Showing results by author "Susan Lewis" in All Categories

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. The plains of the American Mid-West are home to some very fine exponents of the literary craft. Throughout this vast landscape stories seem to be everywhere offering their experiences as works just awaiting the final touches and flourishes of these famed authors. They deliver in very talented ways.

Maggie Newberry is an advertising copywriter who’s fast on her feet and a little stunned to realize that she’s over 30 and still hasn’t found true love. When her missing sister ends up dead, Maggie flies to the south of France to find the little niece that no one in the family even knew existed. Along the way, she finds handsome, sexy Frenchman Laurent Dernier to help search for the girl. Meanwhile, her sister’s murderer sets his sights on the little girl - and Maggie.

Alex Lake’s day job is all about helping people, especially children. She cares about them passionately and does everything in her power to rescue them from those who mean them harm. When the case of three-year-old Ottilie Wade comes to her attention, Alex finds herself completely unable to detach from the child the way she should. She feels an overpowering need to make a real difference in little Ottilie’s life, but no one is prepared to believe that Ottilie is in danger.

Christy Ward is the lead producer of Hindsight, a true crime podcast, and she has stumbled across an unresolved triple murder case that will make the perfect next feature. Sixteen years ago, the police were convinced that they had found their killer. But the case was unexpectedly shut down, it never went to trial and their main suspect walked free. Will Christy and her team be able to solve the case, or will they be silenced too....

High-flying lawyer Jay Wells has it all. A successful career, loving husband Tom and a family she adores. But one case - and one client - will put all that at risk. Edward Blake. An ordinary life turned upside down - or a man who quietly watched television while his wife was murdered upstairs? With more questions than answers and a case too knotted to unravel, Jay suspects he’s protecting someone. Then she comes home one day and her husband utters the words no-one ever wants to hear: sit down...because I've got something to tell you.

A fresh start where no-one knows her name is exactly what Catie is looking for from her Sicilian escape. When Catie meets handsome Giancarlo, she has stumbled across a love that could last forever... If only she can admit the truth about her past. But the scars of betrayal from her broken marriage and fragile family are only part of the story.

The first chapter of a manuscript arrives on Publisher Marina’s desk. She assumes it’s just another novel by another aspiring writer. As the chapters arrive one by one, Marina is convinced they are about her past. There’s only one person who can know everything about the scandal, the trial, and the trauma that nearly broke her. This is one story that should never be told, and Marina is so desperate she will do anything to stop it getting out.

Joely tells other people’s secrets for a living. As a ghost writer, she’s used to scandal—but this just might be her strangest assignment yet. Freda has never told her story to anyone before. But now she’s ready to set the record straight and right a wrong that’s haunted her for forty years. Freda’s memoir begins with a fifteen-year-old girl falling madly in love with her male teacher. As Joely sets out to write this troubling love story, she is spun into a world of secrets and lies, causing her to question everything she thought she knew about her own family.

Maggie Newberry reluctantly tries on the expatriate life with her boyfriend Laurent in a small village in Provence. The beautiful and ancient mas that she and Laurent move into has a terrible and bloody history which is brought dramatically into the present by the murder of one of their friends. When a surprise clue indicates they may be connected, Maggie is determined to solve both the 1945 murder and the new one.

Some say that Saint-Rémy-de-Provence is the most beautiful village in all of France. That’s especially true at Christmastime, when the scent of baked gingerbread mingles with the fragrance of evergreen boughs and wafts deliciously through the village’s quaint cobblestone lanes. It’s hard to believe anything sinister could be waiting in any of its many charming streets and alleyways.

When the dead body of one of Marseille’s most corrupt politicians is found stuffed in Maggie’s car trunk, it creates a bubbling stew of deception, betrayal, and revenge. Is there a connection between the victim and Maggie? Her family? Or is this a message for Laurent as a result of his nefarious history of crime and misdeeds? Even worse, a devastating family secret that Laurent and Maggie have spent the last 12 years hiding is shockingly revealed to the world, putting everything they have - as well as everyone they love - in immediate jeopardy.

Growing up in a small town, Sandy Paull dreams of something better. When she lands a job with one of London's leading theatrical agencies, her dreams appear to be coming true, particularly when she meets Michael McCann, her handsome and dynamic boss. Ellen Shelby, as a highly respected and successful agent, has Hollywood at her feet. But she is as insecure with relationships as she is confident with deals. And when she meets her British rival, Michael McCann, there is a powerful attraction between them that they are powerless to deny.

It's an early autumn day like any other as Miles Avery drives his wife, Jacqueline, to the station. Nothing remarkable crops up in conversation, nor do either of them appear anything other than their normal selves. At the station, Jacqueline gets out, takes an overnight bag from the back seat, then turns towards the platforms. This is the last anyone sees of her. Three weeks later, Miles calls the police. Enquiries are made, but there is no evidence of her boarding a train, or even entering the station.

Things can get pretty dark in the City of Light. Claire Baskerville is a 60-something American who finds herself alone in Paris when her husband is brutally murdered. Reeling from the onslaught of devastating secrets he left behind Claire is stunned to realize she no longer knows who to trust. She only knows she can’t move forward until she finds out the truth behind who killed her husband. Unfortunately, the closer she gets to the truth, the more determined that killer is to make sure she never leaves Paris alive.

When a popular actress is killed during Avignon's famous summer theater festival, all the evidence points to the police needing a fast resolution - regardless of the truth. It will be up to Maggie to find the killer who wanted the city’s most popular actress dead - and before he turns his attention on her. As Maggie desperately scours this beautiful medieval city for clues to uncover the killer's identity it soon becomes clear that failing will put her center stage with her most ruthless adversary yet - with the final curtain about to come crashing down on everything she holds dear.

Jeannie Symonds is a force to be reckoned with—an eccentric award-winning publisher, spending lockdown with her husband in a house near Kesterly-on-Sea. She seems to have it all: a high-flying career, a happy marriage, a niece she adores. And then one day, she vanishes. Cara Jakes is a new trainee investigator—young, intelligent and eager to prove herself. When she teams up with detective Andee Lawrence to look into the disappearance, she is determined to find out what has really happened to Jeannie.

A fun family vacation turns into an apocalyptic nightmare when a couple and their young son find themselves trapped in the Irish countryside during an international crisis. With all contact outside the country gone, all electricity and all non-horse-powered vehicles useless, and desperate bands of outlaws roaming the Emerald Isle, the time has come for one soft American family to reach deep within for the reserve of brains and courage to survive.

Tragedy strikes the three Americans when Sarah Woodson is brutally taken from her home in Ireland - across the Irish Sea to the pastoral beauty of England’s Cotswold’s - and the horrors of a post-apocalyptic sex slave trade. Determined to escape her captors - including a monster who’s vowed never to let her leave England alive - and to survive the impossible journey of a thousand miles through the harsh Welsh wilderness, Sarah uses every resource she has to find her way home again.

Claire Baskerville is a "woman of a certain age" trying to make a new life for herself in the City of Light. When one of her clients - the owner of a popular expat bookstore - ends up brutally murdered in his bookstore, Claire finds herself in the hot seat. Working with a handsome police detective who was once her sworn enemy, Claire will need to find her client’s killer, while keeping herself out of jail and at the same time not become the killer’s next victim.

When Alicia Carlyle returns to the home of her childhood after the tragic death of her husband, she is hoping to put the past behind her. But first she must come face to face with the woman who nearly destroyed her marriage and tore her family in two - her sister-in-law, Sabrina. Their enmity runs deep, but Alicia is determined to make a fresh start for herself and her two children, Nathan and Darcie, and to heal her fractured relationship with her beloved brother.