Kassis Series, Book 4 Ristéard's Unwilling Empress/ S. E. Smith / 285 pages

Fourth book in the Lord of Kassis series, Ricki Bailey is a member Cirque de Magik and when they found out that three of their members were kidnapped by aliens and then later settled on the planet Kassis, the circus decided to go with and settle there too.  While Ricki herself doesn’t perform for the circus she does handle all the circus’s problems, paper work, and organization. Ristéard Roald is the powerful and deadly ruler of Elpidios, a planet that is slowly dying without the Blood Stones needed to absorb the radiation gradually destroying its stratosphere. He has sworn to do whatever it takes to protect his world and his people, but time is running out. When he comes across Ricki he recognizes her from a painting done about the Empress of Elpidios and the prophecy that says she will save it.  Desperate for his people and attracted to her like no other, Ristéard kidnaps her. Narrated by Samantha Cook 6h 55min.

Lords of Kassis Series, Book 3 Jo's Journey / S. E. Smith / 212 pages

Third book in the Lord of Kassis series, Jo Strauss is a circus performer when she and her sister are kidnapped by aliens and then saved by her best friend / sister  River they end up on the planet Kassis. There the brother of the leader of Kassis, Manota Ja Kel Coradon tries to claim her as his. The second son of the ruling House of Kassis Manota is known for his knowledge, skills, and development of weaponry and his legendary skill as a warrior.  Jo starts to fall in love with him but refuses to commit all the way until he takes her back to her planet to see her parents, since she and her sisters have been missing for a couple months, and the worry must be killing them. But once there it seems like the entire circus wants to come back with her and her parents to Kassis, and then on their return journey to Kassis their spaceship is attacked by pirates. Narrated by Samantha Cook 7h 2min.

Lords of Kassis Series, Book 2 Star's Storm / S. E. Smith / 212 pages

Second book in the Lord of Kassis series,  Star Strauss is a circus performer when she and her sister are kidnapped by aliens and then saved by her best friend / sister  River they end up on Kassis. There the brother of the leader of Kassis, Jazin Ja Kel Coradon tries to claim her as his. He is known not only for his skills as a fierce warrior but also for his knowledge of communication, security, and weapons systems.  Star starts to fall for him when he goes on a mission to protect their world, Kassis, from attack from a new group of rebels and is killed. But then information surfaces that his spaceship exploding was a cover to kidnap him to torture and break him to get information on Kassis’s defenses.  Now Star and a couple friends must lead a covert rescue mission to get him back before the rebels kill him. Narrated by Samantha Cook 7h 36min.

Lords of Kassis Series, Book 1 River's Run / S. E. Smith / 216 pages

River Knight works for a traveling circus and decides to take a much needed vacation to see her two best friends who are like her sisters.  But right when she’s getting there she sees her sisters being kidnapped by aliens, so she sneaks onto their spaceship and stows away until she can break her sister out and try to find away back home.  In the process she comes across another group of aliens also held captive. And she makes a deal with them if she and her sisters help them escape and take over the ship they will help her and her sister to get home.  But taking River home is the last thing on Torak Ja Kel Coradon, leader of the House of Kassis and the next ruler of the Kassis galaxy, mind. He believes that the three women are believed to be the prophesied warriors sent to join forces to bring peace to the House of Kassis, and he wants to keep River all to himself.  Narrated by Samantha Cook 47h 53min

Xi Force Series, Book 3 Wylde / S. C. Mitchell / 250 pages

When Jonathan Wylde was a child his father experimented on him grafting wolf DNA into his own and treating him like an animal.  When he eventually escaped he made the wild forests his home and joined a wolf pack. Eventually he is captured again and most of his pack killed and Kayla Armstong’s stolen science for self repairing fabric is used on him. Now as the only survivor of that experiment he has super healing powers.  When Joel Weisberg tries to recruit him, he reluctantly becomes a member of the Xi Force super team and keeps to himself unless his talents are needed. Dove Locklear is a childhood friend of Jonathan’s and after being brought into Xi Force to act as a veterinarian to check over Jonathan’s pack, they reconnect.  But returning home from work one night Dove is kidnapped by an agent of Red Guard, the group Jonathan’s monster of a father is a part of, and is also responsible for his new healing powers, and she is whisked away to the secret Russian facility Jonathan was held for most of his formative years. They want her knowledge of her own father’s research as well as to help Mr. Wylde with his unethical research into splicing human and animal DNA.  If Wylde wants to save her he is going to have to go back to his worst nightmare and confront the father who experimented on him. Narrated by: Larry Gorman 7h 12min.

