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I grew up in a confusing, chaotic household, and magic was always an escape for me. Books were my place to dream about other worlds and bigger choices. Stories of forgotten, invisible, or odd people who found their way to each other, found courage and talents they didn’t know they had, and then banded together to fight some larger foe even though they were scared. Was it possible that dragons and witches and gnomes were real and very clever at hiding in plain sight? What if I had hidden talents and courage and could draw on them with others just like me?
I’m a big fan of a story with quirky details that really add to getting to know the characters. It's even better when magic is thrown in the background in a way that makes it seem ordinary and acceptable—not strange at all.
This story does all of that and then some by taking outcasts and explaining their stories one by one while weaving them all together into one quiet redemption.
Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.
When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not…
As an author, it’s all about character for me. I like to find characters doing the unexpected, finding strength when they thought all was lost, and fighting back when it seems hopeless. I write these kinds of characters, and often it’s a woman in the lead role where they face additional challenges and obstacles in their path—solely because of their gender. Working for 29 years in some of the toughest prisons in the country, I worked with strong, kickass women. I can't but help for some of their influence to bleed out on the page. I know you’ll enjoy these titles as much as I did.
Secrets always intrigue me. Shana Merchant has secrets, and she’s spent years running from them. Shana’s past writhes around her like a poisonous vine. She can’t break free from it, and if she’s not careful, it will suffocate everything around her.
The first book in this series establishes Shana as a smart, once-successful big-city cop, but this isn’t a simple redemption story. I found Shana’s path over the course of this series insightful as she tries to overcome PTSD after being held by a serial killer—not just any serial killer. The connection between the two blew me away and it threads through the series.
Fantastic characters, immersive settings, and tight plots drew me into this series, and I’m waiting for more.
A storm-struck island. A blood-soaked bed. A missing man. In this captivating mystery that's perfect for fans of Knives Out, Senior Investigator Shana Merchant discovers that murder is a family affair.
Thirteen months ago, former NYPD detective Shana Merchant barely survived being abducted by a serial killer. Now hoping to leave grisly murder cases behind, she's taken a job in her fiancé's sleepy hometown in the Thousand Islands region of Upstate New York.
But as a nor'easter bears down on her new territory, Shana and fellow investigator Tim Wellington receive a call about a man missing on a private island.…
My first books were set in and around San Francisco, an area I knew well and with plenty of opportunities for crime stories. When we moved to Montana twenty years ago, people asked when I’d write one there. I resisted setting dark stories in my own city, where my kids were growing up. Reading about the Bakken Oil Formation in North Dakota, a boom of wealth and expansion and a subsequent bust, offered a perfect storm—the kind that drives desperation, where locals conflict with newcomers, where money—new and old—drives people to make bad decisions. After a visit to the area, the fictional town of Hagen, North Dakota, and the Badlands Thriller Series was born.
In Black Harbor, Wisconsin’s most crime-ridden city, Morrissey has created a town that is a villain all on its own. A place no one wants to live. Hazel Greenlee has no choice.
An aspiring writer, Hazel is trapped in a less-than-perfect marriage and takes the only job she can find—as a police transcriber. But when her neighbor confesses to hiding the body of an overdose victim in a dumpster, Hazel sees the potential for a story that might help her break out of the frozen hell of Black Harbor.
Morrissey builds Hazel’s desperation, and the desperation of the town itself, with mounting tension so well drawn you can actually feel it in your bones and an ending so intense it leaves you breathless.
Every night, while the street lamps shed the only light on Wisconsin's most crime-ridden city, police transcriber Hazel Greenlee listens as detectives divulge Black Harbor's gruesome secrets. As an aspiring writer, Hazel believes that writing a novel could be her only ticket out of this frozen hellscape. And then her neighbor confesses to hiding the body of an overdose victim in a dumpster.
The suspicious death is linked to Candy Man, a notorious drug dealer. Now Hazel has a first row seat to the investigation and becomes captivated by the lead detective, Nikolai Kole. Intrigued by the prospects of gathering…
I grew up in the interior of British Columbia, hours from the water, but my father loved the ocean. Every summer we’d take a vacation on the coast and sometimes we’d take the ferry to Vancouver Island. Oh, how I loved those ferry rides! The wind, the smell of the sea, the waves, the smaller islands we passed. When the idea came to me to setImprobably Yourson my very own fictional island, I was over the moon! My resident Viking and I took a research trip to the San Juans to help me in my creation of Vinland, and I was utterly charmed and delighted by island life.
I adore the wild, untamed island where this novel is set and the way the spirits of earth and water and forest make themselves known in eerie ways. Plus there’s the mysterious old house, Metsan Valo, the enigmatic caretaker, and his wife and the questions raised as to who (or what!) exactly they were. I’m also a total sucker for stories about characters who are faced with the challenge of accepting gifts and powers they didn’t know they had and aren’t sure they want to wield, so I was rooting for Anni. Plus there’s mystery and family drama and a touch of romance...so basically everything I love in a book is represented here.
