The Undertaker's Daughter


Book Description

'On the last day of 1959 my father, the Beau Brummel of morticians, piled us into his green and white Desoto in which we looked like a moving pack of Salem cigarettes. He drove away from Lanesboro, the city in which we all were born, and into a small town on the Kentucky and Tennessee border. It was only a ninety-minute drive, but it might as well have been to Alaska. When our big boat of a car glided into Jubilee we circled the town square and headed towards the residential section of Main Street. My father pulled the car over and our five dark heads turned to face a huge, slightly run down house. My parents were total strangers to this tiny enclave, but it didn't matter because my father had finally realised his dream in this old house, which was to own his own funeral home.'




The Undertaker's Daughter


Book Description

"Poems that stick with you like a song that won't stop repeating itself in your brain, poems whose cadences burrow into your bloodstream, orchestrating your breathing long before their sense attaches its hooks to your heart."—Washington Post on Captivity




The Daughter


Book Description

A thrilling novel from #1 international bestselling author Sara Blaedel, author of The Forgotten Girls "One of the best I've come across." -- Michael Connelly "Sara Blaedel is a force to be reckoned with. She's a remarkable crime writer who time and again delivers a solid, engaging story that any reader in the world can enjoy." -- Karin Slaughter "One can count on emotional engagement, spine-tingling suspense, and taut storytelling from Sara Blaedel." -- Sandra Brown Already widowed by the age of forty, Ilka Nichols Jensen, a school portrait photographer, leads a modest, regimented, and uneventful life in Copenhagen. Until unexpected news rocks her quiet existence: Her father--who walked out suddenly and inexplicably on the family more than three decades ago--has died. And he's left her something in his will: his funeral home. In Racine, Wisconsin. Clinging to this last shred of communication from the father she hasn't heard from since childhood, Ilka makes an uncharacteristically rash decision and jumps on a plane to Wisconsin. Desperate for a connection to the parent she never really knew, she plans to visit the funeral home and go through her father's things--hoping for some insight into his new life in America--before preparing the business for a quick sale. But when she stumbles on an unsolved murder, and a killer who seems to still be very much alive, the undertaker's daughter realizes she might be in over her head . . .




The Darkness We Hide


Book Description

From the author of Trust No One Some secrets are worth dying for. For months, Doctor Rowan Dupont has been staring death in the face. It followed her back to her hometown of Winchester, Tennessee, ten months ago, cloaking the walls of her family’s Victorian funeral home like a shroud. In investigating the mysterious deaths of her loved ones, Rowan has unearthed enough family secrets to bury everything she’d previously thought true. But each shocking discovery has only led to more bodies and more questions; the rabbit hole is deeper than she ever imagined. Despite settling in to a comfortable life with Police Chief Billy Brannigan, Rowan knows dangerous serial killer Julian Addington is still out there. She can’t let her guard down now. Not when she’s this close to ending his torment once and for all. But with a storm brewing on the horizon, she’ll get only one shot before the impending darkness takes hold, threatening to wipe away every truth she’s uncovered—and everything she holds dear.




The Lies We Tell


Book Description

In this thriller by the author of The Secrets We Bury, danger continues for a doctor grappling with an enigmatic past and the threat of a serial killer. Doctor Rowan Dupont knows a serial killer is coming for her. Julian Addington has been waiting. Watching. And it’s only a matter of time before he strikes. But what Julian doesn’t know is that Rowan is ready for him. And more than anything she wants answers. How well did the depraved killer actually know her mother? And how many lies have been spun in the years since she took her own life? Working alongside her childhood friend Police Chief Billy Brannigan, Rowan is determined to get to the bottom of her mother’s puzzling suicide once and for all—even if it means exposing an unsettling past. It certainly seems like her family’s Victorian funeral home has borne witness to more than one dark secret, but when a recent double homicide leads to an even grislier discovery, separating the truth from the lies might be the last thing Rowan does. Praise for the novels of USA Today–bestselling Author Debra Webb “Rife with tension. . . . A gripping read.” —#1 New York Times–bestselling author Sandra Brown on The Longest Silence “You will fly through the pages of this action-packed thriller!” —#1 New York Times–bestselling author Lisa Gardner on No Darker Place “Webb weaves incredible twists and turns and a mind-blowing conclusion.” —RT Book Reviews on The Longest Silence




Light in the Mourning


Book Description

Death speaks to me. A person's face in death mirrors their living and their dying. This book speaks of both. Life, through the loss of many loved ones, has crushed me open - and left behind many clear and important messages for the living. Each message is different, and each changed how I live my life. This is what I want to share with you... deathbed revelations about how to live. I received these messages from the people I was grieving; but their wisdom is for everyone, whether grieving or not. They are stories of the interwoven beauty of life and death. I hope your journey through my experiences gives you the same gifts I received from them and delivers a fresh perspective on the events in your life. For anyone who has experienced the unbearable sorrow of death, I hope it brings light to your mourning.




