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- The Secrets We Hide
- Karin Slaughter
- ISBN #: 978-0063458789
- William Morrow, August 2025
Hiding Secrets and Paying the Price
Ever made a choice and regretted it? Ever kept a secret to protect someone, only to have it blow up in your face? Ever had someone in your family deceive you? If so, the conflicts, twists, and turns in the story of a dead policewoman and the policewoman and FBI agent trying to solve this mystery are going to grab and hold you. Karin Slaughter is a master storyteller, and the issues she brings to the forefront in The Secrets We Hide will keep you turning pages while the rest of the household sleeps.
Sheriff Emmy Clifton and her sister, ex-federal agent Jude Archer have just buried their mother when they hear gunshots. They find Policewoman Allison Vickery dead in her living room, blood everywhere, shoeprints in the blood, and as Jude Archer goes upstairs, she’s shot in the shoulder.
There’s unending tension between the sheriff and her wise older sister, a sought-after agent who only came back for the funeral. For that matter, there’s tension between Sheriff Emmy Clifton and the men who worked for her recently deceased father.
Because this is a small town, there’s all kinds of speculation about what happened, who the perp might be, and what motivated the death? As we get further into the story, issues of physical and psychological abuse arise. I found it fascinating to watch both women analyze what happened, who might have done it. It was almost as fascinating as watching them deal with each other.
There are personal secrets, court secrets, criminal secrets, and more. They unravel slowly in this exquisitely paced psychological thriller.
Acclaimed author Karin Slaughter wrote more than twenty-five novels, including the Edgar nominated Cop Town and standalone novels Pretty Girls and False Witness. She’s also the founder of the Save the Libraries project—a nonprofit organization established to support libraries and library programming. A native of Georgia, she lives in Atlanta.
Plot, pace, character revelations and interactions are all first rate. Don’t let the number of characters in the opening overwhelm you. Everyone’s there for a reason—and most of them are there with a secret. This book will help you avoid your own stresses and show how others cope with theirs. Please pick it up at a bookstore or library.
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- Anatomy of an Alibi
- By Ashley Elston
- ISBN #: 979-8217294718
- Random House, January 2026
A Twisty Novel That Exposes the Truth
When Camille Bayliss finds her husband, Ben on the floor of their elegant Louisiana home, stabbed to death, she goes into shock. She’d been living an excellent life—at least on the surface—but Camille secretly suspects her husband, a skilled attorney, is hiding an affair or something more sinister. She wants a divorce, but she has no proof. All she has is a controlling father who’ll cut her off if she disgraces his family. Because he tracks every move she makes, Camille decides to spy on Ben to find the evidence she needs to undo their pre-nup.
She asks bartender Aubrey Price to become her, use her charge cards, and hold her phone for twelve hours while seeks evidence. Aubrey’s life has been stalled for ten years. She’s connected with Ben through her housemates from a seedier neighborhood and agrees to the plan.
Together Aubrey and Camille come up with a strateg, but the ramifications escalate when Ben dies while Aubrey is pretending to be Camille. Who killed him? When both women become suspects, they need an airtight alibi, or they could go to jail, but neither one has proof of where she really was.
In every chapter readers will find a new clue or discovery that shifts the narrative. They’ll feel like Aubrey and Camille, who can only base their actions and decisions on what they know. And if they’re at all like me, they’ll be making new guesses with each new chapter.
Author Ashley Elston has written six young adult novels. First Lie Wins, her adult debut, was a number one New York Times bestseller and was selected as a Reese’s Book Club pick. She lives in Louisiana with her husband and three sons.
Elston is a first-rate writer who creates multitudes of flawed characters and lets us root for many of them. Her plot twists and turns, and there’s a lot to think about as the story reaches its conclusion. This story will keep you guessing and appreciating what you do and don’t know about your own life. This is a book that every student of human nature should read.
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- The Season of Sinking
- Daphne Woolsoncroft
- ISBN #: 978-1538770948
- Grand Central Publishing, July 2026
Who’s Stalking Imogen Bly and Why?
What does it feel like to be stalked—especially when you’re grieving the death of a parent? Why do stalkers feel entitled to take liberties with other people’s lives? Who’s a friend and who wants to use her? These are two of the questions presented in Daphne Woolsoncroft’s new thriller, The Season of Sinking, which is set in the deeply forested Pacific Northwest.
Imogen Bly’s mother drowns unexpectedly in the family’s lakeside home in picturesque Lake Blair, Washington. Imogen and her twin sister Amelia arrive to pack up their mother’s home, but something feels odd when a check-out clerk she doesn’t know recognizes her in the grocery store. Inside her mother’s house objects have been moved around, and the situation is compounded when Imogen finds a file marked “Imogen’s Incident” in a file folder in the attic.
Rory, Imogen’s next-door neighbor who happens to be a crush from high school, helps her tries to help her figure out the truth about her mother’s death and who might have been involved, and her twin sister, Amelia, struggles with her job and her sister being back in town.
Who is the stalker? Who can Imogen trust? And what is the truth surrounding the mysteries at Lake Blair? Is Imogen or her sister safe? And what happened to a woman named Madison Troy who disappeared a year ago?
Author Daphne Woolsoncroft is a podcaster as well as a writer who’s drawn to the shadowy dilemmas that surround us in small towns and big cities. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she found her creative pulse deepened by the foggy forests and steady rain in Oregon, where she lived for several years. Her skill at juggling characters and points of view as well as the increasing tension arising in each chapter make this a propulsive thriller that will keep readers turning pages.
This is an intriguing page-turner written with strong imagery and a haunting sense that justice lurks but will not show itself. If you love thrillers or are intrigued by secrets and family dynamics, this story is for you.
- Invisible Until I’m Not: Essays on Illness and Care
- Kathryn M. B. Johnson
- ISBN: 979-8995259817
- Published by the author
Journaling Your Way Home
Have you ever been so exhausted that you can’t take another step? Even though you want to? Even though others need you to? What do you do about it? These are the concerns in Kathryn M. B. Johnson’s Invisible Until I’m Not: Essays on Illness and Care.
Her book, a series of essays culled from her journals, depicts the power of disease—especially invisible disease. More importantly, though, it’s about the power of journaling to help anyone deal with situations beyond her control whether it’s the pain of fibromyalgia or the frustrations and joys of being a caregiver for a mother she knew she was losing.
Instead of writing about overcoming chronic illness, she writes about its draining effects. In her case caregiving aggravated her condition. Even though she loved her mother, lifting her was a challenge and her siblings weren’t willing to help. Although several experiences come up in more than one essay, her reflections become deeper as she continues to explore her experiences.
This is also a book that shows how journaling can help a writer find herself, accept herself, and dig deeper into the causes and effects of her troubles. Often journalers find a solution as they write, and Ms. Johnson is one of those people.
If you’re a caregiver or you suffer from an auto-immune disease or fibromyalgia, or if you doubt that writing has therapeutic effects, this book is for you.
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