Suspense

Excerpt: THE AUNT by Courtney Psak (Hodder & Stoughton)

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The Aunt, the latest novel from Courtney Psak, is out today in the UK. A twisty tale of sibling rivalry, it is published by Hodder & Stoughton. To mark the release, the publisher has provided CR with an excerpt to share with our readers. First, here’s the synopsis:

Standing outside of my sister’s mansion, with its prime ocean views and floor to ceiling windows, I look at my baby niece and realize just how little I knew about Lexi’s new life. And how easy it was for her to keep secrets from me…

The day that Amy gets the call, her whole world falls apart. Her younger sister Lexi has been killed in a tragic boating accident, along with her husband. Despite being estranged for the last ten years, Amy never stopped loving Lexi, and the news crushes her.

But Amy is shocked when she discovers she is set to inherit Lexi’s beautiful mansion on Palm Beach, all her fortune… and her newborn daughter.

Amy is stunned — how did she not know her own sister had a baby? And when the police reveal that they are treating the accident as suspicious, Amy starts to question everything.

Did she ever really know her sister? What secrets has Lexi been hiding? Can Amy protect her baby niece, or will the truth cost her everything?

And now, on with the excerpt…!

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Excerpt: HOUSE HAUNTERS by K. C. Jones (Tor Nightmare)

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Today, we have an excerpt from House Haunters, the latest horror novel by K. C. Jones! Due to be published by Tor Nightfire, on October 6th, it is “a fast-paced thrill ride perfect for fans of How to Sell a Haunted House and Play Nice, in which a skeptical reality TV show producer and a misanthropic ghosthunter must team up to survive a shoot from hell.” The novel has already racked up a considerably amount of pre-publication praise and buzz, and now CR readers have a chance to give the read a try before it’s released! First, here’s the synopsis:

Grace Wonderly needs a hit show, or her career is dead.
But saving her job might just kill her.

With her studio relying on AI to greenlight new projects, finding the next breakout series is Grace’s only shot to save her job. And her sanity.

Her solution may be Frank Pendleton: a brilliant but abrasive — and admittedly handsome — ghost hunter who claims he can’t feel fear, making him uniquely attuned to the paranormal.

Frank is either a fraud or the real deal. Skeptical, but hoping for TV gold, Grace assembles a crew to shoot a proof of concept.

But when the production descends into a nightmare, Grace is forced to face the impossible: ghosts are real, and though cold and distant, Frank may be their only chance of getting out alive.

(Even before reading a single page, but after seeing that cover: I really hope the corgi lives…)

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Excerpt: THE FRIEND OF THE FAMILY by Dean Koontz (Thomas & Mercer)

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Today, we have an excerpt from The Friend of the Family, the latest novel from Dean Koontz. The latest novel from one of the most prolific and popular suspense authors working today, it was recently published by Thomas & Mercer. Here’s the synopsis:

A girl liberated from a carnival sideshow discovers her mysterious purpose…

The human “oddities” in the Museum of the Strange are less wondrous than the gawking rubes had been promised. But Alida is something else. The real thing. Traveling Depression-era America from carnival midways to speakeasies, Alida is resigned to an exploited and lonely life on the road as the museum’s golden ticket. Until she’s rescued by two compassionate strangers.

Franklin and Loretta Fairchild see in Alida a gifted and uncannily well-read girl in need of a loving touch and a family. With the openhearted couple and their three precociously imaginative children, Alida finds it. Yet despite everyone’s overwhelming generosity and acceptance, Alida knows she is still a very different kind of girl. Her dreams bear that out. They’re vivid, unsettling, and threatening. Alida fears that they’re also warnings. And that it’s the Fairchilds who may need rescue from a bad, bad world.

Alida will do anything to help those she now holds nearest and dearest. Empowered with a purpose to vanquish evil, she will not fail her family.

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Excerpt: GOING HOME IN THE DARK by Dean Koontz (Thomas & Mercer)

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Today we have an excerpt from the latest thriller by best-selling author Dean Koontz: Going Home in the Dark. Due to be published in May, the publisher has let CR share the first chapter. First, though, here’s the synopsis:

When hometown horrors come back to haunt, friendship is salvation in a novel about childhood fears and buried secrets…

As kids, outcasts Rebecca, Bobby, Spencer, and Ernie were inseparable friends in the idyllic town of Maple Grove. Three left to pursue lofty dreams―and achieved them. Only Ernie never left. When he falls into a coma, his three amigos feel an urgent need to return home. Don’t they remember people lapsing into comas back then? And those people always awoke… didn’t they?

