Tag: suspense

Blunt Force Magic (The Monsters and Men Trilogy: Book 1) by Lawrence Davis

Blunt Force Magic (The Monsters and Men Trilogy, #1)

4 Stars

Publisher: WildBlue Press

Date of publication: January 10th, 2018

Genre: Fantasy, Mystery, Suspense

Series: The Monster and Men Trilogy

Blunt Force Magic – Book 1

Where you can find Blunt Force Magic: Amazon | Barnes and Noble

Book synopsis (from Goodreads):

“A modern fantasy with a touch of noir, a dash of detective thriller, and a sprinkling of humor throughout. A really fun debut novel.”

Janzen Robinson is a man lost between two worlds. Five years removed from a life as an apprentice to a group of do-gooding heroes who championed the fight against supernatural evils, the once-promising student is now a package courier going through the daily grind, passing time at a hole-in-the-wall bar and living in a tiny, run-down apartment on the south side of Cleveland, Ohio. 

Then fate (or a case of bad timing) brings him face to face with a door that’s got his old life written all over it. From the ancient recesses of unyielding darkness known as the Abyss, a creature has been summoned: a Stalker, a predator whose real name is forbidden to be spoken aloud. It’s a bastardization of the natural order, a formidable blend of dark magic and primal tenacity. It’s single-minded mission? Ending the life of a fiery, emerging young witch.

Thrust into the role of protector, a role once reserved for those he’d lost years ago, the out-of-practice Artificer not only has to return to a life he’d left behind but must relive that painful past while also facing down the greatest threat to come to our world in a century. Janzen will have to journey through the magical underbelly of the city and stay one step ahead of an unstoppable monster hellbent on destruction while also trying to figure out why it’s been brought to our world. Old wounds are reopened as Janzen looks too old friends, a quiet stranger, and his own questionable wits to see them all to the other side of this nightmare that may cost him his life and, quite possibly, the world itself.

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The One by John Marrs

The One

4 Stars

Publisher: Harlequin (U.S. & Canada), Hanover Square

Date of publication: February 20th, 2018

Genre: Adult Fiction, mystery, thriller

Where you can find The One: Amazon | Barnes and Noble

Book Synopsis (from Goodreads):

How far would you go to find The One?

A simple DNA test is all it takes. Just a quick mouth swab and soon you’ll be matched with your perfect partner—the one you’re genetically made for.

That’s the promise made by Match Your DNA. A decade ago, the company announced that they had found the gene that pairs each of us with our soul mate. Since then, millions of people around the world have been matched. But the discovery has its downsides: test results have led to the breakup of countless relationships and upended the traditional ideas of dating, romance, and love.

Now five very different people have received the notification that they’ve been “Matched.” They’re each about to meet their one true love. But “happily ever after” isn’t guaranteed for everyone. Because even soul mates have secrets. And some are more shocking than others…

A word-of-mouth hit in the United Kingdom, The One is a fascinating novel that shows how even the simplest discoveries can have complicated consequences.

Trigger Warning: stalking 

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The Night Child by Anna Quinn

The Night Child

Title: The Night Child

Author: Anna Quinn

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

Date of publication: January 30th, 2018

Genre: Fiction, Women’s Fiction

POV: 3rd person

Where you can find The Night Child: Barnes and Noble | Amazon

Book Synopsis (from Goodreads):

All Nora Brown wants is to teach high school English and live a quiet life in Seattle with her husband and six-year-old daughter. But one November day, moments after dismissing her class, a girl’s face appears above the students’ desks—a wild numinous face with startling blue eyes, a face floating on top of shapeless drapes of purples and blues where arms and legs should have been. Terror rushes through Nora’s body—the kind of raw terror you feel when there’s no way out, when every cell in your body, your entire body, is on fire—when you think you might die.

Twenty-four hours later, while on Thanksgiving vacation, the face appears again. This time, it whispers, Remember the Valentine’s dress. Shaken once again, Nora meets with neurologists and eventually, a psychiatrist. As the story progresses, a terrible secret is discovered—a secret that pushes Nora toward an even deeper psychological breakdown.

The Night Child is a breathtaking debut novel about split consciousness, saving a broken child, and the split between past and present. It’s about the extraordinary capacity within each of us to save ourselves through visionary means.

Trigger Warning: Child abuse, Mental Illness

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Terror by Eamonn Hickson

Terror

5 Stars

Publisher: 

Date of publication: December 8th, 2017

Genre: Suspense, drama, thriller

Number of pages: 336

Where you can find Terror: Barnes and Noble | Amazon

Book synopsis (from Goodreads):

Have you ever felt that society consciously tries to undermine you? 

In a society where everyone strives for growth, where everyone tries to build towards the heavens, there are some who wish to bring it plummeting down. 

