HTP Winter Reads Blog Tour (Mystery & Thriller Edition) Promo Post: Everything She Feared by Rick Mofina

Every mother worries about their child. But Sara Harmon fears hers…

When a teen falls while taking a selfie at the edge of a cliff, the last thing she sees before plummeting to her death is Katie Harmon, the nine-year-old girl she was babysitting, looking down at her.

Investigators gather at the scene, and Katie’s mother, Sara, rushes to comfort her daughter. Yet there’s a small, secret ping of alarm in Sara’s heart that she cannot share—though rookie detective Kim Pierce senses it.

For years, others have tried to unravel this secret. From true-crime podcasters to a haunted journalist searching for a killer who vanished after being released from prison several years ago. And now, with detectives tightening the focus of their investigation, Sara is consumed by her darkest fear—that the babysitter’s death was not an accident.

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Near North Bend, Washington


SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD ANNA SHAW didn’t want to die.

Adrenaline surged through every nerve ending, her fingers digging into the tree branch jutting from the cliffside.

This was a nightmare. It couldn’t be real.

But it is real.

Anna had been atop the cliff, taking in the breathtaking panoramic view of the river, forests and mountains. Then in a heartbeat she was falling, falling some twenty feet, crashing into the big twisting branch sticking from the cliff face, catching herself, seizing it, struggling to hang on as it bent, now threatening to give way.

Gasping, she looked in horror a hundred feet straight down to the rocks at the banks of the rushing river below.

Wind gusted up, nudging her dangling legs. As she hung on for life, the branch cracked, her body jolted.

“Oh God!”

Anna glanced up at nine-year-old Katie Harmon looking down at her from the clifftop.

“Katie! Get help!”

Transfixed, Katie stared in wide-eyed silence.

Anna strained to move along the weakening branch closer to the cliff face to find a hold on the craggy rocks.

But pulling herself caused the branch to bob and shake, crackling more under her weight. Her hands landed on short branch spikes, like protruding nails piercing her palms with electrifying pain.

Suddenly the branch split and Anna jounced a few feet lower, clawing, clinging on to the fibrous remains.

“Katie!” she shrieked. “Oh God!”

Anna looked up.

Katie was gone.

The branch cracked again.

Run!

Every part of Katie’s brain screamed at her to run.

She flew along the trail, twisting, turning through the dense woods, hoping to catch up to the others who had continued moving ahead.

Anna’s fall had happened in a terrible instant.

So real and so frightening.

And no one else knows! No one was with us to see!

Katie willed herself to run fast, faster than she’d ever run in her life.

She felt like she was moving in slow motion but she blazed along the trail, coming to the clearing where her group from the Sunny Days Youth Center was setting up.

Katie glimpsed the joyful calm, nearly thirty kids and a sprinkling of adults supervising the day trip from the city, oblivious to the horror now on the cliff they’d all just passed. The boys were moving picnic tables together, others tossed a Frisbee. The girls were opening backpacks,

tearing into snacks and drinks while others took pictures.

It all stopped when Katie screeched: “Help!”

Heads turned, smiles melted, the Frisbee crashed.

“What’s up, Katie?” said Jackson, one of the supervisors.

“Anna fell!” Katie’s chest heaved; she was gasping for air. “Taking a selfie. Fell off the cliff! Hanging on to a tree!”

It took a moment for Jackson and the others to absorb the alarm and snap to attention.

“We’ll need ropes,” he said, glancing at the other supervisors, Adam and Connie, who’d grabbed a canvas bag, unzipped it and yanked out tent ropes. They turned to Katie, who’d already fled back on the trail, her sobbing echoing in her wake.

“Everyone stay here!” Connie said, starting to run with the two men as she called to another adult with the group: “Dakota, keep everyone here!”

The supervisors struggled to keep up with Katie, all of them racing back on the trail to the area of the cliff. Two backpacks on the ground marked the point where it happened. Katie stood there horrified when she looked down.

Only spear-like remnants of the branch reached from the cliffside.

Katie stepped back while Jackson, Adam and Connie, breathing hard, looked down, their eyes ballooning in disbelief.

“Oh God!” said Connie, her voice breaking.

“No! No! No!” Adam yelled.

Anna’s body was splayed on the rocks of the riverbank.

Ribbons of blood were webbing to the water.

******

IN THE TIME that followed, events unfolded like a tragic opera.

Connie’s 911 call went to the King County Communications Center. Panting with panic, she struggled to report the emergency.

“A girl fell off a cliff! We need—please, we need—”

“Take a breath,” said the operator, calm, professional, taking control. “Tell me exactly where you are and what happened.”

Connie collected herself, answering questions and following instructions, enabling the operator to dispatch paramedics and deputies from the King County Sheriff’s Office North Precinct. The deputies then made a callout for Search and Rescue, setting the response in motion.

“I can’t look anymore.” Katie covered her face with her hands. Sobbing and trembling, she lowered her hands and asked: “Is Anna dead?”

