Family Domestic Thrillers

Divorce lawyer Leigh Huyett knows all too well that most second marriages are doomed to fail. But five years in, she and Pete Conley have a perfectly blended family of her children and his. To celebrate their anniversary, they grab some precious moments of alone time and leave Pete’s son, Kip, a high school senior, in charge of Leigh’s 14-year-old daughter, Chrissy, at their home. Driving back on a rainy Friday night, their cell phones start ringing. After a raucous party celebrating his college acceptance to Duke and his upcoming birthday, Kip was arrested for drunk driving.

Claire is only seven years old when her college-age sister, Alison, disappears on the last night of their family vacation at a resort on the Caribbean island of Saint X. Several days later, Alison’s body is found in a remote spot on a nearby cay, and two local men - employees at the resort - are arrested. But the evidence is slim, the timeline against it, and the men are soon released. The story turns into national tabloid news, a lurid mystery that will go unsolved. For Claire and her parents, there is only the return home to broken lives.

UrbanMyth: It was lauded as an alternative to the performative, show-your-best-self platforms—an anonymous discussion board grouped by zip code. The residents of Manhattan’s exclusive Upper East Side disclosed it all, things they would never share with their friends or their spouses: secret bank accounts, steamy affairs, tidbits of juicy gossip. So when a “hacktivist” group breaks into the forum and exposes the real identity of each poster, the repercussions echo down Park Avenue with a force that none could have anticipated.

I was so happy when my son, Knox, began dating my best friend’s daughter. Our kids grew up together and we used to joke, as we sipped wine and watched them play, that they’d get married one day. But when Knox came home late after a party, zipping his hoodie up to hide the scratches I caught a glimpse of on his collarbone, a chill went down my spine. That night, our whole world shattered. Now, I hardly recognize my husband as he sweeps into action, calling in a hot-shot lawyer to defend our boy.

When a teen falls while taking a selfie at the edge of a cliff, the last thing she sees before plummeting to her death is Katie Harmon, the nine-year-old girl she was babysitting, looking down at her. Investigators gather at the scene, and Katie’s mother, Sara, rushes to comfort her daughter. Yet there’s a small, secret ping of alarm in Sara’s heart that she cannot share—though rookie detective Kim Pierce senses it. For years, others have tried to unravel this secret. Now, Sara is consumed by her darkest fear—that the babysitter’s death was not an accident.

On a dark and stormy December night, my family are gathered at an isolated hotel in the English countryside. We're reuniting for the first time since the accident that shattered our lives ten years ago. It's a time for love and forgiveness. But more than one guest has an ulterior motive. As the clock strikes midnight, one member of our party is found dead at the foot of the grand marble staircase. Everyone is a suspect. But which one of us is a killer?

At 26, Dahlia Lighthouse is haunted by her upbringing. Raised in a secluded island mansion deep in the woods and kept isolated by her true crime-obsessed parents, she is unable to move beyond the disappearance of her twin brother, Andy, when they were 16. After several years away and following her father’s death, Dahlia returns to the house, where the family makes a gruesome discovery: buried in their father’s plot is another body—Andy’s, his skull split open with an ax.

When Viola's new neighbors move into Number 33, everything seems picture-perfect. But behind the manicured lawn and polite smiles, dark secrets lurk in the shadows. As Viola, a quiet retiree, digs deeper into the strange behaviour of the family next door, she uncovers a disturbing web of lies. The father, Rhys, is hostile. The mother, Wendy, seems to be losing her grip on reality. And their daughter, Mirabelle is an eerie eight-year-old. When Viola sneaks into Number 33, she discovers a locked room and a secret hidden inside. Soon her curiosity turns into obsession

Janie Klassyn was only 14 years old when she made the blood pact with her friends. She could never imagine she was setting in motion the horrifying crime that would tear her peaceful prairie town apart. Twenty years later in California, school counselor Emma Grant struggles to keep her past buried. But when she finds a note on her car threatening to reveal her secret, it becomes harder to keep up the deception. Even her teenage stepdaughter suspects that Emma is hiding something.

New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award winning author Lisa Scottoline is loved by millions of readers and listeners for her suspenseful novels about family and justice. Scottoline delivers once again with Keep Quiet, an emotionally gripping and complex story about one man's split-second decision to protect his son—and the devastating consequences that follow. Jake Buckman's relationship with his sixteen-year-old son Ryan is not an easy one, so at the urging of his loving wife, Pam, Jake goes alone to pick up Ryan at their suburban movie theater.

