THE ACCOMPLISHED GUEST: Stories by Ann Beattie (Fiction/Short Stories)
Audiobook available, read by Jacques Roy and Gabra Zackman
Set along the East Coast from Maine to Key West, Ann Beattie’s new collection explores unconventional friendships, frustrated loves, mortality and aging. One theme of THE ACCOMPLISHED GUEST is people paying visits or receiving visitors, traveling to see old friends, the joys and tolls of hosting company (and of being hosted). The occasion might be a wedding, a birthday, a reunion, an annual Christmas party, or another opportunity to gather and attempt to bond with biological relatives or chosen families. In some stories, as in life, what begins as a benign social event becomes a situation played for high stakes. Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg.
THE ANSWERS by Catherine Lacey (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Megan Tusing
Mary is a young woman living in New York City and struggling to cope with a body that has betrayed her. All but paralyzed with pain, she seeks relief from a New Agey treatment called Pneuma Adaptive Kinesthesia, PAKing for short. And, remarkably, it works. But PAKing is prohibitively expensive and Mary is dead broke. So she scours Craigslist for fast-cash jobs and finds herself applying for the “Girlfriend Experiment,” the brainchild of an eccentric actor, Kurt Sky, who is determined to find the perfect relationship --- even if that means paying different women to fulfill distinctive roles. Mary is hired as the “Emotional Girlfriend” and pulled into Kurt’s ego-driven and messy attempt at human connection. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
BEFORE WE WERE YOURS by Lisa Wingate (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Emily Rankin and Catherine Taber
Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family's Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge --- until strangers arrive in force, and the children are thrown into an orphanage. Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all. But when she returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family's long-hidden history, on a path that ultimately will lead either to devastation or to redemption. Reviewed by Jana Siciliano.
BEREN AND LUTHIEN written by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien, with illustrations by Alan Lee (Fantasy)
In this book, Christopher Tolkien has attempted to extract the story of Beren and Lúthien from the comprehensive work in which it was embedded. But that story was itself changing as it developed new associations within the larger history. To show something of the process whereby this legend of Middle-earth evolved over the years, he has told the story in his father's own words by giving, first, its original form, and then passages in prose and verse from later texts that illustrate the narrative as it changed. Presented together for the first time, they reveal aspects of the story, both in event and in narrative immediacy, that were afterwards lost. Reviewed by Stephen Hubbard.
THE BRIGHT HOUR: A Memoir of Living and Dying by Nina Riggs (Memoir)
Audiobook available, read by Cassandra Campbell with Kirby Heyborne
Nina Riggs was just 37 years old when initially diagnosed with breast cancer. Within a year, the mother of two sons received the devastating news that her cancer was terminal. How does one live each day, “unattached to outcome”? How does one approach the moments, big and small, with both love and honesty? Exploring motherhood, marriage, friendship and memory, even as she wrestles with the legacy of her great-great-great grandfather, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nina Riggs’ memoir continues the urgent conversation that Paul Kalanithi began in WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR. She asks: What makes a meaningful life when one has limited time? Reviewed by Barbara Bamberger Scott.
CAMINO ISLAND by John Grisham (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by January LaVoy
A gang of thieves stage a daring heist from a secure vault deep below Princeton University’s Firestone Library. Bruce Cable owns a popular bookstore in the sleepy resort town of Santa Rosa on Camino Island in Florida. He makes his real money, though, as a prominent dealer in rare books. Very few people know that he occasionally dabbles in the black market of stolen books and manuscripts. Mercer Mann is a young novelist with a severe case of writer’s block. A generous offer of money convinces her to go undercover and infiltrate Cable’s circle of literary friends, ideally getting close enough to him to learn his secrets. But eventually Mercer learns far too much, and there’s trouble in paradise. Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman.
THE CHALK ARTIST by Allegra Goodman (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Orlagh Cassidy
Collin James is young, creative and unhappy. A college dropout, he waits tables and spends his free time beautifying the streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his medium of choice: chalk. Collin’s art captivates passersby with its vibrant colors and intricate lines --- until the moment he wipes it all away. Nothing in Collin’s life is meant to last. Then he meets Nina. The daughter of a tech mogul who is revolutionizing virtual reality, Nina Lazare is trying to give back as a high school teacher, but her students won’t listen to her. When Collin enters her world, he inspires her to think bigger. Nina wants to return the favor, even if it means losing him. Reviewed by Katherine B. Weissman.
