The bestselling author of The Last Mrs. Parrish returns with a psychological thri****ller, filled with chilling serpentine twists, about a woman fighting to hold onto the only family she’s ever loved—and how far she’ll go to preserve it.
Named one of the most anticipated thrillers of the year by Goodreads, Bustle, SheReads, and Library Journal; A LibraryReads pick of the month
Breezing into the upscale seaside paradise of Westport, Connecticut, gorgeous thirtysomething Piper Reynard sets down roots, opening a rehab and wellness space and joining a local yacht club. When she meets Leo Drakos, a handsome, successful lawyer, the wedding ring on his finger is the only thing she doesn’t like about him. Yet as Piper well knows, no marriage is permanent.
Meanwhile, Joanna has been waiting patiently for Leo, the charismatic man she fell in love with all those years ago, to re-emerge from the severe depression that has engulfed him. Though she’s thankful when Leo returns to his charming, energetic self, paying attention again to Evie and Stelli, the children they both love beyond measure, Joanna is shocked to discover that it’s not her loving support that’s sparked his renewed happiness—it’s something else.
Piper. Leo has fallen head over heels for the flaky, New Age-y newcomer, and unrepentant and resolute, he’s more than willing to leave Joanna behind, along with everything they’ve built. Of course, he assures her, she can still see the children.
Joanna is devastated—and determined to find something, anything, to use against this woman who has stolen her life and her true love. As she digs deeper into Piper’s past, Joanna begins to unearth disturbing secrets . . . but when she confides to her therapist that she fears for the lives of her ex-husband and children, her concerns are dismissed as paranoia. Can she find the proof she needs in time to save them?
**“**Dreamy and brimming with dread, Catherine House will swallow you whole." — Rory Power, New York Times bestselling author of Wilder Girls
A Most Anticipated Novel by Entertainment Weekly • Cosmopolitan • Forbes • Good Housekeeping • Better Homes and Gardens • HuffPost • Newsweek • Harper’s Bazaar • Ms. Magazine • Woman's Day • PopSugar • and more!
A gothic-infused debut of literary suspense, set within a secluded, elite university and following a dangerously curious, rebellious undergraduate who uncovers a shocking secret about an exclusive circle of students . . . and the dark truth beneath her school’s promise of prestige.
Trust us, you belong here.
Catherine House is a school of higher learning like no other. Hidden deep in the woods of rural Pennsylvania, this crucible of reformist liberal arts study with its experimental curriculum, wildly selective admissions policy, and formidable endowment, has produced some of the world’s best minds: prize-winning authors, artists, inventors, Supreme Court justices, presidents. For those lucky few selected, tuition, room, and board are free. But acceptance comes with a price. Students are required to give the House three years—summers included—completely removed from the outside world. Family, friends, television, music, even their clothing must be left behind. In return, the school promises a future of sublime power and prestige, and that its graduates can become anything or anyone they desire.
Among this year’s incoming class is Ines Murillo, who expects to trade blurry nights of parties, cruel friends, and dangerous men for rigorous intellectual discipline—only to discover an environment of sanctioned revelry. Even the school’s enigmatic director, Viktória, encourages the students to explore, to expand their minds, to find themselves within the formidable iron gates of Catherine. For Ines, it is the closest thing to a home she’s ever had. But the House’s strange protocols soon make this refuge, with its worn velvet and weathered leather, feel increasingly like a gilded prison. And when tragedy strikes, Ines begins to suspect that the school—in all its shabby splendor, hallowed history, advanced theories, and controlled decadence—might be hiding a dangerous agenda within the secretive, tightly knit group of students selected to study its most promising and mysterious curriculum.
Combining the haunting sophistication and dusky, atmospheric style of Sarah Waters with the unsettling isolation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, Catherine House is a devious, deliciously steamy, and suspenseful page-turner with shocking twists and sharp edges that is sure to leave readers breathless.
In this twisty thriller from the New York Times bestselling master of suspense, reward-seeker Colter Shaw infiltrates a sinister cult after learning that the only way to get somebody out . . . is to go in.
In the wilderness of Washington State, expert tracker Colter Shaw has located two young men accused of a terrible hate crime. But when his pursuit takes a shocking and tragic turn, Shaw becomes desperate to discover what went so horribly wrong and if he is to blame. Shaw's search for answers leads him to a shadowy organization that bills itself as a grief support group. But is it truly it a community that consoles the bereaved? Or a dangerous cult with a growing body count? Undercover, Shaw joins the mysterious group, risking everything despite the fact that no reward is on offer. He soon finds that some people will stop at nothing to keep their secrets hidden . . . and to make sure that he or those close to him say "goodbye" forever.
