Recommendations based on "The Death of Mrs. Westaway"

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Next to impossible to put down . . . exciting, mysterious, and totally satisfying.”—STEPHEN KINGFrom the author of The Passage comes a riveting standalone novel about a group of survivors on a hidden island utopia—where the truth isn’t what it seems.A POLYGON BEST BOOK OF THE YEARThe islands of Prospera lie in a vast ocean, in splendid isolation from the rest of humanity—or whatever remains of it.Citizens of the main island enjoy privileged lives. They are attended to by support staff who live on a cramped neighboring island, where whispers of revolt are brewing—but for the Prosperans, life is perfection. And when the end of life approaches, they’re sent to a mysterious third island, where their bodies are refreshed, their memories are wiped away, and they return to start life anew.Proctor Bennett is a ferryman, whose job it is to enforce the retirement process when necessary. He never questions his work, until the day he receives a cryptic message:“The world is not the world.”These simple words unlock something he has secretly suspected. They seep into strange dreams of the stars and the sea. They give him the unshakable feeling that someone is trying to tell him something important.Something no one could possibly imagine, something that could change the fate of humanity itself.

From the bestselling author of My Lovely Wife comes a reckless, delicious thriller that gives a whole new meaning to the dangers of modern dating.Wes and Ivy are madly in love. They've never felt anything like it. It's the type of romance people write stories about.But what kind of story?When it's good, it's great. Flowers. Grand gestures. Deep meaningful conversations where the whole world disappears.When it's bad, it's really bad. Vengeful fights. Damaged property. Arrest warrants.But their vicious cycle of catastrophic breakups and head-over-heels reconciliations needs to end fast. Because suddenly, Wes and Ivy have a common enemy--and she's a detective.There's something Wes and Ivy never talk about--in good times or bad. The night of their worst breakup, when one of them took things too far, and someone ended up dead.If they can stick together, they can survive anything--even the tightening net of a police investigation.Because one more breakup might just be their last…

A Most Anticipated Novel by PopSugar * Crime Reads * Goodreads *A true crime blogger gets more than she bargained for while interviewing the woman acquitted of two cold case slayings in this chilling new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Sun Down Motel.In 1977, Claire Lake, Oregon, was shaken by the Lady Killer Murders: Two men, seemingly randomly, were murdered with the same gun, with strange notes left behind. Beth Greer was the perfect suspect—a rich, eccentric twenty-three-year-old woman, seen fleeing one of the crimes. But she was acquitted, and she retreated to the isolation of her mansion.Oregon, 2017. Shea Collins is a receptionist, but by night, she runs a true crime website, the Book of Cold Cases—a passion fueled by the attempted abduction she escaped as a child. When she meets Beth by chance, Shea asks her for an interview. To Shea’s surprise, Beth says yes.They meet regularly at Beth’s mansion, though Shea is never comfortable there. Items move when she’s not looking, and she could swear she’s seen a girl outside the window. The allure of learning the truth about the case from the smart, charming Beth is too much to resist, but even as they grow closer, Shea senses something isn’t right. Is she making friends with a manipulative murderer, or are there other dangers lurking in the darkness of the Greer house?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICKNothing brings a family together like a murder next door.“I just loved how intriguing the mystery is but also the dynamics between a grandmother, a mother, and a teenage daughter." —Reese WitherspoonThink: Gilmore Girls, but with murder.High-powered businesswoman Lana Rubicon has a lot to be proud of:her keen intelligence, impeccable taste, and the L.A. real estate empire she’s built. But when she finds herself trapped 300 miles north of the city, convalescing in a sleepy coastal town with her adult daughter Beth and teenage granddaughter Jack, Lana is stuck counting otters instead of square footage—and hoping that boredom won’t kill her before the cancer does.Then Jack—tiny in stature but fiercely independent—happens upon a dead body while kayaking. She quickly becomes a suspect in the homicide investigation, and the Rubicon women are thrown into chaos. Beth thinks Lana should focus on recovery, but Lana has a better idea. She’ll pull on her wig, find the true murderer, protect her family, and prove she still has power.With Jack and Beth’s help, Lana uncovers a web of lies, family vendettas, and land disputes lurking beneath the surface of a community populated by folksy conservationists and wealthy ranchers. But as their amateur snooping advances into ever-more dangerous territory, the headstrong Rubicon women must learn to do the one thing they’ve always resisted: depend on each other.

