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Reviews

Reviews

by David Ellis - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Leo Balanoff is a crusading attorney with unthinkable skeletons in his closet. He's also a diagnosed pathological liar. When a predatory gangster with a long list of victims is found dead and Leo’s fingerprints show up on the murder weapon, no one believes a word he says in his defense. But he might be the FBI’s only shot at taking down the gangster's even more lethal boss. Risk his life going undercover for the feds, or head straight to prison for murder? Leo accepts the FBI’s offer --- but it comes with a price, including a collision course with his ex, Andi Piotrowski, a former cop and "the one who got away." Anyone else forced to walk this tightrope between an ambitious FBI agent and a cruel, calculating crime boss would fail. But this isn't Leo's first balancing act, and he still has a few tricks up his sleeve.

by Tasha Coryell - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Recently ghosted and sick of watching her friends fade into the suburbs, thirty-something Hannah finds community in a true-crime forum that’s on a mission to solve the murders of four women in Atlanta. After William, a handsome lawyer, is arrested for the killings, Hannah begins writing him letters --- and he writes back. Her interest in the case goes from curiosity to obsession, leaving space for nothing else as her life implodes around her. After she loses her job, she heads to Georgia to attend the trial and befriends fellow true-crime junkies. When a fifth woman is discovered murdered, the jury has no choice but to find William not guilty, and Hannah is the first person he calls upon his release. The two of them quickly fall into a routine of domestic bliss. Well, as blissful as one can feel while secretly investigating their partner for serial murder.

by Vi Keeland - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Romance, Romantic Suspense, Suspense, Thriller

After experiencing a terrible loss, New York City psychiatrist Meredith McCall is painfully adrift. When she crosses paths with a man with whom she has a tragic connection, she follows him, sparking an unhealthy obsession with Gabriel Wright. But when Gabriel walks into her office as a patient, seemingly unaware of who she is, she knows it crosses all ethical and moral bounds to treat him. Yet Meredith can’t bring herself to turn him away and becomes further entangled. With her life and career continuing to unravel, it appears that things could not get any worse…until they do.

by Kirsten Miller - Fiction, Humor, Women's Fiction

Beverly Underwood and her arch enemy, Lula Dean, live in the tiny town of Troy, Georgia. Beverly is on the school board, and Lula has become a local celebrity by embarking on a mission to rid the public libraries of all inappropriate books --- none of which she’s actually read. To replace the “pornographic” books she’s challenged at the local public library, Lula starts her own lending library in front of her home. What she doesn’t know is that a local troublemaker has stolen her wholesome books, removed their dust jackets and restocked her library with banned books. One by one, neighbors who borrow books from Lula Dean’s library find their lives changed in unexpected ways. Finally, one of Lula’s enemies discovers the library and decides to turn the tables on her, just as Lula and Beverly are running against each other to replace the town’s disgraced mayor.

by Liv Constantine - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Hard work and immaculate planning turned Amber Patterson Parrish from invisible wallflower to prominent socialite. Less than a year after her husband Jackson’s tax-evasion scandal, Amber reigns supreme over the Bishops Harbor community. But with Jackson being released from prison, Amber’s free time --- and money --- is vanishing. Meanwhile, Daphne Parrish left Bishops Harbor after her divorce from Jackson, swearing she would never go back. But when one of her daughters runs away from home, desperate to see her father, Daphne agrees to return for the summer for their daughters’ sake. When a ghost from Amber’s past emerges looking for revenge, these three figures find unlikely allies in one another. But who is playing who?

by Alex Finlay - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

For the past five years, Ryan Richardson has relived that terrible night. The car door ripping open. The crushing blow to the head. The hands yanking him from the vehicle. His girlfriend Ali’s piercing scream as she is taken. With no trace of Ali or the car, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Ryan. He’s never charged, though that doesn’t matter to the podcasters and internet trolls. Now, Ryan has changed his last name and entered law school. While on a summer trip abroad to Italy with his law-school classmates, Ryan gets a call from his father: Ali's car has finally been found, submerged in a lake in his hometown. Inside are two dead men and a cryptic note with five words written on the envelope in Ali’s handwriting: If something happens to me…  Then, halfway around the world, Ryan sees the man who has haunted his dreams since that night.

by Matt Goldman - Domestic Thriller, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Liv and Gabe Ahlstrom are estranged siblings who haven’t seen each other in years, but that’s about to change when they receive a rare call from their older brother’s wife. “Mack is dead,” she says. “He died of a seizure.” Five minutes after they hang up, Liv and Gabe each receive a scheduled email from their dead brother, claiming that he was murdered. The siblings return to their family-run resort in the Northwoods of Minnesota to investigate Mack's claims, but Leech Lake has more in store for them than either could imagine. Drawn into a tangled web of lies and betrayal that spans decades, they put their lives on the line to unravel the truth about their brother, their parents, themselves and the small town in which they grew up.

by Rea Frey - Domestic Thriller, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

All Ruby wanted was a fresh start. But after an early retirement and a relocation to a tight-knit community with her husband, Tom, and her daughter, Lily, her new beginning takes a turn. First her troubled daughter and then her husband disappear without a trace. Unsure how to cope, grief-ridden Ruby turns to her neighborhood friends to find a way forward with new hobbies, including a murder club where they try to solve cold cases. But just as unexpectedly as her family vanished, a body floats to the surface of the nearby lake. And everyone is sure the body belongs to Tom...everyone except Ruby. Determined to find out what happened to her family once and for all, Ruby digs into her neighbors’ lives, and her own, only to uncover secrets that raise more questions than they answer.

by Armistead Maupin - Fiction

When Mona Ramsey married Lord Teddy Roughton to secure his visa --- allowing him to remain in San Francisco to fulfill his wildest dreams --- she never imagined that by age 48, she would be the sole owner of Easley House, Teddy’s grand, romantic country manor in the UK. She also didn't imagine that she’d need to open the manor’s doors to paying guests to afford the electric bill and repair the leaking roof. Yet somehow, she and her young friend, Wilfred --- whom guests assume is serving as Easley’s charming-but-clumsy butler --- and the loopy old gardener, Mr. Hargis, are making it work. This delicate equilibrium is upended when Americans Rhonda and Ernie Blaylock arrive for a weekend vacation at Easley, and Wilfred stumbles onto their terrible secret.

by Brandy Schillace - Fiction, Mystery

Jo Jones has always had a little trouble fitting in. As a neurodivergent, hyperlexic book editor and divorced New Yorker transplanted into the English countryside, Jo doesn’t know what stands out more: her Americanisms or her autism. After losing her job, her mother and her marriage all in one year, she couldn’t be happier to take possession of a possibly haunted (and clearly unwanted) family estate in North Yorkshire. But when the body of the moody town groundskeeper turns up on her rug with three bullets in his back, Jo finds herself in potential danger --- and she’s also a potential suspect. At the same time, a peculiar family portrait vanishes from a secret room in the manor, bearing a strange connection to both the dead body and Jo’s mysterious family history.