Christina Lauren

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Illinois

Christina Lauren, the instant New York Times bestselling and “reigning romance queens” (PopSugar), returns with a delicious new romance between the buttoned-up heir of a grocery chain and his free-spirited artist ex as they fake their relationship in order to receive a massive inheritance. Anna Green thought she was marrying Liam “West” Weston for access to subsidized family housing while at UCLA. She also thought she’d signed divorce papers when the graduation caps were tossed, and they both went on their merry ways. Three years later, Anna is a starving artist living paycheck to paycheck while West is a Stanford professor. He may be one of four heirs to the Weston Foods conglomerate, but he has little interest in working for the heartless corporation his family built from the ground up. He is interested, however, in his one-hundred-million-dollar inheritance. There’s just one catch. Due to an antiquated clause in his grandfather’s will, Liam won’t see a penny until he’s been happily married for five years. Just when Liam thinks he’s in the home stretch, pressure mounts from his family to see this mysterious spouse, and he has no choice but to turn to the one person he’s afraid to introduce to his one-percenter parents—his unpolished, not-so-ex-wife. But in the presence of his family, Liam’s fears quickly shift from whether the feisty, foul-mouthed, paint-splattered Anna can play the part to whether the toxic world of wealth will corrupt someone as pure of heart as his surprisingly grounded and loyal wife. Liam will have to ask himself if the price tag on his flimsy cover story is worth losing true love that sprouted from a lie.

The Paradise Problem

c310562b-880d-4934-88f9-098a679e153b-0

Salman Rushdie

Meditations after an Attempted Murder

From internationally renowned writer and Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, a searing, deeply personal account of enduring—and surviving—an attempt on his life thirty years after the fatwa that was ordered against him Speaking out for the first time, and in unforgettable detail, about the traumatic events of August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie answers violence with art, and reminds us of the power of words to make sense of the unthinkable. Knife is a gripping, intimate, and ultimately life-affirming meditation on life, loss, love, art—and finding the strength to stand up again.

Knife

dd0fe06c-54f6-41de-937e-30a4b807793a-0

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

The Coworker

Agatha Christie

A Hercule Poirot Mystery

Everyone blamed Emily Arundell’s accident on a rubber ball left on the stairs by her frisky terrier. But the more she thought about her fall, the more convinced she became that one of her relatives was trying to kill her.… On April 17th she wrote her suspicions in a letter to Hercule Poirot. Mysteriously, he didn’t receive the letter until June 28th…by which time Emily was already dead.…

Dumb Witness

efa9c855-ab36-432a-aa6a-62e8890b0c4b-1

Elin Hilderbrand

In the grand finale of "queen of the beach read" Elin Hilderbrand's beloved Nantucket novels, there's a new couple in town... and they instantly shake things up. Amid the extravagant parties on land and sea, there's trouble on the island, forcing Chief of Police Ed Kapanesh to postpone his retirement and changing the fabric of life on the picturesque island forever... After thirty-five years serving as the Chief of Police on the island of Nantucket, Ed Kapenash's heart can no longer take the stress. But his plans to retire are thwarted when, with only three days left to serve, he receives a phone call. A 22-million-dollar summer home, recently purchased by the flashy new couple in town, the Richardsons, has burned to the ground. The Richardsons are far from hurt--in fact, they're out on the water, throwing a lavish party on their yacht--but when news of the fire reaches them, they discover that their personal assistant has vanished. The Chief is well-acquainted with the Richardsons, and his daughter is best friends with the now-missing girl, leaving him no choice but to postpone his retirement and take on the double case. On a small island like Nantucket, the Richardsons shook things up from the second they stepped on to the scene, throwing luxurious parties and doing whatever they could to gain admittance to the coveted lunches at the Field & Oar Club (with increasing desperation). They instantly captured the attention of local real estate agent Fast Eddie, and the town gossip Blond Sharon, both dealing with their own personal dramas. Blond Sharon is going through a divorce, and in order to avoid becoming a cliché, she's enrolled in a creative writing class, putting her natural affinity for scandal towards a more noble purpose. To solve the case of the fire and track down his daughter's best friend, the Chief will have to string together the pieces of the lives of all of these characters and more, rallying his strength for his final act of service to the tight-knit community he knows and loves. The last of Elin Hilderbrand's bestselling Nantucket novels, SWAN SONG is a propulsive medley of glittering gatherings, sun-soaked drama, wisdom and heart, featuring the return of some of her most beloved characters, including, most importantly, the beautiful and timeless island of Nantucket itself.

