Thriller – Write on the World

Dark Sisters by Kristi DeMeester: A fierce, feminist horror that burns with rage—though not always with realism

December 1, 2025November 14, 2025 Mandy Webster

Kristi DeMeester’s Dark Sisters (releasing December 9, 2025) takes on patriarchal power, religious hypocrisy, and generational trauma with fire, blood, and no small dose of feminine fury—but sometimes the blaze feels more like stage lighting than wildfire. It’s the kind of novel that makes you want to light a match and watch the patriarchy burn. Part historical fiction, part supernatural horror, and part feminist manifesto, this story spans centuries and three women bound by a curse born of desperation and defiance.

*Get your copy of Dark Sisters from my independent online bookstore today!*

Anne Bolton, accused of witchcraft in the 1700s, bargains with darkness to survive. Mary Shephard, the obedient 1950s housewife, discovers forbidden love with a woman named Sharon. And Camilla Burson, a modern preacher’s daughter, rebels against both her father and the system he represents.

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All Eyes on Him by Iliana Xander: A guilty-pleasure thriller that keeps you guessing

November 26, 2025November 14, 2025 Mandy Webster

Sometimes you just want a book that grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go—and All Eyes on Him by Iliana Xander fits that bill perfectly. Fast-paced, twisty, and just self-aware enough to wink at its own melodrama, it’s the kind of guilty-pleasure read that lets you forget the world going to hell outside your door for a few hours.

*Get your copy of All Eyes on Him from my independent online bookstore today!*

The setup is pure cat-and-mouse thriller gold. Natalie’s best friend is found unconscious after leaving a club with a stranger—who turns out to be none other than the nation’s newly crowned “Man of the Year.” While the media fawns over his charm and money, Natalie suspects he’s hiding something far darker. Determined to uncover the truth, she infiltrates his mansion as a housekeeper, but soon realizes she might be the one being hunted.

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Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino: A darkly funny exploration of obsession, envy, and the American Dream

November 24, 2025November 14, 2025 Mandy Webster

The first thing you need to know about Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino is that it’s about far more than real estate. Yes, the book follows 37-year-old publicist Margo Miyake as she becomes dangerously fixated on buying the perfect house in an impossibly competitive Washington, DC housing market—but Kashino turns what could have been a simple story about bidding wars into a biting, darkly funny character study of ambition and envy. The novel releases November 25, 2025.

*Get your copy of Best Offer Wins from my independent online bookstore today!*

After losing out on eleven homes, Margo learns about a property that hasn’t yet hit the market—a charming house in the exact neighborhood she’s been dreaming of. It’s got everything she’s ever wanted, right down to the tire swing in the backyard. That tire swing isn’t just decor; it’s a symbol of everything Margo has been chasing since childhood. As a kid, she watched other families—more stable, more put-together, more normal—and believed that owning a home like theirs would finally make her feel whole. Now, as an adult, she’s convinced that the right house will fix her strained marriage, her stalled plans to have a baby, and her crumbling sense of self-worth.

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One Small Mistake by Dandy Smith: A dark, addictive tale of ambition, manipulation, and the lies we tell ourselves

November 21, 2025November 6, 2025 Mandy Webster

How far would you go to make your dreams come true? That’s the haunting question at the heart of One Small Mistake by Dandy Smith, a psychological thriller that pulls no punches in its exploration of obsession, abuse, and the dangerous allure of ambition. Set to release November 25, 2025, this gripping novel follows Elodie Fray, an aspiring author who quits her job to chase her dream of literary success—and ends up caught in a web of manipulation spun by a man who knows exactly how to pick his prey.

*Get your copy of One Small Mistake from my independent online bookstore today!*

At first glance, Elodie’s story might sound like a familiar tale of envy and rivalry—she’s the overlooked sister, forever in the shadow of Ada, who seems to have it all. But Smith skillfully turns the narrative inside out, showing how ambition and vulnerability can intersect in terrifying ways. As Elodie’s world begins to unravel, it becomes clear that she isn’t the architect of her own downfall—she’s the victim of a master manipulator.

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The Sunshine Man by Emma Stonex explores how trauma shapes who we become

November 19, 2025November 6, 2025 Mandy Webster

The Sunshine Man by Emma Stonex isn’t a fast-paced thriller—it’s a quietly devastating exploration of trauma, memory, and how early wounds can echo through a lifetime. Stonex’s latest novel begins with a startling line—“The week I shot a man clean through the head began like any other”—but what follows is less a story of vengeance than a study of how people are shaped by pain and circumstance.

*Get your copy of The Sunshine Man from my independent online bookstore today!*

When Birdie Keller learns that Jimmy Maguire, the man who killed her sister eighteen years earlier, has been released from prison, she sets out for London to confront him. What she finds is not closure, but a confrontation with the ghosts of her past.

