3 new Southern mysteries and thrillers to keep you up late at night
Between the post-holiday doldrums, dry January and the cold, damp weather, the beginning of the new year can often feel like a real drag. For me, the perfect antidote is holing up at home with a mug of hot tea under a pile of blankets reading fast-paced thrillers and mysteries. Here are three new suspenseful books set in the South for your winter reading consideration.
“On Sundays She Picked Flowers”
Atlanta-based, Gen Z author Yah Yah Scholfield’s debut novel is a dark, feral tale of haints, sorcery and the monsters that lurk within us.
A contemporary take on Southern Gothic horror, the novel begins in 1965 when Jude, a 41-year-old African American conjure woman shaped by a lifetime of violence and generational trauma, escapes her abusive household in Vine City and seeks refuge in a haunted house deep in the woods of South Georgia.
This is not your typical haunted house story. Instead of being frightened away by the spirits that wreak havoc in the house she’s named Candle, Jude learns to coexist with her ghosts. She even befriends an unseen beast that occasionally leaves hunks of freshly slaughtered boar, rabbit or deer on her porch as an offering of sorts.
As the years pass, Jude falls into a happy routine spent foraging in the forest, cooking hearty meals, sewing quilts, worshipping at an altar to the underworld in her basement and concocting herbal remedies and potions for a few customers in town.
One day a mysterious woman named Nemoira appears at Jude’s door. Despite her carefully crafted life of solitude, Jude takes in Nemoira, whose blue-black skin and long coils of dark hair stoke a deep-seated passion in Jude. As their relationship evolves, revelations about Nemoira’s disturbing origin story and Jude’s dark secrets threaten to destroy them.
“On Sundays She Picked Flowers” is a violent, bloody page-turner that explores unsettling themes, but it is also a highly literary tale that comments on the vagaries of romance and the quest to become one’s authentic self. Scholfield is a gifted writer. I predict we’ll be hearing a lot more from her in the future. (S&S / Saga Press, Jan. 27)
“The Storm”
Rachel Hawkins, the New York Times bestselling author of “The Wife Upstairs” and “The Heiress,” sets her new thriller at the historic Rosalie Inn on the Gulf Coast of Alabama. Owner Geneva Corliss has taken over running the struggling hotel from her mother, who was once friends with Lo Bailey, a woman who left town after she was suspected of killing the son of a powerful politician in the mid-1980s.
Forty years later, true crime writer August Fletcher is staying at the hotel while he researches the scion’s murder for a new book he’s writing. To the townspeople’s surprise, he’s accompanied by Lo Bailey who claims she wants to clear her name.
Before long, the innkeeper comes to suspect Lo Bailey is harboring secrets that may implicate Geneva’s mother, who has Alzheimer’s, as well as a desire for revenge. Meanwhile, a hurricane is bearing down on the hotel, threatening to wreak destruction and derail the investigation. (St. Martin’s Press, $29)
Eagle Eye Book Shop and Chateau Elan present a meet-and-greet with Hawkins, followed by a Q&A, Jan. 17 at the winery’s Bordeaux Room in Braselton. For tickets and details go to chateauelan.com.
“Anatomy of an Alibi”
Author of the New York Times bestselling thriller “First Lie Wins,” Ashley Elston delivers another twisty mystery involving Louisiana’s upper crust and a pair of female doppelgangers.
Camille Bayliss and Aubrey Price come from two very different backgrounds. Camille grew up in wealth and privilege and Aubrey was raised by criminals. But they both suspect Camille’s husband Ben, a high-powered lawyer, is engaged in some seriously shady dealings that derailed Aubrey’s life.
The women hatch a plan to dig up proof of Ben’s nefarious activities. While Aubrey impersonates Camille in public for 12 hours, Camille spies on Ben. When he turns up dead the next morning, both women need an alibi to prove their innocence, but only one of them has one. (Pamela Dorman Books, Jan. 13)
Barnes & Noble Buckhead presents Elston in a book discussion and signing Jan. 26. For details go to barnesandnoble.com.
Suzanne Van Atten writes about books for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She may be reached at Suzanne.VanAtten@ajc.com.
