Female Lead

Showing 76–100 of 681
  1. Whistle

    4.06

    Annie Blunt has had an unimaginably terrible year. First, her husband was killed in a tragic hit-and-run accident, then one of the children's books she's built her writing and illustrating career on ignited a major scandal. Desperate for a fresh start, she moves with her son Charlie to a charming small town in upstate New York where they can begin to heal. But Annie's year is about to get worse. Bored and lonely in their isolated new surroundings, Charlie is thrilled when he finds a forgotten train set in a locked shed on their property. Annie is glad to see Charlie happy, but there's something unsettling about his new toy. Strange sounds wake Annie in the night—she could swear she hears a train, but there isn't an active track for miles—and bizarre things begin happening in the neighborhood. Worse, Annie can't seem to stop drawing a disturbing new character that has no place in a children's book. Grief can do strange things to the mind, but Annie is beginning to think she's walked out of one nightmare straight into another, in a haunting story of psychological terror that is far more terrifying...

  2. Fog and Fury

    3.98

    #1 in the Haven Series

    After ten years on the force, LAPD cop Sonny Rush relocates with her elderly mother to peaceful Haven, California, to join her godfather's burgeoning PI business. What crimes could possibly happen in a town nicknamed "Mayberry by the Sea"? Sonny's first case: find Figgy, a missing goldendoodle last seen sporting a Versace collar. At least scouting out a dognapper gives Sonny a chance to get to know her new neighbors. Forty-eight hours in town and Figgy's disappearance entangles Sonny in an unwelcome reunion with her ex, one of Haven's wealthiest citizens. And when the body of a teenage boy is found along a popular hiking trail, Sonny is drawn into a web of strange beyond anything she ever saw in LA. Then comes a local's warning: question everything. Haven hides secrets that could destroy its idyllic facade. Or destroy Sonny first.

  3. One in Four

    3.45

    Dr. Laurel Harlow can't believe she's agreed to do a reality TV show. But her years as a chemical dependency counselor and personal history with the show's director make her the obvious choice. Treating a mansion full of former child stars on the road to recovery is the tallest order of her career—especially when one of them turns up dead while the cameras are still rolling. In a house full of narcissists vying for the spotlight, everyone's hiding something...including Laurel. An investigation could expose a past she'd rather keep buried. But among the attention-starved patients, only one of them is a predator. And Laurel is skilled at spotting a predator when she sees one. As she hunts a killer in her present, the unsettling truths of Laurel's past are forced into the light. But this time, she'll face her demons head on. She'll stop at nothing to expose a murderer, even if it means risking everything she holds dear.

  4. Shot Clock

    4.26

    Caitlin Glass had aspirations of becoming a professional basketball player until an injury ended her college career. Now a small-town police officer with a husband and young son, she's watched with envy as her ex-boyfriend, Garrett Streeter, became a star. But as Garrett leads his team to the NBA Finals, he suddenly shows up at her door, asking for help. Garrett's brother has been kidnapped. If Garrett wants Jake to survive, he has to do the unthinkable: cheat, and fix the championship series. If they don't track Jake down before the final buzzer, he'll be dead. Putting aside her deep misgivings, Caitlin dives into the dark, criminal underbelly of glitzy Las Vegas while the clock is ticking, and the seconds Jake has to live are running out . . .

  5. Last One Out

    4.08

    She vanished twenty five years ago—the night her two friends were brutally murdered at an isolated hot springs. At least, that's what everyone believes. Everyone except her cousin, Frankie, who never lost hope that Chloe was alive. When Chloe unexpectedly shows up at her own annual memorial event, Frankie is overjoyed. But this isn't the reunion she imagined. Chloe has no memory of that night in 1999—or her life before. Then Frankie starts getting cryptic messages that imply Chloe knows more than she's letting on. Frankie wants to trust her cousin, but even more, she wants answers to the questions that have plagued her for decades. But is the truth really worth uncovering at any cost?

  6. Such Quiet Girls

    3.98

    Sage and her sister won't make it home from school today. Neither will the other children on Bus 315. But that's only the beginning of the nightmare. New bus driver Jessa blames herself for what happened. She couldn't protect the kids she was supposed to deliver to daycare, just like she couldn't protect her own daughter three years ago. But this time, everything will be different. It has to be. Trapped in a shipping container buried twenty feet underground, Jessa and the children do their best to stay calm. The kidnappers insist that if everyone behaves, they'll be freed when the ransom is paid. But Sage isn't sure they'll last that long. Neither is Jessa. It's dark and cramped, and with every passing minute it's getting harder to breathe. With time—and air—running thin, Jessa and the children must find a way to outsmart their captors, or face an unthinkable fate.

