Winner Fiction: Mystery/Suspense 2022 Best Book Awards
It’s spring in the tiny town of Damariscotta, a tourist haven on the coast of Maine known for its oysters and antiques. Andrew, a high school English teacher recently returned to the area, has brought his family to Ed and Steph Thatch’s sprawling riverside estate to attend a reception for the Amherst women’s lacrosse team. Back when they were all teenagers, Andrew never could have predicted that Ed, descended from a long line of lobstermen, or Steph, a decent student until she dropped out to start a family, would ever send a daughter to a place like Amherst. But so the tides have turned, and Andrew’s trying hard to admire, more than envy, the view from Ed’s rolling backyard meadow.
As Andrew wanders through the Thatches’ house, he stumbles upon a file he’s not supposed to see: photos of a torched body in a burned-out sedan. And when a line of state police cruisers crashes the Thatches’ reception an hour later, Andrew and his neighbors finally begin to see the truth behind Ed and Steph’s remarkable rise. Soon the newspapers are running headlines about the Thatches, and Andrew’s poring over his memories, trying to piece together the story of a family he thought he knew.
Finalist Fiction: Mystery/Suspense 2022 Best Book Awards
Amoret, Texas, 1982. Life along the border is harsh, but in a world where cultures work together to carve a living from the desert landscape, Blaine Beckett lives a life of isolation. A transplanted Boston intellectual, for twenty years locals have viewed him as a snob, a misanthrope, an outsider. He seems content to stand apart until one night when he vanishes into thin air amid signs of foul play.
Noah Grady, the town doctor, is a charming and popular good ol’ boy. He’s also a keeper of secrets, both the town’s and his own. He watches from afar as the mystery of Blaine’s disappearance unravels and rumors fly. Were the incipient cartels responsible? Was it a local with a grudge? Or did Blaine himself orchestrate his own disappearance? Then the unthinkable happens, and Noah begins to realize he’s considered a suspect.
Paced like a lit fuse and full of dizzying plot twists, The Bones of Amoret is a riveting whodunit that will keep you guessing all the way to its shocking conclusion.
Finalist Fiction: Mystery/Suspense 2022 Best Book Awards
An unlikely trio of retirees try to solve a man’s death, his strange will, and the 250-year-old colonial period mystery of the controversial and long-vanished First American Declaration of Independence, actions which–if successful–will change United States history. That is, if they don’t die trying.
t’s modern day in the New South City of Charlotte, North Carolina, when three retirees at the Independence Retirement Community, a/k/a The Indie, team up to solve two mysteries related to the death of a 96-year-old resident. Why was his manuscript about the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence missing when they found his body? And why did his handwritten will dated the day he died disinherit his beloved granddaughter (his only heir), and leave his $50 million fortune to Sue Ellen Parker, the most despised resident at the Indie?
Finalist Fiction: Mystery/Suspense 2022 Best Book Awards
The past and the present converge in this enthralling, serpentine tale of women connected by motherhood, slavery’s legacy, and histories that span centuries.
In 1850 in Massachusetts, Whittaker House stood as a stop on the Underground Railroad. It’s where two freedom seekers, Little Annie and Clementine, hid and perished. Whittaker House still stands, and Little Annie and Clementine still linger, their dreams of freedom unfulfilled.
Now a fashionably distressed vacation rental in the Berkshires, Whittaker House draws seekers of another kind: Black women who only appear to be free. Among them are Dominique, a single mother following her grand-mère’s stories to Whittaker House in search of an ancestor; Michelle, Dominique’s lover, who has journeyed to the Berkshire Mountains to heal her own traumas; and Kaye, Michelle’s sister, a seer whose visions reveal the past and future secrets of the former safehouse?along with her own.
Finalist Fiction: Mystery/Suspense 2022 Best Book Awards
Do you like a shocking thriller? Do you like a twist you never see coming?
The Killing of Faith is the riveting, award-winning, suspense/thriller told by Faith, a mother of three children, caught in an unhappy marriage. After swearing off love, she finally meets the man of her dreams and finds love again. We've all read a similar tale. What sets this story apart is the dark turn it takes. Faith's lies plunge her into a living nightmare beyond anything you can imagine. Faith has always used her good looks to get everything she wants, but her looks can’t save her this time. All she can do is pray for a miracle before time runs out on her life and death fight for survival.
You'll be shocked when you realize what happened to Faith can happen to you!
Finalist Fiction: Mystery/Suspense 2022 Best Book Awards
‘On May 26, 2004, Jessie Germaine rode her bike into the forest and disappeared…into thin air.’
Margo hasn’t been back to Lake Moss since her friend went missing. But as she returns, the news breaks. Her hometown’s swimming hole has been Jessie’s grave for fifteen years.
Digging out her old diary, and steeling herself to face unfriendly ghosts from her past, Margo sets out to help a documentary crew as they return to investigate the infamous case the police bungled.
In a town where everyone knows everyone, the killer is certain to be close to home. But the question is: How close?
