Book picks similar to
Stronger Than Skin by Stephen May
fiction
crime
cheap-punt
liz
The Sweetwater Island Ferry Collection
Sophie Mays - 2019
One day I looked in the mirror and the strong, creative, feisty girl of my childhood wasn’t smiling back at me anymore. In my perfect world… I would be selling gourmet donuts, making art, be married to my high school sweetheart, and live in my dream house…. My aunt must’ve known something that I didn’t, because when she left me her cottage on Sweetwater Island, a tiny spark lit inside me. But the old Victorian house has been sitting vacant for so long, the idea of living there is a pipe dream. What would it take to restore the summer cottage of my childhood to its former glory? My sister thinks it's crazy, but... Could this be a second chance at the life I always dreamed of? TRISTAN From the moment she peeked her head around the corner of that weather-worn Victorian cottage, I knew there was something special about her. Then I realized that she was going to be one of those clients that thought being involved in the renovation project was helpful…when really, she was just going to get in the way. But why did she have to end up being so beautiful, and so…likeable? No, this is a job. Besides, love isn’t in the cards for me anymore. People with dark secrets like mine don’t deserve a chance at true happiness. Yet every time she comes around I can’t help but wonder… What if I'm still salvageable like this old seaside cottage? This Trilogy Includes: ♥ BOOK 1 - For Love…and Donuts ♥ BOOK 2 - To Love…and Renovate ♥ BOOK 3 - With Love…and Reality TV ….. Follow along on Virginia and Tristan’s journey from perfect strangers to unexpected home improvement darlings in the Sweetwater Island Ferry trilogy! Along the way, meet their friends and family, who remind us that a happy, fulfilling life requires having big dreams, faith in the impossible, and a little TLC.
The Woman in the Window
A.J. Finn - 2018
She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying on her neighbors.Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, a mother and their teenage son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to crumble and its shocking secrets are laid bare.What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one—and nothing—is what it seems.
Catch Us The Foxes
Nicola West - 2021
Others you don’t dare let out … Twin Peaks meets The Dry in a deliciously dark and twisted tale that unravels a small town Ambitious young journalist Marlowe ‘Lo’ Robertson would do anything to escape the suffocating confines of her small home town. While begrudgingly covering the annual show for the local paper, Lo is horrified to discover the mutilated corpse of Lily Williams, the reigning showgirl and Lo’s best friend. Seven strange symbols have been ruthlessly carved into Lily’s back. But when Lo reports her grisly find to the town’s police chief, he makes her promise not to tell anyone about the symbols. Lo obliges, though it’s not like she has much of a choice – after all, he is also her father. When Lily’s murder makes headlines around the country and the town is invaded by the media, Lo seizes the opportunity to track down the killer and make a name for herself by breaking the biggest story of her life. What Lo uncovers is that her sleepy home town has been harbouring a deadly secret, one so shocking that it will captivate the entire nation. Lo’s story will change the course of her life forever, but in a way she could never have dreamed of.
The Kind Worth Killing
Peter Swanson - 2015
Fans of Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train will love this modern reimagining of Patricia Highsmith’s classic Strangers on a Train from the author of the acclaimed The Girl with a Clock for a Heart—which the Washington Post said “should be a contender for crime fiction’s best first novel of 2014.”On a night flight from London to Boston, Ted Severson meets the stunning and mysterious Lily Kintner. Sharing one too many martinis, the strangers begin to play a game of truth, revealing very intimate details about themselves. Ted talks about his marriage that’s going stale and his wife Miranda, who he’s sure is cheating on him. Ted and his wife were a mismatch from the start—he the rich businessman, she the artistic free spirit—a contrast that once inflamed their passion, but has now become a cliché.But their game turns a little darker when Ted jokes that he could kill Miranda for what she’s done. Lily, without missing a beat, says calmly, “I’d like to help.” After all, some people are the kind worth killing, like a lying, stinking, cheating spouse. . . .Back in Boston, Ted and Lily’s twisted bond grows stronger as they begin to plot Miranda's demise. But there are a few things about Lily’s past that she hasn’t shared with Ted, namely her experience in the art and craft of murder, a journey that began in her very precocious youth.Suddenly these co-conspirators are embroiled in a chilling game of cat-and-mouse, one they both cannot survive . . . with a shrewd and very determined detective on their tail.
13 Minutes
Sarah Pinborough - 2016
Her two closest friends are acting strangely, and Natasha turns to Becca, the best friend she dumped years before when she got popular, to help her figure out what happened.Natasha's sure that her friends love her. But does that mean they didn't try to kill her?
The Family Upstairs
Lisa Jewell - 2019
She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am. She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents, but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, worth millions. Everything in Libby’s life is about to change. But what she can’t possibly know is that others have been waiting for this day as well—and she is on a collision course to meet them. Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone. The can’t-look-away story of three entangled families living in a house with the darkest of secrets.
You Should Have Known
Jean Hanff Korelitz - 2014
Grace is also the author of You Should Have Known, a book in which she castigates women for not valuing their intuition and calls upon them to examine their first impressions of men for signs of serious trouble later on. But weeks before the book is published, a chasm opens in her own life: a violent death, a missing husband, and, in the place of a man Grace thought she knew, only a chain of terrible revelations. Left behind in the wake of a spreading and very public disaster and horrified by the ways in which she has failed to heed her own advice, Grace must dismantle one life and create another for her child and herself.
