One by One by Ruth Ware

Title: One by One

Author: Ruth Ware

Genre: Mystery, Thriller

If you want a thriller with an And Then There Were None vibe, give Ruth Ware's One by One a try. Set in a ski chalet high in the French Alps, a tech start-up's retreat takes a nasty turn when an avalanche hits isolating the guests and staff. Can the cook and housekeeper keep it together long enough for help to find its way to them or will they all disappear, one by one?

- Sarah R.

Check out One by One by Ruth Ware @ the library!

Hideaway by Nora Roberts

Title: Hideaway

Author: Nora Roberts

Genre: Romantic Suspense

Members of the Sullivan family have been big names in the entertainment industry for generations. Caitlyn Sullivan grew up in the business as a child actor. At 10 she is kidnapped, but when the job doesn't go as planned, the lives of all involved will never be the same. A tale of jealousy, revenge, love and family ties plays out against the backdrops of California, New York, and Ireland.

- Sarah R.

Check out Hideaway by Nora Roberts @ the library!

I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid

Title: I'm Thinking of Ending Things

Author: Iain Reid

Genre: Psychological Thriller, Horror, Suspense 

A  young woman is thinking of ending things with her boyfriend, Jake. She likes him but doesn't see the relationship as long term. She hasn't even told Jake about the mysterious voicemails she's been receiving on a regular basis from her own number. Someone would tell a serious boyfriend about that, right? Even though she is thinking of ending things, she agrees to go to Jake's childhood home to meet his parents. Since she's thinking of ending things, there is no pressure. They drive through a worsening snowstorm to the country farmhouse. Jake's parents are odd and ask her unsettling questions, but it is the drive home when things take a turn for the worse. 

 

I'm Thinking of Ending Things is a psychological thriller that really gets your adrenaline pumping after that detour. You'll find yourself questioning what you're reading and if you missed any clues along the way. Now a movie on Netflix, this is a quick thriller that is perfect for a dark and stormy night. 

- Beth

Check out I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid @ the library!

Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel

Title: Darling Rose Gold

Author: Stephanie Wrobel

Genre: Thriller

Patty Watts has served her time. Beloved on the inside, she is anxious to rebuild her life on the outside. No matter what her former friends think, she knows things will be okay. Rose Gold is picking her up, and with a new baby she has a chance to prove they were wrong. Everyone saw what Rose Gold said about her, but now Rose Gold is back.

Rose Gold knows what people say about her, and knows what her mother did. People wonder how she could have let it happen, and while some feel pity, many feel disgust. Rose Gold thought her mother had her best interests at heart. Now she is able to stand on her own, and maybe she is not as fragile as everyone thinks.

If you watched "Mommy Dead and Dearest" or "The Act", Darling Rose Gold is a must read. With a ripped form the headlines plot, readers will keep turning pages to figure out what happened then, and what is happening now.

- Katie

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The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware

Title: The Turn of the Key
Author: Ruth Ware
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense

A daycare employee reads an ad for a live-in nanny position for a family in the remote Heatherbrae House. The pay is great and the opportunity looks too good to pass up. She's on guard when she's asked about being superstitious, but discounts the previous nannies' abrupt departures. She is offered the job and accepts.

When the Elincourts hire Rowan Caine to take care of their four girls, they never expected to wind up with three. Now the nanny is applying to the best local legal defense in Scotland to hear her out, but she has to convince Mr. Wrexham to take her case via letters from jail. 

Hear the tale from the nanny's perspective. Would you believe her? Read The Turn of the Key to find out. 

I liked the building of suspense and that it had enough twists to keep one guessing. 
It also made me rethink exactly how "smart" I want my house to be.

- Sarah R.

Check out The Turn of the Key @ the library!

The President is Missing by Bill Clinton and James Patterson

Title: The President is Missing

Author: Bill Clinton and James Patterson

Genre: Suspense/Political Thriller

Have you ever given a thought to just how much of our lives are controlled by computers?

This taut political thriller poses this question as the U.S. is threatened with a cyber attack by terrorists that could threaten our financial institutions, our infrastructure, and even our very lives.  It involves political intrigue, an assassin, computer coders/hackers, and of course, the President.  Will President Jonathan Duncan discover who is about to send the U.S. into the dark ages? Who can the President trust?

Bill Clinton, James Patterson, and ghost writer David Ellis team up to take you on a fast-paced ride through the harrowing experience of preparing for an attack that the U.S. is not equipped to fight.

