"DCI Jonah Sheens Series"--from author Gytha Lodge--searing, psychologically captivating novels mark the arrival of a dazzling new talent, and the start of a new series featuring Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens

  
She Lies in Wait (DCI Jonah Sheens, #1)

Six friends. One killer. Who do you trust? A teen girl is missing after a night of partying; thirty years later, the discovery of her body reopens a cold case in an absorbing novel featuring a small-town cop determined to finally get to the truth—for fans of Tana French and Kate Atkinson.

“What a marvel! A corkscrew-twisty, knife-sharp thriller—yet it doubles as a tender ode to loss and longing. Prepare to be haunted.”—A. J. Finn, author of the New York Times bestseller The Woman in the Window

On a scorching July night in 1983, a group of teenagers goes camping in the forest. Bright and brilliant, they are destined for great things, and the youngest of the group—Aurora Jackson—is delighted to be allowed to tag along. The evening starts like any other—they drink, they dance, they fight, they kiss. Some of them slip off into the woods in pairs, others are left jealous and heartbroken. But by morning, Aurora has disappeared. Her friends claim that she was safe the last time they saw her, right before she went to sleep. An exhaustive investigation is launched, but no trace of the teenager is ever found.

Thirty years later, Aurora’s body is unearthed in a hideaway that only the six friends knew about, and Jonah Sheens is put in charge of solving the long-cold case. Back in 1983, as a young cop in their small town, he had known the teenagers—including Aurora—personally, even before taking part in the search. Now he’s determined to finally get to the truth of what happened that night. Sheens’s investigation brings the members of the camping party back to the forest, where they will be confronted once again with the events that left one of them dead, and all of them profoundly changed forever.

This searing, psychologically captivating novel marks the arrival of a dazzling new talent, and the start of a new series featuring Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens.

Praise for She Lies in Wait

“This enjoyably chilling suspense tale . . . conveys both the thrills and the dangers of being a teenager on the brink of adult independence. . . . The fascination of this story is in the character studies of the surviving children, all grown up now and participants in a dark mystery that they all wish had never seen the light of day.”—The New York Times Book Review

“The mystery intrigues and twists, offering enough red herrings and moments of police procedural to please fans of the genre.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Neatly plotted and nicely atmospheric . . . This British import is plausible and eminently satisfying. Encore, please.”—Booklist




Watching from the Dark

One crime. One witness. One question . . . Why didn’t he call the police?

 

When a vibrant young woman is murdered over video chat, a small-town detective wades into a circle of friends and lovers with dangerous secrets–from the acclaimed author of the “enjoyably chilling”* She Lies in Wait.

Aidan Poole logs onto his laptop late at night to Skype his girlfriend, Zoe. To his horror, he realizes that there is someone else in her flat, and Aidan can only listen to the sounds of a violent struggle taking place in the bathroom–and then the sound of silence. Aidan is desperate to find out if Zoe is okay. But then why is he so hesitant to call the police?

When his messages finally reach them, Detective Jonah Sheens and his team take the case–and discover the body. They soon find that no one has a bad word to say about Zoe, a big-hearted young woman at the center of a curious web of waifs and strays, each relying on her for support, each hiding dark secrets and buried resentments. Has one of her so-called “friends” been driven to murder? Or does Aidan have the biggest secret of them all?

 

Reviews

 

“Gripping.”—Publishers Weekly
 
“Lodge alternates between chapters following the investigation into Zoe’s death and chapters that recount the final twenty months of her life, allowing the reader to understand Zoe as a fully rounded and complicated character, not just a victim. This choice, trendy in thrillers but almost always effective when the characters are strong, consistently reminds us to look beyond simplistic binaries of victim and perpetrator, innocent and guilty, and recognize that all humans make problematic choices, sometimes for good reasons and sometimes for bad. Lodge's choices celebrate the complexity of humanity and elevate this police procedural.”—Kirkus

Gytha Lodge

 

Gytha Lodge is a multi-award-winning playwright, novelist and writer for video games and screen. She is also a single parent who blogs about the ridiculousness of bringing up a mega-nerd small boy.

