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Two Truths and a Lie. Vivian, Natalie, Allison, and Emma played it all the time in their cabin at Camp Nightingale. But the games ended the night Emma sleepily watched the others sneak out into the darkness. The last she—or anyone—saw of the teenagers was Vivian closing the cabin door behind her, hushing Emma with a finger pressed to her lips.... Fifteen years later, Emma is a rising star in the New York art scene, turning her past into paintings—massive canvases filled with dark leaves and gnarled branches over ghostly shapes in white dresses. When the paintings catch the attention of the wealthy owner of Camp Nightingale, she implores Emma to come back to the newly reopened camp as a painting instructor. Despite her guilt and anxiety—or maybe because of them—Emma agrees to revisit her past. Nightingale looks the same as it did all those years ago, haunted by a midnight-dark lake and familiar faces. Emma is even assigned to the same cabin she slept in as a teenager, although the security camera pointed at her door is a disturbing new addition. As cryptic clues about the camp's origins begin to surface, Emma attempts to find out what really happened to her friends. But her closure could come at a deadly price.
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Martha and Becky Blackwater are more than sisters--they're each other's lifelines. When Martha finds herself struggling to balance early motherhood and her growing business, Becky steps in to babysit her niece, Layla, without a second thought, bringing the two women closer than ever. But then the unthinkable happens, and Becky is charged with murder. Nine months later, Becky is on trial and maintains her innocence--and so does Martha. Unable to shake the feeling that her sister couldn't possibly be guilty, Martha sets out to uncover exactly what happened that night, and how things could have gone so wrong. As the trial progresses, fault lines between the sisters begin to show--revealing cracks deep in their relationship and threatening the family each has worked so hard to build.
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This is the story of three best friends: one who was murdered, one who went to prison, and one who's been searching for the truth all these years . . . When she was sixteen years old, Angela Wong—one of the most popular girls in school—disappeared without a trace. Nobody ever suspected that her best friend, Georgina Shaw, now an executive and rising star at her Seattle pharmaceutical company, was involved in any way. Certainly not Kaiser Brody, who was close with both girls back in high school. But fourteen years later, Angela Wong's remains are discovered in the woods near Geo's childhood home. And Kaiser—now a detective with Seattle PD—finally learns the truth: Angela was a victim of Calvin James. The same Calvin James who murdered at least three other women. To the authorities, Calvin is a serial killer. But to Geo, he's something else entirely. Back in high school, Calvin was Geo's first love. Turbulent and often volatile, their relationship bordered on obsession from the moment they met right up until the night Angela was killed. For fourteen years, Geo knew what happened to Angela and told no one. For fourteen years, she carried the secret of Angela's death until Geo was arrested and sent to prison. While everyone thinks they finally know the truth, there are dark secrets buried deep. And what happened that fateful night is more complex and more chilling than anyone really knows. Now the obsessive past catches up with the deadly present when new bodies begin to turn up, killed in the exact same manner as Angela Wong. How far will someone go to bury her secrets and hide her grief? How long can you get away with a lie? How long can you live with it?
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The Girl of Sugar Beach is the most watched documentary in television history—a riveting, true-life mystery that unfolds over twelve weeks and centers on a fascinating question: Did Grace Sebold murder her boyfriend, Julian, while on a Spring Break vacation, or is she a victim of circumstance and poor police work? Grace has spent the last ten years in a St. Lucian prison, and reaches out to filmmaker Sidney Ryan in a last, desperate attempt to prove her innocence. As Sidney begins researching, she uncovers startling evidence overlooked during the original investigation. Before the series even finishes filming, public outcry leads officials to reopen the case. Delving into Grace's past, Sidney peels away layer after layer of deception. But as she edges closer to the real heart of the story, Sidney must decide if finding the truth is worth risking her newfound fame, her career . . . even her life.