  7. 25 Alive

    4.33

    #25 in the Women's Murder Club Series

    SFPD homicide detective Lindsay Boxer knows her way around a crime scene. But nothing can prepare her for the shock of recognition: the victim is Warren Jacobi, Lindsay's onetime partner who rose to chief of police. A top investigator until the end, Jacobi managed to leave Lindsay a clue. Following a trail of evidence along the west coast, the Women's Murder Club pledges to avenge Jacobi's death before the killer can take another one of their own.

  8. #2 in the 2 Sisters Detective Agency Series

    Rhonda and Barbara "Baby" Bird are half-sisters—and full partners in their Los Angeles detective agency. They agree on nothing. Rhonda, a former attorney, takes a by-the-book approach to solving crimes, while teenage Baby relies on her street smarts. But when they take a controversial case of a loner whose popular wife has gone missing, they're accused of being PIs who can't tell a client from a killer. The Bird sisters share a late father, but not much else...except their willingness to fight. Fight the system. Fight for the underdog. Fight for the truth. If they can stop fighting each other long enough to work together.

  9. #19 in the Pike Logan Series

    While on a routine security assessment in India, Taskforce operator Pike Logan foils an attempted attack on a meeting between the CIA and India's intelligence service. Both government agencies believe it's nothing more than a minor terrorist attack, but Pike suspects that something much more sinister is at play. After another terrorist operation at the Taj Mahal, he begins to believe that outside powers are attacking India in the gray zone between peace and war, part of a proxy war that leverages terrorist groups for economic gain and control of rare earth minerals. But the separatists conducting the operations have their own agenda. After a massive slaughter and kidnapping of hostages during an elaborate Indian pre-wedding party, two global powers are destabilized, and only Pike Logan and his team can de-escalate the tension by rescuing the captives. What follows is a race against the clock that winds through the bustling markets of Old Delhi, the luxurious resorts of Goa, and the epic halls of the Taj Mahal. It will take everything that Logan and the taskforce have to foil an intricate plot that leaves countless lives in the balance.

  10. All Eyes on Him

    3.97

    Natalie's best friend leaves the dance club with a handsome stranger and is found unconscious at a bus stop the next morning. What happened that night? Only Natalie's friend knows—except she's in the hospital, in a coma... When Natalie sees a handsome man on the cover of a financial magazine, she recognizes the "Man of the Year"—the stranger her friend left the club with. He is a millionaire. He is famous. He is untouchable. And—Natalie suspects—dangerous. Desperate for answers, she takes a job as a housekeeper at his mansion. Her plan is simple. Get close to him, watch his every move, gather evidence, and make him pay. Except something's not right about the mansion. Strange rules, hostile treatment from the staff, and an eerie feeling that she's being watched and followed home. And what exactly happened to the previous housekeeper who went missing? Natalie thought she was setting a trap. But the day she discovers the shocking truth about the "Man of the Year," she realizes she might have walked straight into his...

  11. The Daughter

    4.14

    Lauren can't wait to see her daughter again, to pick her up from university at the end of her first term. But when she arrives at her hall and knocks on the door to her room, a stranger opens it. At first, Lauren thinks she must have the wrong room, or the wrong floor. Maybe even the wrong building. But she soon realises the truth: Evie's not there. She hasn't been there for weeks. So where is she?

  12. When Lena overhears a conversation between her next-door-neighbors she thinks she must have misheard. The Morgans are a kind, retired couple who recently moved to their sleepy suburban street in Bristol where nothing ever happens. But to Lena it sounded very much like they were planning a crime. Her family and friends tell her she must be mistaken. Yet Lena can't stop thinking about that strange conversation. What if they really are about to do something terrible? What if she can prevent it? Especially when doing something might help ease her conscience about her own dark past . . .

