While I was familiar with the opioid crisis in Appalachia, this book brought home the bleakness and tedium that led to it. I sometimes steer away from books that I know will be depressing, but this one is well worth the effort. It builds a prison world and makes us care about the people in it.
Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.
In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends. 'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster…
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND A GOODREADS TOP THRILLER OF 2026 'A family vacation turns unspeakably grim. I relished every page' SHARI LAPENA 'Cancel your plans, you won't be able to put this one down' CHRIS WHITAKER 'A gripping thrill-ride with razor-sharp tension and a whiplash ending' JENEVA ROSE
A stunning discovery Courtney Gray's family vacation is shattered when she hears a scream from the lakeside cottage next door. There she finds the bodies of her brother and sister-in-law. Their teenage daughter Reese is nowhere to be found, and their son Wyatt lies asleep upstairs.
I loved the way the story peeled back in layers. As you followed the plot on this isolated island, you learned more and more about the disastrous world beyond.
A family on a remote island. A mysterious woman washed ashore. A rising storm on the horizon.
Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world's largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has…
After being questioned about her lover's murder, Riley Masterson has spent eighteen months under suspicion by the sheriff’s office. Anxious to escape accusing eyes, she decides to leave Alabama and move to South Carolina.
But Greenbrier isn’t the stabilizing influence she hopes for, as her neighborhood is quickly being gentrified. As Riley struggles to forge a new life, forces are gathering in the tension-plagued neighborhood where glitzy new homes rise beside crumbling mill houses and homeless people live in the shadows of mansions.
When a ghastly crime occurs, an unexpected victim is caught in the crossfire. Detectives are left to ponder: Are the deaths personal or the result of rich and poor living in such proximity? And will newcomer Riley take the blame, as someone has meticulously planned?
