Netgalley picks of the week | 12th – 19th February

Hello everyone! Here is my latest Netgalley picks blog post.

OK, so after bragging about how good I was at getting this post out on time last week, here I am, publishing this on the wrong day again! Monday was a super busy day for me, work was manic, I had a very short lunch break, and then I needed to sort out my tyre pressure, which I’d never done before so had to wait for my mum to come to the garage and show me what the hell I was doing lol, and then we went food shopping and I didn’t get home until 8! By that point in the evening, all I wanted to do was snuggle up in bed and read, so that’s what I did!

Anyway, enough of the excuses! I have the blog post for you now!

{CLICK ON THE PICTURES TO BE TAKEN TO THE NETGALLEY PAGE}

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Title: Worth Killing For

Author: Jane Haseldine

Synopsis: The past never really leaves us. Crime reporter Julia Gooden sees proof of this every day in her stories. A dark childhood, a negligent parent, early abandonment—any one of them can seal a person’s fate as either a villain or victim. Julia, who experienced all three, seems to have beaten the odds, finding happiness raising her two sons and a blossoming relationship with detective Raymond Navarro.

But now, after three decades of absence, Julia’s conman father has resurfaced to throw her life into turmoil again. Julia was only seven when Duke Gooden abruptly left. Barely a month later, her nine-year-old brother, Ben, disappeared. Ben was her hero and protector, and though the case is cold, Julia has never given up hope of finding him. Duke’s return offers vital clues—but it also makes her a target of those who intend to see Duke punished for his many sins.

When Julia investigates the death of a city councilman’s young nephew, she finds links to a string of other murders . . . and to a web of greed and kidnapping that stretches back decades. At long last, Julia may be able to discover what happened to Ben all those years ago, but only if she’s willing to risk everything in her present . .

Genre: mystery & thrillers

Publisher: Kensington Books

Publishing: 27 Mar 2018

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Title: I Know Where You Live

Author: Pat Young

Synopsis: Penny believes she’s being watched. Yet no one should know where she lives.

Penny seizes the chance of a new life for her family when her husband is offered a job in Europe.

At the airport they meet charming Sophie, fluent in French and looking for work as an au pair. Penny, struggling to cope in France, offers Sophie a job and she soon becomes an important part of the family’s life. But Sophie is hiding something.

Then Penny’s toddler son, Ethan, is abducted and an international hunt for the child begins. The police beg Penny and her husband to take part in a television appeal but the couple refuse. Unknown to the police, Penny and Seth have new identities and are determined to lay low and protect them. But it may be too late for that.

Who has taken Ethan and why?

Are the couple’s true identities linked to the abduction?

And who has been watching them?

To save her son Penny may have to put her own life on the line.

Genre: mystery & thrillers

Publisher: Bloodhound Books

Publishing: 01 Mar 2018

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Title: In the Vines

Author: Shannon Kirk

Synopsis: Family ties so strong you can’t escape…

Mary Olivia Pentecost, known as Mop, was born into one of the wealthiest families in the country—and one of the most guarded. Now, two years after her mother’s mysterious death, Mop is seeking closure on the disquieting tragedy by returning to the New England seaside estate of her cloistered Aunty Liv—once her closest relative and confidante.

But behind the walls of the isolated estate, the shadows of the past are darker than Mop imagined. The puzzles of the family history are not to be shared, but unearthed. With each revelation comes a new, foreboding threat—and for Mop, the grave suspicion that to discover Aunty Liv’s secrets is to become a prisoner of them.

How well do we know the people we love? How well do we want to know them?

Genre: mystery & thrillers

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

Publishing: 17 Jul 2018

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Title: The Choice

Author: Jake Cross

Synopsis: ‘You’ve got to help me,’ she pleads.

On a wet road in the black of night, Karl Seabury is driving home to his pregnant wife. Suddenly, caught in his headlights in the middle of the road is a woman shaking with fright.

The woman says her name is Liz Smith, that her home was attacked, and that she was the only one to escape.

In a split-second decision, Karl decides to help her to safety. But can he really trust her? Or has he put his family in danger?

Genre: mystery & thrillers

Publisher: Bookouture

Publishing: 23 Mar 2018

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Title: Jar of Hearts

Author: Jennifer Hillier

Synopsis: This is story of three best friends: one who was murdered, one who went to prison, and one who’s been searching for the truth all these years . . .

When she was sixteen years old, Angela Wong—one of the most popular girls in school—disappeared without a trace. Nobody ever suspected that her best friend, Georgina Shaw, now an executive and rising star at her Seattle pharmaceutical company, was involved in any way. Certainly not Kaiser Brody, who was close with both girls back in high school.

But fourteen years later, Angela Wong’s remains are discovered in the woods near Geo’s childhood home. And Kaiser—now a detective with Seattle PD—finally learns the truth: Angela was a victim of Calvin James. The same Calvin James who murdered at least three other women.

To the authorities, Calvin is a serial killer. But to Geo, he’s something else entirely. Back in high school, Calvin was Geo’s first love. Turbulent and often volatile, their relationship bordered on obsession from the moment they met right up until the night Angela was killed.

For fourteen years, Geo knew what happened to Angela and told no one. For fourteen years, she carried the secret of Angela’s death until Geo was arrested and sent to prison.