She has a profound addiction to tea, crosswords and awful puns. When not writing, she heads up a copy-writing team at a global translation firm, where she generally tries to keep all the video-game writing to herself.

She studied English at Cambridge, where she became known quite quickly for her brand of twisty, dark yet entertaining drama. She later took the Creative Writing MA at UEA.

https://imperfectsingleparent.blog/

"ME FOR YOU"--in Lolly Winston's mid-life second-chance romance, a widower finds a new love, experiences a career change, and deals with life-changing revelations

Me for You


From the New York Times bestselling author of Good Grief comes a richly poignant and stirring story that asks: How soon is too soon to fall in love again?

The last thing Rudy expected was to wake up one Saturday morning, a widower at fifty-four years old. Now, ten months after the untimely death of his beloved wife, he’s still not sure how to move on from the defining tragedy of his life—but his new job is helping. After being downsized from his finance position, Rudy turned to his first love: the piano. Some people might be embarrassed to work as the piano player at Nordstrom, but for Rudy, there’s joy in bringing a little music into the world. And it doesn’t hurt that Sasha, the Hungarian men’s watch clerk who is finally divorcing her no-good husband, finds time to join him at the bench every now and then.

Just when Rudy and Sasha’s relationship begins to deepen, the police come to the store with an update about Rudy’s wife’s untimely death—a coworker has confessed to her murder—but Rudy’s actions are suspicious enough to warrant a second look at him, too. With Sasha’s husband suddenly reappearing, and Rudy’s daughter confronting her own marital problems, suddenly life becomes more complicated than Rudy and Sasha could have imagined.

With Winston’s trademark humor and sweetness that will appeal to readers of Jennifer Weiner and Fredrik Backman but is uniquely her own, Lolly Winston delivers a heartfelt and realistic portrait of loss and grief, hope and forgiveness, and two imperfect people coming together to create a perfect love story.

Reviews

 

"Okay, I'm a sucker for a love story. Add gut-busting humor, an unflinching examination of grief, and characters who walk straight into your heart and I'm wowed. Thank you, Lolly Winston." (Ellen Sussman, New York Times bestselling author of French Lessons)

“I loved this novel, an immensely readable, emotionally honest examination of the aftermath of grief and loss. Lolly Winston masterfully weaves humor with pathos in this story of second chances, all-too-human foibles, unlikely love, and an uplifting message of hope.”  (Susan Wiggs, New York Times bestselling author of Between You and Me)

"The story uses quiet prose and unexpected moments of gentle humor to illustrate the importance of human connection during trying times. … [A] poignant story about loss, unexpected connections, and the circuitous path toward healing.” (Kirkus Reviews)

"Lolly Winston has a masterful way of describing the nuanced, complicated feelings we all experience, but can’t always find words to explain. Me for You is a sensitive look at grief, mental health, and the courage it takes to love after loss.”
(Allie Larkin, internationally bestselling author of Swimming for Sunlight and Stay)

"Warm, witty, and wise, Me for You will delight Lolly Wiston's loyal following and earn her a whole new generation of fans. An exquisitely wrought window into an oft-ignored subject, mid-life love, and a reminder that grief and joy can live side by side. Fiction at its best shows us the light at the end of the tunnel; that light burns brightly here." (Michelle Richmond, New York Times bestselling author of The Marriage Pact)


Lolly Winston



Born and raised in the glamorous insurance capital of Hartford, Conn., Lolly Winston holds an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College, where she wrote a collection of short stories as her thesis.

Her first novel, Good Grief, published in 2004, was a New York Times best-seller, a #1 Book Sense pick, and was translated into 15 languages. The film rights have been optioned by Universal Studios. Her second novel, Happiness Sold Separately, also hit the New York Times best seller list upon its publication in August 2006. Her short stories have appeared in The Sun, The Southeast Review, The Third Berkshire Anthology, Girls' Night Out and others. She's contributed essays to the anthologies Kiss Tomorrow Hello (Doubleday, 2006), and the forthcoming book Bad Girls.

Over the years, Lolly has floundered at a number of English major jobs, including: waitress (cork in your wine, anyone?), house cleaner, corporate copywriter, and corporate public relations manager. She's not proud of the fact that she flunked the math on the Kelly Girl test.