Swan Song

16837294-e8c0-4e9c-83d1-2a9fafbdb91e-0

Amanda Peters

A Novel

A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors, unravels a community, and will remain unsolved for nearly fifty years July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come. In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret. For readers of The Vanishing Half and Woman of Light, this showstopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.

The Berry Pickers

986aa253-7a94-48ab-a3bd-897bbeb64318-1

Hazel Beck

"An absolute delight of a magical tale." --Louisa Morgan, author of The Age of Witches Is her magic a threat to witchkind...or is she simply powerful enough to save the world? Rebekah Wilde was eighteen when she left St. Cyprian, officially stripped of her magic and banished from her home. Ten years later, she's forced to return to face the Joywood Coven, who preside over not just her hometown but the whole magical world. Rebekah is happy to reunite with her sister, and with her friends, but the implications of her return are darker and more dangerous than they could have imagined. The Joywood are determined to prove Rebekah and her friends are a danger to witchkind, and her group faces an impending death sentence if they can't prove otherwise. Rebekah must seek help from the only one who knows how to stop the Joywood--the ruthless immortal Nicholas Frost. Years ago, he was her secret tutor in magic, and her secret impossible crush. But the icy immortal is as remote and arrogant as ever, and if he feels anything for Rebekah--or witchkind--it's impossible to tell. Witchlore Book 1: Small Town, Big Magic Book 2: Big Little Spells

Big Little Spells

ee807e9a-b3b1-43f9-99d1-341f1173e8fa-1

Riley Sager

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

One of New York Times Book Review's "summer reads guaranteed to make your heart thump and your skin crawl"; An Amazon Best of the Month Pick; Named a must-read summer book by The Washington Post, USA Today, Vulture, BuzzFeed, Forbes, Entertainment Weekly, CNN, New York Post, Good Housekeeping, E!, PopSugar, CrimeReads, Thrillist, and BookRiot. 

It's November 1991. Nirvana's in the tape deck, George H. W. Bush is in the White House, and movie-obsessed college student Charlie Jordan is in a car with a man who might be a serial killer.

Josh Baxter, the man behind the wheel, is a virtual stranger to Charlie. They met at the campus ride board, each looking to share the long drive home to Ohio. Both have good reasons for wanting to get away. For Charlie, it's guilt and grief over the shocking murder of her best friend, who became the third victim of the man known as the Campus Killer. For Josh, it's to help care for his sick father--or so he says.
 
The longer she sits in the passenger seat, the more Charlie notices there's something suspicious about Josh, from the holes in his story about his father to how he doesn't want her to see inside the trunk. As they travel an empty, twisty highway in the dead of night, an increasingly anxious Charlie begins to think she's sharing a car with the Campus Killer. Is Josh truly dangerous? Or is Charlie's jittery mistrust merely a figment of her movie-fueled imagination?
 
One thing is certain--Charlie has nowhere to run and no way to call for help. Trapped in a terrifying game of cat and mouse played out on pitch-black roads and in neon-lit parking lots, Charlie knows the only way to win is to survive the night.

Survive the Night

64788b4c-d99b-4caa-83c7-2bea140ec6fc-1

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Named a most-anticipated summer book by USA Today, People, E! News, Cosmopolitan, PureWow, CNN.com, New York Post, CrimeReads, POPSUGAR, and more The bestselling author of Final Girls and Survive the Night is back with his “best plot twist yet.” (People, "Best Summer Books") Be careful what you watch for . . . Casey Fletcher, a recently widowed actress trying to escape a streak of bad press, has retreated to the peace and quiet of her family’s lake house in Vermont. Armed with a pair of binoculars and several bottles of bourbon, she passes the time watching Tom and Katherine Royce, the glamorous couple living in the house across the lake. They make for good viewing—a tech innovator, Tom is powerful; and a former model, Katherine is gorgeous. One day on the lake, Casey saves Katherine from drowning, and the two strike up a budding friendship. But the more they get to know each other—and the longer Casey watches—it becomes clear that Katherine and Tom’s marriage isn’t as perfect as it appears. When Katherine suddenly vanishes, Casey immediately suspects Tom of foul play. What she doesn’t realize is that there’s more to the story than meets the eye—and that shocking secrets can lurk beneath the most placid of surfaces. Packed with sharp characters, psychological suspense, and gasp-worthy plot twists, Riley Sager’s The House Across the Lake is the ultimate escapist read . . . no lake house required.

