Bøger udgivet af Crooked Lane Books

Haunted by childhood abuse, a woman is forced to care for her cruel elderly mother in this electrifying horror novel exploring generational trauma, perfect for fans of Cassandra Khaw and T. Kingfisher.Tamar Glass fled an abusive mother when she was eighteen, running away from home to find a better life elsewhere. She has lived in freedom from her mother, Ruth, for decades, until one night she wakes to find her now-elderly mother standing over her bed, disoriented and confused. When Tamar reluctantly takes in her mother, strange events start happening inside her home: the house becomes oppressively hot, lights flicker, and cupboards open and shut on their own. Whispers filter beneath her bedroom door. Tamar learns that Ruth has been kicked out of her assisted living home, and other facilities refuse to house her and endanger their own residents. Tamar has spent years suppressing her childhood trauma, but it comes rushing back with each strange event in her home.As Tamar copes with their disturbing past, which her mother stubbornly refuses to admit to, she can’t shake the feeling that there’s something worse than her mother lurking in the shadows. Perfect for fans of The Haunting of Hill House, this terrifying novel unravels one dark strand at a time.

In this gothic debut novel, perfect for fans of Tread of Angels and Gail Carriger’s Soulless, Miss Radhika Dhingra, a newly minted lawyer in 19th century New York, never expected that her first client would be a vampire accused of murder. Having a resident vampire is just the thing for upper-class New Yorkers–besides being a status symbol, they make excellent butlers or housekeepers. The only thing they require in return is a drop or two of blood and a casket to shut out the dawn’s early light. Tolerated by society only if they follow a strict set of rules, vampires are seen as “less than”–and as the daughter of immigrants, Radhika knows firsthand how this feels. Accused of murder, her undead client Mr. Evelyn More, knows that the cards are stacked against him.With the help of a journalist friend and a diminutive detective inspector, Miss Dhingra sets out to prove her client’s innocence and win his freedom. Failure will mean Mr. More’s death, the end of her dreams of becoming a successful attorney, and the loss of the vampire Miss Dhingra has begun to call her friend.Offering an alternative paranormal history, delightful characters, and insightful social commentary, The Vampire of Kings Street will thrill readers of Deanna Rayburn and Rebecca Roanhorse.

This powerful debut novel brings to life the hard choices Parisians made--or failed to make--under Nazi occupation, in the tradition of Pam Jenoff and Fiona Davis. 1938. Paris Opera legend Madeleine Moreau must keep newcomer Yvonne Chevallier, whose talent she fears, off the stage. As the long-standing star of the opera, she is nowhere near ready to give up her spotlight. The perfect solution: enlist Yvonne as her understudy so she can never be upstaged. When Madeleine is invited to headline at Germany’s preeminent opera festival, she is sure this will cement her legacy. But war is looming, and when she learns that Adolf Hitler himself will be in attendance, she knows she’s made a grave error. As Madeleine makes a hurried escape back to France, Yvonne finds herself unexpectedly thrown into the limelight on the German stage.When a newspaper photograph shows Hitler seemingly enraptured by Yvonne, Yvonne’s life is upended. While she is trying frantically to repair her reputation at home, Yvonne’s son is captured and held as a prisoner of war. Desperate to free her son, she makes an impossible choice: turn to the enemy. As the Nazis invade Paris, both women must decide what they are willing to do in pursuit of their art. They form an unlikely alliance, using their fame to protect themselves and the people they love from the maelstrom of history.Painting an enrapturing portrait of resilient wartime women, The Paris Understudy is a love letter to the arts and a stark depiction of the choices we make to survive, for fans of Kate Quinn and Kristen Harmel.