A DARK SO DEADLY by Stuart MacBride (Mystery/Thriller)
Audiobook available, performed by Steve Worsley
Welcome to the Misfit Mob. It’s where Police Scotland dumps the officers it can’t get rid of, but wants to: the outcasts, the troublemakers, the compromised. Officers like DC Callum MacGregor, lumbered with all the boring go-nowhere cases. So when an ancient mummy turns up at the Oldcastle tip, it’s his job to find out which museum it’s been stolen from. But then Callum uncovers links between his ancient corpse and three missing young men, and life starts to get a lot more interesting. No one expects the Misfit Mob to succeed, but right now they’re the only thing standing between the killer’s victims and a slow, lingering death. The question is, can they prove everyone wrong before he strikes again? Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
DEAD CERTAIN by Adam Mitzner (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Audiobook available, read by Erin Bennett
By day, Ella Broden works as a buttoned-up attorney on some of the city’s most grueling cases. By night, she pursues her passion for singing in the darkest clubs of Manhattan. No one knows her secret, not even her younger sister, Charlotte. But it seems she’s not the only one in the family with something to hide. When Charlotte announces she’s sold her first novel, Ella couldn’t be more thrilled…until she gets a call that her sister has gone missing. Ella starts investigating with the help of Detective Gabriel Velasquez, an old flame in the NYPD, and what she finds is shocking. If art imitates life, then Charlotte's novel may contain details of her real-life affairs. And any one of her lovers could be involved in her disappearance. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
DIS MEM BER and Other Stories of Mystery and Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates (Mystery/Short Stories)
At the heart of this collection are girls and women confronting the danger around them, and the danger hidden inside their turbulent selves. In the title story, a precocious 11-year-old named Jill is in thrall to an older male relative, the mysterious, attractive black sheep of the family. Without telling her parents, Jill climbs into his sky-blue Chevy to be driven to an uncertain, and unforgettable, fate. In “The Drowned Girl,” a university transfer student becomes increasingly obsessed with the drowning/murder of another female student, as her own sense of self begins to deteriorate. And in the final story, “Welcome to Friendly Skies,” a trusting group of bird-watchers is borne to a remote part of the globe, to a harrowing fate. Reviewed by Alex Bowditch.
DO NOT BECOME ALARMED by Maile Meloy (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Maile Meloy
When Liv and Nora decide to take their husbands and children on a holiday cruise, everyone is thrilled. But when they all go ashore for an adventure in Central America, a series of minor misfortunes and miscalculations leads the families farther from the safety of the ship. One minute the children are there, and the next they’re gone. The disintegration of the world the families knew --- told from the perspectives of both the adults and the children --- is riveting and revealing. The parents, accustomed to security and control, turn on each other and blame themselves, while the seemingly helpless children discover resources they never knew they possessed. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
ENDGAME: A Nameless Detective Novel by Bill Pronzini (Mystery)
Audiobook available, read by Nick Sullivan
The Nameless Detective has taken two cases that will test his agency's resources. One involves a woman whose husband died accidentally in a remote cabin in the Sierras. The wife isn’t buying that her husband was alone, and is determined to find out his secret and get closure…in spite of any potential heartbreak. The other case is a missing person…but the person missing was agoraphobic and never left the house. The husband swears that while their relationship was strained due to his wife’s condition, he was still in love with her. He begs Nameless to clear him and find his wife before the cops come for him. Reviewed by Kate Ayers.
EVERYBODY'S SON by Thrity Umrigar (Fiction)
Audiobook available, performed by Josh Bloomberg
During a terrible heat wave in 1991, 10-year-old Anton has been locked in an apartment in the projects alone for seven days. Hot, hungry and desperate, he shatters a window and climbs out. Juanita, his mother, is discovered in a crack house less than three blocks away, nearly unconscious and half-naked. Though the bond between mother and son is extremely strong, Anton is placed with child services while Juanita goes to jail. Desperate to have a child in the house again after the tragic death of his teenage son, Judge David Coleman uses his power and connections to keep his new foster son, Anton, with him and his wife --- actions that will have devastating consequences in the years to come. Reviewed by Amy Haddock.