Xi Force Series, Book 2 Phaze / S. C. Mitchell / 254 pages

When Kayla Armstrong stayed late at the Xi Force lab one night working on herself repairing fabric project, she is attacked by an intruder intent on stealing her research to use it on humans.  In the commotion a cart of chemicals spills onto her and when the intruder points his gun at her intending to kill her she suddenly finds herself naked on Joel Weisberg’s bed. She phased through not just the floor of her lab but also her clothes.  Joel Weisberg is the leader of Xi Force a government funded organization created to keep up with advancing science and technology and especially when it has been used on humans to give them abilities. Joel likes to joke about creating his own group of superheroes and trying to find more for his team and he thinks that Kayla would be a perfect new member when she falls into his lap.  However an old enemy that killed Joel and got him brought back as a Z-bot, a human with tiny nanobot machines injected into the blood to heal and repair a person, bringing them back from the dead, affectionately called the zombie bot program until it was discontinued, comes back with new powers. She was suppose to be in prison until she escaped and the things she did to Joel and made Joel do under her control gives him nightmares, and then she kidnaps him and is holding him prisoner again and it’s up to Kayla to try to find and rescue him before he is murdered again.  Narrated by: Larry Gorman 7h 30min.

Xi Force Series, Book 1 Z-Bot / S. C. Mitchell / 254 pages

Chris Johnson never really lived until he was dead. When he decided to get his turn around and stop being such a shut-in with his programmer job and playing video games, he also decides that when he dies he wants to donate his body to science, since he has no family, little money, and few friends. He meet’s Heather Logan signs up to donate his body to her scientific research in the event of his death, he didn’t think he would to murdered less than a week later, he had really want to go out on a date with Heather.  Heather Logan’s newest research is a project she created to use nanobots to reanimate a corpse. Half robot and half something raised from the dead. She had had every intention of calling Chris back and then she finds out that he’s dead and her project brings him back, he is her first successful resuscitation. It was only intended to reanimate and create a living robot with the nanobot controlling him, she had no idea that he would actually come back from the dead and remain the same Chris. Is he truly alive, a machine, or some kind of zombie-hybrid?  And then there are people who want to steal her secret process and take her out of the picture permanently. Chris, with his new superpowers, is the only thing standing between Heather and an assassin's bullet. Narrated by: Larry Gorman 7h 20min.

The Family Upstairs/ Lisa Jewell/ 340 pgs

Lisa Jewell's new book sets an interesting story. Twenty-five-year-old Libby has just learned that she inherited a multi million pound house in a posh area of London. Turns out that twenty-five years ago the police were anonymously called to the home and discovered three dead adults and one very much alive ten month old baby--Libby. Four teenagers were also missing from the home. No one seemed to have any idea what was going on in the home, but it looked as if it were being run as a small isolated cult. At the same time we are hearing Libby's story, we go back twenty-five years and hear from Henry, one of the teenagers. Concurrently, we also hear from a woman named Lucy, who is struggling to stay afloat in the south of France with her two children. The multiple perspectives are interesting and of course they converge at the end to reveal the truth of what happened so many years ago. Some of the story is easy to guess and I can't quite fathom how some of the characters react to each other at the very end of the story, but Jewell always writes an interesting read.

