A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal


Jen Waite - 2017
    In a raw, first-person account, Waite recounts each heartbreaking discovery, every life-destroying lie, and reveals what happens once the dust finally settles on her demolished marriage.After a disturbing email sparks Waite's suspicion that her husband is having an affair, she tries to uncover the truth and rebuild trust in her marriage. Instead, she finds more lies, infidelity, and betrayal than she could have imagined. Waite obsessively analyzes her relationship, trying to find a single moment from the last five years that isn't part of the long-con of lies and manipulation. With a dual-timeline narrative structure, we see Waite's romance bud, bloom, and wither simultaneously, making the heartbreak and disbelief even more affecting.

White Fire - Free Preview (first 9 chapters)


Douglas Preston - 2013
    . .WHITE FIRESpecial Agent Pendergast arrives at an exclusive Colorado ski resort to rescue his protégée, Corrie Swanson, from serious trouble with the law. His sudden appearance coincides with the first attack of a murderous arsonist who--with brutal precision--begins burning down multimillion-dollar mansions with the families locked inside. After springing Corrie from jail, Pendergast learns she made a discovery while examining the bones of several miners who were killed 150 years earlier by a rogue grizzly bear. Her finding is so astonishing that it, even more than the arsonist, threatens the resort's very existence.Drawn deeper into the investigation, Pendergast uncovers a mysterious connection between the dead miners and a fabled, long-lost Sherlock Holmes story--one that might just offer the key to the modern day killings as well.Now, with the ski resort snowed in and under savage attack--and Corrie's life suddenly in grave danger--Pendergast must solve the enigma of the past before the town of the present goes up in flames.

The Water's Lovely


Ruth Rendell - 2006
    Then something would bring it back or it would return in a dream. The dream always began in the same way.She and her mother would be climbing the stairs, following Heather’s lead through the bedroom to what was on the other side, not a bathroom in the dream but a chamber floored and walled in marble. In the middle of it was a glassy lake. The white thing in the water floated towards her, its face submerged, and her mother said, absurdly, “Don’t look!”The dead man was Ismay’s stepfather, Guy. Now, nine years on, she and her sister, Heather, still live in the same house in Clapham. But it has been divided into two self-contained flats. Their mother had lived upstairs with her sister, Pamela. And the bathroom, where Guy had drowned, had disappeared.Ismay worked in public relations, and Heather in catering. They got on well. They always had. They never discussed the changes to the house, still less what had happened that August day. . .But even lives as private as these, where secrets hang in the air like dust, intertwine with other worlds and other individuals. And, with painful inevitability, the truth will emerge.

The Silent Ones


K.L. Slater - 2019
    Now my precious daughter is accused of murder. When ten-year-old cousins Maddy and Brianna are arrested for a terrible crime, Maddy’s mother Juliet cannot believe it. How could her bright, joyful daughter be capable of such a thing? As the small village community recoils in horror, the pressure of the tragedy blows Juliet and her sister’s lives apart. And things get even worse when their daughters retreat into a self-imposed silence. Can anyone reach Maddy and discover the truth before her fate is sealed? Juliet is crushed. Nothing will ever be the same for her darling girl. But she knows that to find out what really happened that day, she and her sister must unlock the secrets of their own terrible past, a past they swore never to speak about again … The most unputdownable psychological thriller you’ll read this year from the bestselling author K.L. Slater. If you love The Wife Between Us or Gone Girl, you’ll be totally hooked on The Silent Ones.

The Bay At Midnight


Diane Chamberlain - 2005
    Questions about Julie's own complicity, about a devastating secret her mother kept from them all. Questions about the person who went to prison for Izzy's murder -- and about the man who didn't.Now Julie must harness the courage to revisit her past and untangle the shattering emotions that led to one unspeakable act of violence on the bay at midnight.