In the early eighties she went to Hawaii for eight days and stayed for eight years, boogie boarding and working as the public affairs officer at a local trauma hospital. She moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1993, where she finally quit the corporate world to become a freelance journalist, starting out as a stringer for Automotive News. She went on to write for the San Jose Mercury News Sunday magazine, New Woman, Redbook, Glamour, Family Circle, Working Mother, Sunset, Lifetime and others. She teaches writing classes in fiction, feature stories and the art of the personal essay.

A groupie at heart, her favorite authors include: Flannery O'Connor, Vladimir Nabokov, Tom Perrotta, Nick Hornby, Kate Atkinson, Walker Percy, Jeffrey Eugenides, Andrew Sean Greer, Mary Karr, George Saunders, Aimee Bender, Jane Austen, Dave Barry, David Sedaris, Andre Dubus III, Sylvia Plath, Raymond Carver, Ethan Canin, ZZ Packer, Jennifer Haigh, Edith Wharton, Jonathan Tropper, Amy Bloom, Christie Hodgen, Ellen Sussman, Jonathan Lethem, J.D. Salinger, Tobias Wolff, and Donald Barthelme.

She lives with her husband in Northern California. 

http://www.lollywinston.com/

 

"THIS IS HOME"--a teen-aged girl who has lost her mother and a military wife at a crossroads struggle to find their place in life and the true home of their hearts

This Is Home: A Novel


From the author of book club favorite The Salt House comes a deeply affecting novel about a teenage girl finding her voice and the military wife who moves in downstairs, united in their search for the true meaning of home.

Sixteen-year-old Libby Winters lives in Paradise, a seaside town north of Boston that rarely lives up to its name. After the death of her mother, she lives with her father, Bent, in the middle apartment of their triple-decker home—Bent’s two sisters, Lucy and Desiree, live on the top floor. A former soldier turned policeman, Bent often works nights, leaving Libby under her aunts’ care. Shuffling back and forth between apartments—and the wildly different natures of her family—has Libby wishing for nothing more than a home of her very own.

Quinn Ellis is at a crossroads. When her husband John, who has served two tours in Iraq, goes missing back at home, suffering from PTSD he refuses to address, Quinn finds herself living in the first-floor apartment of the Winters house. Bent had served as her husband’s former platoon leader, a man John refers to as his brother, and despite Bent’s efforts to make her feel welcome, Quinn has yet to unpack a single box.

For Libby, the new tenant downstairs is an unwelcome guest, another body filling up her already crowded house. But soon enough, an unlikely friendship begins to blossom, when Libby and Quinn stretch and redefine their definition of family and home.

With gorgeous prose and a cast of characters that feel wholly real and lovably flawed, This Is Home is a nuanced and moving novel of finding where we belong.

“A beautifully drawn portrait of a motherless girl and a rudderless woman both trying to find their place in the world— but who find each other instead. Lisa Duffy nails the complexities of modern relationships, and proves that she’s a storyteller that’s here to stay.”
—Colleen Oakley, author of Close Enough to Touch and Before I Go


Lisa Duffy

 


Lisa Duffy is the author of This is Home and The Salt House, named by Real Simple as a Best Book of the Month upon its June release, as well as one of Bustle’s Best Debut Novels by Women in 2017, a She Reads Book Club selection and Refinery 29’s Best Beach Reads of 2017. 

Lisa received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Massachusetts. Her short fiction was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and her writing can be found in numerous publications, including Writer’s Digest. She lives in the Boston area with her husband and three children.  

http://www.lisaduffywriter.com

"Fatal Inheritance: A Novel"--author Rachel Rhys spins a suspenseful tale of a mysterious surprise bequest--a beautiful villa on the French Riviera just may prove to be a deadly inheritance

Fatal Inheritance: A Novel


Get swept away to the enchanting South of France with this “exquisite and shimmering” (Lisa Jewell, New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone) suspenseful historical novel, where perilous secrets lurk under the glitz and glam of seaside wealth.

She didn’t have an enemy in the world…until she inherited a fortune.

