Amazon First Reads - July Picks

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During the month of July - Prime members get to choose

TWO FREE KINDLE BOOKS!

THE CHOICES

Police Procedural

Someone’s found the skeleton in the closet, and it’s not the only one. Wall Street Journal bestselling author Debra Webb presents an emotional new mystery.

Crime analyst and newly disgraced deputy police chief Vera Boyett doesn’t visit home often, and she certainly doesn’t venture back into the cave on her family land. But when the remains of her long-missing stepmother are discovered, Vera will have to face a past that threatens all she is.

She and her sister Eve had a fairy-tale childhood: good until it was tragic, with a stepmother they never found a bond with. At least they had each other, a baby half-sister, and a mutual devotion that would have them do the unthinkable.

It’s a summer in small-town Tennessee, so thick with humidity it could drown you and so rife with secrets it could smother you. And deep beneath the surface, there are more bodies than you’d think…

Speculative Fiction

A devoted husband defies fate and risks everything to find the one universe where his beloved wife is still alive in this bold and thought-provoking novel.

Dr. Jonas Cullen has spent his career as a groundbreaking physicist defying the odds. But on the best night of his life—the night his wife, Amanda, tells him they’re finally having a baby—everything is taken away when a tragic car accident claims the lives of Amanda and their unborn child.

Gutted by pain, Jonas sets out to find a way to bring back Amanda—or rather, find a parallel universe in which she’s still alive. But that’s easier said than done. As Jonas comes to understand all too well, the universe favors certain outcomes…and Amanda’s death is one of them.

Guggenheim’s novel takes readers on a suspenseful journey, intercutting scenes of Jonas’s frantic, present-day search across multiple realities with glimpses from the past of his unfolding romance and eventual marriage. Will Jonas and Amanda reunite in some other world, or will fate succeed in taking her from him forever?

Short Story

In this star-crossed short story from New York Times bestselling author Alice Hoffman, timing is everything as two sisters learn to let love follow its own path.

Isabel, the long-lost Gibson sister, is finally back home on Brinkley’s Island, Maine. With Sophie and Violet, her sister and her niece, she’s got the family bookstore—and with Johnny Lenox, she’s got something even more special.

But even as life settles, not everything is falling into place. Isabel and Johnny have set the date three times, baked three wedding cakes, invited the whole island to three parties, only to have each attempt at matrimony fall apart at the last minute. Disasters seem to be conspiring against their happy ending, and Isabel is starting to wonder if their love is meant to be.

When family history comes back to haunt the Gibson sisters, Isabel knows that if she wants to make it down the aisle with Johnny, first she and Sophie will have to face the pain of their past and their present, and decide what it means for their future.

Historical Fiction

For a young woman coming of age in sixteenth-century Guatemala, safeguarding her people’s legacy is a dangerous pursuit in a mystical, empowering, and richly imagined historical novel.

Catalina de Cerrato is being raised by her widowed father, Don Alonso, in 1551 Guatemala, scarcely thirty years since the Spanish invasion. A ruling member of the oppressive Spanish hierarchy, Don Alonso holds sway over the newly relegated lower class of Indigenous communities. Fiercely independent, Catalina struggles to honor her father and her late mother, a Maya noblewoman to whom Catalina made a vow that only she can keep: preserve the lost sacred text of the Popol Vuh, the treasured and now forbidden history of the K’iche’ people.

Urged on by her mother’s spirit voice, and possessing the gift of committing the invaluable stories to memory, Catalina embarks on a secret and transcendent quest to rewrite them. Through ancient pyramids, Spanish villas, and caves of masked devils, she finds an ally in the captivating Juan de Rojas, a lord whose rule was compromised by the invasion. But as their love and trust unfold, and Don Alonso’s tyranny escalates, Catalina must confront her conflicted blood heritage—and its secrets—once and for all if she’s to follow her dangerous quest to its historic end.

Romantasy

An enemy on her tails, an innocent at her side, and a dangerous power within her that could destroy them all. Jayci Lee melds Korean folklore with modern Americana in this fiery new series.

Sunny Cho aspires to be the dullest, least interesting person in any given room, which can be challenging for a nine-tailed fox spirit. So she drifts from city to city—staying clear of any and all attachment—and keeps her fox buried deep inside her. It is better this way. She would rather live as half of herself than risk losing control of her terrible powers.

Ethan Lee, a friend she left behind eight years ago, is a brilliant and distractingly hot PI. When he tracks her down and asks her to help him find his brother’s murderer, Sunny knows her uneventful life is about to be turned upside down.

Traversing the mortal realm and the world of gods, Sunny and Ethan discover their quest is much more dire than mere vengeance, and their friendship might be…more. An ancient evil is stirring, and Sunny is faced with an impossible choice: save the worlds from annihilation or claim the love fated by the heavens.

Suspense

She left home as the local pariah at twenty-two, but when a family tragedy brings her back, she must confront her tortured past—and a new danger in town that no one seems to understand but her.

After years of self-exile, Jacinda “Jac” Brodie is back in Brook Haven, South Carolina. But the small cliffside town no longer feels like home. Jac hasn’t been there since the beloved chief of police fell to his death—and all the whispers said she was to blame.

That chief was Jac’s father.

Racked with guilt, Jac left town with no plans to return. But when her granddad lands in the hospital, she rushes back to her family, bracing herself to confront the past.

Brook Haven feels different now. Wealthy newcomer Faye Arden has transformed the notorious Moor Manor into a quaint country inn. Jac’s convinced something sinister lurks beneath Faye’s perfect exterior, yet the whole town fawns over their charismatic new benefactor. And when Jac discovers one of her granddad’s prized possessions in Faye’s office, she knows she has to be right.

But as Jac continues to dig, she stumbles upon dangerous truths that hit too close to home. With not only her life but also her family’s safety on the line, Jac discovers that maybe some secrets are better left buried.

Mystery

Two strangers search for the truth behind bizarre occurrences no one else dares to discuss—only to discover that they’re connected by secrets that could destroy them both. A thrilling and twisty novel by the acclaimed author of the Mindy’s Book Studio pick I’ll Stop the World.

When sixteen-year-old Angie Stewart starts hearing a mysterious voice in her house, she’s thrilled at the possibility of a ghost. Finally, something interesting is happening in her boring hometown of East Henderson, Pennsylvania. But why is she the only one who can hear it? And what does it want from her?

Meanwhile, first-year teacher Madelyn Zhao just got the keys to her new home, which is located close to her job, within walking distance of a dog park—and, most importantly, in the town where her cousin went missing several years ago. No one in East Henderson wants to talk about what happened, but Madelyn is determined to find answers.

As the two strangers search for clues, their investigations begin to point toward the same dark place. But by the time they realize that the truth could be deadly, it’s too late to turn back. And someone out there will stop at nothing to make sure their secrets stay buried.

Children's Picture Book

From a New York Times bestselling author and a Theodor Seuss Geisel Award–winning illustrator, a playful story about finding common ground when you least expect it.

Blue-footed boobies live on one rock. Red-footed boobies live on another. Blues and Reds keep apart…until one day a pair runs into each other and falls in love. Their families don’t approve. Silly boobies! But when something wonderful happens, can everyone finally agree?