Southern Thrillers

Bopped on the head from a falling plastic Santa, local undertaker Emma Lee Raines is told she's suffering from "funeral trauma." It's trauma all right, because the not-so-dearly departed keep talking to her. Take Ruthie Sue Payne - innkeeper, gossip queen, and arch-nemesis of Emma Lee's granny - she's adamant that she didn't just fall down those stairs. She was pushed. Ruthie has no idea who wanted her pushing up daisies, but she can't cross over until the matter is laid to eternal rest. Emma Lee's high-school crush, Sheriff Jack Henry Ross, isn't ready to rule out foul play.

A Paris icon in flames. A conspiracy in the Church. Can this determined explorer survive the search for a hidden history? Renowned archaeologist Darwin Lacroix remains obsessed, proving his theory that Roman’s used lava tubes. But he’s interrupted by the Pope, who personally requests Darwin’s help to retrieve a codex stolen from the Pontiff’s private vault. Discovering that the cryptic text points to the long-sought Knights Templar treasure, he realizes a mysterious cave may also solve his own puzzle. As he digs up a trail of ancient connections, he’s shocked to learn the true ...

Family meant everything to Ayden Stratton. It always had even when he didn’t always allow it to show. Because of that, he understood the fury in Tobias Blaise’s eyes when they learned that his sister had been dragged out the backdoor of her restaurant despite every effort to stop her from being kidnapped. Fury didn’t begin to describe what he saw in his brother’s face. Cassidy Blaise might be Tobias’s sister, but she was Benjamin’s entire world. Tobias Blaise never expected to find any woman he wanted to spend his life with, let alone one who looked at him the way Ellis did, ...

Women’s rights activist, Lynn Cummings, switches up churches like shoes. As soon as her anointing is exposed, she runs – that is, until she finds a pew at First Baptist Church, where Lynn is anchored by the wiles of the debonair Pastor Stewart. Lynn, becomes the woman on Stewart’s arm, and with that, becomes the target of women who are always up in Pastor Stewart’s face, namely, his quote-unquote friend Bianca, the skin-bleaching, man-worshipping teen choir director who’ll stop at nothing to become Stewart’s first lady. Even Nay, the wife of Stewart’s right hand man, Associate...

There are two days until Christmas. Bob Ashworth, a young associate attorney at the Haunted Law firm, and his wife Samantha are on their way to spend the holiday with Big Jim Tompkins, one of the firm’s major clients, at the Tompkins mansion deep in the North Carolina mountains. In the meantime, Mitch and Diana McCaffrey and Diana’s sons are preparing to celebrate Christmas with their friends Ben Callahan and Alyssa McCormick, a couple of mountain ridges over from the Tompkins place. The most severe snowstorm in thirty years is moving in. The quiet holiday takes an unexpected turn when ...

A haunted call. A decaying mansion. A darkness that refuses to die. Father Gomez has spent years battling the supernatural, but nothing prepares him for the chilling summons that draws him to Belle Palm—a once-grand Louisiana estate shrouded in secrets and shadow. Joined by his loyal partners, Hibbs and Dr. Ling, Gomez is thrust into a labyrinth of ghostly apparitions, cryptic symbols, and a haunting that defies all reason. As the team delves deeper into the mansion’s history, reality itself begins to unravel. Sinister forces stalk the halls, trust frays, and the boundary between past ...

Pepper Dunn’s life couldn’t be more perfect. In a few short weeks she’s set to marry the man of her dreams, Axel Reign. All she has to do is tick a few more boxes and the wedding will be on. When her cousin Cordelia introduces Pepper to a wishing stone that can alter reality, Pepper doesn’t think much of it. But when she and her cousins each make a wish out of frustration, they are thrown quite literally into a very different Magnolia Cove. In this Magnolia Cove, Pepper’s life is completely different. Everything she knows to be true is false, and her world is upside down.

