Congratulations to the winners of the last contest. Mary Ann W. from Punta Gorda, FL won Heart of the Nile. Bonnie K. from Carmichael, CA will receive The White Lady. The books are going out in the mail today.

This week, I’m giving away two gritty crime novels. Eli Cranor’s first novel set in Arkansas was Don’t Know Tough. just won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. We’re back in Arkansas with Ozark Dogs, but it’s not a sequel. After his son is convicted of capital murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Ozark junkyard outfitted to be an armory. He teaches her how to shoot and fight, but there is not enough training in the world to protect her when the dreaded Ledfords, notorious meth dealers and fanatical white supremacists, come to collect on Joanna as payment for a long-overdue blood debt. Headed by rancorous patriarch Bunn and smooth-talking, erudite Evail, the Ledfords have never forgotten what the Fitzjurls family did to them, and they will not be satisfied until they have taken an eye for an eye. As they seek revenge, and as Jeremiah desperately searches for his granddaughter, their narratives collide in this immersive story about family and how far some will go to honor, defend—or in some cases, destroy it.

Samantha Jayne Allen’s Hard Rain is the sequel to Pay Dirt Road, but you don’t have to have read the earlier book. From the Tony Hillerman Prize-winning author of Pay Dirt Road comes Hard Rain, Samantha Jayne Allen’s mesmerizing next novel set in a hardscrabble Texas town dealing with disaster. In shock and found clinging to a tree branch, Bethany Richter is pulled from thrashing floodwaters that have decimated the town of Garnett, Texas and killed a dozen others. Six months after solving the murder of a local waitress, Annie McIntyre is working as an apprentice P.I. when she’s handed her first solo case: uncover the identity of the man who rescued Bethany before he was swept downriver. When Annie’s search turns up a different victim—shot dead, not drowned—Annie questions if the hero they seek is actually a killer. Flexing her new skills while relying on the wisdom of her eccentric, ex-cop grandfather, the case leads Annie into a web of drug dealers, preachers, and wayward drifters trying to make sense of life after a disaster. Annie’s own convictions are put to the ultimate test as long-held secrets, corruption, and violence are exposed like the ruin that lies beneath receding waters.

Which book would you like to win? You can enter to win both, but I need separate entries. Email me at Lesa.Holstine@gmail.com. Your subject line should read either “Win Ozark Dogs” or “Win Hard Rain.” Please include your name and mailing address. The giveaway will end Thursday, May 4 at 7 PM CT. Entries from the U.S. only, please.