Tag: suspense

Cul-de-sac by Joy Fielding

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Joy Fielding is a new author to me – I have never read anything written by her before, but she is fairly popular with patrons at the library. Her latest title Cul-de-sac is a twisty psychological suspense thriller that focuses on secrets hidden within one community.

At the end of a quiet suburban cul-de-sac live five families. Someone in this cul-de-sac will be shot dead in the middle of a hot July night. Who is responsible? What drove them to murder? What secrets live in each of the five houses?

Maggie and Craig are recent arrivals to Florida. Maggie is a jumpy perfectionist, while her husband Craig could never quite be what she needed. They packed up their two kids and moved from California to Florida hoping for a new start. Maggie wants to leave behind the bad memories that destroyed their perfect California lives, but she finds that even sunny Florida can’t fully dispel the shadows she sees lurking everywhere.

Nick is a respected oncologist. His wife, Dani, is a successful dentist. Even though she is a doctor in her own right, others look down at her and treat her as just Nick’s wife. Dani and Nick have their own deep secrets that they have even managed to hide from their two children for years.

Julia is an elderly widow. Her son and his fourth wife want her to sell her house and move into an assisted care facility. To combat this, Julia’s troubled grandson has recently moved in to help her, much to her son’s chagrin. Her grandson’s bad habits have followed him to Julia’s house though.

Olivia and her husband Sean are going through a rough patch. Sean recently lost his job at a prestigious advertising agency, meaning that Olivia has had to find a job to support the family. Sean resents his wife, has started drinking heavily, and his depression is getting worse. Despite searching for a job, he is unable to find one. He spirals out of control, leading to increasingly violent fantasies.

Aiden and Heidi are newlyweds. They recently moved into their house, which Aiden’s mother purchased for the two. Their marriage is already floundering and is made even worse by Aiden’s mother’s constant intruding. Heidi has repeatedly expressed her displeasure to Aiden, but he is reluctant to stop her since his mother controls all of the money.

Each house has their own secrets, while each also has access to guns. This makes for a deadly combination. Someone will not survive the night.

This book is also available in the following formats:

A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins

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‘She felt quite light-headed. Low blood sugar, maybe, or perhaps it was the dizzying effect of watching her horizons, narrowed for so long, expanding once again.’

Paula Hawkins’ latest thriller A Slow Fire Burning is a book that messes with your mind, but in a good way. Hawkins has written a book that talks about how far someone is willing to go to find peace (or revenge).

Someone has been killed. A young man was found gruesomely murdered in his London houseboat. When the authorities start investigating, questions begin to mount surrounding three women who knew him and the others living in his periphery.

Laura is a troubled young woman who was the last person seen both with the victim and in his home. Their one-night stand was fraught with violence, something that Laura admits to the police when questioned. Laura was in a devastating car accident when she was young that left her hot-tempered, rash, and dangerous. Others judge her, something that has left Laura living as a loner.

Miriam knows all too well about how easy it is to get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. As the person who lives in the houseboat next to the dead man, Miriam has a unique insight into his life, plus she’s nosy. She also knows that just because she saw Laura leaving the houseboat covered in blood, that doesn’t mean she killed him. Miriam has been taken advantage of one too many times, so she will do whatever it takes to clear Laura of any wrongdoing.

Carla’s nephew was just brutally murdered. Her sister died in an accident eight weeks earlier. So much tragedy in such a short amount of time has left her completely stricken and at a loss. Carla no longer trusts anyone and views those around her as damaged creatures. All she wants is peace. Or does she?

Others circulate behind the scenes: Carla’s husband Theo and the women who lives next door to the deceased man’s mother. Everyone in this story is filled with resentment. While their reasons may be varied, they all desire to right the wrongs perpetrated against them. Their journeys to revenge will lead them to peace or destruction, risks they are all willing to take.

This book is also available in the following formats:

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

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I’m not a spooky book person: hauntings, ghosts, unexplained mysteries keep me up all night. I decided to be brave and try The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James, even though the reviews I read described mysterious happenings throughout the book. It was worth it (and the many positive reviews didn’t let me down)!

The Sun Down Motel tells the story of secrets. A rundown roadside motel in Fell, New York has been the scene of many unexplained happenings. What’s even more chilling is that the city of Fell has a high number of young girls who have mysteriously disappeared without a trace. One of these missing girls is Viv Delaney.

Viv moved to Fell in 1982. She is desperate to move to New york City, but in order to help pay for it, she finds herself working as the night clerk at the Sun Down Motel. She was only supposed to be passing through Fell – not staying to work. The more she works at the motel, the more Viv realizes that something isn’t quite right there. Something haunting and scary has taken over the Sun Down Motel. What’s even scarier: they are determined to get Viv’s attention no matter what.

