Book picks similar to
Mason's Daughter by Cynthia J. Stone


mystery
fiction
amazon
contemporary-fiction

Throwaway


Heather Huffman - 2010
    But even if Jessie could walk away from Spence, there are darker forces of evil who won't let her go that easily. In this romantic suspense, author Heather Huffman delivers an adventure from the vibrant streets of St. Louis to the caves of the Ozarks as Jessie discovers whether she can love another, whether she can love herself, and whether any of it is enough.Throwaway is the first installment in the surprisingly warm and funny series The Throwaways, twelve novels that don’t shy away from the dark corners of this world but always shine the light of hope. At the core of the series is a group of strong but often unlikely heroes and heroines coming from all walks of life whose lives intertwine as they fight for justice, for love, and to leave their indelible mark on this world.Immerse yourself in a world of suspense, laughter, and love with The Throwaways.

The Last American Martyr


Tom Winton - 2011
    This last happened in 2008 when an unemployed doorman stepped onto the worldwide stage in Stockholm and accepted The Nobel Prize for Literature. In this me-me Twenty-First Century, fifty-nine-year-old Thomas Soles may very well be the last American martyr. A self-described “simple man,” he wrote a book that resuscitated the all-but-dead international labor movement. The response to his thoughts and perceptions were astounding. All around the world, from America to Zimbabwe, the marching footsteps of workers began to tremor the earth. But not everyone is pleased. There’s a tightly-knit elitist clique that is absolutely livid over the thoughts and ideals that fill the pages of Tom’s book. And that profit-hungry mob doesn’t play around. When Tom and his wife return home from Sweden with the coveted prize, they find threats scrawled on the walls of their New York apartment—death threats, written in blood. Left with very few choices, the peace-loving couple decides to buy a motorhome and flee across America. They hope to find a safe place somewhere but soon find out that’s not going to be easy. Everywhere they go it seems Tom sees trouble closing in on them in the RV’s rearview mirror or it’s waiting for them around the next bend in the road.

The Secrets of Lost Stones


Melissa Payne - 2019
    Haunted by memories and grief, Jess packs what’s left and heads for the small mountain town of Pine Lake, where she takes a position as caregiver to an eccentric old woman.A rumored clairvoyant, Lucy is strange but welcoming and immediately intuits Jess as a “loose end” in need of closure. But Jess isn’t the only guest in Lucy’s large Victorian home. There’s also Star, a teenage runaway with a secret too painful to share. And the little boy with heart-shaped stones, who comes with a hope for reconciliation—and a warning.Soon Jess learns that she’s not the only lost soul running from the ghosts of the past. She and Star have been brought together for a reason: to be saved by the very thing that destroyed them.

Firefly Beach


Meira Pentermann - 2009
    A mysterious ball of light disturbs her peace and leads her to a secret beach where she finds the diary of a girl who disappeared in 1975. Now Beth is on a mission, not only to bury her own past, but to put to rest the spirit of Firefly Beach. See also Firefly Beach 2009.

Silent Counsel (Kindle Edition)


Ken Isaacson - 2007
    After Stacy Altman's six-year-old son is run down in front of their house, with no witnesses to the tragic accident, she learns that the driver has hired attorney Scott Heller to negotiate a plea arrangement with the prosecutor. But he's instructed Scott not to reveal his name until a satisfactory agreement is in place. The prosecutor refuses to make a deal, and the court rebuffs Stacy's efforts to force Scott to tell her - or even the authorities - who his client is, holding that the information is protected by the attorney-client privilege. Since the court won't do anything to help Stacy track down her son's killer, she takes matters into her own hands. And she's determined to make Scott talk - at any cost...

