Book picks similar to
Ghost Dog of Roanoke Island by C.K. Volnek


mystery
13-colonies-culperettes
giveaway-losses
middle-grade

Memories and Matchsticks


N. Gemini Sasson - 2014
    Even murder.Out of work, accident prone, and dateless, Sam McNamee packs up her belongings and her daughter to move to the Florida Keys, where she can pen love stories as S.A. Mack to ease the lingering pain of her husband's death. First, though, she has to help her dad sell his home of forty-plus years. It just might be the hardest job she's ever tackled. He's a hoarder; she's a neat freak.The night she returns to Wilton, Sam plows into a mangy mutt on a rain-slicked country road. Bump, the dog she rescues, has a history that drags Sam and her family into a web of danger, making her father a prime suspect.Feuds and secrets run deep in Humboldt County. Sam can't leave until the mystery of the arsons is solved. Not that she'd want to anymore, since veterinarian Clint Chastain has stolen her heart.In Memories and Matchsticks, N. Gemini Sasson combines comedy and romance as accidental female sleuth Sam McNamee rediscovers love in a sleepy Midwestern town.

Dry Spell


A.W. Hartoin - 2014
    She might be the only one. When Mercy’s best friend, Ellen, shows up in the middle of the night, shaken and afraid. Mercy starts digging for a truth that might not even exist. Is it a mental illness or has the Missouri drought revealed something that could’ve remained hidden forever?

Glimpse


Steven Whibley - 2013
    Save them all...."Dean Curse avoids attention the way his best friend Colin avoids common sense. Which is why he isn’t happy about being Abbotsford’s latest local hero – having saved the life of a stranger, he is now front page news. Dean’s reason for avoiding the limelight? Ever since his heroic act, he’s been having terrifying visions of people dying and they’re freaking him out so badly his psychologist father just might have him committed. Dean wants nothing more than to lay low and let life get back to normal.​But when Dean’s visions start to come true, and people really start dying, he has to race against the clock – literally – to figure out what’s happening. Is this power of premonition a curse? Or is Dean gifted with the ability to save people from horrible fates? The answer will be the difference between life and death.​[For more information about this title visit www.stevenwhibley.com]

New Beginnings


Rebecca Emin - 2011
    Things go from bad to worse as the day of truth arrives and all of her fears come true... and then some. When Sam meets a different group of people who immediately accept her as a friend, she begins to feel more positive. With her new friends and interests, will Sam finally feel able to face the bully who taunts her, and to summon up the courage to perform on stage?

The Kingmaker 1-3 (The Kingmaker, #1-3


Gemma Perfect - 2017
     The Kingmaker. Seize the Crown. Born to Rule DESTINED TO DIE. BORN TO RULE. “One of the best premises I have come across in the fantasy world.” YA Books Central “If you’re a fan of YA lit with courageous young ladies and mysteries, read this book today!” The Book Nerd Girl “I am sixteen years old and I will die on the morning of my seventeenth birthday. As tradition dictates, I will be sacrificed and my life’s blood will determine which one of my two brothers will be King. My blood will kill one and crown one. My name is Everleigh and I am the Kingmaker.” Terrified of her fate but resigned to her death, Everleigh has less than a week to live. The legend of the Kingmaker goes back millions of years and Everleigh would never dare to question her deadly inheritance. Kingmakers are special; their magic chooses the rightful King of the Realm and they all die on their seventeenth birthday. Except this one. Saved from the inevitable, Everleigh learns that she is the Kingmaker who will live, the Kingmaker who will rule, the Kingmaker who will be Queen. But not everyone agrees with an age-old prophecy that says that a girl will rule the Realm and soon Everleigh is locked in a deadly battle for the throne. Can she escape her blood-thirsty enemies and live long enough to be crowned Queen? Seize the Crown “If I am not the Kingmaker, who am I? If I am not Queen, who am I?” Believing her first love is dead, devastated by her brother’s actions, and cruelly denied of the crown she believes is her own, Everleigh faces the fight of her life in the second book of The Kingmaker Trilogy. Millards’s deadly ambition sees him wear the crown that should rightfully be on her head. Everleigh is determined to avenge her loved ones and seize the crown and if a fight is what it takes to rule, she will fight or die trying, in this fantastic follow up to The Kingmaker. Seize the Crown follows Everleigh on her quest for revenge and the throne, as she battles against her brother and his murderous tyranny. Born to Rule Maddeningly, the crown still eludes Everleigh as we begin the breath-taking conclusion to The Kingmaker Trilogy. In a hugely welcome turn of events, her first love is back at her side, the crown is almost on her head and she is ready to rule. But with Millard on the run and attacks being made ‘in the name of the King’, Everleigh must put a stop to her brother before her Kingdom is in ruins and if, as Queen, she must slay her own sibling, she will gladly do it. The Kingmaker Trilogy is a magical young adult fantasy, packed with fantastical twists, heart-stopping action and fabulously feisty females. If you enjoy reading Sarah J. Maas, Victoria Aveyard and Melissa Meyer then you’ll love The Kingmaker Trilogy. Pick up your copy today!

