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The goal for a book that falls into the Suspense category, is that it will keep its audience on the edge of their seats. A tone of apprehension, anxiety, and a bit of excitement. This is heightened by the reader having just a bit more knowledge about what is happening than the protagonist. Key elements of successful suspense involve conflict, pacing, red herrings, atmosphere, and high stakes (https://www.authorlearningcenter.com)
"When Maggie Spritzer gets a strange message from her pal, Gabby Richardson, Maggie knows her services are needed. Gabby has become involved with The Haven, a commune that promises to guide its members toward a more spiritually fulfilling life. Maggie wants to learn more about The Haven, and the Sisterhood is eager to help. It turns out The Haven's founders are the sons of a Chicago businessmen in prison for running a Ponzi scheme. They also have connections to a billionaire with dubious sidelines. Soon, the Sisterhood uncovers crime that runs deeper and higher than they imagined. And they'll need all their skills to bring it down"--. Back cover.
The woman's body was found in the early morning, on a bench in a New York City playground. She was clean, her hair neatly arranged, and her makeup carefully applied. But other things were very wrong--like the tattoo and piercings, clearly new. The clothes are decades out of date. The fatal wound is hidden beneath a ribbon around her neck. And the note: Bad Mommy, written in crayon as if by a child.
Eve Dallas turns to the department's top profiler, who confirms what seems obvious to Eve: They're dealing with a killer whose childhood involved some sort of trauma--a situation Eve is all too familiar with herself. Yet the clues suggest a perpetrator who'd be roughly sixty years old, and there are no records of old crimes with a similar MO. What was the trigger that apparently reopened such an old wound and sent someone over the edge?
When Eve discovers that other young women--who physically resemble the first victim--have vanished, the clock starts ticking louder. But to solve this case she will need to find her way into a hidden place of dim light and concrete, into the distant past, and into the cold depths of a shattered mind.
"Owen's wife was murdered. His best friend, Luna, found the body. Everything and everyone is thrown into question in this riveting suspense novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Passenger. Owen is rich, charming, and chronically dissatisfied. His life is forever entangled with Luna Grey, his no-nonsense best friend who is struggling to hide her dark past. From the fateful day they meet in college, the two become inextricably linked. They can't be mentioned without the other: Owen and Luna, Luna and Owen. In addition to their own trove of personal secrets, there is the deadly one they share. It forges a bond that will last decades. Years later, Owen disappears on his wife, Irene, for hours, mostly to spend time drinking with Luna. Luna is now an assistant to the eccentric and reclusive artist Leo Whitman, who also happens to be Irene's stepfather. But when Irene is found dead, the victim of a brutal crime, it unleashes a torrent of secrets from the past as well as everything they would have preferred to have kept hidden in the present. Despite their innocence, the murder causes the walls to quickly close in around them. The Accomplice examines the intense relationship between two very different misanthropic best friends. What happens when one of them takes a sledgehammer to their bond and the other lights that wreckage on fire? If secrets are what kept Owen and Luna together, they just might tear them apart, too. If they let them"--. Provided by publisher.
"In the waning days of the 1970s, the lives of several residents of Detroit and its affluent white suburbs are drawn together following the disappearance of yet another child. Hannah, a wife and mother, begins an affair with a darkly charismatic stranger; Mikey, a young street hustler, finds himself on an unexpected mission to rectify injustice; and then there's the child serial killer known as Babysitter, an enigmatic and elusive figure at the periphery of elite Detroit, who has always been impossible to identify and immune to retribution. As Babysitter continues to strike-sending the city and its surroundings into pandemonium-these characters intersect, jeopardize one another, and are pushed to their limits. Suspenseful, brilliant, and wholly engrossing, Babysitter asks what we would risk for a chance at a new life, and how to protect all we cherish most. A scathing indictment of the corrupt politics, unexamined racism, and sexual predation in America, Babysitter is a thrilling novel and an absolute force"--. Provided by publisher.
"A strange religious sect has arrived in Bad Axe County, Wisconsin. Armed with guns, an enigmatic spiritual leader and his followers set up their compound in an abandoned storage lot. It's not long before rumors start to spread of sadistic rituals and a planned takeover of the local government. But when one of the followers is found dead in the river, that's when full-on panic sets in. Sheriff Heidi Kick may not be a fan of the new group, but she is also dismayed by the hostile reaction of the Bad Axe community. With a murder investigation on her hands, the situation becomes more complicated when Sheriff Kick finds out an ex-boyfriend from her youth is out on parole early and looking to hunt her down. With a tumultuous snowstorm on the horizon, the cult members are on the verge of freezing, Bad Axe is on the edge of violence, and Sheriff Kick is just one false step away from losing her family, her town, and her very life. By a writer at the height of his powers, Bad Day Breaking is a thrilling mystery that explores the price paid for following false leaders and the power we each have to triumph over trauma" --Provided by publisher.
"Berlin. 1963. The height of the Cold War. An early morning spy swap, not at the familiar setting for such exchanges, or at Checkpoint Charlie, where international visitors cross into the East, but at a more discreet border crossing, usually reserved for East German VIPs. The Communists are trading two American students caught helping people to escape over the wall and a lower level CIA operative. On the other side of the trade: Martin Keller, a physicist who once made headlines, but who then disappeared into the English prison system. Keller's most critical possession: his American passport. Keller's most ardent desire: to see his ex-wife Sabine and their young son. The exchange is made with the formality characteristic of these swaps. But Martin has other questions: who asked for him? Who negotiated the deal? The KGB? He has worked for the service long enough to know that nothing happens by chance. They want him for something. Not physics-his expertise is out of date. Something else, which he cannot learn until he arrives in East Berlin, when suddenly the game is afoot. Filled with intriguing characters, atmospheric detail, and plenty of action Kanon's latest espionage thriller is one you won't soon forget"--. Provided by publisher
Rising above the city of Collis is the holy Sanctum. And watching over its spires is Catrin, an orphan girl with unique skills--for she alone can spot the building's flaws in construction before they turn deadly.
But when Catrin witnesses a murderer escaping the scene of his crime, she's pulled into a dangerous chain of events where the only certainty is that the killer will strike again. Assigned to investigate is the mysterious and brilliant Simon, whose insights into the mind of a predator are frighteningly accurate.
As the grisly crimes continue, Catrin finds herself caught between killer and detective while hiding her own secret--a supernatural sight granted by the moon, destined to make her an outcast, and the only thing that might save her and those she loves from becoming the next victims...
"Seventeen-year-old Farrah Turner is one of two Black girls in her country club community, and the only one with Black parents. Her best friend, Cherish Whitman, adopted by a wealthy white family, is something Farrah likes to call WGS--White Girl Spoiled. With Brianne and Jerry Whitman as parents, Cherish is given the kind of adoration and coddling that even upper-class Black parents can't seem to afford--and it creates a dissonance in her best friend that Farrah can exploit. When her own family is unexpectedly confronted with foreclosure, the calculating Farrah is determined to reassert the control she's convinced she's always had over her life by staying with Cherish, the only person she loves--even when she hates her. A troubled Farrah manipulates her way further into the Whitman family but the longer she stays, the more her own parents suggest that something is wrong in the Whitman house. She might trust them--if they didn't think something was wrong with Farrah, too. As strange things start happening at the Whitman household--debilitating illnesses, upsetting fever dreams, an inexplicable tension with Cherish's hothead boyfriend, and a strange journal that seems to keep track of what is happening to Farrah--it's nothing she can't handle. But soon everything begins to unravel when the Whitmans invite Farrah closer, and it's anyone's guess who is really in control. Told in Farrah's chilling, unforgettable voice and weaving in searing commentary on race and class, this slow-burn social horror will keep you on the edge of your seat until the last page"--. Provided by publisher.
"When Izzy meets Jade on a cruise to Bermuda, her new daredevil friend turns Izzy's boring family vacation into the trip of a lifetime. Until she goes missing. The investigators claim Jade fell overboard, but Izzy knows better. Her friend had secrets--secrets that might have gotten her killed. As Izzy digs deeper into Jade's disappearance, she realizes that someone doesn't want her to find the truth. And if she's not careful, Izzy might not get off this ship alive"--Back cover.
"Stefan was just seventeen with he went to prison for the drug-fueled murder of his girlfriend, Belinda. Three years later, he's released to a world that refuses to let him move on. Meanwhile Thea Demetriou struggles to understand her son. At times, he is still the sweet boy he has always been; at other, he is a young man tormented by guilt and almost broken by his time in prison. But as his efforts to amends meet escalating resistance and threats, Thea suspects more forces are at play than just community outrage. And it there is so much she never knew about her own son, what other secrets has she yet to uncover--especially about the night Belinda died?"--. Back cover.
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