June 14, 2024
New Fiction
For the Love of Summer by Susan Mallery – As the owner of Twisted, Seattle’s best salons, Erica knows that the sharpest cuts come from the people we love. She’s terrified that she’s losing her teen daughter, Summer, to her “other family, especially to her stepmom, Allison. All it takes to blow up Allison’s happy life is one collect call. From prison. Her beloved husband, Peter, has been arrested, leaving Allison pregnant, broke, scared and alone with a toddler. But when her stepdaughter ferrets out the truth, the teen rushes to the last person Allison wants to ask for help – her husband’s battle-ax ex. Erica would do anything for Summer, even take in the woman her daughter loves like a second mom. Allison feels intimidated by Erica – a woman who would never let herself become so dependent on a man. But the more time they spend together, the more Allison realizes what Erica truly needs is a friend. Can two women who married the same man move beyond their complicated past and rethink what it means to be family?
If Something Happens to Me by Alex Finlay – For the past five years, Ryan Richardson has relived that terrible night. The car door ripping open. The crushing blow to the head. The hands yanking him from the vehicle. His girlfriend Ali’s piercing scream as she it taken. With no trace of Ali or the car, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Ryan. But with no proof and a good lawyer, he’s never charged, though that doesn’t matter to the podcasters and internet trolls. Now, Ryan has changed his last name and entered law school. He’s put his past behind him. Until, on a summer trip to Italy with his law-school classmates, Ryan gets a call from his father: Ali’s car has finally been found, submerged in a lake in Ryan’s hometown. Inside are two dead men and a cryptic note with five words written on the envelope in Ali’s handwriting: If something happens to me… Then, halfway around the world, the unthinkable happens: Ryan sees the man who has haunted his dreams since that night. As Ryan races from the rolling hills of Tuscany to a rural village in the UK to the glittering streets of Paris, in search of the truth, he has no idea that his salvation may lie with a young sheriff’s deputy in Kansas working her first case and a mobster in Philadelphia who’s experienced tragedy of his own.
In The Hour of Crows by Dana Elmendort – When called upon, she can talk the death out of the dying and save their lives – only once, never twice. But this truly unique gift comes at a price, rooting Weatherly to people who only want her around when they need her and resent her backwater ways when they don’t. Weatherly’s cousin Adaire also has a gift: she’s a Scryer and can see the future reflected back in dark surfaces. Right before she is killed in an accident, Adaire saw something unnerving, and that’s why Weatherly believes she was murdered – never thinking for a moment that it was an accident. But when Weatherly, for the first time, is unable to talk the death out of the mayor’s son, the whole town suspects she is out for revenge, that she wouldn’t save him. With the help of clues Adaire left behind and her family’s Granny Witch recipe box, Weatherly sets out to find the truth behind her cousin’s death, whatever it takes.
The Unwedding by Ally Condie – Ellery Wainwright is alone at the edge of the world. She and her husband, Luke, were supposed to spend their twentieth wedding anniversary together at the luxurious Resort at Broken Point in Big Sur, California. Where better to celebrate a marriage, a family, and a life together than at one of the most stunning places on earth? But now she’s travelling solo. To add insult to injury, there’s a wedding at Broken Point scheduled during her stay. Ellery remembers how it felt to be on the cusp of everything new and wonderful, with a loved and certain future glimmering just ahead. Now, she isn’t sure of anything except for her love for her kids and her growing realization that this place, though beautiful, is unsettling. When Ellery discovers the body of the groom floating in the pool in the rain, she realizes that she is not the only one whose future is no longer guaranteed. Before the police can reach Broken Point, a mudslide takes out the road to the resort, leaving the guest trapped. When another guest dies, it’s clear something horrible is brewing. Everyone at Broken Point has a secret. And everyone has a shadow. Including Ellery.