English Authors Psychological Thrillers

Isla and Jake are a couple drifting apart. She is a chef and co-owner of a farm-to-table restaurant on the brink of closing; he is a visual artist tormented by the oil-and-gas legacy of his late father. A looming figure in both their lives is Reg Bevaqua, Jake’s childhood friend-turned-enemy, turned bottled-water baron. Reg is a demanding regular at Isla’s restaurant and a man with a seething resentment toward Jake. With good reason, the feeling is mutual, but Jake keeps their past from Isla as he follows a devastating trail to the source of Reg’s wealth.

Kenzi Brannon's life was turned upside down when she moved into her family's abandoned home to raise her niece. Problems compound when her aging mother starts to remember things. And clues the police find regarding the knife don't match anything Kenzi knows about her family. Things go from bad to worse when she and her niece discover something horrifying in their house. But not even that compares to the strange ways her mom is acting.

Summer, 2021. Nell has come home at her family's insistence to celebrate an anniversary. Fifty years ago, her father wrote The Golden Bones. Part picture book, part treasure hunt, Sir Frank Churcher created a fairy story about Elinore, a murdered woman whose skeleton was scattered all over England. Clues and puzzles in the pages of The Golden Bones led readers to seven sites where jewels were buried—gold and precious stones, each a different part of a skeleton. One by one, the tiny golden bones were dug up until only Elinore's pelvis remained hidden.

If not for the bodies discovered in the woods behind their new home, Garrick and Olivia Lockwood couldn't have afforded to buy number 25 The Avenue. It's the fresh start they and their two children badly need. Soon, these terrible crimes will be solved, they tell themselves, and once Garrick has remodeled, he's confident they'll sell the house for a profit. But the darkest secrets can reside on quiet, ordinary streets like this - behind the doors of well-kept houses and neighbors' friendly faces....

Kelsey has lived most of her life in a shadow of suspicion, raised to see danger everywhere. Her mother hasn't set foot outside their front door in 17 years, since she escaped from her kidnappers with nothing but her attacker's baby growing inside her - Kelsey. Kelsey knows she's supposed to keep a low profile and stay off the grid for their protection, but that plan is shattered when her dramatic car accident and rescue by volunteer firefighter and classmate Ryan Baker sparks media coverage.

Brooklyn, 2020. Theo Harper and his pregnant wife, Darla, head upstate to their summer cottage to wait out the lockdown. Not everyone in their upscale Park Slope building has this privilege: not Xavier, the teenager in the Cardi B T-shirt, nor Darla’s best friend, Ruby, and her partner, Katsumi, who stay behind to save their Michelin-starred restaurant. During an upstate hike on the aptly named Devil’s Path, Theo divulges a long-held secret—and when Darla disappears after the ensuing argument, he finds himself the prime suspect.

Brooklyn Sloane works as a special consultant to the FBI as one of the most adept profilers in the agency's history. She had been recruited at a relatively young age from her career in academics, but her colleagues have no idea the disturbing motive for her success.

For 25 years, Anne Mitchell was enslaved by what she called the "Boogeyman" - images from her lost childhood that appeared in the shadows behind her reflection in mirrors and wine glasses, haunted her dreams, and attacked her in screaming night terrors. Fear of facing that secret held her hostage. Like a schoolyard bully, it twisted her arm behind her back and forced her to accept that her life began in the dirt beside a ditch when she was 11 years old.

A famous 18-year-old fiddle player, Beau, is abducted from her parents’ huge Sierra home at a birthday folk jam in her honor one summer in the early part of the 21st century. As a fire burns up the mountain while she is buried on the land under a pile of brush, she is found just in time. A month later, much to her horror, she is abducted again, this time from a Berkeley music jam.

Mark Darrow grew up in a small Ohio town with no real advantages beyond his intelligence and athletic ability. But thanks to the intervention of Lionel Farr—a professor at Caldwell, the local college—Darrow became an excellent student and, later, a superb trial lawyer. Now Farr asks his still-youthful protégé for a life-altering favor. An embezzlement scandal has threatened Caldwell's very existence—would Darrow consider becoming its new president? Darrow accepts, but returning to his alma mater opens old wounds.

