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A DARK FAMILY SECRET

When Alice’s father dies after a tragic hit and run, his death stirs up unanswered questions about her childhood. Who was her mother, why did her father never speak of the past, and why can’t she remember anything before the age of seven?

AN ISLAND CUT OFF

But when she receives an anonymous letter containing a photograph of a refurbished gothic guesthouse surrounded by water, and an invitation to stay, old memories fight to resurface.

Alice has visited before. She is certain of it.

WHO WILL SURVIVE?

Convinced the clues to her past lie at the hotel, she checks in. But once on the island, a wild storm rages, waves crash violently into the rocks, and the house is cut off by the roaring sea.

Then two guests are found dead. And the hotel owner is missing. Will Alice ever uncover her secret past?

And will anyone leave the island alive?

What really happened to the girl who walked into the woods and vanished forever? It’s a never-forgotten mystery that clings like a shadow in a short story about dark memories and inescapable fears.

For disgraced professor Matthew Merle, the inheritance of his grandfather’s crumbling mansion is both a burden and an offer of safe haven. His childhood friend Claire, a psychiatrist, desperately needs a haven of her own after one of her patients unleashes his dark side. At turning points in their lives, it’s inevitable that they should return to the past. And to Merle House. It’s been waiting for them.

Drawn to the former Bainesworth Manor in the wake of a murder, reporter Edie Stone wants answers. It’s been over forty years since the psychiatric hospital on Bane Island shut down, and the mystery of women vanishing there remains unsolved. But the exclusive retreat isn’t just protected by the dark pine forests and crashing waves of Maine’s rocky coast—it’s surrounded with silence.  Everyone on the island is keeping secrets.
 
Especially the Dr. Elijah Cooke, grandson of the man who headed Bainesworth Manor and the psychiatrist-proprietor of a new wellness resort on the same premises. His desire to help people seems at war with his fierce loyalty to his family. He’s sure the world is out to get him. And as the accidents and coincidences pile up, Edie becomes convinced someone is trying to kill them both. But if she’s close enough to be a threat, she must be close to the truth . . .

Never betray the brotherhood

On a chilly November morning at the University of Georgia, a fraternity brother steps off a busy crosswalk and is struck dead by an oncoming car. More than a dozen witnesses all agree on two things: the driver looked identical to the victim, and he was smiling.

Detective Marlitt Kaplan is first on the scene. An Athens native and the daughter of a UGA professor, she knows all its shameful histories, from the skull discovered under the foundations of Baldwin Hall to the hushed-up murder-suicide in Waddel. But in the course of investigating this hit-and-run, she will uncover more chilling secrets as she explores the sprawling, interconnected Greek system that entertains and delights the university’s most elite and connected students.

The lines between Marlitt’s police work and her own past increasingly blur as Marlitt seeks to bring to justice an institution that took something precious from her many years ago. When threats against her escalate, and some long-buried secrets threaten to come to the surface, she can’t help questioning whether the corruption in Athens has run off campus and into the force and how far these brotherhoods will go to protect their own.