The spirits of Nordic folklore come calling in this entrancing tale of family secrets and ancient mysteries by the #1 Amazon Charts bestselling author of The Haunting of Brynn Wilder.
In Metsan Valo, her family home on Lake Superior, Anni Halla's beloved grandmother has died. Among her fond memories, what Anni remembers most vividly is her grandmother's eerie yet enchanting storytelling. By firelight she spun tall tales of spirits in the nearby forest and waters who could heal-or harm-on a whim. But of course those were only stories...
The reading of the will now occasions a family reunion. Anni and…
I grew up in the interior of British Columbia, hours from the water, but my father loved the ocean. Every summer we’d take a vacation on the coast and sometimes we’d take the ferry to Vancouver Island. Oh, how I loved those ferry rides! The wind, the smell of the sea, the waves, the smaller islands we passed. When the idea came to me to setImprobably Yourson my very own fictional island, I was over the moon! My resident Viking and I took a research trip to the San Juans to help me in my creation of Vinland, and I was utterly charmed and delighted by island life.
This is such a gorgeous and immersive book. Emmeline’s love for both her father and the remote island they live on called up for me my adoration of my own father and the farm of my childhood. But what’s particularly glorious about this book is the way the author explores the way fragrance has the power to call up memories—and turns it into magic. The Scent Keeper has all the other essential elements of books that I love as well—beautiful writing, a touch of romance, flawed characters growing into themselves and a deeper understanding of the world, and, of course, a good mystery to solve.
Emmeline lives an enchanted childhood on a remote island with her father, who teaches her about the natural world through her senses. What he won't explain are the mysterious scents stored in the drawers that line the walls of their cabin, or the origin of the machine that creates them. As Emmeline grows, however, so too does her curiosity, until one day the unforeseen happens, and Emmeline is vaulted out into the real world - a place of love, betrayal, ambition, and revenge. To understand her past, Emmeline must unlock the clues to her identity, a quest that challenges the…
I grew up in the interior of British Columbia, hours from the water, but my father loved the ocean. Every summer we’d take a vacation on the coast and sometimes we’d take the ferry to Vancouver Island. Oh, how I loved those ferry rides! The wind, the smell of the sea, the waves, the smaller islands we passed. When the idea came to me to setImprobably Yourson my very own fictional island, I was over the moon! My resident Viking and I took a research trip to the San Juans to help me in my creation of Vinland, and I was utterly charmed and delighted by island life.
“Something was wrong. Bad wrong.” The book begins with a prologue that sets up the plight of two small girls, abandoned by their mother, and it immediately tugged at my heartstrings. I’m not always a dual timeline fan, but I love the way Davis weaves two stories together into this novel, that of present-day Lily, who has just inherited a beach house on Hideaway Key from her recently deceased father, and the tragic history of her aunt Lily Mae, told through a series of journal entries. I love (of course!) the mystery element in this book.
Due to a rift between her mother and her aunt, Lily knows absolutely nothing about her aunt Lily May. When she finds Lily May’s journal in the beach house she begins to uncover the long-kept secrets between her aunt, her mother, and her father—a tale of star-crossed lovers, sibling rivalry, and the…
From the author of The Wishing Tide comes a stunning new novel about two summers, one journal, and the secrets that can break and open our hearts....
Pragmatic, independent Lily St. Claire has never been a beachgoer. But when her late father leaves her a small house on Hideaway Key—one neither her mother nor she knew he owned—she’s determined to visit the sleepy spit of land along Florida’s Gulf Coast. Expecting a quaint cottage, Lily instead finds a bungalow with peeling shutters and mountains of memorabilia. She also catches a glimpse of the architect who lives down the beach….
Looking back, I was surprised at the things I'd done and the distance I'd traveled from my lower-middle-class upbringing in an industrial town. Destined for a life on the hot beds at the steel mill, I worked my way through college, found a job as a cub copywriter, learned documentary filmmaking, won an EMMY Award, moved to Hollywood, and started my 'sho biz' career.
It's not that thrillers need updating, but if you think they did, the novel PINES will fulfill your darkest wishes. This modern-day thriller took off like an irresistibly good bad dream and kept me shivering with page-turning anticipation all the way to the end.
I liked the clean storytelling–action-packed yet full of questions about what’s coming next.
The one-million copy bestseller that inspired the Fox TV show.