Diary of a Murderer captivates and provokes in equal measure, exploring what it means to be on the edge - between life and death, good and evil. In the titular novella, a former serial killer suffering from memory loss sets his sights on one final target: his daughter's boyfriend, who he suspects is also a serial killer. In other stories we witness an affair between two childhood friends that questions the limits of loyalty and love; a family's disintegration after a baby son is kidnapped and recovered years later; and more.

Ana Bacon, a beautiful young wife and mother, tumbled off a cruise ship into dark and deadly waters. Ana is gone - leaving behind her wealthy husband and adorable daughter - but not everything about her disappearance adds up. What secrets did she leave behind? Investigator Ryan Monahan is a numbers man. So when his company sends him the Bacon case, which could net a 10 million-dollar payout, Monahan doubts that her death is just a tragic accident.

Rooker Lindström is a reluctant consultant for the Minnesota PD. He can provide a window into evil. His horrifying past gives him the edge. When the body of a woman—missing for eight years—is pulled from the lake, evil comes knocking again. This time with a note meant just for Rooker: Won’t you come out and play?

When the flood hits, America's East Coast is evacuated by every means possible. Brooklyn paramedic Travis Cooke had dreamed of reuniting his family, but not like this. Escaping New York with his son and the ex-wife he still loves - and her new husband - they find themselves evacuated on the luxury cruise ship, the Festival of the Waves. Hours later, the Festival lies dead in the open Atlantic: no power, no communications, and nowhere near enough food.

Hope Ross isn't crazy, but she knows crazy. Crazy is: A father telling his daughter to pretend her twin sister doesn't exist. A sister never leaving the house. A disturbed woman hidden away in the attic. No, Hope's not crazy, and she's through playing games. As soon as she gets out of this mental facility, she's going to prove it.

In this gothic, virtuoso debut collection, Mike McCormack dispenses nightmares both stylish and macabre. "A Is for Ax" offers alphabetized look at the killing of a parent, while the title story tracks a chilling sibling rivalry. Other works here offer multiple-quiz on the road to Calvary, a door-to-door saleswoman trafficking in strange and menacing feats, and a self-mutilating artist pushing himself to the limit. These sly and dangerous stories show us a young writer who was already a master of wicked formal play, and whose sly takes on life and death remain profoundly unsettling.

Donna Weaver has put everything she has into restoring The Breakers, an old bed and breakfast on a remote stretch of beach in Galloway. Now it sits waiting - freshly painted, richly furnished, filled with flowers - for the first guests to arrive. But Donna's guests, a contentious group of estranged cousins, soon realize that they've been here before, years ago. Decades have passed, but that night still haunts them: a 16th birthday party that started with peach schnapps and ended with a girl walking into the sea.

After every divorce, one spouse gets all the friends. What does the other one get? If they’re smart, they get the benefits. Alyssa Macallan is terrified when she’s dumped by her wealthy and powerful husband. With a devastating divorce looming, she begins to suspect her toxic and manipulative soon-to-be-ex is scheming to ruin her—leaving her alone and penniless. And when the FBI shows up at her door, Alyssa knows she really needs a friend.

A father who is trying to rescue his lost wife. Their child, desperately searching the wild forests and dangerous mountains of the Scottish Highlands, not knowing what’s out there. An abandoned cottage in the remote wilderness, filled with thousands of confusing, terrifying handwritten notes. And a dark, looming voice who threatens to destroy everything. Perfect for fans of Pine and The Loney, Fray announces an electrifying new voice in literary fiction.

Marti Greenwood has just moved into a brand-new home after a bitter divorce from her husband Emery, and while she’s still not quite done with him - of course, some of her most cherished possessions are nowhere to be found once she unpacks her things - a fresh start in a beautiful LA neighborhood is exactly what she needs. But days after her arrival, Marti is attacked in her home. She's found shaken and beaten, and her neighbors who immediately call the police. She never saw the face of her attacker, and so there is little to go on as detectives open an investigation.