London 1948: Eve Forrester is stuck in a loveless marriage, isolated in her gray and gloomy house when out of the blue, she receives a letter. A wealthy stranger has left her a mysterious inheritance but in order to find out more, she must travel to the glittering French Riviera.

There, Eve discovers she has been bequeathed an enchanting villa overlooking the Mediterranean Sea and suddenly, life could not be more glamorous. But while she rubs shoulders with the rich and famous, challengers to her unexplained fortune begin to emerge—challengers who would love to see Eve gone forever.

Alone in paradise, Eve must unlock the story behind her surprise bequest—before her unexpected twist of fate turns deadly…

With Rachel Rhys’s “thrilling, seductive, and utterly absorbing” (Paula Hawkins, #1 bestselling author of The Girl on the Train) prose, Fatal Inheritance is an intoxicating story of dysfunctional families and long-hidden secrets, set against the decadence of the Côte d’Azur.


Praise for Fatal Inheritance:
 

“An exquisite and shimmering read. I completely lost myself in Rhys’s lovingly evoked 1940s French Riviera and was gripped by the slow-burn mystery. An essential summer read!” (Lisa Jewell, New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone )

"A transporting Golden Age-infused mystery caper." (The Sunday Times (UK))

"The perfect mix of glamour and intrigue." (Good Housekeeping (UK))

"A fantastic book —glamorous and beautifully written...tantalising." (Daily Mail (UK))

"The very definition of an escapist beach read." (Evening Standard (UK))

"Compelling, evocative, and expertly crafted, this is immersive novel writing at its most accomplished." (Heat (UK), 5 stars)

"The perfect literary beach-read; both gripping and dripping with glamour. Rachel Rhys is a natural successor to Patricia Highsmith." (Red Magazine (UK))

"With dreamlike descriptions of the Cote d'Azur and the dark underworld of those who live there, it is an addictive page-turner. The perfect summer holiday read." (The Lady (UK))

“Rachel Rhys should be on everyone’s summer reading list.” (Clare Mackintosh, international bestselling author of I Let You Go )

“With a dash of Agatha Christie and a nod to Zelda Fitzgerald, Rachel Rhys' historical mystery is simply gorgeous. The late 1940s Cote d'Azur setting is a character in its own right - one that will have you yearning to sip a gin fizz while watching the sun sink into the Mediterranean.” (Kate Riordan, author of The Stranger )

“Utterly enthralling; Rachel Rhys brilliantly evokes the shabby glamour and bruised hearts of the post-war Riviera, where everyone has a secret to hide. I adored it.” (Jane Casey, author of Let the Dead Speak)


Rachel Rhys





Rachel Rhys is the pen-name of a successful psychological suspense author. A Dangerous Crossing is her debut novel under this name. The story is inspired by a real diary which the author discovered by accident while helping her mother move house. It was written with care and attention by a servant girl who travelled from England to Australia on a cruise liner in the late 1930s.

Rachel Rhys lives in North London with her family, including a much-loved dog. She also writes as Tammy Cohen and Tamar Cohen.

http://tammycohen.co.uk/ 

"The City in the Middle of the Night"--author Charlie Jane Anders delivers a brilliant new novel set in a hauntingly strange future

The City in the Middle of the Night


Charlie Jane Anders, the nationally bestselling author of All the Birds in the Sky delivers a brilliant new novel set in a hauntingly strange future with The City in the Middle of the Night.

"If you control our sleep, then you can own our dreams... And from there, it's easy to control our entire lives."

Set on a planet that has fully definitive, never-changing zones of day and night, with ensuing extreme climates of endless, frigid darkness and blinding, relentless light, humankind has somehow continued apace -- though the perils outside the built cities are rife with danger as much as the streets below.

But in a world where time means only what the ruling government proclaims, and the levels of light available are artificially imposed to great consequence, lost souls and disappeared bodies are shadow-bound and savage, and as common as grains of sand. And one such pariah, sacrificed to the night, but borne up by time and a mysterious bond with an enigmatic beast, will rise to take on the entire planet--before it can crumble beneath the weight of human existence. 


