This collection of heart-racing thrillers will keep readers turning page after page until the very end of each book. Keep the lights on and enjoy.

DAUGHTER OF MINE by Megan Miranda takes note of the drought that has plagued the western states for decades, finally making its way to North Carolina, where the waters of Mirror Lake have receded to reveal a car on the bottom of the lake. At the same time, Hazel and her brothers have just buried their father, who left the house to her. Why? Take one esteemed police officer (now dead) and his dead wife, along with Hazel’s missing mother, the two brothers who became police officers like their father, and it adds up to create a mystery for the ages. There’s no shortage of suspects, but when Hazel figures out the fates of those passed on, she’s in peril for her own life. The suspense is absolutely thick!

THE GATHERING by C.J. Tudor takes readers to a series of murders in Deadheart, Alaska where a colony of vampyres lives nearby, thanks to the Vampyr Protection Act of 1983. The intrepid detective, Barbara Atkins, has been sent by the Department of Forensic Vampyr Anthropology to determine if the murders justify a cull of the colony. Former sheriff, Jensen Tucker, knows more about the colony than anyone in the area, and may prove useful in solving the murders. However, no one can shield Detective Atkins from her own past. Be prepared to be scared.

HOME IS WHERE THE BODIES ARE by Jeneva Rose begins slowly at the deathbed of Beth’s mother, until she whispers, “Your father. He didn’t disappear. Don’t trust..” As Beth and her siblings gather and begin cleaning out the house, they play an old video tape from 1999 that reveals their father in a bloody shirt leading their mother across the field to where their dead neighbor lies. The young girl disappeared 20 years ago. Did their parents have anything to do with her death? Many questions are asked and answered in this suspenseful tale told from the viewpoints of all three siblings, along with a historical perspective from their dead mother.

MURDER ROAD by Simone St. James is part of The Book of Cold Cases series and will keep you at the edge of your seat, as long as you’re not driving down Atticus Line, a deserted road in rural southern Michigan. Back in 1995, newlyweds April and Eddie, take a wrong turn to their honeymoon resort and pick up a hitchhiker. Soon they notice blood leaking from her clothing and head for the local hospital. She dies, leaving April and Eddie as the primary murder suspects. There are supernatural forces at work that keep readers from guessing the network of relationships between present-day ghost and complicated backgrounds of April and Eddie. It’s a page-turner!

ONE OF OUR KIND by Nicola Yoon follows Jasmyn Williams as she begins a new chapter of life, along with her husband and son, in a gated community designed for black residents. It feels like utopia, except that most of the people seem very detached from black culture and the news stories that impact daily lives on a national level. In the few months that Jasmyn lived in Liberty, two of her new friends have changed from dynamic individuals into emotionless shells. What is going on here? This story is very similar to THE STEPFORD WIVES by Ira Levin where the husbands in a secluded community turned their wives into robots who cooked, cleaned and took care of the household, which resonated with the feminist movement in 1972. Moving up fifty years, the Black Lives Matter movement serves as a foil for a sinister plan to keep blacks safe from persecution by white society. Readers will find both stories to be unsettling!

THE RETURN OF ELLIE BLACK by Emiko Jean is a procedural detective story in which Detective Chelsey Calhoun works to solve the sudden appearance of a missing teenager, only to have her disappear again. Many girls have gone missing from this rural Washington state community. Has the same person taken them? Chelsey must come to terms with her own history – the sister who was murdered at age 15, the mother who left an overbearing, police chief father, and her own adoption which marks her as an outsider. Readers will be totally surprised to find out the identity of the kidnapper.

By Lynette Suckow

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