Tag: Wendy Dranfield

The Night She Vanished by Wendy Dranfield

Posted March 13, 2023 by Marsha in Author ARC, Bookouture, Crime, Mystery, NetGalley, Thriller / 0 Comments

My parents seem to be the perfect couple. But no one knows what I know…

Everyone in the small Midwestern town of Henderson looks up to my perfect parents. With dependable jobs as a midwife and the town sheriff, they help this close-knit community feel safe. 

But the locals didn’t grow up in my parents’ house. They don’t know what I know. And they wouldn’t believe me if I told them…

After my best friend vanished when we were just fifteen, I left town and never looked back. I couldn’t prove it, but I think my parents killed her.

Now, years later, my little sister has vanished. I have no choice but to go home and play happy families again. Because I have to find out what my parents have done to her. I have to try to save her.

But when bones are discovered on a local farm, and all the evidence leads back to our front door, I realize I was wrong about absolutely everything. And that coming back was the deadliest thing I could do…

This is an adult 18+ story that may contain language, possible violence, and/or sexual situations geared to an adult audience.

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The Birthday Party by Wendy Dranfield

Posted January 7, 2022 by Marsha in Bookouture, Crime, Mystery, NetGalley, Thriller / 0 Comments

Charlotte waves at her mother across the crowded lawn. Little red boots on, cowboy hat crooked over her blonde pigtails, she’s been looking forward to this party for weeks. Moments later, she disappears without a trace…

Kathy Hamilton drives away from her sister-in-law’s pristine-white suburban house in Maple Falls certain she’s left her daughter in safe hands. On the hottest day of the year, a birthday is a perfect excuse to gather friends, family, and neighbors around the pool for a barbecue. But when she returns hours later to find her little girl has vanished, her world shatters.

Nobody laughing and drinking in the garden that day saw anything unusual.

Kathy’s eldest daughter is anxious and hardly eating. Is she sick with worry for her sister, or hiding a terrible secret?

The phone rings and rings, but why can’t Kathy get hold of the babysitter?

And is she imagining it, or when her husband rushed from work to join the search, was he wearing a different shirt to the one she saw him leave the house in that morning?

As the temperature rises, and long-buried secrets begin to surface, it’s clear that even the most perfect families keep devastating secrets. But in a town as small as this, is there anyone you can trust?

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Little Girl Taken by Wendy Dranfield

Posted July 29, 2021 by Marsha in Bookouture, Crime, Mystery, NetGalley, Series, Thriller / 0 Comments

Rain rattles through the trees as she leans into the car, careful not to touch anything. Two pretty blue eyes stare back through the dark, wide with relief, or maybe fear. A baby girl, wrapped up in a pink snowsuit, reaches out a tiny hand. Her mother is nowhere to be found…

An abandoned baby is the last thing Detective Madison Harper expects to find as she drives to her first day back at work since the case that ripped her life apart. But as she cradles the shivering child close, all her instincts tell her there’s something more sinister at play. Then she finds a lone sneaker down a muddy trail nearby, the laces spattered with blood…

In a town as small as Lost Creek, Colorado, the baby and the shoe are quickly identified as belonging to Kacie Larson, a waitress at the local diner who quietly stashed away her tips to make a better life for her daughter. A mother herself, Madison can’t believe that Kacie would just abandon her child, but she also can’t convince her new team. Not for the first time, Madison feels she must go it alone to get the job done.

But when a body is pulled from a nearby lake, and it’s not Kacie, the case takes an agonizing turn. Is this missing mother really who she says she is? Is there a chance she’s still alive? Madison barely has time to think before the sweet little girl she rescued is snatched on a crowded street. Gone, in the blink of an eye.

To break this case and earn her place back on the force, Madison must learn to trust her team, and herself again—and fast. If she doesn’t find this twisted individual in time, a little girl could die…

Titles in the Detective Madison Harper series include – Shadow Falls – Cry For Help – Little Girl Taken – 

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Cry For Help by Wendy Dranfield

Posted February 23, 2021 by Marsha in Bookouture, Mystery, NetGalley, Series / 0 Comments

Shivering in the early morning chill, the caretaker flips the switch on the Ferris wheel and stumbles back in shock. The teenage girl’s body is slumped in a halo of pretty colored lights, long red hair spilling over her tear-stained cheeks, her eyes fixed forever on her dangling feet.

