After You


Julie Buxbaum - 2009
    The unexplored doubts of a marriage. And the redemptive power of literature...Julie Buxbaum, the acclaimed author of The Opposite of Love, delivers a haunting, gloriously written novel about love, family, and the secrets we hide from each other—and ourselves.It happened on a tree-lined street in Notting Hill to a woman who seemed to have the perfect life. Ellie Lerner’s best friend, Lucy, was murdered in front of her young daughter. And, as best friends do, Ellie dropped everything—her marriage, her job, her life in the Boston suburbs—to travel to London and pick up the pieces of Lucy’s life. While Lucy’s husband, Greg, copes with his grief by retreating into himself, eight-year-old Sophie has simply stopped speaking.Desperate to help Sophie, Ellie turns to a book that gave her comfort as a child, The Secret Garden. As the two spend hours exploring the novel’s winding passageways, its story of hurt, magic, and healing blooms around them. But so, too, do Lucy’s secrets—some big, some small—secrets Lucy kept hidden, even from her best friend. Over a summer in London, as Ellie peels back the layers of her friend’s life, she’s forced to confront her own as well: the marriage she left behind, the loss she’d hoped to escape. And suddenly Ellie’s carefully constructed existence is spinning out of control in a chain of events that will transform her life—and those around her— forever. A novel that will resonate in the heart of anyone who’s had a best friend, a love lost, or a past full of regrets, After You proves once again the unique and compelling talent of Julie Buxbaum.

The Lost and the Damned (The Banlieues Trilogy)


Olivier Norek - 2020
    Anonymous letters addressed to him personally have begun to arrive, highlighting the fates of two women, invisible victims whose deaths were never explained. Just two more blurred faces among the ranks of the lost and the damned.Olivier Norek's first novel draws on all his experience as a police officer in one of France's toughest suburbs - the same experience he drew on as a writer for the hit TV series Spiral.Translated from the French by Nick Caistor

Those Girls


Chevy Stevens - 2015
    Life has never been easy for the three Campbell sisters. Jess, Courtney, and Dani live on a remote ranch in Western Canada where they work hard and try to stay out of the way of their father’s fists. One night, a fight gets out of hand and the sisters are forced to go on the run, only to get caught in an even worse nightmare when their truck breaks down in a small town. Events spiral out of control and a chance encounter with the wrong people leaves them in a horrific and desperate situation. They are left with no choice but to change their names and create new lives. Eighteen years later, they are still trying to forget what happened that summer when one of the sisters goes missing and they are pulled back into their past. This time there’s nowhere left to run. As much of a thriller as it is a deep exploration of the bonds among sisters, THOSE GIRLS is an unforgettable portrait of desperation, loyalty, and evil.

Jess Castle and the Eyeballs of Death


M.B. Vincent - 2018
    It's home to all sorts of people, with all the stresses and joys of modern life, but with a town square and a proper butcher's. It also has, for our purposes, a rash of gory murders ...  Jess Castle is running away. Again. This time she's running back home, like she swore she never would.   Castle Kidbury, like all small towns, hums with gossip but now it's plagued with murder of the most gruesome kind. Jess instinctively believes that the hippyish cult camped out on the edge of town are not responsible for the spate of crucifixions that blights the pretty landscape. Her father, a respected judge, despairs of Jess as she infiltrates the cult and manages, not for the first time, to get herself arrested.  Rupert Lawson, a schooldays crush who's now a barrister, bails her out. Jess ropes in a reluctant Rupert as she gatecrashes the murder investigation of DS Eden. A by-the-book copper, Eden has to admit that intuitive, eccentric Jess has the nose of a detective.   As the gory murders pile up, there’s nothing to connect the victims. And yet, the clues are there if you look hard enough.

Dead Stripper Storage


Bryan Smith - 2018
    He’s a shy social outcast with no real friends. His luck with women has been spotty at best. A hostile work environment has made his life a living hell for months on end. For Pete, the weekend comes as a welcome respite from these things, but early Saturday morning he finds a beautiful and scantily clad dead woman on his couch. He has no idea who she is or how she got there. Is this a frame-up? Did he kill her in a blackout? Answers to these questions are elusive at first, but then the last woman he ever dated shows up on his doorstep out of the blue and things get seriously complicated from there. Blood is spilled. More bodies pile up. Pete is pushed to his limits as he is forced to do many strange and horrible things. A deadly game is being played and Pete is the ultimate pawn, with his fate coming down to a race against time.

