Book picks similar to
Secrets and Malice by Ken Langwell


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The Killing Game


Kate Bold - 2021
    Haunted by all the serial killers she caught, she left a stunning career behind to join the U.S. Marshals. As a Deputy Marshal, Alexa—fit, and as tough as she is brilliant—could immerse herself in a simple career of hunting down fugitives and bringing them to justice.But when a notorious serial killer escapes from a prison transport, it crosses the jurisdictions of the U.S. Marshals and the FBI’s BAU. The two departments are forced to come together on a new joint task force to hunt down the fugitive serial killer and bring him to justice. Alexa, to her dread, finds herself forced to confront the thing she fears the most—entering a killer’s mind. Doing so again, she knows, may just drag her down for good.Alexa and her new partner, each territorial, don’t take well to each other. Between their tension and all the clues leading to dead ends and the bodies piling up on the killer’s spree, Alexa knows that she, up against a ticking clock, can’t afford to get this wrong. Especially when she realizes that she herself may be the next target.To find this diabolical killer, Alexa will have to do what she fears most—enter his twisted mind, before he can strike again. It’s a life-and-death game of cat and mouse, and it’s winner takes all.But will the darkness swallow her whole?A page-turning and harrowing crime thriller featuring a brilliant and tortured Deputy Marshal, the ALEXA CHASE series is a riveting mystery, packed with non-stop action, suspense, twists and turns, revelations, and driven by a breakneck pace that will keep you flipping pages late into the night.

Malevolent


Jana Deleon - 2015
     Everyone wondered about Shaye Archer’s past. Including Shaye. Shaye Archer’s life effectively began the night police found her in an alley, beaten and abused and with no memory of the previous fifteen years, not even her name. Nine years later, she’s a licensed private investigator, with a single goal—to get answers for her clients when there aren’t supposed to be any. And maybe someday, answers for herself. Emma Frederick thought her nightmare was over when she killed her abusive husband, but someone is stalking her and tormenting her with mementos from her past. With no evidence to support her claims, the police dismiss her claims as post-traumatic stress, but Shaye is convinced that someone is deliberately terrorizing Emma…playing a cat and mouse game with only one goal in mind. To kill Emma.

The Rancher's Conditions


R.S. Chapman - 2017
    All she knew was that he’d hit on her a couple of times in the gym, and she’d rebuffed him each time. Her only thought was God, do they all subscribe to the same gym introduction newsletter? Never had a woman made Rivers feel like such an idiot, but giving up on her now was not possible. The challenge was just too great.

The Maze


Jennifer Lowery - 2014
    That mission led to her imprisonment, torture, and ultimate retirement, along with her loss of faith in the man she’d trusted with her life.Brings his vengeance…Former Navy SEAL, Noah Kincaid, bears the responsibility of Attie’s imprisonment and blames himself for not protecting her from drug lord Carlos Santiago. This time he won’t fail her.In a deadly game of survival.Santiago has resurfaced and set up an elaborate plan to exact his revenge on Attie by taking her brother hostage. The only way to save him is by revisiting the darkness of her past and relying on a man she can’t trust. In a battle of life or death, Noah and Attie are put to the test. They must face challenges to overcome the past and accept their feelings for each other before the danger that tore them apart separates them forever.Content Warning: Sexual content

The Artificer's Apprentice


D.J. Edwardson - 2012
    The leaders of these guilds have complete control over their members, but one man is about to challenge that authority.Follow the tale of The Artificer’s Apprentice to see what he shall fashion in his shop...

The Scarlet Dagger


Krystle Jones - 2011
    The ASIN is B005Z26DWM.***The strength of Sloane’s heart is about to be put to the ultimate test.After the Eclipse – the night vampires began openly slaughtering human victims – everything changed. Out of fear, the government salvaged what remained of the human population and enclosed them in massive, security-laden cities called White Sectors, while marking the vampire infested territory as Red Sectors.When seventeen-year-old Sloane McAllister’s twin brother disappears, she seems to be the only one who thinks he isn’t dead, and vows to stop at nothing to find him. Gathering her courage, she braves the Red Sector to search for clues to his whereabouts. By chance, she encounters Aden, a handsome, charismatic vampire with a hidden agenda. He turns Sloane against her will, and whisks her away to his underground city. Enemies quickly become friends as Sloane struggles against her attraction to Aden, and resists her growing loyalties to the creatures that ruined her life. But the vampires themselves are the least of her problems. The city is harboring a devastating secret, one that could change the tide of the war and threaten to destroy everything Sloane has come to believe in.

Messages


John Michael Hileman - 2011
    And as much as David Chance would like to hide from them, he can't. Words keep leaping off objects around him, forming messages in his mind. But how is this possible? Has his brain suddenly taken an evolutionary leap forward, or are the mysterious messages proof of divine intervention?Driven to answer a question he'd long ago abandoned, and stalked by the killer he's trying to stop, David risks everything to follow the messages to a dirty bomb set to go off in the heart of Boston. But can he trust the author of the messages to protect him from a terrorist who seems to know his every move.

No Limit


Nicolette Pierce - 2013
    Beating the arrogant and sexy Caleb Usher, who challenges her professional poker career and tempts the hell out of her, wouldn't hurt either. However, the tournament goes sideways when the million dollar prize disappears in front of a live audience. Not one witness sees what happened or where the money went. Sinfully handsome Greyson Miller, CEO of the Lost City Casino, teams up with Nadia in an attempt to find the missing prize and to solve a perilous mystery that plagues the casino. With Greyson’s overwhelming allure, Nadia has to keep her head in the game and her hands to herself. With Caleb and Greyson claiming a stake; Nadia’s career, life, and heart will never be the same again.

