Family Domestic Thrillers

After years of abandonment, Raven Hall has been restored to its former glory. For one night only, it is playing host to an evening of murder mystery. The guests have gathered. The roles have been cast. But someone is playing a sinister game, one with devastating consequences. And as the guests are about to discover, the truth is much darker than fiction.

Charlotte and Perry long for summers at Cliff View, their gorgeous holiday home overlooking the turquoise waters of Pine Ridge. And now that city friends Amy and Linus have bought a property nearby, they plan lazy weeks of sun, sea and sipping rosé on Charlotte’s summerhouse veranda. A rising tide of resentment towards second-home owners is heading their way and small acts of criminal damage are escalating into something more menacing. By the end of the summer, families and friendships will be torn apart and Pine Ridge will be known for more than its sun-drenched beaches.

Gil is living a quiet life as a creative writing professor in a bucolic Vermont town, when he receives some shocking news: His sister and her husband have been killed in a car accident, and their only son is coming to live with him and his family.

Where to hide when there's nowhere left to run? Sandrine is asked to empty her late grandmother's house on a small island near the Normandy coast. She soon discovers that its elderly inhabitants haven't left the island since their arrival as children during World War II. Sandrine can tell they are terrified of someone, or something. Yet, they refuse to leave the island. What happened to the children from the holiday camp that was suddenly shut down in 1949? And who was Sandrine's grandmother really?

Kathryn Brooker is the headmaster's wife. While her husband spends his days disciplining unruly teenagers in the grand halls of Mountbriers Academy, Kathryn spends hers baking scones for her son's cricket match in a beautiful cottage in the manicured school grounds. Anyone who peered through the downstairs sash window at the four figures sat easily around their scrubbed-pine kitchen table would see a happy family without a care in the world. They would envy Kathryn her perfect life. But they would be wrong. Kathryn is trapped in a nightmare.

Aidan Thomas is a hardworking family man and a respected member of his community. He's also a kidnapper and serial killer who has murdered eight women. And there's a ninth, a woman he's renamed Rachel, imprisoned in a backyard shed where she fears for her life. When Aidan's wife dies, he and his thirteen-year-old daughter, Cecilia, are forced to move. Aidan brings Rachel along, introducing her to Cecilia as a family friend who needs a place to stay. After five years of captivity, surely Rachel is too brainwashed to attempt to escape.

Sophie wasn’t expecting to find love in Sicily. But then she sees him: Emilio, a professor who works at the university where she is teaching for the summer. He’s kind, intelligent, funny, exciting and deliriously unpredictable… …maybe perfect. But paradise quickly turns to purgatory as she uncovers the haunting disappearance of Emilio’s first wife. And when she senses a shadowy character following her, watching her every move, Sophie starts to question her grip on reality. Is she being paranoid, or is nothing about her new life really what it seems?

For as long as they can remember, Claudia, Margo and Jackie have been told how lucky they are. Rescued from family tragedies and raised by a loving foster mother on an idyllic farming estate, they were given an elusive second chance of a happy family life. But their childhood wasn't the fairy tale everyone thinks it was. And when a body is discovered under the home they grew up in, the foster sisters find themselves thrust into the spotlight as key witnesses. Or are they prime suspects?

Abby and Ellie were never close as children. Now in their thirties, they each harbour deep-rooted resentment for the other - Abby for her sister's looks and her status as their mother's favourite. Ellie meanwhile is envious of Abby's perfect husband and picturesque home, a villa on the sun-soaked Italian island of Elba. When Abby invites Ellie to stay, both sisters see the break as a chance to relax and put aside their differences. But with their mother Susanna there too, all the simmering tensions of the past quickly rise to the surface.

A young girl has been taken. Abducted, never to be seen again. Joe and Hannah, her traumatized parents, are consumed by grief. But all is not as it seems behind the curtains of their suburban home. Loretta, the Family Liaison Officer, is sure Hannah is hiding something – a dark and twisted secret from deep in her past. This terrible memory could be the key to the murder of another girl fifteen years ago. And as links between the two victims emerge, Joe and Hannah learn that in a family built on lies, the truth can destroy everything.

When newlyweds Jane and Alex Clarke move into an idyllic house on the quaint Bristol Lane, they are excited for a new beginning in what will be their ‘forever home’. And when an elderly neighbour welcomes them, she soon becomes a friend. But she grows a little too interested in the couple next door as she sits watching them, day in, day out, from the rocking chair in her window. Alex says it will be fine. After all, she’s a lonely widow who just wants some company. But when she invites Jane into her home, who knows what she’ll find there.

