Somewhere in the Dark


R.J. Jacobs - 2020
    J. Jacobs returns with another compulsively readable novel of suspense for fans of B. A. Paris and Mary Kubica.Do the mistakes of the past mark us as guilty for life?After a childhood marred by neglect, Jessie Duval's finally got it together. With an apartment in Nashville and a job with a catering company, she's thriving.But all that changes when Jessie works an event where celebrities will be in attendance--including the one person from her past she must avoid at all costs: singer Shelly James. Jessie doesn't hate Shelly. Quite the opposite. One summer, she followed Shelly's tour everywhere. Only, Shelly wasn't flattered; she was terrified by Jessie's devotion--especially after Jessie was arrested. But after a year of therapy, Jessie understands what happened. She's not the same person anymore.Jessie keeps her head down, but when Shelly is found dead, Jessie's troubled past comes tumbling out and she quickly becomes a suspect in the high-profile murder. As the police close in on her, ignoring other credible leads, Jessie realizes Shelly's murder will be pinned on her--the perfect scapegoat--unless she finds the real killer. And no one knows Shelly's life and inner circle better than her. But she will have to go deeper into the dark--if ever she wants to find her way out.

Watch Her Vanish


Ellery A. Kane - 2020
    She sees the woman’s feet first, then the legs bent like broken driftwood. Then, the blouse strewn open; the marks on her beautiful neck. Her knees buckle as a hand grabs her elbow to break her fall.Forced home to Fog Harbor, California, to look after her little sister, Criminal Psychologist Olivia Rockwell is struggling to adjust to life in a town so small she can hardly breathe. Until, at church one morning, the sound of a scream leads her to the body of a missing local teacher in the shallows nearby. All the evidence points to Olivia’s most threatening patient, Drake, who is safely locked up behind bars…Convinced of Drake’s innocence—and desperate to believe in the system that’s keeping her own murderer father behind bars—Olivia gets to work on her own suspect list. All her life she’s run towards trouble, but this time she’s treading on the toes of brooding and handsome Detective Will Decker.Then a second woman’s body is discovered, strangled while out on an evening jog. The strip of blue material used to choke her implicates Drake once again, forcing Olivia and Will to admit they are out of their depth and must work together to crack the case.The deeper they dig, the deadlier the trail becomes. It’s clear more innocent women will die if they don’t get one step ahead. But then a note written on a scrap of paper found in the last victim’s car leads them to a terrifying realization: the killer has his sights on Olivia’s little sister as the next victim…An addictive and unputdownable crime thriller that will keep you up all night. Perfect for fans of Melinda Leigh, Kendra Elliot and Mary Burton.

The Liar's Girl


Catherine Ryan Howard - 2018
    John's College-and Ireland's most prolific serial killer. Having stalked his four young victims, he drowned them in the muddy waters of the Grand Canal. Sentenced to life imprisonment when he was just nineteen, Will is locked away in the city's Central Psychiatric Hospital. Freshman Alison Smith moved to the Big Smoke to enrol in St. John's and soon fell hard for Will Hurley. Her world bloomed ... and then imploded when Liz, her best friend, became the latest victim of the Canal Killer-and the Canal Killer turned out to be the boy who'd been sleeping in her bed. Alison fled to the Netherlands and, in ten years, has never once looked back. When a young woman's body is found in the Grand Canal, Garda detectives visit Will to see if he can assist them in solving what looks like a copycat killing. Instead, Will tells them he has something new to confess-but there's only one person he's prepared to confess it to. The last thing Alison wants is to be pulled back into the past she's worked so hard to leave behind. Reluctantly, she returns to the city she hasn't set foot in for more than a decade to face the man who murdered the woman she was supposed to become. Only to discover that, until now, Will has left out the worst part of all ...

Where I Left Her


Amber Garza - 2021
    She’d never met the parents, and usually she’d go in, but Amelia clearly wasn’t going to let something so humiliating happen, so instead Whitney waved to her daughter before pulling away from the little house with the roses in front.But when she goes back the next day, an elderly couple answers the door—Amelia and Lauren aren’t there, and this couple swears they never were, that she’s at the wrong house. As Whitney searches for Amelia, she uncovers a trail of lies her daughter has told her—from the Finsta account to rumors of a secret relationship. Does she really even know this girl she’s raised? And Amelia’s not the only one with secrets. Could Whitney’s own demons have something to do with her daughter’s disappearance, and can Whitney find her before it’s too late?