The House Across the Lake

fc8776d1-e10c-455e-93fe-1dc201eadf50-1

Freida McFadden

A twisting, pulse-pounding thriller from Freida McFadden, the New York Times bestselling author of The Housemaid and The Coworker "You must be our new neighbors!" Mrs. Lowell gushes and waves across the picket fence. I clutch my daughter's hand and smile back: but the second Mrs. Lowell sees my husband a strange expression crosses her face. In that moment I make a promise. We finally have a family home. My past is far, far behind us. And I'll do anything to keep it that way... I used to clean other people's houses--now, I can't believe this home is actually mine. The charming kitchen, the quiet cul-de-sac, the huge yard where my kids can play. My husband and I saved for years to give our children the life they deserve. Even though I'm wary of our new neighbor Mrs. Lowell, when she invites us over for dinner it's our chance to make friends. Her maid opens the door wearing a white apron, her hair in a tight bun. I know exactly what it's like to be in her shoes. But her cold stare gives me chills... The Lowells' maid isn't the only strange thing on our street. I'm sure I see a shadowy figure watching us. My husband leaves the house late at night. And when I meet a woman who lives across the way, her words chill me to the bone: Be careful of your neighbors. Did I make a terrible mistake moving my family here? I thought I'd left my darkest secrets behind. But could this quiet suburban street be the most dangerous place of all? From New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Freida McFadden comes the next instalment of the unbelievably twisty, tension-packed and globally bestselling Housemaid series. This book can be enjoyed as a standalone read: and once you start, it will have you up all night racing through the pages until the final explosive twist.

The Housemaid Is Watching

efd8c604-4dd0-4fb5-9958-36444ddb169c-0

Anna Quindlen

"A wise and heartfelt novel of connection, of loss and love and the power of both."—Amy Bloom Quindlen’s trademark wisdom on family, emotions, and the secrets of people in a small town are at the center of this novel about triumph over adversity and the power of love to transcend time, by the bestselling author of Alternate Side and Every Last One. “A new Anna Quindlen novel is always cause for celebration. After Annie might just be my favorite one yet. It's a beautiful and deeply moving story about love, loss, friendship, marriage, family and community from one of our wisest chroniclers of modern life. I treasured every page." —J Courtney Sullivan When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, her four young children and her closest friend are left to struggle without the woman who centered their lives. Bill Brown finds himself overwhelmed, and Annie’s best friend Annemarie is lost to old bad habits without Annie’s support. It is Annie’s daughter, Ali, forced to try to care for her younger brothers and even her father, who manages to maintain some semblance of their former lives for them all, and who confronts the complicated truths of adulthood. Yet over the course of the next year, while Annie looms large in their memories, all three are able to grow, to change, even to become stronger and more sure of themselves. The enduring power Annie gave to those who loved her is the power to love, and to go on without her. Written in Quindlen’s emotionally resonant voice, and with her deep and generous understanding of people, After Annie is a story that ends with hope, a beautiful novel about how adversity can change us in profound ways.

After Annie

3f62d360-2cc1-4746-acb2-a781daa14f42-1

Claire McGowan

From the bestselling author of What You Did comes the story of a young couple who are about to discover that in a house full of secrets there's nowhere to hide... For Helen and George, the remote fixer-upper in Cornwall was supposed to be a dream home, and a way to leave behind the problems they're both running from. But something about the place feels wrong from day one. And why does Helen have a creeping feeling she's seen this house before? Her unease only deepens after renovations begin, when the builders find sinister dolls hidden in the walls. As Helen digs into the house's past, she discovers that the previous owner was not only rumoured to be a witch; she was also imprisoned for a brutal triple murder thirty years earlier. When a horrific accident almost ends in tragedy, Helen worries that the house's secrets are to blame, and as events spiral out of control she discovers George has been lying to her. As the past returns to haunt them, the couple realise they are in terrible danger, and they can't trust anyone--not even each other. Because Helen hasn't been entirely honest with him either...

