Wendy Corsi Staub
Wendy Corsi Staub is the New York Times bestselling author of eighty published books, best known for the psychological suspense novels she writes under her own name. Two of her recent thrillers, LIVE TO TELL (HarperCollins 2010) and SLEEPWALKER (HarperCollins 2012), were finalists for the prestigious MWA Simon and Schuster Mary Higgins Clark award, four have won the Washington Irving Prize for Fiction, and her latest release, THE GOOD SISTER (HarperCollins 2013) was honored as one of Suspense Magazine’s Best Reads of 2013.
Several books have been optioned for film and television and she has won numerous industry awards including the RWA Rita, the Romantic Times Career Achievement in Suspense, and the Golden Apple Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Her novella COLD HEARTED is a prequel to her upcoming novel THE PERFECT STRANGER (HarperCollins, on sale 7/29/14), the second in a trio of social networking thrillers that will conclude with THE BLACK WIDOW (February 2015). She is under contract with HarperCollins to write a new suspense trilogy set in the fictional Hudson Valley village Mundy’s Landing.
THE GOOD SISTER
Sacred Sisters Catholic girls’ school has hardly changed since Jen Archer was a student. Jen hoped her older daughter would thrive here. Instead, shy, studious Carley becomes the target of vicious bullies. But the real danger at Sacred Sisters goes much deeper.
The only person Carley can talk to is “Angel,” a kindred spirit she met online. Carley tells Angel everything—about her younger sister, about school, about the sudden death of her former best friend. Angel is her lifeline. And Angel is closer than she knows.
When another schoolgirl is found dead, Jen’s unease grows. There are too many coincidences, too many links to her past. Every instinct tells her that Carley is the next target. For someone is intent on punishing the guilty, teaching the ultimate lesson in how to fear…and how to die.
“The suspense keeps you turning pages.”
RT Book Reviews
NIGHTWATCHER
As the city sleeps in the early hours of September 10, 2001, the killer waits and watches, unaware of the cataclysm to come. Even the nightmare of 9/11 will not postpone his private reign of terror.
Allison Taylor adores her adopted city, New York, loving every minute of the invigorating urban hustle. But on a bright and clear September morning, the familiar landscape around her is savagely altered—and in the midst of widespread chaos and fear, a woman living upstairs from her is found, brutally slaughtered and mutilated.
For Allison…for her neighbor, James “Mack” MacKenna, desperately searching for news of his missing wife…for homicide detective Rocky Manzillo, hunting for a monster amid the smoking ruins of a devastated city, this tragic day will hold a special horror. Because a different kind of terror has entered their lives…and it’s coming to claim Allison Taylor as its next victim.
“A gifted storyteller, Staub also possesses the ability to convincingly portray multiple viewpoints.”
John Valeri/Criminal Element
“Staub is boss when it comes to relaying fictionalized accounts of revulsion. A disturbing yet suspenseful tale that will take you into the mind of a serial killer amidst the calamity and horror of real terror on American soil.”
Suspense Magazine
LIVE TO TELL
Secrets can scandalize… In a lovely suburban town just north of New York City, the gossip mill runs more efficiently than the commuter train line. And in every impeccably decorated house, they’re talking about Lauren Walsh. They say that nothing could be worse than being abandoned by your husband for another woman. They’re wrong …
Secrets can shock… All Lauren wants is to protect her children from the pain of her messy divorce. But when their father goes missing, a case of mistaken identity puts all their lives in danger, and a stealthy predator lurks in the shadows, watching…waiting…
Secrets can kill… Lauren is about to uncover an unfathomable truth—a truth this cold-blooded mastermind would never let her live to tell…
“Solid gold suspense ... this one is a wild ride.”
#1 NY Times Bestselling Author Lee Child
“Clever, well-written and riveting. Wendy Corsi Staub is a master storyteller!"
NY Times Best-selling Author Brenda Novak
THE PERFECT STRANGER
In New York Times bestselling author Wendy Corsi Staub's new thriller, one woman finds herself in the crosshairs of a twisted predator who might just be masked behind a familiar screen name...
During the darkest period of her life, Landry Wells found solace in a group of bloggers who had been in her shoes and lived to tell the tale. She's shared things with her online friends that even her husband and children didn't know. Things that now, looking back, make her uneasy.
One of the bloggers is dead, victim of a random crime—or was it? Did she trust too easily; reveal too much? At the funeral a thousand miles from home, Landry is about to come face to face at last with the others. These women are her closest confidantes in the world: they understand her; they know everything about her—and one of them might be a cold-blooded killer...
"As a long time avid fan of Wendy Corsi Staub, I may be a bit biased, but THE PERFECT STRANGER really knocked it out of the park for me. This writer has honed to perfection the ability to create a story with such unique plotlines and twists that no one will ever accuse her of being formulaic or simply rewriting other plotlines. Each book is distinctive and beyond exceptional."
Lynn Cunningham/Fresh Fiction
COLD HEARTED
In this prequel novella to New York Times bestselling author Wendy Corsi Staub’s psychological suspense novel THE PERFECT STRANGER (HarperCollins, on sale 7/29/14), readers are introduced to the enigmatic Johanna Hart. Abandoned by her teenaged birth mother and raised by callous grandparents, Johanna is determined to escape her bleak Midwest existence at any cost. But that blind ambition comes back to haunt her years later, after she’s reinvented herself as glamorous golden girl Jenna Coeur. Now her secret past has caught up with her, embodied in a calculating young woman who will stop at nothing to destroy her—a woman with a strangely familiar face...
