In this Blyssfully Abnormal Short Story, a group vacation takes a fatal turn when an afternoon boat trip claims the life of Ann's husband CharlesPart of the Blyssfully Abnormal Anthology; What happens when you take a group of writers, the most talented & twisted that you can find, and put them into one publishing house? They form into the strangest dysfunctional family we've ever seen. No one asked the question, but Charity found the answer. So she wondered, what would happen if she gave us a list of seemingly normal situations and asked us to give them our own unique twist? The answer is the Blyssfully Abnormal anthology, a collection of stories that gives the reader a peek into the somewhat abnormal minds that bring us together.In Bond of Sisters a group vacation takes a fatal turn when an afternoon boat trip claims the life of Ann's husband Charles

Under suspicion for a crime she watched **him** commit, Lana will pay for her silence. Her new lawyer strikes a deal, sending her to a boarding school in Vermont. It’s supposed to be a second chance. An escape from a dead-end life in Sherling. Except Lana doesn’t want to leave those who depend on her behind. Lana is convinced she has nothing in common with the sons and daughters of celebrities and politicians who attend Blackwood School. But she soon finds out, that they're all delinquents... just like her. Theirs is a world of contrived headlines and publicity facades, and Lana's unabated honesty is a keen contrast to their lie-filled lives. She finds herself with new friends, just by telling the truth. But not everyone is welcoming. Someone is out to destroy Lana, and she has no idea why. The longer she stays at Blackwood, the more dangerous it becomes for her and everyone she cares about. And it will only get worse when Lana discovers the truth.

Secrets taken to the grave don’t always stay buried. In No Time to Die, Jenny is devastated by the recent death of her sister, Liza. Looking for a sense of closure, she secretly signs up for the drama camp where Liza died. Jenny knows that someone here holds the key to what really happened to Liza that night, but if she doesn’t find out the truth soon, she may become the next victim. In The Deep End of Fear, Kate has tried to bury the horrible memories associated with the Westbrook estate. After her best friend Ashley drowned on the estate, Kate vowed never to return. But now, twelve years later, she is drawn back towards the house and that fatal icy pond. There, Kate still feels Ashley’s presence and the past seems to be pulling her back towards Ashley’s life-threatening dares.

A TRICK OF COLORING... HER WALK... THE WAY SHE SMILED... An English June in the Roman Wall countryside; the ruin of a beautiful old house standing cheek-by-jowl with the solid, sunlit prosperity of the manor farm - a lovely place, and a rich inheritance for one of the two remaining Winslow heirs. There had been a third, but Annabel Winslow had died four years ago - so when a young woman calling herself Annabel Winslow comes 'home' to Whitescar, Con Winslow and his half-sister Lisa must find out whether she really is who she says she is. Mary Grey has nothing to look forward to except a future as colorless as her name. So if she looks, walks, and smiles so much like the glamorous missing heiress Annabel Winslow, why not be her for a little while? To the lonely young woman--living in a dreary furnished room, faced with an uncertain future--the impersonation offered intriguing possibilities. If Mary looked so much like the missing heiress, why should she not be an heiress? And so plain Mary became the glamorous Annabel. But she did not live happily ever after. In fact, she almost did not live at all. Because someone wanted Annabel Winslow missing ... permanently.

BONUS: This edition contains an Arcadia Falls discussion guide. Financial straits and a desire for a fresh start take recently widowed Meg Rosenthal and her aloof teenage daughter, Sally, to Arcadia Falls, a tucked-away hamlet in upstate New York where Meg has accepted a teaching position at a boarding school. The creaky, neglected cottage they’ll be calling home feels like an ill omen, but Meg is determined to make the best of it. Then a shocking crisis strikes: During Arcadia’s First Night bonfire, one of Meg’s folklore students plunges to her death in a campus gorge. Sheriff Callum Reade finds the presumed accident suspicious, but then, he is a man with a dark past himself. Meg is unnerved by Reade’s interest in the girl’s death, and as long-buried secrets emerge, she must face down her own demons and the danger threatening to envelop Sally. As the past clings tight to the present, the shadows, as if in a terrifying fairy tale, grow longer and deadlier. Look for special features inside. Join the Circle for author chats and more. RandomHouseReadersCircle.com

The truth shall set you free. My name is Calla Price and I’m drowning. My new world is a dark, dark ocean and I’m being pulled under by secrets. Can I trust anyone? I don’t know anymore. The lies are spirals. They twist and turn, binding me with their thorns and serpentine tongues. And just when I think I have it figured out, everything is pulled out from under me. I’m entangled in the darkness. But the truth will set me free. It’s just ahead of me, so close I can touch it. But even though it shines and glimmers, it has glistening fangs and I know it will shred me. Are you scared? I am.

When a young woman is found dead in a field, dressed up as a scarecrow with a slashed grin and a broken neck, the residents of Salem, Massachusetts, begin to fear that the infamous Harvest Man is more than just a rumor. But out-of-town cop Jeremy Flynn doesn't have time for ghost stories. He's in town on another investigation, looking for a friend's wife, who mysteriously vanished in a cemetery. Complicating his efforts is local occult expert Rowenna Cavanaugh, who launches her own investigation, convinced that a horror from the past has crept into the present and is seducing women to their deaths. Jeremy uses logic and solid police work. Rowenna depends on intuition. But they both have the same goal: to stop the abductions and locate the missing women before Rowenna herself falls prey to the Harvest Man's dark seduction.

