Megan Abbott

With their long necks and matching buns and pink tights, Dara and Marie Durant have been dancers since birth. After their parents' death in a tragic accident nearly a dozen years ago, the sisters began running their mother's dance studio together, along with Charlie, Dara's husband and once their mother's prized student. When a suspicious accident occurs, just at the onset of the school's annual performance of The Nutcracker, a season of competition, anxiety, and exhilaration, an interloper arrives and threatens the sisters' delicate balance.

The Turnout

'Megan Abbott at her very best. Cool, crisp, chilling.' Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train Kit has risen to the top of her profession. She's on the brink of achieving everything she wanted, but someone is standing in her way - Diane. Diane made Kit who she is today, lit the ambition that's driven her - and now she knows something that could burn Kit's world to the ground. But Diane has a secret of her own, and Kit hasn't forgotten. She remembers the worst thing Diane ever did, and how it blew their friendship apart. Diane is beginning to think that Kit is just like her. Maybe she's right. Ambition: It's in the blood . . . Give Me Your Hand is a blistering thriller from Megan Abbott.

Give Me Your Hand

Beware the Woman

By the author of Dare Me and The End of Everything Femmes fatales. Obsessive love. Double crosses. How does a respectable young woman fall into Los Angeles’s hard-boiled underworld? Shadow-dodging through the glamorous world of 1950s Hollywood and its seedy flip side, Megan Abbott’s debut, Die a Little, is a gem of the darkest hue. This ingenious twist on a classic noir tale tells the story of Lora King, a schoolteacher, and her brother Bill, a junior investigator with the district attorney’s office. Lora’s comfortable, suburban life is jarringly disrupted when Bill falls in love with a mysterious young woman named Alice Steele, a Hollywood wardrobe assistant with a murky past. Made sisters by marriage but not by choice, the bond between Lora and Alice is marred by envy and mistrust. Spurred on by inconsistencies in Alice’s personal history and possibly jealous of Alice’s hold on her brother, Lora finds herself lured into the dark alleys and mean streets of seamy Los Angeles. Assuming the role of amateur detective, she uncovers a shadowy world of drugs, prostitution, and ultimately, murder. Lora's fascination with Alice’s "sins" increases in direct proportion to the escalation of her own relationship with Mike Standish, a charmingly amoral press agent who appears to know more about his old friend Alice than he reveals. The deeper Lora digs to uncover Alice’s secrets, the more her own life begins to resemble Alice’s sinister past—and present. Steeped in atmospheric suspense and voyeuristic appeal, Die a Little shines as a dark star among Hollywood lights.

A Novel

Die a Little

An audacious novel about family and ambition from "a master of fingernails-digging-into-your-palms suspense" (Kirkus) and bestselling, award-winning author of The Fever, Megan Abbott. How far will you go to achieve a dream? That's the question a celebrated coach poses to Katie and Eric Knox after he sees their daughter Devon, a gymnastics prodigy and Olympic hopeful, compete. For the Knoxes there are no limits--until a violent death rocks their close-knit gymnastics community. As rumors swirl, Katie tries frantically to hold her family together while also finding herself irresistibly drawn to the crime itself. What she uncovers--about her daughter's fears, her own marriage, and herself--forces Katie to consider whether there's any price she isn't willing to pay for Devon's dream. YOU WILL KNOW ME is a breathless rollercoaster of a novel about the desperate limits of parental sacrifice, furtive desire, and the staggering force of ambition.