Let Me In

0330044c-5a5c-4567-aeba-e833db04edce-0

Kathy Reichs

#1 New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs returns with a twisty, unputdownable thriller featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan, who finds herself at the center of a Washington, DC, arson investigation that spawns deepening levels of mystery and, ultimately, violence. It’s never easy working fire scenes, Tempe thinks. Called to Washington, DC, to analyze the victims of a building set ablaze amid mysterious circumstances, she sees all her misgivings justified. The building site is in Foggy Bottom, a neighborhood with a colorful past and present, and the property’s ownership becomes even more suspicious when Tempe delves into its past. The pieces start falling into place strangely and quickly, and, sensing a good story, Tempe teams with a new ally, telejournalist Ivy Doyle. Soon the duo learns that back in the thirties and forties the home was the hangout of a group of bootleggers and racketeers known as the Foggy Bottom Gang. Though interesting, this fact seems irrelevant—until the son of a Foggy Bottom gang member is shot dead at his farm in Fairfax County, Virginia. Coincidence? Targeted attacks? So many questions. As Tempe and Ivy dig deeper, an arrest is finally made. Then another Foggy Bottom Gang-linked property burns to the ground, claiming one more victim. Slowly, Tempe’s instincts begin pointing to the obvious: somehow, her moves since coming to Washington have been anticipated in advance, and every path forward seems to bring with it a lethal threat.

Fire and Bones

fe9e86ba-c10a-41d2-be9b-9afc0d4cabc9-0

Fiction Favorites

Karin Slaughter

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"There's deception, sabotage, violence, family secrets . . . all the stuff you could want from a fictional page-turner."-- theSkimm 

Recommended by Washington Post * theSkimm * GMA.com * Popsugar * Bustle * Atlanta Journal-Constitution * Augusta Chronicle * Sun-Sentinel * Mystery and Suspense Magazine * and more!

He saw what you did. He knows who you are...

From the New York Times bestselling author of Pieces of Her and The Silent Wife, an electrifying standalone thriller.

AN ORDINARY LIFE...

Leigh Collier has worked hard to build what looks like a normal life. She's an up-and-coming defense attorney at a prestigious law firm in Atlanta, would do anything for her sixteen-year-old daughter Maddy, and is managing to successfully coparent through a pandemic after an amicable separation from her husband Walter.

HIDES A DEVASTATING PAST...

But Leigh's ordinary life masks a childhood no one should have to endure ... a childhood tarnished by secrets, broken by betrayal, and ultimately destroyed by a brutal act of violence.

BUT NOW THE PAST IS CATCHING UP...

On a Sunday night at her daughter's school play, she gets a call from one of the firm's partners who wants Leigh to come on board to defend a wealthy man accused of multiple counts of rape. Though wary of the case, it becomes apparent she doesn't have much choice if she wants to keep her job. They're scheduled to go to trial in one week. When she meets the accused face-to-face, she realizes that it's no coincidence that he's specifically asked for her to represent him. She knows him. And he knows her. More to the point, he may know what happened over twenty years ago, and why Leigh has spent two decades avoiding her past.  

AND TIME IS RUNNING OUT.

Suddenly she has a lot more to lose than this case. The only person who can help is her younger, estranged sister Callie--the last person Leigh would ever want to drag into this after all they've been through. But with the life-shattering truth in danger of being revealed, she has no choice...

"A high-stakes thriller . . . Her heroines are believable, flawed and courageous." -OYINKAN BRAITHWAITE

False Witness

e0659700-c114-453d-ba11-623b9acf6ff6-1

Julianne Hough

Ellen Goodlett

A dazzling and heartwarming novel from Emmy Award winner Julianne Hough and Rule author Ellen Goodlett. When the stars align, anything can happen. On stage at an awards banquet is the last place Lexi Cole expected to drown. But as she accepts the award for top-seller at her realty firm, something unusual catches Lexi's eye: a man surrounded by a dark haze. Then she hears a woman screaming for help, and the taste of saltwater overwhelms her. Just as Lexi's throat begins to close, the man leaves the room and the sensation of drowning abruptly stops. Later that night, the man dies of an overdose, and Lexi learns about the traumatic boating accident that killed his sons and tore his family apart. Lexi wants to believe it's a bizarre coincidence. Any other explanation would disrupt the normal, comfortable life she's worked so hard to build. Lexi is an expert at denial, a pro at fitting in. But as more strange events unfold, Lexi can't deny the truth: something is changing inside her. She feels other people's emotions, sometimes even glimpses their private memories. By embracing her new abilities, Lexi can help heal people--though not until she confronts the past she's spent a lifetime burying. But when a vision reveals her husband is in danger, Lexi must decide: face her inner demons or lose the person she loves most. Atmospheric and emotional, Everything We Never Knew is the gripping story of one woman embracing her power, no matter what the world thinks.

Everything We Never Knew

2de21b91-2abe-4944-95de-d352db14a8ec-0

Geraldine Brooks

"Brooks' chronological and cross-disciplinary leaps are thrilling." --The New York Times Book Review

"Horse isn't just an animal story--it's a moving narrative about race and art." --TIME

A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history

Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack. 
 