From some of the biggest names in horror comes an Advent calendar of short holiday horror stories perfect for the darkest nights of the year. Edited by award-winning author and anthologist Lindy Ryan and with contributions from masters of horror like Josh Malerman, Eric LaRocca, and Clay McLeod Chapman, this horrific anthology will chill you to the bone.From New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box, Josh Malerman, comes a story of a dark Christmas past in “Children Aren’t the Only Ones Who Know Where the Presents Are Hidden.” From national bestselling author Rachel Harrison, in “Thaw,” a couple spends their first Christmas together in a cabin—but are they alone, or does something else watch them from the tree line? New York Times bestselling authors Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon’s “Wintry Blue” sets an innocent child on the road with a strange and monstrous creature. From the Bram Stoker Award–winning screenwriter of Netflix’s Haunting of Bly Manor and The Fall of the House of Usher, in Jamie Flanagan’s “Bruiser,” something sinister stalks the chilling hallways of a nursing home at night. Author of Such a Pretty Smile, Kristi DeMeester, tells a tale of “Eggnog”: a Christmas party, an overfriendly female coworker, and an angry wife are the recipe for a deadly cocktail party. Plus stories by Nat Cassidy, Darcy Coates, Clay McLeod Chapman, Tim Waggoner, and many more, with an introduction by George C. Romero and art by renowned British horror artist Mister Sam Shearon.

Bookstore owner Phoebe Winchester is putting on her first major author event when a body is discovered and the plot goes off the rails in this cozy mystery, perfect for fans of Cleo Coyle and Jenn McKinlay.Amateur witch Phoebe Winchester is excited to host her first big author event at the Earl’s Study, her book and tea store. The author, Sebastian Marlow, is a famous birder excited to put Raven Creek on the map for his rediscovery of a presumed-extinct bird. When Sebastian is found dead before his planned bird hike, where he expected to prove the existence of the bird to fellow birding enthusiasts, it’s obvious someone wanted him to be extinct, too. Sebastian had a few unfriendly encounters with his staff—including his recently fired manager, who was seen arguing with him at the author event. Phoebe is determined to figure out who killed Sebastian, worried that it will negatively affect her store’s image that her biggest guest author got killed. With the clock ticking, she enlists the help of Rich Lofting, the handsome local private investigator, to help her look into the murder. It’s not long before another victim is pecked off and someone close to Phoebe is the suspect. She’ll have to work quickly to uncover the killer and figure out who’s up to fowl play in the third charming book in this warm and witchy series.

A podcaster digs into strange connections between a cult’s mass suicide and the murder of a local beauty queen in this twisty psychological thriller about true crime culture, perfect for fans of Riley Sager and Lisa Jewell. The mass suicide of a cult known as the Flock sent shockwaves through the small rural town of Iola, Michigan. Led by the charismatic Dominic Bragg, the Flock camped at an abandoned bird sanctuary before their sudden and shocking demise. The deaths came just weeks after one of their members, Laurel Tai, a local pageant queen, was abducted. The town turned its blame and fear onto the sole survivor, Claire Kettler–Laurel’s best friend. Burdened by grief and unanswered questions about her friend’s murder and her fellow cult members’ deaths, Claire can’t help but wonder what really happened, especially when the cult leader is nowhere to be found. When podcaster Arlo Stone begins poking around ten years later, determined to uncover the truth about the cult and Laurel’s murder, Claire is propelled back into action. In a desperate attempt to puzzle out the past and keep her secrets from being spilled for the entertainment of thousands of listeners, Claire must dig into a tangle of unanswered questions before time runs out and history repeats itself.

For fans of Julia Keller and Sheena Kamal, All We Buried disturbs the long-sleeping secrets of a small Washington State mountain town.Interim sheriff Elizabeth "Bet" Rivers has always had one repeat nightmare: a shadowy figure throwing a suspicious object into her hometown lake in Collier, Washington. For the longest time, she chalked it up to an overactive imagination as a kid. Then the report arrives. In the woods of the Cascade mountain range, right in her jurisdiction, a body floats to the surface of Lake Collier. When the body is extricated and revealed, no one can identify Jane Doe. But someone must know the woman, so why aren't they coming forward?Bet has been sitting as the interim sheriff of this tiny town in the ill-fitting shoes of her late father and predecessor. With the nightmare on her heels, Bet decided to build a life for herself in Los Angeles, but now it's time to confront the tragic history of Collier. The more she learns, the more Bet realizes she doesn't know the townspeople of Collier as well as she thought, and nothing can prepare her for what she is about to discover.

