readingforsanity

[readingforsanity]

Not Our Daughter | Chad Zunker | Published 2025

13 years ago, Cole and Lisa Shipley were fostering an infant with hopes of adopting her. Overnight everything was turned upside down, when the child's mother bled to death on their front doorstep. Her last He's coming here...for her! Save her. Afraid, bewildered, and with a baby in their arms, they fled. The longer they hid, the guiltier they looked.

Now in a small Colorado town under assumed identities, they've been seemingly safe. But when a tip exposes them and Cole is framed for anoher murder, they take it on the run again, barreling across the western US - this time with a confused and resistant teenage girl awakening to a terrifying new reality. In the rearview is the relentless FBI agent who has never given up the hunt. And he's not the only one.

Every frightening mile brings a family closer to the truth about the fateful night thirteen years ago. And to a killer who's determined to finish what he started.

13 years ago, Amy and Greg Olsen fled into the night with their 2 year old foster daughter, Marcy. Now, living in Colorado in normal life bliss, everything is about to be upended.

When Marcy's mother had arrived at their home in the middle of the night, Greg, now going by Cole Shipley, was shocked. They had just received news earlier in the day that he and Amy, now going by Lisa, would have to give Marcy back to her, a young 21 year old woman named Candace who had struggled with drug issues but had gotten sober and was relieved to have her daughter back while expecting another baby.

When Candace had arrived, she had been stabbed in the stomach, pleading with Cole to take Marcy, now going by Jade, and get away. And that is what Lisa and Cole had done. While the first few years on the run had left them weary, for the last 8 years, they had made a home in Colorado. Lisa worked part-time at the cheer gym that Jade was also on competitive cheer, up until the time her severe scoliosis caused her to have to give it up while Cole worked for a private school as a teacher.

After Cole accessed an off-shore account to access money he had placed there in the hope of being able to pay for Jade to have the back surgery she needed to improve quality of life, it alerted FBI Special Agent Mark Burns, who had worked the original case 13 years ago.

Desperate to bring them in, Burns travels to Colorado, only alerting local authorities until it was clear they may not make it in time. But Cole was already one step ahead. He had witnessed a man following him throughout the day, pegging him for being with the FBI after noticing a jacket with the bureau's infamous letters across the back. Desperate to lead them away from his wife and daughter, he drives off, leaving Lisa and Jade to escape.

Understandably, Jade is confused and scared, but the family of three makes it out of their small Colorado town without incident, though it nearly costs Cole his life. In Texas, an enforcer for one of the largest ranches travels to Colorado with the intent of ending Cole's life, and possibly that of his wife and daughter. Though this man shoots and kills a law enforcement officer, and shoots at Cole, Cole was able to avoid getting shot himself, only for the heat of the police officer's death to land on his back.

With a plan in place, the Shipley's head toward El Paso, Texas in the hopes of crossing the border. Their intent is to get into Mexico, and hide out in Suyalito, where he and Lisa had once vacationed shortly after being married. But between the enforcer and the FBI's intent on bringing them in, it makes it difficult for them to get away.

Once in El Paso, Jade learns the truth behind her identity, running away from Lisa while Cole is attempting to get them new phones after Jade had unwittingly placed a phone call to her boyfriend back in Colorado while the FBI had been keeping tabs on him, hoping that a young teenage girl would be unable to stay away.

Now that they know where they are, and what their plan is, both the FBI and the enforcer end up in the same shopping mall parking lot. Lisa runs after Jade into the mall, telling her the truth about what happened, and how they had even tried to clear their names by providing their lawyer with the video of the same stocky man showing up on their doorstep mere minutes after Candace did, but they had remained the FBI's top suspects.

Jade believes her mother, and the two of them, along with Cole, beginning to run through the shopping mall as the enforcer enters, wielding a gun. Cole spreads panic on purpose, telling others that there is a man in the mall with a gun in the hopes of getting themselves out with a distraction. While he tells Jade and Lisa to run, and he will find them with their newly acquired cell phones, he ends up in the backroom of a Sears store, hiding from the enforcer. Burns makes it known that he is also in the room, though he is unaware of the other man's presence. Cole ultimately saves his life, pushing the large man out of the shipping dock doors 8 feet to the ground, hoping that this had somehow disabled the man in some capacity.

Cole ties up Burns, and meets up with his family before stealing a car from a car dealership under the pretense that he was interested in purchasing it and wanted to take it for a test drive. Since Mexico is now out of the question, they ultimately deserve to return to where it all began: Austin.

Jade meets her biological aunt, Candace's sister Hailey, who after hearing Jade's side of the story, agrees to help Lisa and Cole. She explains that Candace had met a man in a bar, who appeared to be well off. It was later discovered that this man may have been a part of the Nelson family, who owns the Longshore Ranch in Lubbock, and it is confirmed when Cole sees their logo, which is also tattooed on the back of the stocky man's hand.

It appears that this man is Jade's biological father, and will soon be stepping into a prominent political position in DC. Cole meets with a young tech friend of Candace's who had helped to black mail Jade's father, which ultimately led to her death, receiving a copy of an email that she had sent on the morning of her death, detailing everything that they now knew.

Cole is found by the stocky man, but he is able to get away and goes into hiding in a parking garage after Lisa and Jade were able to find their own shelter in a restaurant off an alleyway. Thankfully, Mark Burns appears, shooting the enforcer, ending the pursuit of Cole and his family, and the truth is able to be revealed.

Despite everything they'd been through over the last 24 hours, the family is together again, and Jade is thrilled to learn that she has an entire family she knew nothing about. Burns is going to have the family sent overseas to await next steps, where they will remain in witness protection for a time until they are able to get through the legal proceedings of the case.

[readingforsanity]

Dark Sisters | Kristi DeMeester | Published 2025 | ARC

1750: Anne Bolton sets off with her daughter to begin a life of secrecy. In town, they are killing women accused of witchcraft every day, and as a healer, she'll soon be persecuted too. But then she makes a deal with the Dark Sisters to protect those under her purview - and unleashes a devastating power with consequences that will echo for three hundred years.

1953: Mary Shephard is a new mother, a picture-perfect wife, and dutiful member of The Path - a community of faith that holds piety and family values above all else. But Mary feels oppressed by these limiting expectatoins, so she takes a part time job. But then she meets Sharon, and their star-crossed love story begins. But that's the thing about star-crossed lovers - people just want to tear you apart.

2007: Camilla Burson is the preacher's daughter, and she knows how to play the game. But now women in The Path are dying of a rare disease, including her mother, and this time she'll push her father too far. Her punishment: The Retreat, a place that shows troublemakers like Camilla that toeing the line is best for everyone. But there is an old, forgotten power awaiting her; a power that if Camilla can claim, will change everything.

Over the course of many centuries, we meet a series of extraordinary woman.

In 1750, we are introduced to Anne Bolton, and her daughter, Florence. A healer in her village, Anne worries of the repercussions that her choice in profession could bring now that the word "witch" it being thrown out at women, leaving them to hang or burn to their deaths. Desperate to save herself and her daughter, Anne lies to her daughter's fiance, claiming that she is unable to bear him any children. Florence is heartbroken, but the two of them have no other choice but to flee into the darkness, to save themselves.

Eventually, the two women settle down together, becoming prosperous in their own little village they've created. Soon, others from their home join them, Anne having helped to save their children. At a tree, the three women come together to offer their blood, to bring good fortune to those that will come after them. Florence, having recently found out about her mother's betrayal, does the same, though wishing horrible thoughts instead of good ones.

Despite Anne's wishes to bring health and good fortune, Florence's wishes took over, bringing nothing but a curse upon the women of the area. Shortly after, sores begin appearing in the mouths of the sparse women of their little town, slowly breaking apart their bodies, sending them to the tree where they meet their deaths. After the second death, the men begin to blame Anne. She goes to Florence, now married and expecting a child of her own to beg for help but Florence wants nothing of it.

As Anne goes to the tree to end her life or to allow nature to take it's course, Florence appears, as does her husband. He now knows that she had placed her blood on the tree, understanding that what her mother is, she is as well. He cuts her, drinking her blood, the beginnings of a centuries long tradition of what would become Hawthorn Springs.

In the 1950s, we meet young housewife Mary. Wife to Robert and mother to a baby girl named Ada, Mary goes through her day to day tribulations with unease. Believing that her life is meant for much more than just taking care of a house, husband and baby, she accepts a job that Robert helps her get. But, when her boss causes her unease and tension in the office, she leaves early and meets another young women named Sharon.

Sharon is an employee at a local shop, and the two women become close in a short period of time. Mary is attracted to Sharon, in a time when having untoward feelings about another person of the same sex was something that was thought of as evil. The two meet in secret, falling deeper and deeper in love with one another.

After a disastrous bible study leaves Mary intoxicated, giving up her best friend Vera's deepest secret of abortions and birth control to avoid becoming pregnant, Vera takes her revenge on Mary, telling Robert that she is with a woman named Sharon, that the two have gotten close as of recently, though never full disclosing the nature of their relationship.

Regardless, Robert is suspicious of this, and keeps a close eye on Mary. Soon, Mary begins developing sores in her mouth the same as her ancestors did in the 1700s. Vera finds her at the tree, Ada lying at its base, and Mary attempting to climb to the highest point. Vera is able to coax her down, but a few days later, Mary goes missing, only to be found a few days later, impaled on a branch of the tree, having ended her life.

Vera is devastated by this loss, and is eventually sent away for a time by her own husband Gerry for her own misgivings with their church, calling it a retreat.

In 2007, we meet young 18 year old Camilla Burson, daughter of the the church's highest leader. Like any teenager, she is determined to rebel against the church, wanting to be a normal teenage girl with her two best friends, Noah and Brianna.

Brianna is sure that the church treats them differently due to the color of their skin but Camilla won't hear any of that, sure it has something to do with the fact that they're still newer to the church than the rest of the Hawthorn Springs crowd. After overhearing her mother having a discussion with her friend, a woman named Vera, Camilla understands her mother's reasoninig behind her desires to have Camilla not partake in the annual Purity Ball, where the daughters of the town pledge their abstinence from sex until marriage to their fathers in exchange for a party and a pretty ring.

When Camilla unwittingly sees the Dark Sisters, an urban legend that they appear to those who have sinned and will take them, eat them alive to their deaths, she is terrified. After Brianna is whisked away to Retreat for her involvement in a party that Camilla planned, our young heroine soon follows.

While in Retreat, she knows the easiest way to get out is to be on her best behavior. Working together, she and Brianna are able to be released shortly after Camilla's arrival. But her father has plans for her: to whisk her off to Paris for Purity Ball shopping, a week of rest and relaxtion, to return to Hawthorn Springs in order to partake in the Ball. All the while, her mother, who we know understand is Ada, Mary's daughter from the 1950s storyline, is burning with the sickness that afflicts the women of the town.

Desperate to do anything to save her mother, Camilla plans a time when she can return to the tree, and to the Dark Sisters, using Noah and Brianna to help her whenever they can. At the ball, Camilla is ravished by the attention, excited especially of that by a young man named Grant's. It is her father's wish that the two of them will marry, and that the tradition of Hawthorn Springs will continue through his daughter.

But, after being drugged by Grant, awakening during the ritualistic ceremony of cutting her thigh and drinking her blood, Camilla knows something more sinister is at play. After she is once again whisked off to Retreat, she is saved by a woman named Robin, who is also desperate to stick it to them in the town.

With Noah and Brianna's help, she is able to return to the tree, finally accepting her destiny and allowing Anne and Florence into her body and soul. The men arrive, as do the women, and everyone understands what will happen now. Anne and Florence will enact the revenge they have waited centuries in order to provide to the women who have been tortured and treated as less than because of the men in their lives.

[readingforsanity]

The September House | Carissa Orlando | Published 2023

When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large victorian house on Hawthorn Street - for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price - they couldn't believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee.

Margaret is not most people.

Margaret is staying. It's her house. But after four years Hal can't take it anymore, and he leaves abruptly. Now he's not returning calls, and their daughter Katherine - who knows nothing about the hauntings - arrives, intent on looking for her missing father. To make things worse, September has just begun, and with every attempt Margaret and Katherine make at finding Hal, the hauntings grow more harrowing, because there are some secrets the house needs to keep.