Hide Away


Jason Pinter - 2020
    After an unspeakable crime shatters her life, she changes her identity and moves to a small town in Illinois, hoping to spare her children from further trauma…or worse. But crime follows her everywhere.When the former mayor winds up dead, Rachel can’t help but get involved. Where local detectives see suicide, she sees murder. They resent her for butting in—especially since she’s always one step ahead. But her investigative genius may be her undoing: the deeper she digs, the harder it is to keep her own secrets buried.Her persistence makes her the target of both the cops and a killer. Meanwhile, the terrifying truth about her past threatens to come to light, and Rachel learns the hard way that she can’t trust anyone. Surrounded by danger, she must keep her steely resolve, protect her family, and stay one step ahead, or else she may become the next victim.

Wanna Get Lucky?


Deborah Coonts - 2010
    Almost everyone writes her off as another Vegas victim. But, Lucky O’Toole, head of customer relations at the Babylon megacasino, smells a rat, though she’s got a lot on her plate: the adult film industry’s annual awards banquet, a spouse-swapping convention, sex-toy purveyors preying on the pocket-protector crowd attending ElectroniCon… Still Lucky can’t resist turning over a few stones.When a former flame is one of the snakes she uncovers, Lucky is certain the woman’s death was no Sin City suicide. To top it all off, Lucky’s best friend, Teddie—Las Vegas’s finest female impersonator—presses to take their relationship to the next level. Leave it to Lucky to attract a man who looks better in a dress than she does.Lucky must manage the Babylon’s outrageous festivities, solve the crime, and struggle to keep her life and libido from spinning out of control.

BADASS


Kristina Weaver - 2016
    11 Romantic Suspense Books Bundle :) All my romantic suspense books bundled together for the first time! Enjoy over 1,000 pages of suspenseful romance. 11 FULL LENGTH, NO CLIFFHANGER novels. Enjoy the following books: WYATT MIAH JACE JARED ROMAN SHANE BANNER BRANDON DANE NOAH MORGAN Note: This box set features alpha heroes. They can be overly overprotective, domineering, and too sexy for some readers. No readers below 18 please :)

Parched


Z.L. Arkadie - 2011
    I nod stiffly to give no indication I know exactly, who that is. I’m shocked to hear that name in this setting, at this stage of my life, the one far away from Cambridge, Massachusetts over five years later.”Advertising Exec, Clarity Parker thought she’d never see Baron Ford again. Five years ago, they shared the date of her life and then he literally vanished into thin air. Now he’s back and has asked that she, exclusively, be assigned to his multi-million dollar account.On the day the fog rolls in, not only can she no longer avoid him but she can no longer avoid herself. See, Clarity has an ability that she’s run away from her entire life. She’s learning an ability like hers doesn’t come for free, and something or someone is trying to make her pay for it with her life.Her world is soon turned upside down after she escapes to a place called Enu. It’s here Clarity learns who and what she truly is. She also learns that Baron Ford is Baron Ze Feldis; he’s a vampire, and what bonds them runs deeper than anything she can ever imagine. Their bond is further tested when they end up not only battling Baron’s psycho ex-vampire girlfriend, who wants Clarity dead but also “the evil” as they journey in search of the book which holds the Prophecy of the Seven Seeds. One thing’s for sure, from this point on, their lives will never be the same.**Edited on 10/24/2011 – If you have the previous version, please email Customer Service to request the most updated version. If you purchased the Ebook on Smashwords, you can simply download the most up-to-date version.

Dark Shadows


Jana Petken - 2014
    It is only when she faces imminent death in the snow and ice-encrusted Virginia wilderness that she finally understands the power of destiny. Mercy is passionate. She loves and hates in equal measure. Can love and hatred give her the strength she needs now to reach a Northern state, and free a runaway slave wanted for murders, she committed? America and her people are strangled in an uncompromising political stalemate. Southern states have seceded from the Union, and a civil war is imminent. Mercy Carver: her journey is just beginning.

The Shop on Main


Kay Correll - 2014
    As she scrambles to maintain her fragile financial security and independence, she fears she may lose more than just The Shop on Main and her home.Nothing is working out like Bella planned--she finds out the man she is falling for, Owen Campbell, is the businessman at the center of all her problems.Owen has secretly longed to belong--somewhere--anywhere--his whole life. When he decides to give his long-lost brother, Jake, back his birthright, he unknowingly thwarts his briefly held hope of a place where he can put down roots and a family he longs for.Nothing is working out like Owen planned--neither Bella nor Jake wants anything to do with him.How can a man who is used to being in control and a woman determined to make it all on her own find a way to happiness?The Shop on Main is Book One of the Comfort Crossing series. Bella and her best friends, Jenny and Becky Lee, navigate the heartaches and triumphs of love and life in the small southern town of Comfort Crossing, Mississippi.

Long Time Coming


Edie Claire - 2003
    But back at home, the past is ready and waiting to haunt her...Eighteen years have passed since Joy's childhood best friend, Jenny, met her death in a tragic car accident just a few days after their senior prom. A broken Joy left their small Kentucky hometown shortly after - determined never to come back. But when her father's illness forces her to return, she realizes that neither time nor distance have truly healed her troubled soul.Plagued with nightmares of the accident and crippled by a vague fear whose source she can't identify, Joy realizes that in order to move on she must face the truth behind several disturbing gaps in her memory of that fateful spring. But the only person who can help her is a man she despises - Jenny's erstwhile boyfriend Jeff, now a respected doctor, whose carelessness as a teenager was the cause of Jenny's horrendous death - and Joy's own emotional destruction. Can she ever forgive? She may have no choice but to try. Because both the danger she sensed - and the childhood friendship she treasured - now suddenly seem very much alive...