Death in the Family


Tessa Wegert - 2020
    A blood-soaked bed. A missing man. Senior Investigator Shana Merchant believes it all adds up to a killer in their midst—and that murder is a family affair.Thirteen months ago, former NYPD detective Shana Merchant barely survived being abducted by a serial killer. Now hoping to leave grisly murder cases behind, she's taken a job in her fiancé's sleepy hometown in the Thousand Islands region of Upstate New York. But as a nor'easter bears down on her new territory, Shana and fellow investigator Tim Wellington receive a call about a man missing on a private island. Shana and Tim travel to the isolated island owned by the wealthy Sinclair family to question the witnesses. They arrive to find blood on the scene and a house full of Sinclair family and friends on edge.While Tim guesses they're dealing with a runaway case, Shana is convinced that they have a murder on their hands. As the gale intensifies outside, she starts conducting interviews and discovers the Sinclairs and their guests are crawling with dark and dangerous secrets. Trapped on the island by the raging storm with only Tim whose reliability is thrown into question, the increasingly restless suspects, and her own trauma-fueled flashbacks for company, Shana will have to trust the one person her abduction destroyed her faith in—herself. But time is ticking down, because if Shana's right, a killer is in their midst and as the pressure mounts, so do the odds that they'll strike again.

A Tortured Soul


L.A. Detwiler - 2020
    Detwiler comes a sinister horror with jaw-dropping twists.Everyone has a breaking point.At twenty, an unplanned pregnancy seals Crystal Holt into a marriage to the abusive Richard Connor. After a stillborn birth, Crystal insists they have the baby baptized postmortem. A cynic, a drunk, and a poor man, Richard has other plans. When her monstrous husband tosses the baby into the woods to be forgotten, Crystal instantly spirals. After beating her within an inch of her life, Richard does something else he's done before—he disappears. This time, however, things feel very different…With her husband gone, Crystal battles with the demons of abuse, dark childhood memories, and a declining mental state worsened by horrific nightmare sequences. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that something's not quite right about the way Richard disappeared this time, and Crystal is in more danger than ever. After all, not all of the dark secrets belong to Richard.Will Crystal be able to escape from a lifetime of torture unscathed, or will she succumb to the dark secrets she's fallen prey to before?A twisted page-turner that will shake even the toughest horror and thriller fans…

Don't Trust Her


Elizabeth Boles - 2021
    So when the letter arrives at her doorstep, the message is clear—pay up or have your world destroyed. With nowhere to turn, Court succumbs to the blackmailer’s demands. But she can’t forget about the letter. It haunts her. A girls’ weekend away offers the perfect distraction. She and her three closest friends head to a remote cabin in the Appalachians for a much-needed retreat. But the fun comes to an abrupt end when an unexpected ice storm strands them without electricity and phones. And then one friend never wakes up.It looks like an accident, but as secrets start to spill—secrets related to the blackmail letter—and suspicions swirl through the cabin, Court discovers her friends aren’t who she thinks they are. And maybe, just maybe, her friend didn’t die accidentally at all. Perhaps she was murdered. Now, Court must decide who's lying, who's telling the truth, and who can be trusted. Otherwise, she could be the next to die.

Pretty as a Picture


Elizabeth Little - 2020
    Some girl dies. It's not much to go on, but the specifics don't concern Marissa. Whatever the script is, her job is the same. She'll spend her days in the editing room, doing what she does best: turning pictures into stories.But she soon discovers that on this set, nothing is as it's supposed to be--or as it seems. There are rumors of accidents and indiscretions, of burgeoning scandals and perilous schemes. Half the crew has been fired. The other half wants to quit. Even the actors have figured out something is wrong. And no one seems to know what happened to the editor she was hired to replace.Then she meets the intrepid and incorrigible teenage girls who are determined to solve the real-life murder that is the movie's central subject, and before long, Marissa is drawn into the investigation herself.The only problem is, the killer may still be on the loose. And he might not be finished.

The Corpse Flower


Anne Mette Hancock - 2017
    One of her sources has been caught lying, and she could lose her job over it. And then she receives the first in a series of cryptic and ominous letters from an alleged killer.Wanted in connection with the fatal stabbing of a young lawyer three years earlier, Anna Kiel hasn't been seen by anyone since she left the crime scene covered in blood. The police think she's fled the country and have zero clues as to her motive. But homicide detective Erik Scháfer comes up with the first lead when the reporter who first wrote about the case is found murdered in his apartment. Has Anna Kiel struck again, or is there more than one killer at large? And why does every clue point directly to Heloise Kaldan?Meanwhile, the letters keep coming, and they hint at a connection between Anna and Heloise. As Heloise starts digging deeper, she realizes that, to tell Anna's story, she will have to revisit the darkest parts of her own past--confronting someone she swore she'd never see again.

