Fiction A to Z
March 2026

Recent Releases
Ruby Falls by Gin Phillips
Ruby Falls
by Gin Phillips
 
One body. Five suspects. Total darkness.
 
A tense, claustrophobic historical mystery set almost entirely underground at the onset of the Great Depression about the discovery of a 150-foot waterfall in the middle of a mountain, the unthinkable crime that happens in its caves, and a woman who’s never felt more alive.   
 
In 1928, a Chattanooga man disappears down a hole in the ground and discovers a 150-foot waterfall in the middle of a mountain that he names after his wife: Ruby Falls. Within months, visitors can buy tickets to see the falls for themselves. Ada Smith has been sneaking into the caves at night, entranced by the natural wonders around her and the freedom granted by this new underground world.
 
But it’s tough timing for a natural wonder. As the country flounders in the Great Depression, a shrewd public relations ploy seems like the only way to save Ruby Falls. A famous mind reader and mystic agrees to launch himself into the Ruby Falls caverns where he will attempt to locate a hidden hatpin using only his psychic abilities.
 
He'll be joined by five others: his manager, his wife, a guide, a Chattanooga businessman, and a reporter from the Chicago Times. But they’re not alone in the caverns. Ada and another guide, Quinton, have been asked to follow the mind reader’s party at a distance, staying out of sight. They are a safety net, in case of a broken leg or busted flashlights.
 
One of them will be dead before the end of the day.
Faced with a corpse and the stark reality that one of the people in her midst is a killer, Ada needs to get everyone—the murderer and the innocents—back aboveground before their light runs out.
Wait for Me by Amy Jo Burns
Wait for Me
by Amy Jo Burns

Young folk singer Elle Harlow reaches the height of her prowess in 1973, with two wildly beloved albums to her name and a hidden history of impossible heartbreak. When she sets foot on the famed Grand Ole Opry stage, a far cry from the mountain that raised her, Elle gives the biggest performance of her life. Then, to the dismay of shocked fans, her producer, and the man who still loves her, she vanishes.

Almost two decades later, eighteen-year-old Marijohn Shaw is spending her summer pumping gas, writing songs on her broken mandolin, and longing for a mother. Her father, Abe, has always sworn he was the last person to see Elle Harlow alive, but when a meteor strikes the woods of their sleepy Pennsylvania town and a piece of Elle’s past emerges from the wreckage, the truth of her disappearance sets fire to everything Marijohn believes about herself, her music, and her ability to love with abandon.


Wait for Me exalts the lush hills of Appalachia and the bright lights of Nashville as it reveals the legacy of Elle Harlow, the bold voice that defined her, the intimate betrayal that undid her, and the unexpected faith of another young woman determined to resurrect her.
The Divorce by Freida McFadden
The Divorce
by Freida McFadden
 
What is a happily ever after really worth?
 
Naomi was living the quintessential love story. Boy meets girl. They fall in love, get married, buy a dream house, start a family…
 
Then―he kicks her out, hires the city's best divorce lawyers, drains their accounts, and takes up with a 20-something.
 
It's a brutal end to the story. Naomi should accept defeat: move into a dingy apartment, get back into the workforce, and piece together the shattered remains of her life.
 
Except, why should she?
 
Instead, Naomi fixates on her husband's new girlfriend. What begins as cynical curiosity soon twists into obsession―and then into something far darker. As Naomi uncovers secrets she never imagined, she realizes her own life may be in danger.
 
But if it keeps her perfect family intact, isn't it worth it?
A Parade of Horribles by Matt Dinniman
A Parade of Horribles
by Matt Dinniman

As chaos and mass panic spread outside the dungeon in the wake of Faction Wars, Carl and Donut find themselves on the tenth floor, where they’re forced to compete in a surprisingly normal set of tasks. Well, normal for the dungeon.

Races. Get from point A to point B, and don’t come in last. After each race, they pick an upgrade for their vehicle and the track gets more challenging. It all seems a little
too normal, a little too simple.

Ignore those strange glitches that are occurring with increasing frequency. Don’t listen to those whispers about what’s happening on the mysterious eleventh floor, something the system AI calls
A Parade of Horribles. Nobody, not even the showrunners, knows what that means. Just that the AI has ominously dubbed it “a coming-out party for the ages.”

Everything is fine, Crawler. I repeat, everything is fine.

Carl hates that it’s business as usual. The rules of this floor have taken away his agency. That just will not do.