Flash forward to Fell in 2017. Carly Kirk has been consumed by the story of her Aunt Viv, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances while working the night shift at the Sun Down. Viv disappeared before Carly was even born, yet her disappearance has cast a shadow over her life. Determined to finally find some answers, Carly decides to move to Fell and visit the motel where her aunt spent her last known moments. Once she steps foot at the Sun Down Motel, Carly quickly realizes that nothing has changed since 1982. The more she investigates what happened to her aunt, the more Carly realizes that both the town of Fell and the Sun Down Motel are ripe with secrets. Soon Carly finds herself wrapped up in the same haunting and scary mysteries that consumed her aunt back in 1982. Carly needs answers though and will stop at nothing to find out what really happened to Viv all those years ago.

This book is also available in the following formats:

The Other Passenger by Louise Candlish

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Louise Candlish’s 2020 novel The Other Passenger is a twisted tale of deception rife with unreliable characters. Candlish has a way of telling stories that grip you from the beginning and don’t let go until the very end. This novel was no exception.

Jaime and Clare have been living together in London for the last ten years. Not married, but still very much a couple, Clare is the breadwinner of the two with deep family money and a gorgeously expensive townhouse gifted to her from her parents. Jaime had been adding funds to their communal account until months ago when he had to quit his job following a terrifying claustrophobia incident aboard the tube in the tunnels. Now he works at a coffee shop as a barista and is very much dependent on Claire to survive.

The biggest change in Jaime’s life was his decision to commute to work by riverboat instead of the tube. Now he has no more gridlock or claustrophobia to contend with – all thanks to his young friend Kit and his girlfriend Melia for their riverboat pass suggestion. Kit and Jaime now feel like they have had a major lifestyle upgrade – a leisurely ride to work with alcohol available on boat on their way home. Kit and Jaime’s friendship blooms the more they commute.

One day Jaime is living his best life and the next, it all comes crashing down. It all starts when Kit does not show up for the morning boat commute and Melia reports him missing. As soon as Jaime gets off the riverboat, the police are waiting to question him as they have had reports from another passenger who saw the two men arguing on the boat. They believe Jaime was the last person to see him alive and may be behind Kit’s sudden disappearance. These accusations make no sense to him and he protests that he would never want to hurt Kit. After all, the two of them are friends. This anonymous other passenger doesn’t know anything about Jaime’s life. He’s completely innocent and has nothing to hide.

This book is also available in the following formats:

Careful What You Wish For by Hallie Ephron

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Hallie Ephron is known for writing mystery and suspense novels. Her newest novel Careful What You Wish For is her latest offering.

Emily Harlow is a professional organizer. She loves to help people declutter their lives which is a bit ironic because Emily’s own life is a complete mess. Her husband is a hoarder. He has filled their basement, attic, and garage with all of the treasures that he has found at different yard and estate sales. Emily and her husband have an understanding though that she will not touch his finds. This marriage compromise is slowly making Emily’s life more stressful as his belongings spread throughout more of the house.

Desperate to get back to some sort of normalcy, Emily is relieved when she has two new clients sign up. One is an elderly widow finally ready to clear out her house of any reminder of her husband. Said husband also left behind a storage unit that the wife had no idea existed. Emily’s other new client is a young wife who wants to get rid of all of her belongings that have been sitting in the garage ever since she moved in with her husband. You see, her husband didn’t allow any of her belongings into the house. At all.

After the initial meetings, Emily discovers that both of her new clients are hiding something. The mess Emily finds herself in has the power to destroy her life. She must get creative in order to find her way out or she may lose her marriage, her job, or even her life.

This book is also available in the following formats:

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

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Have you ever wanted to be a librarian? What about a rebel librarian? Sarah Gailey’s Upright Women Wanted is a twisted dystopic pulp western where librarians are the only way to get approved information, but things are never as they seem.

Before we get to the librarians, we need to start with Esther. Esther is a stowaway. After seeing her best friend executed at the hands of her father for being in possession of resistance propaganda, Esther has run away and hidden herself in the book wagon the librarians are taking across country. In this future American Southwest full of bandits and fascists, librarians trek to small towns to deliver materials approved by the government. Desperate to escape the marriage that her dad has arranged(to a man who was previously engaged to her now dead best friend), the librarians are Esther’s quickest way to escape and to be her truest self. Maybe she will start to heal her broken heart. Her best friend wasn’t just her best friend. Esther was in love with her.

Discovered by the librarians, Esther is introduced to a life she never thought possible. The more she learns about the librarians, the more she realizes that they are not as straight-laced as they appear. Instead they are queer librarian spies working with a secret network to spread resistance materials and supplies to those in need. The librarians are trying to do the right thing, but putting up a front of normalcy is the only way that they can survive.

Too Good to be True by Carola Lovering

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I’ll admit that I frequently choose books to read based on what the cover looks like and Too Good to be True by Carola Lovering falls under that category. This book caught my attention from the start and had me desperate for a happy ending for all involved at the end.

Skye Starling is bursting with happiness. She has everything. She’s beautiful, smart, and from a rich family. Yet the death of her mother when she was only eleven left Skye to deal with crippling OCD that has led her relationships to suffer. After years of battling social anxiety and OCD, she has finally found a man that loves her truly. Burke Michaels is everyone she could have ever wanted. After dating for a short time, Burke proposes and she can’t wait to be married to him.