The Akashic Noir series’ forensic study of Southern California sharpens its focus on one of Los Angeles’ most recognized neighborhoods.

Thirteen-year-old Loyal Raines is supposed to stay close to home on a hot summer day in 1934. When he slips away for a quick swim in the river and finds a dead body, he wishes he'd obeyed his mother. The ripples caused by his discovery will impact the town of Beverly, West Virginia, in ways no one could have imagined.

A young boy dying of a lethal disease... A corporation's greed is the cause... Avery Collins must get justice and possibly find the person who can save his life... Avery Collins, social justice warrior, has a new case, only it's not a criminal case. Not yet, anyway. 7 year old Frankie Jamison is dying, and nobody quite knows why. Avery knows Frankie through Regina, as Frankie is the son of Lorinda, one of Regina's best friends from the street. Lorinda has nothing in her life, nothing but her young son, and now she's losing even that. With nobody to turn to, Lorinda tells Avery her story...

Vera Boyett is a master at cracking a case. After tragedy destroyed her career as deputy police chief, she felt lost. Moving back home near her sisters, she put her skills back to use as a crime analyst, and now her star is finally back on the rise. Vera’s work really begins to heat up after the local sheriff, Gray “Bent” Benton, calls to ask her for assistance with a pressing case. Pushing aside their complicated past, Vera agrees to help Bent search for a missing reporter.

Keith Michaels sits on Georgia's death row convicted of the brutal murder of the wife of an Atlanta dentist-a crime he did not commit. Keith's sister Diane is determined to see her brother freed and hires the Atkinson Detective Agency to find evidence that Keith did not commit the crime. Mike and Linda Atkinson, along with Linda's brother Tommy Cevilli set out to disprove the overwhelming evidence that led to Keith's conviction. Their search leads them to the actual brutal killer and more of his heinous crimes, but he is determined to not have his crimes uncovered and is willing to do ...

Meet Jane. Newly arrived to Birmingham, Alabama, Jane is a broke dog-walker in Thornfield Estates—a gated community full of McMansions, shiny SUVs, and bored housewives. The kind of place where no one will notice if Jane lifts the discarded tchotchkes and jewelry off the side tables of her well-heeled clients. Where no one will think to ask if Jane is her real name. But her luck changes when she meets Eddie Rochester. Recently widowed, Eddie is Thornfield Estates’ most mysterious resident.

Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. But after years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface. Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes.

When Charity Penn receives a letter saying she won a trip to Camellia Beach, South Carolina, complete with free cooking lessons at the town's seaside chocolate shop, The Chocolate Box, she's immediately skeptical. She never entered any contest. Her former prep school friend offers to look into the phony prize - only to end up drowned in a vat of chocolate. Struck with guilt, Penn heads to the southern beach town to investigate why he was killed.

When former prosecutor Penn Cage returns to his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi, he doesn't find the peace he desperately craves. He finds that his own father is being blackmailed by a corrupt ex-cop. And when Penn investigates, he uncovers a murderous secret - and the small town's violent past.

An upcoming election shakes up Honeysuckle. When an outspoken resident who opposes the changes to the magical small Southern town turns up dead, it's up to Charli Goodwin and her special talents to get on the case, except her valuable magic doesn't seem to be working. What starts as a simple search uncovers a darker layer of manipulation and sabotage. Will Charli be able to figure out who is pulling the strings before the foundations of the town are destroyed?

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?

With this critically acclaimed debut collection, Frank Bill announces himself as an author of fiercely defined vision. In these vivid tales, Bill’s southern Indiana proves a literary destination of immense nuance, even as his mostly working-class characters cry out in voices that cannot be denied.

For 30 years, a secret agency called the Southern Reach has monitored expeditions into Area X - a remote and mysterious place that's sequestered from civilization. After the twelfth 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 200 hours of profoundly troubling video footage, the secrets of Area X begin to reveal themselves - and what they expose pushes Control to confront truths about both himself and the agency he's promised to serve.