Family Life Thriller

When Janie first realized she was the missing child on the milk carton, her whole world fell apart. At first, she wondered if the parents she loved so much had actually kidnapped her, but it turns out that they were only trying to protect her. Now that the mystery of Janie's kidnapping has been unraveled, she is caught on the horns of a huge dilemma.

When 15-year-old Margot and her three sisters arrive at Applecote Manor in June 1959, they expect a quiet English country summer. Instead they find their aunt and uncle still reeling from the disappearance of their daughter, Audrey, five years before. As the sisters become divided by new tensions when two handsome neighbors drop by, Margot finds herself drawn into the life Audrey left behind. When the summer takes a deadly turn, the girls must unite behind an unthinkable choice or find themselves torn apart forever.

Mara Dyer once believed she could run from her past. She can’t. She used to think her problems were all in her head. They aren’t. She couldn’t imagine that after everything she’s been through, the boy she loves would still be keeping secrets. She’s wrong.

In Victorian England, orphan Mary Quinn lives on the edge. Sentenced as a thief at the age of 12, she’s rescued from the gallows by a woman posing as a prison warden. In her new home, Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls, Mary acquires a singular education, fine manners, and a surprising opportunity. The school is a cover for the Agency — an elite, top secret corps of female investigators with a reputation for results — and at 17, Mary’s about to join their ranks.

Babe is a charismatic and widely loved man, a gambler with a gift for gab that often gets him out of tricky situations. He’s also a dreamer, something he shares with his patient and loving wife, Rosie. They both yearn for financial stability and see the land they own as insurance for future generations. But when Babe and a few comrades enlist in a scheme that improbably falls apart, he endangers the little security the family has. On the verge of losing everything, what’s a family man to do? If you’re a gambler like Babe, you double down and risk it all for one big score.

When Liv and Nora decide to take their families on a holiday cruise, everyone is thrilled. The ship's comforts and possibilities seem infinite. The children - two 11-year-olds, an eight-year-old, and a six-year-old - love the nonstop buffet and the independence they have at the Kids' Club. But when they all go ashore in beautiful Central America, a series of minor misfortunes leads the families farther and farther from the ship's safety. One minute the children are there, and the next they're gone.

In a world where magic is illegal, Cassel Sharpe has the most deadly ability of all: With one touch, he can transform any object - including a person - into something else entirely. And that makes him a wanted man. The Feds are willing to forgive all his past crimes if he’ll only leave his con-artist family behind and go straight. But why does going straight feel so crooked? For one thing, it means being on the opposite side of the law from Lila, the girl he loves.

In Suzanne Palmieri's thrilling novel The Witch of Belladonna Bay, Bronwyn is forced to return home to Magnolia Creek, Alabama - a place she hasn't been since her mother, Naomi, died 14 years earlier - and the troubled family she left behind. With her brother Patrick behind bars for the murder of her childhood friend and her eccentric father, Jackson, at wit's end with her 11-year-old niece, Byrd, Bronwyn finds herself back at her childhood home, the Big House, and surrounded by ancient Magnolia trees dripping with Spanish moss.

What do an ex-con, a former drug addict, a real estate broker, a college student and a married mother of two have in common? Nothing, or so I thought. Who would have imagined that God would make a prayer group as mismatched as ours the closest of friends? I almost didn’t even go to the Chicago Women’s Conference—after all, being thrown together with five hundred strangers wasn’t exactly my “comfort zone.” But something happened that weekend to make us realize we had to hang together, and the "Yada Yada Prayer Group” was born!

FOR PAULA, ACCOMPANYING her merchant father on a trading voyage to Istanbul is a dream come true. They have come to this city of trade on a special mission to purchase a most rare artifact—a gift from the ancient goddess, Cybele, to her followers. It’s the only remnant of a lost, pagan cult. But no sooner have they arrived when it becomes clear they may be playing at a dangerous game.

