October 13, 2023
New Fiction
Mother-Daughter Murder Night by Nina Simon – High-powered businesswoman Lana Rubicon has a lot to be proud of: her keen intelligence, impeccable taste, and the LA real estate empire she’s built. But when she finds herself trapped three hundred miles north of the city, convalescing in a sleepy coastal town with her adult daughter, Beth, and teenage granddaughter, Jack, Lana is stuck counting otters instead of square footage – and hoping that boredom won’t kill her before the cancer does. Then Jack – tiny in stature but fiercely independent- happens upon a dead body while kayaking near their bungalow. Jack quickly becomes a suspect in the homicide investigation, and the Rubicon women are thrown into chaos. Beth thinks Lana should focus on recovery, but Lana has a better idea. She’ll pull on her wig, find the true murderer, protect her family, and prove she still has power. With Jack and Beth’s help, Lana uncovers a web of lies, family vendettas, and land disputes lurking beneath the surface of a community populated by folksy conservationists and wealthy ranchers. But as their amateur snooping advances into ever-more-dangerous territory, the headstrong Rubicon women must do the one thing they’ve never tried: trust one another.
The Night House by Jo Nesbo – In the wake of his parents’ tragic deaths, fourteen-year-old Richard Elauved has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle in the remote town of Ballantyne. Richard quickly earns a reputation as an outcast, and when a classmate named Tom goes missing, no one believes him when he says the telephone booth out by the edge of the woods sucked Tom into the receiver like something out of a horror movie. No one, that is, except the enigmatic Karen, who encourages Richard to pursue clues the police refuse to investigate. He traces the number to an abandoned house in the woods. There he catches a glimpse of a terrifying face in the window. And then the voices start. When another classmate disappears, Richard grapples with the dark magic that’s possessing Ballantyne to try and find them before it’s too late.
A Traitor in Whitehall by Julia Kelly – England, 1940. Evelyne Redfern, known as “The Parisian Orphan” as a child, is working on the line at a munitions factory in wartime London. When Mr. Fletcher, one of her father’s old friends, spots Evelyne on a night out, she finds herself plunged into the world of Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s cabinet war rooms. However, shortly after she settles into her new role as a secretary, one of the women at work is murdered, and Evelyne must use all of her amateur sleuthing expertise to find the killer. But doing so puts her right in the path of David Poole, a man on a mission to root out a mole selling government secrets to Britain’s enemies, and the pair begrudgingly team up. Will Evelyne be able to find out who’s been selling England’s secrets and catch a killer, all while battling her growing attraction to David?
And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott – On the surface, Alice is exactly where she should be in life: she's just given birth to a beautiful baby girl; her ever-charming husband - an academic whose area of study is conveniently her own Mohawk culture - is nothing but supportive; and they've moved into a home in a wealthy neighbourhood. But strange things have started happening. Alice finds herself hearing voices she can't explain and speaking with things that should not be talking back to her, all while her neighbours' passive aggression begins to morph into something far more threatening.