Southern Fiction Thrillers

Welcome to Lemon Bliss, Louisiana, where an abandoned lemon tea factory is the most happening place in town and witches secretly rule the roost. Violet Broussard gets called back to the hometown she left in the dust when a dead body is found in the abandoned factory bequeathed to her by her grandmother. Violet has plans, and they most definitely don't involve staying in Lemon Bliss any longer than necessary. The town is mostly famous for its lemon tea infused with enough alcohol to make one experience bliss, hence the town's name. Yet, once she's there, things get a tad wacky.

Lila Grace Carter talks to dead people. Admittedly, that's not out of the ordinary in Lockhart, South Carolina. In her words, "I'm Southern. We all talk to dead people down here. As a matter of fact, I don't believe I can truly trust anybody that doesn't speak to at least two or three dead relations on a daily basis. The difference is, they talk back to me." Now there's a murderer on the loose in Lockhart, and Lila Grace is the only one who knows a crime was committed. Can she convince the sexy sheriff that Jenny Miller didn't fall down the steps on her own? Will she catch the killer?

An old mystery lingers in the neighborhood. No one ever forgets the forever loss of a child. JoBeth has come back to her hometown to close up the family home place and get it ready for the new owners. Mama and Grandma have left behind an old travel trunk filled with obscure memorabilia, but no answers to that single most important question. Growing up in a small southern town in a tight-knit post-war neighborhood was nearly idyllic for JoBeth and Billy, until Petey Vanished!

Joe McGinniss Jr., who is “poised to become one of our sharpest observers of life in America at the start of the twenty-first century” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), returns with a gripping, psychologically intense literary thriller about the unraveling of a modern marriage in the midst...

A novel of psychological suspense about an idyllic community rocked by a serial killer—and a dark secret. “A stellar achievement, a book that unspools like a dark-toned movie in the reader’s mind.”—The Wall Street Journal (One of the Best Mysteries of the Year) Detective Ben Wade has...

Within the deep woods of rural Alabama, along the forgotten southern course of the Black Warrior River, lies an unseen world long feared by the residents of the tiny town of Carlsdale. Down through the centuries, few people have survived a visit to this hidden place long enough to talk about it. Among these fortunate souls is Jack Kenney. Thirteen years old at the time of the event, Jack and his family were forced to flee Carlsdale in the aftermath and head north to the larger city of Tuscaloosa. Mercifully, the menace from their former home left them in peace for nearly eight years.

For nearly a decade, twenty-nine-year-old Hudson Miller has made his living in the boxing ring, but a post-fight brawl threatens to derail his career. Desperate for money, Hudson takes a gig as a bouncer at a dive bar. That’s when life delivers him another hook to the jaw: his estranged father, Leland, has been murdered in what appears to be a robbery-gone-bad at his salvage yard, Miller’s Pull-a-Part.

Private investigator, Gideon Baker, is on the trail of a missing husband. A tip about the man’s car sends him to the Savoie Salvage yard in steamy southern Louisiana, but the owner is dead and his daughter, Jessica, is trying to sort out the mess her father left behind. Jessica would rather be anywhere than dealing with the debris left behind by the father she never met. Gideon and Jessica strike sparks—the good kind—as they find themselves following a trail of murder, betrayal, and classic cars. Can they survive the Louisiana heat and the gunshots long enough to fall in love?

Southern California is where dreams come true—or so Scarlett Gardner thought. When she moved there and opened the Palm Trees and Page Turners bookshop, she thought her boyfriend and business partner would be part of the story. When he leaves her for a better job, Scarlett finds herself struggling to keep her new business afloat. And that’s not the only thing she has to worry about—she discovers something underneath the pier by her bookshop that she didn’t outline for her life’s story: the dead body of a book-buying customer.

Attorney Avery Andrews has returned to her humdrum hometown of Dacus, South Carolina, leaving her job at a powerful law firm in the rearview mirror. But with her Donna Karan suits she's struggling to fit back in. Is it still a place she's able to call home now that she's swapped her prestigious clients for high school bullies and formidable aunts? She finds sanctuary in her grandfather's cabin on Luna Lake until police arrive to investigate a mysterious rumor. But more than secrets lie beneath the dark surface of Luna Lake.