FINALIST FOR THE 2023 BOOKER PRIZE. LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION.Finalist for the 2023 Pen/Faulkner Award, the DUBLIN Literary Award, the Southern Book Award, and the Gordon Burns Award. Nominated for the 2022 National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, the 2023 Pen/Jean Stein Open Book Award, the 2023 Pen/Bingham Prize, the 2022 Story Prize, the Dublin Literary Prize, the 2023 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, the 2023 Brooklyn Library Prize, and the 2023 Aspen Words Literary Prize. National Bestseller. IndieNext Pick. One of The New York Times Book Review's 100 Notable Books of 2022.“If I Survive You is a collection of connected short stories that reads like a novel, that reads like real life, that reads like fiction written at the highest level.” ―Ann PatchettA major debut, blazing with style and heart, that follows a Jamaican family striving for more in Miami, and introduces a generational storyteller.In the 1970s, Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But America, as the couple and their two children learn, is far from the promised land. Excluded from society as Black immigrants, the family pushes on through Hurricane Andrew and later the 2008 recession, living in a house so cursed that the pet fish launches itself out of its own tank rather than stay. But even as things fall apart, the family remains motivated, often to its own detriment, by what the younger son, Trelawny, calls “the exquisite, racking compulsion to survive.”Masterfully constructed with heart and humor, the linked stories in Jonathan Escoffery’s If I Survive You center on Trelawny as he struggles to carve out a place for himself amid financial disaster, racism, and flat-out bad luck. After a fight with Topper, Trelawny claws his way out of homelessness through a series of odd, often hilarious jobs. Meanwhile, his brother, Delano, attempts a disastrous cash grab to get his kids back, and his cousin Cukie looks for a father who doesn’t want to be found. As each character searches for a foothold, they never forget the profound danger of climbing without a safety net.Pulsing with vibrant lyricism and inimitable style, sly commentary and contagious laughter, Escoffery’s debut unravels what it means to be in between homes and cultures in a world at the mercy of capitalism and whiteness. With If I Survive You, Escoffery announces himself as a prodigious storyteller in a class of his own, a chronicler of American life at its most gruesome and hopeful.

A REESE WITHERSPOON HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB PICK WITH OVER ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD!“Will keep you up. In a ‘can’t put it down’ way. It’s ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ with XX chromosomes.” —The Skimm“Deliciously duplicitous. . . . equally as twisty, spellbinding, and addictive as Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl or Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train.” —Library Journal (starred review)A mesmerizing debut psychological thriller about a woman who worms her way into the lives of a wealthy "golden couple" from Connecticut by befriending the wife and seducing the husband.Amber Patterson is fed up. She’s tired of being a nobody: a plain, invisible woman who blends into the background. She deserves more—a life of money and power like the one blond-haired, blue-eyed goddess Daphne Parrish takes for granted.To everyone in the exclusive town of Bishops Harbor, Connecticut, Daphne—a socialite and philanthropist—and her real-estate mogul husband, Jackson, are a couple straight out of a fairy tale.Amber’s envy could eat her alive . . . if she didn't have a plan. Amber uses Daphne’s compassion and caring to insinuate herself into the family’s life—the first step in a meticulous scheme to undermine her. Before long, Amber is Daphne’s closest confidante, traveling to Europe with the Parrishes and their lovely young daughters, and growing closer to Jackson. But a skeleton from her past may undermine everything that Amber has worked towards, and if it is discovered, her well-laid plan may fall to pieces.With shocking turns and dark secrets that will keep you guessing until the very end, The Last Mrs. Parrish is a fresh, juicy, and utterly addictive thriller from a diabolically imaginative talent.

“Winter Counts is a marvel. It’s a thriller with a beating heart and jagged teeth. This book is a brilliant meditation on power and violence, and a testament to just how much a crime novel can achieve. Weiden is a powerful new voice. I couldn’t put it down.”—Tommy Orange, author of There ThereA Recommended Read from:Buzzfeed * Electric Literature * Lit Hub * Shondaland * Publishers WeeklyA groundbreaking thriller about a vigilante on a Native American reservation who embarks on a dangerous mission to track down the source of a heroin influx.Virgil Wounded Horse is the local enforcer on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. When justice is denied by the American legal system or the tribal council, Virgil is hired to deliver his own punishment, the kind that’s hard to forget. But when heroin makes its way into the reservation and finds Virgil’s nephew, his vigilantism suddenly becomes personal. He enlists the help of his ex-girlfriend and sets out to learn where the drugs are coming from, and how to make them stop.They follow a lead to Denver and find that drug cartels are rapidly expanding and forming new and terrifying alliances. And back on the reservation, a new tribal council initiative raises uncomfortable questions about money and power. As Virgil starts to link the pieces together, he must face his own demons and reclaim his Native identity. He realizes that being a Native American in the twenty-first century comes at an incredible cost.Winter Counts is a tour-de-force of crime fiction, a bracingly honest look at a long-ignored part of American life, and a twisting, turning story that’s as deeply rendered as it is thrilling.