The Illegal Gardener


Sara Alexi - 2012
    Her boys have grown and she has finally divorced her bullying husband. This is her time now.Whilst making her new home habitable, Juliet discovers she needs a sturdy helping hand with the unruly and neglected garden. Unwilling to share her newfound independence with anyone, but unable to do all the work by herself, she reluctantly enlists casual labour.Aaman has travelled to Greece from Pakistan illegally. Desperate to find a way out of poverty, his challenge is to find work and raise money for the harvester his village urgently need to survive.What he imagined would be a heroic journey in reality is fraught with danger and corruption. Aaman finds himself in Greece, and with each passing day loses a little more of himself as he survives his new life as an immigrant worker; illegal, displaced, unwanted and with no value. Hungry and stranded, how will he ever make it back home to Pakistan?In what begins as an uncomfortable exchange, Juliet hires Aaman to be her gardener, but resents the intrusion even though she needs the help. Aaman needs the work and money but resents the humiliation.In spite of themselves, as the summer progresses, they get to know one another and discover they have something in common. Pieces of their lives they have kept hidden even from themselves are exposed, with each helping the other to face their painful past.Will Juliet and Amaan finally let each other in? And what will be the outcome of this improbable conjoining of two lost souls?

Sweet Water


Christina Baker Kline - 1993
    When a grandfather she never knew bequeaths her a house and 60 acres of land in Sweetwater, Tenn., a restless young artist leaves New York to recover her past and rethink her future. Cassie Simon's mother Ellen died when Cassie was only three; raised in Boston by her grieving father, she never knew her maternal relatives. Unprepared for the thick veil of mystery that surrounds them, Cassie is especially bewildered by her brusque grandmother, whom rumor credits with hiding a terrible secret about Ellen's death. In alternating sections told from their respective points of view, Cassie and her grandmother fight their separate battles to cope with the truth about the tragedy. Kline perfectly renders each woman's voice: Cassie's, probing and often uncertain, propels the narrative and creates an appropriate level of psychological suspense; the grandmother's quavers with the weight of memory as Cassie's search forces her beyond family myth to a painful and perhaps dangerous truth. The result is a powerful, immensely readable tale of loyalty and betrayal, family and memory, made fresh by Kline's often beautiful and always lucid prose.

Gumbeaux


Kimberly Vargas - 2011
    After the death of her parents, she is placed in the care of her alcoholic uncle. For years, she assists her uncle in growing the family empire, all the while plotting his demise and / or her escape. A college scholarship gives her the opportunity to break free of her life to start a new one - under a new name.Follow Mary and her often hilarious misadventures in the early 1990's while attending college in a small town in Louisiana. The story reads as a series of diary entries which chronicle the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of the main character during this time in her life. The novel's title refers to a cajun restaurant in which the main character works as a waitress. The colorful descriptions of the town of Bayou Bend, the college, its inhabitants and the surrounding areas paint a vivid and amusing tale of life in the South.

Not Perfect


Elizabeth LaBan - 2018
    She’d confess her situation to her friends—if it wasn’t for those dreadful words of warning in his goodbye note: “I’ll tell them what you did.”Instead, she does her best to keep up appearances, even as months pass and she can barely put food on the table—much less replace a light bulb. While she looks for a job, she lives in fear that someone will see her stuffing toilet paper into her handbag or pinching basil from a neighbor’s window box.Soon, blindsided by catastrophe, surprised by romance, and stunned by the kindness of a stranger, Tabitha realizes she can’t keep her secrets forever. Sooner or later, someone is bound to figure out that her life is far from perfect.

Valencia and Valentine


Suzy Krause - 2019
    To confront those fears, Valencia’s therapist suggests that she fly somewhere—anywhere—before her upcoming birthday. And as Valencia begins a telephone romance with a man from New York, she suddenly has a destination in mind. There’s only one problem—he might not actually exist.Mrs. Valentine is an eccentric old woman desperate for company, be it from neighbors, telemarketers, or even the funeral director (when you’re her age, you go to a lot of funerals). So she’s thrilled when the new cleaning girl provides a listening ear for her life’s story—a tale of storybook love and incredible adventures around the world with her husband before his mysterious and sudden disappearance.The stories of Valencia and Mrs. Valentine may at first appear to have nothing in common…but then again, nothing in life is as straightforward as it seems.