After a night of fun back in 1992, Abby is responsible for a car crash that kills her beloved brother. It's a mistake she can never forgive, so she pushes away Liam, the man she loves most, knowing that he would eventually hate her for what she's done, the same way she hates herself. Twenty years later, Abby's husband, Nate, is also living with a deep sense of guilt. He was the driver who first came upon the scene of Abby's accident, the man who could not save her brother in time. It's this guilt, this regret, that binds them together. Then, Liam moves into the neighborhood....

Maggie Olsen had a pretty ordinary childhood - swimming and sleepovers, movie nights and dad jokes. But then there were the other things...the darker things...the shadow that followed her home from the cemetery and settled into the corners of her home, refusing to let her grow up in peace. Now, after three years of being away from the place she's convinced she inadvertently haunted, and after yet another family tragedy strikes, Maggie is forced to return to the sweltering heat of a Savannah summer to come to terms with her past.

Summer, 1979: A dry, hot Northern California school vacation stretches before Rachel and her younger sister, Patty - the daughters of a larger-than-life, irresistibly handsome (and chronically unfaithful) detective father and the mother whose heart he broke. When we first meet her, Patty is 11 - a gangly kid who loves basketball and dogs and would do anything for her older sister, Rachel.

Amy learned a lot in her babysitting course - but not what to do if two thugs show up, intent on kidnapping. When Amy agreed to babysit little Kendra Edgerton, she had no idea she was stepping into a kidnapping plot. Armed with misinformation and a weapon, the two men force the girls out of the house and take them to a remote cabin in the woods. There they make videos of the girls and mail them to Kendra’s wealthy parents in an effort to get ransom money.

Annie Doyle's husband, Vince, is in a care home with final-stage dementia. And after decades of deeply unhappy marriage, Annie can barely bring herself to care. But as the family gathers to see out Vince's final days, he utters a single word that will change the entire family forever: 'Martha'. Who is Martha? And why is Annie so quick to dismiss the mention of her name?

Carly: She was sweet. Smart. Self-destructive. She knew the secrets of Brighton Day School's most privileged students. Secrets that got her killed. Neily: Dumped by Carly for a notorious bad boy, Neily didnt answer the phone call she made before she died. Now he can't get the image of her lifeless body out of his mind. Audrey: Shes the reason Carly got tangled up with Brighton's fast crowd, and now she regrets it—especially since she's convinced the police have put the wrong person in jail.

In this 13th mystery, Sammy is entering eighth grade with more than the usual angst - add to it being a bridesmaid in Officer Borsch's wedding, dealing with the break-up of her friend Marissa's parents, and her own mother dating the father of arch-enemy Heather. How will she be able to solve the mystery of who's making death threats against the history teacher that nobody likes (especially with her name at the top of the suspect list?) With wit, style, and spirit as usual!

How does a child become a criminal? How does a father lose a son? An epic crime novel with the excitement of Jo Nesbo's Headhunters and the narrative depth of We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Father is inspired by the extraordinary true story of three brothers who committed 10 audacious bank robberies in Sweden over the course of just two years. None had committed a crime before. All were under 24 years old. When their incredible spree had come to an end, all of them would be changed forever as individuals and as a family.

For decades, Judge Margot Burr-Nadir has worked tirelessly, case by case, to administer justice from the federal bench of the Eastern District of the United States. Her position already seems like the highest possible honor. So she is surprised when a call comes from the President of the United States inviting her to accept his nomination to the Supreme Court. For Margot, this should be among the brightest spots of an already charmed existence. But the call comes on a family trip to visit their oldest daughter, Story, who has vanished as if spirited away in the middle of the night.

It’s been 20 years since Neve’s best friend Chloe went missing. Neve has never recovered and promised herself she’d never go back to that place. But secrets can come back to haunt you. When Neve receives news that her first boyfriend, Jamie, has gone missing, she’s forced to return. Jamie has vanished without a trace in a disappearance that echoes the events of all those years ago. Somebody is watching and will stop at nothing until the truth about what took place that night is revealed....