a desperate mother... a frantic call in the night... is this a cruel hoax, or the work of a maniacal serial killer? The peaceful resort town of St. Teresa-by-the-Sea on Florida's Forgotten Coast is known for its low crime rate, pristine beaches, and great fishing. But tragedy can come even to Paradise, as Carol Dennison found out two and a half years ago when her fourteen-year-old daughter, Kelly, disappeared on her way to a Tallahassee concert. Now, just as Carol as beginning to rebuild the pieces of her shattered life, she receives a midnight call from someone who calls her "mama" and begs for help. Is this a cruel prank designed to terrorize and punish Kelly's father for the role he played in bringing a recently paroled criminal to justice? Or is it possible that Kelly is still alive?A grim investigation uncovers a connection between Kelly and other girls who have gone missing along the Gulf Coast in the past few years. When the body of one of those missing girls washes up on the shores of St. Teresa-by-the-Sea, the police are forced to admit they may have a serial killer in their midst. And with over three thousand college students poised to descend on the tiny community for spring break, their only hope for stopping him before he strikes again is the frightened voice of a teenage girl on the telephone... and the desperate determination of the parents who love her.Shattered is Donna Ball at her best: spine-tingling terror, chilling realism and unforgettable characters. No parent will ever watch her child leave the house in the same way again.Praise for the work of Donna Ball:"A maelstrom of suspense… gripping, intense”--Rendezvous“[Ball] knows how to keep a story moving”--Kirkus Reviews“A major talent of the genre”--Publisher’s Weekly“A must read”--Examiner.com

    1 Kindle bestseller The Letter, comes The Secret - a heartbreaking novel of tragedy, hope and second chances. Readers who treasure the novels of Lesley Pearse and Susan Lewis will adore this author. Mary has been nursing a secret. Forty years ago, she made a choice that would change her world for ever, and alter the path of someone she holds dear.Beth is searching for answers. She has never known the truth about her parentage, but finding out could be the lifeline her sick child so desperately needs. When Beth finds a faded newspaper cutting amongst her mother's things, she realises the key to her son's future lies in her own past. She must go back to where it all began to unlock...The Secret.

    She’s convinced her daughter is alive but cannot track her into the wilderness alone. Help arrives in the form of James Bailey, an agent of the crown sent to Boston to investigate the murder of Prudence’s husband and to covertly cause a disturbance that would give the king just cause to install royal governors. After his partner is murdered, James needs help too. He strikes a deal with Prudence, and together they traverse the forbidding New England landscape looking for clues. What they confront in the wilderness—and what they discover about each other—could forever change their allegiances and alter their destinies.

    D. Ward's first novel in the Harry Circus mystery series is a story of unforgettable suspense from the dramatic opening to the bloody finish.A body is found disembowled and partially skinned on the remote blueberry barrens, north of the small town of Berryville. Tension mounts as Harry follows the scent of the murderer to the brutal end, where he discovers the long-kept secret of a mother and daughter. Available for Kindle Unlimited.

    Detective Inspector Newsome of the new Detective Force decides to recruit a recently-apprehended master criminal to help bring the culprits to justice. A polymath with a mysterious past, the man is no eager volunteer.And when the ghastly murder of conjoined twins galvanizes the city, Newsome blackmails his prisoner - Noah Dyson, as he calls himself - into working with the Force's finest: Sergeant George Williamson.Unknown to the policemen, the criminal genius behind the murder shares a dark past with their new associate. It is not justice that is on Dyson's mind, but retribution. As Williamson and Dyson together close the net, the murder-rate soars and the streets of London begin to burn. Ingeniously plotted and seething with grotesque characters, James McCreet's striking debut will grip readers from its first dark pages.

    Hemingway. Murder When private investigator Simon Wolfe is hired to follow his friend’s wife under suspicion of adultery, he could never have guessed it would lead him into a friendship with the world’s leading writer, Ernest Hemingway. Nor could he have predicted the strange and disturbing twists the investigation would take. The case accelerates quickly when the wife is found murdered in a Key West hotel and discovered to have a secret life. But that revelation is downright boring as the plot thickens with increasingly bizarre revelations, capped off with a macabre ending no one saw coming. Based on actual events, Night at Key West is a wild ride into history and intrigue, populated by many true-to-life characters and places.