“We don’t know.” Connie put her arm around her. “Help is coming.”


For their part, Jackson and Adam had found a safe route to hurry down from the cliff. Moving as fast as they could along the rugged riverbank, they came to Anna’s motionless body.

Her arms and legs were bent and twisted like a rag doll. She was lying faceup with her eyes open, staring skyward, blood dripping from the back of her neck. Jackson and Adam knelt next to her.

“Anna!” Adam said, knowing the worst but saying her name again.

Her stillness terrified them. They heard nothing but the river’s rush while Jackson felt her neck, warm but no pulse.

He began CPR.

Adam saw her palms, bleeding from branch fragments projecting like quills in testament to her fight to hang on. Gently holding her hand, Adam surveyed Anna, almost glowing on the rocks in her bright yellow T-shirt. He didn’t know that her mother had had it custom-made for her last birthday with the embroidered motto crowned over her heart: All We Have Is Today.

A small tattoo on her inner right wrist said Fearless, and on her inner left wrist was a small heart. Her jeans were faded, stylishly torn at the knees. One of her pink sneakers had been ripped away by the impact.

Anna’s head nodded in time with Jackson’s rhythmic pumping. But both men knew that the effort to save her was in vain.

Still Jackson refused to quit.

Adam’s phone rang—it was the emergency operator. She’d gotten his number from Connie.

“Yes… A lot of blood… No pulse… We both have CPR and First Aid… He’s doing CPR… Unconscious… Not responding… Tell them to hurry.”

Staying on the line to provide directions to the scene, Adam held Anna’s still-warm hand while watching Jackson’s unrelenting CPR. Blinking back tears. His gaze went from Anna to the rock face, his stomach lifting at the magnitude of the drop, his focus traveling up beyond the broken branch to the cliff, seeing Connie looking down at him.

Adam shook his head slowly.

Connie’s hand flew to her mouth. She turned, nearly doubling over before somehow getting enough control to pull Katie closer, comforting her. Slowly they started back to be with the others at their day camp.

Connie’s mind swirled as they returned to the clearing; twenty-four kids, aged nine to fourteen, were in the Sunny Days excursion, along with four adult supervisors and three older teen assistants—now, only two.

Moments ago they were all starting a blissful outing, only to see it turn into a day of horrible heartbreak, a day they would remember for the rest of their lives, Connie thought. Everything at their day camp came to a halt when Connie and Katie emerged.

“Is Anna okay?” asked Dakota, one of the supervisors.

Connie searched the group, meeting anxious, expectant faces, feeling Katie’s sobs against her. Holding her tight, Connie brushed at her own tears.

“Anna fell,” Connie said. “She’s hurt bad, really bad.”

“Did Anna die?” one of the girls asked.

Connie stared at her.

“I want to see!” said Dylan Frick, a boy who was also in Katie’s class at school.

“No!” Connie said loudly, then softened her voice. “We don’t know anything yet. We just have to wait.”

Some of the kids got on their phones, texting and calling their families, while a few of the girls rushed to Katie and Connie, encircling them in a group hug, their sobbing soon mingling with the tragic operatic chorus of distant sirens echoing over the treetops.


Excerpted from Everything She Feared. Copyright © 2023 by Rick Mofina. Published by MIRA Books.

About the Author

Photo Credit: Michael Mofina

Rick Mofina is a former crime reporter and the award-winning author of several acclaimed thrillers. He's interviewed murderers face-to-face on death row; patrolled with the LAPD and the RCMP. His true crime articles have appeared in The New York Times, Marie Claire, Reader’s Digest and Penthouse. He's reported from the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, Qatar and Kuwait's border with Iraq. This is his 31st book. For more information please visit www.rickmofina.com

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HTP Summer Reads Blog Tour (Mystery & Thriller Edition) Promo Post: Good Husbands by Cate Ray

For fans of Whisper Network and My Dark Vanessa, Good Husbands is an electrifying psychological drama about three strangers drawn together by a shocking revelation about their husbands, and the power of women to reclaim their voices and control their own destinies.

He said, she said. Who do you believe?

 

Jessica, Stephanie, and Priyanka are complete strangers, but they have one thing in common: More than two decades ago, unbeknownst to them, their husbands committed a terrible sexual assault. Was it really rape, or a night of drunken regrets—just a horrible misunderstanding? It was a secret that remained buried, until…

 

One unsuspecting morning years later, the women each receives a letter from someone accusing their husbands of this terrible act and claiming to be the daughter born from the crime. Their worlds suddenly turned upside down, they don’t know who to trust—a complete stranger, or the men they love and built their lives with. The three women come together to embark on a hunt for the truth, but they are hardly prepared for what they will discover. Who is the real victim, and will justice ultimately be served?

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Excerpted from GOOD HUSBANDS by Cate Ray, © 2022 by Cate Ray, used with permission from ark Row Books/HarperCollins.