Harmony Ghost Hunter Series, book 7 Midnight Crystal / Jayne Castle / 417 pages

Seventh book in Jayne Castle’s  (Jayne Ann Krentz) Harmony series (Also the third book in her Dreamlight Trilogy ), set on the futuristic alien world of Harmony. Adam Winters is the new head of the local Ghost Hunter Guild and on top of having to clean house of all the corrupt people in his guild, he has to deal with his family’s curse.  Once every few generations someone in his family gets the curse and if they don’t find the midnight crystal lamp, a special artifact that his Arcane ancestor made, and find someone with the psychic abilities to use the lamp and then use it on them, they eventually go insane. His family had the lamp and then it was stolen now Adam needs to find it and someone who can use it before he goes insane.  But he also needs the lamp for other reasons. He made an extraordinary find in the alien catacombs, he found a maze that he thinks leads to the power source that lights not just the ruins above in the cities but also the catacombs below. Only something felt wrong with the source and before he could find out more he and his team had to evacuate and one of his team members, his sister, has fallen into a coma and hasn’t woken.  Adam thinks the key to the maze and waking his sister is the midnight crystal lamp. Marlowe Jones is a descendant of the Adam’s family’s rival Arcane family, she’s just what Adam needs: a psychic private investigator to help him find the lamp and she has the psychic abilities he needs to use the lamp, now he just needs to figure out if he can trust her.

Harmony Ghost Hunter Series, book 6 Obsidian Prey / Jayne Castle / 384 pages

Sixth book in Jayne Castle’s  (Jayne Ann Krentz) Harmony series, set on the futuristic alien world of Harmony.  Lyra Dore is an amber tuner, she tunes all kinds of amber and crystals for her customers to channel their psychic abilities though and she is also an independent prospector, that goes down into the alien catacombs beneath the surface to try to find new discoveries and her own cache of amber.  When she makes her own discovery it gets stolen from her by Amber Inc a big family owned corporation. Cruz Sweetwater CEO of Amer Inc, although when Lyra met him, he was going by a different name, seduced her, made her fall in love with him and when she trusted him with her discovery he stole it with his connections for his family’s company, then left her and broke her heart.  Now he’s back and needs her help. The gate to the cave of rare amethyst amber that she had found has closed, five members of the excavation team are trapped inside and only someone who can work with amethyst amber can open it and to date the only one who can is Lyra. But even more dangerous things are occurring, it looks like someone tried to deliberately close the gate and trap people inside, there is a missing artifact from the excavation and someone from Sweetwater’s team was murdered to steal it.

Sensor Series, Book 6 Darkness Wanes / Susan Illene / 534 pages

Sixth book in the Sensor series, by Susan Illene.  Melena Sanders has been sentenced to time in prison in purgatory for breaking a few of the Angel’s laws.  First she gave her foster daughter her blood to heal her when she contracted the plague and was dying. Second she knew about Ariel, Micah, and many other supernatural’s plan to “come out” about magic and supernaturals to the normal population.  Third she knew about, helped plan and participated in breaking into purgatory to free the half Nephilim/ half sensor supernaturals that had been imprisoned there since their birth. So the fact that the Angels only gave her a three month sentence along with the other Nephilim and supernaturals that participated was a light sentence.  Lucas is trying to hold things together while she is gone but he also has to deal with the sentence the angel’s pasted on him, he’s stuck in Alaska, not aloud to leave and has to teach the half Nephilim/ half sensor supernatural’s about earth, humans, and society. But as soon as Melena gets back suspicious fires are spreading in Alaska, supernaturals are being attacked and it seems that even though Melena and the supernaturals helped the Department of Homeland Security stop her father’s terrorist group of Sensors one of her brothers escaped capture. Her brother has now started a group that is recruiting normal humans to target supernaturals.  This is just the beginning and if Lucas and Melena want to survive they’re going to have to work together. Narrated by: Cris Dukehart 12h 45min.

Sensor Series, Book 5 Darkness Shatters / Susan Illene / 430 pages

Fifth book in the Sensor series, set in Fairbanks Alaska.  Melena has watched a lot of her friends die recently and she blames herself for not being able to act quick enough.  So when a deadly illness that only targets supernaturals mysteriously appears, she is determined to stop it and find a cure or vaccine for it, especially when people she knows and cares about, like her troll friend and her foster daughter’s boyfriend catch it.  But it appears it may be more complicated than she thought. Her father and his sensor group of terrorists may be responsible for creating this strain of the plague that has demon magic in it that weakens supernaturals causing them to contract the disease. If that’s not enough Melena has to watch her boyfriend, Lucas suffer as he searches endlessly for his missing brother, Micah when she has been sworn to silence by a vow not to talk about his location.  Micah’s helping the angel Ariel set up plans to break out the half Nephilim and half sensor supernaturals that were taken by the angels when they were born and placed in purgatory. Narrated by: Cris Dukehart 9h 29 min.