Book picks similar to
The Forged Prince by Michael Laird


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The Damnation Game


David Brian - 2015
    Kate Stringer is a woman in mourning, her murdered husband the latest victim of the notorious Catholic Jack slayer. A nationwide manhunt remains underway, but the serial killer continues to remain elusive. Now, unknown to her, Kate too has been targeted by the maniac. However, other forces are in play. Things moving in the shadows, with an agenda of their own...From those broken places, where trauma and distress cloister, they watch with accusing eyes. And if they judge us, they may look to share their pain.

The Last Con


Zachary Bartels - 2015
    . . WAITING IN DETROIT FOR A BORN-AGAIN CON MAN TRYING TO SAVE HIS FAMILY.Former con man Fletcher Doyle is finally home after six years in the pen. He’s working a menial job, regaining his bearings in the world, and trying to revive his relationships with his wife and twelve-year-old daughter. No easy feat.But when Fletcher and his family go on a mission trip to Detroit—in the company of the condescending church leader who also happens to be his landlord—Fletcher finds his old life waiting for him. Within hours of arriving in the city, he’s been blackmailed into doing a job for a mysterious criminal who calls himself The Alchemist.A series of relics hidden by the Knights of Malta, as ancient as they are priceless, are in the sights of The Alchemist. What he needs is a gifted grifter with a background in ecclesiastical history . . . what he needs is Fletcher Doyle.Between hiding his reawakened criminal life from his wife and trying to hide her from their relentless landlord, Fletcher is ready to give up. But when his family is drawn into the dangerous world he can’t shake, Fletcher is forced to rely on his years in the game to save the only people who mean more to him than the biggest con in history.

The Rainwater Secret


Monica Shaw - 2017
    Single and feeling there is nothing left for her in small-town England, Anna embarks on an adventure as a volunteer with the Medical Missionaries of Mary to teach the leper children in Africa. Life as Anna has known it, is forever changed as she learns the culture that would banish its sick, disfigured, and crippled to the jungles. Babies are left to die on roadsides, children are chased away to live by whatever means they can find. The aged are abandoned. Anna’s daily life is an adventure as she travels from one village to another across a hostile land with few passable roads, rickety bridges threatening to fall apart and cast its occupants on the jagged rocks far below, and weather that turns a calm river into a roiling death trap. In spite of the trials, Anna also manages to find love and family in this godforsaken land. Follow this adventure through disease, weather, strife, death and determination to turn a few acres of land into a loving home for the outcast lepers of Nigeria.

Innate Magic


Shannon Fay - 2021
    But in a world where magic is commonplace, sewing enchanted clothes is seen as little more than a frivolous distraction. Paul is hiding a secret, however: he possesses a powerful--and illegal--innate magic that could help him achieve his wildest dreams.Unfortunately, Paul confides in the wrong person--his latest crush, Captain Hector Hollister--and is drawn into a sinister plot that risks reigniting the machinery of war. To make matters worse, the pretty American gossip reporter Paul just met reveals her personal quest to expose a government cover-up may be related to Hollister's magical goals. When Hollister threatens the life of Paul's dearest friend, he realizes that his poor judgement has put not only his family and friends in danger, but also the whole world.The only way to set things right may be for Paul to undergo the dangerous ritual to become Court Magician--the most powerful magician in the country. But is becoming part of the institution the best way to enact change in a terribly unjust society?

The Blood Flag


James W. Huston - 2015
    Hitler believed the Blood Flag, Blutfahne, carried sacred powers. It held the blood of the first Nazi martyrs, those killed in the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in 1923, when Hitler first tried to take over Germany. Several Nazis were shot and fell onto the flag, pouring their blood into the already red fabric. That flag-with a white circle and a black swastika in the middle-still lives. Kyle Morrissey, a special agent for the FBI, travels to Europe with his father to see him receive the Legion of Honor from France for his service at Normandy. But after the ceremony, while traveling through Germany, Kyle and his family encounter neo-Nazis perpetuating the evil philosophy he thought his father's generation had ended once and for all. Kyle soon discovers that tens of thousands are ready to raise the swastika once more and renew the hatred of the thirties and forties. Baffled and furious, Kyle embarks on a personal mission to bring down the movement. But how? In trying to understand the history of Nazism, Kyle learns of the Blood Flag and knows it is the key to his success. From DC to Dresden to Recklinghausen and Argentina, the Blood Flag leads Kyle on a worldwide race in an attempt to end international Nazism for good.

