Saturdays at the Café

Saturdays at the Café is a weekly feature hosted here to talk about and discuss the books I’ve discovered during the past week, added to my shelf and am excited about reading. They may be new/scheduled releases I’ve seen on NetGalley, at the library, or from publishers or they may be older titles my friends have reviewed and shared on Goodreads or blogs.

In this novel of escalating fear and suspense by Washington Post and Wall Street Journalbestselling author Minka Kent, a secret from a woman’s past unearths a lifetime of lies. How long can she run from the past?

On her fortieth birthday, Celia Guest has reason to celebrate. She has a loving marriage, a beautiful Connecticut home, and treasured friends. Celia has everything she’s ever wanted. But among the cards and well-wishes, she discovers a disturbing note: You don’t deserve any of this.

Who could be so cruel, so resentful, so…knowing? Then, in the early morning hours, Celia vanishes without a trace.

As suspicions and concerns rise among Celia’s friends, her sister Genevieve, with whom she shares a fractured and troubling bond, starts to piece together a shattered life that Celia fled from once before. As a foundation of lies begins to crumble, a terrifying childhood secret Celia thought was dead and buried comes to light.

And this time, there’s no getting away from the truth.?

Couldn’t resist this when it was offered for audio review. 

Celebrated romance author Catherine Swift has topped the bestseller lists for decades, though her personal story hasn’t been quite so successful. Three failed marriages have left her relationship with her daughters strained, but that’s about to be rectified. Engaged yet again, Catherine is counting on this wedding to be what finally brings them together as a family, and she’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen.

Adeline doesn’t know what’s worse—that her mother is getting married a fourth time, or that she’s being guilted into witnessing the train wreck at Catherine’s luxury villa in Corfu. It brings back the pain of her parents’ split, of her mother’s infidelity and the baby that was the result. Not that she blames her half sister, Cassie, but then she’s never made an effort to know her, either.

Cassie, on the other hand, is thrilled by her mother’s news. After her own father died in a tragic accident, she admires Catherine’s resilience. She’s equally excited about meeting the mystery groom, and at the prospect of spending her summer in Corfu, where she can process a secret of her own she’s been keeping from everyone.

As Cassie and Adeline arrive on the island, they each have very different expectations of what this week will bring—they haven’t been entirely honest with their mother about their lives either—but in the lead-up to the wedding, all will be revealed, for better or worse.

I saw this mentioned on Twitter and quickly added as I’m such a fan of the author. It’s an audio review hopeful, scheduled for release in May. 

The legacy of the “Queen of Suspense” continues with the highly anticipated follow-up to Mary Higgins Clark’s iconic novel Where Are The Children?, featuring the children of Nancy Harmon, facing peril once again as adults.

Of the fifty-six bestsellers the “Queen of Suspense” Mary Higgins Clark published in her lifetime, Where Are the Children? was her biggest, selling millions of copies and forever transforming the genre of suspense fiction. In that story, a young California mother named Nancy Harmon was convicted of murdering her two children. Though released on a technicality, she was abandoned by her husband and became such a pariah in the media that she was forced to move across the country to Cape Cod, change her identity and appearance, and start a new life. Years later her two children from a second marriage, Mike and Melissa, would go missing, and Nancy yet again became the prime suspect—but this time, Nancy was able to confront the secrets buried in her past and rescue her kids from a dangerous predator.

Now, more than four decades since readers first met Nancy and her children, comes the thrilling sequel to the groundbreaking book that set the stage for future generations of psychological suspense novels. A lawyer turned successful podcaster, Melissa has recently married a man whose first wife died tragically, leaving him and their young daughter, Riley, behind. While Melissa and her brother, Mike, help their mom, Nancy, relocate from Cape Cod to the equally idyllic Hamptons, Melissa’s new stepdaughter goes missing. Drawing on the experience of their own abduction, Melissa and Mike race to find Riley to save her from the trauma they still struggle with—or worse.

Just like the original, Where Are the Children Now? keeps readers guessing and holding their breath until the very last page..

Even though the first book was written almost 50 years ago (her debut novel), I only read it recently and it didn’t feel dated. I also didn’t think twice when accepting it for audio review. It’s scheduled for release in April.

Kim knelt next to the woman lying on the cold ground of the graveyard. Eleven knife marks were visible on her clothing and her bright blonde hair was red with blood. Kim shivered as she looked at the dark brown eyes staring upwards and the final slash across the victim’s mouth. Her words silenced forever…

Late one evening, as the final church bell rings out, the body of local psychic Sandra Deakin is found in the church’s graveyard with multiple stab wounds. The first on the scene, Detective Kim Stone tries to picture who would carry out such a violent attack. She’s sure of one thing: this murder was deeply personal.

The last people to see Sandra alive were a group of women who had a reading with her the night before she died. As Kim and her team pay them a visit, they soon learn that each of the women is lying about why they wanted Sandra’s help… and that one of them is connected to an unsolved murder.

Kim smashes open a case that has been closed for years, determined to chase down every lead and find justice for both victims. And as she delves into Sandra’s life, she learns that Sandra was banned from the church grounds… and had been receiving death threats.

Then the broken body of a nineteen-year-old boy is found outside a call centre for a psychic hotline – a single slash across his mouth just like Sandra’s. Kim and her team are now racing against time to understand what has triggered these frenzied attacks, and stop a twisted killer before they strike again.

But they might be too late… as the curtains go up at a local psychic show, Kim sits in the audience with a feeling of utter dread – certain the killer is among them.

Did a happy dance when I noticed this upcoming release featured by the publisher on Twitter. This is one of my most favorite series and I’ll be using an Audible credit when it comes out in May (the audio edition hasn’t been created yet).

What books did YOU add to your shelves this week?