The Decoy


Florrie Palmer - 2019
    Her now elderly mother lives in a small converted barn close by.Surrounded by friends, the Armstrongs appear to have an idyllic life. But when two members of their social group die in suspicious circumstances, a cloud falls over the village.Are the deaths linked? And were they really accidents? One of the villagers believes they have the answers and is prepared to risk everything to get to the truth…

Hour of Need


Melinda Leigh - 2014
    Emotionally scarred from war, the career soldier returns home on emergency leave to temporarily care for his orphaned nephew and niece. But when someone tries to kidnap the kids and their teenage babysitter, Grant knows it’s not a random act…and neither were the murders.Already devastated by her neighbors’ violent deaths, Ellie Ross is shattered by the attempted abduction of her teenage daughter so she desperately turns to Grant for help. As they navigate a deadly search for the truth, they struggle with growing feelings for each other and Grant’s impending return to deployment.But time is running out. The killer is growing bolder by the hour, and Ellie and Grant must find him before the children become his next victims.

Evil Eye: Four Novellas of Love Gone Wrong


Joyce Carol Oates - 2013
    In Evil Eye, Oates offers four chilling tales of love gone horribly wrong, showing the lengths people will go to find love, keep it, and sometimes end it.In "Evil Eye," we meet Mariana, the young 4th wife of a prominent intellectual. When her husband's brazen first wife visits one night, Mariana learns a terrible secret that threatens her marriage and sanity. In "So Near, Anytime, Always," shy teenager Lizbeth meets Desmond, a charming boy who offers this introverted girl the first sparks of young romance. Yet just as their relationship begins to blossom, Lizbeth realizes that beneath Desmond's perfect façade lies a dark soul that could wreak havoc on Lizbeth and her loved ones. In "The Execution," spoiled college student Bart Hansen has planned the perfect, brutal crime to get back at his parents for their years of condescension. Yet what he didn't plan for is a mother whose love is more resilent than he could have ever imagined, who threatens to derail his carefully laid-out plans.

The Bright Forever


Lee Martin - 2005
    Fact, speculation, and contradiction play off one another as the details about Katie's disappearance--and about the townspeople--unfold, creating a fast-paced story that is as gripping as it is richly human. A nuanced portrayal of the complicated give and take among people struggling to maintain their humanity in the shadow of a loss, The Bright Forever is a compelling and emotional tale about the human need to know even the hardest truth.

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore


Matthew J. Sullivan - 2017
    Lydia Smith lives her life hiding in plain sight. A clerk at the Bright Ideas bookstore, she keeps a meticulously crafted existence among her beloved books, eccentric colleagues, and the BookFrogs.....the lost and lonely regulars who spend every day marauding the store’s overwhelmed shelves. But when Joey Molina, a young, beguiling BookFrog, kills himself in the bookstore’s upper room, Lydia’s life comes unglued. Always Joey’s favorite bookseller, Lydia has been bequeathed his meager worldly possessions. Trinkets and books; the detritus of a lonely, uncared for man. But when Lydia flips through his books she finds them defaced in ways both disturbing and inexplicable. They reveal the psyche of a young man on the verge of an emotional reckoning. And they seem to contain a hidden message. What did Joey know? And what does it have to do with Lydia? As Lydia untangles the mystery of Joey’s suicide, she unearths a long buried memory from her own violent childhood. Details from that one bloody night begin to circle back. Her distant father returns to the fold, along with an obsessive local cop, and the Hammerman, a murderer who came into Lydia’s life long ago and, as she soon discovers, never completely left.