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Twenty-four-year-old Cheyenne Florian has just received her dream job offer. On the strength of a few vlogs, she's recruited to be the new correspondent on the recently hatched Independent News Network, INN. With the slogan "Because independent thinking is the only way out," INN has branded itself as innovative. Yet once Cheyenne joins the INN team, she finds age-old dynamics in play. Some of the female staff resent her meteoric rise, while a number of the men are only too happy to welcome her. Then there's the diary left for her anonymously, written in 1991 by a female broadcaster named Elyse Rohrbach. The mysterious diary is accompanied by a note, urging Cheyenne to learn from the past. She wants to believe it's intended as inspiration and friendly advice, or at most, a warning. But as disturbing—and increasingly dangerous—parallels begin to emerge, she starts to wonder if something more sinister is at work. It's almost as if someone is engineering the similarities in Cheyenne's life to match those from Elyse's past, like she's a pawn in a very twisted game. But Cheyenne is determined to rewrite the rules and play her own game. Though they're separated by more than twenty-five years, Elyse and Cheyenne are forced to learn the same lesson: Nothing is more threatening than a woman who doesn't yet know her own power...
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When Lauren takes a photo of a stranger on a beach and shares it online, she has no idea what will come of that single click. Her daughters are surprised that she posted a photo without consent, but it's only when she starts to get anonymous messages about the woman on the beach that she deletes the photo. It's too little too late, and the messages escalate, prompting Lauren to confess to the woman. The woman has her own dark story, one that might explain the messages, but Lauren isn't convinced. Then her ex-husband begins to harass her, telling her she shares too much online and brought this on herself. She's also dealing with other problems. A difficult client at work starts to show up in places he shouldn't be. Her younger daughter is behaving out of character and Lauren can't work out what's wrong. And the cracks are literally beginning to show in her old South Dublin house, mirroring the cracks in her carefully curated life. Meanwhile, the messages from the internet troll become more personal and more vindictive. Her friends feel she should stand up to her stalker, but Lauren isn't so sure. And then she makes one small mistake that brings everything tumbling down.
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Dr. Noah Alderman, a widower and single father, has remarried a wonderful woman, Maggie Ippolitti, and for the first time in a long time, he and his young son are happy. Despite her longing for the daughter she hasn't seen since she was a baby, Maggie is happy too, and she's even more overjoyed when she unexpectedly gets another chance to be a mother to the child she thought she'd lost forever, her only daughter Anna. Maggie and Noah know that having Anna around will change their lives, but they would never have guessed that everything would go wrong, and so quickly. Anna turns out to be a gorgeous seventeen-year-old who balks at living under their rules, though Maggie, ecstatic to have her daughter back, ignores the red flags that hint at the trouble brewing in a once-perfect marriage and home. Events take a heartbreaking turn when Anna is murdered and Noah is accused and tried for the heinous crime. Maggie must face not only the devastation of losing her daughter, but the realization that Anna's murder may have been at the hands of a husband she loves. In the wake of this tragedy, new information drives Maggie to search for the truth, leading her to discover something darker than she could have ever imagined.
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Harry Ackerson has always considered his stepmother Alice to be sexy and beautiful, in an "otherworldly" way. She has always been kind and attentive, if a little aloof in the last few years. Days before his college graduation, Alice calls with shocking news. His father is dead and the police think it's suicide. Devastated, Harry returns to his father's home in Maine. There, he and Alice will help each other pick up of the pieces of their lives and uncover what happened to his father. Shortly after he arrives, Harry meets a mysterious young woman named Grace McGowan. Though she claims to be new to the area, Harry begins to suspect that Grace may not be a complete stranger to his family. But she isn't the only attractive woman taking an interest in Harry. The sensual Alice is also growing closer, coming on to him in an enticing, clearly sexual way. Mesmerized by these two women, Harry finds himself falling deeper under their spell. Yet the closer he gets to them, the more isolated he feels, disoriented by a growing fear that both women are hiding dangerous—even deadly—secrets . . . and that neither one is telling the truth.
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Finn and Layla are young, in love, and on vacation. They're driving along the highway when Finn decides to stop at a service station to use the restroom. He hops out of the car, locks the doors behind him, and goes inside. When he returns Layla is gone—never to be seen again. That is the story Finn told to the police. But it is not the whole story. Ten years later Finn is engaged to Layla's sister, Ellen. Their shared grief over what happened to Layla drew them close and now they intend to remain together. Still, there's something about Ellen that Finn has never fully understood. His heart wants to believe that she is the one for him...even though a sixth sense tells him not to trust her. Then, not long before he and Ellen are to be married, Finn gets a phone call. Someone from his past has seen Layla—hiding in plain sight. There are other odd occurrences: Long-lost items from Layla's past that keep turning up around Finn and Ellen's house. Emails from strangers who seem to know too much. Secret messages, clues, warnings. If Layla is alive—and on Finn's trail—what does she want? And how much does she know?
