What Have You Done? by Shari Lapena

 

What Have You Done? by Shari Lapena - 304 pages

Nothing ever happens in sleepy little Fairhill, Vermont.

The teenagers get their kicks telling ghost stories in the old graveyard. The parents trust their kids will arrive home safe from school. Everyone knows everyone. Curtains rarely twitch. Front doors are left unlocked.

But this morning all of that will change.

Because Diana Brewer isn’t lying safely in her bed where she belongs. Instead she lies in a hayfield, circled by vultures, discovered by a local farmer.

How quickly a girl becomes a ghost. How quickly a town of friendly, familiar faces becomes a town of suspects, a place of fear and paranoia.

Someone in Fairhill did this. Everyone wants answers.

And one innocent question could be deadly.

As is normal with this author's books, this was really a great read.  It starts with Diana dead and the whole book goes back and forth between each character's narrative while you desperately try to figure out who did it.  A gripping read that will keep you guessing until the end! 

Promise Not To Tell by Jennifer McMahon

Promise Not To Tell by Jennifer McMahon - 250 pages

In 2002, Kate Cypher, a 41-year-old school nurse, returns home to her Vermont hippie commune where she grew up to care for her aging mother, who is afflicted with Alzheimer's disease. Her first night home, a murder takes place behind her mother's cabin—the killing is identical to that of Kate's childhood friend, Del Griswold, who was murdered in 1971. Del was a scrappy outcast in life, shunned and taunted as "Potato Girl." Since her unsolved murder, Del had become something of a local legend, supposedly tormenting the townsfolk from beyond the grave. Kate never revealed her close relationship to Del, before or after her death, unable to stand up to those who pitied or reviled Del. Kate is drawn into the investigation of the modern-day crime, and must revisit Del's original murder, and her culpability in it. Along the way, she realizes that someone is playing games with her: leaving cryptic messages that tell her where to go. By following these clues, Kate re-meets many members of the hippie town she grew up in and relives some of the horrifying times during Del's murder

Wife For Hire by Janet Evanovich

Wife For Hire by Janet Evanovich, 234 pages

Wife For Hire is one of Janet Evanovich's older romance books written in 1990. When Hank Mallone needs to be married to get a large bank loan in his small home town of Skogen, Vermont,  he advertises in a New Jersey paper for a wife for hire. He ends up hiring Maggie Toone who is not at all what he expected. Maggie is a girl who has just left her teaching job to write a book and what better way to write a book than pretending to be married in a small Vermont town while staring at apple orchards.  This is cute story with some plot complications that make the story more interesting.

Secrets of Eden Chris Bohjalian

Secrets of Eden  -  Chris Bohjalian  - 362 pages
This is the first Chris Bohjalian novel I have ever read.  This was a great story revolving around several different types and complex characters.  The murder/suicide of Alice and George Hayward,  the local pastor Stephen Drew, author Heather Laurent, and the orpahn Katie Hayward are the main players in this story.  Domestic abuse, the secrets of marriage and spiritual breakdown are the dramatic plots of this small town Vermont thriller.