Domestic

Rose Dearling’s brother, Will, sits in jail, convicted of murdering Alexandria Hopely, his first love. With adjoining backyards, the Dearling and the Hopely families were particularly close, but that all changed when Rose refused to accept that Will was the killer. Years later, Rose is the best-selling author of The Smileys Next Door, a thinly fictionalized account of what she thinks really happened to Alex, naming Mr. Hopely as his daughter’s murderer. When her sister, Hazel, disappears, Rose is summoned by family to leave New York City and return to her hometown, Loxahatchee FL, where unsurprisingly, former friends regard her with suspicion and disdain. As family secrets begin to surface, Rose becomes even more convinced that Will is innocent and that the real killer is still on the loose. Local cop Nick Pullman gets put on the case, bringing another backstory into the narrative as the search for Hazel grows more desperate. A skanky teacher and a lecherous neighbor round out the cast, and Hanks has readers’ heads snapping as this story tumults to its thrilling and surprising conclusion.—Dodie Ownes

Jessie and her husband, Vaughn, are divorcing. Living on opposite coasts and struggling to determine custody for their nine-year-old son, Dylan, they agree to have Dylan fly solo from LA to New York to visit Vaughn. The airline has is ready to accommodate him as an unaccompanied minor, and it’s all set for his grandparents to pick him up when he lands. With an AirTag in his backpack and location sharing on both his phone and watch, he takes off. Hours later at JFK, his grandparents tell Jessie they were diverted to another gate to pick him up, but it turns out the plane landed at the correct one. At the gate where Dylan landed, people who look like his grandparents pick him up and have the proper paperwork. When Jessie checks, the AirTag says he’s still in LA, but the tracking on his phone and watch say he’s still at the gate. Who would want to take Dylan? At the same time, a subway operator in Toronto sees green lights all the way to the next station and slams into a stationary car. The operator’s last words are, “The lights were green,” but the video footage shows only red lights. And this is only the beginning of this intense and fantastic thriller. Mofina’s compelling and twisty narrative builds suspense while playing with reader expectations. He takes a great plot and adds the human element so we care about the characters and what’s happening on every gripping page. Everyone should be one second away from snapping this up and adding it to their reading pile.—Jeff Ayers

Through the alternating viewpoints of the newlyweds and someone who’s watching them, we follow the unhappy Paris honeymoon of Olivier and Cassie and the time before and after it. Olivier’s time in Paris is a reluctant trip home, given that his tenuous immigration status means that he shouldn’t have left the U.S. But spoiled Cassie, who seems mainly to enjoy the trip as a chance to look glamorous on Instagram, insisted. What Cassie wants, Cassie gets, especially since their marriage is Olivier’s ticket to a life outside France and his gigantic debts there. The person following their every move and Cassie’s every social-media post can see that things aren’t as perfect as Cassie would have her followers believe and delights in the obvious discord. This look at the Paris sojourn alternates with the story of the couple’s short time dating and the aftermath of their immigration-fueled decision to wed, when they live with Cassie’s sister in the family’s former inn. It’s far from the cozy getaway spot and possible moneymaker that Cassie described, adding to the feeling that both parties here have been had. The crime-filled ending of the honeymoon, a twist readers won’t see coming, and life back home deliver on the promise of the increasingly dark relationship and save tantalizing reveals until the very end. Try The Paris Apartment while you wait for this absorbing thriller.

When Isla’s shady side business of digging up dirt for hire leads her back to the all-too-familiar Corrigan Group, she must face the demons this powerful family has held over her for the past 10 years. Isla had a tough start to life, orphaned young and stumbling through her formative years until she met Eden Galloway and finally felt like she had found her family. At 16, Isla and Eden’s plan to run away is interrupted by Eden’s insistence on resolving her mysterious unfinished business with the Corrigan family in Virginia. Promising to return before Isla wakes up the next day, Eden is never seen again. And since Isla is an unhoused 16 year old running from the threat of foster care, she has no option but to keep moving. Isla never forgot about her friend, she just never had a way in—until now. As Isla digs deeper into the Corrigans, she finds unlikely friends and even stronger enemies working their own agendas within the powerful family. Isla must push through the network of lies and family loyalties in order to discover the only truth she really cares about: what happened to Eden? Find yourself as a fly on the wall in the home of this power-hungry, treacherous, and deceitful family as all of their secrets come to light in one final stand-off.