Ordinary Thunderstorms
William Boyd - 2009
There is a reward for his capture. A hired killer is stalking him. He is alone and anonymous in the huge, pitiless modern city. Adam has nowhere to go but down - underground. He decides to join that vast army of the disappeared and the missing that throng the lowest level of London's population as he tries to figure out what to do with his life and struggles to understand the forces that have made it unravel so spectacularly. His quest will take him all along the River Thames, from affluent Chelsea to the sink estates of the East End, and on the way he encounters all manner of London's denizens - aristocrats, prostitutes, priests and policewomen amongst them - and version after new version of himself.William Boyd's electric follow-up to Costa Novel of the Year Restless is a heart-in-mouth conspiracy novel about the fragility of social identity, the scandal of big business, and the secrets that lie hidden in the filthy underbelly of every city.
Buried By Debt (A Suburban Noir Novel)
Cathryn Grant - 2011
Their friends say he's obsessed with her. Maybe he is. He wants to give her the world. Counting on a lucrative promotion, he bought a multi-million dollar home in Silicon Valley for her. It's all good because Jenna adores him. He's a lucky guy.Jenna loves Devon, loves her job, and loves nice things.Now, the economy's gone south, the promotion is delayed, and Devon and Jenna are desperate to hide their sky-rocketing debt.When a childhood friend confronts them about the money they owe, jealousy and secrets erupt in violence.Buried By Debt - A Suburban Noir love story.
The Picture House Girls
Rosie Archer - 2021
Perfect for fans of Dilly Court and Nadine Dorries.In 1940s Hampshire the war is settling into its stride bringing dark days for many.Connie Baxter has just moved in with her Aunt Gertie after the death of her mother. Gertie works as a cleaner at the Criterion Picture House in Gosport and she helps Connie to get a job there as an usherette. For Connie, it's the perfect place to work because she adores the movies with their glamorous, romantic stars.The only fly in the ointment is the Criterion's creepy manager with his wandering hands. But soon Connie is firm friends with Queenie, who sells ice creams and soon tells her how to warn him off.Charming Tommo Smith is a 'taxi-dancer'. For a fee he steers ladies of a certain age around the dance floor - and sometimes more besides which pays for his smart clothes. Connie's friend Queenie says he's a chancer, but his gorgeous blue eyes tell Connie something different. When suddenly he disappears, Connie accepts that Queenie may be right - he was too good to be true.As the war rages on and Connie struggles with the harsh realities of life and the turbulence of romance, she comes to realize that life isn't always like it is in the pictures.
The Prettiest One
James Hankins - 2015
Desperate to learn the truth about where she’s been and what has happened to her but terrified of what she may find, Caitlin embarks on a search for answers. Her journey takes her from the safe suburban world she knows to a seedy town she’s never heard of, where a terrible truth from her past lies hidden—a truth she can’t quite remember yet can’t completely forget.
Never Knowing
Chevy Stevens - 2011
Her antique furniture restoration business is taking off and she’s engaged to a wonderful man. But there’s one big question that still haunts her — who are her birth parents? Sara is finally ready to find out. Sara’s birth mother rejects her—again. Then she discovers her biological father is an infamous killer who’s been hunting women every summer for almost forty years. Sara tries to come to terms with her horrifying parentage — and her fears that she’s inherited more than his looks — with her therapist, Nadine, who we first met in "Still Missing." But soon Sara realizes the only thing worse than finding out your father is a killer is him finding out about you. Some questions are better left unanswered.
The Scent of Rain and Lightning
Nancy Pickard - 2010
“What is this fearsome thing I see?” the young high school English teacher whispers, mimicking Shakespeare. Polished boots, pressed jeans, fresh white shirts, Stetsons—her uncles’ suspiciously clean visiting clothes are a disturbing sign. The three bring shocking news: The man convicted of murdering Jody’s father is being released from prison and returning to the small town of Rose, Kansas. It has been twenty-six years since that stormy night when, as baby Jody lay asleep in her crib, her father was shot and killed and her mother disappeared, presumed dead. Neither the protective embrace of Jody’s uncles nor the safe haven of her grandparents’ ranch could erase the pain caused by Billy Crosby on that catastrophic night. Now Billy Crosby has been granted a new trial, thanks in large part to the efforts of his son, Collin, a lawyer who has spent most of his life trying to prove his father’s innocence. As Jody lives only a few doors down from the Crosbys, she knows that sooner or later she’ll come face-to-face with the man who she believes destroyed her family. What she doesn’t expect are the heated exchanges with Collin. Having grown up practically side by side in this very small town, Jody and Collin have had a long history of carefully avoiding each other’s eyes. Now Jody discovers that underneath their antagonism is a shared sense of loss that no one else could possibly understand. As she revisits old wounds, startling revelations compel her to uncover the dangerous truth about her family’s tragic past. Engrossing, lyrical, and suspenseful, The Scent of Rain and Lightning captures the essence of small-town America—its heartfelt intimacy and its darkest secrets—where through struggle and hardship people still dare to hope for a better future. For Jody Linder, maybe even love.
He Said/She Said
Erin Kelly - 2017
Kit is an eclipse chaser; Laura has never seen one before. Young and in love, they are certain this will be the first of many they’ll share. But in the hushed moments after the shadow passes, Laura interrupts a man and a woman. She knows that she saw something terrible. The man denies it. It is her word against his. The victim seems grateful. Months later, she turns up on their doorstep like a lonely stray. But as her gratitude takes a twisted turn, Laura begins to wonder—did she trust the wrong person? 15 years later, Kit and Laura are living under assumed names and completely off the digital grid: no Facebook, only rudimentary cell phones, not in any directories. But as the truth catches up to them, they realize they can no longer keep the past in the past.