Ringing in 2025 with These New Releases!

with Lauren Nossett

A new year brings new books, and we’re starting 2025 off with an abundance of page-turning thrillers, including titles by our own Greg Wands and Carter Wilson!

January Recommendations

Wendy recommends: Trust Issues by Elizabeth McCullough Keenan & Greg Wands (out Jan 28!)

When Janice Thornhill falls to her death in Central Park, her estranged children Hazel and Kagan must bury their grievances to avoid being implicated—and to find the inheritance stolen by their stepfather, Perry. Their quest leads them to Ava, the stepsister they've never met. Ava hasn't seen her father in years but agrees to help them track him down. Trust Issues is a clever, devious cat-and-mouse thriller that shines a brilliant light on family dysfunction. I really enjoyed this one!

Danielle recommends: Tell Me What You Did by Carter Wilson (out Jan 28!)

Poe Webb is drawn to true crime, perhaps because her own mother was murdered in their home when she was barely a teenager. Now a grown woman, Poe has found success hosting a popular podcast where she invites people to anonymously confess on air to the crimes they’ve committed. After the show airs, she hardly gives her guests, or their crimes, a second thought. Until a guest claims to be her mother’s killer and wants Poe to go on the air live with him. This man knows things only her mother’s killer would know and yet he can’t be the man who killed Poe’s mother. That man is dead. Poe knows this because she killed him. Carter Wilson’s newest read is a bit like binging a favorite podcast or thriller series. You find yourself flipping to the next chapter the moment you’ve finished the last. What’s better is that Carter brings in a powerful cameo from a previous book, an unexpected ally for Poe as she tries to outsmart a killer. At the same time I couldn’t put the book down, I also found myself walking through the house, checking that the doors and windows were locked. Tell Me What You Did is compelling to the final words.

Greg recommends: Cross My Heart by Megan Collins (out Jan 14!)

Rosie Lachlan has been unlucky in love but suspects the fates may be conspiring to realign her fortunes. After Rosie receives a lifesaving heart transplant, she begins corresponding with the husband of her donor. The widower, Morgan Thorne, is a local celebrity author, and the messages between the two soon take on a romantic bent. But as Rosie finds herself falling for this charming man with whom she feels a visceral connection, she begins to uncover rumors of his potential involvement in his wife’s death and must puzzle it all out before she risks becoming a victim herself. In Megan Collins’s assured hands, this alluring premise is fleshed out into a profound meditation on love, creativity, agency, obsession, fulfillment and self-realization. Collins’s crystalline prose, sharp eye for detail, and empathetic approach to character are on full display, and she deftly employs narrative sleight of hand to shift the reader’s perception in ways that allow them to experience a rich range of emotion.

Lauren recommends: The Note by Alafair Burke (out Jan 7!)

Three friends bonded over the anguish of being publicly shamed—one for an affair, the another Karen-like behavior, and the third for possibly hiring someone to murder her husband–plan a girls weekend to the Hamptons. But then a couple steals their parking spot at a premier restaurant, they write a note, and what starts as a prank, ends with a missing man. The friends find themselves at the center of a police investigation and risk finding themselves in the spotlight again. A novel about secrets and the complexities of female friendship, The Note delivers all the psychological twists I've come to expect from Alafair Burke!

Lauren also recommends: When She’s Gone by Rea Frey (out Jan 14!)

Thirty years ago, teenage gymnast Cora Valentine was kidnapped from a haunted house on Halloween. Her experience made the national news and gave Cora super-star status even before she won gold at the Olympics. Now, all she wants is a normal life with her four-year-old daughter, Lulu. But when, in a scary parallel, Lulu goes missing on Halloween, Cora is forced to play a dangerous game—one that brings her back to the terrors of her own abduction. With the backdrop of cut-throat competitive sports, When She's Gone is a page-turning story about a mother who will do whatever it takes to protect her daughter. Tense and twisty, Rea Frey's newest psychological thriller will have you turning pages late into the night. Read this one with the lights on!

Katy recommends: Vantage Point by Sara Sligar (out Jan 14!)

Do you ever read a book and love it so much you actually struggle to articulate your praise? Like the book is so good it leaves you a little tongue tied? That's me with Vantage Point. I don't know how it's possible for a novel to approach so many complex topics—the fallibility of vision, the increasing unreliability of our visual world, the rise of the deep fake, the porous quality of memory—and *still* be a perfectly-paced and expertly-plotted read. I mean, put simply, it's gorgeous. And all set on the most gothic, evocative, and exclusive stretch of coastline in Maine? I swooned. Am still swooning. Will probably take months to recover from this swoon. I know people often say books are "urgent" and sometimes it feels like that doesn't really mean anything, but this book *is* urgent and is told with a propulsive insistence that makes it impossible to put down. Totally transfixing. Readers are in for a treat.

Katy also recommends: Sweet Fury by Sash Bischoff (out Jan 7!)

I hate it when people say that they had "high expectations" for a book. Because usually that means they're bringing their own, personal desires to a narrative. And books aren't about the reader's desires, they're about the characters'. All that is to say, I had those pesky high expectations for this book and it flew, literally FLEW past them. Sweet Fury is that rare blend of heart-pounding thriller and perfectly executed literary drama. The writing is impossibly good, the structure deliciously cagey, the novel a fever dream that sticks the landing so cleanly the reader can only stand up and applaud. This one gets a long ovation. Pulsing with a raw, electric energy, readers won't be able to look away. For fans of glassy writing that forms the perfect mirror, for fans of heart pounding thrillers, for fans of women-getting-even-stories, for fans of being entertained! This one's for you.