Despite her tragic past, Burke wants her. He may be older, but Skye sees that as a positive since he’s very handsome and definitely more emotionally mature than any other men she’s met (and dated). In fact, he may be too perfect. Actually he is. Throughout the novel, readers are privy to letters Burke has written to his therapist that reveal the truth: Burke is already happily married and his relationship with Skye is full of deceptions.

In another perspective thirty years earlier, a young seventeen-year-old named Heather wants out of her relationship. Her boyfriend, Burke, is the local bad boy. If Heather really wants to make a better life for herself, she has realized that she needs to end her relationship with Burke because he’s only holding her back. After all, she wants out of the run-down town they live in. She has big dreams of heading to New York City to make a name for herself.

Skye is blissfully unaware of the scheme that Burke is working behind her back. As she gets to work planning their wedding, Skye lets herself believe that her happiness is right around the corner. Past and present collide the closer they get to the wedding, leaving Burke and Skye stunned with the consequences.

This book is also available in the following format:

My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing

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Have you ever wondered about the secret lives of serial killers? Samantha Downing’s debut novel My Lovely Wife examines what would happen if a married couple decided to start killing.

Tobias and Millicent are a normal couple. They met, fell in love, had kids, and moved to the suburbs. They have everything a family could ever want. Only it wasn’t enough. They got bored.

Millicent and Tobias look like a normal couple. They are active in their communities, have goals for themselves, and do all the normal things that families and couples do. They even have secrets to help them keep their marriage alive. The only hiccup: their secrets are, shall we say, different than others. They get away with murder.

It’s exciting. The whole process. Finding a target, following them, figure out how they want to murder. It’s definitely spiced up their marriage. Everything is perfect until the moment when it all comes crashing down and they realize that what brought them together as a couple has the potential to tear their family apart forever.

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The Girl from Widow Hills by Megan Miranda

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Megan Miranda examines the effect of media sensationalism in the aftermath of a tragic event in her latest book, The Girl From Widow Hills. Everyone may think that they know the true story, but in reality, the truth is more twisted than anyone could ever believe.

Arden Maynor is the girl from Widow Hills. When she was six years old, Arden was swept away by a rainstorm while she was sleepwalking in the middle of the night. She went missing for days. While her story may have begun locally, it quickly gained traction and became national news. People from all over flocked to Widow Hills to help search for Arden. Prayer vigils and search parties were set up as rescuers combed the area searching for any sign of where she could be.

Against all odds, Arden was found days later alive and clinging to a storm drain. After her rescue, she became a living miracle. Her mother wrote a book. Fame swallowed what little sense of normalcy Arden had left. People sent letters, both positive and negative, as they all demanded that Arden make something important out of her life since she had survived. They wanted recompense for all the time and money that they poured into the search for her and for her recovery after she was found. On the anniversary every year, the publicity worsened. It all became too much.

Arden disappeared. She changed her name and tried to make a new life for herself. Now living hundreds of miles away from Widow Hills, Arden goes by Olivia. She has has stayed out of the media’s attention for years and started a new life. As the twentieth anniversary of her rescue creeps ever closer, Olivia is sure that the media will track her down and force her to live out the horrors of that time and the subsequent messiness after her rescue. Becoming increasingly uneasy, Olivia believes she is being watched. She has started sleepwalking again, sometimes waking up outside her house. One night, Olivia wakes up in her yard with the corpse of a man she knows from her past laying at her feet. What has she done? Why is he there? Olivia soon realizes the tranquility she has had for the last few years is going to disappear and havoc will rush back into her life. She is once again going to become the center of the story and there is nothing she can do to stop it.

This book is also available in the following formats:

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

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Grady Hendrix has written a superb new novel about a women’s book club battling to save their small town from a mysterious newcomer. The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires is a supernatural thriller set in the 1990s that highlights life in a small Southern town that is seemingly set in its ways. When a newcomer turns up in town with his white van parked in front of his elderly aunt’s house, most of the town are relieved that he has come to take care of her. One of the people not convinced: Patricia Campbell.

Patricia gave up her career as a nurse to marry her ambitious doctor beau and have children. Feeling slightly suffocated, Patricia needs a break. Her kids don’t care, her husband is hardly ever home, and her to-do-list is endlessly long and incredibly boring. The only bright spot in her life is her book club, a group of local women who are very close-knit and who all have a love of true crime.

James Harris, the newcomer, quickly becomes a topic of conversation at book club – mostly due to the fact that his van is an eyesore. The others believe him to be artistic, sensitive, and attractive, but despite Patricia’s initial attraction, she has her doubts. After some local children go missing across town, Patricia becomes increasingly worried that James has something to do with it. She starts her own investigation , but James is determined to stay in town. He inserts himself more and more into her life to the point where Patricia is terrified that he will destroy everything that she holds dear. Soon all that stands between James and the unsuspecting community is Patricia and her book club. They must find a way to save their town from him even when their families don’t see an issue with James’ kindness.

This book is also available in the following formats: