Helen Plum Library

"A form-shifting and soul-crunching chronicle of grief and crisis, Venita Blackburn's debut novel, Dead in Long Beach, California, is a fleet-footed marvel of self-discovery and storytelling that explores the depths of humankind's capacity for harm and healing. With the daring, often hilarious imagination that made her an acclaimed short-fiction innovator, Blackburn crafts a layered, page-turning reckoning with what it means to be alive, dead, and...

Some secrets never leave. Iris and Gabriel have just arrived home from a make-or-break holiday. But a shock awaits them. One of their closest friends, Laure, is in their house. The atmosphere quickly becomes tense as she oversteps again and again: sleeping in their bed, wearing Iris' clothes, even rearranging the furniture. Laure has walked out on her husband--and their good friend--Pierre, over his confession of an affair and a secret child. Iris...

Invited by a reclusive mystery novelist to help draft his life story, a longtime correspondent and detective fiction expert finds herself in a real whodunnit when she learns the writer's first wife and son mysteriously vanished

Roommates since college, Jess and Ren have built a strong--if at times codependent--friendship. Now navigating their late thirties, the women co-own a weathered beachfront home, comother a rescued shelter pup and have inadvertently centered their lives around each other. Jess is clever and driven with a lucrative career running her own real estate brokerage. Magnetic but aimless, Ren has been making margaritas at the same local dive and teaching dance...

"Iris Walsh narrowly escaped her pretty, popular twin sister's fate as a teen: kidnapped, trafficked and long gone before the cops agreed to investigate. With no evidence to go on but a few scattered memories, the case quickly goes cold. Now an adult, Iris wants one thing--proof. And it the police won't help, she'll just have to find it her own way; by interning at the isolated Shoal Island Hospital for the criminally insane, where secrets lurk in...

A woman lives alone in an isolated lighthouse on the coast of California ... until a man appears on her doorstep who knows every single secret she's kept since one fateful night In an isolated lighthouse on the California coast, Rowan Winterbourne lives a solitary life with only her secrets for company. For she has a mission that drives her--to avenge herself against Gregory Torval, the powerful drug and arms dealer who murdered her mother and vowed...

"Teacher, mother, wife, and all-around good citizen Ellen is juggling nonstop commitments, from raising a teen and two toddlers to job hunting to renovating her dream home, the Meadowhouse. Amid the chaos, an ominous note arrives in the mail, declaring: People have to learn there are consequences. Why would someone send her this? Ellen has no clue. She's no angel--a white lie here, an occasional sharp tongue there--but she's done nothing to incur...

For reasons of her own, Hero Tojosoa accepts an invitation she was half expected to decline, and finds herself in Prague on a bachelorette weekend hosted by her estranged friend Sofie. Little does she know she's arrived in a city with a penchant for playing tricks on the unsuspecting. A book Hero has brought with her seems to be warping her mind: the text changes depending on when it's being read and who's doing the reading, revealing startling new...

"A powerful, heart-wrenching debut novel about ambition, survival, and our responsibility toward one another. Dixon was once an Olympic-level runner. But he missed the team by two-tenths of a second, and ever since that pain decades ago, he hasn't allowed a goal to consume him. But when his charming older brother, Nate, suggests that they attempt to be the first Black American men to summit Mount Everest, Dixon can't refuse. The brothers are determined...

"FBI Special Agent Pendergast is pitted against his most personal foe: His brother, Diogenes, has planned a horrendous crime and is framing Pendergast for a series of terrible murders."--Provided by the publisher