Top Ten Tuesday/ Halloween Symbols

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by thatartsyreadergirl with a new topic every week.

October 25: Halloween Freebie- I’m picking Halloween symbols on the cover.

Goodreads Blurb:

A sweet Southern town. A failing family manor. And a plan to save it all…

Moving to Oakleaf Manor was the last thing Brynn Townsend had planned after losing her job in the city, but even more unexpected was the headstrong son of the owner stealing her heart. Her only hope of building a new life in the quaint town of Sugar Maple rests on saving his family farm. But when he threatens to derail not only her plans to save Oakleaf Manor, but also her newfound home, Brynn knows she must risk their budding romance in order to save it all.

Preserving his family’s legacy and restoring his home to its former glory means everything to Jack. Generations of the Oakley family have owned and run the historic estate of Oakleaf Manor, but Jack’s past mistakes have left his family in danger of losing their home. With the fate of Oakleaf Manor resting solidly on his shoulders, he can’t risk failing again, even if it means putting his growing relationship with Brynn in jeopardy.

When Brynn crafts a daring plan to save Oakleaf Manor, Jack’s deeply rooted fears resurface. He’s tried this plan before with disastrous consequences. Can Brynn find a way to convince Jack to trust both her and their love? Will Jack realize where his heart truly belongs before it’s too late? Or will the happiness they had found and Oakleaf Manor end up in ruins?

Goodreads Blurb:

Christy Jamieson has just confronted the person who murdered her husband Frank, when Frank’s wealthy Aunt Ellen arrives unexpectedly, suitcase in-hand. Ellen’s home has become a crime scene and she intends to stay with Christy. No one is happy, but the most furious member of the Jamieson household is Stormy the Cat.

Wanting the woman out of her hair, Christy investigates with journalist-friend Quinn, only to discover the body on Aunt Ellen’s terrace was the woman who alibied the person complicit in Frank’s murder.

But the deeper Christy and Quinn dig into the connection between the dead woman and Aunt Ellen, the clearer it becomes that the only one who can unravel the truth is Stormy the Cat.

Amazon Blurb:

A glimpse into an all too plausible future from the eyes of a man just trying to get to a drink at the end of his day.

The political divide in the old United States has grown wide enough to create new borders, and three new countries, but Levi Pickering is more concerned about surviving the next round of layoffs. His job at the Energy Alliance has been great. He’s got a nice trailer up the mountain from the company town and normally, he has enough scrip for a trip or two to the bar each week. He’s also got friends and a boss that doesn’t micromanage. Even that cute girl in IT is giving him signals. He thinks.

But the natural gas on campus is drying up, and more jobs are lost to automation every day. When the AI-fortified control systems that govern every operation on campus are hacked, the same pipelines Levi designed years ago rain fire onto his home, workplace and the people he’s come to care about. He needs to mourn, but with his digital signature found on the commands that issued the campus-wide destruction, Levi’s been branded a terrorist. While evading the Energy Alliance’s private militarized law enforcement, he must find proof of his innocence or he’ll surely be hung.

Goodreads Blurb:

An exile can never return…

Finn O’Grady, working the night shift as a security guard in London, receives a phone call at dawn. Bridie, a woman he once loved before he left his hometown of Kilmeaden in the west of Ireland, believes she’s in terrible danger and needs his help.

Finn has made a new life for himself and can’t go back to the pain and tragedy he left behind in Ireland. But when Bridie’s brother is found brutally murdered, Finn has no choice but to return to a life he’d tried to forget.

Goodreads Blurb:

Blinded by a mysterious seizure when she was three years old, Bash Martin has managed to carve out a normal life for herself as an adult. Yet she still yearns for a deeper connection with her twin sister Lily, who has always been jealous of the attention their parents bestowed upon Bash due to her disability.

A dream vacation seems like the perfect chance to heal their relationship, but Bash soon realizes there is something terribly wrong with Lily and that her sister is hiding a dark secret. And when a supernatural fire engulfs their hotel and corpses come back to life, the sisters are plunged into a nightmarish world that threatens not only their lives, but their very souls.

Amazon Blurb:

In book three, the Secret Seven have a new meeting place – a treehouse! But someone else is using it too. The gang are furious, but then they learn the intruder is in big trouble and needs their help. Can the Seven come to the rescue?

Solve the mystery!

Goodreads Blurb:

More than two hundred years into the future, human beings are an endangered species. The planet has been battered by war, its inhabitants plagued by disease and death. Few humans survived and remained unaffected. Most changed dramatically and evolved into something else entirely. Irrevocable alterations caused by chemical warfare have created a new species. North America is in ruins and has been overtaken. Humanity has fallen at the hands of mutants known as Urthmen.
Seventeen year-old Avery is alive and unchanged. But she has not been immune to the harshness of the new world. She has lived on the run for much of her life, in terror.
After losing her father, Avery is the sole guardian of her eight-year-old sister, June. Avery is now charged with June’s safety as well as her own, a nearly impossible task.
Forced to hide deep in the forest and away from the cities overrun by Urthmen, Avery and her sister are constantly hunted. Danger awaits them at every turn. They fear they are the only human beings left, that they are the last of their kind.
But are they truly alone?

Goodreads Blurb:

Elizabeth is a modern woman. Smart. Independent. As sexual as she wants to be–with whomever she wants to be. But a breakup with her academic boyfriend has hit her harder than she cares to admit. And while her latest gig, translating a glitzy Czech thriller into English, offends her literary sensibilities, it arouses others with its steamy scenes of eroticism, violence, submission, and dominance.

Then, when her favorite Van Morrison CD disappears from its rack and her house is inexplicably violated, Elizabeth is afraid she’s starting to lose it–she even consults a local vicar about the possibility of poltergeists.

But what this woman in the lovely Victorian is experiencing is not supernatural. Nor is it madness. For in the dead of night, she will suddenly come face-to-face with her tormentor. She will smell him, she will touch him, and she will make a choice. Then the real haunting will begin.

Goodreads Blurb:

Two sisters.
One brutal murder.
A quest for vengeance that will unleash Hell itself…
And an intoxicating romance.

Emilia and her twin sister Vittoria are streghe – witches who live secretly among humans, avoiding notice and persecution. One night, Vittoria misses dinner service at the family’s renowned Sicilian restaurant. Emilia soon finds the body of her beloved twin…desecrated beyond belief. Devastated, Emilia sets out to find her sister’s killer and to seek vengeance at any cost—even if it means using dark magic that’s been long forbidden.

Then Emilia meets Wrath, one of the Wicked—princes of Hell she has been warned against in tales since she was a child. Wrath claims to be on Emilia’s side, tasked by his master with solving the series of women’s murders on the island. But when it comes to the Wicked, nothing is as it seems…

Goodreads Blurb:

A story of love and demons, family and witchcraft.

Nova Huang knows more about magic than your average teen witch. She works at her grandmothers’ bookshop, where she helps them loan out spell books and investigate any supernatural occurrences in their New England town.

One fateful night, she follows reports of a white wolf into the woods, and she comes across the unexpected: her childhood crush, Tam Lang, battling a horse demon in the woods. As a werewolf, Tam has been wandering from place to place for years, unable to call any town home.

Pursued by dark forces eager to claim the magic of wolves and out of options, Tam turns to Nova for help. Their latent feelings are rekindled against the backdrop of witchcraft, untested magic, occult rituals, and family ties both new and old in this enchanting tale of self-discovery.

Alex