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Prey of Desire by J.C. Gatlin
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A Circumstance of Blood
Jeannette Batz Cooperman - 2015
With fifty students, the majority fee paying, he looks forward to being able to offer places to another fifty students whose parents are unable to pay. Working on his staff is University friend Jimmy Cadigan, also a priest, and Father Francis Charron, an elderly priest, who had taught Colin at seminary school. Charron’s brilliant, but he assisted at an exorcism as a young priest and has never recovered from the experience. One of the academy’s students, 17-year-old Philip Grant, dresses like Oscar Wilde and hasn’t troubled to define his sexual orientation. Irreverent and rebellious, he’s researching the private lives of the faculty for a video mashup. He asks to borrow the Matteo Ricci map, a sixteenth century map which has been donated to the school. Philip’s enough of a handful, but then Auxiliary Bishop Matthew Ehrlich arrives at the school to tell Colin that he has a new pupil for him. The son of a local lawyer and psychologist, Graham Dennison has been accused of trying to kill his mother. Colin tries to refuse; Ehrlich, conscious of the fundraising prospects, insists. Miserable, Colin contacts his university friend Sarah Markham, a journalist who has just returned from Haiti. Sarah moves in and starts to develop a profile of the young man. She’s not convinced he’s violent at all. And then one of the boys is found dead from a possible drugs overdose. With her old friend panicking and other faculty members behaving strangely, Sarah starts to call in favours to get to bottom of the murder. Was she wrong about Graham? Can she unravel the mystery swiftly enough to save Colin’s school? Jeannette Cooperman spent a decade as an award-winning investigative reporter, then went on to teach, write, and work as editor-in-chief of St. Louis Magazine. She loathed being in charge and cheerfully sank to staff writer, her current full-time gig. On the side, she has written several non-fiction books. This is her first fiction book for Endeavour. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.
The Sister
Max China - 2013
Suspenseful, and thrilling, it is a mystery that unravels over time, following the lives of a group of seemingly unconnected people, as they struggle to bring an unusually talented serial killer to justice. CORNWALL, ENGLAND. In the summer of love, 1967, two children witness a murder. One, a seven-year old boy, views it from fifty yards - the other, a young Irish girl, from miles away... LONDON, 2006. With retirement looming, DCI John F Kennedy reopens the only unresolved case in his career, the disappearance of a young nurse, Kathy, twenty-three years earlier. The broadcast appeal for information on the missing teenage runaway, Eilise; is followed by a cold-case reconstruction of Kathy's last known movements. A new witness comes forward, and Kennedy - now set on the trail of a serial killer - unwittingly sparks a sequence of events that lead back to himself, threatening his own, very private existence. As the investigation unfolds, it becomes apparent that the murderer is no ordinary adversary. Resourceful and cunning, he has been operating undetected for over forty years, and it seems that only the original witnesses from 1967 can stop him. But they have yet to meet... The Sister is much more than just an ordinary thriller. It is the story of a lifetime...The book is a two part pilot episode with resolution, but left open to a series of planned spin-off self-contained episodes involving a selection of characters from the original story, the first of which is due for release in late spring.
Dark Places
Gillian Flynn - 2009
She survived—and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, the Kill Club—a secret secret society obsessed with notorious crimes—locates Libby and pumps her for details. They hope to discover proof that may free Ben. Libby hopes to turn a profit off her tragic history: She’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club—for a fee. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started—on the run from a killer.
The Perfect Guests
Emma Rous - 2021
Beth Soames is fourteen years old when her aunt takes her to stay at Raven Hall, a rambling manor in the isolated East Anglian fens. The Averells, the family who lives there, are warm and welcoming, and Beth becomes fast friends with their daughter, Nina. At times, Beth even feels like she's truly part of the family...until they ask her to help them with a harmless game--and nothing is ever the same.2019. Sadie Langton is an actress struggling to make ends meet when she lands a well-paying gig to pretend to be a guest at a weekend party. She is sent a suitcase of clothing, a dossier outlining the role she is to play, and instructions. It's strange, but she needs the money, and when she sees the stunning manor she'll be staying at, she figures she's got nothing to lose.In person, Raven Hall is even grander than she'd imagined--even with damage from a fire decades before--but the walls seem to have eyes. As day turns to night, Sadie starts to feel that there's something off about the glamorous guests who arrive, and as the party begins, it becomes chillingly apparent their unseen host is playing games with everyone...including her.