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The Burning Library by Gilly Macmillan: A brilliantly constructed thriller about power, secrets, and rivalry

November 17, 2025November 6, 2025 Mandy Webster

From the very first chapter of The Burning Library by Gilly Macmillan, I was hooked. What begins with the discovery of Eleanor Bruton’s body on a frigid Scottish shore quickly spirals into an intricately woven mystery of rival secret societies, centuries-old manuscripts, and the dangerous pursuit of knowledge and power. This is one of those rare novels that manages to be both an intelligent thriller and a deeply thematic exploration of women’s ambition, rivalry, and connection.

*Get your copy of The Burning Library from my independent online bookstore today!*

The story alternates between Dr. Anya Brown, a rising academic star recruited by a shadowy group of scholars in St. Andrews, and Detective Constable Clio Spicer, who’s quietly investigating Eleanor’s suspicious death. What unfolds is a dark academic thriller that stretches across generations and ideologies. Macmillan deftly layers each clue and character revelation, creating a sense of elegant complexity that never tips into confusion.

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Call for Submissions

Call for Submissions: Mother Monster/Father Fiend

November 16, 2025November 22, 2025 Mandy Webster

Elderfly Press is now accepting submissions for Mother Monster/Father Fiend, a new anthology exploring the shadowed edges of parenthood. We’re looking for short fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and black-and-white artwork that reveal the monstrous, misunderstood, or mythic aspects of motherhood and fatherhood.

This anthology invites you to challenge the cultural scripts of what a “good” parent looks like. Sometimes the monster is real—a parent whose choices hurt, haunt, or unravel the lives of those in their care. Other times, the monster is only a mask placed by society:

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Searching for truth and redemption in Nina by Louise Phillips

November 14, 2025November 6, 2025 Mandy Webster

Louise Phillips’s upcoming novel Nina (releasing November 18, 2025) is an emotional, tightly woven crime story about trauma, motherhood, and the resilience of a woman who refuses to be silenced or dismissed. Elizabeth Harte has already lived through the worst thing a parent can imagine: the disappearance of her daughter Nina twenty-five years ago. On the eve of her sixty-first birthday, she decides she’s done being treated like a fragile relic by her daughter and son-in-law. Haunted by grief and determined to find answers, Elizabeth leaves home and sets out to track down Nina—and, perhaps, reclaim herself in the process.

*Get your copy of Nina from my independent online bookstore today!*

Her journey intertwines with the story of Nick, a disgraced detective revisiting cold cases once investigated by his father, whose failure to solve Nina’s disappearance drove him to suicide. As new murders surface and old wounds resurface, their paths converge in a way that forces both to confront the past.

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The Forest of Missing Girls by Nichelle Giraldes: A haunting story of magic, perfection, and the woods that watch us

November 10, 2025October 30, 2025 Mandy Webster

Lia Gregg always feared the forest around her childhood home, a dark expanse whispered about in local legends and haunted by disappearances of girls like her. When a breakup forces her back into her family’s house, those fears take on a chilling immediacy: a teenage girl goes missing from their backyard, and Lia’s younger sister could be next. At first glance, The Forest of Missing Girls by Nichelle Giraldes seems like a straightforward thriller. But that expectation is misleading—and that’s both the book’s biggest marketing misstep and its hidden strength.

*Get your copy of The Forest of Missing Girls from my independent online bookstore today!*

The publisher’s description positions this as a standard thriller: a suspenseful story about a lurking danger in the woods, complete with disappearances and secrets. In reality, the story leans heavily into magical realism and science fiction, creating an experience far more complex and atmospheric than a typical thriller. The forest itself is a fully realized character—alive, watchful, and mysterious. Girls vanish and reappear across impossible distances, and the trees seem to hold their own consciousness, communicating with both the missing girls and those left behind.

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The Missing Half by Ashley Flowers: A story of sisterhood, loss, and a twist that left me stunned

November 3, 2025October 25, 2025 Mandy Webster

In The Missing Half, two women connected by tragedy team up to uncover the truth about their missing sisters—and what they find is far darker than either expected. Ashley Flowers, best known as the host of the Crime Junkie podcast, delivers another haunting mystery in The Missing Half, a New York Times bestseller that blends emotional depth with a compelling, small-town suspense plot.

*Get your copy of The Missing Half from my independent online bookstore today!*

The story follows Nicole “Nic” Monroe, a twenty-four-year-old still reeling from the disappearance of her older sister, Kasey, seven years earlier. When Jenna Connor, whose own sister vanished under eerily similar circumstances, reaches out, the two women form an uneasy bond rooted in shared grief—and a mutual determination to find answers.

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