    The murderer must be a resident of Killiney Court.

    Marion Abbott is summoned to Brawders House asylum to collect the body of her sister, Alice. She’d been found dead after falling four stories from a steep-pitched roof. Officially: an accident. Confidentially: suicide. But Marion believes a third option: murder.Returning to her family home to stay with her brother and his second wife, the recently widowed Marion is expected to quiet her feelings of guilt and grief—to let go of the dead and embrace the living. But that’s not easy in this house full of haunting memories.Just when the search for the truth seems hopeless, a stranger approaches Marion with chilling words: I saw her fall.Now Marion is more determined than ever to find out what happened that night at Brawders, and why. With no one she can trust, Marion may risk her own life to uncover the secrets buried with Alice in the family plot.

    She is his ultimate risk... After losing both her parents, Teresa Dowels' future seems uncertain. Forced to leave the house she grew up in, she finds employment as a governess at the Duke of Rowfex’s mysterious manor. Luke Morton, second son of the Duke of Rowfex, is trying to preserve a well-hidden family secret. But life as he knows it changes the day he saves his younger sibling’s ravishing governess from rape. However, it is only a matter of time before the attacker, a notorious criminal with an ulterior motive, strikes again... When Luke disappears, all pieces seem to connect. With Teresa discovering the ugly truth about his family, time is against her. And only a miracle can keep them both alive... *If you like a realistic yet steamy depiction of the Regency and Victorian era, then An Untamed Governess for the Rogue is the novel for you. This is Olivia's 5th novel, a historical Regency romance novel of 80,000 words (around 400 pages). No cheating, no cliffhangers, and a strong happily ever after. Pick up "An Untamed Governess for the Rogue" today to discover Olivia's amazing new story!

    

    Northminster, 1840: a once-picturesque cathedral city, where dirty smoke stacks now rival ancient spires. Here, young Scottish surgeon Felix Carswell and Chief Constable Major Giles Vernon are tasked to uncover the truth in three complex tales of murder and detection set in Early Victorian England. The Butchered Man When workmen make the shocking discovery of a mutilated corpse in a ditch outside the ancient walls, Giles Vernon and Felix Carswell are charged with solving the case. Intelligent and practical, Chief Constable Major Vernon has transformed the old city watch into a modern police force, and he throws himself into the investigation with the same energy. But as he probes a murky world of professional gamblers and jilted lovers, he is drawn into a dangerous emotional game that threatens to undermine his authority. Newly-qualified police surgeon Felix Carswell is determined to make his way in the world on his own terms despite being the bastard son of prominent local grandee Lord Rothborough. Called to treat a girl in an asylum for reformed prostitutes, what he uncovers there brings him into conflict with his new employer, Vernon, and throws the case into disarray. Together they must overcome their differences and find the brutal truth behind the mystery of The Butchered Man. The Dead Songbird “Death is too good for a whore like you. But He may show you mercy yet. BE PREPARED” Celebrated singer Anna Morgan has come to Northminster to escape a troubled past and sing at the city’s Handel Festival. But when she continues to receive the poisonous letters that have been plaguing her, she turns to Chief Constable Major Giles Vernon and Police Surgeon Felix Carswell to find her persecutor, drawing the two men into her charismatic orbit. At the same time a talented young tenor is found dead in curious circumstances in a locked chapel, and the hunt for a murderer is on. Together, Vernon and Carswell must untangle the web of secrets that surround the dead man, uncovering a Northminster that throbs with clandestine passions and thwarted desires, a world of illegal pornographic books and risqué theatricals. The Shadowcutter Police surgeon Felix Carswell has joined Major Giles Vernon and his convalescent wife, Laura, for a few days in the elegant spa town of Stanegate – it’s a welcome holiday from the summer stench of Northminster. But no sooner has he arrived than a Spanish colonial gentleman, dying of consumption, requires his urgent care, while Major Vernon is called away to Lord Rothborough’s country house, where a lady’s maid has been found drowned in a secluded pool. Major Vernon investigates above and below stairs in the great house, assisted by Lord Rothborough’s eldest daughter, Lady Charlotte. When a quantity of valuable jewellery is found missing, the cause of the dead maid’s death only becomes more mysterious. Meanwhile, when his patient dies in his arms after confiding a secret, Carswell is drawn into baffling intrigues involving the government-in-exile of the dead man’s homeland, the Caribbean island of Santa Magdalena.

