"A gripping debut domestic suspense novel, Nora Murphy's thrilling The Favor explores with compassion and depth what can happen when women pushed to the limit take matters into their own hands. Staying is dangerous. Leaving could be worse. Leah and McKenna have never met, though they have parallel lives. They don't-ever-find themselves in the same train carriage or meet accidentally at the gym or the coffee shop. They don't-ever-discuss their problems...

"It's been said that all great literature boils down to one of two stories--a man takes a journey, or a stranger comes to town. While mystery writers have been successfully using both approaches for generations, there's something undeniably alluring in the nature of a stranger: the uninvited guest, the unacquainted neighbor, the fish out of water. No matter how or where they appear, strangers are walking mysteries, complete unknowns in once-familiar...

In this thoughtful treatise spurred by the 2015 death of African-American academic Sandra Bland in jail after a traffic stop, New Yorker writer Gladwell (The Tipping Point) aims to figure out the strategies people use to assess strangers--to "analyze, critique them, figure out where they came from, figure out how to fix them," in other words: to understand how to balance trust and safety. He uses a variety of examples from history and recent headlines...

When two mysterious strangers appear during the annual MacDougal family Christmas celebration in the Blue Ridge Mountains, squabbling siblings Shayne, Morwenna and Bobbie must band together to fend off the growing danger in the dark woods around them and figure out who they can trust.

Amanda and Clay head out to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a vacation: a quiet reprieve from life in New York City, quality time with their teenage son and daughter, and a taste of the good life in the luxurious home they've rented for the week. But a late-night knock on the door breaks the spell. Ruth and G.H. are an older couple, it's their house, and they've arrived in a panic. They bring the news that a sudden blackout has swept the...

Five New Yorkers have received an anonymous, mysterious invitation to the Fifth Avenue Story Society: executive assistant Lexa; broken-hearted Professor Jett; Uber driver Chuck; widower Ed; and Coral, a cosmetics empire scion. None of the five one knows who sent the invitations, and they suspect they're victims of a practical joke. No one has heard of the literary society, and no one is prepared to share their deepest secrets with a roomful of strangers....

"On a rainy October night in Kentucky, recently divorced therapist Tallie Clark is on her way home when she spots a man precariously standing on the edge of a bridge. Without a second thought, Tallie pulls over and jumps out of the car into the pouring rain. She convinces the man to join her for a cup of coffee, and he eventually agrees to come back to her house, where he finally, reluctantly, shares his first name: Emmett. Over the course of the...

In 1957 Barcelona, Daniel Semper and his close friend Fermin Romero de Torres find their lives violently disrupted by the arrival of a mysterious stranger who threatens to divulge a terrible secret that has been buried for two decades in the city's dark past.

"Krista Galloway has a good reason to dislike the holiday season, but when her new job as city manager forces her to plan the town's over-the-top Christmas celebration, she and her daughter may find a new home -- and some Christmas spirit -- in the process" --

"A decade in the future, in the historic town of Vigil Harbor, there's been a rash of divorces among the yacht-club set; a marine biologist despairs at the state of the world; a spurned wife is bent on revenge; and the renowned architect Austin Kepner pursues a passion for building homes to withstand the escalating fury of coastal storms. Brecht, Austin's stepson, has dropped out of college and retreated home from New York after narrowly escaping...