Dreaming big dreams, Margaret and Hal spent the entirety of their adult lives, while raising their daughter Katherine, move from apartment to house, house to apartment. Their jobs as an author and artist didn't leave room for steady income. But when they find the perfect home, a large Victorian at the right price, they buy it immediately.

But, almost directly after the move in, it quickly becomes apparent that the month of September and their home have something of a problem with each other. Every September, blood begins pooling from the walls, intense shreiking is heard throughout the house and various individuals, mostly children, who died within the home make their presence known. There is also a helpful ghostly housekeeper named Fredericka, who remains with Margaret and Hal throughout the year, and a young boy name Elias, with razor sharp teeth and a love for his own personal space, biting anyone who gets too closely.

Margaret can live with these beings in her home, though every single one of them is afraid of a presence in the basement, that of one of the former owners of the house, Master Vale. Keeping the basement shut tight, with various Bible passages plastered on the inside of the walls, Margaret is able to keep Master Vale in his basement haven with little issues, though his presence is mighty felt throughout the month of September.

After Hal leaves, Margaret is left living in the house with her ghostly friends. Fredericka and Margaret have a wonderful relationship going with each other, and while Elias doesn't speak, they get along companioably so long as Margaret stays out of his space. Slowly but surely, the others, whom Margaret calls pranksters, begin to appear as well.

Katherine has noticed the lack of her father's communication lately, despite not having a wonderful relationship with him before. She tells Margaret that she is going to come and visit, work with the police in searching for her father since there has been nothing heard from him in nearly a month. Margaret tells her concerns to her friend and neighbor, Edie, who shows up exactly when Margaret needs her the most. Edie suggests that it might be time to bring in Father Cyrus, a member of the Catholic church who has performed rituals in the house for them every few months, but mostly in the month of September.

When Father Cyrus appears ready to perform, Margaret follows along beside him reciting the prayers along with him. But, when they get to the basement door, and Margaret rips off the wooden boards keeping the door closed tightly, Father Cyrus is attacked, vomiting up flies, presumably from Master Vale himself. The ritual cut short, Father Cyrus leaves quickly. But, Margaret is hopeful that the ritual was performed enough that the beings within the house, along with the blood coming down the walls from the top floor of the Victorian, would be kept at bay until after Katherine's visit.

Katherine is a tough, abrasive woman, who deals with her own sets of issues. Recently having left her girlfriend, Claire, Katherine is determined to get to the bottom of Hal's sudden disappearance. With a plan set, Katherine meets with the local police department, who also speak with Margaret, to get a full view of the last time Hal had been seen. With that completed, Katherine works on investigating her father's office, where the two of them discover several empty Jack Daniels bottles. Hal had been a recovering alcoholic who appears to have fallen back into old habits.

Katherine begins visiting the locals bars and motels and hotels in the area, hoping that someone would remember her dad. At a location called the Value Lodge, they get lucky when one of the employees says that Hal had stayed with them but he hadn't been seen recently. The women leave, determined to find answers, though Margaret doesn't seem as eager as Katherine.

When Katherine and Margaret get into a heated argument, Katherine leaves, ultimately spending the night with a female bartender she met at one of their stops. Katherine and Edie are speaking on the porch when she arrives home the next morning, feeling guilty about her mother waiting for her.

Margaret does anything and everything to avoid Katherine's inevitable meeting with the various ghostly figures within the house. But Fredericka's increasing erratic behavior makes this diffuclt. Every September, she begins rearranging things, leaving the tea kettle boiling on the stove while no one is in the room, moving things into places that they wouldn't normally be. And the house is becoming overrun by flies, something that has been a regular occurrence since Father Cyrus performed his ritual.

When the police state that there is something they had found, Katherine agrees to meet with the police but only after having a serious discussion with Margaret. She is certain that Margaret is going through dementia or some type of psychotic episode, something that had run on Margaret's side of the family through her father. When Katherine arrives home, she explains that a cab had been bringing Hal back here, and the police arrive shortly afterward.

When Hal's body is discovered in the basement, broken and bent beyond anything human hands could accomplish on their own, and she realizes that Edie, the only confidant she's had in years, is actually one of the previous owners of the house who had committed suicide and is just a ghostly figure now, Margaret begins to question whether there is something deeper going on medically. Everyone claims to not be able to see any of the other beings in the house, and they are worrying over Margaret's mental state. She begins to "remember" images from Hal reappearing at the house, him walking throughout the main floor of their home spilling gasoline everywhere with the intention of burning it down. But she heard him enter the basement, either by his own free will or against it, and never came up.

Katherine is devastated by her father's loss, despite the troubling childhood she had with her father. As an alcoholic, he was a controlling, abusive man, even getting to the point that Margaret had Katherine move in with her sister for a time after he got close to hurting their daughter as well.

While the police are attempting to escort Margaret to the police station for further questioning, one of the officers is locked outside of the house, while the other three, Margaret and Katherine are trapped inside. Slowly, the house begins to reveal itself to the others, first by hundreds or thousands of birds flying into every open space on the outside of the house, effectively killing themselves; then the blood begins to appear tenfold and the shrieks get overwhelming. The children begin to appear before them, proving that Margaret is within sound mind now that the others can see and hear what happens within the house.

Just as quickly as everything starts, it stops. But, the three officers are attacked by an unseen force, their bones and limbs cracking and breaking open. When Jones, the officer that had been outside trying to get back in, is allowed back in the house, they are terrified to see that Katherine is being attacked and brought into the basement by Master Vale.

With Jones incapacitated, Margaret fights for her daughter, telling Master Vale that she is through, and that he needs to get out of her house. A fight breaks out, but the others within the house come to the rescue, helping to push Master Vale out once and for all, including all of the children he had murdered, the men and women he had harmed. Together, the children attack him while the adults yell for him to get out, which eventually leads his ghostly presence to be eradicted.

The children, now nearly back to how they were before they were brutally murdered by Vale's hands, make their way outside in the now, able to venture from the house for the first time in decades. Even Edie decides to move on, though she loved the house as much as Margaret did.

Katherine comes to terms with what she saw within the house, while Jones is going to contact everyone she can to deal with the mess inside. Margaret and Katherine begin to mend their relationship, the latter even deciding to remain with her mother instead of returning to her home out of state.

[readingforsanity]

The Eyes Are the Best Part | Monika Kim | Published 2024

Ji-won's life tumbles into disarray in the wake of her appa's extramarital affair and subsequent departure. Her mother, distraught. Her younger sister, hurt and confused. Her college freshman grades, failing. Her dreams, horrifying...yet enticing.

In them, Ji-won walks through bloody rooms full of eyes. Succulent blue eyes. Salivatingly blue eyes. Eyes the same shape and shade as George's, who is Umma's obnoxious new boyfriend. George has already overstayed his welcome in her family's claustrophobic apartment. He brags about his puffed-up consulting job, ogles Asian waitresses while dining out, and acts condescending toward Ji-won and her sister as if he deserves all of Umma's fawning adoration. No, George goesn't deserve anything from her family. Ji-won will make sure of that.

For no matter how many victums accumulate around her campus or how many people she must deceive and manipulate, Ji-won's hunger and her rage deserve to be sated.

Ji-won's life tumbles into uncertainty when her father abruptly leaves the family. Stating that he has met someone else, he packs his things and begins a new life with another woman, younger than Ji-won's Umma.

Umma struggles with the loss and Ji-won and her younger sister, Ji-hyun are unsure of how to handle their mother's grief. But overtime, they begin to notice a change in their mother. She begins hiding in the bathroom, having hushed conversations. Ji-hyun mentions the possibility of a boyfriend, but Ji-won is skeptical. Their mother goes to work and comes home, hardly leaving the house otherwise. But after three months, Umma confirms their suspicions: she met a man, a customer, at her job at the Korean grocery store and they had been seeing each other in secret over the last month.

Unsure of what to do or say, they have no choice but to meet George, a white former military member, for a lunch date one rainy Saturday. Ever since Ji-won was coaxed into trying the eyes of a fish, a particular custom that her mother partook in, along with other members of her family, believing the eyes of the fish to be good luck, Umma believes that this tradition of hers has brought George to her.

Instead of being enamored by him like their mother, the girls are terrified to see that he seems to have a particular liking to Asian woman, often flirting with the waitresses at Asian restaurants they frequent. He also makes uncomely comments towards the sisters. With this abrupt change into their daily lives so soon after the loss of their father, Ji-won and Ji-hyun take an instant disliking to George.

When Umma announces once evening that she and George are planning to get married, Ji-won is devastated. This was not in the plans. Ever since she bravely ate the eye of the fish, she has begun having terrifying dreams of eyes, blue eyes, in the same shocking shade as George. On top of this, she struggled through her first semester at college and is now on academic probation. To push her further, she has begun getting close to two other students, Geoffrey and Alexis, though the two of them dislike each other.

One evening, while attending a study session at Alexis's apartment with several other students, Ji-won comes across a homeless man. Upon returning to her vehicle to leave, she discovers his deceased body close to where her car is parked. Feeling the pull of the eyes behind the dead man's eyelids, she plucks one and takes off, hiding inside of a gas station bathroom before consuming it.

It is everything that she thought it would be, and more. This thrill has only caused her to want more. She soon takes the eyes of a man struggling in the alley outside of Alexis's apartment, as well as another male student from the college she had overheard make disgusting remarks about Asian women at the beginning of the year.

Now she knows that her destiny is set, and that she must remove George from their lives. She begins hiding things on him, making him believe that he is going crazy. She even goes as far as to sabotage a presentation he was going to give to a massive client at his job, leading to his dismissal from his job. The worst yet? Overhearing how he truly felt about the three women in his life, and that he is simply waiting for a woman named Jenny to bring him back to the apartment they shared.

One day, Ji-won invites him to meet for coffee under the guise of a girl named Lindsay, using photos she found on the internet of an unnamed Asian girl. But, when the two of them meet in the parking lot of the coffee shop, it's because Ji-won has dosed his coffee with a drug in order to incapacitate him, and it works...but only for a short period of time.

Taking him to an abandoned construction site, the confrontation leads to a fight...in which Geoffrey shows up unannounced. But, this comes as a present to Ji-won, and Geoffrey attacks George for her.

When she awakes, she learns from her mother and sister that they had found a tumor in her brain, likely leading to the strange inclination of wanting to eat eye balls, and her erratic behavior. It was surgically removed. Unfortunately, George is still alive and is in the room next to hers.

One evening when her mother and sister leave, she goes into the room, killing George and later removing his eye balls. Geoffrey, who is now a confirmed stalker of Ji-won's, is called to the hospital by her under the pretense of having a conversation. But in truth, she is just trying to set him up to take the fall for what happened to George, in addition to the other murders she had commited along the way.

[readingforsanity]

The Tenant | Freida McFadden | Published 2025

Blake Porter is riding high, until he's not. Fired abruptly from his job as a VP of marketing and unable to make the mortgage payments on the new brownstone that he shares with his fiancee, he's desperate to make ends meet.

Enter Whitney. Beautiful, charming, down to earth and looking for a room to rent. She's exactly what Blake's looking for. Or is she?

Because something isn't quite right. The neighbors start treating Blake differently. The smell of decay permeates his home, no matter how hard he scrubs. Strange noises jar him awake in the middle of the night. And soon Blake fears someone knows his darkest secrets...

Danger lives right at home, and by the time Blake realizes it, it'll be far too late. The trap is already set.

Blake Porter feels like he is on top of a mountain. Engaged to the love of his life, Krista; working at an ad agency as their VP of Marketing; owns an Upper West Side brownstone. Everything is going his way. Until he is abruptly fired only one week into his tenure as VP. Called into his bosses office, Blake is shocked to learn that they believe he had sold a campaign to a competitor. Unable to plead his side of the story, he is escorted out by security, back into his life without a job.

