July Pile of Possibilities

This is my pile of possibilities for the month of June. I am really hoping to get to them this month and then to go back to the ones in the previous months I wasn’t able to get to. I also have some ARC’s I need to read.

Lord Edgeware Dies By: Agatha Christie

It’s true; Hercule Poirot had been present when the famous actress Jane Wilkinson bragged of her plan to ‘get rid of’ her estranged husband, Lord Edgware.

Now the man was dead. And yet the great Belgian detective couldn’t help feeling that he was being taken for a ride. After all, how could Jane have stabbed her thoroughly detestable husband to death in his library at exactly the same time she was seen dining with friends? And what could be her motive now that the aristocrat had finally agreed to grant her a divorce?

Vampire Academy By: Richelle Mead

Only a true best friend can protect you from your immortal enemies…

Lissa Dragomir is a Moroi princess: a mortal vampire with a rare gift for harnessing the earth’s magic. She must be protected at all times from Strigoi; the fiercest vampires—the ones who never die. The powerful blend of human and vampire blood that flows through Rose Hathaway, Lissa’s best friend, makes her a dhampir. Rose is dedicated to a dangerous life of protecting Lissa from the Strigoi, who are hell-bent on making Lissa one of them.

After two years of freedom, Rose and Lissa are caught and dragged back to St. Vladimir’s Academy, a school for vampire royalty and their guardians-to-be, hidden in the deep forests of Montana. But inside the iron gates, life is even more fraught with danger… and the Strigoi are always close by.

Rose and Lissa must navigate their dangerous world, confront the temptations of forbidden love, and never once let their guard down, lest the evil undead make Lissa one of them forever…

What moves the Dead By: T. Kingfisher

When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruravia.

What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.

With A Vengeance By: Riley Sager

One train. No stops. A deadly game of survival and revenge.

In 1942, six people destroyed Anna Matheson’s family. Twelve years later, she’s ready for retribution.

Under false pretenses, Anna has lured those responsible for her family’s downfall onto a luxury train from Philadelphia to Chicago, an overnight journey of fourteen hours. Her goal? Confront the people who’ve wronged her, get them to confess their crimes, and deliver them into the hands of authorities waiting at the end of the line. Justice will at last be served.

But Anna’s plan is quickly derailed by the murder of one of the passengers. As the train barrels through the night, it becomes clear that someone else on board is enacting their own form of revenge—and that they won’t stop until everyone else is dead.

With time running out before the train reaches its destination, Anna is forced to hunt the killer in their midst while protecting the people she hates the most. In order to destroy her enemies, she must first save them—even though it means putting her own life at risk.

The Sirens By: Emilia Hart

A story of sisters separated by hundreds of years but bound together in more ways than they can imagine

2019: Lucy awakens in her ex-lover’s room in the middle of the night with her hands around his throat. Horrified, she flees to her sister’s house on the coast of New South Wales hoping Jess can help explain the vivid dreams that preceded the attack—but her sister is missing. As Lucy waits for her return, she starts to unearth strange rumours about Jess’s town—tales of numerous missing men, spread over decades. A baby abandoned in a sea-swept cave. Whispers of women’s voices on the waves. All the while, her dreams start to feel closer than ever.

1800: Mary and Eliza are torn from their loving home in Ireland and forced onto a convict ship heading for Australia. As the boat takes them farther and farther away from all they know, they begin to notice unexplainable changes in their bodies.

A breathtaking tale of female resilience, The Sirens is an extraordinary novel that captures the sheer power of sisterhood and the indefinable magic of the sea.

The Stolen Queen By: Fiona Davis

Egypt, 1936: When anthropology student Charlotte Cross is offered a coveted spot on an archaeological dig in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, she leaps at the opportunity. But after an unbearable tragedy strikes, Charlotte knows her future will never be the same.

New York City, 1978: Eighteen-year-old Annie Jenkins is thrilled when she lands an opportunity to work for iconic former Vogue fashion editor Diana Vreeland, who’s in the midst of organizing the famous Met Gala, hosted at the museum and known across the city as the “party of the year.” Though Annie soon realizes she’ll have her work cut out for her, scrambling to meet Diana’s capricious demands and exacting standards.

Meanwhile, Charlotte, now leading a quiet life as the associate curator of the Met’s celebrated Department of Egyptian Art, wants little to do with the upcoming gala. She’s consumed with her research on Hathorkare—a rare female pharaoh dismissed by most other Egyptologists as unimportant.

That is, until the night of the gala. When one of the Egyptian art collection’s most valuable artifacts goes missing . . . and there are signs Hathorkare’s legendary curse might be reawakening.

