Kindle Storyteller Award Shortlist Readalongs 2023
Greek Secret
What if you could never tell anyone how a relationship really ended?
Then
Ruby is starting to realise her boyfriend, Jonathan, is manipulating her every move. Heโs the life and soul of a party, everyone loves him, but sheโs starting to see him differently. She wants to make a change, but does she have the strength to let go of the life they have built?
Now
Ruby's life in England has hit an all-time low, so she agrees to spend the summer working for her aunt in Corfu. While there, she's mortified to feel an attraction to her step cousin, Yianni, who runs the family restaurant.
However much she tries to avoid her feelings, she canโt avoid Yianni or the romantic setting of Corfu. But is there any point trying to get close to him when she harbours an all-consuming secret. Is Ruby able to tell him the truth about how her relationship with Jonathan really ended? A truth she has never told a soul? And if she can trust him enough to tell him, what will he think of Rubyโs shocking past?
My Brothers Keeper
Detective Chief Inspector Rohan Roy is close to burning out. He works night and day in London to bring a human trafficking gang to justice, but when he unleashes his own particular brand of the law, his superiors take notice. He is ordered to take a sabbatical. To his horror, he is dispatched to Sheffield, a place he knows only vaguely. But this isn't any ordinary sabbatical. A child has gone missing in Sheffield, and the kidnapper has left a ransom note with a white Lily attached...
It seems the dreaded Lily Man is back, the brutal killer who took children, and sent white lilies to the parents. The Lily Man was never caught, and his victims were discovered dead.
But one victim, a seven year old boy called Robin Roy was never found. He was DCI Rohan Roy's brother. No one knows what happened to Robin. The guilt sticks to Roy like a second skin.
After twenty seven years, has the Lily Man returned?
Over the years, Roy has made a name for himself, tracking down child abductors. It's the only way he knows to atone for his guilt. Now, he must seize the chance for a final retribution. But nothing turns out to plan. Despite Roy and his new team's best efforts, there is no sign of the missing boy. Frictions spark up in the local community, and nothing is what it seems behind closed doors.
As the days slip by, Roy begins to fear the worst. Then another little boys disappears. Once again, a note and a white lily is left for the parents. The Lily Man strikes again, taunting Roy and his team.
Roy's sense of reality begins to unravel as the stress worsens. Will he catch the Lily Man before the town loses another child?
A Midlife Gamble
Helen Winters canโt ignore the ache in her heart. With one beloved friend facing a shocking diagnosis and the other still walking on eggshells after their blowout fight, the bubbly fifty-year-old craves the lost comfort of their familiar dynamic. So when someone suggests a trio of tickets to Vegas, the determined woman hopes the trip will rescue their decades-long friendship.
Landing in Sin City, Helen struggles to reclaim her devil-may-care university spirit. And as everyone plays their cards close to their vest and tries to make it alone, she worries that time is running out for reconciliation.
Will laughter, tears, and shared vulnerabilities help them salvage their lifelong bond?
A Midlife Road Trip is the emotional third tale in the Midlife Trilogy womenโs fiction series. If you like witty and mature heroines, wrestling with hard truths, and friendships that run deep, then youโll love Cary J Hanssonโs heartrending conclusion.
Silent Ruin
A vanished couple. A disoriented treasure hunter. A body with suspicious injuries.
Harry Grimm is starting to feel like a local โ almost. But when his quiet happiness is interrupted by a confused eighty-year-old detectorist claiming to have seen Medieval knights fighting in a nearby ruined castle, the chief inspector is forced to investigate the bizarre claims. However, his focus is soon split to a second case when a teen and her boyfriend disappear without a trace.
As the unflappable DCI spearheads the search for the young lovers, he and his team confront conflicting witnesses, spiraling hostilities, and enraged families pointing accusing fingers. And with the aging detectorist continuing to cause disturbances around the village, Grimm takes his muddled statements more seriously after the discovery of a brutally battered corpse.
Can this gruff detective follow the cryptic clues to a killer?
Forsaken Commander
Once, Master Commander Carter Rose was the Unionโs secret weapon. An augmented, bio-engineered officer in command of the most powerful warship ever devised by human minds, Rose brought them victory against the post-human Aternien Empire.
Then they cast him aside.
A century later, living alone on a distant forest moon, feared and forsaken by the people he fought to save, Rose has grown bitter and resentful, while his superhuman body refuses to age.
When Major Carina Larsen seeks his help to save Earth from becoming the last frontier of humanity, Rose is reluctant to return to duty. Until Larsen reveals the real peril: the Aterniens are on the rise again, hell-bent on revenge.
And after a century of peace, the Union has forgotten how to fight.
But even if Rose can recover his marooned warship and assemble a crew, his allegiance is now a valuable commodity โ and a secret weapon is only ever as dangerous as those who wield itโฆ
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