Which remains for two months. Krista remains faithful and supportive, telling Blake that he'll find something soon but that they can sell her incredibly expensive engagement ring in the process. Unable to part with this gift he had given her, he toys with the idea of selling the brownstone. Soon enough, he won't be able to afford the mortgage payments anyway. Word has gotten around town to the various agencies of Blake's previous "indiscretions" and he has been unable to find another job in his field. Instead, he has spent his days taking care of his and Krista's goldfish, Goldy, and working out an intense amount, often running for miles and then lifting weights for an hour multiple times a week.

Krista suggests that the two of them bring in a tenant for one of their unused bedrooms. Initially hesitant, he finally relents and they begin interviewing various candidates. They've been unlucky so far, until they meet Whitney Cross. She is gorgeous, and she turns out to be the perfect tenant. The three of them begin building a friendship both as roommates and as friends.

But soon, Whitney begins to overstay her welcome, at least according to Blake. Despite being told to feel free to use their toiletries and eat his cereal, Whitney has gone and used up everything. Even worse, she has begun using a laundry detergent with an ingredient that Blake is immensely allergic too, leaving him with a painful and itchy rash behind.

Blake begins to dislike Whitney, oftentimes yelling at her and degrading her until he feels satisfied that she won't continue with whatever request he is asking of her. Whitney begins to take an unliking to Blake as well.

When Blake notices an infestation of fruit flies in the house, he is desperate to locate the source. With nothing evident to the naked eye, he finally finds a huge cluster of them around one particular cabinet. What he locates is a plastic bag with old, rotting apples inside, stuffed to the back of the cabinet away from anyone being able to notice it. Thinking Whitney is the culprit, he takes the bag of rotting fruit to her bedroom, and dumps it on her bed.

After Krista finds Goldy dead in her fishtank a few days later, Blake is sure that Whitney is behind this as well, especially considering the fact that there is a strong odor of bleach coming from the water. Devastated, the three of them hold a fish funeral in the backyard, and Whitney's behavior only further cements what Blake believes is her revenge against him, though he cannot understand why.

When Krista locates the suspicious bottle of bleach inside of Blake's closet, she decides that it is high time for her to make her exit, unsure of what Blake's true motive is here. Desperate to hold onto her, but being unable too, Blake has no choice but to let Krista go stay with her friend Becky and her husband Marshall. She requests space from Blake, leaving his calls unreturned and his text messages on read.

But when Marshall appears one morning on his front doorstep with Krista's engagement ring in the velvet box, returning it to its rightful owner, Blake is truly devastated. He requests that he and Krista meet, and she agrees. But nothing comes from the conversation when Becky is home and interrupts the conversation, telling Blake that he needs to move on.

Going back to Whitney's background check that he had requested when she initially moved into the brownstone, he locates her address, about two hours away in a small town in New Jersey. Coming up with a lie, he contacts her former high school, requesting her transcripts. But he is shocked to learn that Whitney had been involved in a scandal shortly before disappearing. She had learned that her boyfriend at the time, Jordan, had cheated on her and shortly after, Jordan jumped to his death from the roof of the school. His parents, knowing their son, tell the police that he never would have taken his life, and they believe that Whitney was the culprit in their son's death.

With this information in mind, Blake rents a car and travels to New Jersey, snacking on the cookies that Krista had given him upon leaving Becky and Marshall's just a few hours later, waiting for Whitney's mother to return home. When she does, and Blake invites him in, she shares that there was always something a little off with Whitney. When her younger brother had been four, and she only slightly older, she had pushed him from the highest point in a playground, causing her son to break his arm. Their relationship had been strained ever since. She knew that after the incident with Jordan, she fled the country, having sent a postcard from Portugal to them afterwards, and that she has since returned to the US, but she has no idea where she could possibly be, but that if Whitney is in fact his tenant, that he should get as far away from her as possible.

When Blake looks at the pictures placed on the mantel, he is shocked to see that the Whitney in the photos isn't the Whitney Cross, tenant. Instead, it is his fiance, Krista.

Realizing now that Krista has lied about who she is, and that "Whitney" could possibly be in on it, he knows his life is in danger, and that the cookies that "Krista" had givenh him were laced with something.

From Krista's perspective, we learn that despite being told otherwise, Blake had been unfaithful to her with Stacie, a secretary from his job at the agency. It only happened once, in a moment of weakness, and Blake has regretted it ever since. But for Krista, there is no going back.

She took on the name Krista after the death of Jordan, for which she HAD been responsible, and with the help of a high school friend, has been leaving under this assumed identity ever since, with plans to return to Whitney at some point. But when Becky and Krista are dining at the restaurant where Whitney works as a waitress, Krista realizes that this woman has stolen her identity, calling on her high school friend, Elijah, to confirm her suspicions, which he does.

With a plan set, Krista has given Blake the thought of bringing in a tenant, and Whitney is the one she wants to move in. After she does, everything begins to come loose when she begins sabotaging the friendship that Whitney and Blake have struck. Dumping out his cereal and toiletries, thinking that Whitney would do it; placing bleach inside of the fishtank that ultimately led to Goldy's death; even placing the bag of rotting apples inside the cabinet.

Blake is slowly losing his mind and Krista believes he is deserving of every bit of it. When she removes herself from the brownstone and begins staying with Becky and Marshall, she even disguises herself and acts as an Uber driver and picks up Stacie, on her way to a night out with girlfriends. But Krista has laced the water bottle in the back, taking her into Jersey and killing her, spearing off three of her fingers and placing them in the brownstone, hidden between the counter and refrigerator.

When she and Blake meet the morning he goes to New Jersey, she has laced the snickerdoodle cookies that she made with the toxin from a blowfish, which is meant to kill within 4-6 hours. But Blake, realizing what she had done, attempts to rid himself of the toxins by vomiting them up, though he is unsuccessful; the poison begins to slowly take his life.

Meanwhile, Krista heads to the brownstone to meet with Whitney to discuss the possibility of moving in together, Whitney with the understanding that Blake wants her out as quickly as possible. But Krista has more nefarious plans. She has learned that her real name is Amanda, and she stole the identity after borrowing money from loan sharks in order to care for her mother who had been diagnosed with cancer. After losing her mother, she couldn't afford to pay the money back and fled, with the understanding that if her real identity got out, that she would be killed.

When Blake returns to the brownstone, feeling the effects of the toxin, he rings the doorbell and in her distraction, Krista stabs Whitney in the stomach. Believing she is dead, she brings Blake inside of the house. The two of them talk, but suddenly, Krista ends up on the floor beside him. Desperate to save her, but unable to do anything as he cannot move and Whitney has been stabbed, the two of them have no other reason but to let her die.

A week later, Blake has finished recovering in the hospital. He was lucky to have survived and for Whitney, now going by Amanda again, her injuries were not fatal and she was able to be released the following day. The two of them return to the brownstone, neither of them having nowhere else to go.

But months later, Blake is packing up and leaving, returning to Ohio where he grew up to run his dad's hardware store, allowing him to retire. For Amanda, she will remain in the city until the brownstone is stole. Krista is a notorious serial murderer, and is famous in her death. Blake and Amanda hooked up once but nothing more is going to come of it. Blake is happy to return to his hometown and be with his family.

As for Amanda, we learn the final truth. The story she told Krista had been a lie, and her mother was never diagnosed with cancer. But, she was approached by a man who worked for the loan sharks that she borrowed from, and they have one single request: they know she is not the real Whitney, and that if they could kill her, as she was responsible for his nephews death all those years ago, they would consider her debt paid.

Obviously, she succeeded in their request and is now able to return to her former identity.

[readingforsanity]

Ghost Eaters | Clay McLeod Chapman | Published 2022

Erin hasn't been able to set a single boundary with her charismatic but reckless college ex-boyfriend, Silas. When he asks her to bail him out of rehab - again - she knows she needs to cut him off. But days after he gets out, Silas turns up dead of an overdose in their hometown of Richmond, Virginia, and Erin's world falls apart.

Then a friend tells her about Ghost, a new drug that allows users to see the dead. Wanna get haunted? he asks. Grieving and desperate for closure with Silas, Erin agrees to a pill popping seance. But the drug has unfathomable side effects - and once you take it, you can never go back.

Despite dating in college, Erin and her once-boyfriend, Silas, have parted ways. Instead, Erin decides to focus on casually dating and planning for her long-awaited future with a prominent ad agency, for which she has an upcoming interview for.

With her future bright, Erin is called back into Silas' orbit when he requests that she save him from the rehab that his sister, Callie, has placed him in. His erratic behavior scares Erin, so she calls on their friends Amara and Tobias to help with an intervention, to get Silas out of this rut he finds himself in. But his unwillingness to cooperate with their pleas forces Erin to claim that she no longer wants to help him, and for him to get out of her life forever.

Erin will soon regret these words, as only a few days later, Silas is found under an overpass, having overdosed. Unable to attend his funeral, despite her best efforts to do so, she agrees to meet with Amara and Tobias. The friend group, minus one, heads off to an undeveloped subdivision, abandoned in the middle of building, entering into an unfinished home.

Tobias claims that Silas had figured out the impossible, that he had discovered a drug called Ghost that could allow you to visit loved ones that have since passed on. He further claims that Silas was able to reunite with his mother, who died in a car accident when he was young. Amara is skeptical but Erin is willing to play along as Tobias claims that he can bring Silas back to them.

The trip is crazy and Erin thinks that she sees or feels another presence with them but Silas never physically conjures himself to them despite Tobias' best efforts. The next day, they try again and this time, Erin is able to reunite with Silas. But during her trip, she begins to expel ectoplasm which further convinces Tobias that they were successful in channeling Silas' spirit with them.

Terrified, Amara flees, taking Erin with her. During her first day at work, of which she was late for due to double dosing on Ghost the night before, begins to expel ectoplasm in full force and begins witnessing lost souls who are desperate to get a taste of her, having smelled the scent of Ghost coming from her body.

She returns to the subdivison, and to Tobias. Word gets around quickly what Ghost can do, and those desperate to reunite with deceased loved ones begin showing up in droves. A young woman named Marcia appears one day, desperate to reunite with her son, who died as an infant. According to Tobias, she is successful.

For Erin, Ghost sends her on "what could have been" trips, imagining a life with Silas had this been what Erin wanted.

But as she delves further into her addiction, she realizes that something isn't right. Tobias is acting as some sort of cult leader, and the home quickly begins to fill with souls in search of Ghost. Erin realizes that her life is spiraling out of control and eventually calls Amara for help. But when she appears, Amara is attacked by an unseen dead person, dragged into the basement below.

When Erin awakes, she finds herself in a ditch and when she is found by a female police officer, is rushed to the hospital to go through detox. The mushroom that Ghost is made from has begun building itself in Erin's body, slowly making it's way out. Through antibiotics and antifungals, Erin is able to get through the worst of it.

She returns to the home and it has become overrun with people, both living and dead. The addictions have run rampant through the people living within the home, even to the point that mushroom spores have begun sprouting out of the flesh of the individuals inside.

It is now revealed that Silas has begun inhabiting in Tobias's body, the two friends now becoming one singular person. Silas has been running the show the entire time, and Erin feels doubly betrayed. She is talked into taking a dose of Ghost again. But she is able to push past its effects, opening up the door that has been keeping the lost souls out.

Upon opening it, the addicts within the home begin feeding on the flesh of those around them, even themselves. Silas, unable to control his followers anymore, is desperate to get a handle on the situation that he is unable to see Erin slip into the basement. When she enters, she finds Silas's true form, his deceased body, and that of Amara and a security guard set out to check on the subdivison, in garden planters, filled with soil and sprouting spores out of their bodies.

With help from Silas's trusty ligher, she sets the home ablaze, and the rest of the subdivision follows. Despite the loss of 30 lives, Erin gets a reduced sentence for information on what happened in the subdivison, and she begins running therapy groups for other recovering addicts.

[readingforsanity]

I'm Glad My Mom Died | Jennette McCurdy | Published 2022

Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother's dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called "calorie restriction", eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at home makeovers while Mom chided, "Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn't tint hers?" She was even showered by Mom until age 16 while sharing her diaries, emails and all her income.

In I'm Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail - just as she chronicles what happens the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nikelodeon series called iCarly, she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first name basis with the paparazzi, Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. FInally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.

A truly tragic tale of one young woman's descent into fame, and the consequences of being forced into a career that she never wanted.

