Saturday 3 July 2021

July Books to Look Forward to From Bookoutre

 

The Evidence is by K L Slater. I can see her through the glass door. She’s smaller in real life than I expected. She looks the exact opposite of the type of woman that might murder her husband. Everyone’s heard of Simone Fischer. The young mother accused of killing her husband in cold blood, one sunny afternoon, while their son played in the room next door.  So when journalist Esme secures an exclusive interview with her it feels like the opportunity of a lifetime. Simone has remained silent since her husband’s death but after a decade in prison, she is willing to talk to Esme. And Esme, recently freed from her own toxic marriage, is confident she can get Simone to open up. At their first meeting, when Esme sees Simone sitting across the table from her in jeans and a lemon tunic top, she is stuck by her ordinariness. Then Simone begins to tell her story of an abusive relationship where she was a prisoner in her own home, and Esme decides that the truth needs to come out. But not everyone is pleased that Esme is telling Simone’s story. And when Esme’s beloved sister is left for dead in a nearby wood, Esme’s life begins to unravel. Forced to question what Simone has told her, she can’t help but wonder if murder was the only way out of Simone’s marriage. Why has it taken Simone so long to tell the world the truth? And will the consequences be devastating for Esme?

When my husband found this perfect little cabin in the woods for our honeymoon, I couldn’t wait to get away. Just us in the middle of the forest, waking up every day in the trees, ending each night in the hot tub under the stars. But now I’m not sure that I know my husband at all… I just wish we’d gone to the police when someone left a note on the doormat saying: She’s dead, you’re next. Ryan said I was overreacting, but I don’t understand why he won’t go to the cops now things are getting worse. Can I trust my husband? I’ve known about the terrible thing that Ryan did for years and it’s been tearing me apart. Last night I told him I would always keep his secret. But is the man I married hiding something else from me? Now someone has cut the phone lines and we’re trapped here. Ryan swears he has no idea what’s going on and just wants to keep us safe. I’m here alone in the middle of the dark forest with the man I thought I could trust. My heart is racing and there’s no one I can call… My husband promised till death do us part. Am I about to find out what that means? Just Married is by Keirsten Modglin.

Cross My Heart is by D K Hood. She wakes to the sound of footsteps outside her secluded home. Moving toward the window, she scans the dark woods around her and freezes. A tall figure in a long dark coat holds a crossbow pointed right at her. She blinks as lightning cracks overhead. But when she opens her eyes, the figure has vanished… When the body of a man is found in the dense forest surrounding Black Rock Falls, Sheriff Jenna Alton immediately sees disturbing similarities with a past case—the same murder weapon, the remote beauty spot, and the way the victim is perched against a tree with no sign of a struggle. But the killer in that case was jailed for life. Jenna suspects a copycat killer and her fears are confirmed when, during the town’s Halloween festival, the bodies of two tourists are found further down the remote trail. They too had been hunted down and murdered in another picturesque spot and all Jenna can hope is that the man behind bars can help her catch the twisted monster behind these new deaths. As she comes face to face with the vicious murderer who has haunted her dreams for years, she is sure he knows more than he’s telling her. Looking deep into Jenna’s eyes, as if they’re two old friends catching up, he promises to take his final revenge on her for locking him up. But before she can learn more, he is dragged away by prison guards. When a sudden emergency call takes Jenna and her deputy David Kane deep into the woods, Jenna senses something is very wrong about the situation. As a strange calmness falls over the forest, a familiar face emerges from the shadows. Will this killer be the one who finally takes down Sheriff Alton, and can they make it out of the forest alive?

Why would you pretend your life is a dream when you’re living a nightmare? Annie and Dom lead perfect lives in a lovely cottage in a quiet village by the sea, with flowers at the front gate and an apple tree in the garden. Everyone knows them: generous, loving Dom, creative, joyful Annie. But their neighbours don’t see Annie as she sits waiting for Dom well into the night. They don’t see her smiling through her tears. They don’t know what the perfect couple are hiding. They just hear the sirens that break the silence of the night and see the flames that rise against the dark sky. And the morning after, what everyone wants to know is – which one was to blame? The One to Blame is by S E Lynes.

Music and loud voices echo through the woods surrounding her. Wiping her tears, she hears the rustle of leaves close by. Footsteps. She has no time to scream before a hand covers her mouth and her entire world goes black. In a patch of forest on the outskirts of a small town, five teenage school friends prepare to spend a night away from home. Carrying their tents and sleeping bags, they laugh and joke as they make their way into the darkest part of the woods, away from prying eyes. But as the sun rises the following morning, only four are left alive. Devastated, Leah’s friends all swear they didn’t see or hear anything. Her best friend sobs as she recounts what she remembers from that night – dancing, roasting marshmallows, sipping warm cans of beer by the fire – but is it grief, or is she hiding something? What happened to Naomi in the hour that no one can account for? And what troubled past lies behind the perfect manners of the boy who organised the trip, and who is prepared to lie to keep it buried? As the cracks in their stories grow, it’s clear one of them is lying, and one of them is next…. One Left Behind is by Carla Kovach.

