Showing results by author "Lisa Unger" in All Categories

Selena Murphy is commuting home on the train when she strikes up a conversation with a beautiful stranger in the next seat. The woman introduces herself as Martha and soon confesses that she’s been stuck in an affair with her boss. Selena, in turn, confesses that she suspects her husband is sleeping with the nanny. When the train arrives at Selena’s station, the two women part ways, presumably never to meet again.

She met him through a dating app. An intriguing picture on a screen, a date at a downtown bar. What she thought might be just a quick hookup quickly became much more. She fell for him - hard. It happens sometimes, a powerful connection with a perfect stranger takes you by surprise. Could it be love? But then, just as things were getting real, he stood her up. Then he disappeared - profiles deleted, phone disconnected. She was ghosted.

What could be more restful, more restorative, than a weekend getaway with family and friends? An isolated luxury cabin in the woods, complete with spectacular views, a hot tub and a personal chef. Hannah's loving and generous tech-mogul brother found the listing online. The reviews are stellar. It's his birthday gift to Hannah and includes their spouses and another couple. The six friends need this trip with good food, good company and lots of R & R, far from the chatter and pressures of modern life. But the dreamy weekend is about to turn into a nightmare. 

Lana Granger lives a life of lies. She has told so many lies about where she comes from and who she is that the truth is like a cloudy nightmare she can’t quite recall. About to graduate from college and with her trust fund almost tapped out, she takes a job babysitting a troubled boy named Luke. Expelled from schools all over the country, the manipulative young Luke is accustomed to controlling the people in his life. But, in Lana, he may have met his match. Or has Lana met hers?

If Ridley Jones had slept 10 minutes later or had taken the subway instead of waiting for a cab, she would still be living the beautiful lie she used to call her life. She would still be the privileged daughter of a doting father and a loving mother. Her life would still be perfect, with only the tiny cracks of an angry junkie for a brother and a charming drunk with shady underworld connections for an uncle to mar the otherwise flawless whole.

Everybody knows everybody in The Hollows, a quaint, charming town outside of New York City. As a child, Maggie found living under the microscope of small-town life stifling. But as a wife and mother, she has happily returned to The Hollows’s insular embrace. As a psychologist, her knowledge of family histories provides powerful insights into her patients’ lives. So when the girlfriend of her teenage son, Rick, disappears, Maggie’s intuitive gift proves useful to the case - and also dangerous.

The New York Times best-selling author of Beautiful Lies and Fragile returns to The Hollows, delivering a thriller that explores matters of faith, memory, and sacrifice. After giving up his post at the Hollows Police Department, Jones Cooper is at loose ends. He is having trouble facing a horrible event from his past and finding a second act. He’s in therapy. Then, on a brisk October morning, he has a visitor. Eloise Montgomery, the psychic who plays a key role in Fragile, comes to him with predictions about his future, some of them dire.

Isabel Raine thought she had everything - a successful career, a supportive family, and a happy marriage to the man she loved. Then one ordinary morning, her husband, Marcus, picks up his briefcase, kisses her good-bye, and simply vanishes. That day, all her calls to him go straight to voice mail; the messages she leaves at his office go unreturned, too. Panicking after finally receiving a call from his cell phone in which all she can hear is a man's terrified cry, Isabel calls the police.

In the final installment of her Lydia Strong series, best-selling author Lisa Unger, writing as Lisa Miscione, brings us her most shocking and emotionally wrenching case yet. An NYPD detective visits Lydia and her husband, P.I. Jeffrey Mark, to inform them that Lily, one of Lydia’s former writing students, has been missing for more than two weeks. Before she disappeared, Lily had tried to get in touch with Lydia, seeking her help. Could this have had something to do with the death of Lily’s brother, which Lily refused to accept as a suicide?

The childhood murder of Lydia Strong’s mother has turned her into a woman obsessed with bringing brutal killers to justice. The reclusive, best-selling true-crime writer and investigative consultant has made a life out of chasing monsters. And her powerful intuitions rarely fail her. When three adults - loners, drifters - go missing, no one seems to notice except for Lydia. Enlisting the help of her friend, former FBI agent Jeffrey Mark, Lydia starts an investigation of her own.

