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Wax Works by Julia Juwairiah Simpson-Urrutia


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My Heart Is a Chainsaw


Stephen Graham JonesStephen Graham Jones - 2021
    She lives in her own world, a world in which protection comes from an unusual source: horror movies…especially the ones where a masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them. And Jade narrates the quirky history of Proofrock as if it is one of those movies. But when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, and predicts exactly how the plot will unfold.Yet, even as Jade drags us into her dark fever dream, a surprising and intimate portrait emerges… a portrait of the scared and traumatized little girl beneath the Jason Voorhees mask: angry, yes, but also a girl who easily cries, fiercely loves, and desperately wants a home. A girl whose feelings are too big for her body.My Heart Is a Chainsaw is her story, her homage to horror and revenge and triumph.

Aunt Lucie's legacy


Philippe Saimbert - 2012
    Although she wasn’t exactly a saint while she was alive, now that she’s dead, she surpasses herself in making life miserable for her family. Her testament is crystal clear: to collect the inheritance, her nephews and their families have to move into her house, which is definitely not a palace! Aunt Lucie has another surprise up her sleeve, a sort of mad treasure hunt, ankle-deep in mud. Welcome to rural France! What’s certain is that her dear nephews are not about to get bored as they get caught in an unforgettable adventure in the heart of the Béarn. How far will they go to get their hands on the jackpot?Comical situations, funny dialog and dramatic turns of events come fast and furious, masterfully orchestrated by dear Aunt Lucie. The climax could only be astonishing.

Family Money


Chad Zunker - 2022
    They have two daughters and a beautiful home, and Alex’s startup business is about to explode thanks to massive private funding from his compassionate and supportive father-in-law, Joe. With millions more to come, all is perfect—until Joe is abducted and murdered during a family trip in Mexico.Alex’s world is about to be turned upside down. He can’t bear to tell his grieving wife why. The man they’ve both idolized has been keeping secrets. The pledged millions are nowhere to be found. The source of the original investment is a mystery, even to Joe’s financial adviser. No one, it seems, has any idea who the man they knew, loved, and trusted really was.As Alex digs deeper into Joe’s shadowy life, the most shocking surprises are yet to come. Deadly ones, too, because every lie that Alex uncovers in Joe’s dark past puts his family in more danger.

White Stag


Kara Barbieri - 2016
    While her sisters were becoming wives and mothers, she was taught to hunt, track, and fight. On the day her village was burned to the ground, Janneke—as the only survivor—was taken captive by the malicious Lydian and eventually sent to work for his nephew Soren.Janneke’s survival in the court of merciless monsters has come at the cost of her connection to the human world. And when the Goblin King’s death ignites an ancient hunt for the next king, Soren senses an opportunity for her to finally fully accept the ways of the brutal Permafrost. But every action he takes to bring her deeper into his world only shows him that a little humanity isn’t bad—especially when it comes to those you care about.Through every battle they survive, Janneke’s loyalty to Soren deepens. After dangerous truths are revealed, Janneke must choose between holding on or letting go of her last connections to a world she no longer belongs to. She must make the right choice to save the only thing keeping both worlds from crumbling.

The Man of Legends


Kenneth C. Johnson - 2017
    The bet pays off, resulting in a story that will be popular with book clubs and fun to discuss.” —Associated Press New York City, New Year’s weekend, 2001. Jillian Guthrie, a troubled young journalist, stumbles onto a tantalizing mystery: the same man, unaged, stands alongside Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, and Gandhi in three different photographs spanning eighty-five years of history.In another part of town, Will—an enigmatic thirty-three-year-old of immense charm, wit, and intelligence—looks forward to the new year with hope and trepidation. Haunted by his secret past and shadowed by a dangerous stranger, he finds himself the object of an intense manhunt spearheaded by an ambitious Vatican emissary and an elderly former UN envoy named Hanna.During the next forty-eight hours, a catastrophic event unites Will, Jillian, and Hanna—and puts them in the crosshairs of a centuries-old international conspiracy. Together, the three must unravel an ancient curse that stretches back two millennia and beyond, and face a primal evil that threatens their lives and thousands more.Award-winning science-fiction mastermind Kenneth Johnson blends epic adventure, romance, and evocative drama into an intense supernatural thriller rooted in one of the great untold legends of human history.

