Southern Fiction Thrillers

In the pre-Katrina glow of New Orleans, Amanda Salassi is anxious about chaperoning her daughter's sixth-grade field trip to the Big Easy during Halloween. And then her worst fears come true. Her daughter's best friend, Sarah, disappears amid the magic and revelry - gone, without a trace. Unable to cope with her guilt, Amanda's daughter sinks into depression. And Amanda's husband turns destructive as he watches his family succumb to grief. Before long, Amanda's whole world has collapsed.

In Miss Julia Hits the Road, she is becoming increasingly concerned about her gentleman friend, Sam, who has suddenly started wearing cowboy boots, sending her flowers, and writing bad poetry. And when he shows up on a Harley-Davidson Road King and asks her to hop on, she's convinced he's lost his mind. Meanwhile, her invaluable housekeeper, Lillian, has been evicted from her home by her greedy landlord. Deciding that Lillian's need is greater than her own fear (not to mention loss of dignity), Miss Julia takes Sam up on his offer and sets off on a motorcycle Poker Run.

Life has been difficult lately for Somerton County Deputy Sheriff John Lee Quarrels. He's on the trail of a sexual predator, his love life is in turmoil, his soon-to-be ex-wife just served him with divorce papers, someone has stolen his police car and is using its radio to broadcast offensive jokes, a 350-pound redneck named Baby Bubba just tried to brain him with a shovel, and all of that happened before John Lee shot the dead guy.

Benjamin Church came to the Grange Hall expecting to meet someone else, but then the girl in the red dress looked across the dance floor and smiled.... Passing Through Perfect is a heart-wrenching Southern family saga that starts on the night Benjamin falls madly in love with Delia. Once he tastes the sweetness of her kiss, he envisions them spending the rest of their life together. He doesn't stop to consider that her daddy is a learned Pastor, and her mama a woman with a college degree; he knows only that she sets his heart to racing.

Hay novelas imposibles de dejar una vez que has comenzado, historias que llevan el suspense a su estado máximo y hacen dudar al lector cada vez que termina un capítulo. En este thriller absolutamente original y adictivo, Mario Escobar rompe los límites de la intriga psicológica con un relato que explora las frágiles fronteras entre la verdad y la mentira.

Maxine Bloom has always wanted to try her hand at acting, and when Loretta Bebe is desperate for someone to fill a role in the local play she's directing for the Honey Springs Theater Company, she asks Maxi to fill in. Aunt Maxi leaps at the chance for a big theatrical debut in the charming play. When the producer of the play turns up dead, the play comes to a complete halt until Sheriff Spencer Shepard lets Loretta reopen after the crime scene is fully swept. Roxy finds that she just can't stop from trying to figure out who killed the amateur actress...after all, the show must go on!

Photographer Clare Porterfield's once-happy marriage is coming apart, unraveling under the strain of a family tragedy. When she receives an invitation to direct an exhibition in her hometown of Galveston, Texas, she jumps at the chance to escape her grief and reconnect with the island she hasn't seen for ten years. There Clare will have the time and space to search for answers about her troubled past and her family's complicated relationship with the wealthy and influential Carraday family.

Kat James enjoys a successful criminal defense practice in a small city in the South. Her Yankee upbringing is undeniable as she shares a frank, and sometimes humorous, perspective on lawyering. After she accepts a judge’s request to represent a young, black boy charged as an adult with the robbery and murder of a local state trooper’s wife in an outlying, rural jurisdiction, the trial unfolds with gripping suspense and gritty realism.

Caroline McAlister, college professor and lifelong skeptic, is reeling from the loss of her father and her marriage. Her once promising career has come to a standstill. When her father bequeaths the family cabin to her, it comes with a ghost who haunted her childhood. When she discovers a century-old journal in the attic, she awakens the voice of Carson Quinn. The journal reveals Carson's love for the same hollow that enthralled Caroline growing up. A little sleuthing uncovers rumors that the kind, curious boy in the journal grew up to murder his brother.

A group of teenagers find strange prints seared into the ground around their campsite. They follow the tracks, thinking it will lead to fun. But it doesn't. They eventually arrive at the edge of Alvaretta Graves' property - house of the legendary Riverwood Witch. When an agrument that arises turns violent, Alvaretta places a curse on them.