After striking out on her own as a teen mom, Madi Price is forced to return to her hometown of Brandywine, Virginia, with her seventeen-year-old daughter. With nothing to her name, she scrapes together a living as a palm reader at the local farmers market. It’s there that she connects with old high school flame Henry McCabe, now a reclusive local fisherman whose infant son, Skyler, went missing five years ago. Everyone in town is sure Skyler is dead, but when Madi reads Henry’s palm, she’s haunted by strange and disturbing visions that suggest otherwise.

Old wars, new battles. Fighting ghosts, witches, and curses is nothing new for Max and Sandra Porter. But when a Civil War ghost gets tethered to their teenage son, J, everything is new. And terrifying. With the help of their partner and ghost, Marshall Drummond, the team will be up against serious and deadly problems - dealing with the head witch of North Carolina, raising ancient bones from the bottom of lake, breaking forgotten curses, and far more. But worse than that, they will have to face the most difficult challenge of all - J starts dating.

Not the typical spy murder mystery, Southern Cross is a unique tale of double agents, espionage, revenge, and murder leading investigators from a morgue in Manhattan to the SS Southern Cross, a passenger liner sailing from New York to Cuba. Forced to use limited resources, a doctor from San Francisco and a young Paris police inspector scramble to uncover a vicious murderer before another passenger is killed, and before the ship docks in Havana and 500 travelers flood the pier.

Things are finally looking up for Sarah Blair following her unsavory divorce. Settled into a cozy carriage house with her sassy Siamese cat, RahRah, she has somehow managed to hang on to her modest law firm receptionist job and - if befriending flea-bitten strays at the local animal shelter counts - lead a thriving social life. For once, Sarah almost has it together more than her enterprising twin, Emily, a professional chef whose efforts to open a gourmet restaurant have hit a real dead end. The president of the town bank and city council is murdered after icing Emily's business.

It's early October - time for the Fall Folk Art Festival and Bake Sale in Lilyvale, Arkansas. Every business along the town square will benefit from the event, including the craft store run by Leslee Stanton Nix - a.k.a. Nixy - and the Silver Six, a group of retirees. In charge of making the festival go smoothly, Nixy is confident that it will be a success.

Leslee Stanton Nix-a.k.a. "Nixy" - thought moving to small-town Lilyvale, Arkansas, would be about as thrilling as watching paint dry. But keeping up with her retired Aunt Sherry and her troublemaking housemates - collectively known as the Silver Six - has proven to be as exciting as it is exasperating. To kick off the grand opening of their craft shop, the Handcraft Emporium, Nixy and the Silver Six invite Doralee Gordon to teach a gourd painting class.

After seven months laying low in Ocean Beach, California, Seattle PI Leo Waterman has finally stopped looking over his shoulder - specifically, for the vengeful band of Washington white supremacists who blame Leo for blindsiding their big plans for America. Where better to disappear with his bodyguard, Gabe, than this laid-back stretch of San Diego heaven? But when Leo finds a boy’s body on the beach, he comes out of hiding to investigate.

Crime is a rarity in the small town of Wyattsville, so when one occurs it is headline news. Grocery store owner Sidney Klaussner, shot in the course of the robbery, is lying in the hospital unconscious. In the room across from him the young man assumed to be the shooter. Although no one knows the truth of what happened inside that store, Sidney's wife is determined to see the boy punished. The lad's only hope is his sister Jubilee. She knows whey he was there but is anyone going to believe a seven-year-old?

Legal investigator Finley O’Sullivan has dealt with her share of shady characters, but the firm’s latest client has an even darker past than most. In fact, Nashville Metro Police seems to think he’s a murderer. Finley isn’t so sure. Her investigation into Ray Johnson’s history focuses on the unsolved murder of a teenager who died thirteen years earlier. The case went cold, but questions remain. After the girl’s death, people close to her started disappearing—Ray’s brother first, then the girl’s mother. But why?

Marci thinks mouthwatering pastries are just what her small Southern hometown needs. Most residents agree, saying that her baked goods are magical, creating love and good fortune all over town. When Kelly Lowry is shot in front of the shop, it gives the pastries a new meaning behind “to die for.” Who killed her, and why was her murder followed by a strange Frenchman’s appearance? When Antoine Dubois wanders into her quaint shop, Marci is smitten immediately. But soon, more questions arise than answers: How did Antoine end up in Kentucky? And what was his connection to the dead woman?