psychological fiction

Fifteen-year-old Vanessa is in awe of her teacher Jacob Strane and the power she has over him, and he is obsessed with her. They begin a secret affair that changes her. Seventeen years later, he is accused of sexual abuse by a former student who reaches out to Vanessa for corroboration. Vanessa explores her memories and must either admit that her teenage self willingly engaged in the relationship, or admit that the man was a predator and she was a victim.

Twenty-something Edie has finally gotten brave and started creating the art she has always wanted to make, but that is about the only good thing going on in her life--she shares a dirty Bushwick apartment and works a grueling administration job, and her sexual choices have been sub-par at best. Then she meets Eric, a New Jersey digital archivist, whose wife invites Edie into their home as part of an open marriage with rules. Edie takes the invitation, and hesitantly becomes an ally of Eric's wife and, as the only black woman in her life, to her adopted daughter Akila. However, such arrangements often do not last or end well.

Lizzie's work in the library of a university where she was a once-promising grad student is overshadowed by her side hustle answering letters for "Hell and High Water," a podcast hosted by her old mentor, characterized by doom and gloom. Lizzie is supposed to be answering these letters as an unofficial shrink, but as her own life as a wife and mother begins to suffer from her obsession with disaster psychology, writing notes of hope to the podcast correspondence becomes harder and less fulfilling.

After a mad dash to safety out of a windowless shack in the woods where her captor had been holding her, a young woman calling herself Lena returns to the world after fourteen years missing. However, this is only the beginning of a new nightmare--her family swears she is not their Lena, in spite of the matching scar she has. The little girl who Lena escape with is also a question mark--she is not saying everything she knows. Meanwhile, Lena fears her tormentor is not done with her, and will not rest until the whole truth about what happened in that shack in the woods.

When Abby is told that her painting has "no heart," she makes a list of things she's never done before to enhance her creativity. She's also hoping that her best friend Cooper will realize that he feels the same way about her as she does about him.

"Successful New York editor Jen Gibbs is at the top of her game with her new position at Vida House Publishing--until a mysterious manuscript from an old slush pile appears on her desk. Turning the pages, Jen finds herself drawn into the life of Sarra, a mixed-race Melungeon girl trapped by dangerous men in turn-of-the-century Appalachia. A risky hunch may lead to The Story Keeper's hidden origins and its unknown author, but when the trail turns toward the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, a place Jen thought she'd left behind forever, the price of a blockbuster book deal may be higher than she's willing to pay"--OCLC.

Odd Thomas and his traveling companion, Annamaria, think they have found a haven in Roseland, a magnificent West Coast property, but the manor has deep secrets and mysteries that make it more hell than haven.

Best friends almost since birth, Zoe and Hank navigate the shifting boundaries of their relationships during high school as one of them struggles with an eating disorder and self-harm.

Seventy-nine-year-old widower and artist Julian Jessop discusses the truth of his lonely life in a green journal and leaves it in a local cafe, as an invitation to others to express their truth. Monica, the cafe owner, finds it and writes her own entry, passing the notebook on to another location in the area. The green notebook touches the hands of seven other individuals from around the world, who express their own struggles and eventually gather together in person at Monica's cafe.

Reverend Stephen Drew is shattered when Alice Hayward is murdered by her husband just hours after being baptized and finds his faith in God slipping away, until he meets Heather Laurent, whose work studying angels helps Drew renew his spirituality in the face of a police investigation that suggests he may have been connected to Alice's death.