Book picks similar to
Grace, Grits and Ghosts: Southern Short Stories by Susan Gabriel
short-stories
ebook
southern-fiction
novella
Amber House
Kelly Moore - 2012
She's never walked its hedge maze nor found its secret chambers; she's never glimpsed the shades that haunt it, nor hunted for lost diamonds in its walls. But all of that is about to change. After her grandmother passes away, Sarah and her friend Jackson decide to search for the diamonds--and the house comes alive. She discovers that she can see visions of the house's past, like the eighteenth-century sea captain who hid the jewels, or the glamorous great-grandmother driven mad by grief. She grows closer to both Jackson and a young man named Richard Hathaway, whose family histories are each deeply entwined with her own. But when the visions start to threaten the person she holds most dear, Sarah must do everything she can to get to the bottom of the house's secrets, and stop the course of history before it is cemented forever.
Disconnected
Jennifer Weiner - 2013
But this time, she swears, will be different. She'll clean up her act, go to meetings, find a sponsor, and make a clean break with her past—starting with a new phone number.But old ties aren't so easy to sever. When Shannon's new phone starts getting messages she was never meant to see, Shannon has to decide whether to risk getting involved, or stay safely disconnected.Gripping, suspenseful and smart, Disconnected is a riveting tale of addiction and obligation, secrets and redemption.
The Haunting of Highdown Hall
Shani Struthers - 2014
Not just a job for Ruby, it's a crusade and one she wants to bring to the High Street. Psychic Surveys is born. Based in Lewes, East Sussex, Ruby and her team of freelance psychics have been kept busy of late. Specialising in domestic cases, their solid reputation is spreading - it's not just the dead that can rest in peace but the living too. All is threatened when Ruby receives a call from the irate new owner of Highdown Hall. Film star Cynthia Hart is still in residence, despite having died in 1958. Winter deepens and so does the mystery surrounding Cynthia. She insists the devil is blocking her path to the light long after Psychic Surveys have 'disproved' it. Investigating her apparently unblemished background, Ruby is pulled further and further into Cynthia's world and the darkness that now inhabits it. For the first time in her career, Ruby's deepest beliefs are challenged. Does evil truly exist? And if so, is it the most relentless force of all?
Kiki Lowenstein Cozy Mystery Books 7-13
Joanna Campbell Slan - 2019
It’s enough to make a scrapbooker see red. Determined to save the man she loves, Kiki vows to track down the real killer.BOOK #8 – GROUP, PHOTO, GRAVETHE WEDDING WAS WONDERFUL, EXCEPT FOR THE CORPSE IN THE PUNCH BOWL. Kiki has knocked herself out to make her mother-in-law’s wedding picture perfect, but a dead body is always a disaster. When the bride gets blamed, Kiki relies on her nose for clues as she sniffs out the killer.BOOK #9—KILLER, PAPER, CUTA HALLOWEEN HACK JOB CUTS DOWN ONE OF KIKI’S FRIENDS. When an event at a spooky historical mansion becomes a venue for a stabbing, Kiki refuses to let the slasher get away with carving up one of her dearest friends.BOOK #10 – HANDMADE, HOLIDAY, HOMICIDEA PREGNANT KIKI WATCHES IN HORROR AS A WOMAN DIES UNEXPECTEDLY IN A HOLIDAY CLASS. When one of Kiki’s besties is unfairly blamed, the intrepid (and very pregnant) amateur sleuth pulls up her big girl maternity panties and discovers someone has been not nice and very naughty indeed. BOOK #11 – SHOTGUN, WEDDING, BELLSKIKI’S WEDDING IS INTERRUPTED BY GUNSHOTS AND HER NEW HUSBAND GOES DOWN. Two weeks from her due date, a pregnant Kiki traces the hired hitman to a “gentleman’s club.
Tender Echoes: A Dark Prequel to Digital Velocity
Reily Garrett - 2017
A quirk of her X chromosome furnished Alexis with an edge few others enjoyed. After fate plunged Lexi into orphan status and an intolerable foster home forced her to the streets, a group of prostitutes sheltered her from their vicious pimp. Seeing something special within, they nurtured and shielded her from their harsh reality until she could forge her own path in life. Destiny frequently takes us back to our roots. Lexi’s return journey begins when a serial killer attacks someone who’d offered her refuge in her previous life. Relying on courage and wit, she must stay a step ahead and secure evidence to free her family from a psychopathic murderer.