Gudenkauf proves herself the master of the smart, suspenseful small-town thriller that gets right under your skin.” —Gilly Macmillan, New York Times bestselling author of The Nanny
Everyone has a secret they’ll do anything to hide…
Twenty-five years ago, the body of sixteen-year-old Eve Knox was found in the caves near her home in small-town Grotto, Iowa—discovered by her best friend, Maggie, and her sister, Nola. There were a handful of suspects, including her boyfriend, Nick, but without sufficient evidence the case ultimately went cold.
For decades Maggie was haunted by Eve’s death and that horrible night. Now a detective in Grotto, and seven months pregnant, she is thrust back into the past when a new piece of evidence surfaces and the case is reopened. As Maggie investigates and reexamines the clues, secrets about what really happened begin to emerge. But someone in town knows more than they’re letting on, and they’ll stop at nothing to keep the truth buried deep.
Check out these other riveting novels of suspense by bestselling author Heather Gudenkauf:
The Weight of Silence
These Things Hidden
One Breath Away
Little Mercies
Missing Pieces
Not a Sound
Before She Was Found
From Blake Pierce, bestselling author of ONCE GONE (a #1 bestseller with over 1,000 five star reviews), comes book #14 in the heart-pounding Mackenzie White mystery series.
BEFORE HE HARMS is book #14 in the Mackenzie White mystery series, which begins with the #1 bestseller BEFORE HE KILLS (Book #1), a free download with over 600 five-star reviews.
Young women are turning up dead in rural Utah, members of a commune of fundamentalist polygamists. Can Mackenzie White penetrate their closed ranks to find out who may be wanting them dead? And can she enter the mind of a killer and stop him before it’s too late?
A dark psychological thriller filled with shocking twists and heart-pounding suspense, BEFORE HE HARMS is book #14 in a riveting new series—with a beloved new character—that will leave you turning pages late into the night.
Dressed in a sage green bridesmaid dress, and smiling for pictures, Holly is the happiest she’s ever been. Hours later, Holly is dead.
People love to hate Holly Long. Smart, beautiful and a woman who men find it hard to say no to, she’s the town’s most gossiped about resident.
Now Holly’s body lies in her hotel room, strangled at her best friend’s wedding party. And the gossip has stopped, because nobody wants to look like they did it.
When police search Holly’s immaculate apartment, amongst her stylish furnishings and expensive jewellery, they discover a different side to Holly. Orderly and precise, she wasn’t the chaotic party girl everyone thought her to be. In fact, Holly was a planner, and her next plan was to come out and tell her biggest secret – something she had been hiding for months, something that had the potential to ruin the lives of more than one wedding guest.
There are plenty of people who might have wanted to kill Holly, but only one who has finally made good on their promise.
An unputdownable crime thriller with an ending you will never see coming, this is the latest gripping novel from bestselling author Carla Kovach. If you like Angela Marsons, Cara Hunter and Clare Mackintosh, you’ll love Her Last Mistake.
DCI Craig Gillard will be pushed to his limits… But will he break?
It seems like a routine disappearance, a case of musician’s stage fright. As a senior detective, Craig Gillard isn’t sure why he’s even involved. Until it turns out the woman’s father is the German Minister of Justice, and the British Home Secretary is on the case too.
But nothing about the case is simple. How does a woman on a train simply vanish? What do you do when a trail runs cold and the pressure is on?
Before long the perpetrator has another target: DCI Gillard himself. What if the detective isn’t just running the case, but is part of it? The victim merely a lure for a bigger fish.
The answer is under the bridge. The chilling setting for the biggest challenge of his life.
The latest DCI Gillard Crime Thriller is a knockout: fast and completely gripping, perfect for fans of Stuart Macbride, Mark Billingham and Robert Bryndza.
REVIEW: Akart doesn’t disappoint. When the author first announced his intentions to write a virus hunters series, I was less than enthusiastic. After the “Pandemic” series, what was there to add? Of course, that was before Covid 19 and the real global pandemic. The series follows Dr Harper Randolph of the CDC as she investigates the origin, mode of transmission, and treatment of diseases capable of causing a global pandemic. This story is set 10 years post Covid 19, but it seems strangely familiar. The author says that his intention is not to scare the wits out of you, rather, he wants to scare the wits INTO you. I say: Mission Accomplished!
