Lost in Distraction


B.J. Harvey - 2013
    A sexy stranger paid to protect her. Alone and shut off from the world, Elise Halliwell is simply going through the motions, waiting for the next step in her pre-destined life. Until a chance meeting with the dark-haired, blue-eyed Brax James shakes her to the core, achieving what everyone else before him has failed to do; he makes her feel again. As much as Brax wishes things were different, fate has not brought him into Elise’s life. His job is to keep her safe, not fall for the very woman he’s supposed to protect. Elise has no idea of the threat she faces and Brax wants it to stay that way. Unfortunately for both of them, they’ll have no say in the matter. Full of twists, turns, and revelations no-one sees coming, you won’t be the only one lost in distraction.*This book contains adult situations and explicit content/language.*

Hostage


Clare MackintoshClare Mackintosh - 2021
    Or the one that matters most.A claustrophobic thriller set over twenty hours on one airplane flight, with the heart-stopping tension of The Last Flight and the wrenching emotional intensity of Room, Hostage takes us on board the inaugural nonstop flight from London to Sydney.Mina is trying to focus on her job as a flight attendant, not the problems of her five-year-old daughter back home, or the fissures in her marriage. But the plane has barely taken off when Mina receives a chilling note from an anonymous passenger, someone intent on ensuring the plane never reaches its destination. Someone who needs Mina's assistance and who knows exactly how to make her comply. It's twenty hours to landing. A lot can happen in twenty hours.

Have You Seen Me?


Kate White - 2020
    The key to her missing memories could bring relief—or unlock her worst nightmares.On a cold, rainy morning, finance journalist Ally Linden arrives early to work in her Manhattan office, only to find that she’s forgotten her keycard and needs to have a colleague she’s never met let her in. When her boss finally arrives, he seems surprised to see her—because she hasn’t worked there in five years.Ally knows her name, but little else, and it’s only after several hours in an emergency room and multiple interviews with the hospital psychiatrist that she begins to piece together important facts: she lives on the Upper West Side; she’s now a freelance personal finance journalist; she’s married to a lovely man named Hugh. But she still can’t recall what happened to her during the previous two days. When she learns that she’s experienced a dissociative fugue state, Ally tries to think of triggers and remembers that she’d been seeing a therapist about a traumatic event from her childhood, in which she came across evidence for a murder that was never solved.Desperate to unearth answers, Ally focuses on figuring out where she spent the missing forty-eight hours. As ominous details of the two days pile up, so does the terrifying pressure: she must recover the time she lost before the time she has left runs out.Featuring Kate White’s signature twists and turns, Have You Seen Me? is a harrowing read that will keep readers guessing until its shocking ending.

Open House


Katie Sise - 2020
    A town still held in the grip of an unsolved mystery. A breathtaking novel of psychological suspense by the bestselling author of We Were Mothers.A decade ago in upstate New York, art student Emma McCullough walked into the woods and was never seen again. It’s a mystery that still haunts her bucolic university town and her broken family, especially her sister Haley, whose need for closure has become an obsession. But now, finally, the first piece of evidence in the vanishing has been found: Emma’s bracelet, lodged in a frozen piece of earth at the bottom of a gorge. For Emma’s three best college friends, for a beloved former teacher, and for Haley, the chilling trinket is more than a clue in a resurrected cold case. It’s a trigger.Then a woman is attacked during an open house, and the connections between the two crimes, ten winters apart, begin to surface. So do the secrets that run as deep and dark as the currents in this quiet river town.

She's Not Coming Home


Philip Cox - 2012
    If she doesn’t work there, where has she been going?Matthew Gibbons thought he had it all – a house in a leafy Boston suburb, his wife Ruth and a beautiful son. But when one evening, after texting him ‘leaving now’, she doesn’t arrive home, and the staff at her office say they have no Ruth Gibbons working there, he sees his whole life collapse around him.What could have made Ruth walk away from her home and her family? When Matt tries to piece together his wife’s life, he finds he never really knew the woman he married, the woman who apparently died in a car crash three years earlier…

The Wrong Family


Tarryn Fisher - 2020
    Only now that she’s living in their beautiful house, she sees the cracks in the crumbling facade are too deep to ignore.Still, she isn’t one to judge. After her grim diagnosis, the retired therapist simply wants a place to live out the rest of her days in peace. But that peace is shattered the day Juno overhears a chilling conversation between Winnie and Nigel…She shouldn’t get involved.She really shouldn’t.But this could be her chance to make a few things right.Because if you thought Juno didn’t have a secret of her own, then you were wrong about her, too.

Love and Protect


Lori Ryan - 2014
    He's providing refuge. Together, they'll fight for new love and survival...Laura Kensington is desperate to give her unborn child a fresh start. On the run from her late husband's ruthless family, she takes refuge on a Texas ranch. As her twisted mother-in-law hunts her down, she has one reason to be hopeful: a loving man who believes in second chances.Cade Bishop has dedicated his life to protecting injured and neglected animals. He didn't hesitate to protect the strong, beautiful Laura when she showed up on his doorstep, but he never expected the passion he feels for her. As the truth comes out, Cade dedicates himself to guarding the woman he's falling for.When the powerful family draws near, Laura and Cade will need more than a refuge to preserve their love and their lives. Love and Protect is the first standalone book in the Heroes of Evers, TX romantic suspense series.Love and Protect was previously published as Ever Hopeful.