Another Five Patients


Melissa Crickard - 2019
    When one of the resident physicians, Dr. Kip Paiva, becomes a critically ill patient herself, the team is forever changed. This suspenseful story of medical fiction traces foreign medical graduate Dr. Kip Paiva, an emigrant and survivor of human trafficking in post-apartheid South Africa. Her refuge from a Zulu militant captor comes to an end, as his brutal violence has finally tracked her across the ocean. While her past catches up to her, Dr. Paiva also becomes the scapegoat of a malpractice suit. Frightened for her and her son’s lives, Dr. Paiva begins a journey fueled by bottomless resiliency and a mother’s love. Her story intertwines through five others, all riveting, and all taking place in the busy Spectrum General Hospital in New York. Debut author Melissa Crickard uses this microcosm to illustrate larger aspects of modern medicine. Another Five Patients combines international intrigue and hospital politics with individual human stories involving hospital staff, patients, and their families. The result is a captivating, at times satirical, experience that reminds us that, whether doctor, mother, or child, we are all people, with flaws and emotions in a world of uncertainty.

The Burning of Juniper Slaide


Johanna Handley - 2016
    Nine years later, she's worked hard at putting the past behind her. She clings to her best friend James, the only person she's been able to trust since the fire. But one day James disappears. Juniper tries to find her friend, but she uncovers more than she bargained for. As tensions grow and friendships are tested, she begins to realise that James wasn't who she thought he was. And worst of all, his disappearance is connected to her somehow, and what happened to her all those years ago... An exciting, page turning thriller you wont want to put down!

Roan


E.R. Barr - 2012
    With the help of new friends, Jace the captain of the football team and Beth, his twin sister, along with a strange Labrador Retriever named Troubles, Conor has to discover who he really is and how he is tied to the mystery of the 'Dark Ones'. They are the children the town is protecting from an ancient river demon and a shapeshifter in the nearby Indian Burial mound. Into the midst of Conor's hunt for the truth comes DIOGENE, a biogenetics company with a scientist willing to do anything to unravel the mystery of the 'Dark Ones'. Conor finds himself caught in a web of lies where myth and science war for humanity's soul.

Rooked


Caitlin Sara - 2018
    . . Despite her desire for control, Ara Hopkins has always felt like a pawn—constantly being maneuvered by those surrounding her. Carrying a riddled past of abandonment by her mother, a jealous step-sister and exploitation by men she was supposed to be able to trust, Ara craves a social media certified life. So, when she meets her husband, a New York congressman’s son, she believes she’s finally won her game. Secure in a life her mother would approve of—and having firmly shut the door on her chaotic and miscalculated past—Ara feels she’s thriving. Until the night her husband is murdered. Thrust into a game of deceit and lies, Ara realizes that nothing is as it seems and that the past can quickly return to the present. The facade crumbles as relationships are tested and family boundaries crossed. Faced with losing it all, she discovers what a person is really capable of. Because in this game of life, it's either rook or be rooked. An intricately braided plot with unforeseeable twists and a sucker-punch ending, Rooked is a captivating thriller that shatters all perceptions.

Nightfall Gardens


Allen Houston - 2013
    When a mysterious stranger arrives claiming to be their uncle, they discover their parents have been hiding a secret that turns their world upside down. The two are kidnapped to Nightfall Gardens, the family’s ancestral home, a place shrouded in ancient mystery, where they meet their dying grandmother and learn of an age-old curse placed on Blackwood females. Lily must take over as protector of the house and three haunted gardens that hold mythical beasts, fairy-tale nightmares, and far worse. If she doesn’t, the evil trapped there will be unleashed and bring on a new dark age. While she deals with malevolent ghosts inside the house, Silas is put to work in the gardens, where one wrong step means death. Along the way, they search to unlock the secrets of the house and to stop the creatures in the gardens before the world is destroyed.

