Title: The Wraith of Carter’s Mill
Author: C. Evenfall
Received: CLP Blog Tours
Synopsis: The Wraith of Carter’s Mill continues the saga of the Carter women. In addition to the three original tales, Sensitives, The Guardians and The Forgotten, this compilation contains a fourth, shocking segment. Carter’s Mill answers questions about the origin of the Wraith and explains its bond to the Carter family. It reveals the shameful truth behind the curse that plagues them.
Zeb, the Carter family patriarch, is a hard, unfeeling man. He runs his thriving sawmill, farm and family with an iron fist. When he commits an enormous act of brutality, he ignorantly brings a terrible curse down upon all his kin. Martha Thompson’s prophecy proves true as the family falls into ruin. The wraith haunts the family brutally.
Once affluent and strong, the Carter family falls into financial ruin while cryptic illnesses afflict the healthy. They are left with nothing but great loss and sorrow. The curse will plague the Carter women for five generations.
Almost a century after Zeb’s death, a Carter daughter is born with remarkable yet uncanny abilities. It will be up to her to unearth a long buried family secret and set an old wrong back to rights. Will she find a way to lift the curse and banish the accursed wraith that haunts her back to hell? If she does not, she risks losing her own little girl to the dark entity forever. If she cannot stop it, the curse will continue its demolition until the last of the Carter family line is gone.
Title: The Promise of Provence
Author: Patricia Sands
Received: Lake Union Publishing
Synopsis: On the evening of her twenty-second wedding anniversary, Katherine Price can’t wait to celebrate. But instead of receiving an anniversary card from her husband, she finds a note asking for a divorce.
Fifty-five and suddenly alone, Katherine begins the daunting task of starting over. She has her friends, her aging mother, and her career to occupy her, but the future seems to hold little promise—until, after a winter of heartbreak, Katherine is persuaded to try a home exchange holiday in the South of France.
In Provence, bright fields of flowers bloom below medieval hilltop villages with winding cobblestone streets. Charmed by the picturesque countryside, the breathtaking Côte d’Azur, and the enchantment-filled boulevards of Paris, Katherine feels life opening up once again. Lavender perfumes the air, and chance encounters hint at romance and passion. But memories of heartbreak and betrayal linger—and her former life waits for her back home. Can she find the courage to begin again?
Title: Crooked Little Lies
Author: Barbara Taylor Sissel
Received: Lake Union Publishing
Synopsis: On a cool October morning, Lauren Wilder is shaken when she comes close to striking Bo Laughlin with her car as he’s walking along the road’s edge. A young man well known in their small town of Hardys Walk, Texas, Bo seems fine, even if Lauren’s intuition says otherwise. Since the accident two years ago that left her brain in a fragile state, she can’t trust her own instincts—and neither can her family. Then Bo vanishes, and as the search for him ensues, the police question whether she’s responsible. Lauren is terrified, not of what she remembers but of what she doesn’t.
Unable to trust herself and unwilling to trust anyone else, Lauren begins her own investigation into the mystery of Bo’s disappearance. But the truth can prove to be as shocking as any lie, and as Lauren exposes each one, from her family, from her friends, she isn’t the only one who will face heart-stopping repercussions.
Title: Murder and Other Unnatural Disasters
Author: Lida Sideris
Received: The Wild Rose Press
Synopsis: Watch out Southern California! There’s a new entertainment attorney in town and she’s got game. Only problem is, it’s not the one she should be playing. Corrie Locke belongs behind a desk, not behind a Glock. She should be taking VIP calls, not nosing around a questionable suicide. Instead, she’s hot on the trail of a murderer.
Luckily, she’s the daughter of a late, great private eye and she’s inherited his love of sleuthing…and illegal weaponry. It doesn’t help matters that her gene for caution is a recessive one. Corrie finds herself in the center of a murder case, unearthing suspects in shocking places. With a cold-blooded killer on the loose, Corrie will have to up her game, or die trying.
Title: The Last September
Author: Nina de Gramont
Received: Algonquin Books
Synopsis: Brett has been in love with Charlie ever since he took her skiing on a lovely Colorado night fourteen years ago. And now, living in a seaside cottage on Cape Cod with their young daughter, it looks as if they have settled into the life they desired. However, Brett and Charlie’s marriage has been tenuous for quite some time. When Charlie’s unstable younger brother plans to move in with them, the tension simmering under the surface of their marriage boils over.
But what happened to Charlie next was unfathomable. Charlie was the golden boy so charismatic that he charmed everyone who crossed his path; who never shied away from a challenge; who saw life as one big adventure; who could always rescue his troubled brother, no matter how unpredictable the situation.
So who is to blame for the tragic turn of events? And why does Brett feel responsible?
Set against the desolate autumn beauty of Cape Cod, The Last September is a riveting emotional puzzle that takes readers inside the psyche of a woman facing the meaning of love and loyalty.