Jess

I’m one hundred percent average, said no one ever. Yet that’s what most of us are, myself included. I know the sum of my parts and it equals ordinary and there’s no shame in that. In fact, it’s a strength. My parents were ordinary too and as their only child they raised me to respect being a leaf on a tree, a grain of sand on the beach. You get the picture. But it doesn’t mean being insignificant, anonymous. It means being part of a community, a tribe, a cause greater than yourself.

I realise this kind of thinking isn’t very now. The idea of being average scares my girls to death. I wouldn’t accuse them of it outright, yet it’s probably in their DNA too and at some point, they’ll have to confront it. Mediocrity isn’t something they can deal with and perhaps that’s where we’re going wrong because ordinary is what gets you through. Ordinary is noble, life-affirming. It’s the heart of humanity and somehow, we’ve forgotten that.

And then the letter arrives and I know as soon as I read it that I’m going to have to re-think everything. Because I’m fairly sure that ordinary people don’t get letters like this.

It’s the first day of autumn and I don’t know if it’s actually colder or whether I’m imagining it, as though a door closed yesterday on summer and a chillier one opened, but I’m definitely feeling it today. The tip of my nose is icy and I would get a hot water bottle for my lap, only I’m leaving the house in twenty minutes.

I’m meeting Duane Dee, my favourite sculptor—the only sculptor—on my client list and anything could happen. You never know what you’re going to get with artists, which is why I like working with them. They’re up and down but more than that, they’re honest. I’ve never known a profession like it. My artists talk about integrity and authenticity all the time and I lap it up. I love that the men don’t shave for meetings, the women don’t dye their greys, no one bothers ironing anything.

The investors are another sort altogether. People who buy and sell art are very different from those who create it. I know whose company I prefer, but I keep that to myself because even I know not to bite the hand that feeds me.

Max thinks it’s funny that I work for Moon & Co—he calls them the Moonies—even though he was the one who got me the job. He knows everyone in Bath because he grew up here, whereas I’m originally from the East End, London. I’ve been living here for twenty years and it still makes me laugh that locals think it’s urban, even though I can see cows from our bathroom window.

I’ve just got enough time for a quick look at Facebook. I don’t know why I do it to myself, but sometimes I feel that if I don’t keep up, I’ll be left behind. Which is odd because it’s not as if it’s a race, is it, being human?

I’m forty-six years old and still looking for friends. I’m pretty sure I won’t find them here in this endless scroll of happy images. People work so hard to make themselves look perfect, it’s hard not to try to find faults. I don’t enjoy it. It makes me feel bitchy but still I return and peek.

I glance at the time: ten minutes until I have to go. Outside, red leaves are hanging on the trees as though they’ve gone rusty and can’t move. There’s no wind today, the air completely still.

Duane Dee doesn’t use social media. He thinks the tech companies are using us to get rich and that it’s odd I’m willing to be a pawn in Silicon Valley because I strike him as militant.

It’s probably because I still have a slight East End accent, which can sound blunt, tough, but I like to think of it more as plain-talking. My late Dad used to say that the EastEnders wore their hearts of gold on their sleeves. A firefighter all his life, he believed in helping people out, especially along our street of identical terrace houses where no one could set themselves apart.

Enough of Facebook. I shut it down, telling it I won’t be back, knowing I will. And then I gather my things, ready to take off.

In the hallway, I sit on the stairs to put on my trainers, wondering when I started dressing like a teenager, and that’s when the postman comes. There’s only one small piece of mail, which slips in like a piece of confetti, drifting to the mat. I pick it up with interest because it’s handwritten and I can’t think when I last received one of those.

Then it’s out of my mind because I’m locking up and putting on my puffa jacket as I walk to the car. And then I’m driving to town—the sun a pale wedge of lemon above me—running through what to say to Duane Dee.

Is he well? Is he pushing himself too hard? Is he sleeping enough? He always looks chronically tired. 

I ask too many questions. Intrusive. That’s the little bit of feedback my boss always gives me. Jess, here’s some feedback you didn’t ask for…

When people say you’re intrusive, assertive or direct, they’re basically telling you to be quiet. Are men given feedback like that? I don’t know. But I’m thinking about this as I enter the Sicilian café which is my personal preference and not Duane’s. Whenever he chooses, we end up somewhere too dark to see our food, sitting on tasselled mats.

The service here is very good. Within seconds of my sitting down, the waitress hands me a menu even though I always have an Americano and an almond pastry.

Glancing in the wall mirror beside me, I note that my expression is severe. A semi-friend told me recently that I carry a lot of tension in my face. It was a bit passive aggressive of her to say so, but I know what she means. I have bony cheekbones and thin lips that can look mean if I’m not careful.

So, I’ve been making an effort lately to smile more, worry less and unclench my hands. I also tend to tap my teeth together and I’m doing that now in time to the café music as I wait for Duane.

And then I remember the letter.