After two decades, not a lot has changed in Maple Grove, especially Ernie’s obnoxious, scary mother. But Rebecca, Bobby, and Spencer begin to remember a hulking, murderous figure and weirdness piled on mystery that they were made to forget. As Ernie sinks deeper into darkness, something strange awaits any friend who tries to save him.

For Rebecca, Bobby, and Spencer, time is running out to remember the terrors of the past in a perfect town where nothing is what it seems. For Maple Grove, it’s a chance to have the “four amigos,” as they once called themselves, back in its grasp.

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Excerpt: WHITE LINE FEVER by KC Jones (Tor Nightfire)

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Next month, Tor Nightfire will publish White Line Fever by KC Jones, a “harrowing thrill ride about friendship, trauma, and learning how to take the wheel of your own life”. To whet readers’ appetites, the publisher has provided us with an excerpt to share! First, here’s the synopsis:

THEY’LL BREAK MORE THAN SPEED LIMITS ON THIS GIRLS’ TRIP FROM HELL.

At a passing glance, County Road 951 is an entirely unremarkable stretch of blacktop, a two-lane scar across the Cascade foothills of Central Oregon.

But the road is known by another name, coined by those who’ve had to clean up after all those scenic detours went horribly wrong: The Devil’s Driveway.

When Livia and her long-time friends take the Driveway as a shortcut to a much-needed weekend getaway, what begins as a morning joyride quickly becomes anything but. Soon, they’re driving for their lives, pursued by a horror beyond anything they ever imagined.

The Devil’s Driveway might be only 15 miles long, but with danger at every turn, it will take the four women to the very limits of their friendships and their sanity.

And there’s no telling what else lies in wait just beyond the bend.

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Upcoming: GRAVEYARD SHIFT by M. L. Rio (Flatiron)

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RioML-GraveyardShiftUSHCBack in 2017, I read an ARC of M. L. Rio‘s excellent If We Were Villains (which seems to get a new edition every few months). Ever since finishing it, I have been periodically checking to see if the author has a new book on the way. And the wait if almost over! Flatiron Books recently announced the author’s hotly-anticipated next book, a novella: Graveyard Shift. Due out in September, here’s the synopsis:

A story about a ragtag group of night shift workers who meet in the local cemetery to unearth the secrets lurking in an open grave.

Every night, in the college’s ancient cemetery, five people cross paths as they work the late shift: a bartender, a rideshare driver, a hotel receptionist, the steward of the derelict church that looms over them, and the editor-in-chief of the college paper, always in search of a story.

One dark October evening in the defunct churchyard, they find a hole that wasn’t there before. A fresh, open grave where no grave should be. But who dug it, and for whom?

Before they go their separate ways, the gravedigger returns. As they trail him through the night, they realize he may be the key to a string of strange happenings around town that have made headlines for the last few weeks — and that they may be closer to the mystery than they thought.

M. L. Rio’s Graveyard Shift is due to be published by Flatiron Books in North America and Wildfire in the UK, on September 24th.

Also on CR: Review of If We Were Villains

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, Twitter

Excerpt: THE SECRET LIFE OF INSECTS by Bernardo Esquinca (Dead Ink Books)

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EsquincaB-SecretLifeOfInsectsUKA couple of weeks ago, Dead Ink Books published The Secret Life of Insects by Bernardo Esquinca a new collection of short horror stories set in Mexico, translated by James D. Jenkins, that explore its dark, bloody history. To celebrate the release, the publisher has provided us with an excerpt to share: specifically, the story “The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife”. Here is the collection’s synopsis:

A forensic entomologist tries to solve the inexplicable murder of his wife, who impossibly seems to have been killed in a forest at the same time she was asleep in bed with him. A husband becomes concerned by his wife’s strange behaviour, which includes sleepwalking, muttering strange phrases, and a bizarre erotic fascination with octopi. A woman visits a witch doctor who promises to forge an unbreakable bond between her and the man of her dreams, but things go horribly awry after the man dies. And four high school friends reunite twenty years later at a class reunion and must face the long-buried truth of a demonic experience from their youth.

The history of Mexico is drenched in blood, from the sacrifices of the ancient Aztecs to the bloodthirsty conquest of the Spanish to modern-day violent crime, and that legacy of violence and death pervades these stories. They blend the genres of horror and noir in inventive ways and run the gamut from chilling to weirdly unsettling to darkly funny. It is a volume sure to please not only fans of horror and weird fiction but also anyone interested in contemporary international literature.

This edition also features brilliant full-page illustrations by Spanish artist Luis Pérez Ochando.