The Boy Who Drew Monsters
Keith Donohue - 2014
Refusing to leave his home in a small coastal town in Maine, Jack Peter spends his time drawing monsters. When those drawings take on a life of their own, no one is safe from the terror they inspire. His mother, Holly, begins to hear strange sounds in the night coming from the ocean, and she seeks answers from the local Catholic priest and his Japanese housekeeper, who fill her head with stories of shipwrecks and ghosts. His father, Tim, wanders the beach, frantically searching for a strange apparition running wild in the dunes. And the boy’s only friend, Nick, becomes helplessly entangled in the eerie power of the drawings. While those around Jack Peter are haunted by what they think they see, only he knows the truth behind the frightful occurrences as the outside world encroaches upon them all.In the tradition of The Turn of the Screw, Keith Donohue’s The Boy Who Drew Monsters is a mesmerizing tale of psychological terror and imagination run wild, a perfectly creepy read for a dark night.
The Dog That Laid Eggs
Jonathan Maas - 2016
She’d been fine the day before, swimming in the creek just as careless as a dog swimming in a creek should be, but Salem was now moaning, fussing and generally acting as if a cat had just been elected governor. Hitch knelt down in front of his dog and felt her fur, which was a little mangy. He also noticed how swollen Salem’s belly was. The ol' girl's giving birth! He thought. And her unborn offspring's roughly the size and shape of a gigantic egg!What Will Happen When it Hatches? If you think this is the end of the tale, then you don’t know Bufkin County. Come along with young Hitch, Constable Buford Bumford and Jethro as they discover that their dog Salem is going to launch something that will turn their lives upside down, and change the world in ways that no one could ever imagine.
Death at Glacier Lake
Pam Stucky - 2017
Now, twenty years later, a mysterious contest has brought Mindy Harris back to the area she thought she’d left behind forever. A seemingly innocent creative design firm shows up for a company retreat, but all goes awry when one of their own turns up dead. Was it an accident? Murder? And how does the unsolved mystery from twenty years ago play into it all? Death at Glacier Lake follows the revival of the traditional “whodunit” novel, led by authors such as Louise Penny, in this case with an amateur sleuth at the helm. At times fast-paced and riveting, at others poignant and thought-provoking, this novel is enhanced by the author’s signature philosophical musings on human nature and the gray area all people live in between good and evil. What are the limits of a human heart? How far will a person go for the ones they love? Pam Stucky is a new voice on the mystery scene; Death at Glacier Lake is her first novel in this genre. Pam is also the author of the Balky Point Adventures (MG/YA sci-fi adventure), the Wishing Rock series (novels with recipes; adult contemporary fiction), and the Pam on the Map series (travelogues).
Treacherous
Barbara Taylor Bradford - 2014
Hayley Martin and Fiona Chambers have been best friends since they were ten. From the moment that beautiful Fiona stood up to the school bullies for Hayley, the misfit, the two have been inseparable. Twenty years on, they still share everything, and even run their own business together. Until a dark secret threatens to test their loyalty to breaking point… What would you do if you discovered that your best friend could be your worst enemy? Cover design by Kristen Radtke.
To Catch a Bad Guy
Marie Astor - 2012
When she lands a job at one of New York’s premier boutique investment firms, Janet begins to hope that her luck is finally turning for the better. Not only is she happy with her new paycheck, but things also seem to be looking up on the personal front, as the company’s handsome attorney expresses keen interest in Janet. However, her euphoria is short-lived, as Janet soon discovers alarming facts about her new employer’s business tactics. When her boss dismisses her suspicions as groundless, Janet finds herself confiding to a cute IT engineer, Dean Snider. The closer she gets to Dean, the more Janet is tempted to break her rule of not dating co-workers, but what she doesn’t realize is that everything she knows about Dean, including his occupation and even his name, is a lie.Dennis Walker is a top-notch white collar crime investigator who will stop at nothing to put culprits away. When an opportunity for an undercover assignment at one of New York’s premier boutique broker dealers comes up, Dennis jumps at the chance, adopting a persona of geeky IT engineer, Dean Snider. While he may be an ace at his job, years of experience fail him when Dennis meets Janet Maple and finds himself torn between his professional obligations and his personal desires. Will he have to choose between his feelings and duty, or will he find a way to satisfy both?