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The police say it was suicide. Anna says it was murder. They're both wrong. Last year, Tom and Caroline Johnson chose to end their lives, one seemingly unable to live without the other. Their daughter, Anna, is struggling to come to terms with her parents' deaths, unwilling to accept the verdict of suicide. Now with a baby herself, Anna feels her mother's absence keenly and is determined to find out what really happened to her parents. But as she digs up the past, someone is trying to stop her. Sometimes it's safer to let things lie....
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"Give me one name. One person. And I will make them disappear." Sarah is a young professor struggling to prove herself in a workplace controlled by the charming and manipulative Alan Hawthorne. A renowned scholar and television host, Hawthorne rakes in million-dollar grants for the university where Sarah works—so his inappropriate treatment of female colleagues behind closed doors has gone unchallenged for years. And Sarah is his newest target. When Hawthorne's advances become threatening, Sarah is left with nowhere to turn. Until the night she witnesses an attempted kidnapping of a young child on her drive home, and impulsively jumps in to intervene. The child's father turns out to be a successful businessman with dangerous connections—and her act of bravery has put this powerful man in her debt. He gives Sarah a burner phone and an unbelievable offer. A once-in-a-lifetime deal that can make all her problems disappear. No consequences. No traces. All it takes is a twenty-nine-second phone call. Because everyone has a name to give. Don't they?
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When you read this book, you will make many assumptions. You will assume you are reading about a jealous ex-wife. You will assume she is obsessed with her replacement – a beautiful, younger woman who is about to marry the man they both love. You will assume you know the anatomy of this tangled love triangle. Assume nothing.
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The people who call End of the Line need hope. They need reassurance that life is worth living. But some are unlucky enough to get through to Laura. Laura doesn't want them to hope. She wants them to die. Laura hasn't had it easy: she's survived sickness and a difficult marriage only to find herself heading for forty, unsettled and angry. She doesn't love talking to people worse off than she is. She craves it. But now someone's on to her—Ryan, whose world falls apart when his pregnant wife ends her life, hand in hand with a stranger. Who was this man, and why did they choose to die together? The sinister truth is within Ryan's grasp, but he has no idea of the desperate lengths Laura will go to... Because the best thing about being a Good Samaritan is that you can get away with murder.
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Jessa Whitworth knew she didn't belong in her ex-boyfriend Caleb's room. But she couldn't deny that she was everywhere--in his photos, his neatly folded T-shirts, even the butterfly necklace in his jeans pocket . . . the one she gave him for safe keeping on that day. His mother asked her to pack up his things--even though she blames Jessa for his accident. How could she say no? And maybe, just maybe, it will help her work through the guilt she feels about their final moments together. But as Jessa begins to box up the pieces of Caleb's life, they trigger memories that make Jessa realize their past relationship may not be exactly as she remembered. And she starts to question whether she really knew Caleb at all. Each fragment of his life reveals a new clue that propels Jessa to search for the truth about Caleb's accident. What really happened on the storm-swept bridge?
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It's the end of a night out and Joanna is walking home alone. Then she hears the sound every woman dreads: footsteps behind her, getting faster. She's sure it's him—the man from the bar who wouldn't leave her alone. So Joanna makes a snap decision. She turns, she pushes. Her pursuer tumbles down the steps and lies motionless, facedown on the ground. Now what? Addictive and compelling, The Choice follows the two paths Joanna's future might take, depending on the choice she makes. If she calls the police right away, she can save the man's life. Yet doing so puts her own innocence at risk, as she waits for judgment on a charge of assault and the hope that her husband and everyone she loves will stand by her. But if she runs and goes home as if nothing has happened, no one will ever know. No one saw her do it, and it's only up to Joanna to keep quiet...forever.