Featuring a neurodiverse lead living with Tourette's syndrome, Ellie Marlowe is ready for a curtain call as her latest production sells out, but when the starring male lead drops dead, and everyone in the cast is a potential suspect or the next victim, she must catch a killer before they pull another show-stopping murder.The new production at Ellie Marlowe’s community theater could save her from financial ruin, but her overbearing lead, Reginald Thornton IV, is determined to antagonize every cast member. Nervous and with her Tourette’s syndrome flaring, Ellie is relieved when opening night seems to be going well. But then Reginald’s death scene at the end of the play turns out to be all too real.The state police write the death off as a heart attack, but several things don't add up, and Ellie and her childhood friend, Bill Starlin, the local chief of police, begin investigating. When another person linked to the theater is attacked, they’re convinced a killer is on the loose.As Ellie and Bill reveal connections between cast members, they uncover dark secrets and must race to find the killer before it’s curtains for someone else.

"Tasha Weaver has seen her fair share of divas come and go while working as the costume shop head at the Eastbrook Playhouse, but her beloved theater is put at risk when the star of the show is killed. Tasha Weaver is most at home in the cozy backstage world of the Eastbrook Playhouse. As the costume shop head at the charming regional theater, she's used to watching dramatic acts of love and revenge from the shadows. But when Kurt Mozer--the insufferable Broadway reject who stars in their production of Annie Get Your Gun--is shot center stage, the spotlight turns to her. Everyone knows Kurt was difficult to work with, and after he got into a fight with both director Marnie Mason and artistic leader Arthur Winston, he promptly decided to quit the show. In deep financial trouble, the Eastbrook Playhouse depended on a big name like Kurt to keep afloat. With reporters coming in from the Big Apple to Tasha's little corner of Connecticut, she realizes it's up to her to save their local theater and keep her community safe. After all, the show must go on...but what do you do when the killer could very well be one of your loved ones? With the help of her friends, her long-time crush Bruno Machado, and her feline colleague Hilly, Tasha must catch a murderer before the shining lights of the playhouse go out forever."--

With striking prose and inspired by real wrongful conviction cases, this layered takedown of the criminal justice system follows one woman’s quest for answers as the fate of an innocent man hangs in the balance, perfect for fans of S. A. Cosby.Denver, 1992. Claudette Cooper and Moses King have been failed by the justice system. Claudette was sexually assaulted and brutally attacked—blinded by the perpetrator, she’s not able to identify him until she has a dream about the attack where she sees the face of Moses King. When Claudette testifies that she’s identified her attacker from her dream, Moses is wrongfully convicted and sent to prison for the crime.Lawyer Liza Brown has seen firsthand the failings and shortcomings of the justice system—her father also suffered the injustice of a wrongful conviction. As she’s working at a nonprofit to free those who have been wrongfully imprisoned, Moses reaches out to her. Liza sees the obvious cracks in the evidence against Moses, and when he confesses that he knew her father, she’s determined to help. Recruiting her old friend Eli Stone to assist, Liza sets out to prove Moses’s innocence. But Eli is dealing with demons of his own: corrupt cops are targeting Black residents of Denver, and when his nephew is beaten by the police, Eli doubles down on his efforts to expose them.Frustrated, Liza turns to Moses’s accuser, Claudette, for help. But Claudette is hiding a dark secret, and as tensions in Denver rise, the city erupts in protests and riots. This rich, impactful novel paints a portrait not only of injustice and desperation—but of hope.

Told with deadpan humor and brutal honesty, this debut novel follows Vietnamese American Linh Ly’s unraveling as she reckons with the traumas of both her past and present, perfect for fans of Joan Is Okay and Luster.When twenty-seven-year-old Linh Ly’s recently divorced mother begins dating a coworker, Linh is determined to make sure he is worthy of her mother. She’s seen the kind of men her mother ends up with—she grew up watching her unreliable and volatile alcoholic father as her mother worked two jobs to make ends meet. Linh is certain that her mother can’t do this on her own, but what begins as genuine worry quickly turns obsessive.Following her mother and spying on her dates becomes part of Linh’s routine, especially after a university shooting at Linh’s work that leaves her feeling adrift—at least her mom’s dating life gives her something to focus on. Linh doesn’t exactly have a life of her own (dating or otherwise) and figures the best course of action is action—not how she handled the shooting: curl up in a ball and wait it out.Linh is slowly forced to reconcile the image of her mother from her childhood with the woman she’s getting to know as an adult. Growing up Vietnamese in the middle of Texas with a broken household taught Linh a certain guarded way of living—one she never quite left behind.Moving, insightful, and caustically funny all at once, Linh Ly Is Doing Just Fine depicts a quarter-life crisis in deeply relatable prose.

