The author, Paul Doiron, a former editor of Down East Magazine and a Registered Maine Guide, has written an enjoyable series featuring a central character named Mike Bowditch, a Maine Game Warden.
Each of the novels is set in a different Maine county and in a different month of the year. His characters are very relatable; each mystery to be solved is unique.
I live vicariously exploring the nooks and crannies of my state as I tag along with Mike. In this book, he solves a hit-and-run boat murder in the Lakes region. As long as Paul keeps writing, I’ll keep buying his books.
On the evening of their engagement party, Maine Game Warden Investigator Mike Bowditch and Stacey Stevens witness what seems to be a hit-and-run speedboat crash on a darkened lake. When they arrive at the scene, their spotlight reveals a gruesome sight: a severed arm beneath the surface. As day breaks, the warden dive team recovers not one but two naked corpses: the dismembered man and the married woman with whom he was having an affair. Mike begins to suspect the swimmers' deaths were not a senseless accident but a coldly calculated murder.
As a past award-winning weekly newspaper columnist turned business owner, I eventually embraced the love of writing following an auto accident that necessitated more than eight years of rehabilitative therapy. Scripting my first novel proved more of a therapeutic undertaking and it was released in 2020 to moderate success. That experience then compelled me to learn more about the craft of being a novelist. Two years later, the original work was modified and Revised Edition Family Ties: Thicker Than Blood was launched in June of 2022.
Maddy Hart is an author who is having almost as much difficulty managing her seemingly dormant creative passion as she is in the troubling relationship from which an escape is desperately needed. Her hasty acceptance of employment as a live-in caretaker at the unappealing Lakeview House on the shore of Lake Thirlmere provides a way out of emotional turmoil but into physical danger.
Things had changed considerably on the lake, in ways that neither she nor the other residents could ever imagine. Even her uncharacteristically cordial relationship with Alfie was a might peculiar, given the fact that she’d never really taken to kids. Whereas most people viewed children as innocent, she said they frightened her.
The longer Maddy stayed, the more unsettling her accommodations became. Something about the Lake House was eerily familiar but strangely unsettling. The brisk, cool air was laden with her increasingly vague memories of a previous…
Icy water laps against the wooden jetty. But the girl doesn’t notice the cold as she slips slowly under the freezing surface…
Running from a devastating relationship that almost cost her everything, Maddy Hart impulsively accepts a job as a live-in caretaker at imposing Lakeview House. She has no memories of having visited the crumbling mansion on the banks of Lake Thirlmere before, but when she arrives, something about the house feels familiar…
The more time Maddy spends in the house, the more unsettled she feels. Why does the local story about the last woman who lived here, who drowned…
Three took me back to the intense friendships of my youth, the sharing of so many firsts. Friendships you believe will last forever. Translated from French, it’s a wonderful study of three children, all very lost in their own way.
Set from the 1990s to 2018, the novel chronicles the development and decay of the children’s friendship, and a mystery that haunts their small village for twenty years.
I enjoyed the creeping tension, the gradual revelations, and the deep study of friendship with all its wounds and warts.
From the international bestselling author of Fresh Water for Flowers, a beautifully told and suspenseful story about the ties that bind us and the choices that make us who we are.
1986: Adrien, Etienne and Nina are 10 years old when they meet at school and quickly become inseparable. They promise each other they will one day leave their provincial backwater, move to Paris, and never part.
2017: A car is dragged up from the bottom of the lake, a body inside. Virginie, a local journalist with an enigmatic past reports on the case while…
I’ve been reading YA since I was a young adult myself, and I’ve always favored stories with a strong romantic angle. As a kid, I loved The Baby-Sitters Club’s starry-eyed Stacey and Sweet Valley High’s boy-crazy Jessica; as an adult, I flock to the romance section of bookstores and libraries. When the urge to try my hand at writing struck, I drafted young adult romances without even considering other categories or genres. I will always choose a meet-cute, witty banter, and sizzling chemistry over fast-paced action, clever twists, and high-concepts plots. When it comes to reading and writing, I love love!
The Last Thing You Said is one of those romances for which a happy ending feels utterly impossible—until its final pages. Main characters Lucy and Ben are struggling to cope with their sorrow after Trixie, Lucy’s best friend and Ben’s sister, suddenly passes. Further complicating Lucy and Ben’s grief are their romantic feelings for each other, feelings they were only just beginning to acknowledge the day Trixie died. This story is gorgeous and intense; it broke my heart a hundred times before slowly and satisfyingly piecing it back together.
