The Doll


J.C. Martin - 2011
    On a trip to the island, Joyce Parker's daughter falls in love with a beautiful but sinister doll. Soon after, she starts developing strange mannerisms that concerns Joyce. Her research into the doll's past reveals a dark history, and the curse of a lonely child spirit.

All You Zombies


Robert A. Heinlein - 1959
    It further develops themes explored by the author in a previous work, "By His Bootstraps", published some 18 years earlier.

The Ghosts of Bourbon Street


Seanan McGuire - 2014
    (Dominic is receiving a crash course in modern dance and pop music.)But what's a road trip without a hidden purpose? Verity knows she's driving Dominic toward the biggest confrontation of his life—her parents—and that means she needs to start easing him in gently. What better way than with a stop in New Orleans to drink layered cocktails and meet her fun-loving Aunt Rose, who just happens to be a Predeceased American?Poor Dominic didn't set out to become part of a ghost story, but it looks like that's exactly what's happening, as the old, new, and undead collide all over Bourbon Street.(Best read after Half-Off Ragnarok.)

Boarded Window


Isaac Marion - 2011
    It's significantly less heartwarming than most holiday specials.

Adulting


Liz Talley - 2021
    She’s been written off as a Hollywood casualty by almost everyone, including her own mother. But handsome superstar Spencer Rome has her back. So does an uncompromising stranger determined to start Chase at square one and help her pull her future into focus. If Chase is willing.Life coach Olivia Han is devoted to “adulting” boot camp therapy. It’s not just her professional specialty, though—it’s also one way to avoid focusing on building a life of her own. To escape the pressures of Tinseltown, the two women head to Olivia’s cabin in the wilds of Northern California. There they discover a place in need of TLC. As they work together to rehab the once-charming cabin, they create a refuge where Chase can come to terms with her unsettled past, and where Olivia has an unexpected reckoning with her own troubling history.For two women doing damage control, this is a time for second chances—in life, in finding love, in forgiving family, and in an emerging friendship that might be exactly what each of them needs to heal.

Conjure


Alice Hoffman - 2014
    The weather had been extreme that month: days of drenching rain, sudden showers of hail, temperatures passing record highs. Local children whispered that an angel had fallen to earth in a thunderstorm. There were roving groups who swore they had found signs. Footprints in the grass, black feathers, a campfire in the woods behind the high school where there were sparks of shimmering ash. One neighborhood boy vowed that he had seen a man in a black cloak rise above the earth and walk on air, and although no one believed his account, mothers began to keep their children home. They locked the doors, called in the dogs, kept the lights on after dusk..."Alice Hoffman is the New York Times bestselling author of Practical Magic, The Dovekeepers, and The Marriage of Opposites. Hoffman’s work has been published in more than twenty translations and more than one hundred foreign editions. Her novels have received mention as notable books of the year by The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, The Los Angeles Times, Library Journal, and People Magazine. She has also worked as a screenwriter and is the author of the original screenplay “Independence Day,” a film starring Kathleen Quinlan and Diane Wiest. Her teen novel Aquamarine was made into a film starring Emma Roberts. Her short fiction and non-fiction have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe Magazine, Kenyon Review, The Los Angeles Times, Architectural Digest, Harvard Review, Ploughshares and other magazines.Flyleaf Journal Issue #15December 2014Illustrated by Timothy TangHand Lettering by Heidi Unkefer

