Jackal: by Erin Adams

Title: Jackal

Published: 10/4/2022

Pages: 336

A young Black girl goes missing in the woods outside her white Rust Belt town. But she’s not the first—and she may not be the last. . . .

It’s watching.

Liz Rocher is coming home . . . reluctantly. As a Black woman, Liz doesn’t exactly have fond memories of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a predominantly white town. But her best friend is getting married, so she braces herself for a weekend of awkward and passive-aggressive reunions. Liz has grown, though; she can handle whatever awaits her. But on the day of the wedding, somewhere between dancing and dessert, the bride’s daughter, Caroline, goes missing—and the only thing left behind is a piece of white fabric covered in blood.

It’s taking.

As a frantic search begins, with the police combing the trees for Caroline, Liz is the only one who notices a pattern: a summer night. A missing girl. A party in the woods. She’s seen this before. Keisha Woodson, the only other Black girl in school, walked into the woods with a mysterious man and was later found with her chest cavity ripped open and her heart missing. Liz shudders at the thought that it could have been her, and now, with Caroline missing, it can’t be a coincidence. As Liz starts to dig through the town’s history, she uncovers a horrifying secret about the place she once called home. Children have been going missing in these woods for years. All of them Black. All of them girls.

It’s your turn.

With the evil in the forest creeping closer, Liz knows what she must do: find Caroline, or be entirely consumed by the darkness.

Lost Hills by Lee Goldberg

Title: Lost Hills
Author: Lee Goldberg

A video of Deputy Eve Ronin’s off-duty arrest of an abusive movie star goes viral, turning her into a popular hero at a time when the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is plagued by scandal. The sheriff, desperate for more positive press, makes Eve the youngest female homicide detective in the department’s history.

Now Eve, with a lot to learn and resented by her colleagues, has to justify her new badge. Her chance comes when she and her burned-out, soon-to-retire partner are called to the blood-splattered home of a missing single mother and her two kids. The horrific carnage screams multiple murder—but there are no corpses.

Eve has to rely on her instincts and tenacity to find the bodies and capture the vicious killer, all while battling her own insecurities and mounting pressure from the media, her bosses, and the bereaved family. It’s a deadly ordeal that will either prove her skills…or totally destroy her.

Short story: Grammy's Supper by R.M. Blakeley

Title: Grammy's Supper

Author: R.M. Blakeley

The country is in total lockdown, policed by the military. Because he's sick like the others, his Grammy keeps him locked in an old storage cage in the basement. When he finally gets free, he discovers the twisted truth in plain sight and attempts to flee.

Mother's Day by Patricia MacDonald

Title: Mother's Day

Author: Patricia MacDonald

Pages: 310

Meet Karen.
Married to her childhood sweetheart.
Loving mom of thirteen-year-old Jenny.

It’s Mother’s Day and her perfect day becomes a perfect nightmare.

A woman turns up at her door claiming to be Jenny’s biological mother.

Two days later the woman’s bloody body is found in a dumpster.

And the prime suspect is Karen’s own husband . . .

A seamless blend of high domestic suspense with a shattering final twist.

The Shadow House: Anna Downes

Title: The Shadow House

                                      Published: 4/22/2022

Pine Ridge. Create the life you want.

Alex has arrived at Pine Ridge - an ecovillage nestled high in the hills, surrounded by forests. She is determined to to make a fresh start for her and her two children, and this rural community apart from the modern world seems like the perfect place.
Beautiful. Idyllic. Safe.
But then sinister boxes start to arrive, and one by one they chip away at Alex's peace. She starts to hear stories about something awful that happened here years before, stories which sound eerily familiar.
Bones. Doll. Blood.
History looks to be repeating itself. Alex has come here to keep her children safe from harm. But in this little rural paradise, they could be in more danger than ever before.
Extraordinarily tense and deliciously mysterious, Anna Downes's The Shadow House follows one woman's desperate journey to protect her children at any cost, in a remote place where not everything is as it seems.

NetGalley: And There He Kept Her by Joshua Moehling

Pages: 320

Author: Joshua Moehling

 I read this book voluntarily; all thoughts and opinions are my own.

They thought he was a helpless old man. They were wrong.

When two teenagers break into a house on a remote lake in search of prescription drugs, what starts as a simple burglary turns into a nightmare for all involved. Emmett Burr has secrets he's been keeping in his basement for more than two decades, and he'll do anything to keep his past from being revealed. As he gets the upper hand on his tormentors, the lines blur between victim, abuser, and protector.

Personal tragedy has sent former police officer Ben Packard back to the small Minnesota town of Sandy Lake in search of a fresh start. Now a sheriff's deputy, Packard is leading the investigation into the missing teens, motivated by a family connection. As clues dry up and time runs out to save them, Packard is forced to reveal his own secrets and dig deep to uncover the dark past of the place he now calls home.

Kindle Unlimited: Snow Creek (Book 1) Gregg Olsen

Pages: 262

Published: 11/18/2019

Author: Gregg Olsen

Footprints were scattered about like fallen leaves. She looked down into the ravine, and once more her lungs filled with fear. A body lay silent and unmoving in the bushes.

When Ruth Turner walks into the Sheriff’s office in Jefferson County’s Port Townsend claiming her sister Ida Wheaton has been missing for over a month, Detective Megan Carpenter’s instincts tell her that she needs to do more than just file a report.

Racing over to Ida’s secluded farmhouse in the hills above Snow Creek, Megan finds Ida’s teenage children alone and frightened. She can’t help but notice there’s no TV. No video games. Nothing of the outside world. Something about the Wheaton family doesn’t add up and triggers a painful childhood memory for Megan – when one day, in a flash, both her parents were gone.

Then the body of a woman is discovered in an abandoned pickup truck close to the Wheatons’ home and Megan’s convinced the cases are connected.

If she has any chance of catching the killer, Megan must first unravel the secrets of the isolated Snow Creek community. But Megan has dark secrets of her own…

Hidden in the back of her closet is a box of tapes containing every single recording of her therapy sessions over thirteen years ago. Can she finally confront the past she’s spent years trying to block out? And will reliving her own painful story help her solve the complex case unraveling in the hills above Snow Creek before another innocent life is lost?