August 29, 2025

New Fiction

You Belong Here by Megan Miranda – Beckett Bowery never thought she’d return to Wyatt Valley, a picturesque college town in the Virginia mountains steeped in tradition.  Her roots there were strong: Beckett’s parents taught at the college, and she never even imagined studying anywhere else – until a tragedy during her senior year ended with two local men dead and her roommate on the run, never to be seen again.  The legacy of that fateful night has haunted her small town ever since.  Nothing felt safe about home anymore, and for the last two decades, Beckett has done her best to keep her distance.  Then her daughter Delilah secretly applies to Wyatt College and earns a full scholarship, and Beckett can only hope that her lingering fears are unfounded.  But deep down she knows that Wyatt Valley has a long memory, and that the past isn’t the only dangerous thing in town.

The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas - Tasha and her older sister, Alice, may look alike, but they couldn’t be more different.  Tasha’s married with two children and still lives in their hometown near Bristol.  Alice is a high-flying scientist who travels the world with her equally successful husband.  Yet each sister would trust the other with her life.  When Tasha and her husband, Aaron, need a break and Alice offers to stay in their home with the kids, Tasha knows her family is in safe hands.  She couldn’t be more wrong.  The call from home is devastating.  Alice and her husband, Kyle, have been attacked, leaving Alice in intensive care and Kyle dead.  Rushing to the hospital, Tasha finds the police trying to piece events together.  She can’t think why anyone would attack her sister.  Then the note arrives, addressed to Tasha:  It was supposed to be you…

The Good Liar by Denise Mina – A year ago, a father and his fiancée were brutally murdered in their opulent London townhouse, sparking the most high-profile murder investigation in recent history.  Blood spatter expert Dr. Claudia O’Sheil’s evidence put the killer behind bars – or so everyone believes.  But since the trial, recently widowed Claudia has learned a horrific truth: Her evidence and her testimony were wrong: And someone she knows made sure of it.  Now, as she takes the stage before the elite of London to give a career-defining speech, Claudia faces a devastating choice.  Protect her children and her livelihood with her continued complicity, or blow the whole conspiracy apart and reveal the truth: Not only is the real murderer still out there, but they’re in the audience.  As Claudia steps toward the microphone, she revisits that fateful night.  What really happened?  And what speech will Claudia give?

Under the Stars by Beatriz Williams – Audrey Fisher has struggled all her life to emerge from the shadow of her famous mother by forging a career as a world-class chef.  Meredith Fisher’s glamorous screen persona disguises the trauma of the tragic accident that haunts her dreams.  Neither woman wants to return to the New England island they left behind and its complicated emotional ties, but Meredith has one last chance to sober up and salvage her big comeback.  Where else but discreet, moneyed Winthrop Island can a famous actress spend the summer without the intrusion of other people?  Until Audrey discovers an old wooden chest among the belongings of her estranged father, bartender Mike Kennedy.  The astonishing contents draw the women deep into Winthrop’s past and its many secrets – attracting the interest of their handsome neighbor, Sedge Peabody.  How did a trove of paintings from one of America’s greatest artists wind up in the cellar of the Mohegan Inn?  And who is the mysterious woman portrayed on every canvas?  On a stormy November night in 1846, Providence Dare flees Boson and boards the luxury steamship Atlantic one step ahead of the law – or so she believes.  But when a catastrophic accident leaves the ship at the mercy of a mighty gale, Providence finds herself trapped in a deadly game of cat and mouse with the one man who knows her real identity – the detective investigating the suspicious death of her employer – the painter Henry Irving.  As the Atlantic fights for her life and the rocky shore of Winthrop Island edges closer, a desperate Providence searches for her chance to escape before the sea swallows her without a trace.