The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins

 The Heiress is none other than Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore, the much married, richest woman in North Carolina in this novel coming out January 9. She was kidnapped as a child but was later found to have been taken by a worker on her family’s estate, Ashby House of Tavistock in the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

None of the marriages last for long—husbands’ death all under suspicious circumstances--but she did adopt an orphan named Camden who is in position to inherit everything after her death, including the estate and a 9-digit fortune with nothing going to Ruby’s younger sister who has always lived on the estate with her family.

Surprise, surprise, Cam does not want the house, the money, or the family. He just wants to teach English in Colorado where he had settled with his wife Jules. After 10 years away, he reluctantly returns to North Carolina to address things that need to be taken care of within the estate.

His calculating aunt and his cousins are as unpleasant as ever as they seek a way out of Cam’s inheritance to their benefit, raising questions about whether or not the Ruby who died was really the Ruby who was kidnapped nearly 7 decades ago. A rousing conclusion will settle the estate in a way that could have never been predicted. 

The Heiress is Rachel Hawkins fourth novel for adults. An Alabama author, she also writes under the pseudonym Erin Sterling. She wrote her first novel while teaching high school English. 

The Coworker by Freida McFadden

 (Did not send this out to the Scout as it came out in August. I am also concerned about some allegations that the author generously takes plot from other writers.)

The Coworker in Freida McFadden’s latest psychological thriller is Dawn Schiff, who appears to be on the autism spectrum, yet her co-workers do not seem to pick up on that, and instead they are not very nice to her. However, is this all an act on her part? 

Her arch nemesis seems to be Natalie, the top salesperson of a nutritional supplement company called Vixed, who works in the cubicle next to Dawn. Both women are driven by secrets in their lives.

Seemingly Dawn, who works at Vixed as an accountant,  lacks empathy, rarely says the right thing because she cannot judge those around her, and ultimately has no friends. Or does she?

Dawn is an early-to-the office type, maintains a strict schedule of bathroom breaks and lunch breaks. People could set a clock by her. She’s never late, and yet one day she does not show up to work at all. Natalie, who has given Dawn a ride home in the past, becomes worried because no one has heard from Dawn, and when Natalie picked up a call in Dawn’s cubicle, she hears who she thinks is Dawn say, “Help me!” 

After work, Natalie goes to Dawn’s place, where she finds a lot of blood on the floor. Natalie calls the police, but in a twist, she becomes the prime suspect. What next happens is well-planned and played out by a Dawn who has been working toward this certain moment for years. 

Freida McFadden, a brain injury trained physician, has stated that one of her favorite books is Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn because of the incredible twist in that story. She writes psychological thrillers and medical humor novels.  She self-published her first book on Amazon in 2013.  McFadden is best known for her book The Housemaid. She lives with her family and black cat in a centuries-old three-story home overlooking an ocean.

The Locked Door by Freida McFadden

 Did not send this out to the Scout as it came out in October, republished in paperback form. I am also concerned about some allegations that the author generously takes plot from other writers. Google it.

Nora Davis is a surgeon who is keeping a terrible secret about her father in The Locked Door by Freida McFadden. Having changed her name to dodge any link to her father, Nora is on the verge of being outed as a copycat is out there while her father remains in prison for the rest of his life.

Trouble starts when two of her patients become victims of the copycat killer, bringing the police to her office. Nora has always kept a low profile, living a solitary life with little variance. She gets reacquainted with a boyfriend from college and engages in a game of push-me, pull-me with him as she is so damaged from what happened in her childhood.

Nora constantly reassures herself she is not like her father as she works hard in the operating room  to save lives rather than to take lives. When she basically forces a vehicle into a crash, she begins to question herself. Could she be a killer like her father? She’s a surgeon saving lives! Does the apple fall not far from the tree? No, it does not, but there is the expected twist that comes with the psychological thrillers that McFadden writes.

Freida McFadden, a brain injury trained physician, writes psychological thrillers and medical humor novels.  She self-published her first book on Amazon in 2013. A New York native, she has stated in interviews that all the protagonists in her books are based on her. When McFadden was a kid, she read The Baby-Sitters Club by Ann M. Martin and Judy Blume books. She is most known for her book The Housemaid. McFadden lives with her family and black cat in a centuries-old three-story home overlooking an ocean.

The Madstone by Elizabeth Crook

The Madstone by Elizabeth Crook, coming out November 7, brings back Benjamin Shreve, the narrator of Crook’s 2018 title, The Which Way Tree. This time, he is writing a book-length letter to Small Tot, a 4-year-old boy, to be read when Tot reaches 19, the age Benjamin is when he puts this story down on paper in November of 1868.

In this work of historical fiction, Benjamin, a carpenter by trade in Comfort, Texas, encounters a pregnant woman named Nell Banes and her son Henry, called Tot, when a  stagecoach stops in his town. The pair are running away from Texas to avoid revenge-seeking outlaws who are hot on their trail. Benjamin selflessly does everything he can to help Nell and Tot, at the same time, falling in love with them both.

Turns out Nell reported to the Freedmen’s Bureau the whereabouts of the gang of the Swamp Fox of the Sulfur, a group that has been harassing and committing acts of violence toward black people. Now she and Tot are on the run toward Indianola to board a ship to New Orleans to live with a cousin.

The route to safety is wrought with obstacles including Tot being bitten by a rabid coyote who he thought was a dog. It is said the madstone, a special medicinal substance that when soaked in milk will cure rabies, so Benjamin must head out to the nearest towns to try to find one. This hitch in the plans brings the outlaws that much closer and the escape that much out of reach.

