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A Botanist’s Guide to Tradition and Treachery by Kate Khavari. The book is in stores on Tuesday, June 9th.
Brilliant botanist Saffron Everleigh has set sail on her first research expedition, but it’s disrupted by accusations of murder when one of her fellow scientists is murdered in this daring fifth installment.
Saffron Everleigh is newly engaged and full of optimism as she sets off on the adventure of a lifetime for any scientist: a research expedition. She sails to newly formed Turkey with her fiancé, Alexander Ashton, and a bevy of fellow researchers under the watchful and reformed eye of Dr. Henry. With only two other women on board, Saffron soon finds she is right back in the same infuriatingly misogynistic environment that marked the earliest days of her career. Only this time, Saffron is determined to show everyone, including Alexander, that she can handle the trials of an expedition.
And trials she has in spades. Before the expedition team has even arrived, Saffron has managed to find an enemy in historian Joseph Clark, who frequently torments the assistant that Saffron has taken under her wing, Martin Neill. But when Martin unexpectedly dies, Saffron is targeted as the main suspect. Falling ruins, venomous snakes, and mysteriously blocked passages are the least of Saffron’s worries. With unexpected help from a familiar face, Alexander and Saffron have to work fast to prove not only that Saffron is innocent but that they both have nothing to do with a larger conspiracy at play among the expedition crew.
The Most Dangerous Man by Jack Murphy. The book is in stores on Tuesday, June 9th.
There are rumors that in some corners of the world, wildlife poachers have become the prey themselves—hunted for sport: the sport of one man hunting another. Staff Sgt. Jeremy Lopez is a US Army Ranger serving in the highly secretive Regimental Reconnaissance Company, providing support on covert missions in West Africa. When Lopez accepts the wrong drink in the wrong bar from the wrong woman, her face is the last thing he remembers before waking up in a locked, dirty cell.
It soon becomes clear that this is no government facility–this is a holding cell for an elite hunting party, and Lopez has been chosen as their next quarry. These hunters started killing poachers who crossed their paths, and they’ve been building toward a more challenging game. But Lopez isn’t prey: he’s a hunter himself. When he’s set loose into the wilds, Lopez knows that he’ll need to get to work and do his job: survive, evade, escape, and kill. Former US Army Ranger and Green Beret Jack Murphy delivers a military thriller that’s as urgent and technically accurate as it is explosive, perfect for fans of Mark Greaney and Jack Carr.
The Door in Penrose Forest by Sean David Robinson. The book is in stores on Tuesday, June 23rd.
A man returns to his strange hometown twenty years after his mother climbed a staircase in the wilderness and disappeared in this speculative mystery where We Used to Live Here meets The Midnight Library. As a boy, Nico once accompanied his mother on a research trip to investigate a stalled migration of monarch butterflies. One night, upon hearing her sneak out of their rented cabin, he followed her to a clearing in the forest where a famed mansion once stood. Paralyzed with fear, he watched his mother climb a staircase and vanish, along with the stairs and the strange glowing door at its peak. No one believed his story, and as he grew older, he too stopped believing it was real.
As an adult, Nico returns to his hometown to care for his ailing father. But something strange is happening to the town. There are unexplained power fluctuations, people are going missing, and, reportedly, phantoms are roaming the woods. When Nico finds his mother’s field journal from the week she disappeared, including her account of the vanishing staircase, he begins to pick apart the mystery. All the tangled strings trail back to the same starting point: the gilded age family whose mansion burned down under mysterious circumstances in those very same woods where his mother vanished.
This Is a Lie by Cleo Ballard. The book is in stores on Tuesday, June 23rd.
A woman uses AI to create the perfect friend and finds herself trapped in a cat-and-mouse game in this ticking clock thriller, perfect for fans of Blake Crouch. Penn, once a promising PhD candidate in applied language studies, gave up a scholarship to become a wife and stay-at-home mother, showcasing her perfect life and family on social media. But when she’s betrayed by her husband, her friends, and even her teenage daughter, Penn’s carefully curated world shatters.
Reeling from an ugly divorce, Penn is drawn back to her unfinished grad school dissertation project, a program designed to analyze speech patterns to discern the truth. Unsure how to proceed, she takes a computer class. At the suggestion of Luc, the professor and Penn’s one-time college crush, she uses the power of artificial intelligence to turn her program into Aletheia, the perfect friend. Despite Luc’s warnings about the potential dangers of AI, Penn finally feels supported, safe, and open to a new romance with Luc. Until Aletheia takes her directives too far and the truth becomes more dangerous than a lie. As Aletheia grows increasingly erratic and deadly, Penn must find a way to outwit her creation before Aletheia destroys everyone Penn loves.
Girl on the Beach by Carol Snow. The book is in stores on Tuesday, June 23rd.
A missing child tears a family apart in this switchback roller coaster of a psychological thriller that builds to a final, jaw-dropping twist, perfect for fans of Jennifer Hillier and Lisa Lutz. On the surface, Sonia and Graham Starr were a glamorous couple: She, the sleek entrepreneur; he, the boyishly handsome painter with an irrepressible zest for life. They had everything money can buy and the one thing it can’t—a precious, precocious four-year-old named Roxie. But when Roxie disappears into the Pacific Ocean on a perfect August afternoon, their world crumbles around them.
Months later, Roxie’s twenty-one-year-old former nanny, plagued by guilt and confusion, returns to the Starrs’ beach house on the “American Riviera,” the rarified stretch of land around Santa Barbara where the mountains meet the sea. Her first night back, she gazes out at the sand, only to see a child who bears a striking resemblance to Roxie. When she calls out, the child runs away.Colleen never believed that Roxie, who was afraid of the surf, would run into the ocean on her own. Now, is determined to get to the truth, even if it means facing her greatest fears. The Girl on the Beach asks us who we trust, when we can’t trust ourselves.
Whose Body in the Library by Eva Gates. The book is in stores on Tuesday, June 9th.
A new librarian’s first day goes terribly wrong when she finds a dead body on the front steps of the library.
In the thirteenth installment of the beloved Lighthouse Library mysteries, a new character takes the reins.
While Lucy McNeil is enjoying her new job as the mother of twin boys and library director, new librarian Nichelle Gilchrest has just arrived at the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library, reporting for duty. But life throws a wrench on Nichelle’s first day when she finds a body on the steps—a body that bears a startling resemblance to her father, who disappeared on a fishing trip to the Outer Banks thirty-eight years ago.
Fingerprints confirm the dead body is indeed Nichelle’s father, now living in Nags Head under the name Brian Saunders. Brian had been befriending older lonely women in exchange for money, but was he working alone? Detective Rhonda Thomas is on the case, and the suspect list is only getting longer. Sorting through the wronged women and their relatives, Detective Thomas discovers Nichelle’s own brother Brad had been in Nags Head a few days before the murder happened and has been lying about his whereabouts. Hoping to clear her brother’s name, Nichelle decides to investigate what happened. With seasoned sleuth Lucy’s gentle encouragement for the amateur, Nichelle is in for an exciting and dangerous first week at the library.