It takes me several minutes to find it, as well as my reading glasses. Since hitting my mid-forties, I misplace things all the time. I normally ask myself, where would I have put it? And it’s never there.

The letter is in the front compartment of the rucksack which I haven’t used for so long, there are crumbs and bits of foil in there from the primary school-run. Flicking the crumbs off the envelope, I examine the handwriting, feeling a pang of nostalgia at the idea of someone putting pen to paper just for me.

The writing is tiny and in capitals, internet code for shouting, but in this case is more like whispering. Something about it gives me the sense that it’s trying its hardest not to offend or take up too much space. I have to prise the paper out of the envelope, where it’s wedged, folded into eighths.

THURS 1ST OCTOBER

DEAR JESSICA,

I HOPE YOU’RE SITTING DOWN TO READ THIS AND THAT YOU’RE ALONE.

THIS IS SO DIFFICULT. YOU WOULDN’T BELIEVE HOW OFTEN I IMAGINED TALKING TO YOU, BUT I DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO GO ABOUT IT. AND NOW IT’S TOO LATE.

For what? I check the postmark on the envelope: Monday 5th October, 5pm. That was last night. Shifting uneasily in my seat, I turn over the letter to see who sent it: Holly Waite.

I’VE KNOWN FOR SOME TIME THAT I WON’T MAKE OLD BONES, BUT NOW IT’S URGENT AND I’VE ONLY GOT A FEW DAYS LEFT. SO, I’LL JUST COME OUT WITH IT.

ON 22ND DECEMBER 1990, MY MUM NICOLA WAITE WAS RAPED BY 3 MEN IN THE MONTAGUE CLUB, BATH. THE MEN WERE ANDREW LAWLEY, DANIEL BROOKE AND MAXIMILIAN JACKSON.

MY MUM FELL PREGNANT WITH ME. SHE ASKED THE MEN FOR HELP, BUT THEY DIDN’T WANT TO BE INVOLVED. SHE NEVER RECOVERED FROM WHAT HAPPENED AND DIED 9 YEARS AGO OF AN ACCIDENTAL OVERDOSE. 

9780778333203_TS_SplitBG_txt.indd 19 11/12/21 8:18 AM CATE RAY 20 

EVERYTHING I OWN IS AT STONE’S STORAGE, UNIT 21, 156 CLEVEDON ROAD. IF YOU GO TO THEM, THEY’LL GIVE YOU THE KEY. YOU’RE WELCOME TO ANYTHING. I HAVE NO ONE ELSE TO LEAVE IT TO.

WE NEVER KNEW WHO MY FATHER WAS. SO, I’M ALSO WRITING TO:

PRIYANKA LAWLEY. 32 WALDEN WAY, HIGH LANE, BATH.

STEPHANIE BROOKE, 7 SOUTH AVENUE, BATH.

I’M SORRY TO DO THIS. I KNOW IT’LL BE A SHOCK, BUT I COULDN’T GO WITHOUT TELLING YOU. YOUR HUSBANDS WENT UNPUNISHED, WALKING AWAY COMPLETELY FREE. I ALWAYS HOPED THAT ONE DAY I’D SEE JUSTICE DONE, BUT I COULDN’T THINK OF A WAY TO DO THAT WITHOUT DESTROYING MORE LIVES.

NOW THAT I’M OUT OF TIME, I CAN SEE THAT IT WASN’T MY CHOICE TO MAKE. SO, I’M PASSING IT OVER TO YOU, TELLING YOU WHAT YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN FROM THE START. IT ALWAYS FELT SO PERSONAL, BUT IT WASN’T, NOT REALLY. YOU CAN’T DRAW A LINE WHERE ONE LIFE STARTS AND ANOTHER BEGINS.

ONCE AGAIN, I’M SORRY.

I HOPE YOU DO THE RIGHT THING.

YOURS TRULY,

HOLLY WAITE X 

The kiss throws me the most. I stare at it. It’s like she’s trying to add a softener, after making the worst possible accusation.

I read the letter again, my eye lingering on Maximilian Jackson. No one ever calls Max that. It doesn’t even sound like him.

“Jess?” I glance up to see Duane standing there, untying his Aztec scarf, clay stains on his jumper. “Alright, darlin’?”

I can’t pull out a smile for him. I’m not great at hiding my emotions. It’s one of the things Max has always loved about me and I like it about myself too. Yet suddenly, it feels like an impairment; a liability even.

Slipping the letter into my bag, I stand up robotically and we exchange kisses. He smells of autumn air and his cheek as it brushes mine is so cold it makes me shiver. “Hi, Duane.”

We sit down and Duane scans a menu before tossing it aside. “Who am I kidding? I’m gonna get the calzoni. I always get the calzoni.”

“So…how are you?” I manage to ask. “How’s the new project going?” I sound uptight, formal. I clench my hands, trying to stop them from trembling.

The waitress takes our order. And then I sit rigidly in my chair, listening as Duane describes his latest creation—how it embodies technoculture, hyperreality, paranoia.

