Adult Fiction Thrillers

Aaron Fortin is new in town. He drives a brand-new Acura—a gift from his parents for uprooting him in the middle of senior year. Showing up on his first day at the local public school in that nice of a car? He knows he’ll never blend in, and he doesn’t care to try. The car, the new-kid mystique, he can use all that.... Crystal Giordano carpools to the same school in her friend Trevor’s beat-up van. In the van along with Crystal and Trevor are Paul, Harmony, and Gayle. Crystal’s technically part of their misfit group, but most of the time, she feels like she’s the only one who doesn’t fit.

Seventeen-year-old Lady Alexandra is strong-willed and sharp-tongued - in a house full of older brothers and their friends, she had to learn to hold her own. Not the best makings for an aristocratic lady in Regency London. Yet her mother still dreams of marrying Alex off to someone safe, respectable, and wealthy. But between ball gown fittings, dances, and dinner parties, Alex, along with her two best friends, Ella and Vivi, manages to get herself into what may be her biggest scrape yet.

The recently orphaned Sisters Grimm find out from their Granny, who they thought was dead, that they're descendents of the legendary Brothers Grimm. Now they must take over the family responsibility of being fairy tale detectives in a town where fairy tales are real. Their first case: a giant is destroying the town and it may have something to do with a boy named Jack and a certain famous beanstalk.

Newly escaped from the stifling boredom of a small town, college freshman Laura is ready for her first great adventure. But when her roommate, Betty, vanishes, and a sarcastic, nocturnal philosophy student named Carmilla moves into Betty's side of the room, Laura decides to play detective. Turns out, Betty isn't the first girl to go missing - she's just the first girl not to come back. As Laura closes in on answers, tensions rise with Carmilla. Is this just a roommate relationship that isn't working out, or does Carmilla know more than she's letting on about the disappearances?

The Sisters Grimm books are hits with young readers and critics. In their third outing, Sabrina and Daphne confront the menace behind the family's troubles, Little Red Riding Hood. After meeting their recently returned uncle Jake, the girls embark on a harrowing quest to reconstruct the mythical vorpal blade, the only weapon capable of killing Red's pet and bodyguard, the dreaded Jabberwocky.

I messed up. I broke two of the Arcane Council's laws in one day. I swear it was an accident - but try telling that to the Arcane authorities. Before I could catch my breath, my simple gypsy life of peddling potions with my guardians is wrenched away. I'm forcibly enrolled into the prestigious and supremely snotty Arcane Arts Academy, given shackles under the guise of mercy for my crimes.

Matt is being punished for a crime he saw, but didn't commit. Instead of being locked up, he is being sent to the middle of nowhere to live with a new foster mom, as part of a government scheme called The Leaf Project. But Matt's new home provides anything but peace and quiet. His new guardian is involved in very sinister things, and the whole town seems to be on her side. The truth is much bigger than Matt or the town, but Matt is the only person who can stop the ultimate evil from being unleashed.

Daphne's lucky enough to get Snow White for a teacher - she loves little people - but poor Sabrina's stuck with Mr. Grumpner and a class of mildly psychotic sixth graders. When Mr. Grumpner is found hanging in a spider's web, it is up to the Grimms to find the Everafter who did it. If only Sabrina can get over her distrust of all fairy-tale folk. But how can she trust those who just might be responsible for the disappearance of her parents?

Black Hollow is a town with a dark secret. For centuries, residents have foretold the return of the Dreamwalker - an ominous figure from local folklore said to lure young women into the woods and possess them. Yet the boundary between fact and fable is blurred by a troubling statistic: Occasionally, women do go missing. And after they return, they almost always end up dead.

Turns out almost getting murdered and finding out you're part of a thought-to-be-extinct bloodline makes people notice you. Between a forbidden romance with my Arcane History prof, an accidental familiar bond with two shifters, and what I suspect about the Magistrate, hiding the truth is becoming impossible. As if I also need to be tormented by the ghosts of my insane ancestors . . . thanks, universe. Meanwhile, Cal and Adrian try to solve a mystery of their own: shifters from other packs are going missing, and all the evidence points to witches. But then they vanish, too.