    For sophisticated booklover Julia Kydd, life’s too short for politics. With her cropped hair and penchant for independent living, Julia wants only to launch her own new private press. But as a woman, Julia must fight for what’s hers—including the inheritance her estranged half brother, Philip, has challenged, putting her aspirations in jeopardy.When her friend’s sister, Naomi Rankin, dies suddenly of an apparent suicide, Julia is shocked at the wealthy family’s indifference toward the ardent suffragist’s death. Naomi chose poverty and hardship over a submissive marriage and a husband’s control of her money. Now, her death suggests the struggle was more than she could bear.Julia, however, is skeptical. Doubtful of her suspicions, Philip proposes a glib wager: if Julia can prove Naomi was in fact murdered, he’ll drop his claims to her wealth. Julia soon discovers Naomi’s life was as turbulent and enigmatic as her death. And as she gets closer to the truth, Julia sees there’s much more at stake than her inheritance…

    Includes an exclusive extract from his next novel in the series, the follow up to Dark Serpent. Perfect for fans of Robin Hobb and Michael Jecks. In the summer of 1311, a jousting tournament is about to commence in the Tower of London, supervised by Sir Hugh Corbett, Keeper of the Secret Seal.Two powerful lords have come forward with writs from the late king, promising them both the inheritance of a lucrative estate. To settle the dispute, they are submitting their quarrel to the judicium Dei: the Judgement of God. But when a third claimant comes forward, Corbett suspects that something is awry.Corbett launches an investigation to uphold the reputation of the late king as treachery looks set to spread. But it soon becomes clear that more than one person in the Tower has secrets to keep...What readers are saying about Paul Doherty:'A magical author''Paul Doherty has the rare talent of making you feel as though you are there, be it medieval England, or battling with Alexander. The sounds and smells of the period seem to waft from the pages of his books''Doherty has a gift for bringing distant ages alive and for populating his books with endearing, believable characters'

    A house with secrets. And an invitation to a seance... When Clara O'Hare's husband passed away, she felt her life was over. But when she moves into a new home to escape the memories, she discovers that the veil between life and death is very thin indeed. Desperate to find answers, she attends a seance in a remote country home surrounded by a colorful cast of strangers. But something sinister has decided to make itself known. It will be up to her and the dashing young medium, Wesley Lowenherz, to find out what the spirits of the manor are dying to tell them. Laced with gothic romance and paranormal mystery, A Spirited Manor is book one in the O'Hare House Mystery penny dreadful series.

    When suspicion falls on Jamie Charlton, he and his family face a desperate battle to save him from the gallows.When £1,157 rent money is stolen from Kirkley Hall, it is the biggest robbery Northumberland has ever known. Suspicion soon falls on impoverished farm labourer, Jamie Charlton, and the unpopular steward, Michael Aynsley.Jamie Charlton is a loving family man but he is hot-tempered and careless. As the case grows against him, it seems that only his brother, William, can save him from an impending miscarriage of justice. But William is struggling with demons of his own. Desperate to break free from the tangled web of family ties which bind him to their small community, he is alarmed to find that he is falling in love with Jamie’s wife. Set beneath the impenetrable gaze of a stray golden eagle whose fate seems to mirror that of Jamie's, 'Catching the Eagle' is a fictionalised account of a real trial that devastated a family and divided a community.