When the coffees arrive, I drink mine too quickly and burn my tongue.

“You OK?” He cocks his head at me.

No, I’m not. How could I be?

“Actually, I just need to pop to the ladies. Could you excuse me a minute?”

Out in the restroom, I stand with my hands against the sink, trying to breathe, feeling dizzy. Closing my eyes, I see Maximilian Jackson again in that tiny handwriting.

It’s not Max. It’s some sort of mistake. Holly Waite…whoever that is…is wrong. And perhaps, dead. 

I don’t think I’ve ever felt happy before to hear of someone’s demise, but as I open my eyes it occurs to me that if this woman is deceased then there’s no one present to make any accusations.

I return to the table, where Duane is tucking into his calzoni, a thread of cheese hanging from his lip. Normally I wouldn’t hesitate to tell him, or anyone, so they could set themselves straight.

But something strange happens and I just sit there, silent, watching the thread dangle as he chews and talks. It seems to me that I don’t know who I am. Or more to the point, who my husband is.

About the Author

Cate Ray is an author of four previous novels of suspense published in the UK under the name Cath Weeks. She was named an Author to Watch by Elle magazine. She lives in Bath with her family.

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HTP Winter Blog Tour (Mystery/Thriller Edition) Promo Post: Beach Wedding by Michael Ledwidge

A high-society wedding party stirs up new evidence in an unsolved murder in this thrilling stand-alone from the New York Times bestselling coauthor of James Patterson’s Now You See Her and The Quickie.

Hamptons sand… Hamptons money… Hamptons murder…

When Terry Rourke is invited to the spare-no-expense beach wedding of his hedge fund manager brother, he thinks that his biggest worry will be flubbing the champagne toast. But this isn’t the first time Terry has been to the Hamptons.

As the designer tuxedos are laid out and the flowers arranged along the glittering surf, Terry can’t help but take another look at a decades-old murder trial that rocked the very foundations of the town—and his family. He soon learns that digging up billion-dollar sand can be a very dangerous activity. The kind of danger that can very quickly turn even the most beautiful beach wedding into a wake.

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Chapter 1

A gull circling in the sea breeze banked into a clumsy slide, then settled gently on the tallest of the beach mansion’s brick chimneys like it wanted to be the weather vane.

At the far end of the back lawn where the sod became beach grass, I stood with my brother Tom, looking up at the massive castle-like structure, taking it all in.

At least trying to.

Tom, playing tour guide, had just explained that the Southampton summer dream house he’d just rented was a proper traditional two-wing manor, built in the French Renaissance Revival style after a famous house of landed gentry outside of London. Past the sun terrace we’d just walked across, you could see the pool peeking out around the side of the thirty-thousand-square-foot house like a giant block of sapphire wrapped in travertine.

To say that Tom was a tour guide wasn’t even an exaggeration, as the place was literally about the size of a museum.

“So?” Tom said. “What do you think?”

I turned away from the white elephant of a house and took a sip of my drink, studying the private staircase of weathered teak that dropped down the windy bluff at our back. I looked south to where the wood slat fence wound along the dunes, and beyond it, the Atlantic’s infinite slate blue waves rose and curled and broke and crashed with a soft hiss as it washed up onto the private beach thirty steps below us.

Being from the poor man’s Hamptons, Hampton Bays across the Shinnecock Inlet, Tom and I had been more of the to-the-split-level-born class. The only exclusive club we’d ever been members of was that of the hustling townie contingent. Up until now, the only times I’d ever gotten within spitting distance of these Southampton eight-figure beach castles was by working events as a busboy or a bartender or a valet. I’d never even dreamed of actually staying in one.

“What do I think of this beer?” I finally said, holding up my bottle. “Exceptional, Tom, really. What is it? Craft stuff? Head and shoulders above the cans of Miller Genuine Draft in my beer drawer back in Philly.”

“Ha-ha, dummy,” Tom said, elbowing me. “C’mon, really. What do you think?”

I turned, studying my brother. Tom usually looked pretty pale and stressed from his 24/7 Wall Street pressure-cooker managerial duties at Emerald Crown Capital Partners, the hedge fund that he had started. But he’d already been out here for a couple of days, and it had done him a ton of good, I saw. My dark-haired brother looked actually sort of relaxed for once, tan and handsome and happy in his preppy red shorts and half-unbuttoned cream-colored linen shirt.

“What do I think?” I finally said. “What do you think I think? It’s impossible, Tom. That’s not a house. It looks like a Park Avenue apartment building. I mean, where is Zeus staying now that you rented his house? Summering in the South of France? No, wait. Visiting Poseidon?”

Tom slowly put an arm around my shoulders.

“Zeus is right here, Terry,” he said, winking at me with a wide grin. “I am Zeus, come down to stand here with you stupid mortals. Right here before your very eyes.”

