What We Forgot to Bury


Marin Montgomery - 2020
    But she’s safe now. She lives in a gated community, protected from danger. When teenager Elle knocks at her door looking for shelter during a particularly severe storm, the woman can’t help but think how lucky Elle’s been to have found someone as friendly as her. Except Elle chose her door on purpose…She knows all about Charlotte’s secrets because they ruined her family and her life. And it is time that everyone else knew. But Charlotte’s past has left a dark void in her life, so she is concocting her own vicious plan, convinced that Elle can help fill that void.As events unfold, the truth unravels and pulls both women into a dangerous game that will leave you wondering, Who’s the villain?

Bourbon & Blood


Garrard Hayes - 2013
    Drugs, white slavery, prostitution, murder... Former soldier and decorated war hero Bill Conlin finds himself immersed in it all when he can't find "respectable" work after his tour in Afghanistan. When his cousin, Jimmy, first tries to talk him into joining Irish mafia boss Frank Sullivan's gang, Bill brushes him off. All Bill really wants is a normal life with a nice girl, and he's pretty sure the waitress he just met, Dana, is the one. But with his savings running low, and desperate to get out of his Hell's Kitchen near-tenement apartment building, Bill, against his better judgment, agrees to a meeting with Mr. Sullivan, an Irish Mob boss--and immediately hits the point of no return... Now with a brand new Lincoln and fancy new uptown digs (complete with a live-in girl whose only purpose is to serve him, and a wardrobe packed with weapons), Bill's tasked to take down a Harlem-based Mexican prostitution ring. One thing leads to another, however, and the deeper he gets, the more he learns, and the more tangled up he becomes in a lifestyle he never wanted. But how long until he takes matters into his own hands... And what will the ultimate cost be... Mystery & suspense lurk around every corner of this hard-boiled crime drama where mobsters shoot it out with urban gangs on the streets of New York City.

The Burning


S.O. Esposito - 2018
    She’s happily married, has two beautiful children, a close knit group of friends, and a cause she cares deeply about. But beneath the surface, her world of safety and comfort is unraveling. The periods of lost time she’s kept secret—even from her husband—are happening more frequently. She certainly doesn’t remember leaving her Sarasota home at three-thirty in the morning to burn someone alive. Now she sits in a Florida state mental institution, awaiting judgement on whether she’s fit to stand trial on charges of murder and arson. While a psychologist works to help Alice face her past, her future depends on the answer to one question: How far did she go for justice?*This book is recommended for mature audiences. While there are no explicit scenes of graphic or explicit violence, it does touch on themes of trafficking and sexual assault.

Steel Breeze


Douglas Wynne - 2013
    It’s been a year since novelist Desmond Carmichael's wife Sandy was brutally murdered. Now, with someone stalking him and his four-year-old son, he fears that the wrong man has been imprisoned for the crime. Sandy’s parents and Detective Chuck Fournier have a different fear: that Desmond, despondent over Sandy’s death, has become too unstable to raise his own son.To prove them wrong, Desmond must work outside the law to defeat a threat born in the dust of an American wasteland, baptized by fire, and hellbent on riding the winds of karma.

The Anatomy of Desire


L.R. Dorn - 2021
    She always knew she was destined for more than the life her deeply conservative parents preached to her. Arriving in Los Angeles as a flat broke teenager, she has risen to become a popular fitness coach and social media influencer. Having rebranded herself as Cleo Ray, she stands on the threshold of achieving her most cherished dreams.One summer day, Cleo and a young woman named Beck Alden set off in a canoe on a quiet, picture-perfect mountain lake. An hour later, Beck is found dead in the water, her face cut and bruised, and Cleo is missing. Authorities suspect foul play and news about Cleo’s involvement goes viral. Who was Beck and what was the nature of her and Cleo’s relationship? Was Beck an infatuated follower who took things too far? If Cleo is innocent, why did she run? Was it an accident? Or was it murder?As evidence of Cleo’s secret life surfaces, the world begins to see just how hard she strived to get to the top— and how fast and far the fall is from celebrity to infamy.L. R. Dorn’s reimagining of Theodore Dreiser’s novel, told in the form of a true crime docuseries a la Serial and The Jinx—with characters speaking through the “transcripts” of recorded interviews—The Anatomy of Desire exposes the ambition, sexual passion, and dark side of success that readers will find as achingly poignant as they did a century ago.

