The Kindness of Strangers by Emma Garman

This historical novel, set in 1952, begins dramatically with a dead or nearly dead body. Honor Wilson, a seemingly respectable widow, inherited a large Victorian house in London after her much-older husband died but little in the way of other assets. She takes in lodgers: George (Georgina), ostensibly studying art but actually posing in the nude as an artist’s model, a shady occupation for Lord Mountford-Owen’s daughter; Robbie, estranged from his wife, living in Honor’s attic; teenage Mina, trying to better herself through elocution and deportment lessons while she works in a Cinema; and Saul, a Holocaust survivor from Romania, who lost his wife and daughter.

Everyone is helping to dig a hole in the garden to bury the most recent addition to the household, Jimmy Sullivan. The question is how did he get there, who killed him, and why?

Change of Plans by Sarah Dessen

An unexpected trip becomes a way to take control of her life 18-year-old Finley in this new book by bestseller Dessen. Finley has just finished high school when her world (at least, her small piece of it) falls apart. One minute she is planning to go to college with her boyfriend, Colin, after a fun trip to Manhattan with her mother, Catherine. Then, instead of New York, Catherine unexpectedly brings her daughter to clear out the family’s beach house, the Woods, vacant since her parents died. Catherine’s sisters, Kasey and Liz, are irritated that for years she hasn’t been around to help, but they welcome Finley, whom they’ve only met twice.

Trophy House by Anne Bernays – 4/20 Books of Summer

Dannie Faber has a comfortable life as a children’s book illustrator; her children are adults and she splits her time between affluent Belmont, MA and Cape Cod, which she prefers. Her husband Tom teaches at MIT and joins her at the Cape, which is her happy place, when he can. When she isn’t working, she has local friends, including Raymie, with whom to gossip about neighbors who don’t fit in. Primary among these is a millionaire who is building an enormous, hideous house less than half a mile from the Fabers.

The Helsinki Affair by Anna Pitoniak

Title: The Helsinki Affair
Author: Anna Pitoniak
Narrator: Amanda Dolan
Publication: Simon & Schuster, audiobook, 2023
Genre: Suspense/Espionage

Description: Amanda Cole is the CIA’s Deputy Station Chief in Rome and longs for a more exciting assignment. She gets her wish when a Russian comes to the embassy to share information on a plot to kill a prominent American senator.

Where Are the Children? by Mary Higgins Clark, her first of 56 straight bestsellers

Title: Where Are The Children?
Author:  Mary Higgins Clark

Publication: Pocket, paperback, 1992 (originally published in 1975)

Genre: Suspense

Deep State, a White House thriller in which a young woman investigates a conspiracy against the President

Title: Deep State
Author: Chris Hauty 

Publication: Simon & Schuster, hardcover, January 2020

Genre: Suspense

Plot: Hayley Chill, who joined the military to get out of West Virginia yet sends most of her salary home to her family, is now beginning an internship at the White House.  Driven and patriotic, she is more mature than the college students with whom she is sharing projects and distinguishes herself from the beginning.  First, she helps bring down a trespasser on White House grounds and then when a jealous colleague tries to sabotage her work, she saves her boss from embarrassment and impresses him and the President.  However, when her boss dies suddenly, Hayley is the only one who wonders if it was more than a natural death.  Soon, she has uncovered a conspiracy that threatens the President, and anyone – such as Hayley – who gets in the way, in a thriller that seems realistic enough to be true . . .  

She's the Worst by Lauren Spieller

Title: She’s The Worst
Author: Lauren Spieller
Publication: Simon & Schuster, hardcover, September 2019
Genre: YA

Plot: Sisters April and Jenn haven’t been close in years. Jenn’s too busy with school, the family antique shop, and her boyfriend, and April would rather play soccer and hang out with the boy next door.

But when April notices her older sister is sad about staying home for college, she decides to do something about it. The girls set off to revive a pact they made as kids: spend an epic day exploring the greatest hits of their childhood and all that Los Angeles has to offer.

Then April learns that Jenn has been keeping a secret that could rip their family—and their feuding parents—apart. With only one day to set things right, the sisters must decide if their relationship is worth saving, or if the truth will tear them apart for good.