Secret service agent Ethan Burke arrives in Wayward Pines, Idaho, with a clear mission: locate and recover two federal agents who went missing in the bucolic town one month earlier. But within minutes of his arrival, Ethan is involved in a violent accident. He comes to in a hospital, with no ID, no cell phone, and no briefcase. The medical staff seems friendly enough, but something feels...off. As the days pass, Ethan's investigation into the disappearance of his colleagues turns up more questions than answers. Why can't he get any…
My first books were set in and around San Francisco, an area I knew well and with plenty of opportunities for crime stories. When we moved to Montana twenty years ago, people asked when I’d write one there. I resisted setting dark stories in my own city, where my kids were growing up. Reading about the Bakken Oil Formation in North Dakota, a boom of wealth and expansion and a subsequent bust, offered a perfect storm—the kind that drives desperation, where locals conflict with newcomers, where money—new and old—drives people to make bad decisions. After a visit to the area, the fictional town of Hagen, North Dakota, and the Badlands Thriller Series was born.
Unspeakable Things is based on a true crime from Jess Lourey’s own small, Minnesota hometown.
Set in the 1980s, Cassie McDowell’s life on a farm with her sister and parents looks like a perfect childhood. She loves school, has a crush on the nicest boy… But when local boys start to go missing and the haunting crimes become a pall over this idyllic childhood and the more Cassie learns about what is happening, the more she realizes that the monster she feared under the bed may be real.
The point of view of 13-year-old Cassie draws you back to the age when we make that subtle but permanent shift from childhood into the brutal reality of the adult world. Fraught and tense, this is the kind of story that stayed with me long after I read the final page.
Inspired by a terrifying true story from the author's hometown, a heart-pounding novel of suspense about a small Minnesota community where nothing is as quiet-or as safe-as it seems.
Cassie McDowell's life in 1980s Minnesota seems perfectly wholesome. She lives on a farm, loves school, and has a crush on the nicest boy in class. Yes, there are her parents' strange parties and their parade of deviant guests, but she's grown accustomed to them.
All that changes when someone comes hunting in Lilydale.
One by one, local boys go missing. One by one, they return changed-violent, moody, and withdrawn. What…
As a professional counselor by trade, I’m fascinated by the machinations of the human mind, what drives us, and how our primeval urges can overcome our learned and acceptable behaviors. Accordingly, I enjoy both reading and writing books that expose and explore the dark side of our psyche and the dichotomy of human nature. I particularly appreciate stories that balance evil with redemption, rescue, or retribution.
What a deeply atmospheric, evocative read! I’d been meaning to dive into a Jane Harper novel for some time, and I’m so pleased this is where I chose to start. I’ve done what we Aussies call ‘The Big Lap’ a couple of times, touring around the coast of Australia, then up through the arid center, before exploring the remote reaches of Western Australia.
This book brings the vastness of this landscape to life so perfectly without overstating or overdramatizing it. This character-driven novel is compelling, leaving me with a sense of being intimately acquainted with the families living on the isolated properties … and of their fear, knowing a murderer may be in their midst.
Two brothers meet in the remote Australian outback when the third brother is found dead, in this stunning new standalone novel from Jane Harper
Brothers Nathan and Bub Bright meet for the first time in months at the remote fence line separating their cattle ranches in the lonely outback.
Their third brother, Cameron, lies dead at their feet.
In an isolated belt of Australia, their homes a three-hour drive apart, the brothers were one another’s nearest neighbors. Cameron was the middle child, the one who ran the family homestead. But something made him head out…
Female warriors add more depth to the action/thriller genre and make any character infinitely more interesting. I’ve read and watched enough Jacks, Johns, and Jakes to last a lifetime and I want some Janes in my reading life. I’ve been an avid reader for more than 40 years and always felt that there was a blank space when it comes to female protagonists. Many of my favorite female characters were relegated to supporting roles including some on my list, but when I find a great female character I end up reading her again and again. And if you haven’t seen it yet, watch Lioness on Amazon, it will leave you breathless!
When it comes to Constance Greene, I hardly know where to begin.
She’s certainly the oldest and most deadly character in fiction writing today. I say she’s the oldest because she’s trapped in the body of a thirty-something-year-old woman even though she was born in 1873, long story.
She appears as a supporting character in multiple novels, as the love interest of Detective Aloysius Pendergast, but she is so much more than that. She’s eloquent, brilliant, and does not succumb to emotional distress under any threat of death.
In Blue Labyrinth, eight highly trained mercenaries pursue her and none of them live to tell the tale. At her most ruthless, she can kill with any tool at her disposal and she is loyal to the man she loves.
When a longtime enemy shows up dead on Pendergast's doorstep, the murder investigation leads him into his own dark past as a vengeful killer waits in the shadows.
It begins with murder. One of Pendergast's most implacable, most feared enemies is found on his doorstep, dead. Pendergast has no idea who is responsible for the killing, or why the body was brought to his home. The mystery has all the hallmarks of the perfect crime, save for an enigmatic clue: a piece of turquoise lodged in the stomach of the deceased.