So Carl is planning a party of his own. It’s a plan so dangerous, so insane, he can’t even consult his friends lest the AI put a stop to it. Because if it goes wrong, it’s not just the end of Carl and Donut. No. The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been.
The Summer Share by Jenn McKinlay
The Summer Share
by Jenn McKinlay
 
Free-spirited travel influencer Hannah Spencer has spent five years touring the country in her vintage van, alone save for her hulking Great Dane, Dude. Until an unexpected inheritance from her pops has Hannah thinking about putting down roots in Cape Split, North Carolina, where she’s the new owner of a worse-for-wear seaside beach house. Or, rather, fifty percent of one. Turns out Simon O’Malley inherited the other half from his gramps.

As Simon and Hannah spend the summer tag-teaming repairs on the crumbling cottage, they discover it was once home to a timeless love story. As their own relationship shifts from enemies to friends to lovers, they begin to wonder if the house’s romantic past might be a good omen for their future together. But there’s one problem—Simon is set on selling the property at the end of the summer.

For Hannah, the Split isn’t like anyplace she’s ever been, and Simon isn’t like any man she’s ever known—she doesn’t want to let this new life go. She just needs Simon to see their budding relationship and this newfound community in the same way, or their first summer share might also be their last.
A Murder in Hollywood by Michael Crichton
A Murder in Hollywood
by Michael Crichton
 
Before Jurassic Park. Before Congo. A killer was hiding in Hollywood. A never-before-published Michael Crichton thriller—discovered now, and deadly relevant.
 
In the glitz and decadence of 1970s Hollywood, an era when sex and drugs are readily available on any movie set, the writer of the next Western blockbuster, Bloodrock, has just been found dead in his motel bathtub. Now publicist Harvey Jason is desperately trying to keep the project on track while the famed Harlow Perkins, a brilliant and ruthless investigator, begins to unravel the mystery and hunt the killer down. 
 
From scorching-hot desert locations to sleazy motel bars, the members of the cast and crew--each one with a very dark secret of their own--will send this case deeper and deeper into a maze of confusion and shadows until the shocking truth is revealed. 
Will the murderer be found? 
 
Or will the true identity of the killer turn out to be just another Hollywood illusion?
Hot Girl Murder Club by Ashley Winstead
Hot Girl Murder Club
by Ashley Winstead

What’s a girl got to do to get some fame, a few million record sales, and justice for murder?

Ten years ago, aspiring singer-actress Scout Sage lost the only thing that mattered: her sister, Georgia. Ever since Georgia’s mysterious death at a Hollywood party, Scout’s done her best to honor her memory, clawing her way through the industry and collecting a network of climbers along the way, fellow hot girls in stilettos with cutthroat ambition, a new Hollywood order.

But when a slew of targeted murders makes headlines across L.A., all pointing to Scout as the killer, she turns overnight from a mid-tier pop star into the world’s most famous (alleged) murderer. Now everything she’s worked to build―including the justice she wants for Georgia―will fall apart unless Scout can prove she’s not guilty.

Meanwhile, the young and unusual detective assigned to her case, herself no stranger to tragedy, begins to unearth secrets not even Scout knows, let alone her millions of new fans. Particularly about the ways Georgia’s death connects to an even older pattern of crimes long hushed over in Hollywood―an old reign of terror that, if brought to light, could be the fuel that ignites a reckoning the world over.

 
The Fourth Option by Jack Carr
The Fourth Option
by Jack Carr

Disillusioned by the government and institutions he dedicated his life to serving, former Navy SEAL and CIA ground branch operative Chris Walker is about to end his life when he receives a call that saves it. The wife of a teammate he lost in Afghanistan has now lost her son to the opioid crisis and needs Walker’s help. Thrust into a conspiracy that goes deeper than he ever imagined, Walker must go up against the system and the very Constitution he once swore an oath to support and defend in order to find justice for his friend’s widow.

With ambitious FBI agent Jarrett Stanton on his tail, Walker—accompanied by his loyal Belgian Malinois K-9 and using his off-the-grid VW pop-up camper filled with a hidden cache of weapons—takes justice into his own hands, exposing corruption and issuing a long-forgotten brand of lethal outlaw justice.

In the tradition of the great “stranger comes to town” Westerns of the past comes a modern interpretation of the mysterious vigilante gunslinger legend from “the hottest author on the thriller scene today” (
The Real Book Spy). Get ready for a new kind of hero. Justice is coming.
Contact your librarian for more great books!
Newton Public Library
100 N 3rd Ave W.
Newton, Iowa 50208
641-792-4108
www.newtongov.org/1149/Library