The Best ebooks for February 2024

Several significant new books are coming out this month. Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching, and some of the books on this list will help you fall in love with some perennial bestselling authors and debut ones. The Good e-Reader Bestseller List tracks the best ebooks from Amazon, so you can purchase them on your Kindle e-reader or Fire Tablet, or, if you use apps, buy them directly from the Amazon Website.

Ours by Phillip B. Williams

In this ingenious, sweeping novel, Phillip B. Williams introduces us to an enigmatic woman named Saint, a fearsome conjuror who, in the 1830s, annihilates plantations all over Arkansas to rescue the people enslaved there. She brings those she has freed to a haven of her creation: a town just north of St. Louis, magically concealed from outsiders, named Ours.

It is in this miraculous place that Saint’s grand experiment—a truly secluded community where her people may flourish—takes root. But although Saint does her best to protect the inhabitants of Ours, over time, her conjuring and memories betray her, leaving the town vulnerable to intrusions by newcomers with powers of their own. As the cracks in Saint’s creation are exposed, some wonder whether the community’s safety might be another form of bondage.

Over four decades and steeped in a rich tradition of American literature informed by Black surrealism, mythology, and spirituality, Ours is a stunning exploration of the possibilities and limitations of love and freedom by a writer of capacious vision and talent.
The Women by Kristin Hannah

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in Southern California’s sun-drenched, idyllic world and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But 1965 the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is overwhelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life, death, hope, and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered instantly. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country have too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will define an era.

Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson

From the bestselling author of Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, a fiendishly fun locked room (train) murder mystery that “offers a tip of the hat to the great Agatha Christie novel while at the same time being a modern reinvention of it” (Nita Prose) — perfect for fans of Richard Osman and Anthony Horowitz

When the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I hoped for inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. That didn’t pan out.
The Invocations by Krystal Sutherland

From the author of the New York Times bestseller House of Hollow comes a darkly seductive witchy thriller where girls refuse to go quietly into the night, though both men and demons lurk in shadows.

Three girls, one supernatural killer on the loose . . .

Zara Jones believes in magic because the alternative is too painful to consider—that her murdered sister is gone forever, and there is nothing she can do about it. Rather than grieving and moving on, Zara decides she will do whatever it takes to claw her sister back from the grave—even trading in the occult.

Jude Wolf may be the daughter of a billionaire, but she is also undeniably cursed. After a deal with a demon went wrong, her soul has been slowly turning necrotic. It’s a miserable existence marred by pain, sickness, and monstrous things that taunt her in the night. Now that she’s glimpsed what’s beyond the veil, Jude’s desperate to find someone to undo the damage she’s done to herself.

Enter Emer Byrne, an orphaned witch with a dark past and a deadly power, a.k.a. the solution to Zara’s and Jude’s problems. Though Emer lives a hardscrabble life, she gives away her most valuable asset—her invocations—to women in desperate situations willing to sacrifice a piece of their soul in exchange for a scrap of power. Zara and Jude are eager, but they first have to find Emer.

When Emer’s clients start turning up dead all over London, a vital clue leads Zara and Jude right to her. If a serial killer is targeting her clients, Emer wants to know why—and to stop them. She strikes a tenuous alliance with Zara and Jude to hunt a killer before they are next on his list, even if she can’t give them in return what Zara and Jude want most: a sister and a soul.
Narcotopia: In Search of the Asian Drug Cartel That Survived the CIA. by Patrick Winn

In Asia’s narcotics-producing heartland, the Wa reigns supreme. They dominate the Golden Triangle, a mountainous stretch of Burma between Thailand and China. Their 30,000-strong army, wielding missiles and attack drones, makes Mexican cartels look like street gangs.

Wa moguls are unrivalled in the region’s $60 billion meth trade and infamous for mass-producing pink, vanilla-scented speed pills. Drugs finance Wa State, a bona fide nation with its laws, anthems, schools, and electricity grid. Though revered by their people, Wa leaders are scorned by US policymakers as vicious “kingpins” who “poison our society for profit.”

In Narcotopia, award-winning journalist Patrick Winn uncovers the truth behind Asia’s top drug-trafficking organization, as told by a WA commander turned DEA informant. This gripping narrative shreds drug war myths and leads to a chilling revelation: the Wa syndicate’s origins are smudged with CIA fingerprints.

This is a saga of native people tapping the power of narcotics to create a nation where there was none before — and covert US intelligence operations gone wrong.
The Book of Doors: A Novel by Gareth Brown

Debut novel full of magic, adventure, and romance, The Book of Doors opens up a thrilling world of contemporary fantasy for readers of The Midnight Library, The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, The Night Circus, and any modern story that mixes the wonder of the unknown with just a tinge of darkness.

Cassie Andrews works in a New York City bookshop, shelving books, making coffee for customers, and living an ordinary life. Until the day one of her favourite customers—a lonely yet charming older man—dies right in front of her. Cassie is devastated. She always loved his stories and had nothing to remember him by. Nothing but the last book he was reading.

But this is no ordinary book…

It is the Book of Doors.

Inscribed with enigmatic words and mysterious drawings, it promises Cassie that any door is every door. You need to know how to open them.

Then she’s approached by a gaunt stranger in a rumpled black suit with a Scottish brogue who calls himself Drummond Fox. He’s a librarian who watches a unique set of rare volumes. The tome now in Cassie’s possession is not the only book with great power but is most coveted by those who collect them.

Now Cassie is being hunted by those few who know of the Special Books. With only her roommate Izzy to confide in, she has to decide if she will help the mysterious and haunted Drummond protect the Book of Doors—and the other books in his secret library’s care—from those who will do evil. Because only Drummond knows where the unique library is, and only Cassie’s book can get them there.

But there are those willing to kill to obtain those secrets. And a dark force—in the form of a shadowy, sadistic woman—is at the very top of that list.

The Phoenix Crown: A Novel Kindle Edition by Kate Quinn

San Francisco, 1906. In a city bustling with newly minted millionaires and scheming upstarts, two very different women hope to change their fortunes: Gemma, a golden-haired, silver-voiced soprano whose career desperately needs rekindling, and Suling, a petite and resolute Chinatown embroideress who is determined to escape an arranged marriage. Their paths cross when they are drawn into the orbit of Henry Thornton, a charming railroad magnate whose extraordinary collection of Chinese antiques includes the fabled Phoenix Crown, a legendary relic of Beijing’s fallen Summer Palace.

His patronage offers Gemma and Suling the chance of a lifetime, but their lives are thrown into turmoil when a devastating earthquake rips San Francisco apart. Thornton disappears, leaving behind a mystery reaching further than anyone could have imagined . . . until the Phoenix Crown reappears five years later at a sumptuous Paris costume ball, drawing Gemma and Suling together in one last desperate quest for justice.

Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.