In the Blink of an Eye


Jesse Blackadder - 2017
    Feeling like foreigners in this land of sun and surf, they're still adjusting to work, school, and life in a sprawling purple clapboard house, when one morning, tragedy strikes.In the devastating aftermath, the questions fly. What really happened? And who's to blame? Determined to protect his family, Finn finds himself under the police and media spotlight. Guilty and enraged, Bridget spends nights hunting answers in the last place imaginable. Jarrah — his innocence lost — faces a sudden and frightening adulthood where nothing is certain.In the Blink of an Eye is a haunting, redemptive story about forgiveness and hope.

Adopted Son


Dominic Peloso - 2006
    An invasion not from the stars but from within our wombs. All over the world children are being born.different. Their features are alien, their DNA isn't human, their loyalties are unknown. As scientists, spies, and regular citizens race to make sense of this new disease they find themselves asking the same question: Is this the first wave of an alien assault on Earth? Celebrated fiction author and bioterrorism expert Dominic Peloso weaves a complex tale of alien invasion, environmental catastrophe, and societal upheaval, in a world not too removed from our own. Adopted Son perfectly blends hard sci-fi with biting political and social commentary to create a truly modern literary masterpiece that transcends genres.

Devil in the Hole


Charles Salzberg - 2013
    In an upstairs bedroom: an elderly woman and the family dog, both of them shot as well. The only person missing is the husband, father, son, and prime suspect, John Hartman, who's got a three-week jump on the police. Through the eyes of almost two dozen characters, including the neighbor who reports the crime, Hartman’s mistress, a dogged state investigator, the family minister, and some of the characters Hartman meets on his escape route, we piece together not only what happened and how these shocking murders affect the community, but how John Hartman evades capture, where he’s headed, and maybe even why he committed this gruesome crime in the first place. Based on the notorious John List murders and already compared to works by Norman Mailer and Russell Banks, Devil in the Hole is gripping, literate, and haunting.

Watch Me


Jody Gehrman - 2018
    Be prepared to stay up all night." -- New York Times bestselling author Lisa ScottolineFor fans of dark and twisty psychological thrillers, Watch Me is a riveting novel of suspense about how far obsession can go.Kate Youngblood is disappearing. Muddling through her late 30s as a creative writing professor at Blackwood college, she’s dangerously close to never being noticed again. The follow-up novel to her successful debut tanked. Her husband left her for a woman ten years younger. She’s always been bright, beautiful, independent and a little wild, but now her glow is starting to vanish. She’s heading into an age where her eyes are less blue, her charm worn out, and soon no one will ever truly look at her, want to know her, again.Except one.Sam Grist is Kate’s most promising student. An unflinching writer with razor-sharp clarity who gravitates towards dark themes and twisted plots, his raw talent is something Kate wants to nurture into literary success. But he’s not there solely to be the best writer. He’s been watching her. Wanting her. Working his way to her for years.As Sam slowly makes his way into Kate’s life, they enter a deadly web of dangerous lies and forbidden desire. But how far will his fixation go? And how far will she allow it?A gripping novel exploring intense obsession and illicit attraction, Jody Gehrman introduces a world where what you desire most may be the most dangerous thing of all.

The Fixer's Daughter


Hy Conrad - 2020
    “The Fixer’s Daughter” pits a powerful Texas lawyer against his idealistic daughter in a twisted tale of murder, politics and family loyalty.