THE FORCE by Don Winslow (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Dion Graham
Denny Malone is “the King of Manhattan North,” a highly decorated NYPD detective sergeant who has done whatever it takes to serve and protect in a city built by ambition and corruption, where no one is clean --- including Malone himself. What only a few know is that Denny Malone and his partners have stolen millions of dollars in drugs and cash in the wake of the biggest heroin bust in the city’s history. Now Malone is caught in a trap and being squeezed by the Feds, and he must walk the thin line between betraying his brothers and partners, the Job, his family, and the woman he loves, trying to survive while the city teeters on the brink of a racial conflagration that could destroy them all. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
GIVE UP THE DEAD: A Jay Porter Novel by Joe Clifford (Mystery/Thriller)
Three years have passed since estate-clearing handyman Jay Porter almost lost his life following a devastating accident on the thin ice of Echo Lake. The traumatic, uncredited events cost him his wife and his son, and left him with a permanent leg injury. Jay is just putting his life back together when a mysterious stranger stops by with an offer too good to be true: a large sum of cash in exchange for finding a missing teenage boy who may have been abducted by a radical recovery group. Skeptical of gift horses and weary of reenlisting in the local drug war, Jay passes on the offer. The next day his boss is found beaten and left for dead, painting Jay the main suspect. As clues begin to tie the two cases together, Jay finds himself back on the job and back in the line of fire. Reviewed by L. Dean Murphy.
HE SAID/SHE SAID by Erin Kelly (Psychological Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Jonathan Broadbent and Helen Johns
In the summer of 1999, Kit and Laura travel to a festival in Cornwall to see a total eclipse of the sun. Young and in love, they are certain this will be the first of many they’ll share. But in the hushed moments after the shadow passes, Laura interrupts a man and a woman. She knows that she saw something terrible. The man denies it. The victim seems grateful. Months later, the woman turns up on their doorstep like a lonely stray. As her gratitude takes a twisted turn, Laura begins to wonder if she trusted the wrong person. Fifteen years later, Kit and Laura are living under new names and are completely off the digital grid. As the truth catches up to them, they realize they can no longer keep the past in the past. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
A HOUSE AMONG THE TREES by Julia Glass (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Mary Stuart Masterson
When the revered children's book author Mort Lear dies accidentally, he leaves his property and all its contents to his trusted assistant, Tomasina Daulair. Tommy must try to honor Morty's last wishes while grappling with their effects on several people, including Dani Daulair, her estranged brother; Meredith Galarza, the lonely, outraged museum curator to whom Lear once promised his artistic estate; and Nicholas Greene, the beguiling British actor cast to play Mort Lear in a movie. When the actor arrives for the visit he had previously arranged with the man he is to portray, he and Tommy are compelled to look more closely at Morty's past and the consequences of the choices they now face. Reviewed by Bronwyn Miller.
HUNGER: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay (Memoir)
Audiobook available, read by Roxane Gay
Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance and health. As a woman who describes her own body as “wildly undisciplined,” Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In HUNGER, she casts an insightful and critical eye on her childhood, teens and 20s --- including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life --- and brings readers into the present and the realities, pains and joys of her daily life. Reviewed by Maya Gittelman.
THE IDENTICALS by Elin Hilderbrand (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Erin Bennett
Harper Frost, laid-back and easygoing, has inherited her father’s rundown house on Martha’s Vineyard. Tabitha Frost, dignified and refined, has inherited a flailing fashion boutique on Nantucket. After more than a decade apart, Harper and Tabitha switch islands --- and lives --- to save what's left of their splintered family. But the twins quickly discover that the secrets, lies and gossip they thought they'd outrun can travel between islands just as easily as they can. Before the last beach picnic of the season, there will be enough old resentments, new loves and cases of mistaken identity to make this the most talked-about summer that Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket have experienced in ages. Reviewed by Vivian Payton.
