Southern Psychological Thrillers

Regarded as a witch by the locals, Lydia bears silent testimony to her Appalachian town’s dark underside. The townspeople might believe the bad luck began when a night of teenage partying led to the preacher’s son falling to his death. But Lydia knows Peculiar’s troubles started when a local child never made it home from school, when an arsonist set the mountains ablaze, and when her own daughter seemingly vanished. The past can’t remain buried forever and now, from the swarming of the bees to the change in the auras she sees, Lydia knows the killer’s hold over the townspeople has...

They buried something beneath Cypress Hollow. Now it remembers. Lana Gray keeps to herself—curator of a half-forgotten museum in a swamp town most have already left behind. But when a local widow’s quiet unraveling leads to an unmarked shoe and a floor that seems to breathe, Lana stumbles into a pattern that stretches back decades. Maybe longer. The town is changing. The people are changing. And the roots run deeper than anyone knew. As memory distorts, nature recoils, and the soil begins to hum, Lana must decide whether to resist what’s waking beneath her—or become part of it. The ...

Jonah Rourke is a railroad man, and railroad men don’t believe in miracles. So when his sister, Nell, disappears into a town that shouldn’t exist—one that won’t let anyone in, and won’t let anyone out, Jonah follows her anyway. Past the last streetlamp. Past the last honest mile. Onto a road that counts down like an execution and charges for every step. On this road, you don’t pay in money. You pay in pieces of yourself. Because something is coming. Something hungry. Something that doesn’t care who you are, only what you’re willing to surrender to keep moving. Jonah isn’t ...

For 30 years, a secret agency called the Southern Reach has monitored expeditions into Area X - a remote and lush terrain mysteriously sequestered from civilization. After the 12th expedition, the Southern Reach is in disarray, and John Rodriguez (a.k.a. "Control") is the team's newly appointed head. From a series of interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and more than two hundred hours of profoundly troubling video footage, the secrets of Area X begin to reveal themselves....

"Reader Vacker does a remarkable job voicing the main characters and keeping the tension high....Mystery and true crime fans will be drawn in and ultimately satisfied by this complex, tense tale read expertly by a talented narrator." - Booklist "[Karissa] Vacker switches easily between the...

A city of ancient secrets. A killer enacting centuries-old vengeance. A reporter who is the final target. Disgraced investigative journalist Griffin Pike is chasing ghosts. Broke and desperate, he returns to his hometown of St. Augustine to cover a story that feels like a godsend: a bizarre, ritualistic murder at the heart of the city’s oldest monument, the Castillo de San Marcos. The victim is posed, the crime is theatrical, and the killer has a taste for history. As the bodies stack up, each murder more brutal and symbolic than the last, Griffin is pulled deep into a conspiracy that ...

In Alyssa Richards’s break-out new novel, a woman who trusts no one has to believe someone—but a shocking finale will turn everything upside down. After running from her past for so long, Harper Brown is finally in a good place. She’s renovating a beautiful old home in Savannah, has lined up a dream job appraising Civil War antiquities, and is falling in love with the debonair Nick Chamberlain. Most importantly, her anxiety and paranoia are finally under control. But when she sees a vision of her sister shrouded in fog in the square across the street, Harper’s carefully assembled ...

SOME SECRETS ARE TOO BIG TO DROWN. Serena Hartwell seemed to have it all, wealth, beauty, a stunning home on Daniel Island, and a Maine Coon who weighed more than most toddlers. Then she was found floating in her infinity pool, and Carrie Ashford's quiet pet-sitting job became another murder investigation. The Hartwell family insists it was a tragic accident. The police seem inclined to agree. But Goliath, twenty-two pounds of orange-and-white fur with unsettlingly knowing eyes, saw what happened. And Carrie has learned to trust animals more than people. WHAT YOU'LL FIND INSIDE: A gentle ...

After a brutal assault leaves New York's premier wedding planner Samantha Rutherford shattered, she flees to her Southern roots and purchases Magnolia Grove—a decrepit plantation with a haunted history. As she works to restore the grand estate into a wedding venue, Samantha discovers she's not alone in her new home. The spirit of Eliza Whitley Beauregard, who died in childbirth a century and a half ago, seems determined to communicate with her.

