Book picks similar to
Tranquility by Laurie Gardiner


first-reads
mystery
fiction
women-s-fiction

Losing Cadence


Laura Lovett - 2016
    Ten years later, she has an ideal job and a wonderful fiance, Christian. She is building the life of her dreams-until the day Richard resurfaces out of the blue, abducts her from her San Francisco apartment, and returns her to his mansion where he holds her captive. Cadence can hardly believe her ears when Richard professes his undying love and reveals his plans to build a life together. Terrified to fight back for fear he will have Christian murdered, Cadence must determine how to reason with a mentally unstable man who is obsessed with making her his forever. But even if she manages to escape, will she ever really be free of the man who hunts her heart?In this psychological thriller, a young woman must rely on perseverance, courage, and inner strength to survive after she is kidnapped by her deranged ex-boyfriend."

Badge Of Evil


Craig Horowitz - 2015
    Badge of Evil is the first novel in a bold new thriller series from the writing team of private investigator Bill Stanton and award-winning journalist Craig Horowitz.All eyes are on New York City’s police commissioner Lawrence Brock after his hands-on role in a raid on a potential terrorist cell that turns into a blazing shootout. There’s even talk that he may be headed to Washington to take over Homeland Security.Investigative journalist A. J. Ross wants to expose the ruthless opportunist behind Brock’s heroic image. Freewheeling private investigator Frank Bishop is hired by the family of the lone surviving suspect, desperate to prove the young man’s innocence. A. J. and Bishop hate each other at first sight, but they’ll need to learn to work together quickly if they want to take down the commissioner—because Lawrence Brock will do anything to ensure the dark secrets of his past remain hidden.Badge of Evil introduces a dynamic new voice in thriller fiction, in the spirit of such bestselling authors as Harlan Coben and David Baldacci. It is a novel of our times and for our times—an all too familiar story of corruption and abuse at the highest levels, and how the lust for power can drive men to commit the most shocking acts.

The Bequest


B.E. Baker - 2021
    After their husbands both pass away within a year of one another, they have no reason to interact. Their connection drops to an awkward phone call on birthdays and an exchange of holiday cards.Until an eccentric uncle of their husbands' leaves a massive cattle ranch to the women's minor children. . . if they work the ranch themselves. A ranch that's located near a small town on the Wasatch front that isn’t too keen on outsiders.They're both going to turn the bequest down, clearly. It’s not like either of them could properly raise their kids or find love again in a backwater province like Birch Creek. But when things at home change dramatically—for both moms—they decide to give it a try. . . just for the summer.What could possibly go wrong in a mere three months? (Or more importantly... what might go right?)Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author Pamela Kelley said, "B. E. Baker takes you right to the heart of the small town that two widowed sisters-in-law land in very unexpectedly. Can they survive the year they need to spend there to keep it? I really enjoyed reading Bridget's romantic women's fiction debut."

Everything to Lose


Andrew Gross - 2014
    A car ahead of her careens down a hill and slams into a tree. Stopping to help, she discovers the driver dead--and a satchel stuffed with a half a million dollars.That money could prevent her family's ruin and keep her special needs son in school. In an instant, this honest, achieving woman who has always done the responsible thing makes a decision that puts her in the center of maelstrom of dark consequences and life-threatening recriminations--a terrifying scheme involving a twenty-year-old murder, an old woman who's life has been washed out to sea, and a powerful figure bent to keep the secret that can destroy him hidden.With everything to lose, everything she loves, Hilary connects to a determined cop from Staten Island, reeling from the disaster of Sandy, to bring down an enemy who will stop at nothing to keep what that money was meant to silence, still buried.

Two Nights


Kathy Reichs - 2017
    Sunnie has spent years running from her past, burying secrets and building a life in which she needs no one and feels nothing. But a girl has gone missing, lost in the chaos of a bomb explosion, and the family needs Sunnie's help. Is the girl dead? Did someone take her? If she is out there, why doesn't she want to be found? It's time for Sunnie to face her own demons because they just might lead her to the truth about what really happened all those years ago.