- Sarah R.

Check out The President Is Missing @ the library.

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

Title: The Woman in Cabin 10

Author: Ruth Ware

Genre: Suspense, Mystery

Since her boss is on maternity leave, Lo Blacklock, a travel journalist, gets chosen to go on the exclusive maiden voyage of the Aurora, a luxury cruise ship, in her boss' stead. It's the opportunity of her career: All the big names in travel journalism are also on board, and Lo is hoping to impress and prove her worth to her employer. Just days before the cruise departs, Lo gets burgled. Stressed and already lacking sleep, Lo is determined not to let this get in the way of going on the cruise. On the first night aboard, however, Lo hears a splash and believes that someone was thrown overboard from the cabin next door. She brings it to the attention of the ship's staff, but no one believes her, saying that room was empty and everyone on board has been accounted for. Did Lo really see what she thought she did? Or are recent events making her overreact?

The setting of The Woman in Cabin 10 is similar to Agatha Christie's mysteries, where almost everyone is a suspect and there's no way to escape. While the writing leaves something to be desired, the book was suspenseful and the plot kept me guessing. The Woman in Cabin 10 was a hard one to put down!

- Sarah P.

Check out The Woman in Cabin 10 @ the library.

The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel

Lane Roanoke is only fifteen years old when her mother commits suicide. With nowhere else to go, Lane moves in with her maternal grandparents and cousin Allegra on their farm in rural Kansas. Knowing little about her extended family, Lane is excited at the prospects of having a family to care for her. Lane quickly embraces life as a Roanoke, but it isn't long before Lane realizes that the Roanoke family has a dark secret to keep; one that sends her running far away from the small farming town in Kansas.

Years later, Lane still figuring out her life, receives a phone call from her grandfather telling Lane that her cousin Allegra has gone missing. Has Allegra run away like the Roanoke girls before her or is it something more sinister? Unable to get Allegra out of her mind, Lane returns to help ease the guilt she feels after having left Allegra behind. While Lane's homecoming means a chance for second chances, it also means that she must face the Roanoke secret that made her run.

Weaving between now and then, The Roanoke Girls is filled with twists and turns, exploring the lengths at which families will go to keep their deep, dark secrets and the love that they share.

The Good Goodbye by Carla Buckley

Cousins Arden and Rory Falcone have been best friends since they were toddlers. They were inseparable, so much so that they shared a dorm room in college. Given that the girls are so close, everyone finds it extremely odd that the minute their relationship starts to falter, a suspicious fire breaks out in their dorm room. The fire left one dead and the girls severely burned and clinging to life in a local emergency room. Now the detective on the case is nosing around; digging up secrets and looking for answers.

Tension was already high between Arden and Rory's parents, thanks in part to a financial decision turned sour. With little else to do as the girls lay in hospital beds, Arden and Rory's parents are forced to take a look at their unraveling relationships and pray that their secrets stay buried. Ultimately wanting the best for both of the girls, the Falcones are forced to make a decision that might break up the once close knit family.

From author Carla Buckley comes The Good Goodbye, a suspenseful thriller about an estranged family, buried lies, and secrets everyone wants to keep hidden.

He Will Be My Ruin by K.A. Tucker

K.A. Tucker's new book He Will Be My Ruin follows Maggie Sparkes and Celine, who have been best friends since Celine's mother Rosa began working as the Sparkes family nanny over twenty years ago. Though they came from completely different lives, it didn't matter when it came to their friendship. Maggie grew up wealthy and privileged and Celine was the daughter of a hardworking Latina who lived paycheck to paycheck. Yet no matter where life took them, they remained friends.

Now when Celine has been found dead, of an apparent prescription drug/alcohol suicide, in her New York apartment, it's Maggie who is responsible for tying up the loose ends of Celine's life. Finding it hard to believe that Celine would ever be capable of suicide, Maggie starts searching her apartment for clues. When she stumbles on a few diaries and a locked box with the photo of a mysterious man in it, Maggie begins to question the idea of Celine having a double life.

Did Celine really commit suicide or is there a killer out there who will do anything to silence the people that get in the way?

The Evening Spider by Emily Arsenault

Emily Arsenault's The Evening Spider is the perfect blend of psychological thriller inspired by a true crime story from the 1880s. Told in alternating viewpoints and historical time periods, the story focuses on two young mothers.