Time Game


E.B. Brown - 2015
     When he made the choice to save two lives in 11th century Vinland, Tate had no idea his decision would create a rift that must be fixed. With one more mission to Vinland, Tate could erase all that had happened – yet how could he erase the son he loved more than his own life? Will he correct the mistakes he made? Or will the rift haunt Tate forever?

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny


Justin Hill - 2015
    The adventure, romance, and artistry of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon continues in this novelized companion to the first ever Netflix debut film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny based on the novel by Wang Dulu.Seventeen years after the legendary fighter Mubai dies protecting the world-conquering sword The Green Destiny, four great warriors are called together to guard the formidable weapon once more. The forces surrounding the sword irrevocably altered the life of Shulien, Mubai’s lover, but seventeen years later she is still honor-bound to defend the blade from the power-hungry warlord Hades Dai. The young fighters Wei-fang and Snow Vase, switched at birth, also have heritages and inheritances that inextricably link them to both each other and the fate of the sword. And Silent Wolf, Shulien’s former fiancé, returns from presumed death to thwart Hades Dai—and rekindle an emotionally isolated Shulien’s feelings.Jam-packed with all the hallmarks of an epic adventure—sacrifice, battles, betrayal, vengeance, redemption, and destiny—this saga also explores the deeper meaning of true heroism and virtue. As Wei-fang and Snow Vase search for identity and forge their places in the world of warriors and heroes, Shu-lien and Silent Wolf struggle to reconcile both the traditions and heartbreak of the past with a fragile hope for the future.

ICON


Bodie Thoene - 2010
    His life, his family, his nation and the world stand on the brink of the abyss.Join Bodie and Brock Thoene in the unfolding serialization of their new, contemporary political-thriller ICON, downloadable SOON to a computer near you!

A Summer to Remember


Erika Montgomery - 2021
    But when a mysterious package arrives containing a photograph of her mother and famous movie stars Glory Cartwright and her husband at a coastal film festival the year before Frankie's birth, her life begins to unravel in ways unimaginable.What begins is a journey along a path revealing buried family secrets, betrayals between lovers, bonds between friends. And for Frankie, as the past unlocks the present, the chance to learn that memories define who we are, and that they can show us the meaning of home and the magic of true love.Experience the salty breeze of a Cape Cod summer as it sweeps through this sparkling, romantic, and timeless debut novel tinged with a love of old Hollywood."The perfect read for summer. A novel with depth, real emotions, lyrical writing, and flawed characters with whom to fall in love."--New York Times bestselling author Karen White

The Sisters Sweet


Elizabeth Weiss - 2021
    I would have to make my own. All Harriet Szász has ever known is life onstage with her sister, Josie. As "The Sisters Sweet," they pose as conjoined twins in a vaudeville act conceived of by their ambitious parents, who were once themselves theatrical stars. But after Josie exposes the family's fraud and runs away to Hollywood, Harriet must learn to live out of the spotlight—and her sister's shadow. Striving to keep her struggling family afloat, she molds herself into the perfect daughter. As Josie's star rises in California, the Szászes fall on hard times and Harriet begins to form her first relationships outside her family. She must decide whether to honor her mother, her father, or the self she's only beginning to get to know. Full of long-simmering tensions, buried secrets, questionable saviors, and broken promises, this is a story about how much we are beholden to others and what we owe ourselves. Layered and intimate, The Sisters Sweet heralds the arrival of an accomplished new voice in fiction.

The House of the Four Winds


Mercedes Lackey - 2014
    As this boisterous baker's dozen approaches adulthood, the king and queen lovingly tell their daughters, "You must make your own fortune, for we cannot enrich you without impoverishing our people or leaving our lands defenceless, and that we will not do."Happily, the princesses of Swansgaard are eager to meet this challenge, for they yearn for adventures both near and far from home.Clarice, an expert swordswoman, is the first to depart. Disguising herself as Clarence, she signs on for a voyage to the New World. The captain is vile and blackhearted, and the crew soon mutinies. Clarice becomes first mate - and finds her heart captured by the new captain, Dominick, who is, to his own surprise, increasingly attracted to Clarence.Now outlaws, Dominick and his crew turn to piracy - though their hearts are not entirely in it. They soon run afoul of the Pirate Council, who orders them to retrieve the Heart of Light. All who have searched for this great treasure have vanished, with neither ships nor crews ever seen again and no sign of their fates ever discovered.But none before have carried with them the sorceress Shamal, who stakes a claim of her own on Dominick's heart.

