The annual fall party on Silent Ridge Road is supposed to be a celebration of community—an entire day of drinking cider, sharing laughs, and forgetting any tension that's been simmering beneath the surface all year. But beneath the festive décor, polite smiles, and pumpkin-spiced charm of this small-town block lies a tangled web of deceit, obsession, and death. The neighbors are hiding dangerous secrets.

Neighbors Gwen, Aimee, and Lisa share more than playdates and coffee mornings on their tranquil street in East Bethesda. They confide their deepest secrets, navigate the challenges of motherhood together, and provide a support system that seems unbreakable. But when Gwen's husband is found murdered after one of their weekly Friday night dinners, the peaceful quiet of their cul-de-sac shatters. The seemingly idyllic world of the three close-knit mom friends becomes a web of deception, betrayal, and revenge.

Blake Porter is riding high, until he's not. Fired abruptly from his job as a VP of marketing and unable to make the mortgage payments on the new brownstone he shares with his fiancée, he's desperate to make ends meet. Enter Whitney. Beautiful, charming, down-to-earth, and looking for a room to rent. She's exactly what Blake's looking for. Or is she? Because something isn't quite right. The neighbors start treating Blake differently. The smell of decay permeates his home, no matter how hard he scrubs. Strange noises jar him awake in the middle of the night.

Liz Dawson weaves through a crowd with the ease of a tropical breeze; she’s clever, smooth, and confident—qualities that make her a brilliant serial con artist. Isabelle Beresford is strikingly beautiful, obscenely wealthy, and the new owner of Casa Esmerelda, a fabulous villa on the Mexican coast—attributes that make her the perfect mark. When she offers Liz a job handling the installation of a piece of art in her otherwise vacant home, Liz can’t resist the allure of a beach retreat. But when Liz is mistaken for Isabelle herself, Liz can’t help slipping into the socialite’s identity.

After the unexpected death of her father, college student Jane Sharp longs for a distraction from her grief. She becomes obsessed with true crime, befriending armchair detectives who teach her how to hunt killers from afar. In this morbid internet underground, Jane finds friendship, purpose, and even glory . . .So when news of the shocking deaths of three college girls in Delphine, Idaho, takes the world by storm, and sleuths everywhere race to solve the crimes, Jane and her friends are determined to beat them.

I blink awake to the sound of whispering, and look around. Automatically, I do a count. And then I am upright, my heart racing. I count again. “Girls,” I say, trying to sound calm. “Did you see Evie?” It was meant to be a celebration. A team sleepover in the school gymnasium: movies, pizza, hot chocolate. I walk among the girls, checking they’re ok. They collect in groups and giggle, play truth or dare.

Caroline twitches aside her curtains to see the new family moving in. A mother – beautifully dressed in expensive clothes – and two young children. Where is her husband, she wonders? And why are they moving in to the smallest house on the street? They really don’t seem the type. But Caroline believes it’s important to be welcoming. It’s important to know everything that’s happening on West Street.

Charlotte Kane has always dreamed of a different life, one where she isn’t living paycheck to paycheck. An existence worlds away from the chaos of her own. Then her estranged mother dies, and Charlotte makes a stunning discovery—she has an identical twin who was given up for adoption. Acelynn Benedict is polished, successful and seems to have everything Charlotte yearns for—a wealthy, doting family in Savannah, a handsome boyfriend, a great career. She’s just as surprised as Charlotte to learn she has a sister.

In Mother River, Can Xue, one of China's most daring and visionary writers, invites us into a surreal landscape where reality is as fluid as a river itself. This collection of thirteen stories weaves together vivid, dreamlike narratives that challenge our perceptions of time, identity, and existence.

When former beauty pageant queen Sage Miller leaves her life in New York City for a quiet life in the suburbs down South, she thinks she has finally found solace from her dark past riddled with bad habits. Sage, now married and a stay-at-home mom of two, is learning that you can have it all… just not at the same time and not unless you get creative. Replacing her tiara with a messy bun and late-night parties with rocking her young children to sleep, her new life behind a white picket fence seems like the cleanest place to hide her dirtiest secrets.