The Night Visitors


Carol Goodman - 2019
    She is fleeing an abusive relationship and desperate to protect...OREN, ten years old, a major Star Wars fan and wise beyond his years. Though Alice is wary, Oren bonds nearly instantly with...MATTIE, a social worker in her fifties who lives in an enormous run-down house in the middle of the woods. Mattie lives alone and is always available, and so she is the person the hotline always calls when they need a late-night pickup. And although according to protocol Mattie should take Alice and Oren to a local shelter, instead she brings them home for the night. She has plenty of room, she says. What she doesn't say is that Oren reminds her of her little brother, who died thirty years ago at the age of ten.But Mattie isn't the only one withholding elements of the truth. Alice is keeping her own secrets. And as the snowstorm worsens around them, each woman's past will prove itself unburied, stirring up threats both within and without.

The Glass House


Eve Chase - 2020
    They're grieving a terrible tragedy of their own and the beautiful baby fills them with hope, lighting up the house's dark, dusty corners. Desperate not to lose her to the authorities, they keep her secret, suspended in a blissful summer world where normal rules of behaviour - and the law - don't seem to apply.But within days a body will lie dead in the grounds. And their dreams of a perfect family will shatter like glass.Years later, the truth will need to be put back together again, piece by piece . . .From the author of Black Rabbit Hall, The Glass House is a emotional, thrilling book about family secrets and belonging - and how we find ourselves when we are most lost.

Black and Blue


Anna Quindlen - 1998
    And hid her bruises. And stayed with Bobby because she wanted her son to have a father. And because, in spite of everything, she loved him. Then one night, when she saw the look on her ten-year-old son's face, Fran finally made a choice--and ran for both their lives.Now she is starting over in a city far from home, far from Bobby. And in this place she uses a name that isn't hers, and cradles her son in her arms, and tries to forget. For the woman who now calls herself Beth, every day is a chance to heal, to put together the pieces of her shattered self. And every day she waits for Bobby to catch up to her. Because Bobby always said he would never let her go. And despite the flawlessness of her escape, Fran Benedetto is certain of one thing: It is only a matter of time...

The Waiting Room


Emily Bleeker - 2018
    She can’t sleep, can’t work, and can’t bear to touch her beautiful baby girl. Her emotional state is whispering lies in Veronica’s ear: You’re a bad mother. Your baby would be better off without you. But not everything can be reasoned away by Veronica’s despair. Can it?After all, the break-in at her house happened. The disturbing sketches she found in her studio are real. So is the fear for her daughter’s safety—especially when Veronica comes home to a cold, silent nursery and a missing baby.As she turns from victim into primary suspect, Veronica realizes that only she can find her daughter. Authorities aren’t helping. They’re only watching. Veronica’s concerned mother has suddenly vanished from her life. And a new friend seems to be keeping secrets from her too. Now, reality is waiting for Veronica in a dark place—because someone’s mind games have only just begun.

An Unwanted Guest


Shari Lapena - 2018
    . . but when the storm hits, no one is getting awayIt's winter in the Catskills and Mitchell's Inn, nestled deep in the woods, is the perfect setting for a relaxing--maybe even romantic--weekend away. It boasts spacious old rooms with huge woodburning fireplaces, a well-stocked wine cellar, and opportunities for cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, or just curling up with a good murder mystery.So when the weather takes a turn for the worse, and a blizzard cuts off the electricity--and all contact with the outside world--the guests settle in and try to make the best of it.Soon, though, one of the guests turns up dead--it looks like an accident. But when a second guest dies, they start to panic.Within the snowed-in paradise, something--or someone--is picking off the guests one by one. And there's nothing they can do but hunker down and hope they can survive the storm--and one another.

