Book picks similar to
The Right Society by Donna Foley Mabry


drama
blue-creek-red-river
contemporary
biographies

Midnight Beach: A Port Stirling Mystery


Kay Jennings - 2020
    

The Elect


James Gilbert
    His wife Sandy is a successful public relations executive. Together, they enjoy the rarified life of wealth and comfort in their urbane Chicago social circles. Yet that uncomplicated existence is turned upside down when the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for President is killed in a helicopter crash on the eve of the New Hampshire primary and Reed is cast into the unlikely role as the heir apparent for the Republican nomination for President. Rapidly drawn into a high stakes battle for the Republican nomination, the couple remain unaware that Reed is the intended victim in a complex web of blackmail, murder, and religious extremism that threatens to destroy any remaining wall of separation between church and state. Reed is faced with the impossible choice to divulge the secret that threatens to destroy him, or become the next victim in an out of control religious crusade that might just be too powerful to stop.

A Poisoned Passion


Diane Fanning - 2009
    But his life back at home, in Texas, would prove a lot more dangerous...In the winter of 2005, Mike's wife, a veterinarian named Wendi Mae Davidson, reported him missing. Wendi told police that Mike had been acting erratically-visiting local clubs, staying out late, sometimes not coming home at all. She filed for divorce the very next day.Eventually Mike's body turned up in a stock pond on a private ranch. Investigators described a corpse that was weighted down with two cinder blocks, a rock, a boat anchor, and other equipment. It had also been stabbed forty-one times with a knife. But an autopsy report told a different story: That the cause of death was exposure to pentobarbital and phenobarbital, drugs commonly used in veterinary medicine. All the evidence pointed to Wendi...and soon she would be found guilty of murder in the first degree. Diane Fanning's A Poisioned Passion is the true, shocking story of a war hero and a marriage that ended in cold-blooded murder.

Shatter My Rock


Greta Nelsen - 2012
    And when a vicious migraine sends her to a saggy hotel bed and him to the marketing conference in her place, she is first relieved and then thankful.Weeks later, upon discovering she’s pregnant, Claire has no reason for concern. With the help of genetic counselors and fertility specialists, she and her college-sweetheart husband, Tim, have been striving for a sibling for their ten-year-old daughter, Ally. And now they have one: a precious baby boy they name Owen.But all is not well, and soon Claire begins spotting alarming quirks in Owen’s behavior that suggest he may be stricken with Batten Disease, the terminal illness that took her brother, Ricky, back in nineteen seventy-nine. If Claire is right and Owen is sick, other disturbing things may also be true. Things like: Claire has been raped; Owen is not Tim’s son; and Owen is going to die. As events unfold, Claire finds herself confronting unthinkable choices, the consequences of which could jeopardize her career, her marriage, and even her freedom.

Innocent: A murdered son. A grieving mother. The fight to clear her name.


Sarah Rose - 2015
    I couldn’t speak to any of my family. It was like I’d been found guilty before I could be proved innocent’Losing a child is any mother’s worst nightmare, but how do you grieve when you’re being blamed for his death? When Sarah Rose discovered her 15-month-old son Kamran had been brutally murdered, she was immediately put under arrest. The days she spent in jail were terrifying and harrowing, but it was when she heard the results of the post-mortem that the truth hit her: her boyfriend, Nicholas, the man she’s loved and trusted, had beaten her little boy to death. Heartbroken, isolated and alone, she knew she’d have to fight to prove her innocence and put Nicholas behind bars.Tragic, moving, yet ultimately uplifting, this is story of a mother’s love and her battle for the truth.

Afraid to Tell


Heidi Harding - 2017
    After years of fear and isolation, Heidi knew she had to go to the police. For a long time, Chloe resented Heidi for forcing her to disclose what had happened when she wasn’t ready, while their brother, Tom, couldn’t understand how he had so misjudged his father, and at first he didn’t believe their tale. The truth threatened to destroy them all. This is the very honest story of three siblings, and how a man they trusted threatened to tear their family apart.

The Crazy Life of a Kid from Brooklyn


Bill Morgenstein - 2014
    I was on the Stuyvesant baseball team, but because of my working hours, my playing time was limited. My first dream to become a corporate president by the time I was 35 years of age was fulfilled.Experience the ups and downs of a life well lived in Bill Morgenstein's compelling new memoir, The Crazy Life of a Kid from Brooklyn.While first reminiscing upon his childhood in Brooklyn during the depression, Morgenstein traces his life through times of war, peace, and everything in between.At times extremely funny and heartbreaking, The Crazy Life of a Kid in Brooklyn details Morgenstein's enlistment in the US Army, his days running a $55 million dollar company, his despair at losing it all to a scam, and much more.His chance encounters with such historical figures as Sergeant York, Cordell Hull, Sid Gordon, Jomo Kenyatta, and Vince Camuto provide amusing cultural touchstones that reveal a willingness to embrace everything life has to offer.Through all the successful, disappointing, dangerous, educational, and enlightening experiences that have shaped his life, Morgenstein remains philosophical as he explores the roles of ethics, honesty, and unfailing determination in shaping the human experience.