Disintegration
Scott Nicholson - 2010
Includes alternate ending. DRM-free)When a mysterious fire destroys his home and shatters his family, Jacob Wells is pulled into a downward spiral that draws him ever closer to the past he thought was dead and buried.Now his twin brother Joshua is back in town, seeking to settle old scores and claim his half of the Wells birthright. Jacob’s wife Renee is struggling with her own past and her attempts to salvage Jacob are driven by guilt and ambition.As Jacob and Joshua return to the twisted roles they adopted at the hands of cruel, demanding parents, they wage a war of pride, wealth, and passion. They share a poisonous obsession with the provocative, manipulative Carlita, whose immigrant family helped build the Wells fortune.Joshua wants other things, too, but Jacob’s desires are divided between the forbidden love he can’t possess, the respectability he can never have, and the revenge he is dying to taste. And Renee has dark motives of her own.If only Jacob can figure out which of them to blame. But the lines of identity are blurred, because Joshua and Jacob share much more than blood.And the childhood games have become deadly serious.
Local Woman Missing
Mary Kubica - 2021
Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold.Now, 11 years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they’ll find....In this smart and chilling thriller, master of suspense and New York Times best-selling author Mary Kubica takes domestic secrets to a whole new level, showing that some people will stop at nothing to keep the truth buried.
She Has a Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be
J.D. Barker - 2020
After the loss of his parents, young Jack Thatch first met Stella as a child—this cryptic little girl of eight with dark hair and darker eyes, sitting alone on a bench in the cemetery clutching her favorite book. Gone moments later, the brief encounter would spark an obsession. She'd creep into his thoughts, his every waking moment, until he finally finds her again exactly one year later, sitting upon the same bench, only to disappear again soon after. The body of a man found in an alley, every inch of his flesh horribly burned, yet his clothing completely untouched. For Detective Faustino Brier, this wasn't the first, and he knew it wouldn't be the last. It was no different from the others. He'd find another just like it one year from today. August 9, to be exact. Isolated and locked away from the world in a shadowy lab, a little boy known only as Subject "D" waits, grows, learns. He's permitted to speak to no one. He has never known the touch of another. Harboring a power so horrific, those in control will never allow him beyond their walls. All of them linked in ways unimaginable.
Killing Chase
Ben Muse - 2013
No matter what.Born into a wealthy but flawed North Carolina shipbuilding family, Chase was somehow immune to the dysfunction. The sky was the limit for the 18-year old football prodigy, until one terrible event changed the course of his life and prison became his new home. Through the highs and lows of his incarceration, there was one person he couldn’t forget, no matter how hard he’d tried: childhood best friend Bailey Masters. For reasons unknown to him, she'd shunned him ever since her mysterious return to Foggy Harbor at the beginning of their sophomore year.Now, seven years into a twelve-year manslaughter sentence, Chase is given an unusual second chance, one that comes with its own set of rules. Suddenly, he's thrust into a position he's not ready for: the tip of the spear in a quiet war against an American enemy. A war that could cost him his family . . . and his life.
The Night Olivia Fell
Christina McDonald - 2019
And pregnant.A search for the truth. A lifetime of lies.In the small hours of the morning, Abi Knight is startled awake by the phone call no mother ever wants to get: her teenage daughter Olivia has fallen off a bridge. Not only is Olivia brain dead, she’s pregnant and must remain on life support to keep her baby alive. And then Abi sees the angry bruises circling Olivia’s wrists.When the police unexpectedly rule Olivia’s fall an accident, Abi decides to find out what really happened that night. Heartbroken and grieving, she unravels the threads of her daughter’s life. Was Olivia’s fall an accident? Or something far more sinister?Christina McDonald weaves a suspenseful and heartwrenching tale of hidden relationships, devastating lies, and the power of a mother’s love. With flashbacks of Olivia’s own resolve to uncover family secrets, this taut and emotional novel asks: how well do you know your children? And how well do they know you?
