The Clinic by Cate Quinn (2024)

Haley and Meg grew up with a famous but vicious mother whose hatred of them made their childhood — although lavish and star-studded — a nightmare. Haley became a child-star and an actress herself; Meg a professional poker player. Both women were miserable and numbed their heartache and depression with alcohol and drugs.

When Haley dies while recovering in a rehab facility, Meg knows almost immediately the media reports of her sister’s suicide were wrong. Meg is certain Haley was murdered. Without any way to get information from the police, Meg decides to go undercover at the rehab center and get answers for herself.

There is only one problem: Meg is an addict too, and being in the rehab center means she will have to give up her own crutches and face her own demons in the process of investigating Haley’s death. While Meg tries to question suspects and look for evidence, she also must contend suppressed memories resurfacing and deal with the horrors of her past.

Making things much more precarious, Meg’s detox and withdraw cause her emotional and physical agony, and she begins to suspect the staff at the clinic are using unethical, possibly even illegal, measures to help their patients get clean.

Blessed Water: A Sister Holiday Mystery by Margot Douaihy (2024)

Book #2 : A Sister Holiday Mystery series

In this wild follow-up to one of the best books I read last year — Scorched Grace — our favorite punk-rock lesbian turned Catholic nun, Sister Holiday, returns to solve another set of mysteries.

Easter weekend rolls into New Orleans with relentless rain, high winds, flood warnings, and general unease across the city. Sister Holiday and her fellow members of Sisters of the Sublime Blood — now just 2 nuns and 2 priests — are still trying to rebuild from the horrors of the previous year when fires tore through Saint Sebastian’s church and school, killing several people and resulting in Sister Holiday’s first ever mystery solved.

Alive with the thrill of solving cases, Sister Holiday has apprenticed herself to a local PI and plans to work cases between her duties at the church and school. Easter weekend brings with it her first real case: not the cheating husband investigation she thought she was set to begin, but the murder of one of the priests in her church and the disappearance of the other.

Over three breathless days, as the rain pounds the city and the waters rise threatening the levees and panicking residents, Sister Holiday and her motley crew hunt down a murderer and unearth a horrific string of seedy crimes and shady cover-ups.

The Hunter by Tana French (2024)

Sequel to The Searcher

In the two and a half years since his arrival in the tiny Irish village of Ardnakelty, American Cal Hooper has settled into a quiet life. Far from the chaos of his years as a Chicago police detective (and the madness of his early days in the village helping solve a missing person’s case with his young neighbor, Trey) Cal savors the calm predictability of his days. He and Trey have built a carpentry business, he has deepened his romantic relationship with Lena, a woman in the village, and he has even made friends with the local farmers who share the mountain with him.

As the summer grows hotter and drier, the town grows restless and fearful. Will their farms survive another month without rain? How will they make enough money to live if the heat kills their sheep and their crops? Tension builds and builds. Cal tries to ignore the heat, the tempers, and the fear and staye focused on Trey, Lena, and his tiny business.

Then, Trey’s dead-beat father shows up in town and upsets the entire balance of the village. Missing for four years — gone without a word or a penny for with his wife and six children — Johnny Reddy turns up in brand new clothes, flashing cash around, and telling tales that stir up a lot of interest in the pub.

From the minute Johnny arrives, Cal knows that trouble is coming: for him, for Trey, for the Reddy family, and perhaps the entire village. Johnny has arrived with a purpose: he is determined to get the local farmers to invest in an outrageous get-rich-quick scheme. Maybe its the boredom or the heat or the fear that their farms will fail, but Johnny convinces some of them to buy-in and things go off the rails almost immediately.

As far as Cal is concerned, Johnny Reddy can get himself into as much trouble as he’d like. But when Johnny involves Trey and it looks as if the gains the young girl has made in the last few years might be undone, Cal knows his must intervene.

The trouble deepens and the tension in the town stretches to the breaking point and Cal knows that Johhny’s plans are going to hurt more than one person he cares about before the summer ends.

The New Couple in 5B by Lisa Unger (2024)

Life in New York City is not easy for Rosie, a writer, and Chad, her actor-husband, but the pair are willing to trade the stability they might find in a smaller town for the thrill of living in a place so steeped in creative opportunities. Their luck seems to change overnight when an older relative leaves them a five-million dollar apartment when he dies.

The only problem is that the building, The Windermere, is reportedly haunted and its residents are a slightly spooky bunch. Chad has no qualms at all about the move, he is certain that the inheritance is a sign that their lives are on the right track. In fact, he seems to be right; within days of moving-in he lands a dream role and her book proposal starts to generate real interest.

But nothing about life in The Windermere is simple. There are rules, expectations, and appearances to keep up. There is also round-the-clock surveillance, a lack of privacy, and lots of strange events. All of the present day issues with the building are nothing compared to the horrors that lurk in its past: murders, suicides, and disappearances dating back to the day it first opened its doors.

Rosie starts to write a book about the building’s dark past, but suddenly the ghosts that haunt the place become all too real to her. Suddenly, she cannot tell truth from fiction and she begins to doubt not only herself, but her husband, their friends, and her own sanity. When people start dying, Rosie must decide if she is going to unravel or solve the mysteries locked inside the Windermere once and for all.

Inheritance by Nora Roberts (2024)

The Lost Bride Trilogy, Book 1

Readers of this site know that I love Nora Roberts books and I have read every single one (more than 300 to date!) Inheritance marks Roberts’ return to one of my favorite formulas: a trilogy that blends strong women falling in love with good men while facing a supernatural threat. (Her best versions of this category are her Three Sisters Island Trilogy and Signs of Seven Trilogy).