Is it a hoax, or is it something unspeakably real? In this short story about evil games and spiraling secrets, whatever bargain you strike, there’s a price to be paid. Mason Brandt dropped out of seminary and found a job at a spiritual center offering guidance to troubled teens. Mason was one himself years ago - a suspect in a young girl’s disappearance. When a female student is found murdered, Mason is dogged by suspicion and flees. He hopes Merle House will offer him sanctuary once again.

Acclaimed artist Julian Ross has just been found standing over her husband’s bloody corpse in their New York City apartment. Julian claims that she slept peacefully beside him while he was violently stabbed in their bed. But police are skeptical, especially since Julian’s first husband was killed and mutilated in exactly the same way. Julian turns to the tough-as-nails crime writer Lydia Strong, who plunges into the case with her signature grit and the help of her partner, P.I. Jeffrey Mark. Meanwhile, Lydia learns that Jed McIntyre, the serial killer who murdered her mother, is on the loose in New York.

When former journalist Rain Winter was 12 years old, she narrowly escaped an abduction while walking to a friend’s house. The abductor was eventually found and sent to prison, but years later was released. Then someone delivered real justice - and killed him in cold blood. Now Rain is living the perfect suburban life, spending her days as a stay-at-home mom. But when another criminal who escaped justice is found dead, Rain is unexpectedly drawn into the case.

Spanning from a mediocre spa in Florida, to New York’s gritty East Village, to death row in Alabama, this collection reveals boundless suspense in small, quiet moments, offering startling twists in the least likely of places. From a powerful response to hateful bullying, to a fight for health care, to a gripping desperation to vote, these stories are equal parts shocking, devastating, and enthralling, revealing the tension pulsing through our everyday lives and affirming that mystery and suspense writing is better than ever before.

It’s been a year since Poppy’s husband, Jack, was brutally murdered during his morning run through Manhattan’s Riverside Park. In the immediate aftermath, Poppy spiraled into an oblivion of grief, disappearing for several days only to turn up ragged and confused wearing a tight red dress she didn’t recognize. What happened to Poppy during those lost days? And more importantly, what happened to Jack? The case was never solved, and Poppy has finally begun to move on. But those lost days have never stopped haunting her. 

Pericles "Perry" Christo is a P.I. with a past. A one-time NYPD homicide cop, Perry has been struggling since he lost his badge, and his marriage, in a notorious corruption scandal. So when wealthy Upper East Side matron Julia Drusilla calls him one cold February night, he jumps at the chance to work what seems to be a straightforward (and lucrative) case. Julia needs Perry to track down the whereabouts of her beautiful yet aimless daughter, Angelina, who is about to become a very wealthy young heiress.

Claudia Bishop's perfect life fell apart when the aftermath of a brutal assault left her with a crumbling marriage, a newborn daughter, and a constant sense of anxiety about the world around her. Now, looking for a fresh start with a home restoration project and growing blog, Claudia takes on a crumbling old house - one that, unbeknownst to her, has an ugly history and may hide long-buried secrets.

Darkness has a way of creeping up when Ian is with Priss. Even when they were kids, playing in the woods of their small Upstate New York town, he could feel it. Still, Priss was his best friend, his salvation from the bullies who called him "loser" and "fatboy" - and from his family's deadly secrets.

On the surface, Annie Powers' life in a wealthy Floridian suburb is happy and idyllic. Her husband, Gray, loves her fiercely; together, they dote on their beautiful young daughter, Victory. But the bubble surrounding Annie is pricked when she senses that the demons of her past have resurfaced and, to her horror, are now creeping up on her.

It’s a day like any other for Eloise Montgomery - until tragedy strikes. While she is recovering from a horrible accident that takes the lives of her husband and oldest daughter, and as she works to help her younger daughter move forward, Eloise experiences her first psychic vision. Though she struggles to understand her newfound gifts, Eloise finds a way use them to save lost women and girls - for whom her help may be the only way out...