Family Suspense

Pay close attention, and you might solve this. On Monday afternoon five students at Bayview High walk into detention. Bronwyn, the brain, is Yale-bound and never breaks a rule. Addy, the beauty, is the picture-perfect homecoming princess. Nate, the criminal, is already on probation for dealing. Cooper, the athlete, is the all-star baseball pitcher. And Simon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High's notorious gossip app. Only Simon never makes it out of that classroom. Before the end of detention, Simon's dead.

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....

Nine people gather at a remote health resort. Some are here to lose weight, some are here to get a reboot on life, some are here for reasons they can’t even admit to themselves. Amidst all of the luxury and pampering, the mindfulness and meditation, they know these ten days might involve some real work. But none of them could imagine just how challenging the next ten days are going to be.

Zoe Morgan's childhood was marked by her younger sister's tragic illness, watching as her parents dedicated themselves completely to her final days, and then later divorced. As a young woman, driven by these painful memories, Zoe set the bar high for herself, studying hard and pursuing a career in the nonprofit world, where her deep compassion towards disadvantaged children finds a focus.

Imagine that you live on a picturesque communal garden square, an oasis in urban London where your children run free, in and out of other people's houses. You've known your neighbors for years and you trust them. Implicitly. You think your children are safe. But are they really? On a midsummer night, as a festive neighborhood party is taking place, preteen Pip discovers her 13-year-old sister Grace lying unconscious and bloody in a hidden corner of a lush rose garden. What really happened to her?

Rare-book dealer Ashlyn Greer’s affinity for books extends beyond the intoxicating scent of old paper, ink, and leather. She can feel the echoes of the books’ previous owners—an emotional fingerprint only she can read. When Ashlyn discovers a pair of beautifully bound volumes that appear to have never been published, her gift quickly becomes an obsession. Not only is each inscribed with a startling incrimination, but the authors, Hemi and Belle, tell conflicting sides of a tragic romance.

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.

City girl Calla Fletcher attempts to reconnect with her estranged father, and unwittingly finds herself torn between her desire to return to the bustle of Toronto and a budding relationship with a rugged Alaskan pilot in this masterful new romance from acclaimed author K.A. Tucker.

I had everything I ever wanted - a wife, a kid, with two more on the way. I was living the American dream. After the babies were born, we hit a rough patch. I did everything to prove my love, to show Suzy that nothing was more important than her. After some work and a lot of time, we found our groove again. Just when life had evened out, a familiar enemy came back to haunt us. It wasn't my past that followed us, but my brother's. When the danger gets too close, I'll do anything to defend my family.

New Mark Twain! This previously unpublished Twain piece was written 125 years ago, composed in 1876 as a "blind novelette" that Twain planned to launch as a competition for other great writers of the day. The competition never took place, and the story was thought by many to have been lost. This rediscovered gem, with a new introduction and afterword by Roy Blount, Jr., and brilliantly read by Blount and Garrison Keillor, allows us, once again, to celebrate the literary genius of Mark Twain.

Vegas Duncan's release from prison is right on time for his older brother Junior's engagement to the voluptuous Sonya Brown. Unfortunately Junior's attempt at happiness comes to a screeching halt when Sonya's husband, the mysterious Brother X, and his army of Muslim hit men declare war on the Duncan clan. Duncan family patriarch LC Duncan has gone up against many foes in his time.

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.

Now in a convenient bundle, here are the second three novels in Jill Ramsower’s captivating Five Families Series. Three sisters. Three incomparable men. Three full-length novels about love in a dangerous mafia world of lies, schemes, and betrayal.

William Warwick has always wanted to be a detective, and decides, much to his father’s dismay, that rather than become a lawyer like his father, Sir Julian Warwick QC, and his sister, Grace, he will join London’s Metropolitan Police Force. After graduating from university, William begins a career that will define his life: from his early months on the beat under the watchful eye of his first mentor, Constable Fred Yates, to his first high-stakes case as a fledgling detective in Scotland Yard’s arts and antiquities squad.

Milly, Aubrey, and Jonah Story are cousins, but they barely know each another, and they've never even met their grandmother. Rich and reclusive, she disinherited their parents before they were born. So when they each receive a letter inviting them to work at her island resort for the summer, they're surprised...and curious.

The white-washed Italian villa is perfect. I thought it might feel odd, living in a stranger’s house for the summer, but as my husband and children swim in the infinity pool, I start to relax. And then, in the back of a wardrobe, I find something that shatters everything.... Sparkling green eyes, square jaw, lopsided smile. A young man with his arm around a beautiful woman. The picture is old and faded, but I’d recognize him anywhere. The man is my husband.

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in "The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas". As her family lay dying, little Libby fled their tiny farmhouse into the freezing January snow. She lost some fingers and toes, but she survived, and famously testified that her 15-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, Ben sits in prison, and troubled Libby lives off the dregs of a trust created by well-wishers who've long forgotten her.

Travel back to a small Southern town where, before there was Duncan Motors, there were the Duncan brothers: Louis, aka Sweet Lou, a lover of ladies and life and a man you did not want to cross; Lawrence, aka Larry, a screw-up as attracted to trouble as it was to him; and Lavernius, better known as LC, the soft-spoken college boy who simply wanted to sell cars.

Christopher and Hannah are a happily married surgeon and nurse with picture-perfect lives. All that’s missing is a child. When Janie, an abandoned six-year-old, turns up at their hospital, Christopher forms an instant connection with her, and he convinces Hannah they should take her home as their own.

Camille Prescott has it all. A doting husband, two children, a charming home in a seaside enclave, and a beautiful, fixed smile that exudes normalcy. But behind her polished mask lurks a much different Camille—one with a padlocked vault of secrets. Raised by a vindictive and psychotic woman, Camille has gone to great lengths to bury her past and for good reason: if her mother ever finds her, she will kill her.