French Quarter P.I. Wyatt Thomas deals with murder and illusion at the Louisiana Hospital of the Insane Secrets fester, and danger lurks in the shadowed depths of Louisiana's bayous. Private investigator Wyatt Thomas is summoned to the sleepy town of Pinebridge by notorious mob boss Frankie Castellano. His mission is to find Frankie’s missing half-sister, Bella Donna Castellano, who vanished from the Louisiana Mental Hospital under suspicious circumstances. On his first night in town, Wyatt stumbles upon a gruesome murder, drawing him into a web of corruption and cruelty. Partnering with ...

Women of Valor The second three of the Alexandra Destephano Psychological Medical thrillers in a digital collection from the Queen of New Orleans Medical thrillersVengeance is the name of the game... Toxic New YearWhat began as rural Virginia’s premier New Year celebration turns into a day of horror when the enemies of Alex Destephano's grandfather, Congressman Adam Patrick Lee, bring the war to his Virginia estate killing, maiming and destroying everything in their path. Evil: Finding St. GermaineMichaela McPherson travels from Richmond with police dog Angel to consult with Commander ...

Atlanta 1937 Hollis Deveraux's husband was killed a few months ago, and as a direct result, she suffered even more devastating personal losses. And since the perpetrator had also ended his own life, the authorities felt they had nothing left to investigate, therefore, the case was closed. But Hollis knows there's far more to the story than what's being told, and despite her own physical limitations, she and her friend, Stefanie, set out to discover for themselves why her husband had been targeted. Although, that's the problem with looking too closely, sometimes you find out things about ...

In her small hometown, librarian Ruth Cornier has always felt like an outsider, even as her beloved father rains fire-and-brimstone warnings from the pulpit at Holy Fire Baptist. Unfortunately for Ruth, the only things the townspeople fear more than the God and the Devil are the myths that haunt the area, like the story of the Low Man, a vampiric figure said to steal into sinners' bedrooms and kill them on moonless nights. When a skull is found deep in the swamp next to mysterious carved symbols, Bottom Springs is thrown into uproar.

After years of self-exile, Jacinda “Jac” Brodie is back in Brook Haven, South Carolina. But the small cliffside town no longer feels like home. Jac hasn’t been there since the beloved chief of police fell to his death—and all the whispers said she was to blame. That chief was Jac’s father. Racked with guilt, Jac left town with no plans to return. But when her granddad lands in the hospital, she rushes back to her family, bracing herself to confront the past.

A young attorney is defending her client in a racially charged felony case -- but in a town of old money and hidden secrets, her first trial may be her last in this #1 New York Times bestselling legal thriller. Ruby Bozarth, a newcomer to Rosedale, Mississippi, is also fresh to the State Bar --...

They're dying in the same order Gabriel visited them. The police think he's the killer. And somewhere, millions in stolen gold wait to be claimed. Ben Gabriel's criminal career is catching up with him in the worst possible way. Prominent members of South African society are being murdered. Brutally. Methodically. And the police have discovered an unmistakable pattern: Gabriel interviewed each victim shortly before their death. He's the prime suspect in a serial killing spree he didn't commit. Meanwhile, the gold magnate whose fortune Gabriel stole is still hunting him with obsessive ...

Her fiancé battles terrorists… He's one of America’s elite…Marrying him is a risk – suppose he doesn’t come home?Alex, now living in Virginia and working in Washington, DC for the Institute of Medicine, is recalled to the Big Easy to investigate a series of hospital crimes where she reconnects with her ex-husband Robert, the calm, steady surgeon.She realizes she misses him desperately as guilt consumes her…A series of emergency calls, one from the hospital, another from her home, Twist her heart and her…What will she do? She’s being pulled in so many directions… Evil ...

Best friends Lindsey, Kendra, and Dani endure every parent’s nightmare when a tragic accident befalls their teenage boys, leaving one dead, another in a coma, and a third too traumatized to speak. Reeling from the worst night of their lives, the three mothers plunge into a desperate investigation of the bizarre incident. How could something so horrible happen in their wealthy Southern California suburb? They soon discover that the accident was just the beginning, and troubling discoveries lead to chilling questions: Do they really know their children? Do they even know each other?

"Kreinik effortlessly switches among various accents and emotions, keeping listeners riveted as she reveals the novel’s twists and turns." -- Booklist "Kreinik's range is highlighted as she seamlessly shifts among characters' various accents: a Brit's clipped consonants, a charming...

Now a major Lifetime movie event—Book Three of the Dollanganger series that began with Flowers in the Attic—the novel of forbidden love that captured the world’s imagination and earned V.C. Andrews a fiercely devoted fanbase. They hide the shocking truth to protect their children. But...