The Revenge of Kaivalya


Sumana Khan - 2010
    Kencha, an unwitting witness to Its birth, is soon found dead – his body branded with a strange message written in HaLegannada, an ancient version of modern Kannada. Even as Dhruv Kaveriappa, Chief Conservator of Forests - Hassan division investigates Kencha’s death, he senses an unseen danger in the forests of Kukke, Bisle and Sakleshpura. Animals drop dead; plants wither away and just as he feared, the forest claims its first victim. Shivaranjini, on vacation in Sakleshpura, suffers a devastating tonic-clonic seizure moments after she returns from a visit to the forest. Soon, she begins to exhibit a bizarre personality disorder. Perhaps there is an outbreak of an unknown rabies-like disease? Or, as ridiculous as it seems, could it be a case of tantric witchcraft? The truth unfolds in a dizzying maelstrom of events - a truth far too terrifying to comprehend...

Morgue Drawer Four


Jutta Profijt - 2009
    Martin Gänsewein, who spends his days in peace and quiet autopsying dead bodies for the city of Cologne. Shy, but scrupulous, Martin appreciates his taciturn clients--until the day one of them starts talking to him. It seems the ghost of a recently deceased (and surprisingly chatty) small-time car thief named Pascha is lingering near his lifeless body in drawer number four of Martin's morgue. He remains for one reason: his "accidental" death was, in fact, murder. Pascha is furious his case will go unsolved--to say nothing of his body's dissection upon Martin's autopsy table. But since Martin is the only person Pascha can communicate with, the ghost settles in with the good pathologist, determined to bring the truth of his death to light. Now Martin's staid life is rudely upended as he finds himself navigating Cologne's red-light district and the dark world of German car smuggling. Unless Pascha can come up with a plan--and fast--Martin will soon be joining him in the spirit world. Witty and unexpected, Morgue Drawer Four introduces a memorable (and reluctant) detective unlike any other in fiction today.Morgue Drawer Four was shortlisted for Germany's 2010 Friedrich Glauser Prize for best crime novel.

Sharp Shooter


Marianne Delacourt - 2009
    Fast. Feisty.WINNER of the Davitt Award 2010 Best Crime Novel and nominated for Ned Kelly Award 2010 Best First Crime NovelBook 2 - SHARP TURN, coming 2016!Book 3 - TOO SHARP, coming 2016! Book 4 - SHARP EDGE, coming late 2016!

Tangled: A Southern Gothic Yarn


Phyllis H. Moore - 2016
    Twenty-one years old and Annette Roberta Randall is searching, looking for herself. The perception and sensitivity she relied on to bolster her through an isolated childhood have disappeared and with them her sense of self. Nettie also seeks the truth, information about her dysfunctional family and the mysteries that whisper to her in their eccentric family home. She receives glimpses in the alcohol induced monologues of her mother, Delores Cecelia, “DeCe”. However, DeCe lost herself long before Nettie was born, and she buried her secrets so deep, even the spirits haunting her cannot unlock her soul. Pup, Nettie’s peculiar uncle, may have witnessed the most recent chaos, but he cannot communicate what he knows for sure. Nettie’s struggles are apparent to her extended family and neighbors, but only she can resolve to overcome the pull of the notorius Kirkland family and Berclaire mansion. The secrets fester and DeCe clings to them like the neglected ivy tendrils on the shadowed side of the mansion. Slowly, the truth will unfold, but will it be enough to free Nettie, or the undoing of her mother, DeCe? Nettie believed it was possible her grandfather, Old Nate, was responsible for the hauntings at the Berclaire mansion, but the more she learns of her great grandmother, Roberta, she decides he might have been a victim, also. DeCe had been taking pills and drinking alcohol from before the time she was a teenager, attempting to numb herself to her dysfunctional family. Nettie could only guess at a history during her drunken orations about DeCe's childhood. Nettie knows she is the seventh child born to DeCe, the others gone before Nettie was born. Some would filter back into her life, but would they help her learn more about her identity, or bring more pain?

The Third Girl


Nell Goddin - 2015
    She’s looking for peace, beautiful gardens, and pastry—a slower, safer life than the one she’d been living outside of Boston. But you know what they say about the best intentions… Molly has barely gotten over jet-lag before she hears about a local student’s disappearance. In between getting her old ramshackle house in order and reveling in French food, Molly ends up embroiled in the case, along with the gendarmes of Castillac. And unlike the Nancy Drews she loved as a child, this mystery stirs up emotions she thought had been put to rest..and terrifies the residents of her beloved village.

