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Talking to the Dead: A Novel

A mesmerizing and thrilling novel – perfect for fans of Tana French and Stieg Larsson – that introduces a modern, unforgettable rookie cop whose past is as fascinating and as deadly as the crimes she investigates.

She knows what it’s like….

At first, the murder scene appears sad, but not unusual: a young woman undone by drugs and prostitution, her six-year-old daughter dead alongside her. But then detectives find a strange piece of evidence in the squalid house: the platinum credit card of a very wealthy – and long dead – steel tycoon. What is a heroin-addicted hooker doing with the credit card of a well-known and powerful man who died months ago? This is the question that the most junior member of the investigative team, Detective Constable Fiona Griffiths, is assigned to answer.

But D.C. Griffiths is no ordinary cop. She’s earned a reputation at police headquarters in Cardiff, Wales, for being odd, for not picking up on social cues, for being a little overintense. And there’s that gap in her past, the two-year hiatus that everyone assumes was a breakdown. But Fiona is a crack investigator, quick and intuitive. She is immediately drawn to the crime scene, and to the tragic face of the six-year-old girl, who she is certain has something to tell her…something that will break the case wide open.

Ignoring orders and protocol, Fiona begins to explore far beyond the rich man’s credit card and into the secrets of her seaside city. And when she uncovers another dead prostitute, Fiona knows that she’s only begun to scratch the surface of a dark world of crime and murder. But the deeper she digs, the more danger she risks – not just from criminals and killers but from her own past…and the abyss that threatens to pull her back at any time.

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Defending the Dead: Relatively Dead Mysteries, Book 3

Abby Kimball has slowly accepted her recently discovered ability to see the dead, but none of the harmless sightings she’s experienced could have prepared her for the startling apparition of a centuries-old courtroom scene – where she locks eyes with a wicked and gleeful accuser. Thrown back more than 300 years, Abby realizes she’s been plunged into a mystery that has fascinated people throughout American history: the Salem witch trials.

With her boyfriend Ned at her side, Abby digs into the history of the events, researching the people and possible causes of that terrible time and her own connection to them-all the while going more deeply into her connection to Ned, both extraordinary and romantic.

As Abby witnesses more fragments from the events in Salem and struggles with the question of how such a nightmare could have come about, she’s suddenly confronted with a pressing personal question: Were one or more of her ancestors among the accused? Unraveling the puzzling clues behind that question just might give Abby and Ned the answer to a very modern mystery of their own.

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Relatively Dead (Relatively Dead Mysteries)

Abby Kimball has just moved to New England with her boyfriend and is trying to settle in, but the experience is proving to be quite unsettling, to say the least. While on a tour of local historic homes, Abby witnesses a family scene that leaves her gasping for breath-because the family has been dead for nearly a century. Another haunting episode follows, and another, until it seems to Abby that everything she touches is drawing her in, calling to her from the past. Abby would doubt her sanity if it weren’t for Ned Newhall, the kind and knowledgeable guide on that disturbing house tour. Rather than telling her she’s hallucinating, Ned takes an interest in Abby’s strange encounters and encourages her to figure out what’s going on, starting with investigating the story of the family she saw . . . and exploring her own past. But as Abby begins to piece together a history that’s as moving as it is shocking and unravels a long-ago mystery that nearly tore her family apart, she also begins to suspect that Ned’s got secrets of his own, and that his interest may be driven as much by a taste for romance as a love for history.

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The Platinum Age of Television: From I Love Lucy to The Walking Dead, How TV Became Terrific

Television shows have now eclipsed films as the premier form of visual narrative art of our time. This new book by one of our finest critics explains – historically, in depth, and with interviews with the celebrated creators themselves – how the art of must-see/binge-watch television evolved.

Darwin had his theory of evolution, and David Bianculli has his. Bianculli’s theory has to do with the concept of quality television: what it is and, crucially, how it got that way. In tracing the evolutionary history of our progress toward a Platinum Age of Television – our age, the era of The Sopranos and Breaking Bad and Mad Men and The Wire and Homeland and Girls – he focuses on the development of the classic TV genres, among them the sitcom, the crime show, the miniseries, the soap opera, the Western, the animated series, and the late-night talk show. In each genre he selects five key examples of the form, tracing its continuities and its dramatic departures and drawing on exclusive and in-depth interviews with many of the most famed auteurs in television history.

Television has triumphantly come of age artistically; David Bianculli’s book is the first to date to examine, in depth and in detail, and with a keen critical and historical sense, how this inspiring development came about.

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The Dead Play On (Cafferty and Quinn)

Play a song for me.…

Musicians are being murdered in New Orleans. But Arnie Watson apparently died by his own hand. When Tyler Anderson plays the saxophone he inherited from Arnie, a soldier and musician who died soon after his return, he believes he sees visions of his friend’s life―and death. He becomes convinced Arnie was murdered and that the instrument had something to do with whatever happened, and with whatever’s happening all over the city.…

Tyler knows his theory sounds crazy to the police, so he approaches Danni Cafferty, hoping she and Michael Quinn will find out what the cops couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. After all, Cafferty and Quinn have become famous for solving unusual crimes.