Wild Life


Liam Brown - 2016
    Fleeing his debtors, Adam abandons his family and takes to sleeping rough in a local park, where a fraternity of homeless men befriend him. As the months pass, Adam gradually learns to appreciate the tough new regime, until winter arrives early, threatening to turn his paradise into a nightmare. Starving, exhausted and sick of the constant infighting, Adam decides to return to his family. The men, however, have other plans for him. With time running out, and the stakes raised unbearably high, Adam is forced to question whether any of us can truly escape the wildness within.

Never Tell a Lie


Hallie Ephron - 2009
    Ivy was eight months and one week pregnant when she insisted that she and her husband, David, clean out the junk they’d inherited with with the old Victorian house they’d bought three years before. Call it nesting, call it nerves—she just wanted it all gone: the old electrical fixtures, the boxes of National Geographic from the 1960s, the four black wool greatcoats.Neither she nor David recognized the woman at first. But it turned out that the customer asking about the lime-green glass swan dish—the woman who looked just about as pregnant as Ivy—was none other than Melinda White, a former high school classmate of David and Ivy’s. When Melinda was a child she used to play in their new house, she explained. Would it be all right if she took a look around? David took Melinda inside. And she never came out.Now David’s under police suspicion, and Ivy finds herself digging deep into the past to clear his name. But David’s history, she begins to discover, is not necessarily the history she remembers, and before long Ivy has uncovered a twisted web of deceit, betrayal, and lies, both the ones we tell those we love and the ones we tell ourselves....Relentlessly fast-paced and disturbingly creepy, Never Tell a Lie is a page-turning thrill ride about how well we know the people we love, and how far we are willing to go to protect the secrets of our past.

Call Me Evie


J.P. Pomare - 2018
    Part captor, part benefactor, Bill calls her Evie and tells her he's hiding her to protect her. That she did something terrible one night back home in Melbourne--something so unspeakable that he had no choice but to take her away. The trouble is, Kate can't remember the night in question. The fragments of Kate's shattered memories of her old life seem happy: good friends, a big house in the suburbs, a devoted boyfriend. Bill says he'll help her fill in the blanks--but his story isn't adding up. And as she tries to reconcile the girl she thought she'd been with the devastating consequences Bill claims she's responsible for, Kate will unearth secrets about herself and those closest to her that could change everything. A riveting debut novel that fearlessly plumbs the darkest recesses of the mind, Call Me Evie explores the fragility of memory and the potential in all of us to hide the truth, even from ourselves.

The Sisters


Claire Douglas - 2015
    One died. When one sister dies, the other must go to desperate lengths to survive. Haunted by her twin sister's death, Abi is making a fresh start in Bath. But when she meets twins Bea and Ben, she is quickly drawn into their privileged and unsettling circle. When one sister lies, she must protect her secret at all costs. As Abi tries to keep up with the demands of her fickle friends, strange things start to happen - precious letters go missing and threatening messages are left in her room. Is this the work of the beautiful and capricious Bea? Or is Abi willing to go to any lengths to get attention? When the truth outs, will either sister survive?

Two Good Dogs


Susan Wilson - 2017
    But it begins a spiral for her from which she cannot escape. Her worried mother Skye thinks a change of scene is just what her introverted, withdrawn daughter needs and since her dream has always been to own an inn, she jumps at the chance to buy a dilapidated bed & breakfast in the Berkshires. But being an innkeeper is harder than it seems and Cody still seems to fall in with the wrong crowd. When Adam March arrives as the inn’s only guest, he is accompanied by his rescued pit bull, Chance, a dog who has saved Adam in more ways than one. Cody and Chance begin a wary bond and soon, Adam finds another rescue who needs the kind of attention he gave Chance years ago. With Adam and Skye beginning a tentative relationship and Chance showing Cody how to trust again, this new-found family seems to be on the brink of second chances. But soon, a murderer is closing in—someone hiding in plain sight, and threatening everything and everyone—even Cody’s life.