“Yeah, right,” I said, shouldering him away. “I remember all those times Zeus clipped his divine toenails into my Captain Crunch at the kitchen table like it was yesterday. And all the birthday punches. With one for good luck, too. Every time. The gods are so benevolent.”

As my brother cracked up, I smiled and took another sip of my beer.

Because I felt happy too then. Or maybe suddenly at ease was a better way to describe it. Truth be told, I’d been a little reluctant to make the trip up from Philly and all the way back home after all these years.

Actually, more than a little.

Even with the fact that my oldest brother was finally tying the knot.

There are reasons why some people leave the place they were born and raised and never come back. Usually, they’re very good reasons.

But maybe, I thought as I took in Tom and the billion-dollar scenery some more.

Maybe this wasn’t such a big deal after all. Time had passed. Quite a bit of it. And didn’t they say that time heals all wounds?

At least it wasn’t a big deal as far as Tom was concerned, I realized.

Despite his new ginormous pockets, Tom was still just Tom. Tom, who used to let me ride back home on the handlebars of his ten-speed from Little League practice when I was a kid. Tom, who let me read his comic books as long as I kept them neatly in the plastic covers. Tom, who hit a kid who was bullying me in the head with a basketball from half-court in the schoolyard that time.

Just Tom, I thought, looking at him as the summer wind scattered some more expensive sand across the back of my pale neck and knees.

Only with a couple of specks of white in his black Irish hair now and more than a couple extra zeros in his bank account.

“Okay, I’ll bite,” I said then. “Only because I know you’re dying for me to ask. How much is it running you?”

“What? You mean with the staff and everything?” Tom said, comically wrinkling his brow.

Tom had already mentioned the chefs and the maids and the gardeners, and even the chauffeur and limo that the rental came with to heighten the full modern money-be-damned Great Gatsby experience.

“Yes, the whole kit and caboodle. Out with it, moneybags. How much?”

“Five,” Tom said, staring at me calmly.

“Five? What do you mean? Five what?”

He looked at me again silently for a beat before I got it. If I hadn’t already just swallowed my beer, I probably would have spit it all over him.

“That’s impossible! Five hundred grand? Half a million dollars for the season?” I said in shock.

“Oh, no,” my brother said, chuckling softly as he shook his head.

He gave me another wink as he brought his own beer to his lips.

“That’s just for July, Terry,” he said. “Just July.”


Excerpted from Beach Wedding @ 2022 by Michael Ledwidge, used with permission by Hanover Square Press.

About the Author

Photo Credit: Cara Lawton

MICHAEL LEDWIDGE is the writer of seventeen novels, the last dozen being New York Times bestsellers co-written with one of the world’s bestselling authors, James Patterson. With twenty million copies in print, their Michael Bennett series is the highest-selling New York City detective series of all time. One of their novels, Zoo, became a three-season CBS television series. He lives in Connecticut.

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HTP Winter Blog Tour (Mystery/Thriller Edition) Promo Post: Cry Wolf by Hans Rosenfeldt

The first standalone Swedish crime novel by Hans Rosenfeldt, creator of the TV series The Bridge as well as Netflix’s Emmy-winning Marcella.

A dead wolf. A drug deal gone wrong. A female assassin of rarely seen skill. Hannah Wester, a policewoman in the remote northern town of Haparanda, finds herself on the precipice of chaos.

When human remains are found in the stomach of a dead wolf, Hannah knows that this summer won’t be like any other. The remains are linked to a bloody drug deal across the border in Finland. But how did the victim end up in the woods outside of Haparanda? And where have the drugs and money gone?

Hannah and her colleagues leave no stone unturned. But time is scarce and they aren’t the only ones looking. When the secretive and deadly Katja shows up, unexpected and brutal events start to pile up. In just a few days, life in Haparanda is turned upside down. Not least for Hannah, who is finally forced to confront her own past. 

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Books-A-Million  |  Powell’s

 

Everything had gone according to plan.

First their arrival.

Be the first in place, park the jeep and black Mercedes be-side each other on a rutted clearing in the middle of the forest, used by lumber trucks and harvesters for loading and U-turns, then position the coolers to face the narrow forest road they’d just come down. The ruts beneath them, the nocturnal birdsong around them, the only thing besides absolute silence until the sound of engines announced the arrival of the Finns.

A Volvo XC90, also black, drove up. Vadim watched as Artjom and Michail took their weapons and left the Mercedes, while he and Ljuba climbed out of their jeep. He liked Ljuba, thought she liked him, too. They’d gone out for a beer together a few times, and when they asked her who she wanted to drive with, she’d chosen him. For a moment he considered telling her to wait in the car, take cover, say he had a premonition this might go wrong. But if he did that, what would they do afterwards?

Run away together? Live happily ever after?

That would be impossible once she knew what had happened. She’d never betray Valerij; she didn’t like him that much, he was sure of it. So he said nothing.

The Volvo stopped a few meters in front of them, the engine switched off, the doors opened and four men stepped out. All of them armed. Looked around suspiciously as they fanned out.

