Hi reader,

There is a certain kind of week where every book on the house's desk is, underneath the covers and the different genres, the same dare: here is a puzzle, or a secret, or a wall around someone's heart. See if you can get past it before the characters do.

So this Saturday, instead of a single lane, here is the whole shelf sorted by the exact flavor of "I'll just read one more chapter" you are in the mood for. Some of these are on the shelf now and a couple are landing any day, so think of this as your early map.

If you want an impossible crime: The Cold Hour, by Jessie Clark. A forensic auditor is found strangled inside a sealed, camera-watched vault two floors underground, and the badge logs prove no one entered during the only hour she could have died. Detective Cass Vale forgets nothing, and something about the cold in that room is wrong. A fair-play locked-room thriller.

If you want a cozy with a ghost in it: Feathers and Phantoms, by Jessie Clark. Up on Harrow Hill, a house that has been shut for thirty-five years opens at last, and the last of the family dies at the foot of the same stair its ghost did. The town calls it the phantom. The doctor calls it a rotten step. Only Winifred Baxter, and her crow, know it is murder. Sweet, closed-door, and deeply suspicious of the most reasonable man in the room.

If you want a cozy with attitude: The Auction House Affair, by Jennie Wren Foster. A missing auction lot, a dead cataloguer, and an antiques-shop owner whose newest object is a 1920s cash register that only rings things up high when they are lying. The Crabapple Antiques Mysteries. Murder off the page, warmth on every one.

If you want the human ache: Hidden Truths at Mercy General, by Clara Langford. A doctor who moved a thousand miles to disappear is the one person in town who has seen exactly how a hospital dies, right as a firm arrives to kill this one. Saving it means letting everyone finally see her. A grown-up, closed-door second chance.

See what is on the shelf now and what is landing next here: https://www.jlcollinspublishing.com/books

You are on this list because you wanted the range, not a single genre. If a friend is forever asking what to read next, forward them this email. New readers can subscribe right from the site.

Want to read these before anyone else? I am building Read It First, the JL Collins Publishing launch team: free advance copies in exchange for an honest review, across every pen name in the house. Reply and tell me which worlds you want early (mystery, romance, romantasy, or non-fiction) and I will add you to the right team, with a pack of subscriber-only bonus scenes to start.

One quick reply makes my weekend: which of the four dares is calling you this week, the vault, the haunted stair, the auction, or the hospital? Hit reply and tell me.

📌 Save this week's pin: I just pinned the cover for this week's spotlight over on Pinterest. Tap Save so more readers find us, it takes two seconds: [PIN URL — paste the live pin link when building in Beehiv]. Find us at pinterest.com/jlcollinspublishing

Happy reading,

Lori Collins

Publisher, JL Collins Publishing

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