McMahon, Jennifer

"In 1924, a young mother, Hattie Breckenridge, is hanged from a tree in her yard by the town mob, accused of a crime that was actually committed by her daughter. Nearly a century later, a young married couple, Helen and Nate abandon the comforts of suburbia to begin the ultimate, aspirational do-it-yourself project: building the house of their dreams on the same forty-four acres of rural land where Hattie once lived. When they discover that this charming property has a dark and violent past, Helen, a former history teacher, becomes consumed by Hattie's story and the tragic legend of her descendants, three generations of 'Breckenridge women,' each of whom died amid suspicion, and who seem to still be seeking something elusive and dangerous in the present day"--OCLC.

Henry and Tess, once part of a quartet of college art majors who called themselves the Compassionate Dismantlers, find their lives unraveling when Suz, a member of the group who died ten years earlier during one the Dismantler's twisted experiments, seems to be haunting their daughter.

"Ashford, Vermont, might look like your typical sleepy New England college town, but to the shadowy residents who live among the remains of its abandoned mills and factories, it's known as "Burntown." Eva Sandeski, known as "Necco" on the street, has been a part of this underworld for years, ever since the night her father Miles drowned in a flood that left her and her mother Lily homeless. A respected professor, Miles was also an inventor of fantastic machines, including one so secret that the plans were said to have been stolen from Thomas Edison's workshop. According to Lily, it's this machine that got Miles murdered. Necco has always written off this claim as the fevered imaginings of a woman consumed by grief. But when Lily dies under mysterious circumstances, and Necco's boyfriend is murdered, she's convinced her mother was telling the truth. Now, on the run from the man called "Snake Eyes," Necco must rely on other Burntown outsiders to survive. There are the "fire eaters," mystical women living off the grid in a campsite on the river's edge, practicing a kind of soothsaying inspired by powerful herbs called "the devil's snuff"; there's Theo, a high school senior who is scrambling to repay the money she owes a dangerous man; and then there's Pru, the cafeteria lady with a secret life. As the lives of these misfits intersect, and as the killer from the Sandeski family's past draws ever closer, a story of edge-of-your-seat suspense begins to unfurl with classic Jennifer McMahon twists and surprises"--.

"West Hall, Vermont, has always been a town of strange disappearances and old legends. The most mysterious is that of Sara Harrison Shea, who, in 1908, was found dead in the field behind her house just months after the tragic death of her daughter. Now, in the present day, nineteen-year-old Ruthie lives in Sara's farmhouse with her mother, Alice, and her younger sister, Fawn. Alice has always insisted that they live off the grid, a decision that has weighty consequences when Ruthie wakes up one morning to find that Alice has vanished. In her search for clues, she is startled to find a copy of Sara Harrison Shea's diary hidden beneath the floorboards of her mother's bedroom. As Ruthie gets sucked into the historical mystery, she discovers that she's not the only person looking for someone they've lost. But she may be the only one who can stop history from repeating itself."--Back cover.

Ruthie Washburne does not understand her mother's insistence that they live off the grid, until her mother suddenly vanishes and she finds the diary of Sara Harrison Shea, a woman who disappeared months after the tragic death of her daughter and is rumored to haunt the streets of West Hall, Vermont, and gains insight into Sara's desperate need to hold her daughter once again.

Reggie, a successful architect who left her hometown and the horrific memories of a long ago summer behind, gets a call revealing that her mother has been found alive--a call that forces Reggie to confront the ghosts of her past and find the serial killer known as Neptune before he kills again.

Fifteen-year-old Maggie, still grieving the loss of her mother in an accident that also gave her a limp, has turned her back on old friends but connects with a new student, Dahlia, who makes her part of her quirky family and plans their future together as roving musicians and lovers.

Henry and Tess, once part of a quartet of college art majors who called themselves the Compassionate Dismantlers, find their lives unraveling when Suz, a member of the group who died ten years earlier during one the Dismantler's twisted experiments, seems to be haunting their daughter.

Soon after returning to her childhood home in Vermont to care for her mother who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, Kate Cypher learns about a recent murder that is similar to one thirty-one years earlier in which her friend Del was the victim, and as she investigates, surprising details about the community begin to unfold.