The Phantom of the Opal


Jessa Archer - 2019
    The distinctive black opal ring that Caroline had always worn—the ring that she had promised to leave to Tig's fifteen-year-old daughter, Paige—isn't on her finger when they open the coffin. But who could have taken Caroline's ring? Was it the funeral director? Or perhaps the college student who found Caroline's body at the foot of the stairs in the science building?Tig is determined to find the opal and to sort out the odd behavior of her mother's cat, the aptly-named Attila. Her detective skills are a little rusty, however, and this time, there are no writers to tell her whodunit. She'll have to rely on her wits—and maybe a bit of help from the cat.

A Ghost for Christmas


J.D. Winters - 2014
    What she wasn’t expecting was finding a new guy… or that dead body on the doorstep! Could her sweet aunt really be involved? Or was it someone else near and dear to her? And then there was the handsome ghost from her Hawaiian childhood. Not what she'd bargained for – but sometimes you just have to deal with what the cat dragged in. Will she figure that out before the murderer finds a way to silence her forever? Yummy recipes for Hawaiian style cooking in each book – Chicken Hekka in this one. The books in this series have minor themes that run through them all, but each story can stand on its own.

Sydney Rye Mysteries Books 1-8 Box Set


Emily Kimelman - 2022
    This left him unconscious on the floor of my home. Amazingly, this bullet did not kill him.Ten years ago I adopted Blue as a present to myself after I broke up with my boyfriend one hot, early summer night with the windows open and the neighborhood listening. The next morning I went straight to the pound in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Articles on buying your first dog tell you never to buy a dog on impulse. They want you to be prepared for this new member of your family, to understand the responsibilities and challenges of owning a dog. Going to the pound because you need something in your life that's worth holding onto is rarely, if ever, mentioned.I asked the man at the pound to show me the biggest dogs they had. He showed me some seven-week-old Rottweiler-German shepherd puppies that he said would grow to be quite large. Then he showed me a six-month-old shepherd that would get pretty big. Then he showed me Blue, the largest dog they had.The man called him a Collie mix and he was stuffed into the biggest cage they had, but he didn't fit. He was as tall as a Great Dane but much skinnier, with the snout of a collie, the markings of a Siberian husky, the ears and tail of a shepherd and the body of a wolf, with one blue eye and one brown. Crouched in a sitting position, unable to lie down, unable to sit all the way up, he looked at me from between the bars, and I fell in love."He's still underweight," the man in the blue scrubs told me as we looked at Blue. "I'll tell you, lady, he's pretty but he's skittish. He sheds, and I mean sheds. I don't think you want this dog." But I knew I wanted him. I knew I had to have him. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.Blue cost me $108. I brought him home, and we lived together for years. He was, for most of our relationship, my only companion. But when I first met Blue, a lifetime ago now, I had family and friends. I worked at a crappy coffeehouse. I was young and lost; I was normal.Back then, at the beginning of this story, before I'd ever seen a corpse, before Blue saved my life, before I felt what it was like to kill someone in cold blood, I was still Joy Humbolt.I'd never even heard the name Sydney Rye.P.S. The dog does not die.**Beware: If you can’t handle a few f-bombs, you can’t handle this series.**

Here To Stay


Mark Edwards - 2019
    A loving wife. And in-laws to die for.Gemma Robinson comes into Elliot’s life like a whirlwind, and they marry and settle into his home. When she asks him if her parents can come to stay for a couple of weeks, he is keen to oblige – he just doesn’t quite know what he’s signing up for.The Robinsons arrive with Gemma’s sister, Chloe, a mysterious young woman who refuses to speak or leave her room. Elliot starts to suspect that the Robinsons are hiding a dark secret. And then there are the scars on his wife’s body that she won’t talk about . . .As Elliot’s in-laws become more comfortable in his home, encroaching on all aspects of his life, it becomes clear that they have no intention of moving out. To protect Gemma, and their marriage, Elliot delves into the Robinsons’ past. But is he prepared for the truth?

Pines


Blake Crouch - 2012
    Secret Service agent Ethan Burke arrives in search of two missing federal agents, yet soon is facing much more than he bargained for. After a violent accident lands him in the hospital, Ethan comes to with no ID and no cell phone. The medical staff seems friendly enough, but sometimes feels...off. As days pass, Ethan's investigation into his colleagues' disappearance turns up more questions than answersWHY CAN'T HE MAKE CONTACT WITH HIS FAMILY IN THE OUTSIDE WORLD? WHY DOESN'T ANYONE BELIEVE HE IS WHO HE SAYS HE IS? AND WHAT'S THE PURPOSE OF THE ELECTRIFIED FENCES ENCIRCLING THE TOWN? ARE THEY KEEPING THE RESIDENTS IN? OR SOMETHING ELSE OUT?Each step toward the truth takes Ethan further from the world he knows, until he must face a horrifying fact—he may never get out of Wayward Pines alive.....