Lucy always loved summers on Halcyon Lake-sunning on the lake raft, relaxing on the boat, and spending every possible minute with her best friend, Trixie, and Trixie's brother, Ben, Lucy's lifelong crush. Until last summer, when one tragic event turned their idyllic world upside down. Now nothing is the same. This summer, Trixie is gone, and Ben is distant, numbing his pain with parties and a string of interchangeable girlfriends. Lucy does her best to move on and avoid this cold new Ben. She throws herself into babysitting, waitressing, and a sweet new romance with the renter next door. But…
I was raised in a loving but strict Catholic family in the 1970s, when girls like me were still expected to grow up to become traditional wives and mothers, rather than go to college and pursue a career. In a Pre-Cana class intended to prepare me and my fiancé for marriage (it didn’t work so well, as evidenced by our rancorous divorce twelve years later), I learned the concept of “family of origin,” and the profound impact a person’s upbringing has on them as an adult. I became fascinated by the psychic baggage each of us carries around, and how it affects our personal relationships and life choices.
The story of a flamingly narcissistic man plotting to betray his wife shouldn’t be funny at all, but Kaira Rouda definitely pulls it off with impressive skill and verve. Husband Paul is so insanely self-centered that I couldn’t stop laughing at the stream of inanities flying around in his egotistical brain as he drives his wife Mia to their lake house for what’s supposed to be the most memorable day of their lives. And is it ever, thanks to Mia’s moxie. You go, girl!
'[A] deliciously dark story shot through with black humour.' Sunday Mirror
A loving husband. The perfect killer?
'I wonder if Mia thinks I have a dark side. Most likely as far as she knows, I am just her dear loving husband.'
Paul Strom has spent years building his perfect life: glittering career, beautiful wife, two healthy boys and a big house in the suburbs.
But he also has his secrets. That's why Paul has promised his wife a romantic weekend getaway. He proclaims this day, a warm Friday in May, will be the best day ever.
Since I was a little boy, I’ve been fascinated by all things ‘creatures’–from massive Grizzly bears that roam the mountains to Kraken that swim in the depths of the oceans to massive Anaconda that are worshiped in the Amazon rainforest. Having discovered The Weekly World News tabloids at my grandma’s, I couldn’t get enough of what makes us question what lurks in the trees or swim in the waters around us. I’ve taken that love of all things cryptid and used those moments of awe and fear that I had while discovering these creatures all those years ago and placed them into the novels I write.
While this book is a work of fiction, Shea infused a significant amount of non-fiction elements into the novel from his own life.
The story rampages along, starting out creepy at first–odd things happening around the lake cabin–but soon blossoms into a full-scale creature assault on the people within.
Heartstopping and heartbreaking, this is Shea’s best work to date.
'It's much more than most creature features, it has heart and thought, and a superb, head-on horror conclusion. The best Hunter Shea I've read so far and by more than a little.' - Eddie Generous (Unnerving Magazine)
The monsters live inside of Kate Woodson. Chronic pain and a host of autoimmune diseases have robbed her of a normal, happy life. Her husband Andrew's surprise of their dream Maine lake cottage for the summer is the gift of a lifetime. It's beautiful, remote, idyllic, a place to heal. But they are not alone. Something is in the woods, screeching in the…
James Church is the pseudonym of a former intelligence officer, who specialized in North Korea.
His many mysteries (as well as articles published in 38 North), involving a laconic, solitary, but brilliant North Korean investigator (Inspector O), expertly capture North Korea’s sense of danger, menace, and survival – but also humanity – in a totalitarian world, where a wrong action or word can have devastating consequences.
In this, his first novel, the author explores a series of unusual events and cold cases, drawing Inspector O into investigations, espionage, and danger in a world where nothing is as it appears on the surface. In an early chapter, an intelligence officer interrogates Inspector O, telling him, “Just a nice narrative, a bedtime story.
Clean and simple. I don’t need anything too Oriental.” But Church’s novel is intricate and full of ambiguity – nothing is clean or simple.
