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Reviews

Reviews

by Clay McLeod Chapman - Domestic Thriller, Fiction, Horror, Supernatural Fiction, Supernatural Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

After striking out on her own as a teen mom, Madi Price is forced to return to her hometown of Brandywine, Virginia, with her 17-year-old daughter. With nothing to her name, she scrapes together a living as a palm reader at the local farmers market. It’s there that she connects with old high school flame Henry McCabe, now a reclusive local fisherman whose infant son, Skyler, went missing five years ago. Everyone in town is sure Skyler is dead, but when Madi reads Henry’s palm, she’s haunted by strange and disturbing visions that suggest otherwise. As she follows the thread of these visions, Madi discovers a terrifying nightmare waiting at the center of the labyrinth --- and it’s coming for everyone she holds dear.

by Kia Abdullah - Domestic Thriller, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Salma Khatun is hopeful about Blenheim, the suburban development into which she, her husband and their son have just moved. The Bangladeshi family needs a fresh start, and Blenheim feels like just the place. Soon after they move in, Salma spots her white neighbor, Tom Hutton, ripping out the anti-racist banner her son put in the front garden. Avoiding confrontation, Salma takes the banner inside and puts it in her window. But the next morning, she wakes up to find her window smeared with paint. When she does speak to Tom, battle lines are drawn between the two families. As racial and social tensions escalate and the stakes rise, it’s clear that a reckoning is coming…and someone is going to get hurt.

by Natasha Solomons - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Women's Fiction

The first time Romeo Montague sees young Rosaline Capulet, he falls instantly in love. Rosaline, headstrong and independent, is unsure of Romeo's attentions, but with her father determined that she join a convent, this handsome and charming stranger offers her the chance of a different life. Soon, though, Rosaline begins to doubt all that Romeo has told her. She breaks off the match, only for Romeo's gaze to turn towards her cousin, 13-year-old Juliet. Gradually Rosaline realizes that it is not only Juliet's reputation at stake, but her life. With only hours remaining before she will be banished behind the nunnery walls, will Rosaline save Juliet from her Romeo? Or can this story only ever end one way?

by Etaf Rum - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Raised in a conservative and emotionally volatile Palestinian family in Brooklyn, Yara thought she finally would feel free when she married a charming entrepreneur who took her to the suburbs. With her family balanced with her professional ambitions, Yara knows that her life is infinitely more rewarding than her own mother’s. So why doesn’t it feel like enough? After her dream of chaperoning a student trip to Europe evaporates and she responds to a colleague’s racist provocation, Yara is put on probation at work and must attend mandatory counseling to keep her position. To save herself, Yara must reckon with the reality that the difficulties of the childhood she thought she left behind have very real --- and damaging --- implications not just on her own future but that of her daughters.

by Nina Simon - Fiction, Mystery, Women's Fiction

High-powered businesswoman Lana Rubicon has a lot to be proud of. But when she finds herself trapped 300 miles north of the city, convalescing in a sleepy coastal town with her adult daughter Beth and teenage granddaughter Jack, Lana hopes that boredom won’t kill her before the cancer does. Then Jack happens upon a dead body while kayaking and quickly becomes a suspect in the homicide investigation. Beth thinks Lana should focus on recovery, but Lana has a better idea. She’ll pull on her wig, find the true murderer, protect her family and prove she still has power. With Jack and Beth’s help, Lana uncovers a web of lies, family vendettas and land disputes lurking beneath the surface of a community populated by folksy conservationists and wealthy ranchers.

by Jimin Han - Fiction, Magical Realism

In South Korea, a 105-year-old woman receives a letter. Ten days later, she has been thrust into the afterlife, fighting to head off a curse that will otherwise devastate generations to come. Hak Jeonga has always shouldered the burden of upholding the family name. When she sent her daughter-in-law to America to cover up an illegitimate birth, she was simply doing what was needed to preserve the reputations of her loved ones. How could she have known that, decades later, this decision would return to haunt her --- threatening to tear apart her bond with her beloved son, her relationship with her infuriatingly insolent sisters, and the future of the family she has worked so hard to protect?

by Alice Feeney - Fiction, Mystery, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Twenty years after a baby is stolen from a stroller, a woman is murdered in a care home. The two crimes are somehow linked, and a good bad girl may be the key to discovering the truth. Edith may have been tricked into a nursing home, but she’s planning her escape. Patience works there, cleaning messes and bonding with Edith, a kindred spirit. But Patience is lying to Edith about almost everything. Edith’s own daughter, Clio, won’t speak to her. And someone new is about to knock on Clio’s door…and their intentions aren’t good. With every reason to distrust each other, the women must solve a mystery with three suspects, two murders and one victim. If they do, they just might find out what happened to the baby who disappeared, the mother who lost her and the connections that bind them.

by Danielle Valentine - Fiction, Horror, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Anna Victoria Alcott is desperate to have a family. But as she tries to balance her increasingly public life as an indie actress with a grueling IVF journey, she starts to suspect that someone is going to great lengths to make sure that never happens. Crucial medicines are lost. Appointments get swapped without her knowledge. Cryptic warnings have her jumping at shadows. And despite everything she's gone through to make this pregnancy a reality, not even her husband is willing to believe that someone is playing twisted games with her. Then her doctor tells her she's had a miscarriage --- except Anna is convinced she's still pregnant despite everything the grave-faced men around her claim. Vague warnings become direct threats as someone stalks her through the bleak ghost town of the snowy Hamptons.

by Genevieve Gornichec - Fantasy, Fiction, Historical Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Romance

Oddny and Gunnhild meet as children in 10th-century Norway. After a visiting wisewoman makes an ominous prophecy that involves Oddny, her sister Signy, and Gunnhild, the three girls take a blood oath to always help one another. When Oddny’s farm is destroyed and Signy is kidnapped by Viking raiders, Oddny is set adrift from the life she imagined --- but she's determined to save her sister, even as she finds herself drawn to one of the raiders who participated in the attack. And in the far north, Gunnhild, who fled her home years ago to learn the ways of a witch, is surprised to find that her destiny seems to be linked with that of the formidable King Eirik. But the bonds that hold the two women together are strong, and when they find their way back to each other, these bonds will be tested in ways they never could have foreseen.

by Tracey Lange - Fiction, Women's Fiction

When Tara Connelly is released from prison after serving 18 months on a drug charge, she returns home to live with her siblings. Her brother, a single dad, struggles with the ongoing effects of a brain injury he sustained years ago, and her sister’s fragile facade of calm and order is cracking under the burden of big secrets. Life becomes even more complicated when the cop who put her in prison keeps showing up unannounced, leaving Tara to wonder what he wants from her now. While she works to build a new career and hold her family together, Tara finds a chance at love in a most unlikely place. But when the Connellys’ secrets start to unravel and threaten her future, they all must face their worst fears and come clean, or risk losing each other forever.