Sophie Littlefield

A New York Times Notable Book! Stella Hardesty, avenger of wronged women, is getting cozy with Sheriff "Goat" Jones when a tornado blows none other than Goat’s scheming ex-wife, Brandy, through the front door. Adding to the chaos, the tornado destroys the snack shack at the demolition derby track, pulling up the concrete foundation and unearthing a woman's body. The main suspect in the woman’s murder is Neb Donovan---he laid the foundation, and there's some pretty hard evidence pointing to his guilt. Years ago, Neb's wife asked Stella for help getting him sober. Stella doesn't believe the gentle man could kill anyone, and she promises his frantic wife she'll look into it. Former client Chrissy Shaw is now employed at Stella's sewing shop and she helps with the snooping as Stella negotiates the unpredictable Brandy and the dangerously magnetic sheriff.This is the thrilling sequel to Sophie Littlefield’s critically-acclaimed debut, A Bad Day for Sorry, which won an Anthony Award and an RT Book Award, was an Edgar Award Finalist, and was shortlisted for Barry, Crimespree, and Macavity Awards. Stella Hardesty is a heroine to watch---join her on this next adventure for as fiercely funny and riveting a story as there is to be found in crime fiction.

When Prosper homegirl turned big-city businesswoman Priss Porter returns to town with a body in her trunk, she calls Stella Hardesty to dispose of it. Her uppity ways don?t convince Stella to take the job, and Priss attempts to blackmail her with a snapshot of Stella doing what she does best: curing woman-beaters by the use of force.      Stella refuses to cooperate and goes home, only to hear later that Priss and her brother, Liman, have gone missing after calling in a disturbance. Stella is implicated when Sheriff ?Goat? Jones discovers the scarf she left behind at the house. He warns her to stay local but Stella and her partner, Chrissy Shaw, go looking for Priss in Kansas City, where they discover that she runs an unusual business. When Priss herself?along with two other bodies?turns up in a pond belonging to one of Stella?s ex-clients, Stella must investigate a host of suspects, including a crooked but libidinous female judge, a coterie of jealous male escorts, and a Marxist ex-professor.A Bad Day for Scandal is the third in Sophie Littlefield?s award-winning, critically acclaimed series. Written with passion, humor, and guts, this is a mystery to be savored.

Stella Hardesty, our salty, unlikely heroine, runs a sewing shop in rural Missouri. She also has a side business helping battered women with their abusive boyfriends and husbands. When Chrissy Shaw asks Stella for help, it seems like a straightforward case, until Chrissy’s no-good husband disappears with her two-year-old son. Now Stella finds herself in a battle against a more formidable enemy as she risks her own life to recover the boy.

Awakening in a bleak landscape as scarred as her body, Cass Dollar vaguely recalls surviving something terrible. Having no idea how many weeks have passed, she slowly realizes the horrifying truth: Ruthie has vanished.And with her, nearly all of civilization.Where once-lush hills carried cars and commerce, the roads today see only cannibalistic Beaters -- people turned hungry for human flesh by a government experiment gone wrong.In a broken, barren California, Cass will undergo a harrowing quest to get Ruthie back. Few people trust an outsider, let alone a woman who became a zombie and somehow turned back, but she finds help from an enigmatic outlaw, Smoke. Smoke is her savior, and her safety.For the Beaters are out there.And the humans grip at survival with their trigger fingers. Especially when they learn that she and Ruthie have become the most feared, and desired, of weapons in a brave new world….

There isn’t much worth living for in Gypsum, Missouri—or Trashtown, as the rich kids call the run-down neighborhood where sixteen-year-old Hailey Tarbell lives. Hailey figures she’ll never belong—not with the popular kids at school, not with the rejects, not even with her cruel, sickly grandmother, who deals drugs out of their basement. Hailey never knew her dead mother, and she has no idea who her father was, but at least she has her four-year-old foster brother, Chub. Once she turns eighteen, Hailey plans to take Chub far from Gypsum and start a new life where no one can find them.   But when a classmate is injured in gym class, Hailey discovers a gift for healing that she never knew she possessed—and that she cannot ignore. Not only can she heal, she can bring the dying back to life. Confused by her powers, Hailey searches for answers but finds only more questions, until a mysterious visitor shows up at Gram’s house, claiming to be Hailey’s aunt Prairie.   There are people who will stop at nothing to keep Hailey in Trashtown, living out a legacy of despair and suffering. But when Prairie saves both Hailey and Chub from armed attackers who invade Gram’s house in the middle of the night, Hailey must decide where to place her trust. Will Prairie’s past, and the long-buried secret that caused her to leave Gypsum years earlier, ruin them all? Because as Hailey will soon find out, their power to heal is just the beginning.   This gripping novel from thriller writer Sophie Littlefield blazes a trail from small-town Missouri to the big city as Hailey battles an evil greater than she ever imagined, while discovering strengths she never knew she had. From the Hardcover edition.