Faceless (A Suburban Noir Novel)


Cathryn Grant - 2015
     Allie loves social media because it makes her feel close to her friends. It never occurs to her that some are jealous of the seemingly perfect lives they see displayed online. The embers of jealousy ignite when one of her friends flaunts his new-found wealth with a party to unveil his lavish home. A tragedy at the party seems to bring all of them closer together. But when one of Allie’s friends goes missing, their lives are suspended. No one knows whether they’re looking for an abductor or a killer. Will social media help them discover the truth? As the cords in Allie’s lifelong friendships start to fray, and her marriage is threatened by her addiction to social media, she discovers secrets she wishes she’d never known. You’ll love this gripping novel of envy and lust because you’ll recognize some of the characters from your own social media circle.  Get a copy of this page-turning novel today.

Peacock's Tale: A Tartan Noir Murder Mystery (Peacock Johnson Scottish Mystery Series Book 1)


Stuart David - 2015
    Peacock’s wife thinks he did it, the police think he did it, even Frank McAlpine said he did it, moments before he died. But Peacock knows he’s innocent, and he knows he’s going to work out who really killed Frank to clear his name. But commiting crimes are more in Peacock’s line of work, he doesn’t have the first clue about how to solve one. Luckily, though, he knows a man who does, a man who owes him a favour. A second Scottish noir writer, Ian Rankin, has featured Peacock as the main villain in one of his bestselling Rebus novels- A Question of Blood. And Peacock feels he was somewhat misrepresented, made out to be much more of a hardened criminal than he actually is. He’d been planning to seek compensation from Rankin, on a massive scale, but now he sees an opportunity for Ian to make things good. If Rankin can use his detective skills to work out who actually killed Frank McAlpine then Peacock is willing to drop the action for libel. The only questions are, will Rankin agree. And is he up to the job.

Born Bad


Heather Burnside - 2017
    When your enemies get close, family loyalty is all you can trust. Brother and sister Peter and Adele Robinson never stood a chance. Dragged up by an alcoholic, violent father, and a weak, beaten mother, their childhood in Manchester only prepared them for a life of crime and struggle. But Adele is determined to break the mould. She studies hard at school and, inspired by her beloved grandmother Joyce, she finally makes a successful life for herself on her own. Peter is not so lucky. Getting more and more immersed in the murky world of crime and gangs, his close bonds with Adele gradually loosen until they look set to break altogether. But old habits die hard, and one devastating night, Adele is forced to confront her violent past. Dragged back into her worst nightmares, there's only one person she can turn to when her life is on the line – her brother Peter. After all, blood is thicker than water...

These Deadly Games


Diana Urban - 2022
    If you break my rules, she dies. If you call the police, she dies. If you tell your parents or anyone else, she dies.Are you ready?When Crystal Donavan gets a message on a mysterious app with a video of her little sister gagged and bound, she agrees to play the kidnapper’s game. At first, they make her complete bizarre tasks: steal a test and stuff it in a locker, bake brownies, make a prank call.But then Crystal realizes each task is meant to hurt—and kill—her friends, one by one. But if she refuses to play, the kidnapper will kill her sister. Is someone trying to take her team out of the running for a gaming tournament? Or have they uncovered a secret from their past, and wants them to pay for what they did…As Crystal makes the impossible choices between her friends and her sister, she must uncover the truth and find a way to outplay the kidnapper… before it’s too late.Author of All Your Twisted Secrets, Diana Urban’s explosive sophomore novel, These Deadly Games, will keep you riveted until the final twist is revealed.

Mercy Snow


Tiffany Baker - 2014
    But one day a tragic bus accident sets two families on a course toward destruction, irrevocably altering the lives of everyone in their wake.June McAllister is the wife of the local mill owner and undisputed first lady in town. But the Snow family, a group of itinerant ne'er-do-wells who live on a decrepit and cursed property, have brought her -- and the town -- nothing but grief. June will do anything to cover up a dark secret she discovers after the crash, one that threatens to upend her picture-perfect life, even if it means driving the Snow family out of town. But she has never gone up against a force as fierce as the young Mercy Snow. Mercy is determined to protect her rebellious brother, whom the town blames for the accident, despite his innocence. And she has a secret of her own. When an old skeleton is discovered not far from the crash, it beckons Mercy to solve a mystery buried deep within the town's past.

