Heartbroken


Lisa Unger - 2012
    Emily is a struggling waitress whose toxic relationship with the wrong man has led her to make a horrible, life-altering decision.Without knowing each other, and with lives that couldn't be more different, they head to the same point on the map: Heart Island. It's an idyllic place in the middle of an Adirondack lake, and home to harsh and unyielding matriarch Birdie Burke. These three women find themselves on a heart-wrenching collision course--with dark memories, restless ghosts, and one another. And unbeknownst to them all, Heart Island has a terrifying history of its own.Heartbroken is a tense, mesmerizing novel about the limits of dysfunctional families, of an island haunted by dark memories, and of the all-too-real demons we must battle. Wonderfully suspenseful, exquisitely crafted, and written with raw, emotional power, this is New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger at her very best."Stellar... Should be on everyone's to-read list." (USA Today)

The Loop


Nicholas Evans - 1998
    She struggles for survival and for self-esteem, embarking on a love affair with the 18-year-old son of her most powerful opponent, brutal and charismatic rancher, Buck Calder.

Three Weeks To Say Goodbye


C.J. Box - 2008
    Finally their dream has come true with the adoption of their daughter, Angelina. But nine months after bringing her home, they receive a devastating phone call…Angelina's birth father, a teenager, never signed away his parental rights—and he wants her back. Worse, his father, a powerful Denver judge, will use every trick in the book to make sure it happens. The McGuanes attempt to meet face-to-face with the father and son…but soon it becomes clear that there's something sinister about their motivations—and that love for Angelina is not one of them.A horrifying game of intimidation and double crosses begins that quickly becomes a death spiral where everyone is suspect and no one is safe. Now Jack and Melissa will stop at nothing to protect their child—even though time is running out…

Stonemouth


Iain Banks - 2012
    After 5 years in exile his presence is required at the funeral of patriarch Joe Murston, and even though the last time Stu saw the Murstons he was running for his life, staying away might be even more dangerous than turning up.

Happy All the Time


Laurie Colwin - 1978
    Guido plans to write poetry while Vincent feels confident he will win a Nobel prize for physics. When Guido spots Holly while exiting a museum, he can immediately sense that she will be difficult, quirky, and hard to live with. He loves her on sight. Vincent, open-minded and cheerful, meets Misty at work. Though she is a  bored and misanthropic brunette, he finds himself desperate to know her. Through courtship, jealousy, estrangement, and other perils, Happy All the Time follows four sane, intelligent, and good-intentioned people who manage to find love in spite of themselves.

The Sunday Philosophy Club


Alexander McCall Smith - 2004
    1 Ladies' Detective Agency novels, begins a wonderful new series starring the irrepressibly curious Isabel Dalhousie.Isabel is fond of problems, and sometimes she becomes interested in problems that are, quite frankly, none of her business. This may be the case when Isabel sees a young man plunge to his death from the upper circle of a concert hall in Edinburgh. Despite the advice of her housekeeper, Grace, who has been raised in the values of traditional Edinburgh, and her niece, Cat, who, if you ask Isabel, is dating the wrong man, Isabel is determined to find the truth—if indeed there is one—behind the man's death. The resulting moral labyrinth might have stymied even Kant. And then there is the unsatisfactory turn of events in Cat's love life that must be attended to.Filled with thorny characters and a Scottish atmosphere as thick as a highland mist, The Sunday Philosophy Club is irresistible, and Isabel Dalhousie is the most delightful literary sleuth since Precious Ramotswe.

The Parsifal Mosaic


Robert Ludlum - 1982
    He stood by and watched as his partner and lover, Jenna Karas, double agent, was coldly and efficiently gunned down by his own agency. There's nothing left for Havelock but to get out, quit the game. Until, in one frantic moment on a crowded railway platform in Rome, Havelock sees Jenna. She's alive - and suddenly Havelock is a marked man, on the run from both US and Russian assassins. a massive mosaic of treachery created by a top-level mole with the world in his fist - Parsifal ...

Cat O' Nine Tales: And Other Stories


Jeffrey Archer - 2006
    Ingeniously plotted, with richly drawn characters and Jeffrey Archer's trademark of deliciously unexpected conclusions, this new collection has the added bonus of thirteen charming illustrations by the internationally acclaimed artist Ronald Searle. Some of these twelve stories were inspired by the two years Jeffrey Archer spent in prison, including the story of a company chairman who tries to poison his wife while on a trip to St. Petersburg---with unexpected consequences. "The Red King" is a tale about a con man who discovers that an English lord requires one more chess piece to complete a set that would be worth a fortune. In another tale of deception, "The Commissioner," a Bombay con artist ends up in the morgue after he uses the police chief as bait in his latest scam. "The Perfect Murder" reveals how a convict manages to remove an old enemy while he's locked up in jail, and then set up two prison officers as his alibi. In "Charity Begins at Home," an accountant realizes he has achieved nothing in his life, and sets out to make a fortune before he retires. And then there is Archer's favorite, "In the Eye of the Beholder," in which a handsome star athlete falls in love with a three-hundred-pound woman . . . who happens to be the ninth-richest woman in Italy. Jeffrey Archer is the only author to have topped international bestseller lists with his fiction, nonfiction, and short stories. "Cat o'Nine Tales" is Archer at his best: witty, poignant, sad, surprising, and unforgettable.