A YouTubing cruiser couple sails the world living their best lives—until one of them goes missing and their whole world capsizes, in this captivating psychological thriller perfect for fans of Something in the Water and Saint X.Sawyer Stone III and Dani Fox, a young couple who spend their time circumnavigating the globe aboard their 42-foot sailboat and documenting it for their fledgling YouTube channel Sailing with the Foxes, have anchored in Exuma, in the Bahamas. As they wait for the price of crypto to rebound so they can provision and continue their journey, they’re partying and exploring with their fellow cruisers offshore. On the surface, everything looks perfect. But one night, Dani vanishes after a boat party, and Sawyer has no memory of her disappearance.The search for Dani is initially fueled by concerns that she drowned during one of her daily ocean swims, but Dani's prescheduled video posts, recorded before she went missing, soon reveal a darker side to her relationship with Sawyer. Meanwhile, Royal Bahamas Police Force Inspector Veronique Knowles has her hands full trying to keep the investigation on course as the story of the American woman missing in the Bahamas goes viral and the internet sleuths unearth secrets from Sawyer’s past. Sawyer Stone is far from perfect, but is he a murderer? This twisty, edge-of-your-seat thriller will keep readers gripped all the way through the final satisfying turn.

Told with poetic prose and an imaginative voice, this “beautifully composed [and] original” (Joyce Carol Oates, New York Times bestselling author) debut novel explores family, trauma, and belonging through one woman’s journey to reconnect with her roots.Abby Rodier was a “drop-box baby,” a Korean orphan whose mother could not take care of her and left her as an infant. Abby’s tumultuous experience in the American foster care system has led her to live a solitary and guarded life, closed off to almost everyone except her best friend Iseul, whose parents took Abby into their home as a child. Abby’s work studying the origins of life in sea slugs and bacteria leads her to wonder about her birth parents and question her place in this world. It's not long before Abby stumbles upon a biological discovery that will change the course of her life. Meanwhile, Iseul’s devotion to their ill brother leads to an entanglement between her work as an investigative journalist and the murky world of black-market medicine. After a tragic event, Abby’s life is thrown into a tailspin. With the rug pulled from under her feet, she spirals into a disorientation of grief, apparitions, and compulsions. With the help of those around her, Abby must embark on a journey to understand her true roots and make peace with her present. From an exciting new voice in literary fiction, We Carry the Sea in Our Hands is a complex and layered ode to found family, perfect for fans of The Last Story of Mina Lee and Goodbye, Vitamin.

A quaint Vermont inn offers idyllic peace–until a body is found  on the property–in this charming series debut, perfect for fans of Ellen Byron and Ellery Adams.When thirty-three-year-old Hannah Solace returns to her hometown to renovate and reopen the inn she co-owns with her sister Reggie, her mission is to give the old Victorian hotel an entirely new life. She’s even planting pollinator gardens around the inn–native flowers and fruit trees to lure honeybees and houseguests alike. Hannah’s fresh start is stymied by Reggie’s continual interference, unreliable contractors, a check-the-couch-for-coins budget, and townspeople Hannah left behind fifteen years ago. Her main source of camaraderie is Ezra Grayson, an eighty-year-old recluse who lives nearby. After an unsettling conversation with a disgruntled Ezra, Hannah is horrified to discover him dead on her property later that day. Ezra had always had plenty of people to complain about, especially locals trying to force him out of his property for its prime real estate. As buzz around town grows after his death, Hannah finds herself on the short list of suspects. Hannah starts digging and quickly discovers that secrets lurk beneath the charming surface of the town she once again calls home.