Blood Symbols


Izak Botha - 2017
    She has become convinced that the Catholic church’s authority, which incidentally constitutes the cornerstones of her own Protestant faith, is based on a lie. Desperate to prove herself wrong, she goes to the Vatican, only to be caught up in an international hunt for the truth about the church, the Pope, and how Jesus intended his followers to live their faith. A stolen artifact, a mysterious murder, and an escaping intruder lead Jennifer from the Vatican to the streets of Rome to the Cave Church of St. Peter in Turkey, where she discovers a secret that could delegitimize the Pope. Chased by scheming cardinals and the trigger-happy head of Vatican security, assisted only by an elderly professor, the son of an Italian Mafioso, and a mysterious—but handsome—Turk, Jennifer must decide whether to become complicit in the church’s duplicity or shake the foundations of the planet’s most dominant religion. “This fast-paced and intriguing work will hook readers from the first page to the last, leaving them wanting more.” BookLife Prize-2107 by Publishers Weekly.

Beautiful Bad


Annie Ward - 2019
    Hospitals and lakes. When Ian drinks vodka in the basement. ISIS. When Ian gets angry... That something is really, really wrong with me.Maddie and Ian's romance began with a chance encounter at a party overseas; he was serving in the British army and she was a travel writer visiting her best friend, Jo. Now almost two decades later, married with a beautiful son, Charlie, they are living the perfect suburban life in Middle America. But when a camping accident leaves Maddie badly scarred, she begins attending writing therapy, where she gradually reveals her fears about Ian's PTSD; her concerns for the safety of their young son, Charlie; and the couple's tangled and tumultuous past with Jo.From the Balkans to England, Iraq to Manhattan, and finally to an ordinary family home in Kansas, sixteen years of love and fear, adventure and suspicion culminate in The Day of the Killing, when a frantic 911 call summons the police to the scene of a shocking crime.

The Ninth District


Douglas Dorow - 2011
    FBI Special Agent Jack Miller, pulled into a high-profile case to mentor a new agent, finds himself in a clash with the toughest opponent of his career. The chase culminates in the bowels of the city, in the storm sewers and tunnels beneath The Ninth District Federal Reserve of Minneapolis.The Ninth District is approximately 74,600 words (300 pages) in length.

The Lie: When DNA Reveals the Family Secret


Heather Dawn Gray - 2019
    Jahana continues to struggle with her grief a year after her mother's death. She wishes she knew her maternal relatives, but her mother refused to talk about them. To help her move on, Jahana's husband buys her a DNA kit. When the results come in, she discovers more than she bargained for. Her DNA reveals a family secret she would like to ignore, but can't. The Lie is too big.

The Watcher Girl


Minka Kent - 2021
    But it was only to save him from the baggage of her own troubled past. Now all she wants is to make sure he’s okay.Only everything she learns about him online says otherwise. According to his social media accounts, he placed roots in her hometown, married a look-alike, and even named his daughter Grace. He clearly hasn’t moved on. In fact, it’s creepy. So Grace does what any concerned ex-girlfriend would do: she moves home…and watches him.But when Grace crosses paths with Sutton’s wife, Campbell, an unexpected friendship develops. Campbell has no idea whom she’s inviting into her life. As the women grow closer, it becomes clear to Grace that Sutton is not the sentimental man she once knew. He seems controlling, unstable, and threatening. And what a broken man like Sutton is capable of, Grace can only imagine. It’s up to her to save Campbell and her baby now—but while she’s been watching them, who’s been watching her?

