Showing results by author "Brenda Novak" in All Categories

After a painful divorce, Maisey Lazarow returns to Fairham, the small island off the North Carolina coast where she grew up. She goes there to heal - and to help her brother, Keith, a deeply troubled man who's asked her to come home. But she refuses to stay in the family house. The last person she wants to see is her wealthy, controlling mother. Instead she finds herself living next door to someone else she'd prefer to avoid - Rafe Romero, the wild, reckless boy to whom she lost her virginity at 16.

Ismay Chalmers is ready for a relaxing summer reconnecting with her fiancé at his family’s luxurious beachfront cottage. But before Remy can join her, a hurricane bears down on Mariners Island. Alone in the large house, Ismay makes a disturbing discovery in Remy's childhood closet. She's not sure what to make of it, but is relieved when the property’s caretaker, Bo, checks in on her.

It's been fifteen years since Lucy Sinclair saw her father. Fifteen long years since she sat in a courtroom and watched him sentenced to life in prison. He murdered three victims—all people she knew—which ruined her life at just seventeen. But now she’s back in Virginia to talk to him, wondering if there’s more to the story of what happened that fateful night.

The Reverend Lee Barker went missing 19 years ago. And the people of Stillwater, Mississippi, believe they know why. They're convinced he was murdered by his stepson, Clay Montgomery. But only Clay, his mother, and sisters can say for sure. They were the only ones there that fateful night, the only ones who know what really happened. And they're not talking.

Rebecca Wells desperately wants to overcome her reputation. She's finally trying to put an end to her 24-year rivalry with the perfect Josh Hill, a rivalry that began when she was a kid and the Hills moved in across the street. Great looking, popular, a successful horse rancher, Josh is Dundee's golden boy - and the son her father always wanted. But even when her father insists they call a truce, it's hard for Rebecca to drop her resentment of Josh. She refuses to acknowledge that she feels more for him than she's ever let on.

When Serenity Alston swabbed her cheek for a genetic test, she joked about uncovering some dark ancestral scandal. The last thing she expected was to discover two half sisters she didn’t know existed. Suddenly, everything about her loving family is drawn into question. And meeting these newfound sisters might be the only way to get answers.

After the death of her US senator father, Marlow Madsen travels to the small island off the coast of Florida where she spent summers growing up to help her mother settle the family estate. For Marlow, the trip is a chance to reconnect after too long apart. It’s also the perfect escape to help her feel grounded again—one she’s happy to share with friends Aida and Claire, who are hoping to hit reset on their lives, too.

For more than a year, Sebastian Costas has been trying to unravel the truth behind the murder of his ex-wife and son. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, he's convinced that her second husband - a cop - committed both murders, then faked his own death. Now Sebastian has followed the slimmest of leads to Sacramento...and that's where he finally gets the break he needs.

Mariners Island is barely ten miles long, but when Ivy, Ariana and Cam were teenagers, it was their whole world. Beyond the pristine beaches and iconic lighthouse lies the beautiful old library that belongs to Ivy’s family. While that bound Ivy to the island as an adult, Ariana could not leave Mariners behind fast enough. The town holds too many…memories. Not only her unrequited feelings for Cam, but the tragedy that left a scar on the community. When a young girl went missing, a teenage Cam was unthinkably the prime suspect.

India Sommers once had the perfect family - until an ex-boyfriend broke in and shot her husband. Not only did that cost her the man she loved, a respected heart surgeon and the father of her child, but she also feels responsible. Charlie died because of the people she hung out with before she had the strength to change her life.

Evelyn Talbot, a psychiatrist at a maximum-security prison in Alaska, studies some of the world's worst serial killers. But she's about to meet her most elusive patient at Hanover House yet: Dr. Lyman Bishop, aka the Zombie Maker, given his fondness for performing icepick lobotomies on his victims. A brilliant cancer researcher, Bishop is either the most cunning psychopath Evelyn has ever encountered - or he is wrongly convicted.

Tired of being in the center of her parents’ divorce, nuclear physicist April Ashton schemes a getaway to Mexico, hoping the vacation will lead to a romantic reunion and the possibility of her parents giving their love a second chance. But April’s parents have a plan of their own, and it involves April and heartthrob race-car driver “Gunner” Stevens. Desperate to get her mom out of her hair, April and Gunner pretend to have a relationship, even though they have nothing in common. But a fake relationship can easily become very real if April—like her parents, decides to give love a chance.

Eighteen months ago, Autumn Divac's husband went missing. Her desperate search has yielded no answers—she still has no idea where he went or why. After being happily married for twenty years, she can't imagine moving forward without him, but for the sake of their two teenage children, she has to try. Autumn takes her kids home for the summer to the charming beachside town where she was raised. She seeks comfort by working alongside her mother and aunt at their bookshop, only to learn that her daughter is facing a life change and her mother has been hiding a terrible secret.

After catching her fiancé cheating - with another man - usually straitlaced, workaholic scientist Ellie Fisher liberates her wild side just long enough to indulge in a passionate one-night stand with a tall, dark stranger she meets at a trendy Miami bar. Embarrassed by her recklessness, she ducks out the following morning without learning the guy's full name, something that shouldn't have been a problem - until a pregnancy test turns positive.

The search for her birth mother brought Cora Kelly to the New Horizons Boys Ranch. Getting a job there was easy enough, but confiding in Aiyana, the ranch's owner, that she's really her daughter? Cora's not sure she can do that, not unless she's confident the news will be welcomed. And once she gets to know Elijah Turner - Aiyana's adopted son and ranch manager - that decision becomes even more difficult.

Jada Brooks couldn’t have known how her life would change when she fell for Maddox Richardson back in high school. She couldn’t have known his troubled brother would leave hers forever crippled. Or that she’d be forced to shun Maddox completely - only to discover she was carrying his child. Although Maddox was devastated by the events that transpired that fateful night, losing Jada was the worst of it. He’s back in Silver Springs, ready to make amends and provide the kind of youth outreach that once saved him. If he’d known Jada was in town, too, he wouldn't have come.

Laurel Hodges has changed her identity twice. She’s finally found peace and stability in the small town of Pineview, Montana. But just when Laurel thinks she and her children are safe... the nightmare starts all over again. The Crew, a ruthless prison gang with ties to Laurel’s brother, will never forget, and they’ll never forgive. And now that they’ve finally tracked her down, they’ll stop at nothing. Sheriff Myles King, who happens to live next door, appoints himself Laurel’s personal guardian. But his help could also end his life.

There's a body buried behind a Mississippi farmhouse. Grace Montgomery knows who it is, and she knows why it happened. She was only 13 the night it all went wrong. And now, like then, she has no choice but to keep her mouth shut.

Psychiatrist Evelyn Talbot has dedicated her life to solving the mysteries of the psychopathic mind. Why do psychopaths act as they do? How do they come to be? Why don't they feel any remorse for the suffering they cause? And are there better ways of spotting and stopping them? After having been kidnapped, tortured, and left for dead when she was just a teenager - by her high school boyfriend - she's determined to understand how someone she trusted so much could turn on her.

Twenty years ago Madeline Barker's father disappeared. Despite what everyone else thinks, Madeline's convinced her stepfamily had nothing to do with it. But the recent discovery of his car finally proves he didn't just drive away. Worse, the police find something in the trunk that says there's more to this case than murder.