From the bestselling author of The Double Bind, Skeletons at the Feast, and Secrets of Eden, comes a riveting and dramatic ghost story. In a dusty corner of a basement in a rambling Victorian house in northern New Hampshire, a door has long been sealed shut with 39 six-inch-long carriage bolts. The home's new owners are Chip and Emily Linton and their twin ten-year-old daughters. Together they hope to rebuild their lives there after Chip, an airline pilot, has to ditch his 70-seat regional jet in Lake Champlain after double engine failure. Unlike the Miracle on the Hudson, however, most of the passengers aboard Flight 1611 die on impact or drown. The body count? Thirty-nine – a coincidence not lost on Chip when he discovers the number of bolts in that basement door. Meanwhile, Emily finds herself wondering about the women in this sparsely populated White Mountain village – self-proclaimed herbalists – and their interest in her fifth-grade daughters. Are the women mad? Or is it her husband, in the wake of the tragedy, whose grip on sanity has become desperately tenuous? The result is a poignant and powerful ghost story with all the hallmarks readers have come to expect from bestselling novelist Chris Bohjalian: a palpable sense of place, an unerring sense of the demons that drive us, and characters we care about deeply. The difference this time? Some of those characters are dead.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Christopher Pike comes a brand-new fascinating and seductive new novel about a girl with a mysterious ability—but one that carries an unimaginable cost. From the moment Fred met Aja, he knew she was different. And she was. Aja had a gift. But her gift came with a price. After a shocking sequence of events, Fred must look back at their relationship, and piece together all of their shared moments, so he can finally understand Aja’s precious gift…and its devastating repercussions.

To everyone he's every played dice with, Mitch Corley seems like the luckiest guy around. But in truth, Corley's fast hands are the only gift fate's ever given him. He's never held down a steady job, and when it comes to women, his luck might just be the worst of all--his girlfriend and partner-in-crime Red would double-cross him in a heartbeat if she knew just how short on cash they really were. And if Red ever finds out about the wife Corley neglected to mention, there's a good chance that Corley might not survive the night. At first, Mitch was sure Texas would be the perfect place for him and Red to run their game--there are players in nearly every back room and side-street across the state and here, the pockets run just a little deeper. But Corley forgot about one thing: Texans don't forgive easily. And there's nothing they hate more than a cheater.

Mycroft Holmes's encoded message to his brother, Sherlock, is unsubtle enough even for Dr. Watson to decipher: a matter concerning the safety of Queen Victoria herself calls them to Edinburgh's Holyrood House to investigate the confounding and gruesome deaths of two young men--horrific incidents that took place with her highness in residence. The victims were crushed in a manner surpassing human power. And while recent attempts on her majesty's life raise a number of possibilities, these intrigues also seem strangely connected to an act of evil that took place centuries earlier… For indeed, the slaying of David Rizzio, music master and friend to Mary Queen of Scots, was an extraordinarily brutal and treacherous act--even for a time when brutality and treachery were the order of the day. Now, the ghosts of Holyrood House are being reawakened by someone with a diabolical agenda of greed, madness, and terror as Holmes and Watson set out to trap a killer who is eager to rewrite history in blood...

THE ANGELS PRACTICE, OR TAP, is the kind of cult that doesn't exist. There are no rules and no records, just a MySpace-like website. All you need to know is that it will define who you are and what you will become. Amidst the glittering L.A. nightlife, TAP parties are the place to see and be seen, especially in the exclusive back room. Taj and her rocker boyfriend, Johnny, are TAP elite, so when Taj meets preppie outsider Nick at a party, she doesn't give him a second thought. But then Johnny goes missing, along with Nick's sister. And suddenly Taj and Nick are teaming up to question TAP's darker side....

Rife with overtones of Dostoyevsky, The Glass Cell, first published forty years ago, combines a quintessential Highsmith mystery with a penetrating critique of the psychological devastation wrought by the prison system. Falsely convicted of fraud, the easygoing but naive Philip Carter is sentenced to six lonely, drug-ravaged years in prison. Upon his release, Carter is a more suspicious and violent man. For those around him, earning back his trust can mean the difference between life and death. The Glass Cell's bleak and compelling portrait of daily prison life—and the consequences for those who live it—is, sadly, as relevant today as it was when the book was first published in 1964.

Oberon the Irish wolfhound is off to Portland to smell all the things with canine companions wolfhound Orlaith and Boston terrier Starbuck, and, of course, his human, ancient Druid Atticus O’Sullivan. The first complication is an unmistakable sign of sinister agendas afoot: a squirrel atop the train. But an even more ominous situation is in store when the trio plus Atticus stumble across a murder upon arrival at the station. They recognize Detective Gabriela Ibarra, who’s there to investigate. But they also recognize the body—or rather that the body is a doppelganger for Atticus himself. The police, hampered by human senses of smell and a decided lack of canine intuition, obviously can’t handle this alone. Not with Atticus likely in danger. Oberon knows it’s time to investigate once more—for justice! For gravy! And possibly greasy tacos! Alongside his faithful Druid, Oberon and the other loyal hounds navigate by nose through Portland to find a bear-shifter friend with intel, delicious clues at the victim’s home, and more squirrels. Always more squirrels! But will our hungry band of heroes be able to identify the culprit before someone else is murdered? Will there be mystery meat in gravy as a reward or tragedy in store for the world’s (or at least the Pacific Northwest’s) greatest dog detective? Like its predecessor The Purloined Poodle, the latest of Oberon’s Meaty Mysteries, The Squirrel on the Train, is not to be missed by fans of Kevin Hearne’s New York Times best-selling Iron Druid series.

When a man is found murdered in an abandoned building in Osaka in 1973, unflappable detective Sasagaki is assigned to the case. He begins to piece together the connection of two young people who are inextricably linked to the crime; the dark, taciturn son of the victim and the unexpectedly captivating daughter of the main suspect. Over the next twenty years we follow their lives as Sasagaki pursues the case - which remains unsolved - to the point of obsession. Stark, intriguing and stylish, Journey Under the Midnight Sun is an epic mystery by the bestselling Japanese author.