Elizabeth Crook is an American novelist who specializes in historical fiction, in particular the Western. She has  written seven novels, including The Night Journal, which received The Spur Award from Western Writers of America. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her family.

 Mickey Haller is known for taking and winning nearly impossible cases, and this she said/he’s dead case that has Lucinda Sanz locked up now for five years is no exception. Even better, Haller’s half-brother Harry Bosch is working as an investigator for him, looking for possible cases of innocence similar to The Innocence Project in this 7^th book in the Lincoln Lawyer series, Resurrection Walk, due out November 7.

The book starts with such a walk, which is when the shackles come off and the last metal door standing between the prisoner and freedom opens like “the gates of heaven.” Haller has been able to get a ruling of “actual innocence” in court for a young man who was 14 years into a life sentence.

When Haller’s mail blows up with other inmates seeking to prove their own innocence, he has Bosch work through the letters, evaluating each one as possible wrong convictions. Bosch has narrowed it down to two, and after a little investigation in which things just don’t add up, he suggests Haller make a jailhouse call on Lucinda, who has maintained her innocence all along in the five years she’s been locked up.

However, some people do not want the case reopened. Lucinda’s ex-husband was a deputy sheriff, and his colleagues say that justice was done in arresting Lucinda for his death. Lucinda’s first lawyer does not want to be accused of poor representation. Turns out Lucinda was cornered by her lawyer into pleading nolo, or no contest, to manslaughter instead of pleading guilty or not guilty because if her case went to trial, she faced life in prison.

As Bosch digs into the case and Haller starts to plot his defense for Lucinda, they find a number of problems with the so-called evidence and see a resurrection for their client if they can disprove the gun residue test and investigate the trajectory of the bullets that killed Deputy Sanz.

After Michael Connelly spent three years covering crime in Los Angeles, he started writing crime fiction. Fifteen books into his career, he came up with a new character The Lincoln Lawyer in 2005 in a book with the same name. The book was adapted as a 2011 film of the same name, starring Matthew McConaughey, and is currently a Netflix series in its second season.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting October 6, 2023.

I would like to thank the Hatchette Book Group, Little, Brown and Company, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

He Should Have Told the Bees by Amanda Cox

A tradition among beekeepers is to let the bees know when their owner has died as is portrayed in Amanda Cox’s latest Christian fiction, He Should Have Told the Bees, which was published August 1. George Walsh brought up his young daughter Beckett alone when her mother Lindy deserted them. George taught Beck everything he knew about beekeeping before he died, leaving the 60-acre farm to Beck but also to someone named Callie Peterson who lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Beck suffers from agoraphobia so when her father dies, she has a hard time facing the outside world. She is content caring for the bees, producing honey for sale, and taking care of a horse, a donkey, and some goats. She would rather pay a teen to deliver her groceries and animal supplies rather than to go to Sweetwater, Tennessee, herself. When she learns that she is to share ownership of Walsh Farm with a stranger who leans toward selling the property rather than keeping it, Beck becomes very upset with her father, leaving half the property to a stranger.

Who is this mysterious person who now owns half of Walsh Farm? What should Callie do when she has never even heard of the man endowing her with half his farm? She would love to sell it to finance her own dreams of opening a store to sell the candles and soaps she makes. Furthermore, she has the responsibility to provide treatment for her mother who is currently in rehab dealing with her alcoholism and mental health issues.

When Beck and Callie finally sit down to hash things out, they learn there exists a web of secrets in both of their lives, one of which makes their surprising relationship clear. How can they satisfy both their needs with the Walsh Farm?

Amanda Cox, with a bachelor's degree in Bible and theology and a master's degree in professional counseling, finds she enjoys telling stories and tending her honeybees. Her two previous books--The Edge of Belonging and The Secret Keepers of Old Depot Grocery--won the Christy Award Book of the Year in 2021 and 2022. She lives in Tennessee with her family. 

The Stranger Upstairs by Lisa M. Matlin

Combine one-part haunted house with one-part unreliable narrator to equal a chilling debut novel, The Stranger Upstairs, by Lisa M. Matlin, due out September 12. Sarah Slade, who works as a media influencer and a mental health counselor, decides the best way to start over with her life and her crumbling marriage is to buy and flip a house in which people were murdered because she believes she will make a ton on the investment.

Apparently, nothing fazes Sarah, an unlikable character, as she has chosen to make her bedroom the same second floor one in which a married woman was bludgeoned with a hammer, the  blood stain on the floor firmly entrenched even after decades have gone by.  Undaunted, Sarah sleeps alone there as her husband Joe Cosgrove plays video games until 3 a.m. and sleeps on the couch downstairs in the living room.

Not long after moving in, Sarah begins hearing footsteps in the attic. Then she starts finding sticky notes on places like her laptop. She already knows that the neighbors have long wanted Sarah’s house bulldozed because of the murder that happened there decades ago. In talking to one neighbor, Sarah learns that someone had purchased the home before her, and that woman was missing along with her dog.

Like those before her, Matlin has crafted a story in which the haunted house is just as much a character as Sarah and Joe. A bloody hammer in a cradle and footprints in the dust  in the top-most floor add to Sarah’s belief that there is a stranger in the attic. However, the attic is not the only thing harboring secrets as Sarah and Joe have skeletons in their past as well.

Lisa M. Matlin switched from songwriting as a guitarist in a rock band to story writing. She lives in Australia, the setting for her first novel. She offers a narrative about her own struggles with mental health at the end of the book.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting September 4, 2023.

I would like to thank Bantam Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.