Understand how children process grief at every age and stage of development in this accessible guide for parents and caretakers.An award-winning childhood grief expert shares clinically-informed advice for supporting kids and teens through difficult times—from family deaths and lost pets to unexpected moves, and beyond.A necessary and impactful guide to understanding children's grief from the inside and to guiding children through loss, from the death of a parent and other family members, to the loss of friends, pets, and even the family home. Dr. Masur, an award-winning clinical psychologist specializing in grief and mourning, describes how to understand, help, and guide children at each age and stage of development and uses her own childhood experience with loss through empathetic yet clinically informed advice.When Dr. Masur was fourteen years old, her father died. Like most children and teens facing loss, Masur didn’t know how to handle her grief, and she was never encouraged to acknowledge or share what she was feeling with her family, teachers, or friends. Her experience of shock and emotional paralysis around her loss is what led her to become an expert in childhood grief in order to help grieving children and to help others to support the children in their lives who have experienced loss. As a psychologist and child psychoanalyst, Dr. Masur has helped many children recognize and express their feelings after loss. In How Children Grieve, Masur shares her expertise with caregivers of all kinds, giving them the tools they need to help a child or teenager mourn, move forward, and make meaning of terrible loss.

T. Kingfisher meets Cassandra Khaw in a chilling horror novel that illustrates the fine line between humanity and monstrosity.Blackwood mansion looms, surrounded by nightmare pines, atop the hill over the small town of Crooked Tree. Ben Bookman, bestselling novelist and heir to the Blackwood estate, spent a weekend at the ancestral home to finish writing his latest horror novel, The Scarecrow. Now, on the eve of the book’s release, the terrible story within begins to unfold in real life.Detective Mills arrives at the scene of a gruesome murder: a family butchered and bundled inside cocoons stitched from corn husks, and hung from the rafters of a barn, eerily mirroring the opening of Bookman’s latest novel. When another family is killed in a similar manner, Mills, along with his daughter, rookie detective Samantha Blue, is determined to find the link to the book—and the killer—before the story reaches its chilling climax.As the series of “Scarecrow crimes” continues to mirror the book, Ben quickly becomes the prime suspect. He can’t remember much from the night he finished writing the novel, but he knows he wrote it in The Atrium, his grandfather’s forbidden room full of numbered books. Thousands of books. Books without words.As Ben digs deep into Blackwood’s history he learns he may have triggered a release of something trapped long ago—and it won’t stop with the horrors buried within the pages of his book.

One of Venice's famous courtesans, Valentina, beautiful, cultured, deadly, seduces and kills men the Council of Ten orders her to, but when she's ordered to kill a fellow assassin--and the man she loves, she must uncover the Council of Ten's dark agenda, with the help of her fellow courtesans, to save him.

This gripping and emotionally riveting tale is a dark and timely retelling of The Wizard of Oz, where one little girl is forced to face head on the prejudices of the Midwest in the late nineteenth century.Kansas, 1896. After a tornado destroys the Gale family farm, eleven-year-old Dorothy goes missing. As the days pass, the Gales are increasingly terrified the worst has happened. But when the girl turns up unharmed four days later, the townsfolk breathe a sigh of relief. That is, until Dorothy herself relates her account of the events that took place during her disappearance. In vivid detail, Dorothy describes a fantastical land and its magical inhabitants: a scarecrow, a tin man, a cowardly lion, a wizard, a witch. Her recollections are not only regarded as delusional, but also as pagan and diabolical in nature, especially when the body of a local spinster is found matching Dorothy's description of a witch she claims to have killed. Authorities find incriminating evidence tying Dorothy to the real murder, and they sentence Dorothy to the Topeka Insane Asylum.  When twenty-eight-year-old psychologist Dr. Evelyn Grace Wilford arrives at the asylum to interview Dorothy, she begins to wonder if Dorothy truly committed the crime or if something unfathomable has really occurred. In a small town full of insidious secrets, Evelyn sets out to save Dorothy from her terrible circumstances, but can't help but fear whether something menacing may be lurking just out of sight.

"Nick Sorensen had once been one of the fastest men in hockey, until the devastating plane crash that took the lives of his best friends, leaving him the only survivor. Now he's physically ready to get back on the ice, but his coach is concerned Nick isn't doing as well, mentally, as he says he is. To prove he's fine, Nick hires Alyssa Compton, an up-and-coming interior designer, to decorate his apartment. But Nick turns out to be infuriatingly stubborn and impossible to work with, and just when Alyssa decides to throw in the towel on the whole thing, Nick shows up for her in a way she never could have expected"--