Rough Justice


Brad Smith - 2016
    Carl is determined to get justice for Kate, whatever it takes. But with few allies, he finds himself incurring the wrath of powerful enemies as he attempts to uncover the truth.

Sister of Mine


Laurie Petrou - 2018
    A debut novel of domestic suspense in the vein of Liane Moriarty, Shari Lapena and Claire Douglas about two sisters bound together by a murderPenny and Hattie have always only had each other—their father left long ago and their mother died in a sudden tragic accident. Penny has always watched out for Hattie, even when she felt usurped by her younger, more vivacious sibling. When Penny’s marriage turns sour and her once-charming husband becomes controlling and abusive, who does she turn to for help but Hattie? An unguarded cigarette, helped along by a few conveniently lit matches and some sleeping pills, creates a deadly fire that frees Penny from an unimaginable life, but not without a cost. The weight of their secret binds the two sisters together, for better or worse. When a new man enters their lives, the twists deepen and the secrets compound. Meanwhile, incidents of arson begin to break out locally and the detective who investigated the death of Penny’s husband develops renewed interest in the case, threatening to unravel all their secrets.

Caught


Lisa Moore - 2013
    Twenty-five-year-old David Slaney, locked up on charges of marijuana possession, has escaped his cell and sprinted to the highway. There, he is picked up by a friend of his sister’s and transported to a strip bar where he survives his first night on the run. But evading the cops isn’t his only objective; Slaney intends to track down his old partner, Hearn, and get back into the drug business. Along the way, Slaney’s fugitive journey across Canada rushes vibrantly to life as he visits an old flame and adopts numerous guises to outpace authorities: hitchhiker, houseguest, student, lover. When finally he reunites with Hearn just steps ahead of a detective hell-bent on making a high-profile arrest, their scheme sends Slaney to Mexico, Colombia, and back again on an epic quest fueled by luck, charm, and unbending conviction. Moore's most plot-driven novel to date, Caught is a thrillingly charged escapade that thrums with energy and suspense and deftly captures a moment in the late 1970s before the almost folkloric glamour surrounding pot smuggling turned violent. Ripe with bravado, love, ambition, and folly, Caught is about trust and deceit, about the risks we take for the lives we want and the mistakes we can’t outrun.

Mermaid Inn


Jenny Holiday - 2020
    Eve Abbott has a problem-actually, make that a lot of problems. And they're all going to get worse the moment her toes hit the sand in Matchmaker Bay. Once a blissful summer escape, now the tiny town just reminds Eve of loss. Inheriting her aunt's beloved Mermaid Inn is the only reason Eve is coming back. She's definitely not ready to handle nosy neighbors, extensive renovations, or the discovery that a certain heartbreaker still lives down the street...Police Chief Sawyer Collins always does the right thing, even when it costs him everything. Like Evie. He's spent the past ten years trying to forget her--to forget how right she felt in his arms, to forget the pain in her eyes the day she left. The last thing he expects is to see her back in town or to find that the spark between them is as strong as ever. Sawyer knows this is his only chance to prove that his feelings have always been real... before Eve turns tail and leaves for good.Includes the bonus novella Meant to Be by Alison Bliss!

The Poison Tree


Erin Kelly - 2010
     This taut psychological thriller begins when Karen and her nine-year- old daughter, Alice, pick up Rex from a ten-year stint in prison for murder. Flash back to the sultry summer in 1990s London when Karen, a straight-A student on the verge of college graduation, first meets the exotic, flamboyant Biba and joins her louche life in a crumbling mansion in Highgate. She begins a relationship with Biba's enigmatic and protective older brother, Rex, and falls into a blissful rhythm of sex, alcohol, and endless summer nights. Naively, Karen assumes her newfound happiness will last forever. But Biba and Rex have a complicated family history-one of abandonment, suicide, and crippling guilt-and Karen's summer of freedom is about to end in blood. When old ghosts come back to destroy the life it has taken Karen a decade to build, she has everything to lose. She will do whatever it takes to protect her family and keep her secret. Alternating between the fragile present and the lingering past with a shocker of an ending, "The Poison Tree" is a brilliant suspense debut that will appeal to readers of Kate Atkinson, Donna Tartt, and Tana French."