Melba Bradley had not been out of Chattanooga, Tennessee in her life. But having just graduated from four years of nursing school, she decided to take a vacation before settling into a job and working herself to death for the rest of her life. And the place she was going to see on her first out—of-state trip ever was New York City, New York. After all, she had family there; her father Jack’s brother Cubon lived there with his wife Eileen and their daughters Verlanda and Trina. In all of Melba’s twenty two years, it had always been the New York Bradleys that had flown down to see them in Chattanooga, but because it had been five years since their last flight down, Melba thought she’d go against the grain and fly up to see them for once. And Verlanda had assured her that once there, she was going to show her all New York City had to offer. And that was Verlanda’s intention. Out of a vacation that is meant to last for two weeks, Melba enjoys three glorious days as Verlanda shows her all the New York City sights and introduces to her all her sophisticated friends. And one of those friends is a nail technician named Judy who works for Verlanda’s best friend Niecey’s Hair Salon, who’s a palmistry freak on the side and reads the palms of both Verlanda and Melba, telling them what to expect in their near futures. For Verlanda, she’s going on a trip, while Melba is going to meet a man-—although under very dangerous circumstances. Melba doesn’t believe that for a minute. But she wonders when they return home to find her Uncle Cubon distressed by a phone call from his mother in Philadelphia stating she had to go into the hospital for tests and needed to have someone at her home to receive a package she is expecting to arrive in a couple of days, and Cubon naturally asks Verlanda, who has no choice other than go to Philadelphia and housesit for her grandmother. Melba sees her to the bus station and returns to her cousin’s home with the promise to her to stay with her parents until Verlanda gets back in the couple of days, since the New York element can be dangerous for a tourist not schooled in its ways. Only problem is that Verlanda did not tell her that because of something she did a week before her arrival, her innocent hick cousin from the Tennessee sticks is about to walk into a trap that’s going to land her in some very dangerous circumstances. Will Napoleon be able to save her? Melba woke up hours later to find herself in a small room devoid of everything but a small table and a chair. She sat in her coat in the chair, her hands and feet tied, her mouth bound with strong cloth tape, wondering where she was and how long she had been bound there. Better yet, she wondered who had kidnapped her and in fact who would want to. The growling of her stomach came to remind her that it was time for a meal, Melba didn’t know whether breakfast, lunch or dinner. Thanks to her hands being tied behind her back and to the chair, she couldn’t see her watch to know what time it was and there was no clock in the small room to alert her otherwise. Which meant that she was going to have to wait for whoever had left her there to come for her and that could be another long hour’s wait, if it wasn’t the person’s intention for her to die there altogether. She wished she could rub her neck, where a sharp pain registered from too much uncomfortable sitting. She wondered if it was Monday or maybe Tuesday, Melba had no way of knowing just how long she had been tied in the chair. If only she could scream she might be able to claim someone’s attention, alert them to the fact that she had come to, but that was made impossible by the strong tape covering her mouth. Unless.... Taking a deep breath, Melba began to force shrill sounds from her throat as she were screaming with her mouth closed. Louder, until her throat ached from the strain and she was forced to stop. Thankfully for

Just when her life seems complicated by an unsatisfactory career and personal tragedy, model Leah Harper is taken hostage by a mysterious stranger and begins a dangerous trek across the Colorado Rockies

A rebel Psy scientist finds herself at the mercy of a changeling who has sworn vengeance against her kind in this thrilling romance in Nalini Singh’s New York Times bestselling series. Separated from her son and forced to create a neural implant that will mean the effective enslavement of her psychically gifted race, Ashaya Aleine is the perfect Psy—cool, calm, emotionless...at least on the surface. Inside, she’s fighting a desperate battle to save her son and escape the vicious cold of the PsyNet. Yet when escape comes, it leads not to safety, but to the lethal danger of a sniper’s embrace. DarkRiver sniper Dorian Christensen lost his sister to a Psy killer. Though he lacks the changeling ability to shift into animal form, his leopard lives within. And that leopard’s rage at the brutal loss is a clawing darkness that hungers for vengeance. Falling for a Psy has never been on Dorian’s agenda. But charged with protecting Ashaya and her son, he discovers that passion has a way of changing the rules...