Inheritance opens with our heroine Sonya bravely recovering from the shock of her engagement ending when she is suddenly faced with an entirely new set of surprises. She learns she has inherited a mansion and several million dollars from a long-lost uncle. Deciding there is no better time to restart her life, Sonya moves to a tiny Maine town and into her very own mansion…a haunted one, none-the-less.

Sonya befriends the ghostly inhabitants of the house the best she can, but she senses they want something from her. Obligingly, she begins to look into centuries of mysterious deaths that have happened in the house, the vast majority newly married women: the so-called “lost brides.” Sonya also befriends members of her new community and, with their help, she tries to build a new life; solve a few cold cases; and start a steamy romance with a local lawyer while she is at it.

Midnight by Amy McCulloch (2023)

While I have read and enjoyed McCulloch’s other books, certainly her mountain-climbing expedition turned deadly story in Breathless, I have come to realize that while she sets the stage wonderfully, her characters and story-lines are slightly disappointing.

In Midnight, we follow the story of Olivia, a young woman who — after tragedy strikes — left her wild and adventurous childhood behind her in order to pursue a safe, financially stable adulthood in order to provide for her mother. Olivia is stressed and unhappy, but accepts these feelings as necessary to make sure her ill mother is well cared for.

When Olivia meets Aaron and he draws her into the glamorous world of high-end art sales, she is dazzled. Aaron and the demands he makes on her to make his art gallery a success are stressful, but just the distraction Olivia needs from her unhappiness. Then Olivia has a nervous breakdown and loses her job. Suddenly, Aaron’s failures and successes become very important to them both.

Against her better judgment, Olivia agrees to take part in a luxury expedition to Antarctica with Aaron and a group of millionaires who he hopes to charm into buying million-dollar artworks. Olivia is still not recovered from the trauma of losing her father while on a sailing expedition and is terrified of spending weeks at sea. However, the money they stand to make is too tempting and she sets sail.

From the minute she climbs aboard the luxury icebreaker, problems arise. Small at first, the problems quickly become crises: missing people, sabotaged gear, stolen jewelry, and finally murder.

Olivia must decide if she is a meek and powerless victim or a strong and decisive adventurer.

The Fury by Alex Michaelides (2023)

The first two books by Alex Michaelides — The Silent Patient and The Maidens – were enormous hits, both with lots of unexpected twists and terrible Machiavellian plots. The Fury has many similar elements, but instead of feeling exciting, it feels a bit silly and over-the-top. In fact, I have to say that while I finished it, I did not actually enjoy it.

Our cast of characters in The Fury are almost all creatives — actors, writers — and this is the set-up for the wild series of events that unfolds. We have Lana, the retired Hollywood star; Kate, the aging stage actress; Leo the wanna-be movie star; Jason, Lana’s slimy husband; and finally Elliot. Elliot is a playwright and the unhinged, delusional narrator of the story and the driver of the plot from page one.

Everyone wants something from Lana: her money, her connections, her attention, her love. Some of the characters are willing to do anything to get their hands on one (or all) of these things, none more than Elliot.

A trip to a Greek island owned by Lana is proposed for the Easter holiday. Everyone agrees to go, but they are all wary of ulterior motives and secret agendas. There, in the beautiful surroundings things fall apart and Elliot does everything in his power to make sure he comes out on top. Someone still dies.

The House In the Pines by Ana Reyes

Haunted for nearly a decade by the sudden, violent death of her best friend; Maya has tried everything she can think of to clearly remember the events that led up to the death. When remembering failed, Maya then tried everything she could to forget that it had ever happened.

Now, she has lost her primary “forgetfulness” crutch — Klonopin — and has been thrown into a sudden and painful withdrawal that is putting extreme stress on her relationship and her mental health. Stopping the pills has another, unintended consequence too: suddenly Maya is having clearer memories of the events leading up to her friends death.

So Maya goes home to her mother’s tiny house, both to detox and to chase down the flimsy memories and tries to find the truth of what really happened.

Only If You’re Lucky by Stacy Willingham (2023)

I loved Willingham’s other psychological thriller, A Flicker in the Dark, and I loved this one as well. Where the latter dealt with the horrible urges of men, this one tackles the complicated lives of young women.

Margot arrives at college numb and haunted, reeling from the death of her best friend just weeks earlier. She falls under the spell of three captivating dorm-mates and yearns to be welcomed into their circle, where she is certain their beauty and popularity will transform her into someone powerful, someone who belongs.

Moving in with these three women brings as much wild, risky fun as Margot hoped for, but also the accompanying darker parts of parties, drugs, and boys; foggy memories, bad choices, questionable decisions.

When the frat house next door welcomes its new pledges and one of them is the boy Margot blames for her best-friend’s death, things take a very dark turn.

The women grow closer, sharing (some) of their secrets and their less palatable desires. They also grow wilder, taking bigger risks and exposing themselves to bigger problems. Then one person dies and another goes missing and the young women will need to decide whether they will sink or swim.

One of the Good Guys by Araminta Hall (2023)

This novel attempts to uncover all of the ways that men make women unsafe — the obvious and the far-less-obvious. It tackles the idea that men can perform in ways that mask their need for dominance and control, making them harder to avoid and more likely that women will let them get close. And it questions why, until they are violent, the bad behavior of men is tolerated?

Cole is a good guy, a really good guy. He cooks, he cleans, he cares about feelings, he is comfortable being vulnerable, he (says) he loves and supports strong and powerful women. His wife, Mel, cannot possibly complain about him…literally. If she dares mention a single criticism of him to anyone, they jump to his defense, “do you know how many women would kill for a man that thoughtful?” And so, even though his behavior is worrisome, Mel continues to accept that it is normal and she is lucky.

Until, of course, she cannot ignore it any longer.