Summer is the best part of the year in Winston, California, and the Fourth of July is the highlight of the season. But the perfect town Clare remembers has changed, and everyone is praying that this summer will be different from the last two—that this year's Fourth of July festival won't see one of their own vanish without a trace, leaving no leads and no suspects. The media are in a frenzy predicting a third disappearance, but the town depends on tourist dollars, so the residents of Winston are trying desperately to pretend nothing's wrong. And they're not the only ones hiding something. Clare, a seamstress who redesigns vintage clothing, has been blessed—or perhaps cursed—with a gift: she can see people's pasts when she touches their clothes. When she stumbles across a denim jacket that once belonged to Amanda Stavros, last year's Fourth of July victim, Clare sees her perfect town begin to come apart at the seams. In a town where appearance means everything, how deep beneath the surface will Clare dig to uncover a murderer?

Cass Dollar is a survivor. She's overcome the meltdown of civilization, humans turned mindless cannibals, and the many evils of man. But from beneath the devastated California landscape emerges a tendril of hope. A mysterious traveler arrives at New Eden with knowledge of a passageway North—a final escape from the increasingly cunning Beaters. Clutching this dream, Cass and many others decamp and follow him into the unknown. Journeying down valleys and over barren hills, Cass remains torn between two men. One—her beloved Smoke—is not so innocent as he once was. The other keeps a primal hold on her that feels like Fate itself. And beneath it all, Cass must confront the worst of what's inside her—dark memories from when she was a Beater herself. But she, and all of the other survivors, will fight to the death for the promise of a new horizon….

The race-against-the-clock feel of TV’s popular show 24 meets the action-packed romance of the film Run Lola Run. This high-concept teen thriller sends readers on the race of their lives. Carina’s senior year is spiraling downward. Fast. Both her mother and her uncle, the only two family members she’s ever known, are dead. Their deaths were accidents, unfortunate results of the highly confidential research they performed for a national security organization. Or so she’s been told. She’s not buying it. After finding a unique code hidden beneath the stone in a ring her mother left to her, Carina goes straight to the only family she has left: her boyfriend, Tanner. The people Carina loved kept dangerous secrets. Secrets that make her question the life she’s been living up to now. Her life is on the line, but more importantly, so is Tanner’s. And if she fails? He dies.

The end of the world was just the beginning Civilization has fallen, leaving California an unforgiving, decimated place. But Cass Dollar beat terrible odds to get her missing daughter back—she and Ruthie will be happy. Yet with the first winter, Cass is reminded that happiness is fleeting in Aftertime. Ruthie retreats into silence. Flesh—eating Beaters still dominate the landscape. And Smoke, Cass's lover and strength, departs on a quest for vengeance, one that may end him even if he returns. The survivalist community Cass has planted roots in is breaking apart, too. Its leader, Dor, implores Cass to help him recover his own lost daughter, taken by the totalitarian Rebuilders. And soon Cass finds herself thrust into the dark heart of an organization promising humanity's rebirth—at all costs. Bound to two men blazing divergent paths across a savage land, Cass must overcome the darkness in her wounded heart, or lose those she loves forever.

Detective Joe Bashir enters the glittering world of San Francisco society…and what he discovers will shatter three families. The discovery of a murdered teenager disrupts a fundraiser given by Napa Valley vintner Hale Francesci at the Montair Country Club. While Hale and his wife entertained their guests, their seventeen-year-old daughter Courtney was the last person to see her best friend Ashley Cole alive in a nearby strip mall parking lot. When Detective Joe Bashir begins interviewing Ashley’s friends, neighbors, and teachers, suspicion splinters in every direction. Courtney hints of an affair with an older man; rumors fly of a missing sex tape; and Joe discovers troubling details about Ashley’s relationships with her addict mother and absentee father. Meanwhile, the Francescis threaten to disrupt the investigation, and Joe struggles to navigate the waters of their elite circle all while fielding his mother’s attempts to fix him up with a nice Pakistani girl. Will he bring a killer to justice, and peace to Courtney at last? Shattered Bond is the second Joe Bashir novel from the Edgar-nominated Sophie Littlefield.