The Red Ledger: Part 1
Meredith Wild - 2018
Days. Weeks. I measure mine in kills. A covert military mission gone wrong robbed me of my memory and any link to my past. This is my existence now. I execute and survive. Nothing more, nothing less. I was ready to write Isabel Foster’s name in my ledger of unfortunate souls until she uttered the one word that could stop the bullet meant for her. My name. She knows my face. She knows me. She’s the key to the memories I’m not sure I want back. Now nothing is simple. I still have a job to do, and my soul isn’t worth saving. I’m not the man she thinks I am. I can’t love her. And sparing her life puts us both in the crosshairs.
Dangerous Women
George R.R. MartinSharon Kay Penman - 2013
Lansdale - “Neighbors” by Megan Lindholm - “I Know How to Pick ’Em” by Lawrence Block - “Shadows For Silence in the Forests of Hell” by Brandon Sanderson - A Cosmere story - “A Queen in Exile” by Sharon Kay Penman - “The Girl in the Mirror” by Lev Grossman - A Magicians story - “Second Arabesque, Very Slowly” by Nancy Kress - “City Lazarus” by Diana Rowland - “Virgins” by Diana Gabaldon - An Outlander story - “Hell Hath No Fury” by Sherilynn Kenyon - “Pronouncing Doom” by S.M. Stirling - An Emberverse story - “Name the Beast” by Sam Sykes - “Caretakers” by Pat Cadigan - “Lies My Mother Told Me” by Caroline Spector - A Wild Cards story - “The Princess and the Queen” by George R.R. Martin - A Song of Ice and Fire story
Death in Copper Town
Lakota Grace - 2017
Fate intervenes when a dead body turns up in an old copper mining pit. The man is a three-time loser disowned by even his own mother. Peg’s sheriff boss declares the death an accident and tells her to “move on.” She wants to agree, but then her office is ransacked and her assistant kidnapped. When Peg herself is assaulted, she convinces her safe-cracking grandfather to break the law one last time to help her. Will they find the killer before he strikes again? Set against the Southwest backdrop of summer monsoons in the high desert plateau of Arizona, this fast-paced mystery, at times humorous and romantic, tells the story of a young woman at odds with herself. Peg must ultimately decide which comes first: her family, her job, or her life.
Racing From Evil: A Nikki Latrelle Mystery Novella; The Prequel
Sasscer Hill - 2016
Tony Ryan Best in Racing Literature awards.RACING FROM EVIL What happens to orphaned Nikki Latrelle after she flees from her pedophile stepfather through the streets of Baltimore and climbs the razor-wire fence into Pimlico Racetrack? Nikki’s drawn to horses, knows how to ride, and dreams of being a jockey. But how can a runaway with no ID, no family, and no income survive?“Could Sasscer Hill be the Dick Francis of her generation? Count me among those who would vote yes.” Margaret Maron, New York Times Best Selling Author and Winner of Edgar Best Novel, Edgar Grand Master, Agatha, Anthony & Macavity Awards
Open House
Katie Sise - 2020
A town still held in the grip of an unsolved mystery. A breathtaking novel of psychological suspense by the bestselling author of We Were Mothers.A decade ago in upstate New York, art student Emma McCullough walked into the woods and was never seen again. It’s a mystery that still haunts her bucolic university town and her broken family, especially her sister Haley, whose need for closure has become an obsession. But now, finally, the first piece of evidence in the vanishing has been found: Emma’s bracelet, lodged in a frozen piece of earth at the bottom of a gorge. For Emma’s three best college friends, for a beloved former teacher, and for Haley, the chilling trinket is more than a clue in a resurrected cold case. It’s a trigger.Then a woman is attacked during an open house, and the connections between the two crimes, ten winters apart, begin to surface. So do the secrets that run as deep and dark as the currents in this quiet river town.