THE LIGHT IN SUMMER: A Butternut Lake Novel by Mary McNear (Fiction)
For the lovely Billy Harper, Butternut Lake is the place she feels most at home, even though lately she feels that the only one listening to her is Murphy, her faithful Labrador Retriever. Her teenage son, Luke, has gone from precious to precocious practically overnight. Her friends are wrapped up in their own lives, and Luke’s father, Wesley, disappeared before his son was even born. But Billy is about to learn that anything is possible during the heady days of summer. Coming to terms with her past --- the death of her father, the arrival of Cal Cooper, a complicated man with a definite interest in Billy, even the return of Wesley --- will force her to have a little bit of faith in herself and others...and realize that happiness doesn’t always mean perfection. Reviewed by Megan Elliott.
LOCKDOWN by Laurie R. King (Psychological Suspense)
Audiobook available, narrated by Pilar Witherspoon
A year ago, Principal Linda McDonald arrived at Guadalupe Middle School determined to overturn its reputation for truancy, gang violence and neglect. One of her initiatives is Career Day --- bringing together children, teachers and community presenters in a celebration of the future. A principal with a secret. A husband with a murky past. A cop with too many questions. A kid under pressure to prove himself. A girl struggling to escape a mother’s history. A young basketball player with an affection for guns. Even the school janitor has a story he dare not reveal. But no one at the gathering anticipates the shocking turn of events that will transform a day of possibilities into an explosive confrontation. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
MAGPIE MURDERS by Anthony Horowitz (Mystery/Thriller)
Audiobook available, performed by Samantha Bond and Allan Corduner
When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway’s latest novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others. After working with the bestselling crime writer for years, she’s intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd, who solves mysteries disturbing sleepy English villages. Conway’s latest tale has Atticus investigating a murder at Pye Hall, a local manor house. Yes, there are dead bodies and a host of intriguing suspects, but the more Susan reads, the more she’s convinced that there is another story hidden in the pages of the manuscript: one of real-life jealousy, greed, ruthless ambition and murder. Reviewed by Kate Ayers.
THE MARSH KING'S DAUGHTER by Karen Dionne (Psychological Suspense)
Audiobook available, read by Emily Rankin
At last, Helena Pelletier has the life she deserves. Then she catches an emergency news announcement and realizes she was a fool to think she could ever leave her worst days behind her. Helena has a secret: she is the product of an abduction. Her mother was kidnapped as a teenager by her father and kept in a remote cabin. Helena, born two years after the abduction, loved her father --- until she learned precisely how savage a person he could be. More than 20 years later, she has buried her past so soundly that even her husband doesn’t know the truth. But now her father has killed two guards, escaped from prison, and disappeared into the marshland he knows better than anyone else in the world. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
MATCHUP edited by Lee Child (Thriller/Short Stories)
Audiobook available; read by Laura Benanti, Dennis Boutsikaris, Gerard Doyle, Linda Emond, January LaVoy, Robert Petkoff, Jay O. Sanders, CJ Wilson and Karen Ziemba
MATCHUP takes the never-before-seen bestseller pairings of FACEOFF and adds a delicious new twist: gender. Eleven of the world’s best female thriller writers, from Diana Gabaldon to Charlaine Harris, are paired with 11 of the world’s best male thriller writers, including John Sandford, C.J. Box and Nelson DeMille. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
MEN WITHOUT WOMEN: Stories written by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen (Fiction/Short Stories)
Audiobook available, read by Kirby Heyborne
Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. Here are vanishing cats and smoky bars, lonely hearts and mysterious women, baseball and the Beatles, woven together to tell stories that speak to us all. Reviewed by Pauline Finch.
MURDER IN SAINT-GERMAIN: An Aimée Leduc Investigation by Cara Black (Mystery)
Audiobook available, read by Carine Montbertrand
Private investigator Aimée Leduc is walking through Saint-Germain when she is accosted by Suzanne Lesage, a Brigade Criminelle agent on an elite counterterrorism squad. Suzanne has just returned from the former Yugoslavia, where she was hunting down dangerous war criminals for the Hague. Back in Paris, Suzanne is convinced she’s being stalked by a ghost --- a Serbian warlord her team took down. She’s suffering from PTSD and her boss thinks she’s imagining things. She begs Aimée to investigate; is it possible Mirko Vladić could be alive and in Paris with a blood vendetta? Reviewed by Ray Palen.
