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Editorial Content for A Lovely Lie

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Ray Palen

If you have ever known a particularly manipulative person who lies so often to get their way that it’s almost impossible to discern the truth from the falsehoods, then A LOVELY LIE will ring especially true for you. Jaime Lynn Hendricks so deftly handles the twisty plot and layers of lies from both the past and the present that your head literally will be spinning. Read More

Teaser

The night of their senior picnic in 1999, Scarlett Russo and her best friend, Pepper, were involved in a car accident that left two of their classmates dead. Afterward, they lied to the police, protecting each other from the consequences. Then Pepper left town, and Scarlett never heard from her again. Twenty-two years later, Scarlett has buried that deadly incident deep in her mind and built a comfortable life for herself. However, her peace is disrupted when Pepper’s daughter shows up with news of Pepper’s death. Zoey has a cryptic letter from Pepper addressed to Scarlett that alludes to the events of that fateful night and Pepper’s initial intentions to get an abortion. Now Zoey wants answers about her mother’s past. Who is Zoey’s father? And what really happened after the senior picnic?

Promo

The night of their senior picnic in 1999, Scarlett Russo and her best friend, Pepper, were involved in a car accident that left two of their classmates dead. Afterward, they lied to the police, protecting each other from the consequences. Then Pepper left town, and Scarlett never heard from her again. Twenty-two years later, Scarlett has buried that deadly incident deep in her mind and built a comfortable life for herself. However, her peace is disrupted when Pepper’s daughter shows up with news of Pepper’s death. Zoey has a cryptic letter from Pepper addressed to Scarlett that alludes to the events of that fateful night and Pepper’s initial intentions to get an abortion. Now Zoey wants answers about her mother’s past. Who is Zoey’s father? And what really happened after the senior picnic?

About the Book

Is it better to believe a lovely lie or to know the horrible truth?

1999: The night of their senior picnic, Scarlett Russo and her best friend, Pepper, were involved in a car accident that left two of their classmates dead. Afterward, they lied to the police, protecting each other from the consequences. Then Pepper left town, and Scarlett never heard from her again.

Now: Twenty-two years later, Scarlett has buried that deadly incident deep in her mind and built a comfortable life for herself, working in a hotel on the west coast of Florida and raising her teenage son with her husband, Vince. Her peace is disrupted, however, when Pepper’s daughter shows up with news of Pepper’s death. Zoey is 21 and studying to be an investigative journalist. She has a cryptic letter from Pepper addressed to Scarlett that alludes to the events of that fateful night and Pepper’s initial intentions to get an abortion. Now Zoey wants answers about her mother’s past. Who is Zoey’s father? And what really happened after the senior picnic? As Zoey continues to dig into the past, all of Scarlett’s buried secrets threaten to rise to the surface.

Jaime Lynn Hendricks, “the queen of the page-turner” (Ashley Winstead), will have you questioning who you can trust in this intricately twisted thriller.

Audiobook available, read by Hillary Huber

Editorial Content for Don't Ask, Don't Follow

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

L. Dean Murphy

Following the Kelly Pruett and Misty Pines mystery series, Mary Keliikoa dives into a mystery muddle with Oregon paralegal Beth Ralston cutting out of her father’s law firm social event to tally up more billable hours. She enters associate attorney Craig Bartell’s office and finds blood flowing down his shirt. She stumbles from the office and sees her older sister Lindsay, an environmental journalist, boarding an elevator. Read More

Teaser

Beth Ralston, a paralegal in Portland, Oregon, would rather be racking up billable hours than mingling at an office party --- especially when her sister Lindsay, aka her plus one, is a no-show. After making her obligatory rounds, Beth returns to her office to find that her boss has been murdered. She sees a woman fleeing the scene. Was that Lindsay? Unable to catch up to her in time, Beth waits for the police to arrive and notices that Lindsay has left her phone behind with an unsent text message to Beth displayed on the screen: “Don’t ask. Don’t follow.” While retracing Lindsay’s steps, determined to bring her home, Beth uncovers what her sister, an investigative reporter bent on changing the world, was trying to expose --- corruption, secrets and betrayal on an unimaginable level.

Promo

Beth Ralston, a paralegal in Portland, Oregon, would rather be racking up billable hours than mingling at an office party --- especially when her sister Lindsay, aka her plus one, is a no-show. After making her obligatory rounds, Beth returns to her office to find that her boss has been murdered. She sees a woman fleeing the scene. Was that Lindsay? Unable to catch up to her in time, Beth waits for the police to arrive and notices that Lindsay has left her phone behind with an unsent text message to Beth displayed on the screen: “Don’t ask. Don’t follow.” While retracing Lindsay’s steps, determined to bring her home, Beth uncovers what her sister, an investigative reporter bent on changing the world, was trying to expose --- corruption, secrets and betrayal on an unimaginable level.

About the Book

Murder, dark family secrets, and the unwavering bond of sisterhood --- regardless of the cost.