While everyone thinks they finally know the truth, there are dark secrets buried deep. And what happened that fateful night is more complex and more chilling than anyone really knows. Now the obsessive past catches up with the deadly present when new bodies begin to turn up, killed in the exact same manner as Angela Wong.

How far will someone go to bury her secrets and hide her grief? How long can you get away with a lie? How long can you live with it?

Genre: mystery & thrillers

Publisher: Minatour Books

Publishing: 12 Jun 2018

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Title: The Last Mrs Parrish

Author: Liv Constantine

Synopsis: How far would you go to make all your dreams come true?

Amber Patterson is tired of being a nobody: a plain, invisible woman who melts into the background. She deserves more. She deserves a life of wealth, luxury and leisure.

Daphne Parrish is golden girl of the exclusive town of Bishops Harbor, Connecticut. With her modelesque looks, her picture-perfect mansion and her millionaire husband, Jackson, she has everything Amber has ever wanted.

Amber’s envy could eat her alive—if she didn’t have a plan. Gradually, Amber insinuates herself into the Parrish family’s life. Before long, she has become Daphne’s closest confidante, and is catching the eye of Jackson. But a skeleton from her past could undermine everything Amber has worked for, and if discovered, her well-laid plan may end in disaster…

Genre: mystery & thrillers

Publisher: HarperCollins

Publishing: 17 Oct 2017

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Title: The Darkest Time of Night

Author: Jeremy Finley

Synopsis: Anchor and investigative journalist for WSMV-TV in Nashville, Jeremy Finley’s debut thriller explores what happens to people’s lives when our world intersects with the unexplainable

When four-year-old William vanishes in the woods behind his home, the only witness is his older brother who whispers, “The lights took him,” and then never speaks again. With these words, the boys’ grandmother Lynn Roseworth fears only she knows the truth. But coming forward would ruin her family and her husband’s political career.

As Lynn and her best friend Roxy revisit the secrets of her long-buried past to find clues that will lead to William, they’ll get ensnared in a much larger conspiracy. The truth is hidden for a reason, and not even a grandmother’s love may be enough to save her grandson from what is coming for them all.

Author Jeremy Finley was inspired to write this story after interviewing so many families of missing people for stories and seeing how far people will go to try to find their loved ones. He combined this experience with that of his mother-in-law, who was a secretary in an astronomy department, like Lynn, for professors who researched UFOs and were featured in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”.

Genre: mystery & thrillers

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Publishing: 26 Jun 2018

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Title: Our Little Secret

Author: Roz Nay

Synopsis: They say you never forget your first love. What they don’t say though, is that sometimes your first love won’t forget you…

Angela Petitjean sits in a cold, dull room. The police have been interrogating her for hours, asking about Saskia Parker. She’s the wife of Angela’s high school sweetheart, HP, and the mother of his child. She has vanished. Homicide Detective J. Novak believes Angela knows what happened to Saskia. He wants the truth, and he wants it now.

But Angela has a different story to tell. It began more than a decade ago when she and HP met in high school in Cove, Vermont. She was an awkward, shy teenager. He was a popular athlete. They became friends, fell in love, and dated senior year. Everything changed when Angela went to college. When time and distance separated them. When Saskia entered the picture.

That was eight years ago. HP foolishly married a drama queen and Angela moved on with her life. Whatever marital rift caused Saskia to leave her husband has nothing to do with Angela. Nothing at all. Detective Novak needs to stop asking questions and listen to what Angela is telling him. And once he understands everything, he’ll have the truth he so desperately wants…

Genre: general fiction

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Publishing: 17 Apr 2018

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Title: A Deal with The Devil

Author: Blake Ellis & Melanie Hicken

Synopsis: While investigating financial crimes for CNN Money, Blake Ellis and Melanie Hicken were intrigued by reports that elderly Americans were giving away thousands of dollars to mail-in schemes. With a little digging, they soon discovered a shocking true story.

Victims received personalized letters from a woman who, claiming amazing psychic powers, convinced them to send money in return for riches, good health, and good fortune. The predatory scam has continued unabated for decades, raking in more than $200 million in the United States and Canada alone—with investigators from all over the world unable to stop it. And at the center of it all—an elusive French psychic named Maria Duval.

Genre: true crime

Publisher: Atria Books

Publishing: 07 Aug 2018

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Title: The Manson Women and Me

Author: Nikki Meredith

Synopsis: In the summer of 1969, Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel carried out horrific acts of butchery on the orders of the charismatic cult leader Charles Manson. At their murder trial the following year, lead prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi described the two so-called Manson Women as “human monsters.” But to anyone who knew them growing up, they were bright, promising girls, seemingly incapable of such an unfathomable crime.

Award-winning journalist Nikki Meredith began visiting Van Houten and Krenwinkel in prison to discover how they had changed during their incarceration. The more Meredith got to know them, the more she was lured into a deeper dilemma: What compels “normal” people to do unspeakable things?

Genre: nonfiction, true crime

Publisher: Kensington Books

Publishing: 27 Mar 2017

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That’s it for this week everyone! Sorry again that this is late!

Have you requested any of these books, or now plan to? I’d love to hear your thoughts