ODD NUMBERS: A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel by Anne Holt (Mystery)
Audiobook available, read by Kate Reading
On an early April afternoon, a bomb goes off in the Islamic Cooperation Council’s offices in Oslo, killing 23 people. The Police and Security Service suspect an extremist organization to be responsible for the attack, a suspicion that grows stronger when threats of yet another, bigger explosion during the planned celebration of the Norwegian constitution reach the authorities. Hanne Wilhelmsen is approached by her long-lost friend, Billy T., whose son Linus has undergone some disturbing changes recently. As the mood of the city darkens, Hanne tries to help Billy T. reach out to Linus and realizes that Oslo is up against forces far more terrible and menacing than ever before. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
OUR LITTLE RACKET by Angelica Baker (Fiction)
Audiobook available, performed by Therese Plummer
When the investment bank Weiss & Partners is shuttered in September 2008, CEO Bob D’Amico must fend off allegations of malfeasance, as well as the judgment and resentment of his community. As panic builds, five women in his life must scramble to negotiate power on their own terms and ask themselves what --- if anything --- is worth saving. In the aftermath of this collapse, D’Amico’s teenage daughter, Madison, begins to probe her father’s heretofore secret world for information. Four other women in Madison’s life --- her mother Isabel, her best friend Amanda, her nanny Lily, and family friend Mina --- begin to question their own shifting roles in their insular, moneyed world. Reviewed by Lorraine W. Shanley.
PAPI: My Story by David Ortiz with Michael Holley (Sports/Memoir)
David “Big Papi” Ortiz is a baseball icon and one of the most popular figures ever to play the game. As a key part of the Boston Red Sox for 14 years, David helped the team win three World Series, bringing back a storied franchise from “never wins” to “always wins.” He helped them upend the doubts, the naysayers, the nonbelievers and captured the imagination of millions of fans along the way, as he launched balls into the stands again, and again, and again. Now, looking back at the end of his legendary career, Ortiz opens up fully for the first time about his last two decades in the game. Reviewed by Ron Kaplan.
THE PEOPLE WE HATE AT THE WEDDING by Grant Ginder (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Dan Bittner and Khristine Hvam
Paul and Alice’s half-sister, Eloise, is getting married. There will be fancy hotels, dinners at “it” restaurants, and a reception at a country estate. They couldn’t hate it more. THE PEOPLE WE HATE AT THE WEDDING is the story of a less than perfect family. Donna, the clan’s mother, is now a widow living in the Chicago suburbs. Alice is stuck in a dead-end job where she is mired in a rather predictable, though enjoyable, affair with her married boss. Her brother Paul lives in Philadelphia with his tenured track professor boyfriend who eyes undergrads. And then there’s Eloise, who has spent her school years at the best private boarding schools and a post-college life cushioned by a fat, endless trust fund. To top it off, she’s infuriatingly kind and decent. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
THE SILENT CORNER by Dean Koontz (Thriller)
Audiobook available, narrated by Elisabeth Rodgers
“I very much need to be dead.” These are the chilling words left behind by a man who had everything to live for, but took his own life. In the aftermath, his widow, Jane Hawk, is determined to find the truth, no matter what. People of talent and accomplishment, people admired and happy and sound of mind, have been committing suicide in surprising numbers. When Jane seeks to learn why, she becomes the most-wanted fugitive in America. Her powerful enemies are protecting a secret so important --- so terrifying --- that they will exterminate anyone in their way. But all their power and viciousness may not be enough to stop a woman as clever as they are cold-blooded, as relentless as they are ruthless. Reviewed by Ray Palen.
THE SUNSHINE SISTERS by Jane Green (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Jane Green
Ronni Sunshine left London for Hollywood to become a beautiful, charismatic star of the silver screen. But at home, she was a narcissistic, disinterested mother who alienated her three daughters. Still, when Ronni discovers she has a serious illness, she calls her now-adult girls home to fulfill her final wishes. And though Nell, Meredith and Lizzy have never been close, their mother’s illness draws them together to confront the old jealousies and secret fears that have threatened to tear these sisters apart. As they face the loss of their mother, they will discover if blood might be thicker than water after all. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.
