Showing results by narrator "Karen Peakes" in All Categories

Former homicide detective Nicole Foster has hit rock bottom. Driven off the force by her treacherous partner and lover, she's flat broke and struggling with a gambling addiction. All Nicole has left is the dream of a warm bed at a homeless shelter and the haunting memories of three-year-old Kelsey Chase—whose murder case ended her career. As Nicole obsesses over the old facts, she realizes everything about that case felt off.

It seems like an open-and-shut case for FBI special agent Lucy Thorne when Eliza Cook walks into the field office. The teenage girl confesses to murdering a young boy. Disturbingly composed, she reveals chilling details only the killer could know. Beyond that Eliza doesn't say another word, leaving a vital question met with dead silence: Why did she do it?

Adam and Sophie Warner and their three-year-old daughter are vacationing in Washington State’s Hood Canal for Memorial Day weekend. It’s the perfect getaway to unplug—and to calm an uneasy marriage. But on Adam’s first day out on the water, he sees Sophie abducted by a stranger. A hundred yards from shore, Adam can’t save her. And Sophie disappears.

Born in rural Palestine, just before the dawn of the 20th century, Miriam adores her father and is certain his love will protect her, but she soon finds that tradition overrides love. Uprooted by war, Miriam enters a world where the old constraints slip away with thrilling and disastrous results. Miriam's rebellious daughter, Nadia, is thrilled with the opportunity for a modern life that her elite education provides. But when she falls in love with an outsider, the clan reins her back with a shocking finality.

"Ambush is electric--the perfect blend of romance, suspense, and characters you swear are real . . . just one more proof of Coble at the top of her game." --Tosca Lee, New York Times bestselling author The first book in the riveting new series from USA TODAY bestselling author Colleen Coble...

Once there was a girl who ran away and joined a traveling carnival. She married a man she grew to hate - and gave birth to a child she could never love. A child so monstrous that she killed it with her own hands.… Twenty-five years later, Ellen Harper has a new life, a new husband, and two normal children - Joey loves monster movies, and Amy is about to graduate from high school. But their mother drowns her secret guilt in alcohol and prayer.

After more than a decade, when sisters Nikki, Sami, and Tori Knotek hear the word mom, it claws like an eagle’s talons, triggering memories that have been their secret since childhood. Until now. For years, behind the closed doors of their farmhouse in Raymond, Washington, their sadistic mother, Shelly, subjected her girls to unimaginable abuse, degradation, torture, and psychic terrors. Through it all, Nikki, Sami, and Tori developed a defiant bond that made them far less vulnerable than Shelly imagined.

At 5:02 p.m. on June 5, 1986, an emergency call came into the local sheriff’s office in the small town of Auburn, Washington State. A distressed housewife, Stella Nickell, said her husband, Bruce, was having a seizure. Officers rushed to the Nickells' mobile home to find Stella standing frozen at the door…. Bruce was on the floor fighting for his life.

In May 2005, authorities discovered the Groene family murdered in their Idaho home. The family’s youngest members—eight-year-old Shasta and her brother, nine-year-old Dylan—were nowhere to be found. As a community prayed for their return, Shasta and Dylan were already miles away in the woods of Montana at the hands of serial killer Joseph Edward Duncan. After a harrowing forty-eight day ordeal, Shasta was rescued. In many ways, her survival story was only beginning.

Colorado, 1976. When Reverend Mike Fuller and his beautiful wife, Sharon, arrive in the sleepy town of Rocky Ford, local residents think something’s off about the new couple. The God-fearing minister is gruff and cold, while charismatic Sharon has her husband wrapped around her finger.

Terror stalks the streets of Bayou Breaux, Louisiana. A suspected murderer is free on a technicality, and the cop accused of planting evidence against him is ordered off the case. But Detective Nick Fourcade refuses to walk away. He’s stepped over the line before. This case threatens to push him over the edge. He’s not the only one. Deputy Annie Broussard found the woman’s mutilated body. She still hears the phantom echoes of dying screams. She wants justice.

1945: Along with hundreds of other war brides, Betty, Madeline, Alice, and June set sail for New York to be with the men they love. In the days they spend at sea, the four young women become firm friends and vow to stay in touch no matter what their new lives bring. Life in a new country comes with many challenges, but Betty, Madeline, Alice, and June didn't move half way across the world to give up without a fight.

Hollywood, 1955. As head costume designer for Lux Pictures, Lena Taylor hears startling confessions from the biggest movie stars. She knows how to keep their secrets—after all, none of their scandals can match her own. Lena was once Elsie Gruner, the daughter of an Ohio dressmaker. Her gift for fashion design helped her win a coveted spot at an art academy in Rome. While in Italy, she became enthralled by the charismatic Julia, who drew her into a shadowy world of jazz clubs, code words, and mysterious deliveries.

Hannah Griffin was a girl when tragedy struck her family’s Oregon Christmas tree farm. She still remembers the flames reflected against the newly fallen snow and the bodies the police dug up—twenty victims of America’s most shocking mass murder—one of them her mother’s. Twenty years later Hannah is a talented CSI investigating the brutal death of a little boy when the past comes hurtling back. Someone knows her secret identity. Someone wants her to remember what she’s spent decades trying to forget.

Homicide detective Nicole Foster has finally balanced an unsteady life and is anxious for a second chance. There’s no better place to start over than at the beginning—back at her childhood home on the Washington coast, where’s she raising her niece and keeping an eye on her increasingly fragile father. But Nicole’s past is never truly behind her—not when a disturbing new case stirs dark memories of the haunting investigation that shattered her career.

"When you combine two brilliant storytellers such as Coble and Acker, the result is a beautiful, well-crafted legal thriller that keeps the reader utterly riveted." --Lynette Eason, bestselling author "Coble and Acker have forged a seamless partnership with a singular voice." --Charles Martin...

Violet knows that time is a futile healer. When she thinks of her happily married grandfather—a predator lovingly referred to as Papa—the feelings of rage and betrayal still swell. Her younger sister, Lily, just discovered the numbing truth about him. Their mother, Rose? She can’t believe it. Not Papa. Leave it alone, Violet. Focus on the now.

The community along Oregon’s Deschutes River is one of successful careers and perfect families. For years, up-and-comers Liz and Owen have admired their good friends and neighbors, Carole and David. They appear to have it all - security, happiness, and a beautiful young son, Charlie. Then Charlie vanishes without a trace, and all that seemed safe is shattered by a tragedy that is incomprehensible - except to Liz.

Florida homicide detective Maggie Novak should be celebrating: it’s the start of a new year, and her boyfriend has just proposed. But all she can think about is the alarming news she received earlier that evening - her teammate Detective Clayton Young is missing. With few leads, Maggie heads to the supermarket where Clay was last seen. To her horror, security footage reveals a devastating scene in the parking lot: her colleague has died in fearful circumstances.

It was supposed to be a typical October evening for renowned portrait artist Will Light. Over dinner of lamb tagine, his wife, Sophie, would share news about chorus rehearsals for the upcoming holiday concert, and their teenage daughter, Lucy, would chatter about French club and field hockey. Only Lucy never came home. Her body was found, days later, in the woods. The Eastern Seaboard town of Port Fortune used to be Will's comfort. Now, there's no safe harbor for him.