The Forest of Stars


Heather Kassner - 2020
    Long ago, a powerful gust of wind swept through town, stealing him away on the wings of his untamed magic—the same magic that stirs within Louisa. As if she is made of hollow bones and too much air, her feet never quite touch the ground. But for all her sky gazing, Louisa finds her fortune on the leaf-strewn street when she spots a gleaming black-and-gold invitation—a ticket to the Carnival Beneath the Stars. If her father fits in nowhere else, maybe she’ll find him there, dazzling crowds alongside the other strange and wonderful feats. Only, soon after she arrives, a tightrope act ends disastrously—and suspiciously. As fate tugs Louisa closer to the stars, she must decide if she’s willing to slip into the injured performer’s role, despite the darkness plucking at the carnival’s magical threads.

Fatal Impulse


Lori L. Robinett - 2014
    He’s a successful pillar of the community. She is a beautiful young wife devoted to him. From the outside, their life appears perfect. But on the inside, she is constantly on edge, trying to keep him happy so she won’t suffer scathing words that hurt just as much as the occasional sharp blow from him. Then she snaps. In the blink of an eye, she becomes a widow and finds herself inextricably entwined in the web of lies he wove in the months before his death. When a blackmailer threatens to expose her as a murderer, she must piece together her husband’s life to find the key to her own freedom. Fatal Impulse is the first in an intriguing new series, where each widow faces challenges that threaten to destroy her just as she begins to find her strength.

The Guardians of the Hidden Scepter


Frank L. Cole - 2011
    This guaranteed page-turner from the bestselling author of the Hashbrown Winters series is perfect for the adventurer in your family.

The Ghost is Clear


A.J. Nuest - 2021
    You can be whoever you want, they said. Well, "they" were wrong. Getting old sucks and I’m cranky from the unexpected changes. After fighting off the doldrums of an empty nest, I dreamed of getting a fresh start with my husband. Maybe David and I could fly off somewhere and rekindle our relationship with a second honeymoon.Flip the script to an EPIC FAIL that ended in a near-fatal car accident, and after six weeks in a coma, David flushed me and our marriage of over two decades down the toilet I’d been scrubbing for years.Now a single divorcée with chump change in my pocket, I’m forced to move into my childhood home. And to make matters worse, the place seems to be haunted. Or maybe I’m just having a nervous breakdown over the mystery of my brother’s suicide.His creepy journals have been certainly keeping me awake at night. I could swear a strange entity is floating through my midst.But hey, at least the hot handyman, helping me fix up the place, won’t stop walking around the property half dressed.Geez, between the menopausal hormones and getting the house ready to sell, my muscles are twinging in places I didn’t know existed. If my therapist was right, and life is a do-over, then why is everything such a crisis? Midlife or not, I could swear I was cursed. Guess I’m in charge of my own happy ending. -----------------Join Brooke Durand and her magical midlife crisis in the quirky town of Eerie, Indiana. Read Book 1 in this new hot-flash genre of Paranormal Women's Fiction. A Series of Midlife Curses is written by the dynamic duo of award-winning author AJ Nuest and USA Today bestselling author Arial Burnz. Perfect for fans of K.F. Breene, Deanna Chase, Melinda Chase, Victoria Danann, Jana DeLeon, Heloise Hull, Elizabeth Hunter, Darynda Jones, Shannon Mayer, Kristen Painter, Robyn Peterman, Denise Grover Swank, Brenda Trim, and paranormal women's fiction.

The Last Grand Adventure


Rebecca Behrens - 2018
    Her mother is off in San Francisco, while her father has just gotten remarried in Los Angeles. Bea has gained a younger stepsister, and she’s not thrilled about her blended family. So when her ailing grandmother, Pidge, moves to an Orange County senior-living community and asks if Bea would spend the summer helping her get settled, Bea is happy for any excuse to get away. But it turns out, her grandmother isn’t interested in settling in. What she really wants is to hop a train back to Atchison, Kansas—where she thinks she’ll be reunited with her long-missing sister: Amelia Earhart. And she wants Bea to be her sidekick on this secret trip. At first, Bea thinks her grandmother’s plan is a little crazy. But Pidge has thirty years of letters written in “Meelie’s” unmistakable voice, all promising to reunite. This might be the adventure Bea needs… With letters in hand, Bea and Pidge set off on their quest to find Amelia. But getting halfway across the country proves to be more of an adventure than either of them bargained for. And their search for Amelia leads to some surprising truths about their family—and each other.