Fifteen Years of Lies


Ann Minnett - 2017
    In solidarity, her two roommates got tattoos to match her distinctive ink. The three dropped-out to start over in Montana where she gave birth to a son Zane. The friends conspired never to reveal Zane’s true heritage. Fifteen years later, a stranger recognizes the tattoo. He stalks mother and son, causing the lies to unravel. Was the stranger a witness to the rape or in fact one of the assailants? Beautiful Whitefish, Montana serves as the setting for Fifteen Years of Lies, yet the story could occur anywhere people go to escape and in any family struggling to keep secrets. Parents of teenagers will relate to a mother’s fears for her son as his rebellion leads to violence. Fifteen Years of Lies goes beyond the timely issue of sexual assault on campus to lay bare the aftermath of rape and its effects on the survivor, the child, loved ones, and even the rapist. Experience the raw emotions of past injustice and imminent threat when a suspected rapist believes he has found his victim and his son. How far will the three women go to protect Zane from the truth?

Nobody Will Believe You: A Story of Unbreakable Courage


Mary Manning - 2015
    I was completely isolated. He made sure of that.’ Mary was ten years old when she first met her stepfather, Sean McDarby. From the very beginning he seemed to pay her special attention; his praise and compliments quickly won her trust. Then he started touching her in ways she didn’t like. When she was twelve, he raped her. The next twenty years were filled with harrowing abuse as McDarby continued to rape Mary, leading to the birth of five of her children. Finally, after years of abuse – years when justice was denied at every turn – Mary found the strength and courage to break free. Against the odds she created a safe place for her children and reclaimed her life. This is Mary’s inspirational story of courage and survival.

The Lost Soul


Rosie Goodwin - 2010
    Worse still, Maddie is blamed for starting the fire and, labelled a difficult child, she is sent to a children's home. Far from idyllic, and buried deep in the countryside, the home well conceals the misery of its young occupants. Subjected to a harsh regime of abuse and degradation, Maddie makes a brave attempt to escape. But her brief weeks of freedom are thwarted when she is caught and taken back to River House.Maddie clings to her determination to one day be reunited with Oli, and it is this which gives her the strength to endure what lies ahead. For she knows she can rely only on herself - there is no one else to keep her safe...

The Life We Bury: by Allen Eskins | Chapter Compilation


John Lenen - 2016
    What was supposed to be a simple project became more than what it was supposed to be the moment Joe meets a peculiar dying elderly man named Carl Iverson who happened to be a convicted murderer and rapist. From just wanting to earn a passing grade, he ends up going out of his way to prove the innocence of the old man. Amidst his desire for justice, he is also faced with the reality of his troubled family life which involved his highly irresponsible mother and his autistic younger brother. The evidences Joe discovers along the way, unravels a darker horror of the past occurrences that led to the untimely death of an unfortunate fourteen year old girl.

Take Good Care


Ella King - 2021
    Or a reckless act?What makes a good mother? Maddie feels there's no such thing, and while her own style may be controversial, it works for her family and that's all that matters.Until one day she makes a fateful decision that has devastating consequences for another parent, and suddenly the world is lining up to vilify her.As the court of public opinion closes in, now she must defend every parental choice she's ever made - in a court of law.But this is not just a trial; it's a witch hunt - and everybody has an opinion.Is she a terrible mother? Or faced with the choice, might you have done the same?

One Must Die


Mark Tilbury - 2021
    One of them must die. You choose.Widower Sean Levitt receives the ominous message in the post a few days after his teenage boys go missing on their way to army cadets. As time progresses, the abductor makes increasingly horrific demands of Sean by sending him DVDs, and telling him to post videos online of the shocking assignments he sets him. One Must Die is the story of one man’s fight to keep his sons alive, and the terrible lengths he must go to in order to do so.Can Sean do what the police have failed to do and find his sons?Or will the abductor achieve his twisted aim of destroying his entire family?

To Dream the Blackbane


Richard J. O'Brien
    Scientists referred to the event as The Anomaly. A byproduct of The Anomaly was the advent of hybrid beings—people who became mixed with whatever animal or object was closest to them the moment the event occurred. Humans, or pedigrees, soon relegated fairy refugees and hybrids into ghetto zones in large cities.Seventy years later, Wolfgang Rex, a second-generation hybrid—part human, part Rhodesian Ridgeback—is a retired police detective who runs a private investigation business in Chicago’s Southside. It’s a one-hybrid show; though Rex couldn’t survive without his assistant, the faerie Sally Sandweb.One night, two vampires visit Rex and offer him a substantial reward for the recovery of a stolen scroll. Later that same evening, Charlotte Sweeney-Jarhadill, a pedigree woman from Louisiana, visits Rex and hires him to exorcize the headless ghost of a Confederate soldier from her home.To complicate matters, the private detective ends up falling for Charlotte. Meanwhile, the vampires demand results in the search for the missing scroll. When Rex’s assistant Sally goes missing, he must stay alive long enough to find her. Charlotte and the vampires, however, have other plans for Rex.

Hairspray and Lighter


J. Jupes - 2018
    He didn't expect Darlene Johnson to walk into his office with her chocolate box. And certainly didn't expect what followed. . Book One of the Detectives That Don't Fit Series.