Fifteen-year-old Mattie Lee Watson dreams of men, not boys. So when James T. Cullowee, the Kudzu King, arrives in Cooper County, North Carolina, in 1941 to spread the gospel of kudzu—claiming that it will improve the soil, feed cattle at almost no cost, even cure headaches—Mattie is ready. Mr. Cullowee is determined to sell the entire county on the future of kudzu, and organizes a kudzu festival, complete with a beauty pageant. Mattie is determined to be crowned Kudzu Queen and capture the attentions of the Kudzu King.

Marygene Brown always figured she'd marry her childhood sweetheart, Alex Myers, not cater his wedding. But the Peach Diner could use the exposure. Most of the island is showing up - although more for the role-playing murder game at the reception than for the widely loathed bridezilla, Lucy Carmichael. Marygene may have to smile through the festivities, but Mama doesn't have to hold her peace - especially since only Marygene can hear her mother's ghost. Mama says she sees an aura of darkness around the wedding.

After their mama's passing, Marygene Brown returned to Peach Cove Island to help her sister, Jena Lynn, run the family diner, renowned for its homemade peach desserts. But Mama is never too far away - her sassy spirit haunts the island, and more specifically Marygene. Lately Mama has been warning her that the dead will seek her out to solve their murders, an idea Marygene is far from peachy keen on. But that prophecy appears to be coming true when she goes skinny-dipping off the island and swims right into a woman's charred corpse floating in the waves.

Just as Hickory Grimble hits rock bottom, he inherits his grandparents’ farm and believes his luck is changing. He soon finds he inherited more than money and land. Haunted by his own inner demons, now he has new problems. He begins to see strange creatures on the dark, sprawling acreage, animals that have no business living in middle Tennessee. Balanced on a razor's edge between, addiction and fate, Hick is now face to face with an ancient evil that has returned once more to claim more of the town's children.

Vera Boyett is a master at cracking a case. After tragedy destroyed her career as deputy police chief, she felt lost. Moving back home near her sisters, she put her skills back to use as a crime analyst, and now her star is finally back on the rise. Vera’s work really begins to heat up after the local sheriff, Gray “Bent” Benton, calls to ask her for assistance with a pressing case. Pushing aside their complicated past, Vera agrees to help Bent search for a missing reporter.

Sugar Creek Gap is a Southern small town where everyone puts their differences aside in order to come together for the greater good of the cozy, close-knit community. But when a citizen, Jeff Faulkner, goes missing from the annual Sugar Creek Gap High School fundraiser, the rumor mill starts to turn faster and faster, churning up the past. Bernadette Butler, a local mail carrier, hears all the gossip swirling around while delivering the mail on route. Bernie can't help but collect clues with all the gossip flowing faster than she can deliver the mail.

Late one night, a car burns on a lonely rural road, and the discovery of a body - charred beyond recognition - in the driver's seat sets in motion a series of deadly events. And when the wife of the supposedly deceased driver demands her husband's million-dollar life insurance payout before the autopsy can be completed, fraud investigators Julia Jackson and Mark Vincent must determine exactly how the victim died and at whose hands.

CJ Turley is excited to begin her new life as overseer of Heavenly Acres, a tiny house community in the Ozark mountains. As she's handed the keys to her new house by a woman who seems far too eager to leave the job to someone else, CJ is told the community is experiencing a rash of burglaries and that she should visit the nearby park ranger for help.

Rebecca’s boyfriend, Ezra, has gone missing, but when she notifies the police, they seem surprisingly unconcerned. They suspect he has been playing the “stranger game”, a viral hit in which players start following others in real life. As the game spreads, however, the rules begin to change, play grows more intense and disappearances are reported across the country. Curious about the game and hoping she might be able to track down Ezra, Rebecca tries the game. In playing the game, what may lead her closer to finding Ezra may take her further and further from the life she once lived.

Lila Grace Carter talks to dead people. Admittedly, that's not out of the ordinary in Lockhart, South Carolina. In her words, "I'm Southern. We all talk to dead people down here. As a matter of fact, I don't believe I can truly trust anybody that doesn't speak to at least two or three dead relations on a daily basis. The difference is, they talk back to me." Now there's a murderer on the loose in Lockhart, and Lila Grace is the only one who knows a crime was committed. Can she convince the sexy sheriff that Jenny Miller didn't fall down the steps on her own? Will she catch the killer?