YOU SAW IT. YOU WERE TOO SCARED TO ACT. BUT NOW IT'S COMING FOR YOU... From the mind behind the international bestseller The Whisper Man comes a new nightmare 'The Man Made of Smoke was in equal parts terrifying, creepy, thrilling and moving' Marnie Riches 'A haunting, atmospheric story...Truly a white-knuckle read from start to finish' Tracy Sierra 'Creepy and atmospheric from the first page, The Man Made Of Smoke is as well-written as it is tense' Rachel Wolf -- You never forget the day you meet a serial killer. Dan was just a teenager when he had a chance encounter with the elusive killer known only as "the man made of smoke". Nobody could blame him for being too scared to intervene, for being too scared to save the latest victim, for letting the killer vanish again. Nobody except Dan himself. Years later, Dan has a successful career as a criminal psychiatrist, unpicking the very darkest of human behaviour. Because, despite what he saw that day, Dan knows there's no such thing as a monster. But now his father, John, has gone missing. And, when Dan returns to the small island where he grew up, he finds out that not long before his disappearance, John had stumbled across a body. As Dan begins to dig, he finds unsettling links, stretching all the way back to the man made of smoke. Which means this might just be a chance to not only save his dad, but to finally find redemption. But what if he's been wrong about that day for all these years. What if he was right to be scared? -- Praise for The Man Made of Smoke 'Balancing his trademark hint of the supernatural with very real fears, this is a book full of regret and grief, but most of all heart. I loved Dan - I was swept up in his story, riding the wave of his uncertainty and worry' Sam Holland, author of The Echo Man 'I tore through this gritty tale of guilt, grief and the ghosts that haunt us. The twists are exceptionally well executed, the emotional through line compelling, and the mercurial baddie is genuinely unsettling...If you loved The Whisper Man, you'll love this, too. Nightmares guaranteed!' Josh Winning, author of Heads Will Roll 'It is a rare talent to be able to write a compulsive thriller with such heart...Written with skill and intelligence, and told with empathy and nuance, this is a novel that's not to be missed. I loved every word' Rebecca Thorne, author of The Grief House 'Creepy, compelling and so fiendishly tricky, I couldn't put it down. Another surefire winner from the king of haunting!' Natalie Chandler, author of The Voices Built around the five stages of grief, The Man Made of Smoke paints a haunting portrait of a psychopath and the psychiatrist trying to understand what drives him Praise for Alex North: 'As terrifying as a great horror novel, as unpredictable as the best type of crime novel and above all beautifully written...a writer who is an absolute master of his craft' Jane Casey 'This is absorbing, headlong reading, a play on classic horror with an inventiveness of its own' New York Times 'Hugely atmospheric and deliciously creepy' Alex Michaelides

During the languid days of the Christmas break, a group of thirtysomething friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students ten years ago. For this vacation, they?ve chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands?the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves. They arrive on December 30th, just before a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world. Two days later, on New Year?s Day, one of them is dead. The trip began innocently enough: admiring the stunning if foreboding scenery, champagne in front of a crackling fire, and reminiscences about the past. But after a decade, the weight of secret resentments has grown too heavy for the group?s tenuous nostalgia to bear. Amid the boisterous revelry of New Year?s Eve, the cord holding them together snaps. Now one of them is dead ... and another of them did it. Keep your friends close, the old adage goes. But just how close is too close?

The #1 internationally bestselling author returns with a new novel in the vein of her New York Times bestsellers Pretty Girls and The Good Daughter—a story even more electrifying, provocative, and suspenseful than anything she’s written before.What if the person you thought you knew best turns out to be someone you never knew at all . . . ?Andrea knows everything about her mother, Laura. She knows she’s spent her whole life in the small beachside town of Belle Isle; she knows she’s never wanted anything more than to live a quiet life as a pillar of the community; she knows she’s never kept a secret in her life. Because we all know our mothers, don’t we?But all that changes when a trip to the mall explodes into violence and Andrea suddenly sees a completely different side to Laura. Because it turns out that before Laura was Laura, she was someone completely different. For nearly thirty years she’s been hiding from her previous identity, lying low in the hope that no one would ever find her. But now she’s been exposed, and nothing will ever be the same again.The police want answers and Laura’s innocence is on the line, but she won’t speak to anyone, including her own daughter. Andrea is on a desperate journey following the breadcrumb trail of her mother’s past. And if she can’t uncover the secrets hidden there, there may be no future for either one of them. . . .