The Reluctant Coroner


Paul Austin Ardoin - 2018
    But the death of her mother draws her back home—and the murder of the county coroner draws her into a deepening conspiracy. As the body count rises and all signs seem to point toward her father's oil company, will Fenway uncover the truth before family bonds become deadly?

Like Me


Hayley Phelan - 2022
    For nineteen-year-old Mickey, Instagram offers a tantalizing portal into the world she wishes she inhabited. Though beautiful, cunning and privileged, Mickey finds herself with a stalled modelling career, an escalating drinking problem, few friends and next to nothing in the bank. To numb her growing despair, she spends her days frantically refreshing her Instagram feed, obsessively tracking the movements of Insta-famous model Gemma Anton.Gemma is a perfected version of Mickey, living a seemingly perfect life: a skyrocketing career, a famous photographer boyfriend and adoring followers--the life Mickey wants more than anything for herself. She studies every detail Gemma offers through the window of her phone, trying to absorb, learn, mimic, become the object of her growing fascination.Then, a chance encounter thrusts Mickey into a world of opportunity, and she is met with surprising, and immediate, success. But as her online persona begins to take over her life, Mickey finds it increasingly difficult to separate reality from the fa�ade of Instagram.Engrossing, sharp and astute, Like Me is a shimmering portrait of infatuation, disconnection and identity in the digital age--and a dazzling introduction to a brilliant new voice in contemporary literature.

Treasure Borrowed and Blue


S.W. Hubbard - 2018
    She knows first-hand that funerals are family events that bring out the worst in people.Now Audrey is just six weeks away from a joyful family event--her wedding. The band has been hired, the invitations mailed.Wedded bliss is right around the corner.Then a thief strikes and destroys Audrey's happiness. As she narrows the list of possible culprits,her suspicion falls on the family she's about to join.Will catching the thief ruin Audrey's shot at the ideal family she's always dreamed of?When the crime is solved with one final twist, Audrey learns a lesson about the bonds that tie families together and the expectations that can drive them apart.A note from the author: In the chronology of Audrey's life, this short mystery novella fits between the events in This Bitter Treasure (which ended with Audrey's engagement) and Treasure in Exile (which begins with Audrey already married).Loyal readers let me know that they wanted to see Audrey's wedding. So I wrote Treasure Borrowed and Blue because I want to keep my readers happy! Nothing ever goes quite as planned for our Audrey, so the tale of her wedding takes quite a few twists and turns (but no murders!).

The Returned


Jason Mott - 2013
    He was life the way it was supposed to be all those years ago. That's what all the Returned were.Harold and Lucille Hargrave's lives have been both joyful and sorrowful in the decades since their only son, Jacob, died tragically at his eighth birthday party in 1966. In their old age they've settled comfortably into life without him, their wounds tempered through the grace of time ... Until one day Jacob mysteriously appears on their doorstep—flesh and blood, their sweet, precocious child, still eight years old.All over the world people's loved ones are returning from beyond. No one knows how or why this is happening, whether it's a miracle or a sign of the end. Not even Harold and Lucille can agree on whether the boy is real or a wondrous imitation, but one thing they know for sure: he's their son. As chaos erupts around the globe, the newly reunited Hargrave family finds itself at the center of a community on the brink of collapse, forced to navigate a mysterious new reality and a conflict that threatens to unravel the very meaning of what it is to be human.With spare, elegant prose and searing emotional depth, award-winning poet Jason Mott explores timeless questions of faith and morality, love and responsibility. A spellbinding and stunning debut, The Returned is an unforgettable story that marks the arrival of an important new voice in contemporary fiction.Trailer for the TV series based on the novel can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e7vp9...

Finding Emma


Steena Holmes - 2012
    She's the little girl standing in the supermarket, the child waiting for the swings at the playground, the girl with ice cream dripping down her face. But it's never Emma.Emma's been missing for two years.Unable to handle the constant heartache of all the false sightings, Megan's husband threatens to walk away unless Megan can agree to accept Emma is gone. Megan's life and marriage is crumbling all around her and she realizes she may have to do the thing she dreads most: move on.When Megan takes a photo of a little girl with an elderly couple at the town fair, she believes it to be her missing daughter. Unable to let go, she sets in motion a sequence of events that could destroy both families lives.Proceeds from each book sold will be donated to Missing Children's Society of Canada - www.mscs.ca - an organization dedicated to reuniting families.