You Will Know Me

The searing novel of friendship and betrayal that inspired the USA Network series, praised by Gillian Flynn as "Lord of the Flies set in a high-school cheerleading squad...Tense, dark, and beautifully written." Addy Hanlon has always been Beth Cassidy's best friend and trusted lieutenant. Beth calls the shots and Addy carries them out, a long-established order of things that has brought them to the pinnacle of their high-school careers. Now they're seniors who rule the intensely competitive cheer squad, feared and followed by the other girls -- until the young new coach arrives. Cool and commanding, an emissary from the adult world just beyond their reach, Coach Colette French draws Addy and the other cheerleaders into her life. Only Beth, unsettled by the new regime, remains outside Coach's golden circle, waging a subtle but vicious campaign to regain her position as "top girl" -- both with the team and with Addy herself. Then a suicide focuses a police investigation on Coach and her squad. After the first wave of shock and grief, Addy tries to uncover the truth behind the death -- and learns that the boundary between loyalty and love can be dangerous terrain. The raw passions of girlhood are brought to life in this taut, unflinching exploration of friendship, ambition, and power. Award-winning novelist Megan Abbott, writing with what Tom Perrotta has hailed as "total authority and an almost desperate intensity," provides a harrowing glimpse into the dark heart of the all-American girl.

Dare Me

By the author of Dare Me and The End of Everything In October 1931, a station agent found two large trunks abandoned in Los Angeles’s Southern Pacific Station. What he found inside ignited one of the most scandalous tabloid sensations of the decade. Inspired by this notorious true crime, Edgar®-winning author Megan Abbott’s novel Bury Me Deep is the story of Marion Seeley, a young woman abandoned in Phoenix by her doctor husband. At the medical clinic where she finds a job, Marion becomes fast friends with Louise, a vivacious nurse, and her roommate, Ginny, a tubercular blonde. Before long, the demure Marion is swept up in the exuberant life of the girls, who supplement their scant income by entertaining the town’s most powerful men with wild parties. At one of these events, Marion meets—and falls hard for—the charming Joe Lanigan, a local rogue and politician on the rise, whose ties to all three women bring events to a dangerous collision. A story born of Jazz Age decadence and Depression-era desperation, Bury Me Deep—with its hothouse of jealousy, illicit sex and shifting loyalties—is a timeless portrait of the dark side of desire and the glimmer of redemption.

Bury Me Deep

'If Abbott writes half a dozen more books as good as her first three ... she will claim the throne as the finest prose stylist in crime fiction since Raymond Chandler' San Francisco Chronicle A young woman hired to keep the books at a down-at-heel nightclub is taken under the wing of the infamous Gloria Denton, a mob luminary who reigned during the Golden Era of Bugsy Siegel and Lucky Luciano. The moll to end all molls, Gloria is notoriously cunning and ruthless. She shows her eager young protégéethe ropes, ushering her into a glittering whirl of late-night casinos, racetracks, betting parlours, inside heists and big, big money. Suddenly, the world is at her feet -- as long as she doesn't take any chances, like falling for the wrong guy. It all falls to pieces with a few turns of the roulette wheel, as both mentor and protégée scramble to stay one step ahead of their bosses and each other ...

A classic story of underworld greed and betrayal, introducing a mesmerising and compelling unreliable narrator ...

Queenpin

A Richard and Judy Book Club selection. The End of Everything by Megan Abbott, author of Dare Me, is a taut and suspenseful novel of friendship, loss and the dark undercurrents of adolscence. A close-knit street, the clink of glass on glass, summer heat. Two girls on the brink of adolescence, throwing cartwheels on the grass. Two girls who tell each other everything. Until one shimmering afternoon, one of them disappears. Lizzie is left with her dread and her loss, and with a fear that won't let her be. Had Evie tried to give her a hint of what was coming, a clue that she failed to follow? Caught between her imaginary guilt, her sense of betrayal, her own powerful need, and the needs of the adults around her, Lizzie's voice is as unforgettable as her story is arresting. This is no ordinary tale of innocence lost . . .

A Richard and Judy Book Club Selection

The End of Everything

Deenie, Gabby and Lise are best friends - a tight girl-unit negotiating their way through the troubled waters of their teens, a world of sex, secrets and intense relationships. When first Lise then Gabby falls prey to a mysterious illness, hysteria sweeps their school and, as more girls succumb, Deenie finds herself an outsider, baffled by the terrifying illness and scared that it could all be because of something she has done. Suffering with Deenie are her dad and her brother, both protective of Deenie, but each with secrets of their own . . . The Fever is an explosive novel in which Megan Abbott explores the lethal power of guilt and desire, and how mass hysteria can grip a community, making real our deepest fears.