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#1 in the Mrs. Parrish Series
Amber Patterson is fed up. She's tired of being a nobody: a plain, invisible woman who blends into the background. She deserves more—a life of money and power like the one blond-haired, blue-eyed goddess Daphne Parrish takes for granted. To everyone in the exclusive town of Bishops Harbor, Connecticut, Daphne—a socialite and philanthropist—and her real-estate mogul husband, Jackson, are a couple straight out of a fairy tale. Amber's envy could eat her alive . . . if she didn't have a plan. Amber uses Daphne's compassion and caring to insinuate herself into the family's life—the first step in a meticulous scheme of revenge to undermine her. Before long, Amber is Daphne's closest confidante, traveling to Europe with the Parrishes and their lovely young daughters, and growing closer to Jackson. But a skeleton from her past, full of dark secrets and lies, may undermine everything that Amber has worked towards, and if it is discovered, her well-laid plan may fall to pieces.
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#3 in the Detective Max Rupert Series
A homicide detective hunts down his wife's killers while struggling between his thirst for revenge and a twinge of conscience forbidding him to take the law into his own hands. Homicide Detective Max Rupert never fully accepted his wife's death, even when he believed that a reckless hit-and-run driver was to blame. Haunted by memories both beautiful and painful, he is plagued by feelings of unfinished business. When Max learns that, in fact, Jenni was murdered, he must come to terms with this new information—and determine what to do with it. Struggling to balance his impulses as a vengeful husband with his obligations as a law enforcement officer, Max devotes himself to relentlessly hunting down those responsible. For most of his life, he has thought of himself as a decent man. But now he's so consumed with anguish and thoughts of retribution that he finds himself on the edge, questioning who he is and what he stands for. On a frozen lake at the US–Canadian border, he wrestles with decisions that could change his life forever, as his rage threatens to turn him into the kind of person he has spent his entire career bringing to justice.
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Pushed to the breaking point, Cara Burrows flees her home and family and escapes to a five-star spa resort she can't afford. Late at night, exhausted and desperate, she lets herself into her hotel room and is shocked to find it already occupied — by a man and a teenage girl. A simple mistake at the front desk... but soon Cara realizes that the girl she saw alive and well in the hotel room is someone she can't possibly have seen: the most famous murder victim in the country, Melody Chapa, whose parents are serving natural life sentences for her murder. Cara doesn't know what to trust — everything she's read and heard about the case, or the evidence of her own eyes. Did she really see Melody? And is she prepared to ask herself that question and answer it honestly if it means risking her own life?
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Meet Noah—an A-honor roll student, award-winning swimmer, and small-town star destined for greatness. There weren't any signs that something was wrong until the day he confesses to molesting little girls during swim team practice. He's sentenced to eighteen months in a juvenile sexual rehabilitation center. His mother, Adrianne, refuses to turn her back on him despite his horrific crimes, but her husband won't allow Noah back into their home. In a series of shocking and shattering revelations, Adrianne is forced to make the hardest decision of her life. Just how far will she go to protect her son?
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Sutton and Ethan Montclair's idyllic life is not as it appears. They seem made for each other, but the truth is ugly. Consumed by professional and personal betrayals and financial woes, the two both love and hate each other. As tensions mount, Sutton disappears, leaving behind a note saying not to look for her. Ethan finds himself the target of vicious gossip as friends, family and the media speculate on what really happened to Sutton Montclair. As the police investigate, the lies the couple have been spinning for years quickly unravel. Is Ethan a killer? Is he being set up? Did Sutton hate him enough to kill the child she never wanted and then herself?
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Karen and Tom Krupp are happy—they've got a lovely home in upstate New York, they're practically newlyweds, and they have no kids to interrupt their comfortable life together. But one day, Tom returns home to find Karen has vanished—her car's gone and it seems she left in a rush. She even left her purse—complete with phone and ID—behind. There's a knock on the door—the police are there to take Tom to the hospital where his wife has been admitted. She had a car accident, and lost control as she sped through the worst part of town. The accident has left Karen with a concussion and a few scrapes. Still, she's mostly okay—except that she can't remember what she was doing or where she was when she crashed. The cops think her memory loss is highly convenient, and they suspect she was up to no good. Karen returns home with Tom, determined to heal and move on with her life. Then she realizes something's been moved. Something's not quite right. Someone's been in her house. And the police won't stop asking questions. Because in this house, everyone's a stranger. Everyone has something they'd rather keep hidden. Something they might even kill to keep quiet.
