Psychological Twists

This is not the happy family you think. The fire crackles, my son smiles, the man jokes whilst I pour drinks. But my husband has disappeared. The man is a stranger. My skin crawls every time he brushes my hand. He says if I don’t play along, he has photos that will destroy my family. What happened the night before my husband disappeared - the night I don’t remember?

The invitation to her school reunion couldn’t have come at a better time for Chloe Flynn. Divorced, broke and bored at work, she’s living a life her teenage self would hate. Turning the clock back fifteen years might be just what she needs to wipe the slate clean and start again. And then there’s the chance she’ll bump into Nathan Blake, the one she still regrets letting get away…

One honeymoon resort. Two couples. Everyone has something to hide. On the surface their lives seem perfect. Beauty, money, love. They have it all. Tansy and Daniel. Nikki and Arne. Two newlywed couples enjoying their enviable honeymoons at the same luxurious resort. But behind the filtered photos and fake smiles is the truth.

When private investigator Matthew Hill picks up the call from his wife, Sally, his world comes crashing down. Their eight-year-old daughter, Amelie, is missing. One second, she was there, the next, she was gone. It’s the very nightmare they’ve been dreading. Long ago, Matthew left the force after a woman blamed him for her son’s death, promising that he too would one day feel her pain. It’s a threat that’s hung over his family ever since, and now it’s Amelie’s picture on the news.

Our new home was supposed to be a chance to leave our past behind. But was moving here the worst mistake of our lives? All our friends and family were gathered, glasses raised to toast our fresh start. It should have been a night for happiness and celebration. Zac and I had worked so hard for this: our first home together, just minutes from the sea. But the dream quickly turned into a nightmare.

She told me she was the housekeeper, and who was I to question? Our stay in this perfectly renovated Victorian house on the rich side of Hastings was a favour from an old school friend while the fire damage to our own little place was being fixed. This is not my house, and they are not my rules. So I step aside, and I let her in. Am I paranoid to think that she’s watching my every move? What am I supposed to do when she rests her head on my husband’s broad shoulder, a glint in her eye that only I can see?

It was supposed to be the happiest time of their lives. But for newlywed Stella, the dream honeymoon has turned into a nightmare overnight. Her perfect husband, Austin, has vanished without a trace. Alone in Venice, Stella frantically searches for him. But as fear turns into confusion, she finds herself questioning everything she knows about the man she married. Has Austin really abandoned her, or has someone from his past finally caught up with him—the business partner he threatened to sue? The obsessive ex-girlfriend who refuses to let go?

Alice and Seth are a perfect love story: the handsome doctor and his beautiful fiancée. They’re wealthy, well liked and made for each other—the envy of all their friends. Alice can’t wait for the day of their dream wedding. But when she arrives at the altar, she doesn’t recognise the man waiting to marry her. When this stranger insists he’s Seth, her husband-to-be, the entire congregation seems to agree. Even her parents try to persuade Alice to go through with the wedding.

A great writer knows when to deliver a juicy plot twist. But for one author, the biggest twist of all is her own murder. With twenty hit titles, and a highly anticipated movie tie-in, celebrated novelist Columbia Jones is at the top of her game. Fans around the world adore her. But on the final night of her latest book tour, one face in the crowd makes the author collapse. And by the next morning, she’s lying dead in a pool of blood.

Tucking her little boy Ollie into bed one night, Sarah notices his beloved teddy bear, which she bought him when he was born, is missing and in its place is a new toy given to him by her ex-husband’s new girlfriend, Laura. When she asks Ollie about it, he begins to shift uncomfortably before whispering, "Laura told me a big secret, and she said I can never tell you." Soon, Ollie is asking to spend more time with his dad and Laura, and shrinking away from Sarah. Then, when she calls to him in the garden one day, Ollie doesn’t answer back.

TJ Devlin is the charming disappointment in the prominent Devlin family, all of whom are lawyers at their highly successful firm—except him. After a stint in prison and rehab for alcoholism, TJ can’t get hired anywhere except at the firm, in a make-work job with the title of investigator. But one night, TJ’s world turns upside down after his older brother John confesses that he murdered one of their clients, an accountant he’d confronted with proof of embezzlement. It seems impossible coming from John, the firstborn son and Most Valuable Devlin.

I am cooking spaghetti, his favourite, while he plays in the garden. But when I look up, he’s gone. I call the police, my hands shaking so much that I hit the wrong digits twice. "My son is missing." When the police turn up, I’m trapped in the web of my lies. I have hidden the truth from eight-year-old Riley, my little boy who loves climbing trees and always has scraped knees. I have hidden my secret from everyone.

You're not who you say you are. Neither is she. She thinks she knows me. She believes my marriage is falling apart at the seams, that my husband can barely look me in the eyes. She thinks I’m desperate for a baby, that my longing for a family keeps me up at night. As much as I hate to admit it, all of this is true. She thinks I listen to her advice, that I care about her opinion. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Because she has no idea who I am. She has no clue that I know everything. I know her secret. I know that she did the unforgivable. I know how many lives she ruined.

I nearly threw the letter about the inheritance away with the recycling. Late for work, worrying about how I would afford new school shoes for Kate, I just assumed it was a mistake. But perhaps moving to a new home in a quiet seaside town would be the fresh start we both need. Away from the school bullies making Kate’s life a misery, and out of the clutches of my dangerous ex.

I’ve worked so hard to be the lawyer I am today. Helping as many women as I can—including my sister—escape toxic marriages makes it all worth it. But as I stand in the courtroom, listening to this poor woman break down sobbing, my stomach twists. I can’t look. Her husband says she can’t be trusted. Her child is about to be taken away from her. And it’s all my fault.

As a girl, Joanna Chase thrived on Rustling Willows Ranch in Montana until tragedy upended her life. Now thirty-four and living in Santa Fe with only misty memories of the past, she begins to receive pleas—by phone, through her TV, in her dreams: I am in a dark place, Jojo. Please come and help me. Heeding the disturbing appeals, Joanna is compelled to return to Montana, and to a strange childhood companion she had long forgotten.

It’s 5 November, and a woman awakens to a nightmare. Bound and gagged, she lies trapped in the heart of a towering bonfire. As the smoke thickens, panic sets in – she’s moments away from being engulfed in flames. How did it come to this? Rewind eleven months: Margot, a faded TV star, and her long-suffering friend Anna watch as glamorous Liv and her flawless family move into their street. The three women soon fabricate the perfect pretence of friendship, but each harbours her own deadly secret – and newcomer Liv senses something is terribly wrong beneath the polished exteriors.

One hot summer night, 15-year-old Olivia comes home late from a party she was strictly forbidden from going to, and she and her mother, Hannah, start arguing. Soon Olivia speaks the words that every parent has heard from their teenage child.

I wrap my arms around the tree trunk, pressing my cheek against it until the bark digs in and the missing poster is finally secured. I try not to look at the photograph on it. At the features so similar to mine. Perhaps this will be the year someone comes forward. Were crucial mistakes made by detectives from the very beginning? Could the pressure of living two lives have led my sister to run away - or even end it? Or did someone in her tight circle of friends and family have reason to want her gone? Someone out there must know something.

Afton Teachout has been an outcast in her small town for twenty years—ever since she was accused of murdering her mother’s lover in a blackout fit of rage. That is, if one believes the malicious lies. Living with her grandmother, working a hotel night shift, and relying on pills to get a day’s sleep, Afton is due a little luck. It comes in the form of an unexpected financial windfall. With her newfound wealth, Afton sets a secret plan in motion to help her only friend, Sydney, flee a toxic husband. But the best intentions soon spin out of control.