The Things We Wish Were True


Marybeth Mayhew Whalen - 2016
    But behind the white picket fences lies a web of secrets that reach from house to house.Up and down the streets, neighbors quietly bear the weight of their own pasts—until an accident at the community pool upsets the delicate equilibrium. And when tragic circumstances compel a woman to return to Sycamore Glen after years of self-imposed banishment, the tangle of the neighbors’ intertwined lives begins to unravel.During the course of a sweltering summer, long-buried secrets are revealed, and the neighbors learn that it’s impossible to really know those closest to us. But is it impossible to love and forgive them?

The Tour


Jean Grainger - 2013
    But this particular tour with its cast of unintentionally hilarous characters leaves seasoned tour guide Conor speechless for the first time in his life. Among this eclectic group are Corlene, a gold digging multiple divorcee on the prowl; Patrick, a love-starved Boston cop; Dylan, a goth uilleann piper; Dorothy, a poisonous college professor who wouldn't spend Christmas; Elliot, a wall street shark who finally shows his true colours, and then there's Ellen, back on Irish soil after so many years to discover a truth no-one could have guessed, least of all herself. And thats just a few of the colourful cast.The locals they meet on their journey, eccentric West Brits, passionate musicians, Ukranian waitresses and Garda high flyers all help to make this a tour that nobody will ever forget. And of course, there's Conor, stuck in the thick of it all, solving problems and mending hearts, but what about his own?

Worth Lying For


Lisa Cheney - 2012
    But at forty, she finds herself fantasizing about sprawling Tuscan villas and fitting into 'juniors department' fashions. Instead, another twenty years in a two-bedroom ranch, sale-rack slacks and a receptionist job at Idid-a-Rod Auto Garage seem to be her destiny. Until... GOOD GRIEFMary stumbles on a bag of cash in the car of two-bit drug dealer Jimmy Adler... and steals it. Confiding in best friend, Caryn, she vows to make good by playing Robin Hood in the sleepy town of Stillwater Village. Only she must keep the plan under wraps from devoted husband, Nick, who just happens to be the local sheriff. GOOD INTENTIONS As one unexpected event after another turns Mary's once tapioca-bland life hotter than three-alarm chili, she is more than a little tempted to indulge in a few retail therapy sessions. Charity begins at home, after all, but where should it end? When the fate of her imperfect yet loving family is put on the line, Mary must decide what the good life really means, and if it is Worth Lying For.

The Great Passage


Shion Miura - 2011
    Award-winning Japanese author Shion Miura’s novel is a reminder that a life dedicated to passion is a life well lived.Inspired as a boy by the multiple meanings to be found for a single word in the dictionary, Kohei Araki is devoted to the notion that a dictionary is a boat to carry us across the sea of words. But after thirty-seven years creating them at Gembu Books, it’s time for him to retire and find his replacement.He discovers a kindred spirit in Mitsuya Majime—a young, disheveled square peg with a penchant for collecting antiquarian books and a background in linguistics—whom he swipes from his company’s sales department.Led by his new mentor and joined by an energetic, if reluctant, new recruit and an elder linguistics scholar, Majime is tasked with a career-defining accomplishment: completing The Great Passage, a comprehensive 2,900-page tome of the Japanese language. On his journey, Majime discovers friendship, romance, and an incredible dedication to his work, inspired by the bond that connects us all: words.

At God's Mercy


L.L. Fine - 2003
     A desperate young Jewish woman sacrifices her life to save her baby twins from the terrible death that awaits them. Decades later, in New York, Rabbi Jeremiah Neumann discovers the existence of his long lost twin. He rushes headlong to meet him – but is shocked to discover that his identical twin is a priest. The two brothers travel to Poland to find out who they truly are. Page by page they uncover the terrible secret of their bloodcurdling heritage. A long-dormant evil is resurrected, and once again threatens to take the twins’ lives. Will they survive the new storm? At God’s Mercy is a captivating book that is hard to put down. It will take you deep behind the frontiers of human atrocity, where cruelty meets courage, and faith meets fate. Its chilling storyline bites hard at religious establishment and raises hard questions regarding Judaism, Christianity, human nature, faith and existence.