  13. Neighbors Gwen, Aimee, and Lisa share more than playdates and coffee mornings on their tranquil street in East Bethesda. They confide their deepest secrets, navigate the challenges of motherhood together, and provide a support system that seems unbreakable. But when Gwen's husband is found murdered after one of their weekly Friday night dinners, the peaceful quiet of their cul-de-sac shatters. The seemingly idyllic world of the three close-knit mom friends becomes a web of deception, betrayal, and revenge. As the police investigate, the veneer of friendship begins to crack, revealing hidden tensions, clandestine affairs, and long-buried jealousies among the three women. With suspicions mounting and the neighborhood gripped by fear, Gwen, Aimee, and Lisa must confront the chilling truth about their husbands, and the sinister undercurrents in their own friendship.

  14. It's 5 November, and a woman awakens to a nightmare. Bound and gagged, she lies trapped in the heart of a towering bonfire. As the smoke thickens, panic sets in – she's moments away from being engulfed in flames. How did it come to this? Rewind eleven months: Margot, a faded TV star, and her long-suffering friend Anna watch as glamorous Liv and her flawless family move into their street. The three women soon fabricate the perfect pretence of friendship, but each harbours her own deadly secret – and newcomer Liv senses something is terribly wrong beneath the polished exteriors. As cracks widen in the veneer of perfection and lies escalate out of control, tension ignites. Bonfire Night is approaching and someone is set to burn...But who will it be?

  15. I had it all: a fantastic husband, two great kids, an exciting career. And then, at the age of forty-three, I found out I would be dead before my next birthday. My mother also died young. I was seventeen, and she warned me that women would flock to my suddenly single father like stray cats to an overturned milk truck. They did. And one absolutely evil woman practically destroyed his life, mine, and my sister's. I am not letting that happen to my family. I have three months, and I plan to spend every waking minute searching for the perfect woman to take my place as Alex's wife, and mother to Kevin and Katie. You're probably thinking, She'll never do it. Did I mention that in high school I was voted "Most Likely to Kill Someone to Get What She Wants"?

  16. #3 in the DC Morgan Series

    The Hill is the kind of place everyone wants to live: luxurious, exclusive and safe. But now someone is breaking and entering these Cheshire homes one by one, and DS Leo Brady suspects the burglar is looking for something, or someone, in particular. Over the border in Wales, DC Ffion Morgan recovers the body of an estate agent from the lake. There's no love lost between Ffion and estate agents, but who hated this one enough to want her dead - and why? As their cases collide, Ffion and Leo discover people will pay a high price to keep their secrets behind closed doors . . .

  17. Charismatic daredevil and extreme adventurer Maverick Dillan invites you to the ultimate game of hide-and-seek. But as the players gather on Falcao Island, the event quickly spirals into a chilling test of survival. A storm rages as a deadly threat stalks the contestants, turning the challenge into something far more sinister than the social media stunt it was intended to be. Enter Adele, a single mother with a fierce determination to protect her children at all costs. When she begins the game, she unwittingly enters a twisted web of deception and intrigue. Can she maneuver through the treacherous storm and the relentless competition and get home to her family? In a ruthless battle for survival where the stakes are higher than ever, the blurry line between the virtual and the real proves that the only person we can trust is ourselves.

  18. It is June 21st, the longest day of the year, and new mother Camilla's life is about to change forever. After months of maternity leave, she will drop her infant daughter off at daycare for the first time and return to her job as a literary agent. Finally. But, when she wakes, her husband Luke isn't there, and in his place is a cryptic note. Then it starts. Breaking news: there's a hostage situation developing in London. The police arrive, and tell her Luke is involved. But he isn't a hostage. Her husband - doting father, eternal optimist - is the gunman. What she does next is crucial. Because only she knows what the note he left behind that morning says...

  19. Hana Babic is a quiet, middle-aged librarian in Minnesota who wants nothing more than to be left alone. But when a detective arrives with the news that her best friend has been murdered, Hana knows that something evil has come for her, a dark remnant of the past she and her friend had shared. Thirty years before, Hana was someone else: Nura Divjak, a teenager growing up in the mountains of war-torn Bosnia—until Serbian soldiers arrived to slaughter her entire family before her eyes. The events of that day thrust Nura into the war, leading her to join a band of militia fighters, where she became not only a fierce warrior but a legend—the deadly Night Mora. But a shattering final act forced Nura to flee to the United States with a bounty on her head. Now, someone is hunting Hana, and her friend has paid the price, leaving her eight-year-old grandson in Hana's care. To protect the child without revealing her secret, Hana must again become the Night Mora—and hope she can find the killer before the past comes for them, too.

