Book picks similar to
The Captive by Julie Coulter Bellon


suspense
romance
mystery-suspense
romantic-suspense

Her Sanctuary


Toni Anderson - 2009
    Her undercover work brought down a mobster’s empire. Her reward? A bullseye on her back, betrayal burning like battery acid in her veins, and a life on the run.A remote Montana ranch was supposed to be a safe haven to begin reclaiming her life. Which doesn’t include a man as solid as a mountain, with sapphire eyes and a slow, sexy drawl that curls inside her in a way she hasn’t felt in far too long.Nat Sullivan smells trouble coming in the Triple H’s cold mountain air. And this time it’s not the repo men sneaking in to take his prized horses. It’s a beautiful woman with wide eyes, dark hair, and skin pale as snow.Together, the damaged agent and struggling rancher find common ground…and a healing passion neither expected. But when a killer with a lust for revenge tracks Elizabeth down, the secrets she must unleash to survive could destroy everything they both love…REVISED AND UPDATED, NOVEMBER 2021.

Ring Around the Rosie


Jullian Scott - 2016
    The Homecoming Dance is just one night away and she can already feel the weight of the crown upon her head. But when she leaves her home that Friday night, it’s for the very last time. When her body is found in a park the next morning, a whole town is turned upside down and a family is torn apart. Fifteen years later, Olivia still hasn’t moved on from her sister’s murder. Not only does she still see the ghost of her dead sister, she is pursuing a career studying the very monsters that destroyed Rosie and hundreds of other helpless victims. Olivia is desperate to find closure, but a new murder with connections to her past has reopened old wounds. Nate Tucker is a successful Chicago detective. He also happens to be Olivia’s best friend. Nate has been fascinated by the Thompson case since the first time Olivia mentioned her dead sister to him. When a dead girl shows up in the city under circumstances eerily similar to Rosie’s murder, he is quick to make the connection. Now, with stale evidence and fifteen-year-old memories to guide him, Nate has the chance to solve the current murder case, as well as the death of the Homecoming Queen that refuses to stop haunting the people she left behind. Dark and haunting, Ring Around the Rosie is utterly suspenseful and surprising to the end.

She's Gotta Be Mine


Jennifer Skully - 2004
    Instead, she reinvents herself and the new Bobbie Jones—new haircut, new name, new attitude—follows her soon-to-be ex to the small Northern California town of Cottonmouth. What better way to show him—and his sweetheart—what he’s missing in the brand new Bobbie Jones than taking up with the town’s local bad boy—who’s also reputed to be a serial killer. Nick Angel is devilishly handsome and sexy as all get-out. In a word, perfect.It’s all going exactly according to plan...until a real murder rocks the little town of Cottonmouth. Of course, Nick didn’t do it...did he?“She’s Gotta Be Mine”, previously published as “Sex and the Serial Killer”,

Teacher Beware


Charlotte Raine - 2014
    Two years later, she moves to Murray, Virginia to get a new lease on life. On her first day of substitute teaching, her new life is nearly cut short when she finds herself in the middle of a shooting that leaves a married couple dead. Luckily, she is saved by Sam Meadows, a cardiologist, but the shooter has disappeared by the time the police come around. When the shooter tries to kill Grace again, Sam and Grace realize that the killer won’t stop until she is dead. With a killer who has nothing to lose, the question isn’t if the killer will attack again, but when and who will be in the crosshairs. A romance/murder-mystery wrapped in the aspects of life: love, family, forgiveness, danger, and death.

Weaver's Needle


Robin Caroll - 2017
    One murder. A hunt for the Dutchman's Lost Gold Mine becomes a race of survival.   Former Army MP Landry Parker fell into the recovery specialist role quite by accident—to help her ailing father. Now that she’s on her own, she is determined to prove herself and honor her family legacy. After being shot in the line of duty, former police officer Nickolai Baptiste became a recovery specialist, and he’s good at his job—maybe even the best.             A potential client pits Landry and Nickolai against one another to find the Dutchman’s Lost Gold Mine map that was stolen from her murdered husband, and the potential payday is too enticing to pass up. The trail takes them from New Orleans to Weaver’s Needle in Arizona where legend claims the mine is hidden. Landry and Nickolai are no strangers to adventure, but the unlikely partners quickly discover there’s someone after the treasure and there are those who want to ensure the lost mine in Arizona’s Superstition Mountain stays lost forever. Can Landry and Nickolai work together despite their distrust of each other to save the legend before more innocent lives are lost? Will they find the real treasure isn’t the gold, but something more valuable. . .true love and understanding?

Shadows


Kristen Proby - 2019
    Not even when I am alone. I see the unquiet dead, the souls that wander through the French Quarter. They can’t move on, and I can’t stop seeing them. I wear malachite for protection, and I control what I let in. It’s the only way to stay sane. Everything changes the day Cassian Winslow joins my ghost walking tour and knocks my world off its axis with green eyes the color of the stone around my neck. An unspeakable evil is loose in New Orleans, taking young women and leaving a bloodbath in his wake. More shadows lurking for me. More unhappy dead. There might be a way to stop it. Open myself up to Cassian. If I do, it could spell his death. But if I don’t, it’s mine.

My Sister's Keeper


Edna Curry - 2011
    She needs to meet her deadline and doesn’t have time to bail Jolene out of trouble for the umpteenth time. She’s sick of responsibility. But FBI agent Luke shows up, saying Jolene is part of a jewelry thief gang. Worse, Luke suspects Candi of being one of the thieves herself. Assigned to watch her, he finds himself falling for her and the cute baby, wanting her, but never gets involved with a suspect. Then they find that secrets from the past threaten Candi’s whole family.

The Opening Chase


Cap Daniels - 2018
    As Chase navigates the Caribbean, he’s pursued by a beautiful Russian SVR officer who is trained and prepared to find, interrogate, and kill him if necessary. He learns exactly how deadly the realm of international espionage can be when duty and love collide.