Jennette McCurdy was only six years old when her mother began having her audition as an actress. Despite only wanting to be a normal girl growing up in California, Jennette's mother's own desires to be an actress and being unable too, caused her to place her dream on her daughter, manipulating her into it without so much as a second thought.

As time goes on, Jennette gets more and more roles, until she is offered a place on a well-known Nikelodeon TV show called iCarly and it's subsequent spin-off, Sam & Cat. Slowly, she begins to descend into the realms of alcoholism and body dysmorphia, all at the hands of a mother who should be doing everything in her power to avoid this at all costs.

Jennette's mother, Debra, suffered from cancer and oftentimes used this as a way to get what she wanted, gaining sympathy and pity. But, she also had a mean streak, taking it out on her husband and children until they balked and did exactly what she wanted, when she wanted. All of this came to a head when the cancer came back full force, and Debra passed away surrounded by her family.

Jennette should have felt free, but she was still harboring the want to make her mother proud, and doing anything outside of that would cause her great harm. For years, she succummbed to her mother bathing her well into her teenage years, performing vaginal and breast exams to "ensure she didn't have cancer". After getting her first period at the age of 16, Jennette realized that she couldn't put off growing up, and that she was slowly, but surely, growing up.

But, Jennette's desire to be a better person slowly overcame her wish to do and be exactly who her mother wanted her to be. She begins working through her eating disorders and alcoholism with a therapist named Jeff, ends a years-long relationship with a man named Steven because she was too focused on his wellbeing rather than her own, and began to have a better relationship with not only herself but with food in general.

She also finds and introduces herself to her biological father. Her "father" growing up knew that he wasn't three out of the four McCurdy childrens father and kept it to himself until his new girlfriend told him to inform them of what he knew.

It was a truly sad tale of what can happen when you force your own wants, dreams and desires onto your own children. Jennette has finally given up acting, choosing to work behind the scenes instead and has written this book to let others know that they might not be alone.

[readingforsanity]

The Memory Watcher | Minka Kent | Published 2016, republishing 2025 | ARC

When Autumn Carpenter stumbles upon the social media account of the family who adopted her infant daughter years ago, she finds herself instantly drawn into their picture-perfect existence.

From behind a computer screen, Autumn watches Grace's every memory, from birthdays to holidays to bedtime snuggles. But what starts as an innocent fascination spirals into an addictive obsession met with a screeching halt the day the McMullen family closes their Instaface account without so much as a warning.

Frantic and desperate to reconnect with her daughter, Autumn applies for a nanny position with the McMullens, manipulating herself into Grace's life under false pretenses. And it's only then that Autumn discovers pictures lie, the perfect family doesn't exist, and beautiful people? They have the ugliest secrets.

In this story, we follow both Autumn Carpenter and Daphne McMullen as these two women navigate the trials and tribulations of their everyday lives.

Autumn has struggled for 10 years with the decision to place her daughter, Grace, for adoption. After finding her by chance seven years prior, she learns that she was adopted by the McMullen family. Since then, Autumn has tried desperately to get close to the family, as close as she can get, and to be close to Autumn again, to continue to watch her grow up.

For the last two years, Autumn has been in a relationship with Ben, whom is madly in love with her. The two of share a home in a quaint neighborhood, and their neighbors are none other than the McMullen family. What we think is an adorable coincidence is actually just an act. Autumn spent time becoming the exact person that Ben was looking for in a prospective love interest, allowing him to fall in love with her when her only intention was to be as close to the McMullen's as she could be.

Once Daphne McMullen, the matriach of the family, ultimately decides to deactive her Instaface social media profile, Autumn becomes withdrawn and depressed, unable to get her daily doses of her daughter, Grace. Ben notices the shift in her and begins to question what is going on. Autumn has never been forthcoming about her past with Ben, and he simply is understanding it is due to her lack of work after being let go from her clinic job a few months prior. Ben's sister, Marnie, sees right through her and the two women have a tumultuous relationship with one another.

Daphne struggles on a daily basis with her duties as a wife and mother. Desperate for the life she once led, one without children and it was simply only her and Graham to be responsible for, Daphne spends her Tuesday mornings in the company of a man named Mitch, a local drug dealer, smoking pot. This is outside of her character, and she must hide her secret visits with him, but the two of them become close quickly, eventually even going so far as to become physical with each other despite them being in relationships with other people.

All because Daphne is aware of her husband's own indisrections with a mystery woman. Graham spends a lot of the time working late, though when he returns home, Daphne can smell another woman on him. Desperate to keep him all to herself, she continues to act as if nothing is happening, but when Mitch does background work for her in order to find out the woman's identity, we learn that it is none other than Marnie Gotlieb.

When Daphne confronts her husband, he doesn't deny it, though he expresses his apologizes and guilt towards what happened, promising her that he will end it as he has tried to do several times. Despite wanting to end the marriage and take their children and leave, Daphne continues on with the marriage in hopes that Graham is being truthful.

All the while, Autumn begins working for the McMullen family as a summer nanny, hired to assist Daphne during the long summer months when the children are off of school. She quickly forms a bond with all of them, but more so with Grace, who feels exactly as Autumn does...an outsider. Daphne doesn't harbor a special relationship with Grace, oftentimes acting as if she is annoyed by her presence, forcing Grace to act out in many ways, including cutting her sisters hair, playing with toothpaste and even using her mother's makeup after she is left in Autumn's care. But with her appearance in the family as a nanny, the children begin to behave better.

One evening, while Ben is out of state for work, he calls Autumn frantically hoping that she could go over to his sister's place and check on her. Against her better judgment, she agrees. When she arrives, she sees Graham leaving her home with Marnie hot on his heels, in an apparent argument with each other. Seconds later, Graham leaves again.

Determined to stick up for Daphne, as Autumn is still trying to believe that they have the perfect marriage that Daphne projects online, she confronts Marnie. Marnie claims that she and Graham are in love, and that he has been planning to leave Daphne for a long time, and that Autumn should notice their relationship as she works for them.

The argument continues, Marnie claiming to have met a brother of Autumn's, who has told her the truth about her past. In a fit of rage, Autumn pushes Marnie, blacking out as she does so for a few seconds, and when she comes too, Marnie is lying on the floor, eyes wide open and unmoving. Marnie is dead.

Fleeing, she returns home, claiming to Ben that she knocked on the door but Marnie never came too. Ben tells her that he is returning home, planning to meet his parents at the police station to report Marnie as missing since she hasn't responded to any of her friends or family in days.

The next day, Marnie is discovered in her home. At first, the police don't take her death as suspicious due to the presence of alcohol in the home. Believing that she could have been drunk and stumbled to her death, Autumn continues on with her everyday life. The McMullen's ultimately decide to end their working relationship with Autumn, claiming that the children need more interaction with chilldren their own age, and pay her a hefty severance before sending her on her way.

There is an investigation into Marnie's death when it is discovered that she had a lethal dose of heroin in her system, which was likely the actual cause of her death. When Autumn goes to the police to give them information on Daphne, and the joint she found hidden in her jewelry box, the detective instead takes her to speak with a doctor.

The doctor claims that she isn't Autumn Carpenter, and that she is instead a woman named Sarah, who had been institutionalized 10 years prior and has dissociative personality disorder. Autumn was her friend, and eventual roommate upon their release, and during the time they were inpatients, Autumn had given birth to a baby girl and had had her adopted out in a closed adoption. Autumn has since been missing for the last decade while Sarah has been living as her.

Sarah, formerally known as Autumn, doesn't understand what is happening. But the longer she is in the hospital, begins to rememeber the real story of her past, and that a trauma she lived with with her own family has caused her to begin living as other people. Unsure where Autumn ends and Sarah begins, she works through this, eventually meeting another inpatient named Kerrigan and the two hit it off.

After their release, one year later, Kerrigan and Sarah are living together in LA, where Kerrigan wishes to become an actress and Sarah simply wants to get by. Taking care of Kerrigan after her nights out drinking, and working as a house cleaner during the day, Sarah eventually meets a true crime author, and she provides her with the information on the Night Watcher, whom she believes could be the reason behind why Autumn has been missing all of these years.

[readingforsanity]

Death Comes to Marlow | Robert Thorogood | Published 2023 (Marlow Murder Club #2)

It's been an enjoyable and murder-free time for Judith, Suzie and Becks - AKA the Marlow Murder Club - since the events of last year. The most exciting thing on the horizon is the upcoming wedding of Marlow grandee, Sir Peter Bailey, to his nurse, Jenny Page. Sir Peter is having a party at his grand mansion on the river Thames the day before the wedding, and Judith and Co. are looking forward to a bit of free champagne.

But during the soiree, there's a crash from inside the house, and when the Marlow Murder Club rush to investigate, they are shocked to find the groom-to-be crushed to death in his study.

The study was locked from the inside, so the police don't consider the death suspicious. But Judith disagrees. As far as she's concerned, Peter was murdered! And it's up to the Marlow Murder Club to find the killer before he or she strikes again...

We are reunited with Judith, Becks and Suzie, six months after the three women worked together to solve a string of murders over the summer. They now have a solid friendship, getting together every now and again to discuss their every day lives.

But, the amateur sleuths find themselves in the thick of another murder investigation. One cold January morning, Judith is invited to the home of Sir Peter Bailey, a baron whose prominent family has been wealthy for as long as any of them could remember. Due to be married the following day, Sir Peter have invited Judith to his home for pre-wedding festivities, though the two of them have never personally met. Determined to attend, due to a comment she made regarding murder and the response she received, Judith invites Suzie to be her plus-one.

Becks is also in attendance with her husband, Colin, the local vicar. During the party, Judith is thrilled for a bit of drama between Sir Peter, his bride-to-be Jenny and his son, Tristram, who had recently been removed from the family home and uninvited to the wedding. Despite this, he showed up for the drinks party, causing a scene. Jenny, rightly so, is upset and finds herself going to her bedroom to cool off, Tristram returns to the garden to mingle with the guests and Sir Peter ends up in his study. Shortly afterward, a thundering crash comes from the study, and Tristram has to use alternative means to gain access after realizing that the door is locked and Sir Peter is the only one with a key.

Upon entering, they are horrified to discover that a large wooden cabinet has fallen onto Sir Peter, and that he has died. Jenny is distraught, unable to find a pulse despite her work as a nurse. Tristram is beside himself, feeling guilty after the argument the three of them just had. But for our sleuths? There is no other explanation other than murder.

Reuniting with Tanika, the officer they worked with during the summer to solve the murders, they begin working the case as if it were a murder investigation despite there being no evidence to sugget that he was.

But Judith knows differently; large wooden cabinets simply don't fall on their own accord, especially after she witnessed that the cabinet had come loose from the hook that helped secure it to the wall to prevent such a thing from happening. She also discovers that the door hinges had recently been oiled, with instead of your normal WD-40, it was oiled with olive oil found in a can in the very kitchen that Judith and her friends find themselves in.

Desperate for answers, it is discovered by Sir Peter's lawyer that he had recently changed his will, signed by two witnesses and placed inside the safe in his bedroom. While throughout the Bailey family the family fortune is left to the first born male, regardless of their birth order in the family, the new will suggested that this wasn't going to be the safe. Upon cracking open the safe, they discover it empty and the new will nowhere to be found, therefore the old will is still in effect and therefore, Tristram is due to inherit the family business and estate, despite him being the second born child.

Sir Peter's first born, Rosanna, is currently in charge of the family estate and works hard for her father despite there being absolutely no way she could inherit the fortune herself. When Judith discovers a button missing from her jacket, later found in the wardrobe inside of Sir Peter and Jenny's bedroom, Rosanna admits that she had been hiding in there, hoping to find the missing will herself. She thought that her father could have changed the will so everything would be left to her and she was curious. But, as she was attempting to exit her hiding spot, Jenny entered the bedroom for a quiet moment after the argument, and she was unable to remove herself until after the crash was heard and Jenny left the bedroom.

Judith, Becks and Suzie continue to work on clues, even after their friend Tanika is removed from the case by demotion on the return of the man she had replaced the year before. Regardless, Tanika admits that she believes that Sir Bailey had been murdered as well, and that she would love for Judith and her friends to continue poking their noses about to figure out what they could find.