When teenager Nikki Jackson’s body is found at an amusement park, just hours after Fourth of July fireworks lit up the night sky, the Lost Creek police rule her death as suicide––a devastating final act from a girl who had lost all hope. But the absence of the knife used to make the wounds on her delicate wrists makes Detective Madison Harper think otherwise. And the partial fingerprint found on the girl’s face proves her right. Someone else was with Nikki in her final moments…

Back home in Colorado for the first time in seven years to investigate the murder of a woman with ties to the son she lost to the care system, the pressure is on for Madison to work both cases at once. Fearing the team has missed a vital clue, Madison searches the crime scene alone and finds the last thing she ever expected: a note proving the victims knew each other, and that the cases are linked. Is this a coincidence, proof a dangerous murderer is on the loose, or a trap set to lead Madison off the trail?

It’s only when Madison finally finds the knife used to harm Nikki, tucked in an almost impossible to find hiding place, that she knows she is closing in on a twisted killer. But the last person she expects to see dragged into the department in handcuffs is her own missing son…

Titles in the Detective Madison Harper series include – Shadow Falls – Cry For Help –

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Shadow Falls by Wendy Dranfield

Posted January 25, 2021 by Marsha in Bookouture, Mystery, NetGalley, Owned, Series / 0 Comments

You thought your little girl was safe at summer camp. You were wrong…

The little girl drags her eyes open, realizing she’s starting to fade. She tries calling out—“Daddy?”—using all her remaining strength. But she’s too late and her voice just isn’t loud enough…

When Detective Madison Harper arrives at a remote summer camp in Shadow Falls, northern California, her heart breaks for Jenny, the sweet little girl last seen splashing in the lake with her friends before she vanished. Peering into the silent cabins filled with rows of neatly made beds, Madison knows this idyllic place is hiding a terrible secret.

The girl’s parents are distraught, and the local police have no leads—they desperately need Madison’s help. She’ll do whatever it takes to crack this case because it’s the only way back to the son she lost to the care system years ago when she was framed for a crime she didn’t commit.

But with the camp staff keeping tight-lipped and her new partner on the edge of a breakdown, Madison can’t find any truth to her instinct that there is more to Jenny’s perfect parents than meets the eye. Until she discovers a disturbing family portrait Jenny drew at the local library. Was this angelic girl more troubled than anybody knew? Was she in danger from those she trusted most?

One thing is certain if Madison doesn’t find the answers soon, the lives of more innocent children will be at risk…

Titles in the Detective Madison Harper series include – Shadow Falls – Cry For Help –

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Won’t You Save Me by Wendy Dranfield

Posted January 29, 2020 by Marsha in Mystery, Romantic Suspense / 0 Comments

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Detective Dean Matheson has returned to his hometown to begin his new job and put the traumatic events of his past behind him – but his fresh start won’t last long when the local area is hit by a series of strange disappearances and twisted killings.

A nameless girl badly beaten and dumped in front of the mysterious new church.

A shocking murder scene discovered in the apartment over the diner.

A child missing without a trace.

These are the crimes Dean Matheson is confronted within his first week as detective. Are they isolated events, or is something altogether more disturbing happening in Maple Valley now that Dean’s back in town?

Titles in the Dean Matheson series include – Who Cares If They Die – When The Snow Bleeds – Won’t You Save Me –

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Where The Snow Bleeds by Wendy Dranfield

Posted July 30, 2019 by Marsha in Mystery, Series / 0 Comments

“You want to know what I’ve learned after living in Lone Creek all my life? I know the snow bleeds here …”

Former police officer Dean Matheson has been playing it safe since the case that cost him almost everything. But working as a PI doesn’t quite cut it, that is until a British woman walks into his office with a job that Dean can’t resist.

 The woman’s daughter, Hannah Walker, and her friend Jodie have gone missing whilst working at a ski resort in Colorado. It’s clear there’s something sinister about the girls’ disappearance, but then why are the local police department being so unhelpful?

So begins Dean’s journey to Lone Creek on the trail of the missing girls – and he’ll soon find out that in Lone Creek, everyone has something to hide.

Titles in the Dean Matheson series include — Who Cares If They Die – Where The Snow Bleeds –

The Girl Who Died is a YA crime novel that has a connection to a character in Where The Snow Bleeds.

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