February Thrills and Chills

‘A Box Full of Darkness’

Simone St. James is back with another taut, chilling thriller. A Boxful of Darkness is everything one expects from St. James – horror, humor, and twists galore. Two decades ago, six-year-old Ben went missing during a game of hide-n-seek with his three older siblings. The house has been locked up ever since, a painful reminder of the game gone wrong. Now Ben is back, a ghostly apparition that appears at the family home, asking for them to come home. What follows is so scary you won’t want to read this at night. Set in the eerie town of Fell, New York, the backdrop of her novel The Sun Down Motel, Simone delivers a haunted house story that has heart, painful memories, and a vengeful ghost or two.

‘Her Cold Justice’

Her Cold Justice by Robert Dugoni pits a ruthless prosecutor, and witness to her own parents’ murder, against a determined defense attorney as they battle over the fate of a young man accused of committing a gruesome double homicide. This is the third in the Dugoni series but can be read as a standalone. This legal thriller is smart and tense, set in Seattle seemingly awash with a decades-long culture of corruption, conspiracy, and the railroading of hapless victims. 

‘Where the Wildflowers Grow’

Dip into the heartfelt garden of emotions in Where the Wildflowers Grow by Terah Shelton Harris, the story of an escaped felon who takes a second chance in life when an unexpected opportunity arises. Leigh has spent her entire life surviving, an attribute  drilled into her since she was a young girl living off the grid. When she stumbles on a small town in Alabama, she meets a charming flower farmer with a past of his own. Amongst the blossoming seedlings he offers her a place to heal. Leigh can’t quite bring herself to reveal her true identity to him, even as the pair fall in love. This is a beautiful story of intergenerational trauma, overcoming the past, and redemption. You’ll root for Leigh the entire time, even as it seems her own roots will be cut out from under her.

‘The First Time I Saw Him’

Another excellent thriller is The First Time I saw Him by Laura Dave. This is a page-turner. Five years ago, Hannah’s husband Owen disappeared, leaving her to raise his daughter, Bailey. They are doing the best they can when suddenly Owen reappears – only to vanish once more. Things quickly become complicated when Bailey’s grandfather, Nicholas, appears to suddenly die and Hannah and Bailey find themselves on the run, unsure if they are headed towards even greater danger. Will they ever see Owen again? Dave is a talented author who keeps you guessing all the way until the end. 

‘The Other Moctezuma Girls’

Sofia Robleda’s historical fiction The Other Moctezuma Girls is a fascinating tale of a noblewoman in sixteenth-century Mexico. Even if you haven’t seen the ancient cities that anchor her fiction, their soaring pyramids and secret rituals (I have climbed plenty of the pyramids she writes about) you will feel like you have been transported in time. When Isabel’s mother, an Aztec empress, dies, she leaves clues Isabel must follow to unlock her future and discover the remote mother and Spanish father she never really knew. 

‘When Trees Testify’

A mesmerizing book about trees – both botanical and lineal – is When Trees Testify by award-winning plant biologist Beronda L. Montgomery. In the book, Montgomery traces the history of Black Americans and their botanical ties to the trees that are both painful reminders of their ancestors’ enslaved past, and empowering symbols of resilience, nourishment, and literal healing. Part memoir, part history, this is a compelling look at some overlooked history in our country that needs revisiting.