Beth Ralston, a paralegal in Portland, Oregon, would rather be racking up billable hours than mingling at an office party --- especially when her sister Lindsay, aka her plus one, is a no-show.

After making her obligatory rounds, Beth returns to her office to find that her boss, who she’d talked with moments before, has been murdered. She sees a woman fleeing the scene. Wait, was that Lindsay? Unable to catch up to her in time, Beth waits for the police to arrive and notices that Lindsay has left her phone behind with an unsent text message to Beth displayed on the screen: “Don’t ask. Don’t follow.”

Lindsay is unreachable for days, and when Beth starts to come under suspicion for the crime, she decides that waiting is impossible. While retracing Lindsay’s steps, determined to bring her home, Beth uncovers what her sister, an investigative reporter bent on changing the world, was trying to expose --- corruption, secrets and betrayal on an unimaginable level. Revealing the truth might bring back the one person she’s desperate to find --- but it could also destroy the only life and family Beth’s ever known.

June is Audiobook Appreciation Month. Do you listen to audiobooks?

June 7, 2024, 488 voters

June 7, 2024 - June 21, 2024

Here are reading recommendations with your comments and a rating of 1 to 5 stars for the contest period of June 7 - June 21.

Week of June 24, 2024

Paperback releases for the week of June 24th include TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW, Gabrielle Zevin's memorable novel about two college friends who become creative partners in a dazzling and intricately imagined world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity and, ultimately, a kind of immortality; FRIENDS, LOVERS, AND THE BIG TERRIBLE THING, Matthew Perry's candid, funny and revelatory memoir that takes us behind the scenes of "Friends" and his struggles with addiction; WELLNESS by Nathan Hill, a poignant and witty novel about marriage, the often baffling pursuit of health and happiness, and the stories that bind us together; THE ART THIEF, a spellbinding portrait of obsession and flawed genius as Michael Finkel brings us into Stéphane Breitwieser’s strange world; and TANGLED VINES, John Glatt’s unputdownable account of the rise and fall of the prestigious Murdaugh family.

2024 Thriller Awards

On June 1st, during ThrillerFest XIX, the International Thriller Writers (ITW) announced the winners of the 2024 Thriller Awards at the Sheraton Times Square in New York City.

The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Luckily, on the first day of school, Ellie meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit.

Week of June 17, 2024

Paperback releases for the week of June 17th include EVERYONE HERE IS LYING, another thrilling domestic suspense novel from Shari Lapena, whose previous bestsellers include THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR and SOMEONE WE KNOW; ROMAN STORIES, Jhumpa Lahiri's first collection of short stories, in which Rome --- metropolis and monument, suspended between past and future, multifaceted and metaphysical --- is the protagonist, not the setting; Carolyn Mackler's debut adult novel, THE WIFE APP, a hilarious rollercoaster ride of revenge and redemption that is at once a send-up of modern marriage and a celebration of female friendship and love in all forms; THE SECOND MURDERER, a smart and atmospheric mystery from Denise Mina, the first woman to recreate Raymond Chandler’s infamous detective, Philip Marlowe; and GEORGE, poet and painter Frieda Hughes' intimate, charming and humorous memoir recounting her experience rescuing and raising an abandoned baby magpie in the Welsh countryside.

Week of June 10, 2024

Paperback releases for the week of June 10th include LADY TAN'S CIRCLE OF WOMEN by Lisa See, an immersive historical novel inspired by the true story of a woman physician in 15th-century China; SOMEBODY'S FOOL, another classic from Richard Russo, who returns to North Bath and the characters who captured the hearts and imaginations of millions of readers in NOBODY'S FOOL and EVERYBODY'S FOOL; THE BLOCK PARTY, a shocking domestic thriller from Jamie Day in which the residents of an exclusive cul-de-sac are entangled in a web of secrets and scandal utterly unknown to the outside world, and even to each other; ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH by Finn Murphy, an inside look at the alluring world of the hemp boom and a masterful tale of one entrepreneur’s misadventures; and the paperback original THE HOUSEMAID IS WATCHING, the third entry in Freida McFadden's unbelievably twisty, tension-packed and globally bestselling Housemaid series.

Week of June 3, 2024

Paperback releases for the week of June 3rd include CROOK MANIFESTO, a powerful and hugely entertaining novel that summons 1970s New York in all its seedy glory and continues Colson Whitehead's Harlem saga that began with HARLEM SHUFFLE; FLAGS ON THE BAYOU, James Lee Burke's Edgar Award-winning novel set in Civil War-era Louisiana as the South transforms, and a brilliant cast of characters are caught in the maelstrom; GOOD NIGHT, IRENE by Luis Alberto Urrea, an exhilarating World War II epic that chronicles an extraordinary young woman’s heroic frontline service in the Red Cross; THE FIRST LADIES, Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray's enlightening novel about the extraordinary partnership between First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune; and MOTHERHOOD SO WHITE, an honest, vulnerable and uplifting memoir in which Nefertiti Austin shares her story of starting a family through adoption as a single Black woman.