New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance.
 
Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse--one studying the stallion's bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.
 
Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.

Horse

ccf8a6e2-b222-4c10-ad38-8ada4b366f38-1

Emma Törzs

"Follow where this novel leads and you will be lost in a bewitching spell, a book of magic about books of magic . . . extraordinary." - MARLON JAMES

"If, like me, you're a fan of Holly Black and Leigh Bardugo, pick up this book at once." -- KELLY LINK 

In this spellbinding debut novel, two estranged half-sisters tasked with guarding their family's library of magical books must work together to unravel a deadly secret at the heart of their collection--a tale of familial loyalty and betrayal, and the pursuit of magic and power.

For generations, the Kalotay family has guarded a collection of ancient and rare books. Books that let a person walk through walls or manipulate the elements--books of magic that half-sisters Joanna and Esther have been raised to revere and protect.

All magic comes with a price, though, and for years the sisters have been separated. Esther has fled to a remote base in Antarctica to escape the fate that killed her own mother, and Joanna's isolated herself in their family home in Vermont, devoting her life to the study of these cherished volumes. But after their father dies suddenly while reading a book Joanna has never seen before, the sisters must reunite to preserve their family legacy. In the process, they'll uncover a world of magic far bigger and more dangerous than they ever imagined, and all the secrets their parents kept hidden; secrets that span centuries, continents, and even other libraries . . .

In the great tradition of Ninth House, The Magicians, and Practical Magic, this is a suspenseful and richly atmospheric novel that draws readers into a vast world filled with mystery and magic, romance, and intrigue--and marks the debut of an extraordinary new voice in speculative fiction.

"Ink Blood Sister Scribe is so many things at once: an adventure, a puzzle, a twisty thriller, and a tender romance. . . . I adored it." - ALIX E. HARROW

Ink Blood Sister Scribe

70867cb6-526a-4145-915e-f25a79944eb8-1

Colleen Hoover

SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING BLAKE LIVELY AND JUSTIN BALDONI! From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of It Starts with Us and All Your Perfects, a “brave and heartbreaking novel that digs its claws into you and doesn’t let go, long after you’ve finished it” (Anna Todd, New York Times bestselling author) about a workaholic with a too-good-to-be-true romance who can’t stop thinking about her first love. Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town where she grew up—she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. And when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life seems too good to be true. Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily. And the way he looks in scrubs certainly doesn’t hurt. Lily can’t get him out of her head. But Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his “no dating” rule, she can’t help but wonder what made him that way in the first place. As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan—her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened. An honest, evocative, and tender novel, It Ends with Us is “a glorious and touching read, a forever keeper. The kind of book that gets handed down” (USA TODAY).

It Ends with Us

2e4f8abe-6806-4624-b087-967088a99c9f-1

Catherine Doyle

Katherine Webber

A high-stakes fantasy rom-com about twin princesses separated at birth--one raised as the crown princess, and the other taken as an infant and raised to kidnap her sister, steal the crown, and avenge the parents' murders--the first novel in a new YA duology from bestselling UK authors Catherine Doyle and Katherine Webber. Perfect for fans of The Selection, My Lady Jane, and Caraval.

Wren Greenrock has always known that one day she'd steal her sister's place on the throne. Trained from birth to return to the palace and avenge her parents' murder, she'll do anything to become queen and protect the community of witches who raised her. Or she would, if only a certain guard wasn't quite so distractingly attractive, and if her reckless magic would stop causing trouble. . . .

Princess Rose Valhart knows that with power comes responsibility--and she won't let a small matter like waking up in the desert with an extremely impertinent (and very handsome) kidnapper get in the way of her duty. But life outside the palace is wilder and more beautiful than she ever imagined, and the witches she has long feared might turn out to be the family she never had.

But as coronation day looms and each sister strives to claim her birthright, an old enemy becomes increasingly determined that neither will succeed. Who will ultimately rise to power and wear the crown?  



