"In the tradition of Jordan Peele and horror phenomenon Sinners, a YA thriller about a Black teen whose fight for survival forces a small southern vacation town to face its dark history of racial violence.
When sixteen-year-old Naomi Ward and her family head to a secluded cabin in the Shenandoah Valley for summer vacation they don't know the small, mountain town of Sparksburg, Virginia has a dark and twisted past. But when they arrive, Naomi can't shake the feeling that something about Sparksburg just isn't right-and it smells god awful, but for some reason Naomi is the only who can smell the town's stench. When she learns Sparksburg had once been a Sundown Town-a town where Black people weren't allowed after sunset lest they be murdered-Naomi's unease starts to make sense.
As Naomi digs more into Sparsburg's violent origins, she finds herself haunted by the ghost of a girl, appearing nightly outside her window. Then she learns of two girls who've recently gone missing and suspects the past may still be present in Sparksburg and beneath the quaint façade of this tourist town is a palpable danger.
When Naomi decides to track the disappearance of the two girls herself, she becomes suspicious of a local man who has kindled fear in Naomi more than once. She soon learns he has a connection to one of the missing girls, and Naomi is certain he's responsible for the disappearances.
When no one believes her, Naomi takes matters into her own hands. But to save the missing girls, she'll have to finally face her own past trauma as a "missing girl" as she finds herself in a fight for survival.
Gripping and triumphant, L.S. Stratton tells an important and unforgettable story of racial reckoning inspired by historical events."
"An incisive workplace satire and twisty murder mystery featuring a young executive assistant who realizes the peril in being diligently attentive to her boss's whims.
As the assistant of the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, Nicole Underwood has plenty of tasks on her to-do list-one of which is the blowout birthday celebration for her nightmare, one-percenter boss, Xander Chambers. But when the party ends in chaos and murder and Nicole is one of the survivors, suspicion-from the investigators to the media-lands on her. Was she the reason for all the bloodshed?
A year after those deadly events, Nicole tries to set the public record straight by agreeing to consult on a feature film based on her story. However, on the set in LA, she's sidelined by inappropriate casting and persistent, bizarre script changes, while also haunted by the events of that party weekend with visions of her now-deceased boss. It seems clearing her name isn't so simple when the question of guilt or innocence is...complicated."
"Shanice Pierce knows better than to heed bad omens. But she has a hard time ignoring the signs when she finds herself newly single and out of a job on the same seemingly cursed day. Then, while cleaning out her grandmother’s house, Shanice comes across a painting she hasn’t seen in years. Drawn to the haunting portrait in a way she can't explain, Shanice accepts her grandmother’s offer to keep the family heirloom. She soon uncovers the story of the artist, a Harlem Renaissance painter named Estelle Johnson. The young woman was taken under wing by the wealthy art patron Maude Bachmann—or “Godmother” as she insisted her artists called her—and vanished shortly after Bachmann’s brutal murder a century ago. As Shanice digs deeper, a paranoia that’s haunted her for years returns. She becomes convinced she’s being stalked, and that the deaths happening around her are connected to the staggering offer she turned down for the painting. But the truth hiding in plain sight is even more shocking—and deadly—than Shanice could possibly have imagined..."
"One fateful encounter upends the lives of two women in this tense domestic thriller, a modern spin on Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers On A Train that flips the script on race and gender politics.
"I'm a big believer that women should help each other, Tasha," she says. "Don't you think?"
Tasha Jenkins has finally found the courage to leave her abusive husband. Taking her teenage son with her, Tasha checks into a hotel the night before their flight out of D.C. and out of Kordell Jenkins's life forever. But escaping isn't so easy, and Tasha soon finds herself driving back to her own personal hell. As she is leaving, a white woman pounds on her car window, begging to be let in. Behind the woman, an angry man is in pursuit. Tasha makes a split-second decision that will alter the course of her life: she lets her in and takes off.
Tasha and Madison Gingell may have very different everyday realities, but what they have in common is marriages they need out of. The two women want to help each other, but they have very different ideas of what that means . . .
They are on a collision course that will end in the case files of the D.C. MPD homicide unit. Unraveling the truth of what really happened may be impossible‒and futile. Because what has the truth ever done for women like Tasha and Madison?"