Vanishing Girls


Lisa Regan - 2018
    Not a word, actually. A name… Everyone in the small American town of Denton is searching for Isabelle Coleman, a missing seventeen-year-old girl. All they’ve found so far is her phone and another girl they didn’t even know was missing. Mute and completely unresponsive to the world around her, it’s clear this mysterious girl has been damaged beyond repair. All Detective Josie Quinn can get from her is a name: Ramona. Currently suspended from the force for misconduct, Josie takes matters into her own hands as the name leads her to evidence linking the two girls. She knows the race is on to find Isabelle alive, and she fears there may be others… The trail leads Josie to another victim, a girl who escaped but whose case was labelled a hoax by authorities. To catch this monster, Josie must confront her own nightmares and follow her instinct to the darkest of places. But can she make it out alive? Fans of Angela Marsons, Helen Fields and Robert Dugoni will be utterly gripped and sleeping with the lights on once they discover the first in this unputdownable new crime thriller series.

An Invincible Summer


Mariah Stewart - 2021
    Now, on the occasion of her fortieth high school reunion, she returns to her hometown on the Massachusetts coast, picking up right where she left off with dear friends Lydia and Emma. But seeing Brett Crawford again stirs other emotions. Once, they were the town’s golden couple destined for one another. He shared Maggie’s dreams—and eventually, a shattering secret that drove them apart.Buying her old family home and resettling in Wyndham Beach means a chance to start over for Maggie and her two daughters, but it also means facing her rekindled feelings for her first love and finally confronting—and embracing—the past in ways she never thought possible. Maggie won’t be alone. With her family and friends around her, she can weather this stormy turning point in her life and open her heart to the future. As for that dream shared and lost years ago? If Maggie can forgive herself, it still might come true.

Run Away


Harlan Coben - 2019
    And she's made it clear that she doesn't want to be found.Then, quite by chance, you see her busking in New York's Central Park.But she's not the girl you remember. This woman is wasted, frightened and clearly in trouble.You don't stop to think. You approach her, beg her to come home.She runs. And you follow her into a dark and dangerous world you never knew existed. Where criminal gangs rule, where drugs are the main currency, and murder is commonplace.Now it's your life on the line. And nowhere and no one is safe.

Forgotten Crimes


Anna Willett - 2018
     Gloria is heading to meet her friend Rhetty in a bar. Once close, the two friends have drifted apart. Rhetty is different now, a shadow of her former self, and it all goes back to an incident that occurred four years ago. They meet at the same bar as always. It’s a sleazy venue. Gloria is uncomfortable there. She has a recollection of something terrible happening at the place, but can’t recall any details. Rhetty is agitated. She tells Gloria something that can’t be true. That another acquaintance of theirs, a bolshie woman called Joanna, is back on the scene. It can’t be true because Joanna died four years ago. What is Rhetty trying to achieve when she convinces Gloria to return to where Joanna died? And why is Gloria, despite her reservations, ready to go along with her? Why did Joanna die, and how is it possible she could return?

The Shadowing


Rhiannon Ward - 2021
    Mercy was pregnant - both her and the baby are said to be dead of cholera, but the workhouse hasn't had an outbreak for years.Hester discovers a strange trend in the workhouse of children going missing. One woman tells her about the Pale Lady, a ghostly figure that steals babies in the night. Is this lady a myth or is something more sinister afoot at the Southwell poorhouse?As Hester investigates, she uncovers a conspiracy, one that someone is determined to keep a secret, no matter the cost...

After Nightfall


A.J. Banner - 2018
    Years later, when she seeks forgiveness, you invite her to your engagement party as a gesture of reconciliation. But seething hostilities rise to the surface, ruining everyone’s evening. After an awful night, your friend’s battered, lifeless body is found at the bottom of a rocky cliff.Newly engaged Marissa Parlette is living this nightmare. She should be celebrating her upcoming wedding, but she can’t shake the image of her friend lying dead on the beach. Did she fall? Was she pushed? Or did she take a purposeful step into darkness? Desperate for answers, Marissa digs deep into the events of the party. But what she remembers happening after nightfall now carries sinister implications: the ugly sniping, the clandestine meetings, the drunken flirtations. The more she investigates, the more she questions everything she thought she knew about her friends, the man she once trusted, and even herself.Bestselling author A. J. Banner keeps readers on a razor-sharp edge in this intricately plotted novel of psychological suspense…in which nothing is as it seems.

Before You Leap


Keith Houghton - 2016
    But when Scarlett’s killer is released early from prison with a cast-iron alibi, Greg realizes that his past is about to explode into his present, with terrifying consequences.To expose the truth he must open up old wounds. As a talk therapist, Greg knows all about dark secrets, but when a childhood friendship comes to the fore and the police turn their spotlight on him, the thought of analyzing his own psyche is a disturbing prospect. How far can he trust his own memories?With his life coming apart at the seams, and his grip on reality beginning to unravel, Greg must face the ghosts of his past if he hopes to prove his innocence and live to see another day.

Lies That Bind Us


Andrew Hart - 2018
    She’s flying to Crete to reunite with friends she met there five years ago and relive an idyllic vacation. Basking in the warmth of the sun, the azure sea, and the aura of antiquity, she can once again pretend—for a little while—that she belongs. Her ex-boyfriend Marcus will be among them, but even he doesn’t know the secrets she keeps hidden behind a veil of lies. None of them really know her, and that’s only part of the problem.Then again, how well does she know them?When Jan awakens in utter darkness, chained to a wall, a manacle around her wrist, her echoing screams only give her a sense of how small her cell is. As she desperately tries to reconstruct what happened and determine who is holding her prisoner, dread covers despair like a hand clamped over her mouth. Because, like the Minotaur in the labyrinth in Greek myth, her captor will be coming back for her, and all the lies will catch up to her…