Ever since Edgar Allan Poe looted a family’s ignoble secret history for his classic story “The Fall of the House of Usher,” living in the shadow of that sick dynasty has been an inescapable scourge for generations of Usher descendants. But not for horror novelist Rix Usher.

Years ago, he fled the isolated family estate of Usherland in the menacing North Carolina hills to pursue his writing career. He promised never to return. But his father’s impending death has brought Rix back home to assume the role of Usher patriarch—and face his worst fears.

His arrival forces him to confront a devious and impassive family and his vulnerable sister’s slow descent into insanity. Stirring memories of the grim folktales born out of the surrounding Briartop Mountains and the terrifying legends of missing children, Rix knows that in the dark, twisted corridors of Usherland, that dreadful something he saw as a young boy is still there. It’s waiting for him, as decayed and undying as the Usher heritage, and more depraved than anything Poe could have imagined.

When Lily Ford returns to her lakeside hometown of Hideaway Bay for her grandmother’s funeral, the reunion with her estranged sisters is anything but easy as old wounds surface quickly. Recently widowed and still reeling from the secrets her late husband left behind, Lily finds herself at a crossroad, questioning everything about herself and the people she thought she knew.

Hideaway Bay was the childhood summer playground and eventual home of her late grandmother, Junie, and her best friends. Lily’s heart is tugged by the strings of memories, having spent so much of her own childhood along the beaches there with family and friends. Having believed for years that she was content with the fragile peace she’d made with the past, Lily is as surprised as any when she begins to question whether she wants to return to her life in California. Maybe you can go home again.

A generational saga about sisters and friends.

Books in the Hideaway Bay Series:

1943, Seattle. While raging war reshapes the landscape of Europe, its impact is felt thousands of miles away too. Before the war, Nora Kinney was one of countless housewives and mothers in her comfortable Capitol Hill neighborhood. Now, with her doctor husband stationed in North Africa, Nora feels compelled to do more than tend her victory garden or help with scrap metal drives . . .

At the Boeing B-17 plant, Nora learns to wield a heavy riveting gun amid the deafening noise of the assembly line—a real-life counterpart to “Rosie the Riveter” in the recruitment posters. Yet while the country desperately needs their help, not everyone is happy about “all these women” taking over men’s jobs. Nora worries that she is neglecting her children, especially her withdrawn teenage son. But amid this turmoil, a sinister tragedy occurs: One of Nora’s coworkers is found strangled in her apartment, dressed in an apron, with a lipstick smile smeared on her face.

It’s the beginning of a terrifying pattern, as women war-plant workers like Nora are targeted throughout Seattle and murdered in the same ritualistic manner. And eclipsing Nora’s fear for her safety is her secret, growing conviction that she and the killer are connected—and that the haven that was her home has become her own personal battlefield . . .

England, 1926

Just days before Lord Darriby-Jones is scheduled to enlighten the world at the Annual Limacology Symposium, his secretary unceremoniously bids adieu to her employment. It’s now up to Lady Darriby-Jones to find a replacement.

In a twist of fate, she stumbles upon a commoner from a neighboring town willing to accept the role, despite the slug-dismantling duties that await him. He’s positively thrilled at the chance to rub elbows with true aristocrats, even if his job involves less glamorous endeavors.

With order seemingly restored to the Darriby estate, chaos reignites when a long-serving mute household member meets an untimely end, thrusting Lord Darriby-Jones’ new secretary into the spotlight as the prime suspect.

As the local police chief clumsily attempts to thwart any hope of identifying the true culprit, Lady Darriby-Jones is compelled to take matters into her own hands—both literally and figuratively.

Will she outsmart an eclectic array of plotters, double-crossing relatives, and a rogue killer on the prowl to unravel the perplexing Mystery of the Polite Man?

When murder is your business, solving the case is personal …

The Homicide Hunter’s riveting debut novel proves that fiction really can be stranger than truth …

All Is Not Forgiven is the debut crime novel by Investigation Discovery star Joe Kenda, a former homicide detective, whose hit series Homicide Hunter and American Detective have been watched by as many as 3.8 million viewers in 186 countries.

In this first novel, the rookie Det. Kenda investigates a 1975 case that begins with the murder of a beloved Colorado philanthropist and society figure whose husband, a gambler and womanizer, appears to have an air-tight alibi.

Mentored by his veteran partner Det. Lee Wilson, a former Nashville singer turned skilled investigator, Kenda’s case quickly attracts attention from the FBI, CIA, and Interpol, for its similarity to a string of killings involving wealthy married women. All the murders appear to have been committed by a hired professional whose trademark is the use of an unusual form of lethal ammunition that leaves no trace.