THE SWITCH by Joseph Finder (Thriller)
Michael Tanner accidentally picks up the wrong MacBook in an airport security line. He later discovers that the owner is a US senator and that the laptop contains top secret files. When Senator Susan Robbins realizes she’s come back with the wrong laptop, she calls her young chief of staff, Will Abbott, in a panic. Both know that the senator broke the law by uploading classified documents onto her personal computer. If those documents wind up in the wrong hands, her career in politics will be over. When Will fails to gain Tanner’s cooperation, he is forced to take measures to retrieve the laptop before a bigger security breach is revealed. Suddenly Tanner finds himself a hunted man, terrified for the safety of his family and able to trust no one. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
THEFT BY FINDING: Diaries (1977-2002) by David Sedaris (Humor/Essays)
Audiobook available, read by David Sedaris; original music by Gary Carpenter
David Sedaris has kept a diary for 40 years. In them, he has recorded everything that has captured his attention --- overheard comments, salacious gossip, soap opera plot twists, secrets confided by total strangers. These observations are the source code for his finest work, and with them he has honed his self-deprecation and learned to craft his cunning, surprising sentences. Now, for the first time, Sedaris shares his private writings with the world. This is the first-person account of how a drug-abusing dropout with a weakness for the International House of Pancakes and a chronic inability to hold down a real job became one of the funniest people on the planet. Reviewed by Maya Gittelman.
UNDERTOW by Elizabeth Heathcote (Psychological Thriller)
Audiobook available, performed by Henrietta Meire
Carmen is happily married to Tom, although she knows she'll always live in the shadow of the mistress who ended his first marriage: Zena, who drowned in the sea late one night. Zena seems ever-more present, and when Carmen unknowingly stumbles on evidence that her husband has not been telling her the whole truth, she can't shake her unease. As she uncovers documents and photographs, a very different tale than the one Tom has led her to believe begins to unfold, and she finds herself increasingly isolated and paranoid. As the twisted events of that night begin to come to light, Carmen must ask herself if it's really a truth worth knowing…even if it destroys her and the lives of the people she loves most. Reviewed by Christine M. Irvin.
YOU DON'T HAVE TO SAY YOU LOVE ME: A Memoir by Sherman Alexie (Memoir)
Audiobook available, read by Sherman Alexie
Family relationships are never simple. But Sherman Alexie's bond with his mother Lillian was more complex than most. She plunged her family into chaos with a drinking habit, but shed her addiction when it was on the brink of costing her everything. She survived a violent past, but created an elaborate facade to hide the truth. She wanted a better life for her son, but it was only by leaving her behind that he could hope to achieve it. When she passed away, the incongruities that defined his mother shook Sherman and his remembrance of her. Grappling with the haunting ghosts of the past in the wake of loss, he responded the only way he knew how: he wrote. Reviewed by Catherine Rubino.
YOU WILL PAY by Lisa Jackson (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Scott Merriman and Teri Clark Linden
Lucas Dalton, a senior detective with the sheriff’s department, is investigating the discovery of human remains in a cavern at what used to be Camp Horseshoe. His father, a preacher, ran the camp, and Lucas worked there that infamous summer when two girls went missing. Seven former female counselors are coming back to the small Oregon town --- among them, Bernadette Alsace, the woman Lucas has never forgotten. Each one knows something about that terrible night. Each promised not to tell. And as they reunite, a new horror unfolds. First come texts containing a personal memento and a simple, terrifying message: YOU WILL PAY. Then the murders begin. Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum.
YOU'LL NEVER KNOW, DEAR by Hallie Ephron (Psychological Suspense/Mystery)
Audiobook available, performed by Amy McFadden
Seven-year-old Lissie and her four-year-old sister, Janey, were playing with their porcelain dolls in the front yard when a puppy scampered by. Lissie chased after the pup as it ran down the street. When she returned to the yard, Janey and her precious doll were gone. Every year on the anniversary of her disappearance, Lis and Janey’s mother places an ad in the local paper with a picture of the toy Janey had with her that day, offering a generous cash reward for its return. For years, there’s been no response. But this year, the doll came home. It is the first clue in a decades-old mystery that is about to turn into something far more sinister --- endangering Lis and the lives of her mother and daughter as well. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.