Everything was still.

The calm before the storm.

The Finnish leader, a large man with a buzz cut and a tribal tattoo wrapped around one eye, nodded to the smallest of the four Finns, who holstered his gun, walked behind the Volvo and opened the trunk. Vadim also backed up a few steps to un-lock his jeep’s trunk.

So far everything was going according to their plan.

Time for his plan.

A bullet from a rifle with a silencer on it entered just beneath the eye of the large Finn closest to the car. The sudden explosion of bone, blood, and brain matter as the projectile made its way through the back of his head made the others react instinctively.

Everyone started shooting at the same time.

Everyone except Vadim, who threw himself behind the shelter of the jeep.

The man with the tattoo on his face roared loudly, hugged his trigger, and immediately took down Michail with four or five shots to the chest. Artyom answered with gunfire. The tattooed man was hit by two bullets, staggered back, but re-gained his balance and turned his weapon on Artyom, who threw himself behind the cover of the Mercedes, but it was too late. Several bullets hit his legs from the hip down. Shrieking in pain, he landed on dry gravel. The tattooed man continued bleeding, roaring, and shooting as he moved toward the Volvo, determined to make it out of here alive. But a second later he fell to his knees gurgling, let go of his weapon and pressed his hands to what was left of his neck.

Somewhere more shots were fired, more screams could be heard.

Artjom slid up into a sitting position, while trying to stop the blood that gushed from his thigh in the same rhythm as his racing heartbeat. Then another series of shots, and he went still, his gaze turning from desperation to emptiness, his lips forming some soundless word before his head slumped onto his chest.

The third Finn had thrown himself into the cover of a shallow ditch with a good view beneath the parked cars. A round of concentrated fire from his semi-automatic had hit Artjom in the back. Vadim realized that he, too, must be visible and flung himself around the jeep to hide behind one of its large wheels. When he got to the side of the car, he saw the smallest of the four Finns lying dead on the ground.

Ljuba wasn’t visible.

Another round of shots sounded from the ditch at the forest edge and bullets hit the metal on the back of the wheel, puncturing the tire. One went through the rubber and hit him in the side, just above his butt. The pain was a white-hot flash through his body. He closed his eyes, swallowed a scream, leaned his forehead against his knees and made himself as small as he could. As he slowly let the air in his lungs out again, he realized the gunfire had ceased.

It was silent. Completely silent.

No movement, no voices, no roar of pain or betrayal, no bird-song, nothing. As if the very place itself were holding its breath.

He peeked out carefully from behind the jeep.

Still silent. And still.

Slowly, slowly he raised his head for a better view. The sun hung below the trees, but still above the horizon; the scene in front of him was bathed in that particular soft, warm light of the midnight sun.

He rose cautiously to his feet. A bullet was still lodged in his muscle and tissue, but it didn’t seem to have damaged any vital organs. He pressed his hand to the wound. Blood, but no more than he could stop with a compress.

“Ljuba?”

Ljuba was leaning against the rear bumper of the Finn’s car, breathing shallowly, the front of her gray T-shirt beneath her jacket soaked in blood, the gun still in her right hand. Vadim assessed the damage. The blood was running out at a steady rate, so it hadn’t nicked an artery. No air bubbles, so her lungs were probably intact. She might very well survive.

“Who shot us?” she asked, out of breath, grabbing Vadim’s jacket with a bloody hand. “Who the fuck started shooting?”

“He’s with us.”

“What? What do you mean with us? Who is he?”

“Come on.”

He gently took the gun away from her, pushed it into his pocket before standing up, leaned forward and helped her to her feet. She grimaced from the pain of exertion but managed to stand. With his arm around her waist and her arm around his shoulders, they walked out into the open area between the cars. When they reached the rise where the tattooed Finn had fallen, Vadim stopped, gently removed Ljuba’s arm, released his supportive grip from around her waist, and backed away with two large steps.

“I’m sorry…”

Ljuba’s gaze was uncomprehending at first, but she soon realized what was happening, why he’d brought her here. Seconds later a bullet pierced her temple and she was thrown to the ground.

Vadim pressed his hand to the wound on his lower back and stretched, let out a deep sigh.

In the end, everything had gone according to plan.

 

Excerpted from Cry Wolf by Hans Rosenfeldt, Copyright © 2022 by Hans Rosenfeldt. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

About the Author: 

 

Hans Rosenfeldt is a Swedish screenwriter, radio presenter, novelist and actor. He created the Scandinavian series The Bridge, which is broadcast in more than 170 countries, as well as the ITV/Netflix series Marcella. 

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HTP Fall Blog Tour (Mystery/Thriller Edition) Promo Post: My Darling Husband by Kimberly Belle

Bestselling author of DEAR WIFE and THE MARRIAGE LIE, Kimberly Belle returns with her most heart-pounding thriller to date, as a masked home invader reveals the cracks in a marriage.

