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Reviews

Reviews

by Megan Angelo - Fiction

Orla Cadden is a budding novelist stuck in a dead-end job, writing clickbait about movie-star hookups and influencer yoga moves. Then Orla meets Floss --- a striving, wannabe A-lister --- who comes up with a plan for launching them both into the high-profile lives they dream about. Thirty-five years later, in a closed California village where government-appointed celebrities live every moment of the day on camera, a woman named Marlow discovers a shattering secret about her past. Despite her massive popularity, Marlow dreams of fleeing the corporate sponsors who would do anything to keep her on-screen. When she learns that her whole family history is based on a lie, Marlow finally summons the courage to run in search of the truth, no matter the risks.

by Iona Grey - Fiction, Historical Fiction

Selina Lennox is a Bright Young Thing. Her life is a whirl of parties and drinking, pursued by the press and staying on just the right side of scandal, all while running from the life her parents would choose for her. Lawrence Weston is a penniless painter who stumbles into Selina's orbit one night and can never let her go, even while knowing someone of her stature could never end up with someone of his. Except Selina falls hard for Lawrence, envisioning a life of true happiness. But when tragedy strikes, Selina finds herself choosing what's safe over what's right.

by Michael Crummey - Fiction, Historical Fiction

A brother and sister are orphaned in an isolated cove on Newfoundland's northern coastline. Their home is a stretch of rocky shore governed by the feral ocean, by a relentless pendulum of abundance and murderous scarcity. Still children with only the barest notion of the outside world, they have nothing but the family's boat and the little knowledge passed on haphazardly by their mother and father to keep them alive. Muddling through the severe round of the seasons, through years of meager catches and storms and ravaging illness, it is their fierce loyalty to each other that motivates and sustains them. But as seasons pass and they wade deeper into the mystery of their own natures, even that loyalty will be tested.

by Elizabeth Hand - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Historical Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

In the sweltering summer of 1915, Pin, the 14-year-old daughter of a carnival fortune-teller, dresses as a boy and joins a teenage gang that roams the famous Riverview amusement park, looking for trouble. Unbeknownst to the well-heeled city-dwellers and visitors who come to enjoy the midway, the park is also host to a ruthless killer who uses the shadows of the dark carnival attractions to conduct his crimes. When Pin sees a man enter the Hell Gate ride with a young girl, and emerge alone, she knows that something horrific has occurred. The crime will lead her to the iconic outsider artist Henry Darger, a brilliant but seemingly mad man. Together, the two navigate the seedy underbelly of a changing city to uncover a murderer few even know to look for.

by Attica Locke - Fiction, Mystery

Nine-year-old Levi King knew he should have left for home sooner; now he's alone in the darkness of vast Caddo Lake. A sudden noise distracts him, and all goes dark. Darren Matthews is trying to emerge from another kind of darkness. After the events of his previous investigation, his marriage is in a precarious state of rebuilding, and his career and reputation lie in the hands of his mother. She now holds the key to his freedom, and is not above a little maternal blackmail to press her advantage. Levi's disappearance has links to Darren's last case, and to a wealthy businesswoman --- the boy's grandmother --- who seems more concerned about the fate of her business than that of her grandson.

by Cate Holahan - Fiction, Mystery, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

The glass beach house was supposed to be the getaway that Susan needed. Eager to help her transplanted family set down roots in their new town --- and desperate for some kid-free conversation --- she invites her new neighbors to join in on a week-long sublet with her and her workaholic husband. But someone says too much. And the next morning, one of the women is discovered dead on the private beach. Town detective Gabby Watkins must figure out who permanently silenced the deceased. As she investigates, she learns that everyone in the glass house was hiding something that could tie them to the murder, and that the biggest secrets of all are often in plain sight for anyone willing to look.

by Ellen LaCorte - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller, Women's Fiction

When we first meet Claire, she’s living in Sedona, Arizona, with her boyfriend Cal and ducking calls from her mother. Her mom is a world class psychic on the East Coast, and Claire doesn’t want her to discover the truth. Claire works in the family business and calls herself a psychic, but she doesn’t really have “the gift” and hasn’t for a long time. She's a fraud. Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Rena, a young mother, has family issues of her own. She’s divorced, and her four-year-old daughter, Stephanie, suffers from mysterious, seemingly incurable stomach problems. When Claire and Rena meet by chance on an airplane, their carefully constructed lives begin to explode. Can these two women help each other, and can they help Stephanie before it’s too late?

by Kim Michele Richardson - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Women's Fiction

The hardscrabble folks of Troublesome Creek have to scrap for everything --- everything except books, that is. Thanks to Roosevelt’s Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, Troublesome has its very own traveling librarian, Cussy Mary Carter. Cussy's not only a book woman, however; she’s also the last of her kind, her skin a shade of blue unlike most anyone else. Not everyone is keen on Cussy’s family or the Library Project, and a Blue is often blamed for any whiff of trouble. If Cussy wants to bring the joy of books to the hill folks, she’s going to have to confront prejudice as old as the Appalachias and suspicion as deep as the holler.

by Heather Gudenkauf - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

For 12-year-old Cora Landry and her friends, Violet and Jordyn, it was supposed to be an ordinary sleepover --- movies and Ouija and talking about boys. But when they decide to sneak out to go to the abandoned rail yard on the outskirts of town, little do they know that their innocent games will have dangerous consequences. Later that night, Cora is discovered on the tracks, bloody and clinging to life, her friends nowhere to be found. Soon their small rural town is thrust into a maelstrom. Who would want to hurt a young girl like Cora, and why? In an investigation that leaves no stone unturned, everyone is a suspect and no one can be trusted --- not even those closest to Cora.

by Dana Reinhardt - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Two families arrive in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, for a once-in-a-lifetime vacation. Jenna has organized the trip to celebrate her husband's 50th birthday. However, as the families settle into their vacation routines, their best friends suddenly seem like annoying strangers, and even Jenna's reliable husband, Peter, is sharing clandestine phone calls with someone. But who? Jenna's teenage daughter, Clem, is spending an awful lot of time with Malcolm, whose questionable rep got him expelled from school. Jenna's dream of the ultimate celebration begins to crack and eventually crumbles completely, leaving her wondering whom she can trust, and whether her privileged life is about to be changed forever.