The Secrets We Bury


Book Description

In this thriller series opener, a doctor returns to her hometown to take over her family’s funeral home and examine unsolved mysteries from her past. Doctor Rowan Dupont knows death. She grew up surrounded by it in her family’s Victorian funeral home, and it’s haunted her since the day her twin sister drowned years ago. Between her mother’s subsequent suicide and the recent murder of her father, coming home to run the funeral home feels fitting—even if it leaves her vulnerable to an obsessive serial killer. Rowan refuses to let fear keep her from honoring her family. But the more time she spends back in Winchester, Tennessee, the more she finds herself questioning what really happened that fateful summer. Had her sister’s death truly been an accident? And what pushed their mother to take her own life? The dark lake surrounding Rowan’s hometown holds as many secrets as the bodies that float in its chilling depths. But Rowan is running out of time if she’s going to uncover the truth before somebody sinks her for good. Praise for the novels of USA Today–bestselling Author Debra Webb “Rife with tension. . . . A gripping read.” —#1 New York Times–bestselling author Sandra Brown on The Longest Silence “You will fly through the pages of this action-packed thriller!” —#1 New York Times–bestselling author Lisa Gardner on No Darker Place “Webb weaves incredible twists and turns and a mind-blowing conclusion.” —RT Book Reviews on The Longest Silence




The Undertaker's Wife


Book Description

On Dee Branch’s first date with Johnnie Oliver, a fourth-generation funeral director, she knew she was in for a unique relationship when he had to leave “for just a minute”—and he came back to the car with a corpse. Over twenty years later, Dee was still in love with her charming southern gentleman when he passed away suddenly in 2007. Determined to carry on Johnnie’s work, Dee earned her mortuary science degree, only to find herself no longer needed in the family business. So Dee crossed the racial divide in the most segregated industry in America and joined the staff of an African-American funeral home as a single white woman. In The Undertaker’s Wife, Oliver draws from her wealth of experience to provide candid and often hysterically funny advice on dying well and surviving the loss of those who have gone before. Her insights on the common ground of grief, survival, and the ever-present faithfulness of God (to all of us, regardless of our race, religious upbringing, or socio-economic background) will help readers prepare for one of life’s only certainties—and do it with wisdom, grace, and a healthy dose of joy.




The Undertaker's Assistant


Book Description

An enthralling novel of historical fiction for fans of Lisa Wingate and Ellen Marie Wiseman, The Undertaker’s Assistant is a powerful story of human resilience set during Reconstruction-era New Orleans that features an extraordinary and unforgettable heroine at its heart. “The dead can’t hurt you. Only the living can.” Effie Jones, a former slave who escaped to the Union side as a child, knows the truth of her words. Taken in by an army surgeon and his wife during the War, she learned to read and write, to tolerate the sight of blood and broken bodies—and to forget what is too painful to bear. Now a young freedwoman, she has returned south to New Orleans and earns her living as an embalmer, her steady hand and skillful incisions compensating for her white employer’s shortcomings. Tall and serious, Effie keeps her distance from the other girls in her boarding house, holding tight to the satisfaction she finds in her work. But despite her reticence, two encounters—with a charismatic state legislator named Samson Greene, and a beautiful young Creole, Adeline—introduce her to new worlds of protests and activism, of soirees and social ambition. Effie decides to seek out the past she has blocked from her memory and try to trace her kin. As her hopes are tested by betrayal, and New Orleans grapples with violence and growing racial turmoil, Effie faces loss and heartache, but also a chance to finally find her place . . .




Her Father's Secret


Book Description

A woman's murder is only the beginning as a daughter races to unravel the maze of secrets her father left behind--before she becomes the next victim--in the latest gripping novel from Sara Blaedel, #1 internationally bestselling author with over 4 million copies sold worldwide. After suddenly inheriting a funeral home from her father--who she hadn't heard from in decades--Ilka Jensen has impulsively abandoned her quiet life in Denmark to visit the small town in rural Wisconsin where her father lived. There, she's devastated to discover her father's second family: a stepmother and two half sisters she never knew existed. And who aren't the least bit welcoming, despite Ilka's efforts to reach out. Then a local woman is killed, seemingly the unfortunate victim of a home invasion turned violent. But when Ilka learns that the woman knew her father, it becomes increasingly clear that she may not have been a completely random victim after all. The more Ilka digs into her father's past, the more deeply entangled she becomes in a family drama that has spanned decades and claimed more than one life--and she may be the next victim... "Sara Blaedel knows how to reel in her readers and keep them utterly transfixed." --Tess Gerritsen "One of the best I've come across." --Michael Connelly "Crime-writer superstar Sara Blaedel's great skill is in weaving a heartbreaking social history into an edge-of-your-chair thriller." --Oprah.com