On a Night of a Thousand Stars


Andrea Yaryura ClarkAndrea Yaryura Clark - 2022
    Santiago Larrea, a wealthy Argentine diplomat, is holding court alongside his wife, Lila, and their daughter, Paloma, a college student and budding jewelry designer, at their annual summer polo match and soiree. All seems perfect in the Larreas’ world—until an unexpected party guest from Santiago's university days shakes his usually unflappable demeanor. The woman's cryptic comments spark Paloma’s curiosity about her father’s past, of which she knows little. When the family travels to Buenos Aires for Santiago's UN ambassadorial appointment, Paloma is determined to learn more about his life in the years leading up to the military dictatorship of 1976. With the help of a local university student, Franco Bonetti, an activist member of H.I.J.O.S.—a group whose members are the children of the desaparecidos, or the “disappeared,” men and women who were forcibly disappeared by the state during Argentina’s “Dirty War”—Paloma unleashes a chain of events that not only leads her to question her family and her identity, but also puts her life in danger.In compelling fashion, On a Night of a Thousand Stars speaks to relationships, morality, and identity during a brutal period in Argentinian history, and the understanding—and redemption—people crave in the face of tragedy.

The Garbage Man: A Kate Holland Suspense: 1


Candace IrvingCandace Irving - 2020
    Now a small-town cop, the past catches up with Kate when the body of a fellow Army veteran is left along a backcountry road...in meticulously severed pieces. Four years earlier, Kate spent eleven hours as a prisoner of war in Afghanistan. According to her Silver Star write-up, she singlehandedly took down eleven terrorists to avoid staying longer.But Kate has no memory of the deaths, or the events that led up to them. And now, bizarre clues are cropping up in and around that crime scene—and others. Clues that appear to connect to that fateful day. Is the killer trying to tell her something?Or is Kate finally losing her grip on reality?As the body count rises, Kate is forced to confront the guilt that caused her to bolt from the Army...along with the realization that, if she'd faced her demons sooner, her fellow vets might still be alive—and she wouldn't be in the killer's crosshairs.The Garbage Man is Book 1 in the Hidden Valor Military Psychological Suspense Series. If you like strong, female protagonists with gripping, complex suspense that twists and turns all the way to The End, you'll love Candace Irving's 107,000-word military mystery/suspense featuring Braxton Police Deputy Kate Holland.Grab your copy of The Garbage Man today and find out what happened to Kate during those eleven hours she spent as a POW...and why she must remember.

Noble Chase


Michael Rudolph - 2016
    For fans of Greg Iles and Linda Fairstein.Beth Swahn is a young associate at Wilcox, Swahn & Giles when she makes a costly mistake - she believes her client. During what is supposed to be a celebratory dinner, she quickly realizes that $70 million of a settlement has gone missing, and worse, so has her client. With the millions lost, her professional reputation at stake, and even her safety on the line, Beth has to act quickly. With the help of a few tight-knit and talented friends and her step-father Max, a powerful, retired lawyer, she embarks on her own private investigation and learns that the hunt for the money - and the truth - will take her to the most unexpected places and will challenge her survival skills to confront a very complicated and surprising enemy.

Bloodstone


Helen C. Johannes - 2013
    Now feared and reviled as the Shadow Man, he keeps to himself, only going to town to trade rare bloodstones--petrified dragon's blood--for supplies. Though he hides his face, he can't hide his heart from the woman who haunts his dreams... Needing bloodstones for a jewelry commission, Mirianna and her father journey across the dreaded Wehrland where the beast-men roam. When their party is attacked, only the Shadow Man can save them. Strangely drawn to him, Mirianna offers herself in return for her father's rescue. Living in the ruined fortress with the Shadow Man, Mirianna slowly realizes that a flesh-and-blood man--not a fiend--hides there in hoods and darkness. But are love and courage enough to lift the curse and restore the man?