“What I loved best about this particular prequel is that it is a full story unto itself. It has a beginning, middle and end. It doesn't leave you hanging until The Perfect Stranger comes out. If you are looking for a quick read that is very, very good, you won't go wrong with this one.”
Pam/Amazon Reviewer
SLEEPWALKER
Ten years after the catastrophe, a great fallen city has risen again. Ten years after, a horror begins anew…or never truly ended.
The nightmare of 9/11 is a distant but still painful memory for Allison Taylor MacKenna—now married to Mack and living in a quiet Westchester suburb. She has moved on with her life ten years after barely escaping death at the hands of New York’s Nightwatcher serial killer. The monster is dead, having recently committed suicide in his prison cell, but something is terribly wrong. Mack has started sleepwalking, with no recollection of where his nighttime excursions are taking him. And here, north of the city, more women are being savagely murdered, their bodies bearing the Nightwatcher’s unmistakable signature.
Suddenly Allison must confront a devastating truth: her life is in jeopardy once again…and quite possibly from the man she trusts and loves.
"I have to tell you that the plotting of SLEEPWALKER is brilliant… a book that you do not want to miss."
Jo Hartlaub for Bookreporter
Allison Taylor MacKenna feels as though she's awakened at last from a nightmare that plagued her and her family for more than a decade. But her darkest hour has yet to come…
Nestled in the warm, domestic cocoon of loving husband and family, Allison finally feels safe—unaware that a stranger's brutal murder on a Caribbean island is the first step in an intricate plan to destroy everything in her life. For seasoned NYPD detective Rocky Manzillo, the signs are clear that something terrible has emerged from the shadows: a murder victim left without a face…a wilted carnation…and a faded photograph that yields a startling connection.
Now, as Allison's murky memories of a troubled childhood creep back to light, a cunning predator who shares her history prepares to enact a horrifying retribution--and won’t stop killing until Allison faces a shocking truth...and pays the ultimate price.
“The trilogy comes to a tight and surprising close with this twisted tale...suspense oozes off the page as Taylor finders herself in jeopardy again.”
RT Bookreviews Magazine
“A veteran of nearly eighty books, Staub well knows how to keep you turning pages long into the night…”
John Valeri for Hartford Books Examiner
SHADOWKILLER
THE BLACK WIDOW
In a chilling new thriller from New York Times bestselling author Wendy Corsi Staub, one woman looking for love online is entangled in a killer's terrifying scheme . . .
In the moonlight, shovelfuls of earth fall on a wooden crate at the bottom of a deep pit. Soon the hole will be filled and covered over with leaves, erasing all trace of the victim below, waking to the horror of being buried alive . . .
Newly divorced Gaby Duran isn't really expecting to find her soul mate on a dating site like InTune. She just needs a distraction from pining over her ex-husband, Ben, and the happy marriage they once had. And she's wise enough to know that online, the truth doesn't always match the profile. Almost everyone lies a little—or a lot.
But Gaby quickly discovers there is much more at stake than her lonely heart. Local singles are going missing after making online connections. And a predator is searching again for the perfect match. One who will fulfill every twisted desire . . . or die trying.
"Staub is at the top of her writing game with The Black Widow. Even veteran suspense readers will find themselves fully engaged by the wonderfully twisted plot as Staub successfully flirts with some of the established tropes of the suspense genre only to later surprise readers by turning these same classic plot devices on their head. The Black Widow is superior, spine-tingling suspense that fans of Mary Higgins Clark’s early novels will eat up with a spoon."
John Charles for Reader to Reader
“A fantastic thriller that will have you trapped in its pages; Staub has made sure that it is virtually impossible to set this one aside and come back to it.”
Suspense Magazine
WITCH HUNT
Abbey Hanover's parents have just inherited a run-down old house in Seacliffe, Massachusetts. Being forced to spend the summer there is bad enough, but the place gives Abbey the creeps. Especially when she learns that Felicity Crane, a teenaged girl who lived there 300 years before, was falsely accused of being a witch...and hanged.
Then Abbey meets Zachariah, a guy who wears weird-looking clothes and talks strangely. So does Elspeth, who breaks into Abbey's house one night and threatens her with a knife. Soon Abbey makes a shocking discovery: Zachariah and Elspeth are really time travelers from the long-ago past!
Now, as Abbey suddenly finds herself hurtling back through time, she meets the real Felicity Crane. Can Abbey save Felicity from the hangman's noose...or will she be the one who's branded as a witch--and sentenced to die?
"This time-travel suspense novel has an extra twist. Not only does the narrator find herself traveling back to the days of the Salem witch trials, but also she leaves her own reality in 1963, giving teen readers a good look at what life was like when their parents were in high school. Staub provides a good mix of history, humor, and romance as well as a high level of suspense without gratuitous violence as Abbey searches for a way to alter history and save Felicity Crane and an unidentified stranger from being hung as witches."
Booklist
From New York Times bestselling author Wendy Corsi Staub comes the first in a terrifying new series set in a small town with a sinister secret.
He brandishes the razor’s gleaming blade, relishing their final anguished moments. Then he claims his prize: long, silken strands of red hair. But these women are merely stand-ins…a prelude to his ultimate victim. Mundy’s Landing is famous for its picturesque setting—and for a century-old string of gruesome, unsolved murders.
Rowan returned to her hometown years ago, fleeing a momentary mistake that could have destroyed her family. Life is good here. Peaceful. Until an anonymous gift threatens everything Rowan holds dear. The town’s violent history was just the beginning. Soon everyone in Mundy’s Landing will know that the past cannot be forgotten or forgiven—not until every sin has been paid for…in blood.