They’re partners in their personal lives, too. Quinn’s a private investigator and Danni works with him. When they look into the case, they discover a secret lover of Arnie’s and a history of jealousies and old hatreds that leads them back to the band Arnie once played with―and Tyler plays with now.

They discover that sometimes, for some people, the line between passion and obsession is hard to draw. Only in uncovering the truth can they hope to save others―and themselves―from the deadly hands of a killer.

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Better Off Dead: Fae-Ever Dead, Book 1

Zoey Mayfair knows there must be some kind of mistake, she never meant to actually die.

After being dumped by her fiancé because she doesn’t seem to need him, 25-year-old Zoey Mayfair cooks up a scheme over a bottle of red wine: she’ll fake an attempt at suicide so that he feels badly enough to come crawling back to her. It’s only when she wakes up in the morgue days later that she realizes she’s made a terrible, life changing (and ending) mistake.

Pulled out of a morgue drawer by the mysterious Jason Teague, he explains to her that she’s one of the lucky rare few that get to come back after death to help others die, just like him. Thrown into a supernatural underground featuring faeries, vampires, and witches, Zoey doesn’t know if she wants to participate in this magical world.

Making matters worse is Maurice, a barista with a cute smile who seems to be interested in Zoey in the most boring way possible, something that Zoey finds incredibly enticing. Can she ignore her newfound supernatural powers and still attempt to live a normal life? How did she even become this anyway? And more importantly: what happens if she breaks the rules?

The first in a series, Better Off Dead introduces the listener to a magical word full of mythology, magic, and much more.

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Fashionably Dead Down Under (Hot Damned)

Welcome to Hell. Literally. The Hell where the Prince of Darkness is hotter than Hades, Hell Hounds smell like brownies, and the Seven Deadly Sins are addicted to Facebook…. Not to mention the soundtrack in the Underworld is Journey. For real.

I should have known no good could come from offing my parents in the space of 20 minutes no matter how psychotic and evil they were…. Now I find out my family tree includes almost every deity and mythological being alive while Ethan, the one and only love of my undead life, has a limited time down under before he turns to dust.

In the land of Sin, you’d think I’d get some nookie time with my man, but no. Baby Demons, cousins, and grandparents put the kibosh on that. Blue balls are the new normal. What the hell does a half-Vampyre/half-Demon have to do to catch a break? Apparently find a freakin’ sword, calm Mother Nature’s unmedicated mood swings, and make sure Mr. Rogers keeps his sticky fingers to himself during weekly poker with the Devil. And I have three days to do it. By all that’s unholy, I thought Ethan’s Vampyre family was crazy…. Trust me, they have nothing on the Demons.

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A Fashionably Dead Christmas (Hot Damned)

This is a holiday paranormal romantic comedy novella for your listening pleasure!

It’s Christmas at the Cressida House, and all hell is breaking loose.

Tree? Decorated and lit. Elf on a Shelf? Seated with style. Baby Jesus on the mantle? Fourteen neatly in a row. Life-size Nutcracker? Creepy, but standing proud. Invitations sent to entire immortal family to celebrate the holiday? Possibly the stupidest damn thing I’ve ever done.

Mixing heaven and hell on my cousin’s famous birthday seemed like such a brilliant idea. I wanted my baby’s first Christmas to be special – memorable. I’d like to chalk my heinous idea up to having been falling-down drunk, but that won’t fly, as it’s insanely difficult for a Vampyre to tie one on. So instead I’ll deal with obscene gifts from relatives, kidnapped rock stars, and catering by Mother Nature. To complicate matters, our new family pet thinks the whole house is his toilet. Ethan and I can’t even find a room with working lock on the door to spread a little holiday cheer.

Never, never again. Christmas from now on will be at a freakin’ spa for the undead – no poles for dancing and no slumber parties with the devil.

I just have to make it through the next 24 hours without beheading a beloved one. Merry freakin’ Christmas – and Happy New Year.

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Fashionably Dead (Hot Damned)

Vampyres don’t exist. They absolutely do not exist. At least I didn’t think they did ’til I tried to quit smoking and ended up Undead. Who in the hell did I screw over in a former life that my getting healthy equates with dead? Now I’m a Vampyre. Yes, we exist whether we want to or not. However, I have to admit, the perks aren’t bad. My girls no longer jiggle, my ass is higher than a kite, and the latest Prada keeps finding its way to my wardrobe. On the downside, I’m stuck with an obscenely profane Guardian Angel who looks like Oprah and a Fairy Fighting Coach who’s teaching me to annihilate like the Terminator. To complicate matters, my libido has increased to Vampyric proportions, and my attraction to a hotter-than-Satan’s-underpants killer rogue Vampyre is not only dangerous…it’s possibly deadly. For real dead.

Permanent death isn’t on my agenda. Avoiding him is my only option. Of course, since he thinks I’m his, it’s easier said than done. Like that’s not enough to deal with, all the other Vampyres think I’m some sort of Chosen One. Holy hell, if I’m in charge of saving an entire race of blood suckers, the Undead are in for one hell of a ride.