The three women continue to interview various players, including Jenny and Tristram, the family gardener Chris Shepherd, who had worked for the family for many years and his grandfather had been in business with Sir Peter's father to create what is now the modern X-ray machine. They also interview Sir Peter's first wife, the current Lady Bailey as well as a woman that Tristram has been found to be spending time with, whom the women assume to be his accomplice in his effort to kill his father before he could marry Jenny.

Everything seems to be pointing in the direction that Tristam murdered his father with the help of his secret girlfriend, Sarah, whom he had been seeing on and off since they were 14 years old. But, Judith suddenly remembers something that Lady Bailey mentioned after she admitted that she had been sneaking around outside the window the study on the day of the party. She claims that she simply wanted to get a glimpse of what the news Mrs. Bailey looked like, as he had never seen her before. But at the time of the crash, she was already running from the scene and couldn't possibly be the person responsible for Sir Peter's death.

Once the three women meet at the outside of the massive estate, Judith realizes that Lady Bailey had given her the answer all along. After Sarah's death from cyanide poisoning, the police arrested Tristram for questioning but a call from Tanika informs Judith that he was set free. Knowing now that he is the one responsible for the murder, the three women call Jenny home as he life is in danger.

Tristram does appear at the mansion and attacks Jenny, but the three women along with the police are able to thwart his efforts to kill her. Becks and Suzie ultimately leave the property thinking that Judith had set Jenny up for bait in order to implicate Tristram, and after a brief row with her boss, Tanika is told to vacate the premises as well. This leaves Judith and Jenny alone, Judith promising to look after her while the officers work on getting Tristram to the police station.

But Judith's plan is all coming together, but it was really Jenny who was responsible for Sir Peter's death. Judith found the missing will, stating that should he die under suspicious circumstances to investigate his son, and that he planned to leave everything to his bride-to-be, instead of Tristram, which would effectively end the Bailey tradition of only males inheriting the family money.

Judith reveals that she knows it was Jenny, and that she figured it out after Sarah's death, that she had been responsible for both of the untimely deaths of two people in the last few days. She goes into detail with Jenny, who essentially confesses to the entire ordeal, claiming that she and Tristram had fallen in love during the time the two of them were in Florence, Italy at the same time and they concocted this plan, Jenny essentially grooming Tristram into murdering his father and marrying her so she could inherit both the money and the title. In the meantime, she would pretend to be in love with his father, only to murder him the day before so suspicion about his death wouldn't fall on her.

Jenny is sure that she and Judith are the only remaining people inside the house. But, it is revealed that Tanika never left the property, and the row between the three women had been staged, so Suzie could drive off in her own vehicle and Becks would leave in Tanika's police car, leaving Tanika able to reenter the house through the back and capture the entire confession on her phone.

Jenny is later arrested, and Judith is sure now that there is evidence and proof of what happened, Tristram will have no other option to confess. Judith also relays to Rosanna that despite Tristram being the individual set to receive the family fortune and estate, it will now go to Rosanna because of his involvement in the conspiracy to commit murder. And because of this, Rosanna will be able to continue the tradition of leaving it to anyone she sees fit, man or woman, for the first time in over 400 years.

[readingforsanity]

Dead of Winter | Darcy Coates | Published 2023

When Christa joins a tour group heading deep into the snowy expanse of the Rocky Mountains, she's hopeful this will be her chance to put the ghosts of her past to rest. But when a bitterly cold snowstorm sweeps the region, the small group is forced to take shelter in an abandoned hunting cabin. Despite the uncomfortably claustrophobic quarters and rapidly dropping temperature, Christa believes they'll be safe as they wait out the storm.

She couldn't be more wrong.

Deep in the night, their tour guide goes missing...only to be discovered the followng morning, his severed head impaled on a tree outside the cabin. Terrified, and completely isolated by the storm, Christa finds herself trapped with eight total strangers. One of them kills for sport...and they're far from finished. As the storm grows more dangerous and the number of survivors dwindled one by one, Christa must decide who she can trust before this frozen mountain becomes her tomb.

A tour group is heading to Blackstone Alpine Lodge, a remote luxury cabin in the middle of the Smoky Mountains. Christa is only one of several participants, joining her boyfriend of six months, Kiernan, who planned the trip for them as a way to get away from their lives. For Christa, this trip is welcome. Two years before, she had been involved in a car accident that ended up taking the life of a young 19 year old man when he tried to overrun her vehicle during a rain storm, instead losing control and going off of the road into a river below. Despite attempts to reach help, the young man died after he was able to free himself from the car.

For those two years, Christa has dealt with the after affects of grief. She personally feels responsible for the man's death, despite not truly being involved but instead knowing if she had allowed him to simply pass her that night, he very likely would still be alive.

Unfortunately, a snow storm hits while the group is attempting to make it to the lodge. While trying to get rid of a large tree across the road, Christa and Kiernan try to hike to an overlook to get a better view of the world beyond. Instead, they become separated from the rest of the group. Christa finds herself in a dire situation when she is in the middle of an avalanche, though she is able to free herself, eventually finding herself at a small hunting cabin in the woods, luckily the location of the remainder of her tour group with the exception of Kiernan.

It takes a while for her to completely come too. She learns that Kiernan is still out in the elements, though she has hope that since he grew up in the mountains that he would be able to survive it. Sadly for her, she experienced frostbite on one of her hands, and it has become useless to her.

The group is stranded while the snowstorm rages around them. There is Simone, who was formerly in the army; Hutch, a DJ; Steve and Miri, a trucker and his wife who were coming to the luxury cabin as a way to repair a broken marriage; Denny and Greyson, father and son hoping to reconnect after the death of their wife and mother a few months prior; Blake, a former 911 dispatcher hoping to get away from the realities she faced on a daily basis and finally, Alexis, a young woman traveling alone.

Christa wants to look for Kiernan, hoping that he found shelter somehow. But the others are hesitant to go back into the elements. Brian, the tour guide, explains that he had called for help using a radio found in the hunting cabin, and that rescue will be upon them once the storm lets up. But upon waking the following day, Brian has seemingly gone missing. When the others step outside to begin searching for him, they locate his severed head in a dead pine next to the cabin.

Brian's death marks the beginning of the gruesome murders of the group slowly, one by one. The next victim is Miri, who likely went outside into the elements to smoke a cigarette, and Greyson after, his death when he wanted to get away from his father for a few minutes. He had recently confided in Alexis that he thought his father had killed his mother. As a mechanic, he should have known that the brakes hadn't been working in the vehicle that she was driving, and in actuality, he should have been driving it, but instead he took a different car, leaving his wife with the car he drove daily, resulting in her death.

As time goes on, it's apparent that rescue isn't coming once they discover that the radio was broken, gutted from the inside out. They all hold onto hope that maybe that happened after Brian had called. And while the snowstorm ends, it picks back up a few times, making their desire to survive that much harder.

Alexis eventually confides to Christa that she wasn't taking the trip to get away, but was actually invited by the person she thought was responsible for her sisters death. A year before, Alexis had gone to her sister's dorm room to pick her up, instead finding her lifeless body, an apparent suicide with a note left behind. But Alexis was certain that her sister didn't want to die and that it was meant to look like a suicide.

Alexis has kept a journal, and after the lights turn off suddenly, and everyone begins to react wildly and Alexis is eventually attacked, Christa tries to dechiper the messages inside. She was certain that Alexis was trying to tell her who the butcher was, simply stating the words surgeon. There were only two candidates for this: Simone, for her military background and Blake, the former dispatcher who had first told the others to amputate Christa's hand.

In order to survive, Christa can't trust anyone. Slowly, the others are picked off. Simone kills Steve with a rock, thinking that he was the butcher, but after the others leave her alone and tied up in a shed on the property, Christa goes to check on her only to find her body, sans head. Hiding from the butcher who was lying in wait for her, she realizes that she needs to get away.

After realizing Hutch was attacked inside the cabin, the only remaining member of the group that could be responsible was Denny. Hutch tells her to run, and she takes off into the raging snowstorm, certain that she could make it to the lodge. Earlier that day, she had noticed the peaks of it's roof nearby, and this will be her only chance for survival.

She makes it, but Denny quickly finds himself gaining entry using the axe. Christa is able to revive the generator, giving her a way to get around and hopefully give her the chance to call for help. She is successful in reaching emergency services but Denny was able to find her faily easily on the lodge's second floor and a chase ensues.

Once Christa is able to make it back to the main lobby of the lodge, she knows that she is either going to die inside or outside and begins weighing her options when she hears the sound of something falling down the stairs. She is shocked to see the severed head of Denny bouncing down the stairs like a ball, and comes face to face with her partner, Kiernan, whom had been presumed dead after the group had found his body, sans head, lying in the snow on their way to attempt rescue a few days before.

Thrilled to find that he was actually alive, Christa runs to him...only to realize that Kiernan was the butcher the entire time.

He planned the entire trip in order to exact revenge against every single person who was involved in his brother, Liam's death, two years before. After his brother's death, his father took his life and the results damaged his mother so badly that she has been in hospice care ever since, unable to talk or eat without assistance.

Kiernan explains that not a single person involved in the accident had tried to help his brother: Not Steve or Miri, who were the truck that led to Liam trying to make a faster escape attempt as they were coming down the opposite side of the road; not Hutch, who was returning home after DJing at a party, though according to Christa he did try to help but was unable to get down to the river safely; not Blake, who was the 911 dispatcher that Liam spoke too; not Denny, who was the mechanic who had worked on Steve's truck, whose emergency brakes failed in their attempt to stop; not Simone, who took too long in rescuing the vehicle from the river the day after he had passed away. Every single person on the private tour group had been involved in the accident in some way.

Kiernan saved Christa for last, though he wants her to beg him to remain alive, and the two of them could run off. While Christa does as he asks, he finds a pocket knife she had hidden on her person after removing it from Simone after her attack on Steve, plunging it into his chest...eventually severing his throat so many times that there is likely no coming back from that.

She is relieved to come out of this alive, and she can see the lights of a rescue helicopter, the 911 dispatcher she spoke too coming through on her promise of rescue. Christa can only think of Alexis and Hutch, left behind at the hunting cabin with wounds. They might not be alive, but it is worth attempting to rescue them.

[readingforsanity]

Forget Me Not | Stacy Willingham | Publishing 2025 | ARC

22 years ago, Claire Campbell's older sister, Natalie, disappeared shortly after her 18th birthday. Days later, her blood is found in a car, a man was arrested, and the case was swiftly closed. In the decades since, Claire has attempted to forget her traumatic past by moving to the city and climbing the ranks as an investigative journalist...until an unexpected call from her father forces her to come back home and face it all anew.

With the entire summer now looming ahead - a summer spent with nothing to do in her childhood home, with her estranged mother - Claire decides on a whim to accept a seasonal job at Galloway Farm, a muscadine vineyard in coastal South Carolina less than an hour away from where she grew up. At first glance, Galloway is an idyllic escape for Claire. A scenic retreat full of slow-paced nostalgia, as well as a place where her sister seemed truly happy in the last summer before she vanished, it feels like the perfect plan to pass the time. However, as soon as Claire starts to settle in, she stumbles across an old diary written by one of the vineyard's owners, and what at first seems like a story of young rebellion and love turns into something much more sinister as it begins to describe details of various unsolved crimes. As the days stretch on, Claire finds herself becoming more and more secluded as she starts to obsess over the diary's contents...as well as the lingering feeling that her own sister's disappearance may be somehow tied to it all.

Galloway was supposed to be a place to help her move forward, but instead, Claire quickly finds herself immersed in her own dark and dangerous past.

ARC

After not receiving the promotion that should have rightfully been hers, Claire Campbell quits her job at the New York Journal in favor of freelance. But the last few months have not been kind, and instead, she is out celebrating the promotion being given to her close friend, Ryan, instead. While the festivities are in full swing, she receives a call from her father, informing her that her mother had been involved in an accident, and will need some help navigating over the next few weeks.