The Book of Fate


Brad Meltzer - 2006
    None of us knew it was coming."So says Wes Holloway, a young presidential aide, about the day he put Ron Boyle, the chief executive's oldest friend, into the president's limousine. By the trip's end, a crazed assassin would permanently disfigure Wes and kill Boyle. Now, eight years later, Boyle has been spotted alive. Trying to figure out what really happened takes Wes back into disturbing secrets buried in Freemason history, a decade-old presidential crossword puzzle, and a two-hundred-year-old code invented by Thomas Jefferson that conceals secrets worth dying for.

Darkness Visible


William Golding - 1979
    Miraculously saved yet hideously scarred, tormented at school and at work, Matty becomes a wanderer, a seeker after some unknown redemption. Two more lost children await him: twins as exquisite as they are loveless. Toni dabbles in political violence, Sophy in sexual tyranny. As Golding weaves their destinies together, as he draws them toward a final conflagration, his book lights up both the inner and outer darknesses of our time.

The Queen's Gambit


Walter Tevis - 1983
    Before long, it becomes apparent that hers is a prodigious talent, and as she progresses to the top of the US chess rankings she is able to forge a new life for herself. But she can never quite overcome her urge to self-destruct. For Beth, there’s more at stake than merely winning and losing.

In the Dark of the Night


John Saul - 2006
    But for the Brewster family it will be this year's holiday retreat, and for the kids Eric and Marci it's the perfect place to spend a lazy summer exploring.Which is how Eric and his teenage friends discover a curious collection of discarded objects stowed in a hidden room in the carriage house. The bladeless hacksaws, shade-less lamps, tables with missing legs, a headless axe handle - these unremarkable items add up to a pile of junk. Yet someone once took the trouble to list each worthless relic in a cryptic ledger, thus provoking a great mystery that is now whispering, coaxing, demanding to be solved. The more the boys devote themselves to piecing together the puzzle, the more their fascination deepens into obsession. Soon their days are consumed with this weird collection, while their nights become plagued by ever more ghastly nightmares.And finally when a horrifying discovery surfaces, so does the chilling truth about a twisted legacy with a malevolent life of its own.

Circle of Three


Patricia Gaffney - 2000
    After the sudden death of her husband, Carrie must come to terms not only with her grief, but with the guilt that their love had already died. Struggling to go on, to support her loving and vivacious daughter, Ruth, she slowly shakes off the sorrow that surrounds her and begins a new life. Complicating matters is Carrie's mother, Dana, who believes she has always acted in her daughter's best interests. Having driven Carrie away from her first love, the soulful, unconventional Jess, Dana has no idea how to behave now that he has re-entered her daughter's life. Skilfully weaving together the voices of Ruth, Dana and Carrie, Patricia Gaffney explores the dichotomies inherent in all female relationships in a spirited and wholly unsentimental way. CIRCLE OF THREE is about believing in impossible things, like second chances - and maybe even happy endings.

Lost Gods


Brom - 2016
    But an ancient evil is looming, and what seems like a safe haven may not be all it appears . . . Snared and murdered by a vile, arcane horror, Chet quickly learns that pain and death are not unique to the living. Now the lives and very souls of his wife and unborn child are at stake. To save them, he must journey into the bowels of purgatory in search of a sacred key promised to restore the natural order of life and death. Alone, confused, and damned, Chet steels himself against the unfathomable terrors awaiting him as he descends into death’s stygian blackness.With Lost Gods, Brom’s gritty and visceral prose takes us on a haunting, harrowing journey into the depths of the underworld. Thrust into a realm of madness and chaos, where ancient gods and demons battle over the dead, and where cabals of souls conspire to overthrow their masters, Chet plays a dangerous game, risking eternal damnation to save his family.

Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse


Lee Goldberg - 2006
    Fortunately, his assistant Natalie and her daughter are kind enough to welcome him into their home. Unfortunately, their home is not quite up to Monk's standards of cleanliness and order.But while Monk attempts to arrange his surroundings just so, something else needs to be put straight. The death of a dog at the local firehouse-on the same night as a fatal house fire-has led Monk into a puzzling mystery. And much to his horror, he's going to have to dig through a lot of dirt to find the answer.