Harbored Secrets


Marie F. Martin - 2013
    473 Five Star reviews on Amazon. Historical novel with a psychological mystery in the unearthing of family secrets. In May of 1935, Blinny Platt's homestead shack burns to the ground forever leaving her family asunder, scattering them like the embers flew on the Montana wind. She was only eight-years-old, sent away and in charge of her little sister. She could handle that because Platts take care of Platts.However, it is the hidden secrets of her parents smoldering beneath the charred remains that haunts Blinny until 1982. She once again leaves the home place to build a house for herself. As the foundation is poured and the walls go up, each of the hurtful memories are uncovered. Finally the mystery, left in the ashes of the burned home, is revealed. How could her mother do what she did?Recent Five-Star Reviews:By the end of the very first paragraph, I knew Marie F. Martin had written a book I would have a hard time putting down. In between high drama, there is a love letter to Montana, and she uses her love of the English language throughout. More "Oh wow" moments in this book than any other I have ever read in my more than half a century of life.  Yvonne Bechtold, Five-star reviewerThis is a tale so well told, you can smell the sage, feel the heat, and pain this family shares. I wish more authors crafted their characters so well.  Renita Hulsey Five-Star Reader Review.The author was a master at weaving the past with the present.  Quaintreader Five-Star Reader ReviewMartin knows family dynamics and human frailties.  From these she has crafted a heartbreaking story, of love, loss, and endurance.   Barb Ward Five-Star Reader Review

Bah, Humbug!


Heather Horrocks - 2011
    He digs into the snowman to discover two things: the weapon fits into the body just under the head, and the snowman was supposed to be the back drop for Lexi's next show.From this improbable beginning comes friendship. Can there be more for a woman who is afraid to get close again and a man who has shadows from his childhood?Families join together and hearts are healed as this couple goes walking in a winter wonderland.

The Postman Always Rings Twice


James M. Cain - 1934
    Cain's first novel - the subject of an obscenity trial in Boston and the inspiration for Camus's The Stranger - is the fever-pitched tale of a drifter who stumbles into a job, into an erotic obsession, and into a murder.

Final Hour


Dean Koontz - 2015
    The troubling talent has made the Southern California surfer wary of casual contact. But while impulsively saving a stranger from an accident, she experiences her most disturbing vision.   With only a good friend to help her, and mere traces of information to guide her, Makani must track down two mysterious women—one of them innocent, one not.   But Makani is stepping into the path of an adversary more dangerous than she can imagine: a brutal predator behind a pretty face, who won’t go down without drawing blood.   Acclaim for Dean Koontz   “Dean Koontz is a prose stylist whose lyricism heightens malevolence and tension. [He creates] characters of unusual richness and depth . . . with a level of perception and sensitivity that is not merely convincing; it’s astonishing.” —The Seattle Times   “Demanding much of itself, Koontz’s style bleaches out clichés while showing a genius for details. He leaves his competitors buried in the dust.” —Kirkus Reviews   “A rarity among bestselling writers, Koontz continues to pursue new ways of telling stories, never content with repeating himself.”—Chicago Sun-Times   “Tumbling, hallucinogenic prose. ‘Serious’ writers . . . might do well to examine his technique.”—The New York Times Book Review   “[Koontz] has always had near-Dickensian powers of description, and an ability to yank us from one page to the next that few novelists can match.” —Los Angeles Times   “Koontz is a superb plotter and wordsmith. He chronicles the hopes and fears of our time in broad strokes and fine detail, using popular fiction to explore the human condition.”—USA Today   “Characters and the search for meaning, exquisitely crafted, are the soul of [Koontz’s] work. . . . One of the master storytellers of this or any age.”—The Tampa Tribune   “A literary juggler.”—The Times (London)

Code Name Camelot


David Archer - 2018
    With the help of childhood friends, he learns to watch others around him and mimic their behaviors, in order to conceal the fact that his mind operates more like a computer that he has spent years programming. That program is what allows Noah to pass himself off as normal, by establishing parameters of right and wrong that are completely inviolable to him.As a young adult, Noah finds structure in the U.S. Army, and becomes an excellent and exemplary soldier, but when his self-imposed programming is put to the test by the murderous acts of the superior officer, Noah finds himself quickly made expendable, charged with crimes he did not commit and facing the possibility of execution. Without any reasonable hope for a reprieve, Noah's logic-based mind accepts his fate.Sometimes, though, things are not all as they seem to be, and Noah is offered one chance to save himself. It was his disability, his lack of emotion, that made him the soldier he had become. Now, an ultrasecret organization known as E & E wants Noah's talents, offering him a chance to survive…As the most deadly assassin the world has ever known.