Legacy of Lies


Robert Bailey - 2020
    Her ex-husband has just been killed. She’s about to be arrested for his murder. And she wants Bo to represent her.There’s a lot working against them. Just before his death, Helen’s ex-husband threatened to reveal a dark secret from her past. Bo has been in a tailspin since his wife’s death. What’s more, his whole life has been defined by a crime committed against his family, and he continues to face prejudice as the only African American litigator in Pulaski, Tennessee.Bo’s back is against the wall, and Helen resigns herself to a dismal fate—but a stunning discovery throws everything into chaos. There’s a chance for justice, but to achieve it, the cost might be too much for Bo to bear.

True Fiction


Lee Goldberg - 2018
    Now one of those schemes has come true, and Ian is the only person alive who knows how it was done...and who is behind the plot. That makes him too dangerous to live.Ian goes on the run, sweeping up an innocent bystander in his plight--Margo French, a dog walker and aspiring singer. They are pursued by assassins and an all-seeing global-intelligence network that won't stop until Ian and Margo are dead. Ian has written thrillers like this before, but this time he doesn't know how it's going to end--or if he will be alive to find out.

Condemned


G.K. Parks - 2015
    Ever since his forced retirement, Mercer and his team have been negotiating the safe return of kidnapping victims, but that isn't enough to satisfy Julian's darker desires. His own life-altering tragedy has left him on the brink of insanity, and only his team and his job keep him from falling over the edge. After stumbling upon the scene of a botched assassination, Mercer vows to protect a newspaper heiress from an unidentified killer. But she wants more than a bodyguard. She wants a mercenary who will hunt down the animal responsible for nearly murdering her fiancé. Violence and mayhem decimate the city as Mercer and his team race against the clock to stop a contract killer, but the hired gun is just a symptom of the underlying disease. Until the man pulling the strings is stopped, a life hangs in the balance. Left with limited options, Mercer may have to abandon his morality or sacrifice himself in order to keep his promise.

The Influencer: Speed Must Have a Limit


Abhaidev - 2021
    He is instead what some people call an Influencer. Yes! Literally! He is one of the few fortunate men who with the power of their minds can make other people agreeable and servile.To the outside world, Aditya is just another employee on the government’s payroll. But secretly, he is part of a shadow organization called WIS. With his special abilities, Aditya helps the most powerful man in his country, the PM, to have the better end of the deal.Life for Aditya had been smooth until one careless mistake precipitates into his wife knowing his big secret. WIS can tolerate anything but not a defector. It takes WIS some time but eventually they find out Aditya’s big goof up. It, therefore, declares war on the renegade. Aditya’s death is what they want.What will Aditya do? How will he fight this decree of the behemoth that once nurtured him?The Influencer is a story of a man who has never taken no for an answer. It’s a thrilling account of a single man who is facing the wrath of a powerful but dubious organization with highly-skilled, super assassins at its disposal.Will Aditya succeed in dodging WIS? Or will the evil organization get what it wants? How far will this fugitive go to protect everything he cherishes?

Say Her Name


Dreda Say Mitchell
    But she’s not the only one looking…It’s twenty years since Eva, a biracial woman, was adopted as an eight-year-old, and Cherry and Carlton ‘Sugar’ McNeil have always been the only parents she’s wanted or needed. But when she’s dealt the double blow of Cherry’s death and her own suspension from work, Eva decides it’s time to discover who she was before she was theirs.Against Sugar’s advice, Eva joins a DNA database, desperate for a match that will unlock her identity. And when a positive hit comes, she’s excited to learn there are relations out there who might hold the key. But the closer Eva gets to uncovering her past, the more it appears someone is trying to stop her finally finding the truth…As she continues to dig, Eva is drawn into a dark and merciless underside to society, where black women disappear without a word. Names erased from history, no search parties, no desperate pleas for their return. Once, someone tried to save Eva from all this. Someone wanted a better life for her. But now that she’s torn down the facade of her life, has she come too far to be spared again?