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Ellie Mack was the perfect daughter. She was fifteen, beloved by her parents, friends, and teachers. She and her boyfriend made a teenaged golden couple. She was days away from an idyllic summer vacation, with her whole life ahead of her. And then she was gone. Now, her mother, Laurel Mack, is trying to put her life back together. It's been ten years since her youngest child disappeared, seven years since her marriage ended, and only months since the last clue in Ellie's case was unearthed. So when she meets an unexpectedly charming man in a café, no one is more surprised than Laurel at how quickly their flirtation develops into something deeper. Before she knows it, she's meeting Floyd's daughters—and his youngest, Poppy, takes Laurel's breath away. Because looking at Poppy is like looking at Ellie. Laurel is haunted by her long unanswered questions. What happened to Ellie? Did she run away from home, as the police have long suspected? Who is Floyd, really? And why does his daughter remind Laurel so viscerally of her own missing girl?
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As much as Libby Hall needs a vacation, she's never considered taking one until she sees the note for a house swap. Suffering a miscarriage was a personal turning point. Saving a child from a burning school was a public one. Just as the emotional fallout of both incidents takes its toll, along comes her lifesavers—the Heywoods, a couple in need of a getaway of their own. Libby and her husband Jamie can't believe their good fortune when they arrive at the Heywood's isolated seaside estate with its panoramic views—and just in exchange for their drab two-bedroom apartment. How generous of the Heywoods! Yet how odd. Libby almost feels guilty until the home yields disquieting surprises: a fortune in hidden surveillance equipment, a stranger in the garden who watches them, and the make-shift operating room in the basement... When Jamie falls dangerously ill, all Libby wants is to return to their comfortably imperfect lives. But it's already too late. Libby has just discovered the Heywoods' biggest secret. And when it appears that even Jamie is hiding something from her, Libby's paranoia gets the best of her. It should. For she has buried secrets of her own. As the past comes crawling out of the darkness, Libby fears she's walked into an elaborate trap. But who has set it? What do they want of her? And what is she willing to risk to make it out alive...?
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Ten years ago, six friends went on vacation. One made it out alive.... In that instant, college student Quincy Carpenter became a member of a very exclusive club—a group of survivors the press dubbed "The Final Girls": Lisa, who lost nine sorority sisters to a college dropout's knife; Sam, who endured the Sack Man during her shift at the Nightlight Inn; and now Quincy, who ran bleeding through the woods to escape the massacre at Pine Cottage. Despite the media's attempts, the three girls have never met. Now, Quincy is doing well—maybe even great, thanks to her Xanax prescription. She has a caring almost-fiancé; a popular baking blog; a beautiful apartment; and a therapeutic presence in Coop, the police officer who saved her life. Her mind won't let her recall the events of that night; the past is in the past...until the first Final Girl is found dead in her bathtub and the second Final Girl appears on Quincy's doorstep. Blowing through Quincy's life like a hurricane, Sam seems intent on making her relive the trauma of her ordeal. When disturbing details about Lisa's death emerge, Quincy desperately tries to unravel Sam's truths from her lies while evading both the police and bloodthirsty reporters. Quincy knows that in order to survive she has to remember what really happened at Pine Cottage. Because the only thing worse than being a Final Girl is being a dead one.
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Clara Solberg's world shatters when her husband and their four-year-old daughter are in a car crash, killing Nick while Maisie is remarkably unharmed. The crash is ruled an accident...until the coming days, when Maisie starts having night terrors that make Clara question what really happened on that fateful afternoon. Tormented by grief and her obsession that Nick's death was far more than just an accident, Clara is plunged into a desperate hunt for the truth. Who would have wanted Nick dead? And, more important, why? Clara will stop at nothing to find out—and the truth is only the beginning of this twisted tale of secrets and deceit. Told in the alternating perspectives of Clara's investigation and Nick's last months leading up to the crash, master of suspense Mary Kubica weaves her most chilling thriller to date—one that explores the dark recesses of a mind plagued by grief and shows that some secrets might be better left buried.
