May 5, 2023
New Fiction
The Last Word by Taylor Adams – Emma Carpenter is living in isolation with her golden retriever, Laika, house-sitting an old beachfront home on the rainy Washington coast. Her only human contact is with her enigmatic elderly neighbor, Deek, and (via text) with the house’s owner, Jules. One day, she reads a poorly written-but gruesome-horror novel by the author H.G. Kane and posts a one-star review that drags her into an online argument with none other than the author himself. Soon after, disturbing incidents start to occur at night. To Emma, this can’t just be coincidence. It was strange enough for this author to bicker with her online about a lousy review. Could he be stalking her, too? As Emma digs into Kane’s life and work, she learns he has published sixteen other novels, all similarly sadistic tales of stalking and murder. But who is he? How did he find her? And what else is he capable of?
Who Cries for the Lost by C.S.Harris – June 1815. The people of London wait breathlessly for news as Napoleon and the forces united against him hurtle toward their final reckoning at Waterloo. Among them is Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, frustrated to find himself sidelined while recovering from a dangerous wound he recently received in Paris. When the mutilated corpse of Major Miles Sedgewick surfaces from the murky waters of the Thames, Sebastian is drawn into the murder investigation, which threatens one of his oldest and dearest friends, Irish surgeon Paul Gibson. Gibson’s lover, Alexi Sauvage, was tricked into a bigamous marriage with the victim. But there are other women who may have wanted the cruel, faithless major dead. His mistress, his neglected wife, and their young governess whom he seduced all make for compelling suspects. Even more interesting to Sebastian is one of Sedgewick’s fellow officers, a man who shared Sedgewick’s macabre fascination with both old English folklore and the occult. And then there’s the valuable list of Londoners who once spied for Napoleon that Sedgewick was said to be transporting to Charles, Lord Jarvis, the Regent’s powerful cousin, who also happens to be Sebastian’s father-in-law. The deeper Sebastian delves into Sedgewick’s life, the more he learns about the major’s many secrets, and the list of people who could have wanted him dead grows even longer. Soon others connected to Sedgewick begin to die strange, brutal deaths, and more evidence emerges that links Alexi to the crimes. Certain that Gibson will be implicated alongside Alexi, Sebastian finds himself in a desperate race against time to stop the killing and save his friends from the terror of the gallows.
The Audrey Hepburn Estate by Brenda Janowitz – When Emma Jansen discovers that the grand Long Island estate where she grew up is set to be demolished, she can’t help but return for one last visit. After all, it was a place filled with firsts: learning to ride a bike, sneaking a glass of champagne, falling in love. But once Emma arrives at the storied mansion, she can’t ignore the more complicated memories. Because that’s not exactly where Emma grew up. Her mother and father worked for the family that owned the estate, and they lived over the garage like Audrey Hepburn’s character in the film Sabrina. Emma never felt fully accepted except by the family’s grandson, Henry-a former love-and by the driver’s son, Leo-her best friend. As plans for the property are put into motion and the three are together for the first time in a decade, Emma finds herself caught between two worlds and two loves. And when the house reveals a shattering secret about her own family, she’ll have to decide what kind of life she really wants for herself now and who she wants to be in it.
On the Ravine by Vincent Lam – In his downtown Toronto condo, Dr. Chen awakens to the sound of streetcars below, but it’s not the early morning traffic that keeps him from sleep. News banners run across his phone: Fentanyl Crisis; Toxic Drug Supply; Record Number of Deaths. From behind the headlines on the same screen glow the faces of his patients, the faces of the what-ifs: What if he had done more, or less? Or something different? Would they still be alive? Claire is a violinist; she feels at one with her music, taking flight in its melody, free in its movement. But now she rises and falls with the opioids in her system, and has become increasingly reckless. After two overdoses in twenty-four hours, she sits in the blue light of her computer, searching a notice board for recommendations: my doctor saved my life; my doctor is just another dealer. And then another message catches her attention, about Chen’s clinic: be a guinea pig-why not get paid to take it? When Claire’s life intersects with Chen’s, the doctor is drawn ever more deeply into the complexities of the doctor-patient relationship, the implication and meaning of this intention to treat. Chen must confront just how far he would he go to save a life.