Family Suspense Thrillers

Before Owen Michaels disappears, he smuggles a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers—Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother. As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, as the FBI arrests Owen’s boss, as a US marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was.

Luca was heartache waiting to happen. On the surface, he appears well-dressed and professional, but behind those impassive black irises, I can sense something dark and ruthless. He’s unlike any man I’ve come across in my life. With my wealthy upbringing, I’ve been around any number of affluent, powerful men, but Luca is different. Enigmatic. Overwhelming. He wears an air of secrecy like the latest fashion trend. I’m not one of those girls who seeks out the bad boy - I have enough issues to deal with in my life without adding his brand of trouble.

Deep in the heart of Appalachia stands a crooked farmhouse miles from any road. The Morrows keep to themselves, and it's served them well so far. When girls go missing off the side of the highway, the cops don't knock on their door. Which is a good thing, seeing what's buried in the Morrows' backyard. But 19-year-old Michael Morrow isn't like the rest of his family. He doesn't take pleasure in the screams that echo through the trees.

The Amish community of Lancaster is being terrorized by barn fires. David and Malinda Beiler's barn was the first to go. The clues are sparse, but Levi, the Beilers' oldest son, happened to be awake in the middle of the night and spotted a white vehicle driving past the house with its lights off. Sarah, David and Malinda's daughter, observes her parents' agony. Not only is she afraid and wishing she could protect her parents, she's entranced by the flirtatious Matthew Stoltzfus.

Internationally best-selling author Sophie Hannah and the world's favorite detective, Hercule Poirot, return in this follow-up to The Monogram Murders, the national best seller hailed by the Washington Post as "literary magic".

The Hartes and the Golds have been neighbors for 18 years and are very close. So when Chris and Emily's friendship reaches the next level, nobody is surprised. Then one night, the hospital calls. Seventeen-year-old Emily is dead - shot in the head by a gun Chris took from his father's cabinet. One bullet remains in the chamber, and Chris tells of his suicide pact with Emily. But the police have questions, and soon Chris is on trial for murder.

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.

After her grandmother Arlette's death, Betty is finally ready to begin her life. She had forfeited university, parties, boyfriends, summer jobs in order to care for Arlette. Now she's ready for whatever life throws at her, and, since the will included a beneficiary unknown to her who lives in the city, she heads there to find the mysterious woman. In 1920s London, Arlette is starting her new life in a time of postwar change. Beautiful and charismatic, she's drawn into a hedonistic world, but then tragedy strikes, and she flees back to her childhood home....

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.

Perla Wultz lives with her husband, Grant, and their precious daughter, Sophie, in a gated Pasadena community. Affluent, sociable, and accomplished, Perla plays the part of loving wife and mother to perfection. It seems an ideal life, if not for a decades-old crime that has become Perla’s dark and consuming secret obsession. Twenty-three years ago, Leewood Folcrum confessed to murdering two young girls during a birthday party. Though he’s been condemned to a life sentence, his crime is not forgotten.

Quinn and Graham’s perfect love is threatened by their imperfect marriage. The memories, mistakes, and secrets that they have built up over the years are now tearing them apart. The one thing that could save them might also be the very thing that pushes their marriage beyond the point of repair.

Set against the backdrop of an elegant Cornwall mansion before World War II and a vast continent-spanning canvas during the turbulent war years, this captivating story tells of an extraordinary young woman's coming of age, coming to grips with love and sadness, and in every sense of the term, coming home.... In 1935, Judith Dunbar is left behind at a British boarding school when her mother and baby sister go off to join her father in Singapore.

Jessica Tregarth goes to England to visit her grandfather; an invitation that surprises and pleases her. The only link she has with her dead father's family is an antique ring he brought with him to America. This will be a chance to learn more about who she is; it will be fun.

When Diya Burman's best friend, Angie, dies unexpectedly, it feels like her own life is falling apart. Grief costs her friends, family and even her job. But that's ok, because now she's got a new job: working at Slough & Sons, a family firm that deals in cleaning up after the recently deceased. Old love letters. Porcelain dolls. Hoarded trinkets. Clearing away the remnants of other people's lives, Diya begins to see things. Horrible things. Things that get harder and harder to write off as merely her grieving imagination.

Kate Blackwell is the symbol of success—a beautiful woman who parlayed her inheritance into an international conglomerate. Winner of a unique position among the wealthy and world-renowned, she is also a survivor as indomitable as her father, who returned from the edge of death to wrench a fortune in diamonds from the hard South African soil. As she celebrates her ninetieth birthday, Kate surveys the family she has manipulated, dominated, and loved over the decades and asks herself: Is she the master of the game?

A week at a beautiful chateau in the south of France—it should be a straightforward final job for Dora. She's a smart, stunning and discreet escort, and Daniel has paid for her services before. This time, all she has to do is to convince the assembled guests that she is his girlfriend. Dora is used to playing roles and being whatever men want her to be. It's all about putting on a front.

Christmas Eve, and the Lee family's reunion is shattered by a deafening crash of furniture and a high-pitched wailing scream. Upstairs, the tyrannical Simeon Lee lies dead in a pool of blood, his throat slashed. When Hercule Poirot offers to assist, he finds an atmosphere not of mourning but of mutual suspicion. It seems everyone had their own reason to hate the old man....

After their mother passes, three estranged siblings reunite to sort out her estate. Beth, the oldest, never left home. She stayed with her mom, caring for her until the very end. Nicole, the middle child, has been kept at arm’s length due to her ongoing battle with a serious drug addiction. Michael, the youngest, lives out of state and hasn’t been back to their small Wisconsin town since their father ran out on them seven years before.

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath. During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale. What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to?

Kate Atkinson's dazzling Life After Life explored the possibility of infinite chances, following Ursula Todd as she lived through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. Her new novel tells the story of Ursula Todd's beloved younger brother, Teddy - would-be poet, RAF bomber pilot, husband, and father - as he navigates the perils and progress of the 20th century. For all Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge is facing the difficulties of living in a future he never expected to have.