Shortly after her 16th birthday, Sunshine Griffith and her mother, Kat, move from sunny Austin, Texas, to the rain-drenched town of Ridgemont, Washington. Though Sunshine is adopted, she and her mother have always been close, sharing a special bond filled with laughter and inside jokes. But from the moment they arrive, Sunshine feels her world darken with an eeriness she cannot place. And even if Kat doesn't recognize it, Sunshine knows that something about their new house is just...creepy.

In their sixth adventure, Sabrina and Daphne must defend their friend Mr. Canis (aka the Big Bad Wolf ) when he is put on trial by the Everafters for his past crimes. It'll take all of the sisters' skills to outwit the merciless Queen of Hearts, who is determined to kick Canis and the Grimms out of Ferryport Landing - forever.

Nicole Cassidy is a witch descended from the Greek gods...but she doesn't know it until she moves to a new town and discovers a dangerous world of magic and monsters that she never knew existed. When the Olympian Comet shoots through the sky for the first time in 3,000 years, Nicole and four others - including mysterious bad-boy Blake - are gifted with elemental powers. But the comet has another effect - it opens the portal to another dimension that has imprisoned the Titans for centuries.

Holly Ash is good actor. Just one downside: Most of the people she’s acting with have no idea they’re a part of her fiction. One that has been carefully constructed by the secretive company that Holly works for, known as D.O.P.L. Every assignment is a new role, a new name, a completely new self. Her newest role is “Margot” and her newest target: a boy her age named Will Aldrich.

Who wants to be a superhero? Hope did, but she grew out of it. Which made her superhuman breakthrough in the Ashland Bombing, just before starting her freshman year at the University of Chicago, more than a little ironic. And now she has some decisions to make. Given the code-name "Astra" and invited to join the Sentinels, Chicago's premier super-team, will she take up the cape and mask and become a career superhero? Or will she get a handle on her new powers (superstrength has some serious drawbacks) and then get on with her life plan?

Cruz Coronado leaves his tranquil home in Hawaii to join 23 talented kids from around the globe to train at the Explorer Academy with the world's leading scientists to become the next generation of great explorers. But for Cruz, there's more at stake. No sooner has he arrived at the Academy than he discovers that his family has a mysterious past with the organization that could jeopardize his future. In the midst of codebreaking and cool classes, new friends, and augmented reality expeditions, Cruz must tackle the biggest question of all: Who is out to get him, and why?

My life as I know it is over. And no, I'm not being dramatic. I've been living as a human, but now I have to return to my mermaid roots because my dad is the new king of Valora. As soon as we arrive, he sends me to the Dark Sea Academy. Whispers and glares greet me at every turn. Students accuse my dad of killing the previous king, his brother. My first night, the most popular girl tries to kill me. I barely escape, only to run into Bash. He's older and one wrong move from being expelled. Also as gorgeous as he is arrogant.

Mary B. Addison killed a baby. Allegedly. She didn't say much in that first interview with detectives, and the media filled in the only blanks that mattered: a white baby had died while under the care of a churchgoing black woman and her nine-year-old daughter. The public convicted Mary, and the jury made it official. But did she do it?

Children’s classics for decades, Donald J. Sobol’s Encyclopedia Brown stories have garnered a Young Readers’ Choice Award and a Special Edgar Award. In this installment, the 10-year-old detective’s probing questions continue to trip up thieves, frauds, and others scoundrels—from a watch-scamming bully to a wigged-out FBI’s most wanted.

Having garnered both Young Readers’ Choice and Special Edgar Awards, Donald J. Sobol’s Encyclopedia Brown stories have been children’s classics for decades. In this installment, the 10-year-old detective uses his vast knowledge and probing questions to expose a muscle-bound scam, a crooked protection racket, a circus frame-up, and other baffling mysteries.