The Last of the Moon Girls


Barbara Davis - 2020
    Eight years ago, she left the land that nine generations of gifted healers had tended, determined to distance herself from the whispers about her family’s strange legacy. But when her beloved grandmother Althea dies, Lizzy must return and face the tragedy still hanging over the farm’s withered lavender fields: the unsolved murders of two young girls, and the cruel accusations that followed Althea to her grave.Lizzy wants nothing more than to sell the farm and return to her life in New York, until she discovers a journal Althea left for her—a Book of Remembrances meant to help Lizzy embrace her own special gifts. When she reconnects with Andrew Greyson, one of the few in town who believed in Althea’s innocence, she resolves to clear her grandmother’s name.But to do so, she’ll have to decide if she can accept her legacy and whether to follow in the footsteps of all the Moon women who came before her.

Hide


Kiersten WhiteKiersten White
    All she has to do is hide, and she's an expert at that.It's the reason she's alive, and her family isn't.But as the people around her begin disappearing one by one, Mack realizes this competition is more sinister than even she imagined, and that together might be the only way to survive. Fourteen competitors. Seven days. Everywhere to hide, but nowhere to run.Come out, come out, wherever you are.A high-stakes hide-and-seek competition turns deadly in this dark supernatural thriller from New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White.

Sleepaway


T.R. Pearson - 2019
    A Blue Ridge camping trip goes sideways for two young brothers and their minder in this sweet, brief novel of calamity and kindness.

Citizen Jane


James Dalessandro - 1999
     Jane Alexander had it all: A wonderful family, a beautiful home on three acres just north of San Francisco, and a deep romance with Tom O'Donnell. A family friend for 25 years prior to their romance, Tom helped Jane cope with the death of her husband, and captivated her with his charming, unflappable personality. But Jane's picturesque life came crashing down the morning that her beloved aunt was savagely murdered. Slowly, astonishingly, the evidence began to point to the last person Jane would ever believe capable of such an act: Tom O'Donnell. She soon discovered that he had fled with thousands of dollars of her money, forcing her to sell her possessions and move into a dilapidated old house. Jane would eventually learn that she was his next victim: he had secretly taken out a million dollar life insurance police on her. With and unresponsive criminal justice system and almost everyone telling her that her quest was futile, Jane devoted her entire life to tracking him down and forcing the system to do its job and get justice for her beloved aunt. But the story does not stop there: along the way, Jane met dozens of people with similar horror stories: a savagely murdered loved one, a justice system that refused to function. She and Jan Miller, whose daughter was murdered during summer break at Chico State University in a case still unsolved, founded "Citizens Against Homicide" to fight back for the victim's families. At the time of Jane Alexander's death in 2008, they had helped solve 20 cold case murders, were working on 500 homicide investigations, and had seen their organization spread to all 50 states, with more than 5,000 members. People Magazine, 48 Hours, the ABC news and a dozen other media organizations have trumpeted their exploits.

The Code Hunters


Jackson Coppley - 2019
    • An Army Ranger makes a snap decision that sets in motion events beyond his imagination.• In New Mexico, caver Tom Littleton discovers a 10,000-year-old coded tablet far too advanced for ancient people to have created it.• In Boston, Rachael Friedman, a leading physics professor, unlocks a key to the mysterious code.• And in Italy, a violin maker and his autistic daughter show the way to a secret chamber where a medieval scholar has locked away more clues.Wealthy adventurer Nicholas Foxe leads this unlikely team to solve the mystery of the code. But dark forces threaten to destroy The Tablet and the people who know about it…• The Televangelist who intends to profit from his “religious” interpretation of The Tablet.• A Washington Senator who secretly serves a powerful constituent.• The mysterious Texan who foresees extraordinary wealth by owning The Tablet.• A Bombmaker in Queens who serves the latest in destructive products.The Code Hunters is a Thriller for the reader who:• Wants the Adventure of Indiana Jones,• Likes the pace and puzzles of The Da Vinci Code,• Or just enjoys a Mystery Page-Turner.