Praise for The City in the Middle of the Night


“A breathtaking work of imagination and storytelling… making the case for Anders as this generation’s Le Guin.” ―Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less

"An even stronger novel than Anders’ Nebula Award–winning All the Birds in the Sky; a tale that can stand beside such enduring works as Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, Frank Herbert’s Dune, and Dan Simmons’ Hyperion." ―Booklist, starred review

"Anders contains multitudes; it's always a fascinating and worthwhile surprise to see what she comes up with next." ―Kirkus, starred review

"An intricate tale of colonialism and evolution on both physical and social levels. Stunningly storytelling that will capture readers' minds and hearts." ―Library Journal, starred review

"Intricate, embracing much of what makes a grand adventure: smugglers, revolutionaries, pirates, camaraderie, personal sacrifice, wondrous discovery, and the struggle to find light in the darkness. Breathlessly exciting and thought-provoking." ―Publishers Weekly, starred review

"A stunning novel." ―Edan Lepucki, author of Woman No. 17

“A wildly inventive, inventively radical, radically subtle rush of a novel.” ―Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler’s Wife

“Like a classic from another timeline… This book has notes of Ursula K. Le Guin and Philip Pullman.” ―Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

“The City in the Middle of the Night does everything right. I f―ing love this book. It is really, really breathtaking.” ―Daveed Diggs, Grammy and Tony Award winning actor

"A tale that unfolds with precision, presenting wholly original ideas, new and beautiful life forms, and chillingly extrapolated and corrupt societies. I highly recommend [it].” ―Anthony Rapp, Broadway star


CHARLIE JANE ANDERS





CHARLIE JANE ANDERS is the former editor-in-chief of io9.com, the extraordinarily popular Gawker Media site devoted to science fiction and fantasy. Her SF and fantasy debut novel, All the Birds in the Sky, won the 2017 Nebula Awards for Best Novel and was a finalist for the 2017 Hugo Award's Best Novel category. Her Tor.com story "Six Months, Three Days" won the 2013 Hugo Award. She has also had fiction published by McSweeney's, Lightspeed, and ZYZZYVA. Her journalism has appeared in Salon, the Wall Street Journal, Mother Jones, and many other outlets. 

http://charliejane.com/

"Chief Inspector Armand Gamache Series"--Louise Penny's highly acclaimed, New York Times bestselling mystery series digs beneath the idyllic surface of village life in Three Pines, Québec

Book 1

Still Life

Book 2

A Fatal Grace

Book 3

The Cruelest Month

Book 4

A Rule Against Murder

Book 5

The Brutal Telling

Book 6

Bury Your Dead

Book 6.5

The Hangman

Book 7

A Trick of the Light

Book 8

The Beautiful Mystery

Book 9

How the Light Gets In

Book 10

The Long Way Home

Book 11

The Nature of the Beast

Book 12

A Great Reckoning

Book 13

Glass Houses

Book 14

Kingdom of the Blind

Book 15

 A Better Man

 

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache Series

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec digs beneath the idyllic surface of village life in Three Pines, finding long buried secrets--and facing a few of his own ghosts. Louise Penny's highly acclaimed, New York Times bestselling mystery series has won the New Blood Dagger as well as multiple Agatha, Anthony, Dilys, Arthur Ellis, and other prestigious awards. In 2010 the first book, Still Life, was cited as one of the five Mystery/Crime Novels of the Decade by Deadly Pleasures magazine. 

https://us.macmillan.com/series/ChiefInspectorGamacheNovel

LOUISE PENNY

LOUISE PENNY, a former CBC radio journalist, is the #1 New York Times and Globe and Mail bestselling author of fourteen Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novels. She has been awarded the John Creasey Dagger, Nero, Macavity and Barry Awards, as well as two each of the Arthur Ellis and Dilys Awards. Additionally, Penny has won six Agatha Awards and five Anthony Awards, and has been a finalist for an Edgar Award. She lives in a small village south of Montréal.

Her first Armand Gamache novel, "Still Life" won the New Blood Dagger, Arthur Ellis, Barry, Anthony and Dilys Awards.

http://www.louisepenny.com/