St. Petersburg, Florida, 1944. Thelma Miles can’t stand injustice. Broke and orphaned near the close of WWII, when the 18-year-old lands a coveted spot on the Florida Girls war bond tour, she believes she's escaped her criminal past. Until she discovers she's stepped into the mafia's lair.

One year after the death of his beloved musician father, thirteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house—a sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament, a piece of wilted lettuce. Although Benny doesn't understand what these things are saying, he can sense their emotional tone; some are pleasant, a gentle hum or coo, but others are snide, angry and full of pain. When his mother, Annabelle, develops a hoarding problem, the voices grow more clamorous.

Sabine and Rory Sugar seem like a perfectly respectable family to their new neighbours. They’re popular and friendly, their two teenage boys quiet and courteous. But when Rory starts staying late at work, and Sabine thinks she sees her son, Leo, in the woods apparently fighting with a girl, their seemingly perfect lives start to fall apart. And when the girl is reported missing and the police turn up asking awkward questions, Sabine must decide whether to lie to protect her son, or risk Leo being arrested on suspicion of abduction.

Portia Willows was a senior in high school in Los Angeles when her world fell apart. While dealing with the aftermath of the accident that took the lives of her mother and sister, she finds herself forced to face her own memory – which may not be quite what it seems. But Portia suffers from severe social anxiety disorder that prevented her from having any sort of life, while her little sister, Piper, was her best, and only, friend. Now, five years later, Portia is forced to recall the events of the past while being questioned about a horrific crime she doesn’t remember.

At thirty-six, Katie Cope's life hasn't turned out the way she planned. She had big dreams of becoming an investigative journalist, but then her best friend from college disappeared. Claire was driving home for Thanksgiving and never made it. Her abandoned car was found at a trailhead in the Rockies, but she was never seen again. Now Katie's husband Howard has sold his San Diego business for more money than they ever dreamed. She's found a beautiful new housing development in the breathtaking wilderness of the Colorado mountains. It's just the fresh start we need, she tells him.

After recovering from a suicide attempt, Christa Kent comes home from the hospital to learn that her failed-writer husband Ben has been contacted by a young woman who claims to be his daughter by his first wife. Desperate to repair her marriage and get back to something resembling normal life, Christa agrees to let the girl visit to make her husband happy.

Jillian Harper thought moving to the quiet little town in Montana would be the fresh start her family needed. A charming farmhouse, friendly neighbors, and endless open fields—it was supposed to be perfect. Until the bodies are found. Buried deep on their land. Hidden for years. The police are everywhere. The town is whispering. And Tucker—her devoted husband—is acting . . . strange. He won’t tell her where he was all day. He won’t explain why his phone was off. And worst of all—he won’t meet her eyes.

Ivy Westcott fled LA as her acting career imploded. In a flash, she lost her first love and chosen family—her Hello, Juliet castmates. But she never discovered who turned her closest friends against her. Now the whole world knows her as #PoisonIvy. A decade later, Ivy is horrified when a celebrity exposé thrusts the Hello, Juliet cast back into the limelight, dredging up the old scandals she hoped to escape. Desperate for a fresh start and some financial stability for her mother and manager, Ivy agrees to participate in a top-secret reunion episode.

Jocelyn Banks has always felt like an outsider in the ballet world. She was raised in rural Louisiana, taught to scrap and hustle for the life she wanted. And ever since Jocelyn found ballet, she has been able to take her life into her own hands. After years of success at the North American Ballet, she is now on a hiatus to enjoy life in London. But in an instant, Jocelyn’s world is turned upside down and she’s forced find a way back into the ballet world. But the ballet scene in London is completely different from the one in America.

Death-shaped entities—with all of their humor and strangeness—haunt the twelve stories in Exit Zero. Vampires, ghost girls, fathers, blank spaces, day-old peaches, and famous paintings all pierce through their world into ours, reminding us to pay attention! and look alive! and offering many other flashes of wisdom from the oracle and author of Beautyland, Marie-Helene Bertino.