  20. When Shelby Dawson survives a harrowing attack that should have left her dead, she tries to move past it—for herself, and for her family. Fifteen months later, with the help of her best friend, Mackenzie, she finally feels safe again in the snowy Minnesota town she calls home. But when an anonymous note appears on her windshield bearing the same threats her attacker made, Shelby realizes that her nightmare has only just begun. As new evidence surfaces, and a group of well-meaning senior citizens accidentally makes the case go viral online, the situation quickly goes from bad to worse. And with suspicious accidents targeting those closest to her happening all over town, Shelby can't shake the feeling that she's being watched. Fighting to stay one step ahead of disaster, she finds herself asking the question on everyone's lips: Who attacked her that night? But Shelby isn't the only one with questions. Mackenzie's husband, Leo, vanished without a trace on that terrible night, and over a year later, no one knows why. Until a deep dive into his finances reveals a history of debts, mismanaged funds, and hidden accounts—one of which is still active. Their suspicion that Leo is still alive only complicates things further, though, and when another person connected to Shelby goes missing, she's caught in a race against time before her attacker becomes a killer.

  21. A Killing Cold

    3.88

    When Theodora Scott met Connor—wealthy, charming, and a member of the powerful Dalton family—she fell in love in an instant. Six months later, he's brought her to Idlewood, his family's isolated winter retreat, to win over his skeptical relatives. Theo has tried to ignore the threatening messages on her phone, but she can't ignore the footprints in the snow outside the cabin window or the strange sense of familiarity she has about this place. Then, in a disused cabin, Theo finds something impossible: a photo of herself as a child. A photo taken at Idlewood. Theo has almost no recollection of her earliest years, but now she begins to piece together the fragments of her memories. Someone here has a shocking secret that they will do anything to keep hidden, and Theo is in terrible danger. Because the Daltons do not lose, and discovering what happened at Idlewood may cost Theo everything.

  22. The Crash

    3.95

    Tegan is eight months pregnant, alone, and desperately wants to put her crumbling life in the rearview mirror. So she hits the road, planning to stay with her brother until she can figure out her next move. But she doesn't realize she's heading straight into a blizzard. She never arrives at her destination. Stranded in rural Maine with a dead car and broken ankle, Tegan worries she's made a terrible mistake. Then a miracle occurs: she is rescued by a couple who offers her a room in their warm cabin until the snow clears. But something isn't right. Tegan believed she was waiting out the storm, but as time ticks by, she comes to realize she is in grave danger. This safe haven isn't what she thought it was, and staying here may have been her most deadly mistake yet. And now she must do whatever it takes to save herself—and her unborn child.

  23. To Brooke, image is everything. She works hard to maintain perfect grades, perfect looks, a perfect life—especially after "the incident" that threatened it all. Getting into her dream university puts her that much closer to a fresh start. How can she say no to celebrating with all her classmates? Hanging out with her crush by the bonfire is the perfect end to the night. Except it isn't the end. An old truck starts aggressively tailing Brooke and her best friend on the isolated road toward home. Someone thinks they know the truth about "the incident," and they won't stop until it's all out in the open. This terrifying drive is about to bring out Brooke's worst fears...if she survives it.

  24. #2 in the Holmes, Margaret & Poe Series

    Success has come quickly to Holmes, Marple & Poe Investigations. The New York City agency led by three detectives—Brendan Holmes, "the brain," Margaret Marple, "the eyes," and Auguste Poe, the "muscle"—with famous names and mysterious pasts is one major case away from cementing its professional reputation. But as a series of child abductions tests the PIs' legendary skills, the cerebral Holmes's absence leaves a gaping hole in the agency roster. Only by closing ranks and solving the mystery within can they recover all that's been lost.

  25. Make No Mistake

    3.87

    Previously titled, The Threshing Floor. Dalice is barely keeping it together. Not only is she a single parent juggling two dead-end jobs. She's also caring for a son whose heart is a ticking time bomb. Cash will need a transplant someday, and to afford it, Dalice needs every dollar she can save. But when someday becomes today, she's out of time. Enter Shane. He's charming, kind, and part of a group that promises to help her. The people are warm. They love her son. And they swear they'll save him ... for a price. With Cash's life hanging in the balance, Dalice is grasping at straws and willing to try anything—even if it means joining a cult. Until she realizes that the closer she gets to saving her son, the harder it is to get out alive.