Question: What is a great last minute gift?? Answer: Books! The answer is always books!

Recommendations from Editor Jocie McKade

. . . .cozy mystery

BEAR CLAWS AND COFFEE By Cait London

2 in 1: Meet Sue Kowalski, a Kansas City suburb homicide detective. Recently divorced, Sue holds her own in the all-male force; they call her “Baby Shoes”, which doesn’t make her happy. As the smallest and most agile, Sue has been hefted up, lowered down, and scrunched into places no woman should enter. She craves good bear-claw pastry, coffee, and Jose Morales, a co-worker. Her chances for the first two are good.
Sue is at her best in Death by Coupon and Death by Salsa Dancing short stories.

Finn-agled: A Finn’s Finds Mystery By Kristine Raymond

A secret message hidden inside of an antique wooden box, an unidentified dead body, and a mother determined to marry her off to the high school crush whom she hasn’t seen since…well…high school. There’s no doubt about it; Finn Bartusiak’s life in the seaside town of Port New is about to get interesting.

Coming into possession of a 19th-century, bronze and mahogany writing box under somewhat suspicious circumstances, Finn’s accidental discovery of a coded note leads her and Spencer Dane, bestselling novelist and love of her life (though he doesn’t know it yet), on a quest to unravel the mystery behind the jumble of letters. But they’re not the only ones interested in the cryptic message. There’s a con man on their trail, and he’ll stop at nothing, including murder, to claim the ‘treasure’ for himself.

. . . .Mystery/Thriller with a dash of paranormal

The Deadly Pieces: An Adam Frankenstein U.S. Marshal Novel By Sheila English

After Mary Shelley died, Adam Frankenstein left her League of Supernatural Hunters. But when asked to work under contract, he was happy to take their money. Someone was experimenting on New Orleans’ homeless, and Adam’s mission was to find them. An easy job until he discovered the League’s star scientist, Dr. Laura Wells’ hidden lab and inhumane experiments.
When Wells escaped, Adam tracked her to Houston. Undercover as a U.S. Marshal he would capture the elusive doctor and recover the stolen works of Dr. Moreau. Hellhounds and werewolves weren’t something Adam feared. There was little the immortal creature found shocking after over 200 years. But he knew trouble when he saw it.
U.S. Marshal Rebecca Hughes was determined, brave and dangerous in ways Adam hadn’t expected. She knew only the world of men. He knew the secret world of monsters, and would do anything to keep her safe from it. When their worlds merge, each will need the other to be their greatest weapon.

. . . .For Writers

Writing Violence III: Getting Hit and Hitting by Mark MacYoung

Why do humans hit each other? Are we programmed to attack each other ineffectively for social reasons? How do we lose power when we strike? How can your character minimize the damage of being struck? How do you write convincing fight scenes? What does a character have to do to injure another character with bare hands? It’s not through striking. Strikes are a very specific form of violence. A form that your readers are knowledgeable about. A form that you’ll destroy your reader’s suspension of disbelief if you don’t get right.

The Writing Violence series is designed to help authors create stronger action scenes by providing them with a fundamental understanding of how violence actually works. These guides give them tools to give their writing staggering believability. As truth is often stranger than fiction, a working knowledge of violence frees writers to create a broader range of exciting action scenes.

. . . . And a little romance

The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods

‘The thing about books,’ she said ‘is that they help you to imagine a life bigger and better than you could ever dream of.’

On a quiet street in Dublin, a lost bookshop is waiting to be found…

For too long, Opaline, Martha and Henry have been the side characters in their own lives.

But when a vanishing bookshop casts its spell, these three unsuspecting strangers will discover that their own stories are every bit as extraordinary as the ones found in the pages of their beloved books. And by unlocking the secrets of the shelves, they find themselves transported to a world of wonder… where nothing is as it seems.