Being the teenage daughter of a serial killer is fun - except when digging graves. Thankfully, Misty has Bitsy to help her. Plus her daddy pays her with gift cards that she uses online to order things like books, video games, and new outfits to dress up Bitsy with, so really she can’t complain. Now if her daddy would just teach her how to drive, life would be perfect. 

Christmas Eve 2005. Eight year old Michelle Harper is the only survivor in a horrific massacre that has left her four siblings decapitated, and her mother slowly dying as her innards ooze out onto the second floor landing, the words Santa Took Them written in blood on the bedroom wall. Ten years later, having been released from a psychiatric hospital for children, Michelle disappears, her uncle and his girlfriend found hacked to death with a knife before being decapitated, the words Santa Took Them once again written in blood on the wall.

Crystal Creek. It has a pleasant ring to it, one that might create a charming visual of an idyllic small town that welcomes visitors to come view its beautiful mountain scenery and hike along its wooded trails. Such a visual would be wrong. Crystal Creek is not a pleasant place. And it doesn’t host many visitors. In fact, the last two who ventured into town have disappeared. Vanished without a trace, the locals would say. But is that true? Or is that just want the locals want to believe? What is going on in Crystal Creek? And why?

What's behind the locked door? Who is the couple's mysterious daughter? And can Lauren even trust her own instincts? Desperate for answers, she breaches the forbidden room, where she uncovers a chilling secret that changes everything. Entangled in a twisted web of lies, she realizes the once-kindly couple may not be who they seem. With her safety becoming increasingly precarious and her tumultuous past refusing to let go, can Lauren unravel the truth and get out before it's too late?

High school can be a difficult time for a teenager, especially toward the end where one has to start making the sudden transition into adulthood. For Jimmy Hawthorn it is even worse. Not only does he need to successfully make that transition, he has to do it while hiding the fact that he is the one responsible for kidnapping two fellow high school students, both of whom are hanging from their wrists in a secret underground fallout shelter he discovered behind an abandoned house on the outskirts of town.

Our new home was meant to be a chance for us to start again; to make new friends and forget the past. And as I look around the barbeque we’ve thrown for our neighbors, I dare to dream that things will be all right. I watch my husband joking as he flips burgers and my daughter turning cartwheels on our sun-bleached lawn. And then my gaze falls on my son, Jacob, and his new girlfriend, Rose, in her light blue jeans and her green crop top. There is a worried expression clouding her beautiful eyes.... The next day I get a call from Rose’s mother that chills me to the bone.

Caleb Lambert kills people for a living. The money is nice, but it comes a distant second to his primary reason for choosing such a vocation: Caleb often calls it “scratching an itch”. Here’s the thing, though: Caleb won’t just accept any contract. He and his team thoroughly vet each and every prospective mark to make sure they deserve to be punished.

A bright and welcoming haven, the playgroup sits at the heart of the town, tucked away inside a red-brick building. The Nest should have been the safest place for my rosy-cheeked, pink-obsessed daughter, Florence. Run by mothers like me, I trusted my newfound friends–Alice, Beth and Georgie–to take care of my child. But now my choice has left Florence fighting for her life.

After losing everything in a devastating house fire, the cracks in Justin and Megan's marriage are starting to show. A move to the country should be the fresh start they desperately need, but the old lodge on the Treloar estate, with its crooked chimneys and dark foreboding walls, is more sinister than Megan ever imagined. She tries to make the best of it for her husband's sake, but the house is haunted by the secrets of Justin's past.

Vanessa and Curtis have just moved to an idyllic house in the seaside town of Whitstable. Their life there is wonderful, until Vanessa’s ex-boyfriend Hayden shows up out of the blue. Hayden is not only brash and unpredictable with a warped sense of humour, he also seems intent on making life very difficult for Vanessa, who hasn't seen him since she was sixteen. As Hayden causes more and more disruption in their lives, Curtis begins to realise that he has some kind of bizarre hold on Vanessa.

My darling little boy Albie adores playing at our new neighbours’ house. And after the terrible year we’ve had, I feel so lucky that we can start over in this perfect place, with new friends who treat Albie like the son they never had. He can’t stop talking about the tree house they’re building him, and the cookies they bake together. But as time passes, something starts to feel wrong. Why don’t they ever open the front door more than a crack? They told me they had no children so who does the small pink tricycle I saw in their hall belong to?

I could tell when my son started hiding things from me. He used to walk to school with a mischievous grin on his beautiful face. Now he avoids eye contact and keeps his head down. Since I discovered he’s being bullied by a classmate, I’ve spent every day worrying, my stomach churning with anxiety from the moment he leaves the house to the second he walks back through the door. Everyone keeps telling me I’m overreacting, but I won’t risk my child’s safety. My husband and I try to talk to the other boy’s parents, but it only makes things worse. Then our precious child is hurt. Enough is enough.

This holiday is the first time my husband Jeff and I have been on our own in years, and I want it to be a fresh start. We can walk along the beach, eat ice cream in the bright Spanish sun, and fall in love again.

They warned me the first few days of motherhood would be exhausting, but I’m so deliriously happy, I don’t mind one bit. Smiling, I glance at the baby blue blanket I crocheted. I’ve never knitted a thing in my life, but I was determined to make my newborn his very first blanket—a one-of-a-kind welcome-home gift. I tug the rocker closer to me, unable to resist peeking at my beautiful baby boy. I pull back the blanket. It feels like my heart flatlines. He’s not here. Sweat beads on my forehead, and my limbs turn to ice. “Where is he?” I cry, my whole body trembling, the wind knocked out of me. 

Lori once lived the perfect life with her husband Howie and their teenage daughter Molly—until the day Howie left for work and vanished without a trace. Haunted by her loss, Lori, a former investigative journalist, retreated from the city to rural isolation to become an author, seeking solace in the company of her beloved dogs. However, Lori's ordered, solitary existence is about to be turned upside down. As Frankie Evans, the man she helped convict for murder, has walked out of prison a free man. And he is intent on finding her.