As Annie and Charlotte team up to search for the missing antiquity, a desperate hunch leads the unlikely duo to one place Charlotte swore she’d never return: Egypt. But if they’re to have any hope of finding the artifact, Charlotte will need to confront the demons of her past—which may mean leading them both directly into danger.

Tailspin By: Sandra Brown

A daring pilot races against time to deliver an important package — and keep it from falling into the wrong hands — in this #1 New York Times bestselling thriller of spine-tingling suspense and tantalizing romance. Rye Mallett, a fearless “freight dog” pilot charged with flying cargo to far-flung locations, is rough-spoken and all business, but soft on regulations when they get in the way of meeting a deadline. But above all, he has a rock-solid he will fly in the foulest weather, day or night, and deliver the goods safely to their destination. So, when Rye is asked to fly into a completely fogbound northern Georgia town and deliver a mysterious black box to a Dr. Lambert, he doesn’t ask questions. As Rye’s plane nears the isolated landing strip, more trouble than inclement weather awaits him. Greeted with a sabotage attempt on his plane, he has barely recovered from the crash landing when he meets Dr. Brynn O’Neal, who claims she is receiving the box for Dr. Lambert. Though he has a strict “no-involvement policy” when it comes to others’ problems, Rye finds himself being irresistibly drawn in to the intrigue surrounding his cargo . . . and to the mysterious and alluring Brynn. Soon Rye and Brynn are in a treacherous forty-eight-hour race to deliver the box. With everyone from law enforcement officials to hired guns hot on their heels, they must learn to trust each other to protect their valuable cargo from those who would kill for it.

Life With the Afterlife By: Amy Bruni

Star of Kindred Spirits and paranormal investigator Amy Bruni shares stories from her years of experiences with ghosts, organized around thirteen truths that guide her approach to the supernatural.

Amy Bruni, co-star of Kindred Spirits and one of the world’s leading paranormal investigators, has learned a lot about ghosts over her years of research and first-hand experience. Now, in Life with the Afterlife, she shares the insight she has gleaned and how it has shaped her unique approach to interacting with the spirits of the dead and those who encounter them.

From her earliest supernatural encounters as a child, through her years appearing on Ghost Hunters and the creation of her company Strange Escapes, which offers paranormal excursions to some of America’s most notoriously haunted destinations, and into her current work on The Travel Channel’s Kindred Spirits, this book is full of astonishing and deeply moving stories of Amy’s efforts to better understand the dead but not yet departed. With Amy’s bright humor and fierce compassion for both those who are haunted and those who are haunting, Life with the Afterlife is an eye-opening look at what connects us as people, in life and beyond.

If It Bleeds By: Stephen King

If it Bleeds is a collection of four new novellas —Mr. Harrigan’s Phone, The Life of Chuck, Rat, and the title story If It Bleeds— each pulling readers into intriguing and frightening places.

A collection of four uniquely wonderful long stories, including a stand-alone sequel to The Outsider.

News people have a saying: ‘If it bleeds, it leads’. And a bomb at Albert Macready Middle School is guaranteed to lead any bulletin.

Holly Gibney of the Finders Keepers detective agency is working on the case of a missing dog – and on her own need to be more assertive – when she sees the footage on TV. But when she tunes in again, to the late-night report, she realizes there is something not quite right about the correspondent who was first on the scene. So, begins ‘If It Bleeds’, a stand-alone sequel to The Outsider featuring the incomparable Holly on her first solo case.

Dancing alongside are three more long stories – ‘Mr. Harrigan’s Phone’, ‘The Life of Chuck’ and ‘Rat’.

The novella is a form King has returned to over and over again in the course of his amazing career, and many have been made into iconic films, If It Bleeds is a uniquely satisfying collection of longer short fiction by an incomparably gifted writer.

Brigham Young: An Inspiring Personal Biography By: Susan Evans McCloud

Tender glimpses into the life and heart of a Prophet.

Since the earliest days of the Church, Brigham Youn has been a larger-than-life figure, inspiring and motivating Saints of both yesterday and today. And now, author Susan Evans McCloud brings us a unique perspective on the man who, despite his incredible accomplishments as a prophet, colonizer, and businessman, valued his family and the individual Saints above all the treasure of the earth.

As an aggressive leader “Bother Brigham” mobilized an entire population to make the desert bloom, and as a prophet of God he understood and declared the doctrines of salvation. But it was in his role as friend and family man that he displayed his most endearing qualities. From tenderly nursing his dying wife, to genially supervising his daughters’ social activities, to comforting and inspiring many a discouraged missionary, he kept watch over his large family and many friends with heartwarming gentleness and devotion.

Those are the ten books on my June Pile of Possibilities. What are you planning to read for the month? I would like to know. Until next time, keep reading.


Published by debbierpayne

Mother of six and Grandmother of 7. I enjoy reading, sewing, cooking, and crocheting. I am an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

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