Despite her better judgement, Claire agrees to go home after more than 15 years. But, upon arrival, she is hit with nostalgia at the loss that her family experienced more than two decades before. On the cusp of her parents separation and divorce, her older sister, Natalie, disappeared. The boy she had been seeing at the time, Jeffrey, a small town crook, was arrested and charged with her murder after evidence had been found in his car, leading him to be placed behind bars despite Natalie's body never resurfacing.

Now, Claire finds it difficult to be home, as does her mother. After overhearing a private conversation between her parents, Claire decides to leave and tells her mother that she is returning to New York City, an assignment at work that she can't pass up. But instead of returning to her home in the city, she heads out to Wadama Island, to a farm called Galloway. Wanting to feel closer to the sister that she had loved and lost, Claire decides to accept a position as a farmhand for the next month, living in the guesthouse on the property for free room and board, and food, in exchange helping the Galloway family pick the grapes and other produce.

On her first night in the cabin, Claire comes across the diary of the woman who lives in the main house, named Marcia, the wife of Mitchell. Together, the two of them own the farm, and have one other hired hand named Liam. While the farm is no longer open to the public, they still sell their produce locally, and Liam needs help gathering it so Liam can send it to town for profit.

Within Marcia's diaries, she learns that she had been raised by strict parents, religious parents, never being able to venture out on her own. Understanding that college isn't going to be up for her, as her parents don't want her to attend, she knows that her time as a single young woman in the 80s is coming to a close. But one evening, she meets Mitchell while leaving a late night showing to Romeo and Juliet. Claiming to have come to the South after studying at Berkley in California as a psychology major, the two of them begin seeing each other in secret.

But Marcia suddenly finds herself almost in a cult-like family with Mitchell and others, including Lily and Annie. Eventually Annie returns to her life, Lily informing Marcia that she hadn't been committed to the family.

Claire begins to wonder what went wrong for Marcia and Mitchell, because the woman she knows today is almost sickly, spending much of her days indoors, either asleep or under Mitchell's watchful eye. After being bit by what is assumed to be a juvenile copperhead snake, Liam takes Claire inside the Galloway main house, where Mithcell and Liam tend to the bite wound.

When Claire awakens in the middle of the early morning hours after not having any recollections, she understands that Mitchell drugged her with a tea after he used other holistic remedies in order to get rid of the venom from the snake. Continuing her in depth read of Marcia's diary, she continues to learn of her life.

Sure that Mitchell was involved in nefarious acts with the various women of the farm, she turns to the detective that had been in charge of Natalie's case. But, she has no concrete proof that anything happened and until she can come up with something, she knows that she has essentially hit a dead end. After learning of a young woman's disappearance from Berkeley when she was a freshman in 1983, and the fact that psychology hadn't been offered as a major until the late 80s, Claire knows now that something happened to this young woman, named Katherine.

In the diary, Marcia mentions a camper van that Mitchell used to get around, and that in one of the articles, Katherine's family mentioned how excited she had been to just have purchased a camper herself. Understanding that a BOLO had been placed on the license plate of the camper, Claire believes that if she can find evidence of the camper on the Galloway property, that she can have enough evidence for the police to investigate.

Returning to the property, she ultimately switches the mugs of tea that Mitchell gives to Marcia every evening, which would later render her unable to function and spends the time sleeping, hoping that this will help Claire get Marcia away from the property once and for all. After nightfall, Claire also enters into the woods on the property in search of the camper, ultimately finding it.

With a plan in place, Claire returns to her guesthouse, only to be held at gunpoint by Liam, who apologizes to her. Claire understands now that Liam had known her sister, and that the two of them had been close. She thinks this was the "older man" that Natalie had been seeing that summer, only to be told the shocking truth. After realizing that Liam, who has never left the property and lives in the main house is Mitchell and Marcia's son, Liam also informs her that Natalie and he were also half siblings.

In the diary, Marcia had discovered that she had been pregnant on the night that Lily ultimately took the life of a female police officer whose home they had broken into and had been aware of their disappearances. When Liam leaves after his confession, she tries to escape and while she is able to get out of her restraints, Mitchell later returns with Marcia in tow, along with Liam.

But, Marcia's eyes had been a striking blue while this woman's eyes are a grey, and she understands that this isn't Marcia at all. It is Lily. Liam is shocked to learn that the woman who he has thought to be his mother isn't her at all, and while Mitchell is his biological father, he and Natalie had shared only one parent. Claire had earlier found out that her mother went by the nickname of Annie, but her name is Annaliese. Claire understands now that her mother had been involved with Mitchell, ended up pregnant with Natalie and later returned to her father after realizing that this life wasn't for her at all.

After Claire stabs Mitchell with a pair of gardening shears, Liam helps her escape, even stating that he would go to the police and collaborate with her story but that it couldn't be the local police, as the detective working Natalie's case was a man known as Montana, who also lived on the farm and was on Mitchell's payroll.

After her mother comes to the farm after receiving Claire's phone call that she never left the state, she comes to her daughter's rescue. Together, the three of them return to Draper, where Marcia had originally been from. Annaliese eventually takes Claire to the original location of the farm, where she had actually met and spent time with Katherine, the missing girl from California.

With Liam's testimony, and with Annaliese's help, her body is eventually found buried next to the barn on the original property. Lily is taken into custody for several crimes, including the cold case involving the female police officer. There is closure now knowing what happened to her sister, and the innocent man who they thought had been responsible is released from prison after serving 22 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit.

Six months later, Claire has written an intriguing article about her sister and the Galloway farm, giving the names and faces to the missing women and their stories a front page spread. She and Ryan are in a relationship, the relationship between her parents is being mended and she continues a friendship with Liam, the two of them brought together because of Natalie.

[readingforsanity]

Once You Were Mine | Elizabeth Langston | Published 2025

In a quiet North Carolina town in 1968, a seventeen-year-old girl's life is forever changed when a summer romance leads to an unplanned pregnancy. She is sent to an abusive "maternity home", where she is shamed and deceived into signing adoption papers.

In the present day, Allison Garrett volunteers as a "search angel", using DNA tests to help strangers locate lost relatives. But the family tree she finds most compelling is that of her own mother, who was abandoned as a baby. As Allison puts the pieces together, they reveal much more than her mother's origins - and threatens to create further divisions in her tight-knit community.

When a family is separated by devastating circumstances, is it possible for them to help the pain of the past and make up for lost time?

In the late 1960s, young Molly finds herself in the family way, though unwed. Forced by her parents to leave the only home she has known and become a resident of a maternity home, Molly becomes only known as Eve, forced to give up her identity. For the next several months, she befriends a young woman only known to her as Miriam, also unwed and pregnant, due at the beginning of April.

The plan for these young women is to complete school if they are old enough, and once the babies come, they would relinquish their parental rights and their babies would be adopted by a man and woman whom are married. Though Molly wishes to keep her child, her parents have made it clear that she cannot return home should she decide to keep her baby. Her Aunt Trudy is more open, explaining to her during an unplanned visit to the home that she has a week to change her mind.

Despite being due in May, Molly finds herself in premature labor. When she awakens, she finds herself with an infection and learning that not only did she have one baby, she had two. Twins, a boy and a girl. Though she does sign the papers, she decides to change her mind upon learning that her twins will be separated and will be given to two different sets of parents. While her son has already left the premises, she tells the horrid director of the home that she has changed her mind, verbally, and that she will be keeping her daughter.

But the following morning, despite having given her wishes verbally, the director tells her that unfortunately it is too late and that in order to have changed her mind, she needed to have it written down.

Ultimately, Molly decides to steal her daughter from the home but after being alone with her for two weeks, unable to leave the comfort of her aunt's home to venture out, realizes that she cannot continue. With the help of her aunt, she does relinquish her parental rights and her daughter is eventually adopted. Molly heads off to Richmond, and reunites with Miriam, whose real name is Gwen.

Molly puts herself through college, working various minimum wage jobs, eventually taking a job as a nanny for the local pastor who has three children and suddenly found himself as a single father after hsi wife died in child birth. But, after finishing school, she gets a real job and suddenly finds herself in love with the pastor, engaged and a mother to his three children.

Molly lives a wonderful life as a mother of three, a wife to a prominent minister and working in software programming, eventually becoming an author as well as a public speaker.

In the present day, friends Bree and Allison find themselves learning their parental history. After being best friends since kindergarten, they learn that they are first cousins, sharing a common aunt or grandparent. Allison is aware that her mother had been adopted, and Heather has been hesitant to learn her DNA ancestry. But Allison has worked with others on their own journies to find their birth families, and she begins helping her mother navigate this new information, learning that the family her daughter has been best friends with since childhood is actually her twin brother.

Bree has a hard time accepting what happened. Her decision to have her DNA tested had only been in solidarity of Allison giving hers. She wasn't prepared to learn that her father had been adopted, as she had adored her grandparents. But the further revelation: that her father's brother, Galen, is actually his birth father and that his parents had actually been his grandparents.

Bree begins to work through her feelings, not truly understanding what had occurred so long ago. Galen explains that he and Molly had a brief love affair during the summer months that she had stayed caring for her grandmother. He hadn't even realized she had been pregnant until she was already 3 months along, when Molly's family met with his.

When he learned that his parents had planned to adopt Everett from the home, he knew then that his parents were making a terrible decision and he acted out. But Everett's presence in their family had been good for them, and he decided to keep the secret, eventually marrying his wife and having another son, as well as becoming a stepfather to two other children.

Together, Bree and Allison come up with a plan for their parents to meet Molly. Initially hesitant, Heather does attend, is told the truth. The home had been a part of several illegal practices at the time, and they had been discovered and shut down a year after the twins' birth. Heather had been told that she had been left on the doorstep of a doctor who had found a family to adopt her, and Molly is able to provide her with the truth.

Around Thanksgiving, all the families reunite in what had been Molly's grandmother's house, which is now a public venue to hold events. Molly's blended family, along with friends and other family members come together to celebrate what had once been a broken family, together at least after 50+ years.

[readingforsanity]

The Last Thing He Told Me | Laura Dave | Published 2021

Before Owen Michaels disappears he smuggles a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows to whom the note refers - Owen's 16 year old daughter, Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child and wants nothing to do with her new stepmother.

As Hannah's increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, as the FBI arrests Owen's boss, as a US Marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn't who he said he was. Baily just may hold the key to figuring out Owen's true identity - and why he really disappeared.

Hannah Hall didn't have an easy life growing up, after the abandonment from her mother. Raised by her grandfather, she eventually followed in his footsteps in becoming a woodturner, making elaborate pieces of furniture from various types of wood.

It is because of her job that she eventually meets Owen Michaels. After ending her relationship and engagement to a lawyer named Jake in New York City, Hannah finds herself head over heels in love with Owen, uprooting her life and workshop from the Big Apple to a small town in Northern California called Sausalito. Owen himself doesn't come baggageless, as he is a single father to a young teenage girl named Bailey. A decade or so before, Owen's first wife, Olivia, died in what he calls a tragic car accident.

But both Hannah and Bailey's lives change when Owen goes missing, a duffel bag full of money given to his daughter upwards of thousands of dollars and a note from a young soccer player, only stating "Protect Her". Hannah understands that she needs to protect Bailey but she has no idea from what.

The following morning, the company Owen worked for, known simply as The Shop, is under investigation and the owner has been arrested. Hannah knows that Owen's disappearance has something to do with this, but isn't quite sure of what his involvement is in it. She tries to speak to his closest friend Carl, but his wife tells Hannah to get away from them, that they had put all of their life savings into The Shop and that they have now lost all of that money after The Shop's fraudulent activity.

Unsure of what to do, she begins to question what she knows about Owen after the arrival of a U.S. Marshal named Grady. Bailey is unsure of what to do moving forward, but begins to question Hannah when she mentions Austin, Texas. She remembers being in a wedding as a flower girl when she was young, that could have taken place in Austin, as she remembers going to a football stadium and one of their colors was orange.

On a whim, Hannah and Bailey take a flight to Austin, with the hopes of getting deep into Bailey's memories. She does remember the stadium, as it felt familiar to her; and they locate the church where the wedding took place, although there had been a fire and had been closed during the football season, so it feels to them as if it is a dead end.