Taken hostage by a man who isn’t what he seems, a woman discovers her hidden survival skills on a road trip strewn with assassins and covert agents Desperate to escape bitter heartbreak and the fresh wound of her mother’s suicide, Leah Harper leaves Chicago and heads west. When a storm forces her to seek shelter in a dilapidated motel in the Rockies, a gun-wielding stranger believing her to be someone else barges into her room and takes her hostage. Her kidnapper, Glade Wyndham, is also on the run. The only way for Leah to stay alive is to pretend she’s Sheila, the assassin Glade believes her to be. Embroiled in a struggle between the FBI and her captor, Leah finds herself forging an uneasy alliance with a man who could be the most dangerous adversary of all. And there’s absolutely no one she can trust. Featuring a cast of intriguing and unforgettable characters, Willing Hostage is a mysterious and suspenseful novel of adventure, second chances, and a woman discovering a confidence and inner strength she never knew she possessed.

"Feels like a blockbuster movie."—Lisa Jewell, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone "Mackintosh is a pro...the final scene in the book almost made me sick as I read it. I mean that as a compliment of the highest order."—The New York Times You can save hundreds of lives. Or the one that matters most... From New York Times bestselling author Clare Mackintosh comes a claustrophobic thriller set over 20 hours on-board the inaugural nonstop flight from London to Sydney. Mina is trying to focus on her job as a flight attendant, not the problems with her five-year-old daughter back home, or the fissures in her marriage. But the plane has barely taken off when Mina receives a chilling note from an anonymous passenger, someone intent on ensuring the plane never reaches its destination: "The following instructions will save your daughter's life..." Someone needs Mina's assistance and knows exactly how to make her comply. When one passenger is killed and then another, Mina knows she must act. But which lives does she save: Her passengers...or her own daughter and husband who are in grave distress back at home? It's twenty hours to landing. A lot can happen in twenty hours. For fans of the locked-room mystery of One by One and the heart-stopping tension The Last Flight, Hostage is an explosively addictive thriller about one flight attendant and the agonizing decision that will change her life—and the lives of everyone on-board—forever. Praise for Hostage: "A banger of a book with a truly agonizing 'what would you do?'" —Ruth Ware, #1 New York Times bestselling author of One by One "Hypnotically good. Should be a hit, could be a classic..." —Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Jack Reacher series "Fiendishly clever." —Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Before She Disappeared "A propulsive read." —Karin Slaughter, New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Wife "A nail-biter of a thriller." —Shari Lapena, New York Times bestselling author of The Couple Next Door

A mysterious kidnapping kicks off ”a roller-coaster ride of adrenaline-inducing plot twists” in this thriller by the New York Times bestselling author (Publishers Weekly, starred review). With his elite team of agents at Security Solutions, hostage rescue expert Jonathan Grave goes where the government can't. Now he’s been called in to locate two teenage boys who have been kidnapped from a residential high school in Virginia. But tracking them down is just the beginning. To keep them and his covert team alive, Grave plunges into the heart of an ugly secret whose insidious path reaches from one of the world's most remote places into the highest corridors of power. And he must defeat enemies who are willing to kill to keep the truth from being revealed.

"A wise and thorough investigation." - Lawrence Wright, author ofThe Looming Tower andThe Terror Years Starting in late 2012, Westerners working in Syria -- journalists and aid workers -- began disappearing without a trace. A year later the world learned they had been taken hostage by the Islamic State. Throughout 2014, all the Europeans came home, first the Spanish, then the French, then an Italian, a German, and a Dane. In August 2014, the Islamic State began executing the Americans -- including journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, followed by the British hostages. Joel Simon, who in nearly two decades at the Committee to Protect Journalists has worked on dozens of hostages cases, delves into the heated hostage policy debate. The Europeans paid millions of dollars to a terrorist group to free their hostages. The US and the UK refused to do so, arguing that any ransom would be used to fuel terrorism and would make the crime more attractive, increasing the risk to their citizens.We Want to Negotiate is an exploration of the ethical, legal, and strategic considerations of a bedeviling question: Should governments pay ransom to terrorists?