Terror is a thriller in which three people from different walks of life find a common enemy in the contemporary world. Yet, unlike most, they decide to do something about it. 

Milton Haynes, a military man, is forced to see a psychiatrist following a fellow soldier’s death as he waits to appeal his dishonorable discharge. Ally Winston, one year after being viciously assaulted, struggles to slot into the life her father has laid out for her, while Nestor Frings returns to Boston to find his parents have sold their home due to financial issues. 

The three initially voice their pains through non-violent means, however, they soon find their efforts futile. In a world where outsiders are considered dangerous and are not to be trusted, it will be the insiders who do the damage. Follow Milton, Ally, and Nestor as they come to, what they perceive to be, the inevitable conclusion: they must commit a terror attack.

Trigger Warning: Terrorism, Terror attack, PTSD, hate crime

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Complicity by L. Dalton White

Complicity: A Thriller

4 Stars

Publisher: Vernacular Press

Date of publication: February 27th, 2017

Genre: Drama

Number of pages: 334

Where you can find Complicity: Amazon

Book synopsis (from Goodreads):

When Natalie finds proof that her now ex-boyfriend’s father might be alive, she also discovers that knowing him at all has placed her in tremendous danger. Pete helped a teenage girl forced into prostitution by an outlaw biker gang to escape. If Natalie can’t produce Pete, she may be forced to fill the empty bed in their criminal organization.

Pete was hitchhiking across the country after the death of his wife when his disappearance and presumed murder precipitated the breakup between Natalie and Bobby. She hoped the new information might salvage their relationship, or at least help Bobby get one of his parents back.

Instead, it almost gets her killed.

Natalie enlists Pete’s girlfriend Betty-Anne to help retrace his steps while being pursued from California to Massachusetts and back again by members of a motorcycle club, produce Pete or else. But how do they keep finding her? And why is Natalie the only one being threatened and assaulted? Why not Betty-Anne too?

Natalie’s skepticism and a keen sense for survival are all that stands between her and a fate worse than death.

Trigger Warning: drug use, attempted rape Continue reading “Complicity by L. Dalton White” →

Family on the Run (Into the Storm: Book 5) by Margaret Watson

Family on the Run (Into the Storm, #5)

4 Stars

Publisher: Dragonfly Press

Date of publication: June 6th, 2017

Genre: Romance, Suspense

Number of pages: 250

POV:3rd person

Series: Into the Storm

To Save His Child – Book 1 (review here)

An Innocent Man – Book 2 (review here)

An Honorable Man – Book 3 (review here)

The Dark Side of the Moon – Book 4 (review here)

Family on the Run – Book 5

Where you can find Family and the Run: Barnes and Noble | Amazon

Book synopsis (from Goodreads):

For three years, Andi McGinnis had haunted Chase Remington’s dreams. She was the one woman in the world he would never trust – or ever forget. Now she was back, as infuriatingly brazen – and alluring – as ever. But this time, he vowed their mission was all that could exist between them…

Driven by revenge, Andi had dreamed of the day she would meet Chase again. Now that she had, an innocent child’s life depended on her ability to pose as his loving wife. Together, the undercover agents set out through the perilous South American jungle to deliver the orphaned baby to safety, bound by their common cause – and tortured by a passion that refused to die…

Trigger Warning: None

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Poison by Galt Niederhoffer

Poison

Title: Poison

Author: Galt Niederhoffer

Publisher: St. Martins Press

Date of publication: November 21, 2017

Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

How many pages: 304

POV: 3rd person

Where you can find Poison: Barnes and Noble | Amazon

Book synopsis (from Goodreads):

Poison is a literary psychological thriller about a marriage that follows minor betrayal into a bubbling stew of lies, cruelty, manipulation, and danger.

Cass and Ryan Connor have achieved family nirvana. With three kids between them, a cat and a yard, a home they built and feathered, they seem to have the Modern Family dream. Their family, including Cass’ two children from previous relationships, has recently moved to Portland —a new start for their new lives. Cass and Ryan have stable, successful careers, and they are happy. But trouble begins almost imperceptibly. First with small omissions and white lies that happen daily in any marital bedroom. They seem insignificant, but they are quickly followed by a series of denials and feints that mushroom and then cyclone in menace.

With life-or-death stakes and irreversible consequences, Poison is a chilling and irresistible reminder that the closest bond designed to protect and provide for each other and for children can change in a minute.

Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence

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First Grave on the Right (Charley Davidson: Book 1) by Darynda Jones

First Grave on the Right (Charley Davidson, #1)

4 Stars

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Date of publication: February 1st, 2011

Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Romance, Romance. Suspense

Number of pages: 321

POV: 1st person

Series: Charley Davidson

First Grave of the Right – Book 1

For I Have Sinned – Book 1.5

Second Grave on the Left – Book 2

Third Grave Dead Ahead – Book 3

Fourth Grave Beneath My Feet – Book 4

Fifth Grave Past the Light – Book 5

Shimmer – Book 5.5

Glow – Book 5.6

Sixth Grave on the Edge – Book 6

Seventh Grave and No Body – Book 7

Eighth Grave After Dark – Book 8

Brighter Than the Sun – Book 8.5

The Dirt on Ninth Grave – Book 9

The Curse of Tenth Grave – Book 10

A Very Charley Christmas – Book 10.5

Eleventh Grave in Moonlight – Book 11

The Trouble with Twelfth Grave – Book 12 (expected publication date: October 31st, 2017)

Charley Davidson #13 – Book 13 (expected publication date: October 31st, 2018)

Where you can find First Grave on the Right: Amazon | Barnes and Noble

Book synopsis (from Goodreads):

This whole grim reaper thing should have come with a manual.
Or a diagram of some kind.
A flow chart would have been nice.

Charley Davidson is a part-time private investigator and a full-time grim reaper. Meaning, she sees dead people. Really. And it’s her job to convince them to “go into the light.” But when these very dead people have died under less than ideal circumstances (like murder), sometimes they want Charley to bring the bad guys to justice. Complicating matters are the intensely hot dreams she’s been having about an entity who has been following her all her life…and it turns out he might not be dead after all. In fact, he might be something else entirely. But what does he want with Charley? And why can’t she seem to resist him? And what does she have to lose by giving in?

With scorching-hot tension and high-octane humor, First Grave on the Right is your signpost to paranormal suspense of the highest order.

Trigger Warning: None

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The Dream Keeper’s Daughter by Emily Colin

The Dream Keeper's Daughter

Title: The Dream Keeper’s Daughter

Author: Emily Colin

Publisher: Ballantine Books, Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine

Date of publication: July 25th, 2017

Genre: Romance

Number of pages: 482

POV: Alternating 1st person

Where you can find The Dream Keeper’s Daughter: Barnes and Noble | Amazon

Book synopsis (from Goodreads):

Eight years after the unsolved disappearance of her boyfriend Max Adair, archaeologist Isabel Griffin has managed to move on and rebuild her life with her young daughter, Finn, her last tie to Max. But after a series of strange incidents, Isabel begins to wonder if Max might still be alive somewhere, trying to communicate with her. She has no idea that the where isn’t the problem—it’s the when. Max has slipped through time and place, landing on his ancestral family plantation in 1816 Barbados, on the eve of a historic slave uprising. As Isabel searches for answers, Max must figure out not only how to survive the violence to come, but how to get back to his own century, the woman he loves, and the daughter he has only ever met in his dreams.

Trigger Warning: Beating of slaves, the beating of a child

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The Other Girl by Erica Spindler

The Other Girl: A Novel by [Spindler, Erica]

Title: The Other Girl

Author: Erica Spindler

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Date of publication: August 22, 2017

Genre: General Fiction, Suspense, Mystery, Thriller

Number of pages: 256

POV: 3rd person

Where you can find The Other Girl: Barnes and Noble | Amazon

Book synopsis (from Goodreads):

From the NYT bestselling author comes a chilling new thriller about a ritualistic murder of a college professor that sends a small town cop back into the trauma she thought she’d put behind her.

Officer Miranda Rader of the Hammond PD in Louisiana is known for her honesty, integrity, and steady hand in a crisis—but that wasn’t always so. Miranda comes from Jasper, just south of Hammond, a place about the size of a good spit on a hot day, and her side of the tracks was the wrong one. She’s worked hard to leave the girl she used to be behind and earn respect in her position as an officer.

However, when Miranda and her partner are called to investigate the murder of one of the town’s most beloved college professors, they’re unprepared for the gruesomeness of the scene. This murder is unlike any they’ve ever investigated, and just when Miranda thinks she’s seen the worst of it, she finds a piece of evidence that chills her to the core: a faded newspaper clipping about a terrible night from her long-buried past. Then another man turns up dead, this one a retired cop, and not just any cop—Clint Wheeler, the cop who took her statement that night. Two murders, two very different men, two killings that on the surface had nothing in common—except Miranda. 15 years ago.

And when her fingerprints turn up at the scene of the first murder, Miranda once again finds herself under the microscope, her honesty and integrity doubted, her motivations questioned. Alone again, the trust of her colleagues shattered, Miranda must try to trust the instincts she’s pushed down for so long, and decide what’s right—before it’s too late.

Trigger Warning: Rape, Date Rape Drug Use

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