The Fever

Turnout

In 1950s Hollywood, an actress is haunted by a bookseller’s death: A novella from the Edgar Award-winning author of Give Me Your Hand. In 1953, Penny is just another washed-up, wannabe Hollywood actress who is past her prime. She has settled in to a quiet lifestyle, and when she finds a low-rent bungalow in Canyon Arms, it’s a dream come true; Penny takes to the place instantly. But the dream cottage with its French doors and tiled courtyard may not be as perfect as it seems. Penny’s new neighbors start filling her head with stories about past tenants, whispering voices, and a suicide that may not have been a suicide at all. Soon enough, Penny starts hearing strange noises and she can’t help but wonder about the true fate of the bookseller who died in her home a dozen years earlier. Her suspicions are only fueled by the ominous inscription that she discovers in a book that’s closely guarded by her landlord . . . From the national bestselling author of Dare Me and other thrillers, this is a spooky mystery set on the dark fringes of glamorous Los Angeles. The Bibliomysteries are a series of short tales about deadly books, by top mystery authors.

The Little Men

Val McDermid

Original stories by Lynne Barrett, Charlotte Carter, Christa Faust, Alison Gaylin, Sara Gran, Libby Fischer Hellmann, Vicki Hendricks, Naomi Hirahara, Annette Meyers, Donna Moore, Vin Packer, Rebecca Pawel, Cornelia Read, Lisa Respers France, S. J. Rozan, Sandra Scoppettone, Zoë Sharp, Sarah Weinman, Ken Bruen, Stona Fitch, Allan Guthrie, Charlie Huston, Eddie Muller, Daniel Woodrell.

An Anthology of Female Noir

A Hell of a Woman

'Compulsively Readable' Ruth Ware

Die dreizehnjährige Lizzie und ihre Freundin Evie sind unzertrennlich. Nachbarmädchen, die Badeanzüge und Hockeyschläger tauschen, zusammen zur Schule gehen und scheinbar keine Geheimnisse voreinander haben. Doch eines Nachmittags ist Evie verschwunden. Einziger Anhaltspunkt: ein rotbrauner Wagen, den Lizzie morgens durch den Ort hat fahren sehen. Auf einmal steht Lizzie im Zentrum der Aufmerksamkeit: War Evie unglücklich? Hatte sie Sorgen? Hatte sie Lizzie von einem möglichen Verfolger erzählt? Würde sie zu einem Fremden ins Auto steigen? Lizzie versucht sich an Details zu erinnern und beginnt nachzuforschen. Um ihre Freundin zu finden, aber auch weil sie die Nähe von Evies zutiefst erschüttertem Vater sucht, für den sie heimlich schwärmt. Auf nächtlichen Streifzügen durch die Kleinstadt macht Lizzie seltsame Entdeckungen. Schritt für Schritt kommt sie einem Geheimnis auf die Spur und muss sich fragen, wie gut sie ihre beste Freundin überhaupt kannte.

Roman

Das Ende der Unschuld

The Girl (L.A. Noire

Na Escola Secundária de Dryden, Deenie, Lise e Gabby formam um trio inseparável. Filha do professor de química e irmã de um popular jogador de hóquei da escola, Deenie irradia a vulnerabilidade de uma típica adolescente de 16 anos. Quando Lise sofre uma inexplicável e violenta convulsão no meio de uma aula, ninguém sabe como reagir. Os boatos começam a se espalhar na mesma velocidade que outras meninas passam a ter desmaios, convulsões e tiques nervosos, deixando os médicos intrigados e os pais apavorados. Os ataques seriam efeito colateral de uma vacina contra HPV? Envoltos em teorias e especulações, o pânico rapidamente se alastra pela escola e pela cidade, ameaçando a frágil sensação de segurança daquelas pessoas, que não conseguem compreender a causa da doença terrível e misteriosa.

A febre

Normandy Gold Vol. 1

Alison Gaylin

When her younger sister is found murdered in a D.C. hotel, relentless Sheriff Normandy Gold dives headfirst into the seedy world of prostitution and politics, soon discovering a twisted conspiracy that could lead right to the White House.

Megan Abbott

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