Fiction I Really Enjoyed
Discover a curated list of fiction books I truly loved! From gripping novels to unforgettable stories, explore my top picks for must-read fiction.
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Merchant of Venus
by Ellen Hart
Restaurateur and sometime sleuth Jane Lawless accompanies her friend Cordelia to Connecticut for her estranged sister's wedding. But the groom, a reclusive 83-year-old film director with a guarded past, has disappeared. In this intricate, juicy entry in Hart's beloved Lambda Award-nominated series, Jane must confront the secrets and lies of Hollywood's golden age.
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Final Target
by Iris Johansen
The President’s daughter... The women determined to save her... The man with the power to betray a nation... Melissa Riley arrives at her sister’s isolated Virginia country home to find herself plunged into a deadly drama. There the renowned Dr. Jessica Riley is attempting to draw the daughter of the President of the United States out of a severe catatonic trauma. The last thing young Cassie Andreas saw was an organized team ruthlessly murder her nanny and the Secret Service agents sworn to protect her. But to free Cassie, Melissa and Jessica must trust a mysterious, charismatic man. Michael Travis made his fortune in the international underworld. He risked everything to save Cassie during that terrible night of bloodshed. And he has entered into a secret bargain with the President. But is his show of concern all a treacherous charade? Melissa and Jessica have no choice but to accept Travis as their ally—and to follow a dangerous plan that will lead them into the world of a killer who’ll destroy anyone standing between him and the...Final Target.
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The Bitch in the House
by Cathi Hanauer
My friends and I moaned about how tired we were. During dips in our conversation, I found myself looking at the teenage couple seated at a table, their chairs side by side. They kissed. My friend asked me about my marriage. "Are you guys having sex?" she asked bluntly... I wanted to laugh. -- Jill Bialosky Women today have more choices than at any time in history, yet many smart, ambitious, contemporary women are finding themselves angry, dissatisfied, stressed out. Why are they dissatisfied? And what do they really want? These questions form the premise of this passionate, provocative, funny, searingly honest collection of original essays in which twenty-six women writers invite readers into their lives, minds, and bedrooms to talk about the choices they've made, what's working, and what's not. Here are a few things people have said about me at the office: "You're unflappable." "Are you ever in a bad mood?" Here are things people -- okay, the members of my family -- have said about me at home: "Mommy is always grumpy." "Why are you so tense?" "You're too mean to live in this house and I want you to go back to work for the rest of your life!" -- Kristin van Ogtrop With wit and humor, in prose as poetic and powerful as it is blunt and dead-on, these intriguing women -- ranging in age from twenty-four to sixty-five, single and childless or married with children or four times divorced -- offer details of their lives that they've never publicly revealed. I didn't want to be a bad mother I wanted to be my mother-safe, protective, rational, calm -- without giving up all my anger, because my anger fueled me. -- Elissa Schappell The result is an intimate sharing of experience that will move, amuse, and enlighten. This is the sound of the collective voice of successful women today, in all their anger, grace, and glory.
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From a Buick 8
by Stephen King
The state police of Troop D in rural Pennsylvania have kept a secret in Shed B out back of the barracks ever since 1979, when Troopers Ennis Rafferty and Curtis Wilcox answered a call from a gas station just down the road and came back with an abandoned Buick Roadmaster. Curt Wilcox knew old cars, and he knew immediately that this one was...wrong, just wrong. A few hours later, when Rafferty vanished, Wilcox and his fellow troopers knew the car was worse than dangerous -- and that it would be better if John Q. Public never found out about it. Curt's avid curiosity taking the lead, they investigated as best they could, as much as they dared. Over the years the troop absorbed the mystery as part of the background to their work, the Buick 8 sitting out there like a still life painting that breathes -- inhaling a little bit of this world, exhaling a little bit of whatever world it came from. In the fall of 2001, a few months after Curt Wilcox is killed in a gruesome auto accident, his 18-year-old boy Ned starts coming by the barracks, mowing the lawn, washing windows, shoveling snow. Sandy Dearborn, Sergeant Commanding, knows it's the boy's way of holding onto his father, and Ned is allowed to become part of the Troop D family. One day he looks in the window of Shed B and discovers the family secret. Like his father, Ned wants answers, and the secret begins to stir, not only in the minds and hearts of the veteran troopers who surround him, but in Shed B as well.... From a Buick 8 is a novel about our fascination with deadly things, about our insistence on answers when there are none, about terror and courage in the face of the unknowable.
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Pure Sin
by Susan Johnson
Beautiful Flora Bonham is tantalized by Adam Serre's exotic good looks and powerful sexuality, but he is not looking for another woman after ending a vicious marriage--until Flora decides to seduce him as no woman ever has.
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With All My Heart
by Jo Goodman
Grey can't remember his past. But in the new West, a man's past doesn't matter; what he makes of himself does. And in the gold-rush city of San Francisco, Grey is on his way to building his empire as the owner of a prosperous gaming house and hotel. When he encounters Berkeley, the spellbinding psychic whose eyes penetrate his soul, he knows he's just struck gold. But Grey is about to learn, everything has a price--including love.
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The Crush
by Sandra Brown
After serving on the jury for a high-profile murder case, Dr. Rennie Newton suddenly finds herself the object of obsession by the accused killer, whom the jury had acquitted, and is drawn into a deadly game of vengeance with an embittered police officer who will do anything to bring the man to justice. 600,000 first printing.
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Aftermath
by Peter Robinson
The crime scene awaiting Acting Detective Superintendent Alan Banks is among the worst he has ever encountered. The assailant, Terence Payne, hovers close to death himself. And Payne's brutalized wife, Lucy -- whose overheard screams prompted the original call -- has already been moved to a local hospital for treatment. But these sins and tragedies pale before what else has transpired in a dank basement the press will soon dub the "House of Payne." Now that the fiend is in custody, the long nightmare appears over at last. But is it? In Alan Banks's mind too many questions need to be answered before he can rest easy. How could the heinous crimes of a popular teacher like Payne have so completely escaped the notice of his peers, his neighbors...his wife? And was fragile, abused Lucy Payne a victim or a reluctant accomplice? Despite the strain on his own personal life and relationships, Banks refuses to ease up on his investigation. Buried deep in the past are shards of irony, pity, and horror almost too painful to bear, and unspeakable betrayals that deformed more than one childhood. For Banks, for his lover, Annie Cabot -- who suspects heartless political forces are setting her up to destroy a life -- and for the beautiful consulting psychologist Dr. Jenny Fuller, there is much more that must be unearthed in the aftermath of abomination. Because the darkness has not yet lifted, and new casualties are mounting. And there are still monsters loose in the world...
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Death and Restoration
by Iain Pears
A novel about an Italian general who tries to prevent the theft of a painting being restored in a monastery.