Miramont's Ghost
Elizabeth Hall - 2015
Only one person knows the truth: Adrienne Beauvier, granddaughter of the Comte de Challembelles and cousin to the man who built the castle.Clairvoyant from the time she could talk, Adrienne’s visions show her the secrets of those around her. When her visions begin to reveal dark mysteries of her own aristocratic French family, Adrienne is confronted by her formidable Aunt Marie, who is determined to keep the young woman silent at any cost. Marie wrenches Adrienne from her home in France and takes her to America, to Miramont Castle, where she keeps the girl isolated and imprisoned. Surrounded by eerie premonitions, Adrienne is locked in a life-or-death struggle to learn the truth and escape her torment.Reminiscent of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, this hauntingly atmospheric tale is inspired by historical research into the real-life Miramont Castle in Manitou Springs, Colorado.
The Moonlight Child
Karen McQuestion - 2020
Through her neighbor's kitchen window, she sees what appears to be a little girl washing dishes late at night. But the Fleming family doesn't have a child that age, and even if they did, why would she be doing housework at this late hour?It would be easy for Sharon to just let this go, but when eighteen-year-old Niki, a former foster child, comes to live with Sharon, she notices suspicious activity at the Flemings' house as well. When calling social services doesn't result in swift action, the two decide to investigate on their own.
All the Blue-Eyed Angels
Jen Blood - 2012
The Solar Temple. Heaven's Gate. In the summer of 1990, the Payson Church of Tomorrow joins the ranks of those infamous cult suicides when thirty-four members burn to death on a small island off the coast of Maine. At ten years old, Payson member Erin Solomon watches helplessly as the church and its congregation are reduced to ash and embers.More than twenty years later, Erin is an accomplished investigative journalist when she receives word that she has inherited Payson Isle... and all its ghosts. She returns to Maine to learn the truth behind the tragedy that has haunted her since childhood, aided by the rakish mentor who's stood by her side since she was a teenager, her trusty mutt Einstein, and a mysterious stranger with his own dark past.Soon, Erin is enmeshed in violence, conspiracy, and scandal, as she fights to unearth the secrets of the Payson Church of Tomorrow -- secrets someone will kill to keep buried.
52 Steps To Murder
Steve Demaree - 2006
An elderly woman is found poisoned in the upstairs bedroom of her home whose front door stands 52 steps above the street in an old-fashioned whodunit that blends clues, red herrings, suspects, and humor.
Dead Certain
Adam Mitzner - 2017
By night, she pursues her passion for singing in the darkest clubs of Manhattan.No one knows her secret, not even Charlotte, the younger sister she practically raised. But it seems she’s not the only one in the family with something to hide. When Charlotte announces she’s sold her first novel, Ella couldn’t be more thrilled…until she gets a call that her sister’s gone missing.Ella starts investigating with the help of Detective Gabriel Velasquez, an old flame in the NYPD, and what she finds is shocking. If art imitates life, then her sister’s novel may contain details of her real-life affairs. And any one of her lovers could be involved in her disappearance.Desperate to bring Charlotte home, Ella works through her list of suspects, matching fictitious characters with flesh-and-blood men. But will it be too late to save the sister she only thought she knew?
Past Praying For
Aline Templeton - 1997
It’s only when her brother, Robert, a forensic psychologist, comes to visit that she is made aware of the uneasy undercurrents and tensions which pervade this seemingly peaceful village society. But even he doesn’t suspect that someone is concealing a childhood trauma so severe that it has fractured their personality. But then a strange series of events persuades both Margaret and Robert that a killer is among them. It starts with small attacks. Strange objects appear in villagers’ homes, belongings are damaged and rooms ransacked. But then there are hate-filled poison pen letters follow, and an arson attack that results in a death. Victims themselves, Margaret and Robert are drawn to the heart of the mystery. Combining their very different approaches they must try and single out the damaged individual whose tragic past has led them to commit such evil acts. But will they be able to identify the perpetrator before more lives are lost? Or are they 'Past Praying For'? 'Past Praying For' is a chilling, psychological mystery story by one of the masters of the genre. ‘Very good indeed’ Highbury & Islington Express ‘Aline Templeton conveys a sense of drama and suspense which is easy to read and difficult to put down’ Yorkshire Gazette & Herald ‘Templeton’s a considerable writer both intelligent and intuitive’ Literary Review Aline Templeton lives in Edinburgh with her husband, in a house with a balcony built by an astronomer to observe the stars over the beautiful city skyline. She has worked in education and broadcasting and has written numerous articles and stories for newspapers and magazines. Her books include ‘Shades of Death’ and ‘Night and Silence’. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.