“Find my daughter in twenty-four hours. Or she’s dead.” Kyle Roche is a man whose job it is to stay invisible. Dark, mysterious, and only sometimes on the right side of the law, only a lucky few know how to reach him: Kyle can fix their problems, however dangerous. Now he’s been hired to save a woman in Witness Protection, one who doesn’t officially exist anymore. But before he can keep her safe, he has to find her. And he has less than twenty-four hours to do it… Savannah Nicholls is in hiding because of a tragic mistake. Her mother insists her daughter is just a nice girl, from a good family, that she’s never gotten in trouble in her life. But she also says someone knows where her daughter is. And they want to kill her. If he’s going to keep Savannah safe, Roche needs to know who is after her, as well as what she witnessed, who her enemies are, and if they have really been able to find her. But how can he protect a woman who is as invisible as he is? Because the clock is ticking… The Witness is by John Ryder.

I know my sister didn’t die by accident. Does someone know our secret? I swore I’d never go home to Brightwater. It would be safer for everyone if I stayed away. But now my sister is dead, and I am driving down the familiar highway, watching the sunlight glimmer off the lake, with the memory of her green eyes like a knife in my heart. I know Holly didn’t slip and drown out by the old boardwalk, surrounded by trees and dark water. She would never have gone there, if she had a choice. Her little girls need me now. I couldn’t save Holly, but I must protect them. Because if whoever killed Holly knows what we did all those years ago, out on the water, then I need to find them before they come after me. But how can I, when there are still so many things I don’t know about what really happened that night? The Woman in The Water is by Kelly Heard.

Join Flora Steele – bookshop owner, bicycle-rider, day dreamer and amateur detective as she tackles her first case! Sussex, 1955: Welcome to Abbeymead, a sleepy English village where nothing is as it seems… When Flora Steele opens up her bookshop one morning she’s in for the surprise of her life! Because there, amongst her bookcases, is the body of a young man, with a shock of white-blond hair. But who was he? And how did he come to be there? Determined to save her beloved bookshop’s reputation and solve the baffling mystery, Flora enlists the help of handsome and brooding Jack Carrington: crime writer, recluse and her most reliable customer. The unlikely duo set about investigating the extraordinary case, following a lead to The Priory Hotel. When the hotel’s gardener dies suddenly, and they find out their victim was staying there, Flora’s suspicions are raised. Are the two deaths connected? Is someone at the hotel responsible – the nervous cook, the money-obsessed receptionist, or the formidable manageress? As the trail of clues takes Flora and Jack all over the village it becomes clear that there’s more than one person hiding secrets in Abbeymead… But does Flora have what it takes to uncover the truth – or will her amateur sleuthing put her in harm’s way? The Bookshop Murder is by Merryn Allingham. 

Broken Girls is by Joy Kulver. Brambles catch her dress, scratch her legs, pierce her feet. To escape, she’d had no option but to go barefoot. They’d been laughing together a few minutes before, but things can change in the blink of an eye… The woman is dark-haired and young, judging by the short red dress. Any other signs of her identity have been erased during her long wait to be found, but it’s clear she was strangled: this was a passionate and personal murder. D.I. Bernadette Noel knows that every second counts if she is to catch this killer, but she has no leads – until the discovery that the dead woman’s rings match a stolen property report, and the rings’ owner mentions Rosa, her missing nanny. Just when Bernie and her team think they’re getting somewhere, a shocking discovery about Rosa – and the news that another young girl has been abducted – changes everything the team thought they knew about the case. Laura is only twelve, and her parents are beside themselves with worry – but Bernie has an additional fear. Laura’s home is right next to the woods where their murder victim was found: are the cases connected? When Bernie notices similarities between descriptions of the man last seen with Rosa and someone Laura was messaging online, these fears grow stronger. But they still have no clear leads as to the identity of the culprit. With few options left, and time running out, she makes a desperate plan to trap the predator. But any mistakes will mean another innocent life lost…

Rain rattles through the trees as she leans into the car, careful not to touch anything. Two pretty blue eyes stare back through the dark, wide with relief, or maybe fear. A baby girl, wrapped up in a pink snowsuit, reaches out a tiny hand. Her mother is nowhere to be found… An abandoned baby is the last thing Detective Madison Harper expects to find as she drives to her first day back at work since the case that ripped her life apart. But as she cradles the shivering child close, all her instincts tell her there’s something more sinister at play. Then she finds a lone sneaker down a muddy trail nearby, the laces spattered with blood… In a town as small as Lost Creek, Colorado, the baby and the shoe are quickly identified as belonging to Kacie Larson, a waitress at the local diner who quietly stashed away her tips to make a better life for her daughter. A mother herself, Madison can’t believe that Kacie would just abandon her child, but she also can’t convince her new team. Not for the first time, Madison feels she must go it alone to get the job done. But when a body is pulled from a nearby lake, and it’s not Kacie, the case takes an agonizing turn. Is this missing mother really who she says she is? Is there a chance she’s still alive? Madison barely has time to think before the sweet little girl she rescued is snatched on a crowded street. Gone, in the blink of an eye. To break this case and earn her place back on the force, Madison must learn to trust her team, and herself again—and fast. If she doesn’t find this twisted individual in time, a little girl could die… Little Girl Taken is by Wendy Dranfield.




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