They instead turn to a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, someone that Owen had talked highly of while he had been in college. Professor Cookman was his name, and he remembers Owen as a student, though he doesn't quite remember what his name had been at the time. He does give them the roster of his students during the years of 1994 through 1996, telling them to check the archives at the library to help them.

Bailey further remembers a bar called The Never Dry, and that the wedding reception was likely held at the same place after they discover the name Kate Smith. A woman who looks suspiciously like Bailey. For Bailey, her world is turning further upside down, finding out that her life isn't exactly what she had thought it was, and that her father had kept secrets from her for her entire 16 years of life.

While Bailey continues her search of the student roster at a coffee shop, Hannah enters the bar and meets Charlie Smith, Kate's brother. When she shows Charlie a photo of Owen as he might have looked when he was younger, Charlie is angry.

Hannah and Bailey retreat, returning to the hotel with the intent of getting a rental car and drive back to California. But Bailey runs off while Hannah is in the bathroom, and Grady returns to Austin with the intent of telling Hannah the truth.

At the Marshal's office, he explains that Owen's name had been Ethan Young, and he had been married to Kate Smith. Her father, Nicholas Bell, had been a famous defense attorney, working with a crime syndicate in getting them out of various criminal charges in the court system in both Texas and Florida. Nicholas eventually went further in sending messages from members in prison to members on the outside, through a special messaging system that Owen had created. After Kate had been run down, Owen felt that it had been Nicholas's fault, as it had come shortly after he failed to protect one of the members in court.

Knowing now that she has no other choice, she returns to the bar and tells Charlie that she needs to speak with his father. He agrees, though he tries to explain to her that no offer that she can give to him is going to get her husband out of trouble with him. But that's not what she wants. Nicholas eventually explains that it hadn't been his employer that killed his daughter, that it had something to do with her job working for a Supreme Court judge at the time as a clerk, that his employer's felt strongly about family and despite his loss in court, they would never go after anyone in his family.

Hannah, appealing to the grandfather in him, explains that Bailey is her concern, and that she can give him the relationship with his granddaughter that he has been missing out on. She understands that with this deal, she will never be able to have Owen back, in any capacity, and eventually Nicholas agrees.

She returns to Bailey at the Marshal's office and gives her the truth. Understanding now what her father and Hannah had done for her, she comes to terms with it and they return home.

Several years later, both she and Bailey are living in LA, and Bailey is an adult, preparing to introduce Hannah to her new boyfriend for the first time. Hannah continues work as a woodturner, and she hasn't seen or heard from Owen in several years. But while at an exposition showing off a new collection, he enters, they share a brief moment without saying a word and he continues on his way. Bailey then enters, excitedly saying "Mom".

[readingforsanity]

The Bachelorette Party | Camilla Sten | Publishing 2025 | ARC

On a remote, craggy island nestled off the coast of Sweden, four friends - Tilly, Anna, Linnea and Eveline - meet every year. Best friends since childhood, the idea is to drink beer, dance by the water, and shake off the weight of life's expectations. The location of the island is a secret to everyone but them. One night of reckless fun and secret-sharing, and then they return to the normal lives.

Ten years later. Ever since she was a teenager, Tessa Nilsson has been consumed by the story of four friends who disappeared on their annual trip to a remote island together. As her true crime fervor turned into a wildly popular podcast, Tessa urgently covered Sweden's most gruesome cases, but could never find the answers behind what happened to these women who disappeared, leaving a few maddening clues but no concrete answers. Now Tessa's podcast has crashed and burned, any chance she had at uncovering the truth vanishing with it.

Annelise is Tessa's bet friend, and before she walks down the aisle, she wants to have a bachelorette party. The Baltic Vinyasa, a sleek, sophisticated yoga retreat on a small island off the coast - one with such similar characteristics to the tragedy years ago that it raises the hair on Tessa's neck. The idea is to drink gallons of cava, do sunrise yoga, and get in their last chance to bond with the bride. Tessa will not pass this up. It's her last chance to find out what happened to the four women, once and for all.

And it's someone eles's last chance to get revenge.

Tessa Nilsson has found herself in a bind. 9 months ago, she was on top of the world with a fairly well-known true-crime podcast, a production company to assist in advertising it. But after one interview went horribly wrong, it all came crashing down on her. Tessa had attempted to get the first hand account from the father of a teenager who had murdered three of his friends during a planned sleepover. During the interview, Harald, the boys father, openly admitted that his son had questioned him about sleeping pills, giving him the information he needed, and then his son went on to use sleeping pills on the night he murdered his friends.

When the interview published, Harald ultimately took his own life as a result, leading his family to go after Tessa legally. She lost her podcast, the production company and a two-year long situationship with the head of her production team.

Now, with nothing better to do, she has agreed to attend the bachelorette party for her friend, Anneliese, who is getting married in a few weeks. What is promised is a weekend long excursion to Isle Blind, home to a yoga retreat. Initially, Tessa hesitated to come along, worried that the others would judge her for what has happened. But, Lena, her older sister, is also planning to attend and the two of them agree to show up together. The bride is thrilled that Tessa has decided to join after all.

The group meets and ferries across the ocean to the small island. Tessa is convinced that this is the location of a notorious missing persons case from a decade before, knowing as the Naka four. Four childhood friends had gone out to an undisclosed location every year for one night, to leave behind the trials and burdens of their adult lives and none of them returned. They are officially listed as missing persons, but presumd dead, the police believing that they had taken a boat out after a night of drinking, only for something to happen and the four women drowned.

Isle Blind is now owned and operated by the sister of one of those women, Irene. Irene and Matilda were as close as sisters could be, and Irene has spent the last ten years grieving the loss of her sister without closure as her body had never been found. Tessa is sure that if she could find something, it will not only help Irene find that closure, but it will bring her out of this slump that she has found herself in.

Unfortunately, after 10 years, there is likely nothing to find but Tessa tries anyway. The group is happy go lucky, enjoying the hiking and yoga that Irene has offered. But Tessa can't seem to let go of the foreboding feeling she has that something just isn't right about the island. When she discovers what appears to be a piece of a human spine during a walk, Irene assures her that it is an animal spine, likely washed up on the shore from the ocean surroudning the island from a drowned animal, and that she is going to take it to a friend of hers that specializes in making bone jewelry.

But, this doesn't assure Tessa any. Especially after Caroline, one of the party members, seemingly leaves the island with a medical emergency for one of her patients, promising to return that evening or the following morning when she can get back. But, during a nighttime bonfire party for the bride, Tessa goes off into the woods in search of another part of their party who had walked off alone. When she comes across the dinghy that had somehow gotten untied from dock, she locates Caroline, who had never left at all.

Tessa understands now that there is something sinister on this island, and she is sure that it has something to do with the Isle's chef, a man named Adam. Returning to the beach and her friends, she lets them know what she had found, though they are hesitant to believe her. Caroline had supposedly left a message behind after all. But, two others follow her back to the dinghy and confirm that Caroline's body is inside of it.

One of the women is sure that Tessa is responsible for her friends death, as she had gone after her the night before after a particularly grueling dinner, only to never been seen by any one again. Tessa assures her that she had nothing to do with it, and they return to the hotel after noticing that the others they had left on the beach are nowhere to be found.

With a plan to reach the police in place, Tessa and the two others head into the basement in the hope of reaching Irene's office to call the authorities. But this is thwarted when Natalie goes missing and Mikaela takes off running, leaving Tessa behind. Adam tries to encourage her to come out of Irene's office, but stalks off when he is unsuccessful.

When Tessa is unable to reach the outside world due to a power outage, Irene encourages her to come with her upstairs so they can help the others. But when Tessa reaches the room where her sister and friends are being held hostage, it isn't only just Adam she has to be concerned about, because behind her Irene is holding a shotgun and it is aimed right at her.

For ten years, Irene has known what happened to her sister, and it is because of Annaliese that he had gotten away with it for so long. Matilda had been with a man named Carl, and they had recently found out that they were expecting a baby and had gotten engaged. But Carl, a normally unassuming man, was having an affair with Evalina, one of Matilda's best friends. But that wasn't the only woman he had been seeing.

Carl had also been seeing Annaliese at the time. She was young, only 21 years old at the time, and she was in an exciting relationship with an older man that could not only provide her with money but also with drugs. Irene was aware of this, and had even attempted to get her sister away from Carl but had failed in doing so.

Instead, when Evalina told Carl that she had planned to tell Matilda what had been going on behind her back, Carl had located where they were using the iPhone's "find my" feature, and came out to the island. Carl then went on a rampage, killing each of them, leaving them behind on Isle Blind. He then returned to the mainland and told Annaliese to give him an alibi, and she agreed and lied to the police to cover for him.

Now, Irene is hellbent on getting Annaliese to pay for what she had done. In a moment of rage, she shoots Annaliese with the shotgun in the chest, leaving behind a wide, gaping wound in the shell of the woman she had once been.

Adam is now disgusted, having believed that Irene had only wanted to scare Annaliese into confessing the truth in which they could use to take to the police and begins to back out. He had been engaged to another of the Naka four, a woman named Linnea. But, he didn't sign up for killing anyone. But Irene turns on him.

Lena is able to subdue Irene long enough that Tessa can try to get away. Tessa reunites with Mikeala who has returned to try to help, but she is also shot in the back with the shotgun, and Tessa, believing that she is dead, takes off into the woods.

There is no way off the island, so Tessa knows that she will have to fight for her survival. But Irene is able to get the upper hand and tries to drown her, only to be thwarted by Mikaela, who wasn't dead and used her skills from Krav Maga to get one over on her.

A few weeks later, Tessa is still dealing with the nightmare from Isle Blind, in more ways than one. Her sister survived her injuries but is dealing with various medical issues and is currently still in the hospital. Tessa has begun seeing a therapist and doing photography with Mikaela once a week to deal with her feelings.

[readingforsanity]

The Thicket | Noelle W. Ihli | Published 2021

Everyone will hear you scream. No one will listen.

Norah can't stop thinking about the night her brother died.

She was supposed to stay with him at the Halloween carnival. He'd begged her to stay. But they'd fought, and Norah left him alone in the woods. That was before she realized there was a serial killer lurking among the costumes and macabre props.

When the carnival reopens just weeks later amid a media controversy, Norah decides to retrace her brother's last steps in a desperate attempt to unravel what really happened that night. But the woods hold more than just traumatic memories.

Before long, Norah begins to suspect that the killer's choice of hunting ground was no coincidence. And that this nightmare is far from over.

Every fall, the Thicket becomes on of the most popular attractions in rural Idaho. The property once belonged to the sugar factory sitting nearby, housing cabins where workers could live. But, several years after it became unused, it was purchased with the intentions of making it the largest haunted attraction the country has ever seen.

Acres upon acres allows patrons to enjoy food trucks, while enjoying the scares that people long for during the cold, spooky season months. Just 5 years prior, a horrible stunt gone wrong left one of the scarers dead, and that portion of the attraction permanently closed. But the remainder of the property remains popular as ever.

Norah and her younger brother Brandon are meandering throughout the cabins, enjoying the different haunts within each. But Norah is bored, and Brandon was meant to attend the attraction with friends of his who bailed at the last minute. Angered by Brandon's brash ways, Norah leaves him and returns to the plaza to wait for him to come back out. But, as time goes on, Brandon doesn't return.

Instead, he was confronted and murdered by a man in a plague doctor mask inside of Cabin 12, along with a staff member who had originally been hiding in a cabinet wearing the plague doctor mask himself. Devastated at the fact that she left her younger brother alone and that he had been murdered as a result, Norah spends the next several weeks in hiding, deleting her social media accounts and avoiding everyone other than her parents.

There is a public outcry to have that attraction shut down. But, despite this, it will remain open with more security features including better lighting, more in-person security guards and metal detectors. The plague doctor mask has become popular online and in the town, though masks are no longer allowed to be worn at the Thicket.

Three young teenage girls, former friends of Norah's, prepare to attend the Thicket despite their own parents wishing it would have been shut down. There is timid Taylor, Jamie and Maren. Dressed to the nines in their Halloween costumes, they get in line to go through the cabins when they meet a group of teenage boys from a neighboring town. Together, this ragtag band of teens enter into the cabins together, enjoying the terrors.