The world is grappling with an issue of enormous scale and human impact.
In the arms race with deadly pathogens, there can be no final peace.
The only question is whether we fight well or poorly.
Defeat means massive disruptions to our daily lives, huge losses economically, and death.
REVIEW o Carter is a seamstress and is married to Will, an actor and a school teacher. One day, Will disappears and Jo does not hear from him again although she has visual and auditory hallucinations of him all the time. After Will has been missing for a year, Jo's best friend, Louise, suggests she take a house sitting job so she can get away for a while. Louise sets up an account for Jo to look at homes available. While Jo is looking at homes in an area where she and Will had vacationed before, she spots his picture on the mantle in one of the homes. Jo applies and is accepted to house sit. From here, the story is very interesting with lots of twists and turns which makes it hard to put down. I wasn't sure at first if I was going to like this book but I was soon hooked. Thank you NetGalley and Bookouture for the ARC of this very interesting book in exchange for an honest review.
Me and Will. Will and Me. A perfect match. He said he would always be there for me, but it’s been a year since he drained his coffee, walked out the front door and vanished.
Did he leave me? Or did something terrible happen? I’m scared someone finally found out about what happened on the drive home that night…
I lie awake at night trawling the internet for rental properties, desperate for an escape. Until I see my husband’s gorgeous face smiling back at me from a photograph on the fireplace in someone else’s home, and something inside of me snaps.
At the house, I find no trace of him and the woman who lives there has no idea who I am. But I’m certain she’s hiding something behind the locked door upstairs. I know that if I want answers, I have to stay.
You might think that what’s inside that room is the answer to all my questions and the end of all my pain. But it’s only the beginning…
How far would you go to protect your happy home?
Sara made one promise to herself when she was growing up in foster care: that if she was lucky enough to have a family, she’d always do whatever it took to protect them. Looking around her home with its cosy kitchen and living room, where her energetic teenage daughters and gorgeous four-year-old son all eat, play and live together, she knows she’d do anything to keep them safe.
So when Sara’s husband Matt loses his job and every shred of his confidence with it, she knows it’s up to her to bring the family back from the brink. Though she doesn’t know where she can possibly find the money they need to keep afloat.
Until her boss at work offers her a deal. He’ll help out. She just has to do him one little favour. But could trusting him save Sara’s family, or will it be a mistake that costs her absolutely everything?
This year’s most gripping psychological thriller – perfect for fans of My Lovely Wife, The Girl on the Train, and Something in the Water.
Lost meets Stranger Things in this eerie, immersive YA thriller, thrusting seventeen-year-old Sia into a reality where the waters in front of her and the jungle behind her are as dangerous as the survivors alongside her.
Sia practically grew up in the water scuba diving, and wreck dives are run of the mill. Take the tourists out. Explore the reef. Uncover the secrets locked in the sunken craft. But this time ... the dive goes terribly wrong.
Attacked by a mysterious creature, Sia's boat is sunk, her customers are killed, and she washes up on a deserted island with no sign of rescue in sight. Waiting in the water is a seemingly unstoppable monster that is still hungry. In the jungle just off the beach are dangers best left untested. When Sia reunites with a handful of survivors, she sees it as the first sign of light.
Sia is wrong.
Between the gulf of deadly seawater in front of her and suffocating depth of the jungle behind her, even the island isn't what it seems.
Haunted by her own mistakes and an inescapable dread, Sia's best hope for finding answers may rest in the center of the island, at the bottom of a flooded sinkhole that only she has the skills to navigate. But even if the creature lurking in the depths doesn't swallow her and the other survivors, the secrets of their fractured reality on the island might.
Fractured Tide
Is and eerie and immersive YA thriller told through journal entries from a daughter to her father
Unfolds through the eyes of a narrator who keeps you guessing until the final pages
Is a gripping mix of suspense and horror; perfect for readers ages 13 and up
Return to McFalls County and Bull Mountain in Hard Cash Valley, where Brian Panowich weaves another masterful tale of Southern Noir.
Dane Kirby is a broken man and no stranger to tragedy. As a life-long resident and ex-arson investigator for McFalls County, Dane has lived his life in one of the most chaotic and crime-ridden regions of the south. When he gets called in to consult on a brutal murder in a Jacksonville, Florida, motel room, he and his FBI counterpart, Special Agent Roselita Velasquez, begin an investigation that leads them back to the criminal circles of his own backyard.
