fiction

Queen of diverse historicals Vanessa Riley brings readers a vivid, sweeping novel of the Haitian Revolution based on the true-life stories of two extraordinary women: the first Empress of Haiti, Marie-Claire Bonheur, and Gran Toya, a West African-born warrior who helped lead the rebellion that drove out the French and freed the enslaved people of Haiti.

A riveting thriller about a fugitive in search of a quick payday in Mexico City who finds himself in the crosshairs of a dangerous international scheme.

On April 27, 1997, four contestants make it to the final cell of the Quigley House, a full-contact haunted escape room in Lincoln, Nebraska, made famous for its monstrosities, booby-traps, and ghoulishly costumed actors. If the group can endure these horrors without shouting the safe word, "reprieve," they'll win a substantial cash prize. But before they can complete the challenge, a man breaks into the cell and kills one of the contestants.

Aleen Cust has big dreams. And no one; not her family, society, or the law; will stop her. Born in Ireland in 1868 to an aristocratic English family, Aleen knows she is destined to work with animals, even if her family is appalled by the idea of a woman pursuing a veterinary career. Going against their wishes but with the encouragement of the guardian assigned to her upon her father's death, Aleen attends the New Veterinary College in Edinburgh, enrolling as A. I. Custance to spare her family the humiliation they fear. At last, she is on her way to becoming a veterinary surgeon! Little does she know her biggest obstacles lie ahead.

In 1668, fifteen-year-old Kemosha is sold by a slave owner to a tavern keeper in Port Royal, Jamaica; the "wickedest city on earth." She soon flees from a brutal assault and finds herself in the company of a mysterious free Black man, Ravenhide, who teaches her the fine art of swordplay, introduces her to her soul mate, Isabella, and helps her win her freedom. Ravenhide is a privateer for the notorious Captain Morgan aboard his infamous ship, the Satisfaction. At Ravenhide's encouragement, Morgan invites Kemosha to join them on a pillaging voyage to Panama. As her swashbuckling legend grows, she realizes she has the chance to earn enough to buy the freedom of her loved ones; if she can escape with her life.

Tucker Thompson is just an ordinary 8th grader from Detroit, Michigan. He loves school and baseball. Everything seems great for the left-handed pitcher with a big, breaking curveball. That is, until one dreadful event changes his life. Tucker learns that his parents are getting divorced. If that wasn?t bad enough, his mom is making a move. He will be forced to attend a new school, across town in the inner city of Detroit. Struggling to handle his anger, Tucker does the only thing he can think of to get his parent?s attention: cause trouble. Not everyone at his new school finds him entertaining, especially the principal, Mr. David. After pulling off the prank of the century, Tucker gets kicked out of school and shipped off to live with his Uncle Ed and Aunt Loretta in a remote area of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The U.P. is a far cry from the concrete jungle of Detroit. But Tucker quickly realizes there is something magical and mysterious about Uncle Ed?s place. He is warned early and often by his uncle to never venture into the West Woods. But why? Is Uncle Ed hiding something?.

Hunter's life revolves around video games, more video games, and still more video games. Growing up in downtown Denver was the perfect place to live unnoticed from the rest of the world. But Hunter's life suddenly changes when his dad is laid off from his job and their family is forced to move in order to make ends meet. Trying to get back on their feet, Hunter's family relocates to the wild mountains of Colorado, far away from the city life Denver offers. But tiny Pine Bluff is barely big enough to have a school and it offers Hunter no place to hide from prying eyes. As bad as things seem, they're about to get much worse for Hunter.

As the chief forensic anthropologist for the FBI's Chicago field office, Christine Prusik has worked her fair share of bizarre cases. Yet this one trumps them all: a serial killer is strangling young women and dumping their bodies in the steep, forested ravines of southern Indiana. With each victim, the killer leaves a calling card: a stone figurine carved like the spirit stones found among the primitive tribes of Papua New Guinea; the same tribes from whom Prusik narrowly escaped a decade earlier while doing field research. The similarity is eerie and, frankly, terrifying; Prusik still carries the scars from the tribesmen's attack. But is the connection real? Or have the dark details of Prusik's nightmares finally wormed their way into her waking life?.

When Chloe Davis was twelve, six teenage girls went missing in her small Louisiana town. By the end of the summer, her own father had confessed to the crimes and was put away for life, leaving Chloe and the rest of her family to grapple with the truth and try to move forward while dealing with the aftermath. Now twenty years later, Chloe is a psychologist in Baton Rouge and getting ready for her wedding. While she finally has a fragile grasp on the happiness she's worked so hard to achieve, she sometimes feels as out of control of her own life as the troubled teens who are her patients. So when a local teenage girl goes missing, and then another, that terrifying summer comes crashing back. Is she paranoid, seeing parallels from her past that aren't actually there, or for the second time in her life, is Chloe about to unmask a killer?.

Lower Manhattan: A sniper's bullet ends the life of a high-profile New Yorker. Five miles uptown, a second prominent victim has his throat slashed. And that's only the beginning. A network of professional assassins is on the loose in New York City. Trained by the US military, they're on their own now, with a new unit called Kappa Omega Delta. Killers On Demand. NYPD Red detectives Kylie MacDonald and Zach Jordan are called in to hunt them down, but these mercenaries are as gifted in the art of escape as they are in snuffing out lives.