DOING RIGHT ISN'T EASY IN A WORLD GONE SO WRONG Cass Dollar outlasted the fall of civilization. But surviving Aftertime requires the kind of toughness that can conquer the violent landscape of California and still retain its humanity. When a young boy and his dying grandmother are brought to the Box, the survivalist community where Cass takes shelter, she realizes that without her help he won't be long for this unforgiving new world. But while the Box is a haven from the roaming marauders—and the flesh-hungry Beaters—it forbids children within its confines. The boy will be turned out to fend for himself. All that stands between him and the brutal wilderness is Cass's protective instincts, and the stubborn resolve that's gotten her this far Aftertime. "Littlefield has a gift...page-turning action and evocative, sensual, harrowing descriptions." —Publishers Weekly, starred review on Aftertime

A Manhattan socialite turns her spin instructor into a fitness superstar to impress her friends. But can she keep her little project under control? Or has she created a monster? Julia Summers seems to have it all: a Fifth Avenue apartment, a successful husband, and two adorable children attending the best private school in the city. She relishes wielding influence over her well-heeled girlfriends . . . but her star appears to be fading. That's why, when stranded in Manhattan for the summer as the entire Upper East Side flees to the Hamptons, Julia is on the hunt for the next big thing--the hot, new fad that will put her back on top. Enter Flame, the new elite fitness craze. Seductive and transformative, Flame is exactly what Julia needs--and demure, naïve instructor Tatum is her ticket in. Turning Tatum from giggly blonde to trendy guru proves hard work. Yet Julia's triumphant comeback at summer's end doesn't quite go as planned, and when things suddenly get ugly--and even deadly--she realizes she may have been in way over her head. And Tatum, waiting in the wings, begins to grasp just how much power her newfound stardom holds . . . Then, with Julia's life already spiraling out of control, her husband is arrested for fraud and bribery. As her so-called friends turn their backs on her, and Tatum pursues her own agenda, Julia is forced to rethink everything she knew about her world to reclaim her perfect life. But does she even want it back?

A man stands on the Golden Gate Bridge, poised to jump…if a woman on the other end of the phone tells him to. Maris’s safe suburban world was shattered the day her daughter was found murdered, presumably at the hands of the young woman’s boyfriend. Her marriage crumbling, her routine shattered, Maris walks away from her pampered life as a Bay Area mom the day she receives a call from Ron, father of her daughter’s killer. Wracked with guilt over his son’s actions (and his own possible contribution to them), he asks Maris a single question: should he jump? With a man’s life in her hands, Maris must decide, perhaps for the first time, what she truly wants. Retribution? Forgiveness? Or something more? Having lost everything, she’s finally free to recreate herself without the confining labels of “wife,” “mother,” or “mourner.” But will this shocking offer free her, or destroy her?

Twenty-year-old Taylor Capparelli and Paul Mitchell go missing in Lawton, North Dakota, where they have been working on rigs owned by Hunter-Cole Energy. The boys stayed in Black Creek Lodge, a "man camp" providing room and board. The mothers of the two boys come to Lawton to find out what happened to their sons and form an uneasy alliance. Shay Capparelli, a 41-year-old single grandmother, has more grit than resources; for wealthy suburban housewife Colleen Mitchell, the opposite is true. Overtaxed by worry, exhaustion, and fear, they question each others' methods and motivations - but there is no one else to help, and they must learn to work together if they are to have any chance of breaking through the barriers put up by their sons employer, the indifference of an overtaxed police department, and a town of strangers with their own secrets against a backdrop of a modern day gold rush.

Hailey Tarbell is no typical girl. As one of the Banished who arrived from Ireland generations ago, Hailey has the power to heal—and, as she recently learned, to create zombies if she heals someone too late. But now, Hailey is finally getting a chance at a normal life. After realizing the good and bad sides of her power, Hailey has survived the unimaginable to settle with her aunt, Prairie, and her little brother, Chub, in the suburbs of Milwaukee. Finally Hailey has a loving family, nice clothes, and real friends. But her safe little world is blown apart when she tries to contact her secret boyfriend, Kaz—and alerts the incredibly dangerous man who's looking for her to her true whereabouts.