Arnie Blackwell’s murder in Jacksonville is only the beginning – and Dane and Roselita seem to be one step behind. For someone is hacking a bloody trail throughout the Southeast looking for Arnie’s younger brother, a boy with Asperger’s Syndrome who possesses an unusual skill with numbers that could make a lot of money and that has already gotten a lot of people killed—and has even more of the deadliest people alive willing to do anything it takes to exploit him.
As Dane joins in the hunt to find the boy, it swiftly becomes a race against the clock that has Dane entangled in a web of secrets involving everyone from the Filipino Mafia to distrusting federal agents to some of hardest southern outlaws he’s ever known.
Second in a new series from national bestselling author Kylie Logan, The Secrets of Bones is a riveting mystery following Jazz Ramsey as she trains a cadaver dog.
Assembly Day at St. Catherine’s dawns bright and cloudless as professional woman gather from all around Ohio to talk to the schoolgirls about their careers ranging from medicine, to NASA, to yoga. Jazz Ramsey has also signed up to give the girls a taste of her lifelong passion: cadaver dog training. Her adorable new puppy Wally hasn’t been certified yet, so she borrows the fully-trained Gus from a friend and hides a few bones in the unused fourth floor of the school for him to find.
The girls are impressed when Gus easily finds the first bone, but then Gus heads confidently to a part of the floor where Jazz is sure no bones are hidden—at least not any that she’s put there. But Gus is a professional, and sure enough, behind a door that no one has opened in ages, is a human skeleton. Jazz recognizes the necklace the skeleton is wearing, and that it belonged to Bernadette Quinn, an ex-teacher at the school who’d quit her job abruptly one Christmas break. But now it seems Bernadette never left the school at all, and her hiding place makes it clear: this was murder.
Bernadette in life had been a difficult personality, and so there are a plethora of suspects inside the school and out of it. As Jazz gets closer to the truth she can’t help but wonder if someone might be dogging her footsteps...
A Harvard freshman becomes obsessed with her schizophrenic brother’s suicide. Then she starts hearing voices.
“Every time I thought I knew where Ghosts of Harvard was heading, I turned out to be wrong. Part mystery, part ghost story, part psychological thriller, this novel is all entertainment.”—#1 New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult
Cadence Archer arrives on Harvard’s campus desperate to understand why her brother, Eric, a genius who developed paranoid schizophrenia took his own life there the year before. Losing Eric has left a black hole in Cady’s life, and while her decision to follow in her brother’s footsteps threatens to break her family apart, she is haunted by questions of what she might have missed. And there’s only one place to find answers.
As Cady struggles under the enormous pressure at Harvard, she investigates her brother’s final year, armed only with a blue notebook of Eric’s cryptic scribblings. She knew he had been struggling with paranoia, delusions, and illusory enemies—but what tipped him over the edge? Voices fill her head, seemingly belonging to three ghosts who passed through the university in life, or death, and whose voices, dreams, and terrors still echo the halls. Among them is a person whose name has been buried for centuries, and another whose name mankind will never forget.
Does she share Eric’s illness, or is she tapping into something else? Cady doesn’t know how or why these ghosts are contacting her, but as she is drawn deeper into their worlds, she believes they’re moving her closer to the truth about Eric, even as keeping them secret isolates her further. Will listening to these voices lead her to the one voice she craves—her brother’s—or will she follow them down a path to her own destruction?
In this original short story in the bestselling Mike Bowditch mystery series by Paul Doiron, Mike is confronted with a case of stolen identity.
When the body of a young man is pulled from a submerged car in Roque Harbor, rookie game warden Mike Bowditch is shocked when the man’s driver’s license identifies him as none other than…Mike Bowditch. For weeks, Mike and his colleagues have been fielding reports of a man terrorizing the locals while posing as a game warden, wielding a plastic pin-on badge and claiming to be “Warden Bowditch”. Who is the imposter, and how did he end up dead in the bottom of a harbor? Mike must uncover the truth in order to clear his own name.
Sergeant Lindsay Boxer tackles an ambitious case that spans San Francisco, L.A., and Chicago in this pulse-pounding thriller of "smart characters" and "shocking twists" (Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author).
Three victims, three bullets, three cities. The shooters' aim is as fearsomely precise as their target selection. When Lindsay realizes that the fallen men and women excel in a lucrative, criminal activity, she leads the charge in the manhunt for the killers. As the casualty list expands, fear and fascination with this suspicious shooting gallery galvanizes the country.
The victims were no angels, but are the shooters villains . . . or heroes?
