Top Ten Tuesday | Books I Meant to Read in 2020

Cat lives in Los Angeles, far away from 36 Westeryk Road, the imposing gothic house in Edinburgh where she and her estranged twin sister, El, grew up. As girls, they invented Mirrorland, a dark, imaginary place under the pantry stairs full of pirates, witches, and clowns. These days Cat rarely thinks about their childhood home, or the fact that El now lives there with her husband Ross.

But when El mysteriously disappears after going out on her sailboat, Cat is forced to return to 36 Westeryk Road, which has scarcely changed in twenty years. The grand old house is still full of shadowy corners, and at every turn Cat finds herself stumbling on long-held secrets and terrifying ghosts from the past. Because someone—El?—has left Cat clues in almost every room: a treasure hunt that leads right back to Mirrorland, where she knows the truth lies crouched and waiting.

Watching sunrises together should have been romantic. But you were always inside with your wife, and I sat in your garden, in the shadows. I thought you’d never know how I felt about you.

Until one night, I witnessed a terrible crime. I wanted it to bring us closer together.

But now the secrets are tumbling out. And they could tear everything apart.

A successful artist with a doting husband, Isabel Dryland knows she should be grateful for her happy life. It’s a complete reversal from the one she led before, when normalcy seemed out of reach, after a violent assault she cannot remember left her shattered and scarred. Even though the memory was lost, the nagging feeling that she was damaged goods and the lingering effects of her injuries kept her questioning her sanity at times. 

Tom, her husband, thinks a move will be the fresh start they need, and has even found the perfect house: a country estate that reminds him of one he admired in his youth. But all Isabel feels when she visits is an overwhelming sense of dread. Betrayed by her instincts so often before, she decides to trust Tom’s, to accept the move and learn to love their new home over time. 

Instead, she learns that beneath the pretty façade of their new home lurk dark secrets powerful enough to bring her own trauma back to the fore. There is an uncanny familiarity about the place, as if it were infected by the experiences she hoped to escape. And the recurring presence of a mysterious stranger further disturbs her, giving her the sensation of being a predator’s stalked prey. 

Isabel struggles to determine whether her fear is caused by memory alone, or by threats existing very much in the present. To find out, she’ll have to finally close the book on what occurred so many years ago—but how do you heal from a past you cannot recall, when only the truth about your past can set you free?

Lila Ridgefield lives in an idyllic college town, but not everything is what it seems. Lila isn’t what she seems. A student vanished months ago. Now, Lila’s husband, Aaron, is also missing. At first these cases are treated as horrible coincidences until it’s discovered the student is really the third of three unexplained disappearances over the last few years. The police are desperate to find the connection, if there even is one. Little do they know they might be stumbling over only part of the truth….

With the small town in an uproar, everyone is worried about the whereabouts of their beloved high school teacher. Everyone except Lila, his wife. She’s definitely confused about her missing husband but only because she was the last person to see his body, and now it’s gone.

The moment my husband showed me Cliffside—a sleek and modern glass home perched on the edge of the jagged Big Sur clifftops—I fell in love. And right there and then I made a pact with myself. I am never leaving this house.

But when my husband was killed on the perilous roads leading up to the house, weeks after we moved in, I had a decision to make—leave the home I love and start a new life or stay and shut myself off from the world? I am never leaving this house.

As I pieced together my shattered life, my mind began to play tricks on me. Footsteps along the beach, leading to my home, then blood-red flowers left on my doorstep with a note that read Looking at you. So I retreated back to the safety of my glass refuge once again. I am never leaving this house.

But now, as I stare out of the towering windows of my perfect home, I know there is someone out there staring back. I know that they are watching my every move, waiting to make me pay for my past mistakes.

Everyone in town said it was a mercy that she remembered so little. But there are some things Maya has never forgotten: that her mother was beautiful and kind, and she loved Maya very much. It’s what her father Stephen always tells her, about his perfect wife.

Years later, Maya still lives with her father in their cliffside home. Thankful for all the sacrifices he has made for her, she never pushes to find out what happened the night he lost the woman he loved. Even when she hears the whispers in town about him, and what they say he’s done.

But then Stephen introduces Maya to his new girlfriend Amy, and Maya starts to feel uneasy. With her soft dark hair and big blue eyes, Amy looks just like Maya’s mother. The more time they spend together the more Maya notices just how similar they are. And the tune Amy hums whilst cleaning the dishes is the same lullaby Maya’s mother sang to her when she was a little girl.

A woman is found wandering through woodland, confused and severely undernourished. Police identify her as Mara Sitwell, who was just eleven years old when she vanished from her home nineteen years earlier.

She says she was abducted and held captive in an underground cell for all that time. Her escape seems to prove miracles can happen – but not everyone is convinced.

Tortured by guilt, Mara’s sister Lucia insists on taking her in. But Lucia’s husband, Damian is not so sure it’s a good idea. He suspects Mara is hiding a terrible secret – and fears the whole family could be in danger.

From her downstairs apartment in suburban London, Emma has often overheard the everyday life of the seemingly perfect family upstairs–Steph, Paul and teenage daughter Freya–but has never got to know them. Until one day, she hears something that seizes her attention: Freya has vanished and the police are questioning Steph and Paul about their life. Do either of you have any enemies? Anyone who might want to harm or threaten you?

The effects of Freya’s disappearance ripple outward, affecting not just her parents, but everyone who lives in the building, including Emma and local driving instructor Chris, who was the last person to see the teenager before she went missing. Each character’s life is thrown into sharp focus as devastating mistakes and long-held secrets are picked apart and other crimes come to light–including a child gone missing 25 years before, and a shocking murder–that make clear that the past never stays where we leave it, and that homes can be built on foundations of lies. 

All it took for a hundred people to die during a show by the hair metal band Great White was a sudden burst from two giant sparklers that ignited the acoustical foam lining the Station nightclub. But who was at fault? And who would pay? This being Rhode Island, the two questions wouldn’t necessarily have the same answer.

Within 24 hours the governor of Rhode Island and the local police commissioner were calling for criminal charges, although the investigation had barely begun, no real evidence had been gathered, and many of the victims hadn’t been identified. Though many parties could be held responsible, fingers pointed quickly at the two brothers who owned the club. But were they really to blame? Bestselling author and three-time Emmy Award-winning reporter Scott James investigates all the central figures, including the band’s manager and lead singer, the fire inspector, the maker of the acoustical foam, as well as the brothers. Drawing on firsthand accounts, interviews with many involved, and court documents, James explores the rush to judgment about what happened that left the victims and their families, whose stories he also tells, desperate for justice.

As a photographer, Delta Dawn observes the seemingly perfect lives of New York City’s elite: snapping photos of their children’s birthday parties, transforming images of stiff hugs and tearstained faces into visions of pure joy, and creating moments these parents long for.

But when Delta is hired for Natalie Straub’s eleventh birthday, she finds herself wishing she wasn’t behind the lens but a part of the scene―in the Straub family’s gorgeous home and elegant life.

That’s when Delta puts her plan in place, by babysitting for Natalie; befriending her mother, Amelia; finding chances to listen to her father, Fritz. Soon she’s bathing in the master bathtub, drinking their expensive wine, and eyeing the beautifully finished garden apartment in their townhouse. It seems she can never get close enough, until she discovers that photos aren’t all she can manipulate.