Dark Thriller

As a girl, Joanna Chase thrived on Rustling Willows Ranch in Montana until tragedy upended her life. Now thirty-four and living in Santa Fe with only misty memories of the past, she begins to receive pleas—by phone, through her TV, in her dreams: I am in a dark place, Jojo. Please come and help me. Heeding the disturbing appeals, Joanna is compelled to return to Montana, and to a strange childhood companion she had long forgotten.

When a jaguar shifter drops in and asks for help in tracking down an ancient blood-magic statuette, I say no thank you. I learned a long time ago the key to survival is keeping a low profile. But it's hard to ignore an artifact of the gods powerful enough to blow holes in reality. Enter stalker werewolves in a black Mercedes and magicians trying to capture me. They all think I know where the damned statue is. Then I'm attacked by demons. It wouldn't be so bad, but some of them are really rude. Being rude is a capital crime where I come from. Time for a lesson in manners.

The name's Burnside, and I always get the weird cases. I built my detective career taking down the strangest bad guys in Earth Sector. No matter how crazy the case, I always managed to get it off the books. After 20 years of pounding my beat, I was ready to pack it in, and I'd called it a day. Then these killings started, weird to the point of freaked-out PD Chiefs, and only one person who fit the case. So much for retirement. The story I'm going to tell you covers two years of my life, and took me from one end of human space to the other.

Between life and death, there's magic. Our secrets have been exposed and now we have to deal with the consequences: Friends of the Midwest Pack are missing. Alliances are forming between enemies whose sole intent is to destroy the pack. And a mysterious group is trying to make a power grab using any means possible. With my pack and our allies in danger, I don't think things can possibly get any worse. I'm wrong.

Alexis has always been able to rely on two things: her best friends, and the magic powers they all share. Their secret is what brought them together, and their love for each other is unshakeable - even when that love is complicated. Complicated by problems like jealousy, or insecurity, or lust. Or love. That unshakeable, complicated love is one of the only things that doesn't change on prom night. When accidental magic goes sideways and a boy winds up dead, Alexis and her friends come together to try to right a terrible wrong.

Since the 1970s, FantasticLand has been the theme park where "Fun is Guaranteed!" But when a hurricane ravages the Florida coast and isolates the park, the employees find it anything but fun. Five weeks later, the authorities who rescue the survivors encounter a scene of horror. Photos soon emerge online of heads on spikes outside of rides and viscera and human bones littering the gift shops, breaking records for hits, views, likes, clicks, and shares.

Only days after a corrupt election and brutal street war, one last bloodthirsty game has begun. The players? The 22 most powerful, notorious people in New Reynes. After realizing they have no choice but to play, Enne Scordata and Levi Glaisyer are desperate to forge new alliances and bargain for their safety. But while Levi offers false smiles and an even falser peace to the city’s politicians, Enne must face a world where her true Mizer identity has been revealed...and any misstep could turn deadly.

A prolific journalist, Martin Walker has crafted a mystery series that deftly blends the stylings of Peter Mayle and Alexander McCall Smith. Chief Bruno Courreges loves life in his small French village. One day his idyll is disturbed when a local research station for genetically modified crops is burned down. An enclave of environmentalists seems to be the most likely culprit, but soon Bruno uncovers evidence that makes the case infinitely more complicated.

The world’s largest bounty has just been placed upon America’s top spy. His only hope for survival is to outwit, outrun, and outlast his enemies long enough to get to the truth. But for Scot Harvath to accomplish his most dangerous mission ever - one that has already claimed the lives of the people closest to him, including his new wife - he’s going to need help - a lot of it. Not knowing whom he can trust, Harvath finds an unlikely ally in Norwegian intelligence operative Sølvi Kolstad.

When his daughter Samantha calls in the dead of night, John Rebus knows it's not good news. Her husband has been missing for two days. Rebus fears the worst - and knows from his lifetime in the police that his daughter will be the prime suspect. He wasn't the best father - the job always came first - but now his daughter needs him more than ever. As he leaves at dawn to drive to the windswept coast - and a small town with big secrets - he wonders whether this might be the first time in his life where the truth is the one thing he doesn't want to find....

Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but it is the truth. Some of us are good, others are bad, and some just unfortunate. I’m Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I’d killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it’s a little more complicated than that.

Set in a fractured United States, in the southwestern country now known as Texoma. A world where magic is acknowledged but mistrusted, especially by a young gunslinger named Lizbeth Rose. Battered by a run across the border to Mexico Lizbeth Rose takes a job offer from a pair of Russian wizards to be their local guide and gunnie. For the wizards, Gunnie Rose has already acquired a fearsome reputation and they’re at a desperate crossroad, even if they won’t admit it.

When the governor of Wyoming gives Joe Pickett the thankless task of taking a tech baron on an elk hunting trip, Joe reluctantly treks into the wilderness with his high-profile charge. But as they venture into the woods, a man-hunter is hot on their heels, driven by a desire for revenge. Finding himself without a weapon, a horse, or a way to communicate, Joe must rely on his wits and his knowledge of the outdoors to protect himself and his companion.

My new life at Otherworld Academy went from not-so-normal to downright-crazy fast. My best friend got turned into a shapeshifting beast, the Autumn Court tried to launch an assassination on the changelings, and I can somehow tap into the powers of all four courts. And that's not including my insanely attractive fae instructors who make me feel like the temperature has gone up a thousand degrees. But even though things were crazy before, it was nothing on how they are now. Danger lurks in every corner, new threats are closing in, and the storms are only growing larger.

She thought her life had changed in the blink of an eye the moment she came home to see her father strapped to a chair, a gun being held to his head. It was my life that changed that day, not hers. The blood of my enemy ran through her veins, and no matter how much she wanted to save me, she never would have. I am a monster. I can't be saved. I would consume the world in a blaze of fire before my need for vengeance was ever fulfilled.

Kate O'Brien's quiet life in small-town Shelter Cove, Arkansas is shaken when her past suddenly comes roaring back to life. Four years ago, she and her twin sister were attacked by an elusive serial killer. Only Kate survived, and she's been in witness protection ever since. When new evidence arises to suggest the convicted man wasn't the murderer, she's subpoenaed to testify in the new trial. Afraid to go back into that world, Kate only agrees if Tony DeLuca, the deputy marshal who protected her during the original trial, escorts her to St. Louis.

It’s been a decade since Trumanell Branson disappeared, leaving only a bloody handprint behind. Her pretty face still hangs like a watchful queen on the posters on the walls of the town’s Baptist church, the police station, and in the high school. They all promise the same thing: We will find you. Meanwhile, Tru's brother, Wyatt, lives as a pariah in the desolation of the old family house, cleared of wrongdoing by the police but tried and sentenced in the court of public opinion and in a new documentary about the crime.

Ancient evils lurk in the Western New York town of Oneka Falls, and they are hungry. Only three children have encountered them and lived. Psyches fractured, each child has survived as best they could - wrapped in fantasy, the comfort of amnesia, or the silence of isolation. When those evils intrude on their lives a second time, it sets a chain of events in action that can only end in destruction. But who will be destroyed, the children or the ancient evils that plague the town?

As a shaky truce between suburban gangsters starts to unravel, schlubby civilian Scott Clark has other things on his mind: if he can't afford to buy out his ex-father-in-law, Scott's about to lose the only house he's ever called home. In the red-hot urban housing market, he doesn't have a chance - until he and his best friends take the desperate measure of staging a fake drive-by shooting on the property to push down the asking price. But then Scott's mobster-posturing stunt attracts the attention of the real criminals.

Seventeen-year-old Layla just wants to be normal. But with a kiss that kills anything with a soul, she's anything but normal. Half demon, half gargoyle, Layla has abilities no one else possesses. Raised among the Wardens - a race of gargoyles tasked with hunting demons and keeping humanity safe - Layla tries to fit in, but that means hiding her own dark side from those she loves the most.