Sit on a quiet hillside at dawn among the wildflowers; take a picture of a car coming up a deserted highway from the south. Simple orders for Inspector O, until he realizes they have led him far, far off his department's turf and into a maelstrom of betrayal and death. North Korea's leaders are desperate to hunt down and eliminate anyone who knows too much about a series of decades-old kidnappings and murders - and Inspector O discovers too late he has been sent into the chaos.This is a world where nothing works as it should, where the crimes of…
I love the outdoors, and there are so many benefits to playing, imagining, and being outside. I grew up on a fruit farm in Southern Ontario, so I spent much of my growing years playing outdoors and enjoying the natural world. When I became a professional educator, I read the research about the very concrete benefits being outside every day has on young learners. Bring on the recess! Books have a way of sparking action. When we read about how someone else enjoys the outdoors, it makes us want to do the same. Books are inspiring.
Wonder Walkers is an inquisitive book that explores the natural world from morning to night. Two siblings walk past mountains, a lake, a grove of trees, and ask questions: “Are trees the sky’s legs?” “Are rivers the earth’s veins?” Coupled with lush collage and ink illustrations, this book explores the outdoors in a unique and playful way.
When two curious kids embark on a "wonder walk," they let their imaginations soar as they look at the world in a whole new light. They have thought-provoking questions for everything they see: Is the sun the world's light bulb? Is dirt the world's skin? Are rivers the earth's veins? Is the wind the world breathing? I wonder...Young readers will wonder too, as they ponder these gorgeous pages and make all kinds of new connections. What a wonderful world indeed!
While supporting myself as I got my MFA, I worked as a bridal stylist at an upscale Beverly Hills wedding salon. Just like most of the main characters in these books, I was thrust into a new world that was full of couture, decadence, and wealth. It was also full of backstabbing, competition, and elitism and I endured my share of it. As a girl from a blue-collar family who grew up with no fashion sense whatsoever, it was an experience that fed my fascination with glittering societies that have dark sides and inspired my first young adult novel, A Dress for the Wicked.
The forest is hungry and the lake is thirsty and only outsiders can satiate them. Nature is its own intricate, brutal character in this artfully drawn novel about a girl who lives in an insular society protected by a seemingly vicious habitat. Outfits inspired by seasons and folklore enchant the mind’s eye, along with questions about whether the monsters in ourselves are scarier than those found in the forest deep or the lake’s depths.
"Mara Rutherford’s The Poison Season took me on journey through a bloodthirsty forest, where two star-crossed lovers discover the true meaning of poison. It brims with evocative storytelling that left me enchanted!" — Emily J. Taylor, New York Times bestselling author of Hotel Magnifique
Outsiders are always given a choice: the Forest or the lake. Either way, they’re never heard from again.
Leelo has spent her entire life on Endla, coexisting with the bloodthirsty Forest and respecting the poisonous lake that protects her island from outsiders who seek to destroy it. But as much as Leelo cares for her community,…
I live in a town near a wildlife refuge. I frequently encounter wildlife, including turtles, in my neighborhood. Trouble at Turtle Pond was inspired by volunteer work my son and I did with a local conservation group, fostering endangered Blanding’s turtles. Although my previous books were mysteries set in other countries, I have become interested in the mysteries we can find in our own back yards and in other community spaces we share with nature. I love eco-fiction about kids who love animals, who are “nature detectives,” who have strong opinions, and who are working for the environment, recognizing that every small step makes a difference.
Aside from the fun coincidence that I share my surname with the lake in this book, I fell in love on page one because one of the narrators is actually the lake! Chapters alternate between Renn Lake and 12-year-old Annalise, whose family owns lakeside cabins. Annalise has always felt a special connection to this water. When a toxic algae bloom threatens Renn Lake, she and her friends fight to save it. I grew up on a lake in Washington State that became clogged with Eurasian Milfoil, a highly invasive plant affecting water quality, fish, and other things. Remembering what it felt like to see my local lake transform, and how powerless I felt to help it, I rooted for Annalise and her friends and felt hope for this new generation of activists.
The environmental activism of Hoot meets the summer friendship of Lemons in this heartfelt story about community, conservation, and standing up for the things you love.
Annalise Oliver's family has owned and run lakeside cabins in Renn Lake, Wisconsin, for generations. This summer, she gets to help out while her younger sister focuses on being an actress and her best friend is babysitting rambunctious twin boys. It's the perfect opportunity for Annalise to work and spend more time by her beloved lake.
When she was three years old, Annalise discovered that she could sense what Renn Lake was thinking and…
