Book picks similar to
The Burning by S.O. Esposito


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Fractured


Catherine McKenzie - 2016
    Since Julie doesn’t know anyone in her new town, when she meets her neighbor John Dunbar, their instant connection brings measured hope for a new beginning. But she never imagines that a simple, benign conversation with him could set her life spinning so far off course.After a series of misunderstandings, Julie and her family become the target of increasingly unsettling harassment. Has Julie’s stalker found her, or are her neighbors out to get her, too? As tension in the neighborhood rises, new friends turn into enemies, and the results are deadly.

44


Jools Sinclair - 2010
    She can't see colors, memories have been erased, and her friends all hate her. And then there's Jesse, who she loves, but who refuses to forgive her the one mistake she made long ago.Just when she thinks it can't get any worse, the visions begin. In them, she sees a faceless serial killer roaming the streets. While the police believe that there have been a lot of accidents in town lately, Abby knows differently. And she soon realizes that it's up to her to find him. But to stop him, she'll have to confront more than just the killer. She'll have to face something else that was lost in those dark waters: the truth.

The Perfect Son


Lauren North - 2019
    But no one is listening to her. After her husband, Mark, died suddenly in a terrible accident a few months earlier, the only thing keeping Tess together is Jamie. As they struggle to make sense of their new life without Mark, they find joy in brief moments of normalcy like walking to school and watching television together. Life is hard without Mark, but Tess has Jamie, and that's what matters.But there in the hospital, confused and surrounded by people who won't listen, Tess’s world falls apart. To save her son, she must piece together what happened between Mark's death and Jamie's birthday, but the truth might just be too much for her to bear.

Chasing the Lion


Anthony J. Tata - 2021
    Named The Lion of Tabas by the ayatollah himself, Parizad rose through his nation’s military to become a lethal soldier and brilliant tactical commander. Now a general, he leads Quds Force, an extremist terrorist organization targeting America and its western allies.The United States has just uncovered a biochemical weapon, Demon Rain, developed by Parizad’s group. A psychoactive viral agent, it attacks a person’s nervous system and renders them susceptible to mind control. Parizad plans to unleash Demon Rain within Washington D. C. on Inauguration Day during the swearing in of the country’s first female president to spread fear and chaos, turning civilians into weapons. Assigned to stop the terrorist strike are Army Lieutenant General Garrett Sinclair and his Joint Special Operations Command team. Across the Middle East, Europe, and the U. S., Sinclair pursues Parizad only to discover a deeper conspiracy—involving a disturbing revelation that his wife may not have died from cancer but was murdered as part of a plot against the president-elect. Separated from his teammates and unsure of who he can trust, Sinclair is on a mission not only to save his country, but to avenge his family against Parizad with extreme prejudice…

Rain Will Come


Thomas Holgate - 2020
    Ruthless and riddled with vices, Czarcik always gets his man. And fast. Until now…A double slaying isn’t the open-and-shut case of urban crime he’s used to. Connecting it to a high-profile Texas judge, Czarcik realizes something bigger is going on. It’s the work of a serial killer for whom Chicago is just the beginning. Now he’s inviting Czarcik to play catch-me-if-you-can on a cross-country murder spree.Going rogue, Czarcik accepts the challenge. But as the bodies pile up, he must come to grips with the fact that nothing—not the killer, the victims, or the rules—is what it seems in this bloody game of cat and mouse.

The Safe Place


Anna Downes - 2020
    Until he meets Emily.Emily is perfect.Scott offers Emily a summer job as a housekeeper on his remote, beautiful French estate. Enchanted by his lovely wife Nina, and his eccentric young daughter, Aurelia, Emily falls headlong into this oasis of wine-soaked days by the pool. But soon Emily realizes that Scott and Nina are hiding dangerous secrets, and if she doesn't play along, the consequences could be deadly.Superbly tense and oozing with atmosphere, Anna Downs's debut is the perfect summer suspense, with the modern gothic feel of Ruth Ware and the morally complex family dynamics of Lisa Jewell.Welcome to paradise...will you ever be able to leave?

The Fortuna Coin


Karen Ann Hopkins - 2021
    A family heirloom takes her back in time to the beginning of her relationship with her eventual killer where she’s given the magical opportunity to change the future and stop her family's tragic ending. But she isn't aware that she's reliving a tortured life. With only glimpses of the future, Wendy struggles to survive present day, unaware that a bloody and unforgiving destiny awaits her.The Fortuna Coin is a haunting psychological thriller about second chances…but will the truth really set Wendy free?

Damnation Code


William Massa - 2015
    Cursed relics. Paranormal terrorists. Only one man stands against the forces of darkness. After his fiancée is slain by a murderous cult, a professional soldier dedicates himself to a new mission–hunting down twisted occultists around the globe. "The Punisher meets John Constantine in this exciting, hard-hitting Supernatural Action Thriller series. "-- Amazon Reviewer. After a decade spent fighting the enemy abroad and keeping his country safe, Delta Force Operator Mark Talon is ready to put his military career behind him and settle down with the love of his life. But Talon's world crumbles when his fiancée becomes the victim of a diabolical cabal. The military man now has a new foe in his crosshairs, and this promises to be a very different war. The person responsible for his beloved's death is a Silicon Valley tycoon allied with the forces of darkness. Fusing cutting-edge computer technology with an ancient evil, the enemy here cannot be stopped by bullets alone. If Talon is to be victorious in his mission of vengeance, he will need to master a new method of warfare -- the arcane arts! He must become... the Occult Assassin. "Occult Assassin moves like a bullet exploding from Talon's 9mm Glock." -- Nicholas Sansbury Smith, best-selling author of EXTINCTION HORIZON/HELLDIVERS. "Good mix of paranormal horror and action/adventure thriller." -- Mark Lukens, best-selling author of ANCIENT ENEMY.