The Darkest Lies


Solomon Carter - 2018
    SOME SECRETS CAN’T BE HIDDEN WITHOUT DEADLY CONSEQUENCES… AND HOGARTH HAS A SECRET ALL OF HIS OWN… DI Joe Hogarth and his team are called to a murder at a seaside nightclub. A big man with a reputation for extortion has been stabbed to death, but no one saw the killer strike. A young man disappeared from the scene moments before the murder. The young man has no clear motive but Hogarth can’t let go of his suspicions. He decides to track down the missing youth… And soon discovers the motive for the murder is far older, and far darker than he could have imagined.One man goes missing and a ghost from the past reappears as the darkest lies of two generations are ruthlessly exposed. One cop takes justice into her own hands. And yet another may pay the ultimate price.AS HOGARTH AND THE TEAM PEEL BACK THE LAYERS OF CRIME, THE BODYCOUNT STARTS TO RISE…DI Hogarth’s reputation hangs in the balance. And one cop’s life hangs by a thread.Secret Affairs. Lies and Betrayal. Murder.And Hogarth’s personal life is heading for a crisis. In a truly thrilling conclusion, DI Hogarth and his team race against time to stop a killer who watches their every move. Perfect for fans of Angela Marsons, Ian Rankin, Val McDermid and Ruth Rendell, Helen Durrant, Joy Ellis and LJ Ross. If you love to read gripping detective thrillers with flawed characters and police procedurals with shocking twists and a noir flavour, then the DI Hogarth Darkest series is for you.Readers have described the Darkest series as pefect for fans of British crime thrillers, Female detective novels, British crime mysteries, Police Procedurals, Heist thrillers and Noir Thrillers.The Darkest Lies is a crime novel you won’t want to put down. The Setting: Southend-on-sea, Just over an hour from London. A tough and densely packed suburban town sandwiched between the sparkling Thames Estuary and a semi-rural hinterland of fields and marshes. A place where wealth and glamour sit cheek-by-jowl with addiction, poverty and crime. When he transferred to the Essex coast, ex-Met Detective Joe Hogarth might have imagined he was signing up for sun, sea and semi-retirement. But the merry hell of Southend might just have him beat. It’s a good thing this DI doesn’t know when to quit… THE DI HOGARTH DARKEST SERIES THE DARKEST LIESTHE DARKEST GRAVETHE DARKEST DEEDTHE DARKEST TRUTH ALSO BY SOLOMON CARTER LONG TIME DYING series featuring private investigators Eva Roberts and Dan BradleyTHE LAST LINELUCK AND JUDGMENTLONDON CALLINGTHE FINAL TRICK For more information visit SolomonCarter.net

Death and the Senator


Arthur C. Clarke - 1961
    His only hope for a cure is to accept a innovative treatment which he campaigned against funding, a decision for which he will be branded a hypocrite. The decision has placed him in the crucible of his life.

Words Like Coins


Robin Hobb - 2012
    This lovely little volume featured stories by Kate Elliott, Kelley Armstrong, C.E. Murhphy and myself. It sold out in a heartbeat.Since then, I’ve heard from a number of readers asking if there is any way to get a copy of the story. I am pleased to say that “Words Like Coins” is now available as a lovely e-book with literally fantastic illustrations by Tom Kidd."

Murder She Typed


Sylvia Selfman - 2014
    She gets more than she bargained for, however, when her nemesis, sexy blonde bombshell, Sondra Sockerman disappears under suspicious circumstances. Izzy soon realizes she has a natural detecting ability when she and her friend, Flo, try to find the killer...who is now after them.