It's 1885 and Frances Barnett has been sent to Northhampton Lunatic Hospital shortly after the birth of her daughter. Distrusting everyone around her, Frances begins to recount the early days of her pregnancy, as she shares her reluctance towards the possibility of becoming a mother. During the early stages of her pregnancy, Frances can't help but explain how she became enamored with the disturbing, yet captivating murder trial of a young woman at the hands of a local clergy member who was guilty of poisoning the young woman with arsenic. Frances, fascinated with the science behind the trial, admits in her journal that maybe her interest in the trial lead her to have horrible thoughts.

Fast forward to 2014, when young mother Abby Bernacki is slowly transitioning to motherhood. Taking a year sabbatical after giving birth to her daughter, Abby can't help but have odd dreams and hear suspicious sounds across the baby monitor in her daughter's room.Worried she's beginning to lose her mind, Abby begins researching their home. After finding out that the house belonged to the Barnetts, Abby cannot stop thinking about what might have happened in the house 150 years ago.

With a mix of humor, thriller, true crime, and history, Arsenault's book is sure to keep you turning the page.

The Ploughmen by Kim Zupan

Two men who have very little in common are thrown together by crime and punishment in the Montana penal system. Valentine Milimaki is a young Copper County sheriff assigned to guard psychopathic serial killer, John Gload, an old man finally caught after years of criminal activity.  They are able to make a connection despite their very great differences. Both grew up essentially motherless on hardscrabble Montana farms. Both love their wives but have trouble with their relationships. And neither one can sleep. Gload was a ruthless killer who robbed and mutilated his victims to cover up his crimes. He had been a careful killer, so although he began his life of crime as a young teen, he was not caught until he reached his seventies. After Gload’s arrest, Milimaki must sit guard outside of Gload’s cell, listening to him chain smoke and talk about his past, all the while worrying about his wife, who seems about to leave him. Other deputies try to interfere with their odd relationship, believing the deputy to be too soft to handle a killer. They don’t realize that Gload can still be just as dangerous in prison as he was out of it.   In The Ploughmen, Kim Zupan has written, in a spare style, a thriller and an evocative description of Montana’s landscape as well as its rural inhabitants.

Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson

The rural Montana depicted in Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson is a rough, hard-scrabble place and not an easy place to be a social worker. Pete Snow is a Montana social worker based in the small town of Tenmile. He is a decent man who has too much empathy for his own good. He often takes chances and breaks rules to keep dysfunctional families together, knowing that a foster home or institution might be a more damaging, dangerous place for children than a home headed by a drug-addicted parent. So when a young boy from a survivalist family wanders into town from the mountains, Pete buys him some clothes, food and medicine and escorts him back into the wilderness. There he meets the boy’s father, Jeremiah Pearl. Over time, Pete befriends Jeremiah and his son, Benjamin. He learns that Benjamin is just one child in a large family but, mysteriously, he never encounters any of the others. At the same time, Pete must continue to tend to the needs of his other difficult clients. Further, when his own family, having its own problems, disintegrates, he loses his wife and daughter.

Fourth of July Creek is set in the very early 1980’s after President Reagan is shot, the Pearls and other survivalists come under closer scrutiny by agents of the Federal Government. Mistrust and ignorance on both sides complicate matters and violence erupts in town and in the mountains. Pete Snow is a man caught in the middle—a government agent who has compassion for those with anti-government inclinations. Fanaticism and violence can only end in tragedy even though a good man, Pete Snow, does his futile best to prevent it. 

The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane

An elderly woman, Ruth Field, lives alone in a remote area of Australia. Despite suffering from back pain, she is self-sufficient and content with her life. However she regularly dreams that there is a tiger in her house. Only when she discusses this with her son during their occasional phone calls does she realize it was only a dream. One day a woman named Frida arrives at her door. Frida says she has been sent by a government agency to help Ruth. Ruth allows her in and Frida, taking charge of the cooking and cleaning chores, does make Ruth’s life much easier. But is Frida actually a government health care worker? Sometimes she appears to be bullying Ruth or taking advantage of her. Is she really? Ruth is obviously suffering from dementia, or at the least confusion, and cannot always trust her memory of Frida’s mistreatment. Neither can the reader.  The Night Guest is an unusual novel of suspense and Fiona McFarlane expertly uses domestic events to create a sense of uneasiness.

Check out The Night Guest @ the library!

