‘The Secret Book of Flora Lea’ by Patti Callahan Henry

Can the stories we tell ourselves have the power to save us? In “The Secret Book of Flora Lea,” author Patti Callahan Henry brings us a tale within a tale as we meet two sisters, bound by the fantasy world that the elder sister, Hazel, creates and shares with her much younger sister, Flora, during difficult times. Their father is killed the first week he starts training to fight in WWII, and the family is bereft from his loss. When their mother goes to work to do her part in the war effort, Hazel cares for Flora and tells her stories to keep her busy and happy. We especially see the sisters’ bond as they are evacuated from London and parted from their very loving mother, and sent to a small village on the River Thames near Oxford, where they are lucky enough to go live with a wonderful woman and her son.

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‘Where Are the Children Now?’ by Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke is a sequel to the seminal psychological thriller ‘Where Are the Children?’

It’s not often that a sequel is written over four decades after the first book, but in “Where Are the Children Now?” that’s exactly what Alafair Burke has done with Mary Higgins Clark’s “Where Are the Children?” which was published in 1975. While some readers might want to reread the first book, it’s really not necessary as Burke does a masterful job cluing us in as to what transpired all those years before, while making the sharing of that backstory completely natural and a part of the story.

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‘The Seaside Library’ by Brenda Novak is about the bounds of friendship

While “The Seaside Library” is about the lengths to which friends will go to protect and support each other, it’s not basically about a library. The setting is Mariners Island, a fictional island author Brenda Novak imagines off the coast of New England where all three main characters grew up. Ivy, Ariana, and Cam were best friends, and when a tragedy occurred one summer, the teenagers lied to protect Cam. That lie grew and took on a life of its own in the next two decades.

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‘Not So Perfect Strangers’ by L. S. Stratton is a story of abuse, revenge, and the lengths we go to for those we love

There’s a saying that no good deed goes unpunished, and in “Not So Perfect Strangers,” L. S. Stratton takes that adage to the max by showing how Tasha Jenkins suffers from the good deed she does late one night when she gives a stranger a ride. Tasha has been planning to leave her abusive husband, and she and her teenage son are staying in a hotel just prior to getting on a plane and going back South, where Tasha has family, to live. She is determined to leave D.C. and Kordell Jenkins, whose abusive tendencies have kept her basically a prisoner in her own home. To “punish” her, he took away Tasha’s car keys, her phone, her credit cards. And he hasn’t let her work. So when she finally makes plans to get away, she is shocked when her son disappears and she finds a note in their hotel room that he doesn’t want to leave his dad or his girlfriend.

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‘The Soulmate’ by Sally Hepworth is a study in relationships and love

The question of love—is it something that hits like lightning at first sight or is it something that grows slowly, over time—is one of the issues that Sally Hepworth explores in her newest novel, “The Soulmate.” The other main issue is about trust and how much we can ever trust another person. As in many of her novels, Hepworth plays with the information she provides. The narrative is told from the perspectives of Amanda and Pippa, the two female main characters, with Amanda’s narrative providing “before” and “after” indicators and Pippa’s narrative shared with “now” and “then” labels.

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‘Code 6’ by James Grippando is a gripping thriller

In “Code 6,” James Grippando provides a thriller with a dual plot line; both plot lines deal with information and how technology makes mining data about people so easy that even the most primitive technology identified those of Jewish descent for the Nazis. The main character is Kate Gamble, whose father is the CEO of a huge technology company that specializes in data integration. His company has ties with the CIA, the NSA, and other counterterrorism organizations. Kate is graduating from law school, but she really wants to be a playwright. She is writing a play about the beginning of data mining and its dangers, which she hides from her father because of his own business. He might not be pleased that the subject of her play is the dark side of data technology.

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‘Murder at Haven’s Rock’ by Kelley Armstrong is the start of a new series

Fans of Kelley Armstrong’s “Rockton” series will be delighted with the publication of “Murder at Haven’s Rock,” the first book in the sequel series, with many familiar characters. Those of us who read all seven books in that series were heartbroken when the final Rockton book came out last year with the news that the town, a haven for those fleeing society and threats to their safety, was shutting down. Throughout that series, we learned about the tension between those who managed the town, its inhabitants, and the town’s sheriff, Eric Dalton and his wife Casey Duncan.

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‘Sleep No More’ is the first in a new paranormal trilogy by Jayne Ann Krentz

We know what we are going to get when we read a romance/mystery by Jayne Ann Krentz, and her newest novel in a new trilogy, “Sleep No More,” doesn’t disappoint. Krentz is the master at writing suspenseful mysteries that, at their core, are also very much about attraction and romance. We keep reading her novels because of the way she brings new characters, new situations, and new mystery into each new piece.

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‘Every Missing Girl’ is the second thriller in the ‘Kendall Beck’ series by Leanne Kale Sparks

The action starts on the very first page in “Every Missing Girl,” the second thriller in the “Kendall Beck” series by Leanne Kale Sparks. Main character Kendall Beck is an FBI agent in Colorado who works with missing children, tracking them down and trying to uncover child trafficking rings. It’s pretty horrifying work, and in this case, her good friend, detective Adam Taylor, has a personal reason for trying to solve a missing child case. His own niece, Frankie, has disappeared. Making it even more personal, the disappearance happened right after a kid’s hockey game that Frankie played in and they attended.

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‘Whale Done’ by Stuart Gibbs is yet another brilliant middle grade addition to the FunJunngle series

If there were an award for best first sentence ever in a novel (and maybe there is), Stuart Gibbs deserves it for the beginning of “Whale Done”: “I would never have seen the whale explode if a kangaroo hadn’t burned down my house.” I’m embarrassed to admit that this eighth book is the first I’ve read in the very popular FunJungle series. I’m always hesitant to jump in and start reading in the middle of a series, but I should have learned with his Spy School novels, which I started reading several books into the series, that Gibbs always provides enough backstory that there’s no need to start at the beginning.

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‘All the Dangerous Things’ by Stacy Willingham is an twisty mystery with an important message about mental health

In “All the Dangerous Things,” author Stacy Willingham addresses many dangerous “things,” but points out that nothing might be as dangerous as people with mental health problems who don’t receive the help and support they need. This carefully wrought mystery keeps us guessing until the end about several deaths in the story. And while we think we know what happened because the main character, Isabelle Drake is the first person narrator, as is the case with many such narratives, we can’t be sure that what she shares is the truth.

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