What nobody is aware of is that Norah is also on the property this night, as is the man responsible for the deaths of Brandon and the other staff member, along with the person responsible for the mishap five years earlier. Desperate to continue his murderous rampage, he begins stalking Taylor's group.

When they enter into the terrifying, albeit unhaunted, corn maze for a little bit of teenage fun, he begins picking off the teens one by one. What he wasn't prepared for was for Maren to fight back, but in the end, he comes out the victor in their fight, leaving Maren dead.

Taylor and her "date" Ben begin to worry when the others don't locate them and do not respond to her text messages and reach out to a security guard posted at the beginning of the maze for help. Charlie, the guard, is less than helpful and Taylor finds an unlikely ally in Norah, who agrees to help them locate the remainder of their group.

Unfortunately, Norah locates the closed off cabin where the original murder had taken place 5 years earlier. Inside, she finds her former friends and their dates, tied up. Norah desperately tries to get them out of their bindings with Ben's help, telling Taylor to call the police. But they are confronted by the masked plague doctor, who is no longer masked, assuring himself it no longer matters if they see his face.

Giving explicit instructions to Norah, he attempts to gain control of the situation once again. But Norah understands that this is the man responsible for her brother's death, and the death of some of her former friends and their new friends, and attacks him with a nail she had been using to get Jamie out of her restraints. Taylor is able to get the police on the line, and they come to the rescue.

But despite thinking that she had killed him, they're terrified to realize that the man has gotten away.

Several weeks later, Jamie, Taylor and Norah visit Maren's grave in their small town. They know that Ben, the other casualty from that fateful night, had been buried in Idaho Falls several hours away and none of them attended his funeral. Norah also visits her brother's grave, located near Maren's, while the man is in his apartment, trying to recuperate from the injuries he incurred at the hands of Norah, and he knows that he won't return to the Thicket for his next murderous rampage, but will move on, searching on the Internet for the next location.

[readingforsanity]

A Killing Cold | Kate Alice Marshall | Published 2025

A whirlwind romance.

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 to Idlewood, his family's isolated winter retreat, to win over his skeptical relatives.

Stay away from Connor Dalton.

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.

Ive' been here before.

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 shcoking secret that they will do anyting 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.

Theo is heading to her fiance's family's secluded cabin in the mountains to spend what is meant to be an idyllic two weeks celebrating the Christmas and New Year's holidays. After a shotgun romance, Theo and Connor got engaged after just six months, and this will be the first time that she will meet her future in-laws, including his grandparents, his mother and his siblings and their families. When Connor was 7, his father had died in an apparent accident, and the family took it hard, but Connor is adamant that the man that raised him for that short time was nothing short of a super hero.

Upon arrival, Theo is introduced to Alexis, Connor's sister, along with her wife, Paloma, and their son Sebastian, as well as Louise Dalton, his grandmother. Louise is a hard woman, and begins interrogating her right away about who she is. Nothing about Theo is open, as she only remembers things from the age of 4 on, after she had been adopted by her "parents" Elizabeth and Joseph Scott.

After the adoption, Theo went through a series of abusive instances at the hands of Beth, while Joseph was more into being a parent but never did anything to protect her from Beth when she went on one of her rampages. In turn, Theo acted out a lot as a child, even having a bit of a criminal background in stealing. Beth often called her the devil child.

But, through dreams, Theo can recall her birth mother though she can't see her face and often she is haunted by a man with antlers coming out of his head.

While exploring the cabins, she comes across the 5th cabin on the grounds called Dragonfly. It hasn't been used in more than 20 years, ever since Connor's father's death. She learns that he had fallen from the roof of that cabin after it had become damaged from a storm. She wonders why Connor wouldn't divulge that information to her. Even more of a mystery, she locates a photo of Liam Dalton with a young girl...a young girl that is Theo.

The longer she remains at Idlewood, the more the memories become clearer. She understands that her mother had been injured and had told her to run, hoping to get her to safety from whatever danger there was on the grounds at the time. It is widely believed that Liam and her mother, whose name was Mallory, had been having an affair. It seems that the majority of the Dalton family were aware of this, except for Connor himself and Theo tries her hardest to remember everything.

After an unfortunate incident while hunting where Connor accidentally shoots her with a bow in the arm, Theo begins to question whether or not Connor's intentions of bringing her to Idlewood were true. She remembers being on the grounds, even having met and spent time with Connor has a child, though only briefly. She understands that Connor had met her at a party, but in truth, he had noticed her portrait at her friends gallery opening and requested to meet her. This causes Theo to believe that Connor has brought her back to the grounds because of what had happened so long ago.

But, Theo begins to remember everything: Liam and Mallory hadn't been involved romantically; instead he was trying to help her get away from his brother, Nick, who she had been involved with and who had been violent with her. Theo had found photos in Alexis's cabin bedroom, thinking they had something to do with a girl that had been involved with Trevor in some sort of car accident. But, they had actually been of Mallory, documenting the wounds that Nick had left behind on her body.

Liam was trying to get them removed from Idlewood, but instead, Mallory was shot and injured through the neck, while Liam and Theo tried to get away. But instead, something happened to Liam where he became unconscious and she lied down in the cold snow beside him hoping he would come too and get her to safety. But instead, she was rescued and Liam had died.

Connor explains that when he was old enough, he requested to see his father's autopsy report, and that he hadn't actually killed himself which is what had been told to various members of the family, nor did he fall from the roof of a cabin in an accident. He had died from trauma to the head, likely from being hit.

It is discovered that Nick had found out that Liam had been trying to help Mallory and Theo get away, and he came to the grounds that day and mortally wounded his brother, leaving Theo to die in the snow. But she had been saved by the groundskeeper, Mr. Vance, despite his involvement in getting rid of the various bodies around the grounds. While Theo had gone on to live with the Scott's until she was able to get away from an incident involving the pastor's son, an unplanned pregnancy and eventually stabbing her adoptive father to near death, though he survived, Theo would later go on to meet Connor again as an adult and the two of them would fall in love.

Alexis was sure that she had been the cause of Mallory's death. But, while she had mistakenly pulled the trigger that initially wounded Mallory, she would later die at the hands of Magnus Dalton, Connor's grandfather. Her body was buried somewhere on the grounds of Idlewood, and the cover up of Liam and Mallory's murders continued for the next two decades.

Magnus attempts to get Theo to go along with a cover story in order to protect Alexis. But, she doesn't go along with this: she tells the authorities the truth. Though she isn't believed at first, the stories from Connor and Alexis that went along with hers is what seals the fates of the Dalton's. She and Connor would later be married in the spring in a small ceremony, and despite having once been from a prominent and wealthy family, Connor takes Theo's last name, which she has decided to revert back to her original last name, Cahill.

Magnus will never be served justice, as he is suffering from pancreatic cancer and there would be no point in going through a lengthy and expensive trial when he is at the end of his life. Louise begins acting like a senile old woman in order to get away from what she knows is the truth, while Alexis is doing jail time in her, albeit unwilling, help in the entire situation.

[readingforsanity]

The Rebel of Seventh Avenue | Annabelle Marx | Publishing 2025 | ARC

1910, Edinburgh: Young seamstress Maisie McIntyre's world shatters with her mother's death. Desperate to escape the grinding poverty that has defined her life so far, Maisie makes a daring choice: she steals a bolt of peacock-blue silk, a stash of money and sails for New York City.

With nothing but raw talent and fierce determination, Maisie's gift for dressmaking opens doors she never imagined. As she builds her couture empire, designing bold, modern fashions for Manhattan's elite, Maisie falls for Joseph Jackson, a talented Black architect with dreams as ambitious as her own. But in a world steeped in prejudice, she finds herself facing an impossible choice.

Maisie McIntyre knew nothing but of being poor in her home country of Scotland. Living in a small tenement with her mother and sister, an unfortunate incident left her mother with a broken leg, rendering her unable to continue working for the well-off family as a maid. However, due to the nature of the incident, said well-off family ultimately took care of the family, hiring Ma to commission dresses for the matriarch.

It is here that Maisie learns to sew and begins to take bold steps in making the dresses stand out from the bland, boring fashions of the time. After the death of their mother, Maisie and her sister, Netta, continued to live together for a short time, along with Netta's husband and two children. When Netta finds herself pregnant again for the third time, Maisie begins to feel claustrophobic, wondering about what life would be like for her if she just packed up and left.

After discovering several thousand dollars of money hidden away, she takes that money with the intent of purchasing some fabrics to make more dresses, heading off to the haberdashery department at Jenner's Department Store. Here she finds a gorgeous peacock blue-green fabric, and walks out of the store with it...without paying.

Knowing in her heart of hearts that the best thing she can do would be to pack up, leave her life in Edinburgh behind and make way to New York City, she does just that. After purchasing a first-class ticket to sail across the ocean to a new life, Maisie meets a young woman named Mrs. Rex Marshall, or Julia, and she knows that Julia would be the perfect person for her to design a dress with the stolen peacock blue fabric.

Once in New York, she meets with Julia again, claiming to have lied to her on their sailing across the ocean. She had told everyone that her name was Mrs. McIntyre, and she had been visiting Scotland to visit her late husbands family. After coming out with the truth, she explains her true intentions, and hesitantly Julia agrees to be the guinea pig for Maisie's experimental dress.

With her mother-in-law's approval, along with the approval of everyone else, Maisie's dress is a hit and she begins to take more and more commissions after Julia recommends her to friends and family. Locating a studio for rent from a young German man, she understands now that she made the right choice for herself and she can't worry about the bind that she has left her sister in back home.

Over time, Maisie's small business venture turns into a worldwide affair. She employs several women, moving from the small studio she rented for herself to a much bigger affair, eventually opening storefronts for her various business ventures, including a housewares outfit. After Julia Marshall discovers that Maisie employs a woman of color as her Premier, she begins taking her business elsewhere, returning all of the dresses and clothes that Maisie had designed for her and in turn, Maisie begins designing something that nobody has ever seen before.

While Maisie is unable to be with the person she truly loves, Oti's brother, Joseph, due to the color of his skin and the scorn the two of them would receive by being together, she does eventually find love again, this time with Tori Smyth, a senator, who is also married. The two of them have a love affair that spans over six years, ending only due to his death during a dinner with a friend. Rumors spread that Tori had been involved with the Mafia, and that eventually this came back to bite him. Devastated, she attends his funeral, but it is quickly apparent by what she wears that the two of them were having an affair.

Not bothering to say anything on the subject, but not hiding it either, Maisie eventually discovers that she is pregnant. Netta, her older sister, comes over from Scotland shortly before the baby is born and remains with her until Jessica, her daughter, is a little over 5 years old. The three of them eventually move to Hollywood when Maisie is hired to design costumes for movies. But after an unfortunate incident involving a famed producer and her assistant, Annina, the daughter of the woman who essentually took her in after their arrival in New York City from Scotland, they all return to New York City, eventually returning to Scotland where Netta is remarried.

Maisie remains in Scotland as well, raising Jessica in the country, renting a lovely home and running a factory there. But, the second World War hits, and for the next several years, they all suffer, Maisie's world of color suddenly filling with grey.

At the end of the war, Maisie is excited, but begins having medical episodes, which she endures over the next decade alone. Eventually, she has returned to New York City, dealing with the death of her first love after a bout of illness. She and Oti reunite with each other, Oti finally relieved of the burdens of caring for his ill brother. Maisie confides in Oti that she has MS, and has had it for several years. As most mornings she awakes and finds herself unable to walk, she has decided it is time to retire, and is leaving everything to Jessica with the intent that she will continue to do good in the world of women's fashion.

The following day, Mandy, Maisie's assistant, takes her to the location of where she first met Joseph, and in her head, she finds herself face to face with him on the day they first met, this time accompanied by a young boy that looks just like the two of them.

It is later revealed that Maisie had died at the age of 68 of a suspected heart attack. Left behind on the bench where she had been found were three pretzels, something that was a huge signifier in her relationship with Joseph. Maisie is able to enter into the afterlife with the man that she was meant to be with, with a child that was meant to be theirs all along.