The Weapon


Jeffery Deaver - 2009
    Retired Colonel James J. Peterson—head of a covert, illegal, intelligence-gathering operation known as IAS—is briefed on a national security threat that could unleash a weapon capable of “significant damage.” But what kind of weapon is it? Conventional? A nuke? Or something altogether new? And who’s behind the threat? Al-Qaeda? The Koreans? The Iranians? It’s up to Colonel Peterson’s IAS black site operation to find out who’s behind the threat, and to neutralize the weapon before it’s unleashed on the United States. The problem? He only has four days to do it.Don’t miss any of these exciting stories from Thriller 2: The Weapon by Jeffery Deaver Remaking by Blake Crouch Iced by Harry Hunsicker Justice Served by Mariah Stewart The Circle by David Hewson Roomful of Witnesses by R.L. Stine The House on Pine Terrace by Phillip Margolin The Desert Here and the Desert Far Away by Marcus Sakey On the Run by Carla Neggers Can You Help Me Out Here? by Robert Ferrigno Crossed Double by Joe Hartlaub The Lamented by Lawrence Light Vintage Death by Lisa Jackson Suspension of Disbelief by Tim Maleeny A Calculated Risk by Sean Chercover The Fifth World by Javier Sierra Ghost Writer by Gary Braver Through a Veil Darkly by Kathleen Antrim Bedtime for Mr. Li by David J. Montgomery Protecting the Innocent by Simon Wood Watch Out for My Girl by Joan Johnston Killing Time by Jon Land Boldt’s Broken Angel by Ridley Pearson

Raveled


Anne McAneny - 2013
    Despite her infamous surname and people’s wilted memories, this jaded cynic of a daughter sinks her teeth in and refuses to let go. She can practically taste the bitterness of that long-ago, twisted night when two teenagers died, linked to her father by bad luck and a few strands of rope.Ignoring the dense local atmosphere where image trumps substance and lies become legend, Allison stirs the pot. The more layers she discards, the more elusive the truth becomes. And when a key source of information turns up dead, the dark edges of resentment coil in around her like a slowly tightening noose. As revelations get ugly, Allison may wish she’d never ventured toward the forbidden fruit of truth.

Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers: Elephant Song / Hungry as the Sea / Wild Justice (Three Books in One Collection)


Wilbur Smith - 2013
    Meanwhile in London, anthropologist Kelly Kinnear is forced into violent confrontation with the shareholders of the most powerful conglomerate in the City of London, warning them of the destruction of an African country. Now the time has come to act. Together, Armstrong and Kinnear forge a passionate alliance – and begin the fight against the forces of greed, evil and corruption attacking a land they would both give their lives to save . . .Hungry as the Sea: Nick Berg - robbed of his wife and ousted from his huge shipping empire - is hell-bent on vengeance. It is the sea which gives him his opportunity. When his arch-rival's luxury liner is trapped in the tempestuous Antarctic, Nick stakes all to pit his powerful salvage tug, the Warlock, in a desperate race against time and the elements . . .Wild Justice: The hijacking of a jumbo jet off the Seychelles galvanizes anti-terrorist chief Peter Stride into the action for which he has spent a lifetime training. But in the hail of bullets which follows, he knows that this is only the beginning of a nightmare. Stride is the one man who might find the twisted genius who holds the world hostage – if only his every move were not anticipated by the enemy . . .

Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls


Mary Downing Hahn - 2012
    The brutal murder of two teenage girls on the last day of Nora Cunningham's junior year in high school throws Nora into turmoil. Her certainties, friendships, religion, her prudence, her resolve to find a boyfriend taller than she is - are shaken or cast off altogether. Most people in Elmgrove, Maryland, share the comforting conviction that Buddy Novak, who had every reason to want his ex-girlfriend dead, is responsible for the killings. Nora agrees at first, then begins to doubt Buddy's guilt, and finally comes to believe him innocent - the lone dissenting voice in Elmgrove.Told from several different perspectives, including that of the murderer, Mister Death's Blue-Eyed Girls is a suspenseful page-turner with a powerful human drama at its core.

Beyond Eden


Catherine Coulter - 1992
    The product of old San Francisco wealth, the daughter of a man who despises her, her life is forever changed when she is brutally assaulted by her sister's husband, and then rejected by her family.Lindsay is finally forced to face up to her past when she meets S.C. Taylor, a tough ex-cop, turned private investigator and computer troubleshooter. He is hired to protect her; but can he both win her trust and discover who is trying to kill her and why? Is it her family? A supposed friend or colleague? A faceless sicko or perhaps a mad psychiatrist? Ah, it's a mystery to savor.