The Family Plot


Megan Collins - 2021
    Raised in a secluded island mansion deep in the woods and kept isolated by her true crime-obsessed parents, she has spent the last several years living on her own, but unable to move beyond her past—especially the disappearance of her twin brother Andy when they were sixteen. With her father’s death, Dahlia returns to the house she has avoided for years. But as the rest of the Lighthouse family arrives for the memorial, a gruesome discovery is made: buried in the reserved plot is another body—Andy’s, his skull split open with an ax. Each member of the family handles the revelation in unusual ways. Her brother Charlie pours his energy into creating a family memorial museum, highlighting their research into the lives of famous murder victims; her sister Tate forges ahead with her popular dioramas portraying crime scenes; and their mother affects a cheerfully domestic façade, becoming unrecognizable as the woman who performed murder reenactments for her children. As Dahlia grapples with her own grief and horror, she realizes that her eccentric family, and the mansion itself, may hold the answers to what happened to her twin.

Cleopatra's Dagger


Carole Lawrence
    Elizabeth van den Broek is the only female reporter at the Herald, the city’s most popular newspaper. Then she and her bohemian friend Carlotta Ackerman find a woman’s body wrapped like a mummy in a freshly dug hole in Central Park—the intended site of an obelisk called Cleopatra’s Needle. The macabre discovery takes Elizabeth away from the society pages to follow an investigation into New York City’s darkest shadows.When more bodies turn up, each tied to Egyptian lore, Elizabeth is onto a headline-making scoop more sinister than she could have imagined. Her reporting has readers spellbound, and each new clue implicates New York’s richest and most powerful citizens. And a serial killer is watching every headline.Now a madman with an indecipherable motive is coming after Elizabeth and everyone she loves. She wants a good story? She may have to die to get it.

The Diary: The Complete Loving a Killer Serial


Julia Derek - 2014
    TERRIBLE SECRETS.Happily married Lexi Woods thought losing a child would be the worst thing that could ever happen to her. She was wrong. It turns out that life has more ugly surprises for her. When she is finally through the heavy depression of losing her newborn, she finds her husband’s diary. As she reads it, she learns that he’s been unfaithful to her. He’s not at all the man she thought he was. Unfortunately, that’s not the worst part. Not only has the love of her life gone behind her back -- but it also looks like he killed his mistress... What else could he be hiding?NOTE: This edition contains all three novellas of the Loving a Killer serial. The first is entitled The Diary, the second The Other Woman, and the third Guilty. It has some sexual content.

Snapped


C.M. Sutter - 2017
     Former sheriff’s department sergeant Jade Monroe has just graduated from the FBI’s serial crimes unit in homicide and is called to Houston with her partner, J.T. Harper, to take on her first assignment—apprehending the person responsible for these gruesome crimes. With victims piling up and the clock ticking, Jade and J.T. need to intensify their search because there’s no sign the killer is slowing down. After a late-night epiphany while she’s alone, Jade suddenly comes face to face with the killer, and now Jade is missing. The clock continues to tick—but this time it’s for her. Note: All Jade Monroe books are standalone stories but since characters carry over, they are best read in chronological order. Series One - Detective Jade Monroe Crime Thriller Series #1 Maniacal #2 Captive #3 Fallacy #4 Premonition #5 Exposed Note: The Jade Monroe FBI Thriller books follow on the heels of the conclusion of Exposed, Book 5 in the Detective Jade Monroe Crime Thriller Series. Series Two – Agent Jade Monroe FBI Thriller Series #1 Snapped #2 Justified

Stone Cold


Jenny Hilborne - 2013
    When a scandal threatens to ruin his company, he is determined to identify the culprit and handle it his way. Mara Mann has other ideas, and her own reasons for bringing him down. Then the murders of two senior corporate executives stun the Oxfordshire community. Mara's hatred for Dean leads her into the dangerous and twisted world of Vice President, Reid Dalton, and to the discovery of a forgotten grave. As she uncovers more truths about her boss, and learns the secret he has kept hidden, she is drawn deeper into the mind of a killer and puts her own life at risk.

Watching Edie


Camilla Way - 2016
    And she had dreams back then—but it didn’t take long for her to learn that things don’t always turn out the way you want them to.Now, at thirty-three, Edie is working as a waitress, pregnant and alone. And when she becomes overwhelmed by the needs of her new baby and sinks into a bleak despair, she thinks that there’s no one to turn to…But someone’s been watching Edie, waiting for the chance to prove once again what a perfect friend she can be. It’s no coincidence that Heather shows up on Edie’s doorstep, just when Edie needs her the most. So much has passed between them—so much envy, longing, and betrayal. And Edie’s about to learn a new lesson: those who have hurt us deeply—or who we have hurt—never let us go, not entirely…

Final Crossing


Carter Wilson - 2012
    He kills because he needs to. When the sadistic Preacherman stole the last bit of Rudiger's already troubled childhood soul, Rudiger lost himself forever. He has committed atrocities even he cannot explain in his quest for the End of Days, a release from his pain by finding and crucifying The One.Jonas Osborne, an Army Ranger and Senatorial Chief of Staff, recognizes Rudiger’s disturbing capacity based on a terrifying firefight in Somalia almost two decades earlier. Now Jonas—and the beautiful psychic criminologist he’s enlisted to predict Rudiger’s next brutal attack—become targets. Only on the biggest international stage—a summit for Middle East peace talks—will Jonas and Rudiger meet again for one final confrontation.