Twin Crowns

35a464c9-c938-41bb-ad78-6fa45b8321ea-1

How to Walk Away

Paula Hawkins

The Girl on the Train

22135942-a081-45b2-a059-a80c16a36de2-1

Emiko Jean

“The Return of Ellie Black is a page-turning suspense novel, a shrewd character study, and a captivating mystery, all at the same time. The last fifty pages are magnetic. I couldn’t put it down until I’d experienced every last twist and turn.” —STEPHEN KING Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s life is turned upside down when she gets the call Ellie Black, a girl who disappeared years earlier, has resurfaced in the woods of Washington state—but Ellie’s reappearance leaves Chelsey with more questions than answers. It’s been twenty years since Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s sister vanished when they were teenagers, and ever since she’s been searching: for signs, for closure, for other missing girls. But happy endings are rare in Chelsey’s line of work. Then a glimmer: local teenager Ellie Black, who disappeared without a trace two years earlier, has been found alive in the woods of Washington State. But something is not right with Ellie. She won’t say where she’s been, or who she’s protecting, and it’s up to Chelsey to find the answers. She needs to get to the bottom of what happened to Ellie: for herself, and for the memory of her sister, but mostly for the next girl who could be taken—and who, unlike Ellie, might never return. The debut thriller from New York Times bestselling author Emiko Jean, The Return of Ellie Black is both a feminist tour de force about the embers of hope that burn in the aftermath of tragedy and a twisty page-turner that will shock and surprise you right up until the final page.

The Return of Ellie Black

f9f80383-b6cf-46e0-824f-f95b2a36f68e-0

Clémence Michallon

NATIONAL BEST SELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES BEST CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR • GMA BUZZ PICK • “A bravura feat of storytelling...daring and completely satisfying.” —James Patterson, #1 best-selling author A PULSE-POUNDING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER ABOUT A SERIAL KILLER NARRATED BY THOSE CLOSEST TO HIM: HIS 13-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER, HIS GIRLFRIEND—AND THE ONE VICTIM HE HAS SPARED "Intelligent and suspenseful." —Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World “All…of the expected suspense and psychological tension, but offering a story about women—the ones who didn’t know the evil that lurked within, the ones who tried to placate or fight but still perished, the ones who might actually survive. Haunting but never prurient…truly unforgettable.” — Alafair Burke, author of The Wife Aidan Thomas is a hard-working family man and a somewhat beloved figure in the small upstate New York town where he lives. He’s the kind of man who always lends a hand and has a good word for everyone. But Aidan has a dark secret he’s been keeping from everyone in town and those closest to him. He’s a kidnapper and serial killer. Aidan has murdered eight women and there’s a ninth he has earmarked for death: Rachel, imprisoned in a backyard shed, fearing for her life. When Aidan’s wife dies, he and his thirteen-year-old daughter Cecilia are forced to move. Aidan has no choice but to bring Rachel along, introducing her to Cecilia as a “family friend” who needs a place to stay. Aidan is betting on Rachel, after five years of captivity, being too brainwashed and fearful to attempt to escape. But Rachel is a fighter and survivor, and recognizes Cecilia might just be the lifeline she has waited for all these years. As Rachel tests the boundaries of her new living situation, she begins to form a tenuous connection with Cecilia. And when Emily, a local restaurant owner, develops a crush on the handsome widower, she finds herself drawn into Rachel and Cecilia’s orbit, coming dangerously close to discovering Aidan’s secret. Told through the perspectives of Rachel, Cecilia, and Emily, The Quiet Tenant explores the psychological impact of Aidan’s crimes on the women in his life—and the bonds between those women that give them the strength to fight back. Both a searing thriller and an astute study of trauma, survival, and the dynamics of power, The Quiet Tenant is an electrifying debut thriller by a major talent.

Browse by categories

Christina Lauren

The Paradise Problem

Salman Rushdie

Knife

Freida McFadden

The Coworker

Agatha Christie

Dumb Witness

Elin Hilderbrand

Swan Song

Amanda Peters

The Berry Pickers

Hazel Beck

Big Little Spells

Riley Sager

Survive the Night

Riley Sager

The House Across the Lake

Freida McFadden

The Housemaid Is Watching

Anna Quindlen

After Annie

Claire McGowan

Let Me In

Kathy Reichs

Fire and Bones

Linwood Barclay, Annabel Monaghan, Linda Castillo, David Rosenfelt

Fiction Favorites

Karin Slaughter

False Witness

Julianne Hough; Ellen Goodlett

Everything We Never Knew

Geraldine Brooks

Horse

Emma Törzs

Ink Blood Sister Scribe

Colleen Hoover

It Ends with Us

Catherine Doyle; Katherine Webber

Twin Crowns

Katherine Center

How to Walk Away

Paula Hawkins

The Girl on the Train

Emiko Jean

The Return of Ellie Black

Clémence Michallon

The Quiet Tenant

Get The App