The Fallen Girls


Kathryn Casey - 2020
    By the time she looked up, the man towered above her. In a single movement he wrapped one thick hand around her waist, the other he clamped over her mouth, muffling her screams.Detective Clara Jefferies has spent years running from her childhood in Alber, Utah. But when she hears that her baby sister Delilah has disappeared, she knows that the peaceful community will be shattered, her family vulnerable, and that that she must face up to her past and go home.Clara returns to find that her mother, Ardeth, has isolated her family by moving to the edge of town, in the shadow of the mountains. Ardeth refuses to talk to the police and won’t let Clara through the front door, believing she and her sister-wives can protect their own. But Clara knows better than anyone that her mother isn’t always capable of protecting her children.When Clara finds out that two more girls have disappeared, all last seen around the cornfields near her family’s home, she realizes it’s not just Delilah who’s in danger. And then she gets a call that a body has been found…Clara will have to dig deep into the town’s secrets if she’s going to find Delilah. But that will mean confronting the reason she left. And as she gets closer to Delilah, she might be putting her more at risk…Gripping and spine-chilling, readers will love Detective Clara Jefferies, reading The Fallen Girls deep into the night. Fans of Kendra Elliot, Lisa Regan and Melinda Leigh won’t stop turning the pages of this unforgettable new series from bestselling and award-winning author Kathryn Casey.

The Drowning Game


L.S. Hawker - 2015
    She can disarm, dismember, and kill—and now, for the first time ever, she is free.Her paranoid father is dead, his extreme dominance and rules a thing of the past, but his influence remains as strong as ever. When his final will reveals a future more terrible than her captive past, Petty knows she must escape—by whatever means necessary.But when Petty learns the truth behind her father's madness—and her own family—the reality is worse than anything she could have imagined. On the road and in over her head, Petty's fight for her life has just begun. Fans of female-powered thrillers will love debut author LS Hawker and her suspenseful tale of a young woman on the run for her future…and from the nightmares of her past.

The Diary: The Complete Loving a Killer Serial


Julia Derek - 2014
    TERRIBLE SECRETS.Happily married Lexi Woods thought losing a child would be the worst thing that could ever happen to her. She was wrong. It turns out that life has more ugly surprises for her. When she is finally through the heavy depression of losing her newborn, she finds her husband’s diary. As she reads it, she learns that he’s been unfaithful to her. He’s not at all the man she thought he was. Unfortunately, that’s not the worst part. Not only has the love of her life gone behind her back -- but it also looks like he killed his mistress... What else could he be hiding?NOTE: This edition contains all three novellas of the Loving a Killer serial. The first is entitled The Diary, the second The Other Woman, and the third Guilty. It has some sexual content.

The Meat Hunter


Megan Allen - 2020
    Now a seductive and cunning young woman, she seeks out the cruelest members of the meat industry and offers up her own brand of redemption. Molly’s mission is clear. Those who raise animals for meat should understand what it feels like to become meat. But the FBI is onto her— they’ve sent in Michael Lair, a whip-smart agent with his own set of demons. And as a deadly game of cat-and-mouse ensues in the nation’s heartland, they must rely on their instincts and intellect to determine who prevails.

Dead Woman Crossing


J.R. Adler - 2020
    A devastating murder. A town full of secrets…Haunted by the serial killer she never caught, Detective Kimberley King leaves her job in New York and relocates to the sleepy town of Dead Woman Crossing, Oklahoma. Kimberley hopes to bring her daughter Jessica up close to her family, far from the bad memories the city holds. But her quiet new home is not the peaceful place she dreamed of. Within days of her arrival, Kimberley is called to the scene of a terrible crime: her friend Hannah, a single mother, has been brutally murdered, her one-year-old daughter the only witness.Kimberley can’t ignore the similarity of Hannah’s death to that of Katie James, a young woman who was murdered in 1905 on the banks of the same twisting creek. Dead Woman Crossing is named after her, and it seems someone is drawing inspiration from the crime. Could this killer be a copycat?Teaming up with Sheriff Sam Walker, Kimberley struggles to make headway with Hannah’s murder. In a small town, people don’t talk to outsiders and Kimberley has a hard time gaining trust, even within her own family. Kimberley isn’t afraid to ask questions, but when she receives a threatening note, she realises that, as a single mother to a young daughter, she might be putting herself dangerously in the killer’s sights…

Raven Lane


Amber Cowie - 2019
    After vindicating eyewitness accounts morph into contradictory memories, suspicion, and unaccountable accusations, Benedict is arrested. Esme’s life, too, is changed forever.As the neighborhood largely turns against her and her family, Esme has time to think about her past and what to do next. Then her fellow residents start looking deeper, questioning one another, and themselves, about hidden lies and betrayals.Esme has more than her share of secrets. And the consequences of what happened on that fateful late-summer evening on Raven Lane are far from over. When the mask of civility slips, can friends and neighbors recover from seeing the monstrous truths beneath?