Everyone is about to know what her husband isn’t telling her…

Jade and Cam Lasky are by all accounts a happily married couple with two adorable kids, a spacious home and a rapidly growing restaurant business. But their world is tipped upside down when Jade is confronted by a masked home invader. As Cam scrambles to gather the ransom money, Jade starts to wonder if they’re as financially secure as their lifestyle suggests, and what other secrets her husband is keeping from her.
Cam may be a good father, a celebrity chef and a darling husband, but there’s another side he’s kept hidden from Jade that has put their family in danger. Unbeknownst to Cam and Jade, the home invader has been watching them and is about to turn their family secrets into a public scandal.
With riveting twists and a breakneck pace, My Darling Husband is an utterly compelling thriller that once again showcases Kimberly Belle's exceptional talent for domestic suspense.

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Jade

3:18 pm



I see the black figure in the shadows, and my first thought is of the kids, an immediate, full-throttle alarm that comes on like a freight train. This is parenthood in a nutshell: utter terror for your children’s welfare, always. It’s something Cam and I never thought about back when we were trying to get pregnant—the overwhelming insecurity when the doctor settled our babies into our arms, the unrelenting worry whenever they’re not near. I spot movement and I reach for them at the same time—instant and instinctual. My brain identifies a person, a male-sized form that does not belong here, and I shove their little bodies behind mine.

A man, looming in my garage. Breathing the same air.

I don’t move. I can’t. No fight. No flight. I just stand here, transfixed, dumbstruck, stock-still.

I think of my phone, buried under the mail and trash in my bag. I think of the panic button on the alarm pad in the house, on the other end of a breezeway and tucked safely behind a locked door. I think of my keys, next to my phone. Even if I managed to get us out of this garage, where would we go? I’d never make it inside the house, and the backyard is fenced, the gates either electronic or secured with a complicated, child-safe latch. There’s nowhere to escape.

“Don’t move. Stay quiet and I won’t hurt you.”

The voice is so frighteningly close. Hoarse, rattling in air hot with my sticky fear, and I don’t believe a single word. Especially not when he steps closer, and I get a better look. The man is wearing a mask. He’s holding a gun, a stubby black thing in a fist. Head-to-toe black, every bit of him covered, even his hands. His fingertips.

Run. I scream the word in my head, urging myself on. Grab the children and run.

Now.

A chill races down my spine. The hairs soldier on my skin.

This man is here to hurt me. To hurt us.

And still I can’t move.

So this is it, then. This is how my body responds when faced with sudden fright, with this hot, sluggish horror—like when your fingers brush over a strange lump under your armpit and you realize your life has veered sideways. Some people run. Others scream. Me, I just stand here, paralyzed by the mounting terror.

The kids, too. They stare at him with big, frightened eyes. A little hand grabs my pants leg.

“Please,” I somehow manage to squeak, but I can’t finish. Please don’t touch the children. Please don’t shoot us. The words are too horrifying to say out loud.

He moves closer, his gait smooth but there’s something sinister in the way he’s walking across the concrete floor. He’s like an animal on the hunt, joints loose, ready to pounce. All dangerous, coiled energy lurking just below the surface.

“Take my car.” I hold out my bag, a stupidly expensive designer thing from a couple years ago. “The keys are in here somewhere, and so’s my wallet. I—”

“I don’t want your purse. Don’t want your car, either.” His voice is deep and scratchy, the kind that sounds filled with cigarette smoke.

My stomach spirals, and I search his face for more, but the parts of him I can see—his lips, his eyes—are closed off. I search for something recognizable, something human I can appeal to, but there’s nothing. It’s like searching for meaning on a covered canvas.

Still, I take in every detail I can see and commit them to memory. Just under six foot, medium build, broad shouldered. Caucasian. I know this from his eyes, olive green and flecked with amber, the pink patch of skin around his mouth. His teeth are white and straight, the kind of straight that comes from braces.

“Do you want money? I don’t have cash, but take my card. My pin is 4-3-0-8.”

“Jade. Shh.”

My name on his tongue tightens a knot of panic in my gut, and I scurry—finally—backwards, putting some distance between me and this man, pushing the kids behind me and towards the door.

Stay calm.

Don’t panic.

Whatever happens, do not let the gunman in the house. That’s how people get killed. That’s how entire families end up in a pool of blood. As soon as you let the gunman into the house, you’re already dead.



Excerpted from My Darling Husband @ 2021 by Kimberly S. Belle Books, LLC, used with permission by Park Row Books.

About the Author:

Photo Credit: Brandon Wattson

Kimberly Belle is the USA Today and internationally bestselling author of seven novels, including her latest, My Darling Husband (December 2021). Her third novel, The Marriage Lie, was a semifinalist in the 2017 Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Mystery & Thriller, and a #1 e-book bestseller in the UK and Italy. She’s sold rights to her books in a dozen languages as well as film and television options. A graduate of Agnes Scott College, Belle divides her time between Atlanta and Amsterdam.

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