"As Kate Hamilton and her new husband, DI Tom Mallory, honeymoon in Devon, a local history museum asks them to trace the provenance of a bloodstained dress said to belong to a Victorian lacemaker accused of murder. But matters turn deadly when a shot is fired during a fundraising gala, injuring Gideon Littlejohn. the man who donated the dress. Littlejohn is a cyber-security expert who lives and dresses as a Victorian gentleman, but everyone believes the real target of the attack to be a controversial politician intent on rooting out local corruption. This belief is overturned when Gideon is found dead in a pool of blood. But then the politician receives a death threat. When asked to assist in the investigation, Kate races to discover the truth as it becomes clear the killer isn't going to come quietly."--

After the death of her father, street photographer Cordelia takes a summer gig at a cozy cottage on Ireland's Inishmore Island where she meets Niall O'Connor, a grumpy Irish chef, and the more their paths cross, the more they make each other's lives hell until their hatred turns into undeniable attraction.

This debut novel pulls at the threads in the (cashmere) sweater of academia in a witty take-down of racial inequality at prep schools, perfect for fans of Such a Fun Age and Little Fires Everywhere.Wesley Friends School is Washington, DC’s most prestigious prep school, so of course Aki Hiyashi-Brown is proud to teach at it and send her daughter Meg there. Why wouldn't she be proud? Parents kill to have their kid enrolled at Wesley. Not only is Wesley the premier academic destination for the children of the capital elite, but it’s all about "Diversity, Achievement, Collegiality," as all of their very glossy brochures will tell you. Aki should know. As one of the few teachers of color on staff, her face is plastered on every piece of marketing material the school puts out. But when someone graffities "Make Wesley White Again" on campus, it exposes dangerous fault lines in the school community, ones Aki may have spent a lifetime learning to ignore. But her headstrong daughter Meg, and Meg's similarly impassioned classmates, aren’t willing to let slide. Before Aki can sort out her own feelings about the hate crime, the school's administration jumps into crisis management mode and assigns Aki as head of the Racial Equity Task Force—a cobbled-together initiative that has a big name and little actual power. Between hasty changes to the curriculum and an anonymous instagram account documenting a history of racism on campus, Aki finds herself caught in the crossfire.Written with the keen eye of a prep school insider, It’s a Privilege Just to Be Here is a piercing takedown of the American institution of prep schools and a searing perspective on the growing tensions between generations with different ideas of how to fight for what you believe in.

In Sedona’s red rock canyons, a former reporter must piece together her shattered memories in time to stop a killer in this cat-and-mouse thriller, perfect for fans of CJ Box and Anne Hillerman.After a disastrous mistake ended her career as a crime reporter, Del Cooper returns to Sedona and takes a gig with a down-on-its-luck tour company while she rebuilds her life. Her peaceful small-town escape ends when, hiking in a remote red rock canyon, she finds the broken body of a murdered man.  At first, she believes the murder is connected to a proposed land trade that will pave the way for a luxury development on the edge of town, but it seems money isn’t the killer’s only motive. As she digs deeper, she uncovers the small town’s darkest secrets, all leading her to Lee Ranch, a former filming location for Western movies. Two women disappear after Del interviews them, and rumors begin to spin faster than Sedona’s famed energy vortexes. But she knows the truth: Someone is watching her from the shadows.Desperate for answers, Del ventures into the wilderness to lure the killer into the open. But out here in the red rocks, bodies can be lost forever.

Bellamy Price has just been offered the job of a lifetime: lead contractor on the restoration of the mysterious and sprawling Killington Estate. If she meets the owner's ridiculous timeline, she'll finally make a name for herself in this male-dominated industry. But when she rolls up her sleeves, slips on her suspenders, and shows up at the crumbling mansion, Bellamy finds the estate very much occupied. After a traumatic car accident that left his parents dead and himself injured, Oliver Killington, heir to the Killington empire, took up residence as the grumpy caretaker of his grandfather's mansion. None too pleased by the presence of the hammer-wielding woman who's moved into his house, Oliver tries to block her at every turn. But when Bellamy discovers Oliver's facing his own ultimatum from his grandfather, the two form a cautious truce, which leads to flying sparks that are definitely not from faulty wiring. As Bellamy restores the gleam to the Killington Estate, she'll have to decide if the walls she's built around herself are worth knocking down to make space for someone else.