Archives de catégorie : Crime & Thrillers

UNSTERBLICH de Michaela Kastel

A lonely taxidermist – a ghastly project – a ruthless hunt…

UNSTERBLICH
(Immortal)
by Michaela Kastel
Heyne/PRH Germany, April 2023

Taxidermist Sonja lives all on her own deep in the woods. She avoids all human contact like the plague, and the inhabitants of the nearby village are in any case convinced she’s a witch. Her clientele is mostly rather suspect, and many of the jobs they give her are unpleasant and illegal. When she meets a young man and feels herself falling for him, she decides to escape her hermit’s life. To do that, she first has to take on one last well-paid and very, very illegal job. But then long-buried trauma and family secrets raise their head – and soon she is not the only one who’s in mortal danger…

Michaela Kastel, born in 1987, has a degree from Vienna University, after which she spent many years working in a bookshop. In 2019, she became a full-time author. Her debut thriller So dunkel der Wald (‘The woods are dark and deep’) won the Viktor Crime Award, and she has been shortlisted for several other prizes.

NOT DEAD ENOUGH de Tyffany Neiheiser

A thriller in the vein of Pretty Little Liars that deftly balances a heart-pounding mystery with an emotional, empowering story about confronting the complicated aftermath of an abusive relationship.

NOT DEAD ENOUGH
by Tyffany Neiheiser
Philomel, Spring 2024
(via JABberwocky)

Jerry always told Charlotte that he’d never let her go. Now, four months after his death, Charlotte worries this wasn’t just a threat that Jerry made when he was angry.
As she puts up the facade of the grieving girlfriend at school, Charlotte secretly struggles with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, fearful of being labeled as “crazy,” especially since no one knew that Jerry was abusive.
Just as Charlotte tentatively begins a new romance with a cute guy from class, she starts receiving mysterious text messages from someone claiming to be Jerry. Someone claiming that, like him, they will never let her go.
As the texts get more sinister, they are accompanied by increasingly violent attacks on Charlotte. Charlotte realizes that whether it’s a stalker from school or Jerry haunting her from beyond the grave, someone wants her dead.
And if she wants to stay alive, she will have to speak up about her abuse before it’s too late.

Tyffany Neiheiser writes speculative YA thrillers and short stories. She is passionate about mental health and self-acceptance, so those themes tend to find their way into her stories. She has a Master’s Degree in Mental Health Counseling, and she has worked as a counselor for people with both mental health and substance abuse challenges. She has also spent three years as a crisis counselor helping people struggling with suicidal or homicidal ideation. Her internship was with a hospice, providing grief counseling to people who were dying and people who experienced a loss. These experiences have shaped her stories. Her favorite things in life are her dogs, her cats, reading, writing, and hiking.

THE SHADOW SISTER de Lily Meade

A gripping, speculative thriller from a dazzling new voice about a teen who disappears…and returns, changed in ways that trauma alone can’t explain.

THE SHADOW SISTER
by Lily Meade
Sourcebooks Fire, June 2023
(via Laura Dail Literary)

Sometimes people are lost from you, no matter how much you wish they weren’t and before you can even begin to know how big of a hole they’ll leave behind.
Sutton going missing is the worst thing to happen to Casey, to their family. She’s trying to help find her sister, but Casey is furious. She knows Sutton is manipulative, meanwhile everyone paints a picture of her perfection. People don’t look for missing Black girls—or half-Black girls—without believing there is an angel to be saved.
When Sutton reappears, Casey knows she should be relieved. Except Sutton isn’t the same. She remembers nothing about while she was gone―or anything from her old life, including how she made Casey miserable. There’s something unsettling about the way she wants to spend time with Casey and watch her goldfish swim for hours.
What happened to Sutton? The more Casey starts uncovering her sister’s secrets, the more questions she has. Did she really know her sister? Why is no one talking about the other girls who have gone missing in their area? And what will it take to uncover the truth?

Lily Meade is a biracial Black woman living outside of Seattle, Washington. Her work has been published in Bustle and Teen Vogue, and she has been featured in Romper, Buzzfeed, and Rolling Stone. This is her debut novel, which was a finalist for the Eleanor Taylor Bland award for emerging writers by Sisters in Crime.

A FEAST OF ASHES de Victoria Williamson

An action-packed young adult dystopian eco-thriller — the first in a breath-taking new trilogy — set in East Africa.

A FEAST OF ASHES (Book 1)
by Victoria Williamson
Seven Seas/Neem Tree Press, October 2023
(via Randle Editorial & Literary)

It’s the year 2123, and sixteen-year-old Adina has just killed nearly every person she knows. All fourteen thousand seven hundred and fifty-six of them. Brought up in the East African ecobubble of Eden Five, as far as she knows the whole world had been destroyed by ecological disasters brought about by human greed for profit. The Amonston Corporation built ecobubbles across Africa to keep the remaining plant and animal species safe, and their generosity saved thousands of people.
When Eden Five is incinerated by an explosion caused by a routine maintenance job Adina skipped, she and a small group of survivors have to brave the toxic wilds outside the ruined dome to get to the Sanctuary before their biofilters give out and their DNA starts to mutate in the toxic outside air.
With a strong environmental theme, and warnings on the dangers of corporate takeover, this action-packed novel takes a deep look at family, friendship, romance and sacrifice.
Feast of Ashes is the first in an explosive trilogy which includes Seeds of Hunger (2024) and Harvest of Flame (2025). Perfect for fans of The Hunger Games.

Victoria Williamson is an award-winning children’s author from Glasgow. She has taught maths and science in Cameroon, trained teachers in Malawi, taught English in China and worked with children with special needs in the UK.
Victoria is a qualified primary school teacher. Her books have been long-listed for the Branford Boase Prize, Waterstones Children’s Prize, and she has won the Bolton Children’s Fiction Award in 2020 and 2021.

WHAT HAPPENED TO JANET UZOR de Miracle Emeka-Nkwor

Every year at Afobiri High School, a student dies. Ebere thinks there is a killer on the loose…

WHAT HAPPENED TO JANET UZOR
by Miracle Emeka-Nkwor
Masobe Books, February 2022
(via Randle Editorial & Literary)

A year after their best friend, Janet Uzor dies in a drowning incident, Pamela and Ebere are trying to cope and move on in their own unique ways. Pamela buries her emotions, while Ebere has been on a mission to find out what really happened to their friend, an excellent swimmer, whose death seems unfair and unconscionable. When Pamela begins to receive sinister letters threatening her life, she finally has to confront her fears, and with the help of Ebere, on/off boyfriend Eche, good friend Daniel Kalio, she sets out to find out who is after her life. In order to do this, they have to uncover the truth and the circumstances behind the death of Janet Uzor.

Miracle Emeka-Nkwor was born and raised in the Garden city, Port Harcourt, in Nigeria. She is a graduate of Biochemistry from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and has always likened herself to an overflowing drum of creativity. When she isn’t sketching designs, drafting patterns and bent over a sewing machine, her nose is buried in the pages of a good book.