In the waning days of the turbulent 1970s, in the wake of unsolved child-killings that have shocked Detroit, the lives of several residents are drawn together with tragic consequences. There is Hannah, wife of a prominent local businessman, who has begun an affair with a darkly charismatic stranger whose identity remains elusive; Mikey, a canny street hustler who finds himself on a chilling mission to rectify injustice; and the serial killer known as Babysitter, an enigmatic and terrifying figure at the periphery of elite Detroit.

Katie Kuhlmann’s marriage is falling apart. But she has a secure job, her children are healthy, and her house, a new construction in the prestigious Country Club neighborhood of Edina, Minnesota, is beautiful. She can almost ignore the way her husband, Jack, has been acting—constantly checking his phone, not going to work, disappearing from the house only to show up again without explanation. Tension in the Kuhlmann house only gets worse when Adam “Bagman” Ross, a mutual friend from college, happens to be in the neighborhood and in need of a place to stay.

When Jules first meets the handsome artist Kirin, she’s still mourning her husband’s death, but a fairytale romance soon sweeps her off her feet. Now she and her daughter Scout are moving out of the city and into Kirin’s once-lonely mansion. He’s thoughtfully updated and adapted the home to match their personalities. But Scout is determined to keep her father’s memory alive by rejecting the new life her mother and Kirin have spun for her.

Orphaned at age ten by a violent home invasion, Susannah Faulkner grew up wild, her stubbornness the only thing harder than her heart. Since then, she’s used her skills to put a boot in the faces of those who deserve it. Then she gets word her brother Ethan needs her help, so she returns home to Atlanta. But in the airport, she finds her Uncle Gavin suffering a heart attack. Before he is rushed to the hospital, Gavin whispers a single word to Suzie: peaches. She’s determined to uncover the meaning behind the cryptic message, but Ethan is also deep in trouble.

Rosie and Laura are as different as two sisters can be. One is stable and has the perfect family. The other struggles to break free from her troubled past. When Laura disappears after going on a blind date, Rosie takes matters into her own hands. But as Rosie begins to search for her sister, her greatest fears come to the surface. Could Laura be more of a danger than the stranger she meets, or is the night before her last night alive?

It’s 2011 and Deecie Jeffries’s missing person’s case in Austin, Texas, is still cold. New mom Bee, struggling with postpartum depression, is living in Portland, Maine, having left Austin–and those memories–far behind. Until Leo, her childhood crush and her estranged twin Gus’s best friend, suddenly resurfaces, drawing Bee back into their shared past. Bee’s predictable life is upended, pushing her to return to her childhood home and piece together a neighborhood’s shattered history.

For as long as she could remember, Susannah Faulkner knew that even though she lived a dangerous and violent life, she would try her best to do some good in the world. She’s hunted down evil men before, but the one man that puts fear into her heart, the one man who could destroy everything she loves, is the one man she cannot track down. And worst of all, she doesn’t know what will happen when she finds him...or if he finds her first.

When Josh’s longtime partner, Grace, dies in a tragic accident, he is left with a mess of grief - and full custody of her seven-year-old son, Logan. Wanting to do right by Logan, Josh begins the process of becoming his legal guardian - something that seems suddenly urgent, though Grace always brushed it off as an unnecessary formality. But now, as Josh struggles to find the paperwork associated with Logan’s birth, he begins to wonder whether there were more troubling reasons for Grace’s reluctance to make their family official.

It’s twenty years since my teenage brother was murdered and my mother took her own life with a broken heart. I buried myself in writing to numb the pain, but when the police knock at my door and tell me my brother’s killer has just been found murdered, my heart stops dead: the killer had letters from my mother written just days before she died. My mother believed someone else was there that night. As the police search my home, my head races with a million questions. Did my mother really kill herself, or did someone get to her before she could find out the truth?

Sally Proulx and her young boy have mysteriously disappeared in the stormy town of High River. Clare is hired to track them down, hoping against all odds to find them alive. But High River isn’t your typical town. It’s a place where women run to—women who want to escape their past. They run to Helen Haines, a matriarch who offers them safe haven and anonymity. Pretending to be Sally’s long-lost friend, Clare turns up and starts asking questions, but nothing prepares her for the swirl of deception and the depth of the lies.