In einem großen herrschaftlichen Haus in Londons elegantem Stadtteil Chelsea liegt ein Baby in seinem Bettchen. Das kleine Mädchen ist satt und zufrieden, es fehlt ihm an nichts. In der Küche des Hauses liegen drei verwesende Leichen. Neben ihnen eine hastig hingekritzelte Nachricht. Die drei sind seit Tagen tot. Doch wer hat sich dann um das Kind gekümmert? Und wo ist diese Person jetzt? Fünfundzwanzig Jahre später erhält eine junge Frau namens Libby einen Brief, der sie überraschend zur Erbin des Anwesens erklärt.

Book Two (Can also be read as a standalone novel) Love Story and Domestic Thriller by the author of The Incident in the Orchard At Aldwen Hall, a large country house surrounded by acres of enchanting forest, a new character emerges. By all accounts, a very attractive woman from a respectable, successful middle-class family. But beneath her veneer of respectability lurks a dark, diabolical nature. By day a disruptive presence, by night a malevolent mouse, Vincentia Cannon is determined to achieve her lustful ambition by any means necessary. How far will she go? More importantly, will she ...

In cosmopolitan Johannesburg, three high-flying couples form the core of the elite Khula Society: part investment group, part social club, with meetings where the champagne flows, the dresses are designer and the one-upmanship is off the scale. Noma, Moshidi, Lerato and their husbands are living the dream—or so it appears from the outside. In reality, the cut and thrust of ‘keeping up with the Khulas’ is taking its toll on all three couples.

Imogen Brown is a normal 16-year-old girl. She's obsessed with beach volleyball, she occasionally enjoys the company of her younger sister, Jemima, she's saving for her first car...and she feels like she doesn't belong. She thinks that her parents, Kat and Dylan, are hypocrites, playing the perfect family when she knows they really argue all the time. One Friday evening, Kat and Dylan have their biggest fight yet - the next day, Imogen is missing.

A violent murder. A family secret. And a boyfriend who's not who he says he is... Sydney, Australia. Lawyer and companion Natalie Coommaraswamy struggles to be the good daughter her parents demand. A second-generation Sri Lankan, she’s never penetrated her family’s resolute silence surrounding their flight from Sri Lanka, and has been left with unanswered questions about where she belongs and who she can trust. Then her best friend is found murdered. Fuelled by disinterest from the police, Natalie begins her own hunt for the murderer. But when clues point to her new lover, her carefully...

Jim McCann was a high school basketball star destined for the NBA. Then an injury shattered his knee and his dreams. Disillusioned, he cut ties with his stifling hometown. Years later, he returns for his father’s funeral. Finding that his mother has dementia, he reluctantly takes over the family propane business. But there’s a silver lining: reconnecting with Kyle, his childhood best friend, and meeting Kelli, the only one who understands his struggle to fill his own big shoes.

It’s midnight in the hospital when Jude’s phone rings, interrupting her precious 15-minute break. When she sees it’s her 70-year-old mother, Margaret, she braces herself for the usual complaints. But her blood runs cold at four words that will change everything...‘something terrible has happened.’ Margaret has been accused of an unspeakable crime committed 20 years ago. She insists she’s not guilty, and begs Jude to help her prove it. But as Jude is drawn into the dark secrets of her family’s past, she starts to question whether her mother is really as innocent as she claims to be.

Two weeks at a stunning villa, in the South of France, was supposed to heal the rifts in this fractured family. Flaky croissants and rich, black coffee every morning before long days by the sparkling pool. Balmy candlelit dinners, once the kids have gone to bed. But Nora is shaking, as she gathers her family around the large, oak table on the terrace, at the front of the villa. Her two daughters eye her suspiciously as she tops up her wine and clears her throat to speak. But when she opens her mouth, the secret Nora came here to tell won’t come out....

Iris Jenkins knows that bad things happen. She’s tried to escape these things for years. So when Iris is entrusted to house-sit at a lodge on the South Dakota prairie, she thinks she’s prepared for anything. But one surprise is Sawyer Jones, the property’s neighbor and caretaker. He’s a caring, reassuring presence who’s making her feel safe and alive again. Then late one night, Iris hears a chilling cry for help coming from a walkie-talkie buried in a box of toys.