All The Birds Singing by Evie Wyld

Jake Whyte is living on a remote island off the coast of England. An Australian, a woman who is farming sheep on her own, she is an outsider who spurns the company of the locals. She prefers to live and work alone until someone or something starts to kill and eviscerate her sheep. Frightened, she seeks out the help of the man who previously owned her farm. Are the sheep being killed by teens, foxes, or something even more threatening? He is unable to advise her or assuage her mounting fear. She remains on her own. Alternating chapters tell the story of how Jake came to live on this island so far from her home. In reverse chronological order we learn the story of Jake’s life: her days traveling with a sheep-shearing crew; her life with Otto, a sheep farmer; her time as a prostitute; and her life with her difficult family. These chapters drive the story, building a page-turning tension that compels the reader to guess and guess again why Jake is always on the run, why she keeps to herself, why her back is covered with scars and why she maintains a tenuous connection with her estranged family. In All The Birds Singing, Evie Wyld has created a novel of suspense and mystery, a page-turner that will keep the reader enthralled to the last page.

Check out All The Birds Singing @ the library!

The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell

Rose Baker is a young woman in the typing pool of the New York City Police Department during Prohibition. She is plain, quiet and prudish about life.  However, she is also lonely. So when Odalie, a glamorous flapper with bobbed hair and expensive clothes and jewelry, joins the clerical staff and reaches out to Rose for friendship, Rose is intrigued. Like a moth to a flame, Rose is drawn into Odalie’s dangerous life, becoming her roommate, sharing her clothing and jewelry, accompanying her to speakeasies and parties and running spurious errands on her behalf.  Odalie is mysterious, with more than one version of where she and her wealth came from: perhaps prostitution, bootlegging or a family inheritance.  Whatever the source, she lives well and is generous in sharing her comfortable life with Rose. But she also exacts payment for her generosity, expecting Rose to blindly do her bidding. And Rose, having been drawn in by Odalie and unable to return to her old life, cannot deny her.  How much will Odalie ask of Rose? How far will Rose be willing to go on Odalie’s behalf? Tension builds throughout the entire book and these questions are not answered until the last page. 

Check out The Other Typist @ the Library!

Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes

Catherine Bailey meets Lee, a gorgeous police officer whose charismatic nature makes everyone like him.  She falls in love but soon his true character shines through and she becomes scared of him and his controlling ways.  She plans an escape which goes wrong.  Fast forward four years later.  Lee is behind bars but Catherine’s life has been changed forever.  Suffering from both post-traumatic stress and obsessive compulsive disorder she is spending her time living in fear.  Lee is released from prison and Catherine knows he will come after her.  Told in alternating chapters of flashbacks and present time this novel will cause you to think twice about domestic violence.  Checkout Into the Darkest Corner@ the library!

Inferno by Dan Brown

Instead of religion, Dan Brown tackles science in this fast paged, page turning read that will leave you on the edge of your seat.  It begins with Professor Langdon (of Da Vince Code fame) in a Florence hospital suffering from a gunshot wound and amnesia.   After a woman breaks into his room and starts shooting he escapes with the help of a doctor.  Trying to figure out why he’s in Florence with people shooting at him leads Langdon on a path though the great art and buildings of the city.  As in Dan Brown’s other books the history, art, literature, and science are real.  Check out Inferno@ the library!

Woman in Red by Eileen Goudge

Alice Kessler spent nine years in prison for running down the person who killed her son.  She has missed out on her other son, Jeremy’s childhood and is determined to make up for lost time.  Jeremy is then falsely accused of rape and Alice is forced to face the fact that her son may end up in jail as well.  At the same time Alice arrives back in town, Colin McGinty returns as well, staying in the house his grandfather left him. Their paths intersect and they end up becoming very important to each other.   This book has it all: romance, suspense, mystery, and intrigue.  You’ll root for the characters.  Check it out@ the library!

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

Victoria McQueen has the power to find things, using a covered bridge that takes her where she wants to go.  Charles Manx has a unique ability too. He takes children in his vintage Rolls Royce (license plate NOS4A2) to “Christmasland” where they remain.  Contrary to its benign sounding name, “Christmasland” is a world of horrors where the children turn into monsters and Manx becomes stronger.  Victoria and Manx’s paths cross and she may be the only one who can stop him.  This book is a nonstop thrill ride.  Joe Hill is a master of suspense and you won’t want to put down this 700 page masterpiece. Check out NOS4A2 @ the library