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Upcoming: GLASS HOUSES by Madeline Ashby (Tor)

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AshbyM-GlassHousesUSHCThe next novel from Madeline Ashby is Glass Houses. Pitched as a “near future whodunit for fans of Glass Onion and Black Mirror“, it certainly sounds intriguing. Due to be published in August, by Tor Books, I imagine there are a lot of people who will be interested in reading this. Here’s what it’s about:

Join a stranded start-up team led by a terrifyingly realistic charismatic billionaire, a deserted tropical island, and a mysterious AI-driven mansion — as the remaining members disappear one by one.

A group of employees and their CEO, celebrating the sale of their remarkable emotion-mapping-AI-algorithm, crash onto a not-quite-deserted tropical island.

Luckily, those who survived have found a beautiful, fully-stocked private palace, with all the latest technological updates (though one without connection to the outside world). The house, however, has more secrets than anyone might have guessed, and a much darker reason for having been built and left behind.

Kristen, the hyper-competent “chief emotional manager” (i.e., the eccentric boyish billionaire-CEO Sumter’s idea of an HR department) is trying to keep her colleagues stable throughout this new challenge, but staying sane seems to be as much of a challenge as staying alive. Being a woman in technology has always meant having to be smarter than anyone expects… and Kristen’s survival skills are more impressive than anyone knows.

Madeline Ashby’s Glass Houses is due to be published by Tor Books in North America and in the UK, on August 13th.

Follow the Author: Website, Goodreads, Instagram, Twitter

Quick Review: THE SPY COAST by Tess Gerritsen (Thomas & Mercer/Bantam)

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GerritsenT-SpyCoastUSHCIntroducing Maggie Bird and the Martini Club…

A retired CIA operative in small-town Maine tackles the ghosts of her past…

Former spy Maggie Bird came to the seaside village of Purity, Maine, eager to put the past behind her after a mission went tragically wrong. These days, she’s living quietly on her chicken farm, still wary of blowback from the events that forced her early retirement.

But when a body turns up in Maggie’s driveway, she knows it’s a message from former foes who haven’t forgotten her. Maggie turns to her local circle of old friends — all retirees from the CIA — to help uncover the truth about who is trying to kill her, and why. This “Martini Club” of former spies may be retired, but they still have a few useful skills that they’re eager to use again, if only to spice up their rather sedate new lives.

Complicating their efforts is Purity’s acting police chief, Jo Thibodeau. More accustomed to dealing with rowdy tourists than homicide, Jo is puzzled by Maggie’s reluctance to share information — and by her odd circle of friends, who seem to be a step ahead of her at every turn.

As Jo’s investigation collides with the Martini Club’s maneuvers, Maggie’s hunt for answers will force her to revisit a clandestine career that spanned the globe, from Bangkok to Istanbul, from London to Malta. The ghosts of her past have returned, but with the help of her friends — and the reluctant Jo Thibodeau — Maggie might just be able to save the life she’s built.

This is the first novel in Tess Gerritsen’s new series, the Martini Club. It is also, somehow, the first of Gerritsen’s novels that I’ve ever read — not entirely sure how this happened, given that the Rizzoli & Isles series looks like it should definitely appeal. (I also enjoyed the first season of the TV adaptation). Anyway, I digress: The Spy Coast is a really good start to a series, which I really enjoyed, and it will definitely not be my last Gerritsen read. Continue reading →

Excerpt: THE GREAT OUTER DARK by David Neil Lee (Poplar Press)

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LeeDN-MG3-GreatOuterDarkCAHCToday we have an excerpt from The Great Outer Dark by David Neil Lee, the conclusion to the Midnight Games trilogy, in which “the cosmic Cthulhu Mythos comes to life in a struggling post-industrial city.” The novel is out now, published by Poplar Press/Wolsak & Wynn, here’s the synopsis:

After his voyage across the galaxy, Nate Silva arrives home to find Hamilton in the grip of a monstrous triumvirate. The Resurrection Church of the Ancient Gods has returned, with the human form of the shape-changing nightmare from the Medusa Deep as its leader. And closely guarded in a downtown tower a mind-devouring entity called Oracle lurks. The city is infested with invasive species that have slithered into our world during the Church’s occult ceremonies – many-legged dritches, bat-like thrals and the eerie, flying night-gaunts.

Caught in the middle of this are Nate’s friends Megan and Mehri, who are leading the resistance with the Furies, along with a mysterious double agent, the enigmatic Dr. Eldritch and his Cosmic Wonder Circus.

For the safety of everyone he loves, Nate and his friend H.P. Lovecraft hijack the antique airship Sorcerer for one last voyage, to free Earth from the Great Old Ones once and for all.

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