Strangers
3 total works
Death has always stalked single mother Allie Callahan. For the first time in her life, she has found a fragile sort of happiness living a quiet, peaceful existence in East Texas with her young son, Sammy, and her adoptive mother.
Still, Allie fears she may be susceptible to the same mental illness that destroyed her serial-killer mother and brother. She's haunted by the idea that she could become incapable of caring for Sammy.
When twelve-year-old twins Zoe and Carrie arrive on her doorstep late one night, their parents slain in a vicious double homicide, Allie’s strength and sanity are put to the test. What did the twins see on the night of their parents’ horrific murder? They are too frightened to say.
Soon faced with a series of menacing phone calls, a rising body count, and the pressure of keeping the girls and her own son safe, Allie fears she'll lose her mind—and her one shot at happiness—once and for all.
Returning to her childhood home in Louisiana, Allie ends up in foster care and is placed with Miss Bitty, an eccentric but kindly older woman who shows her a new direction and brighter future.
But Allie’s new life takes a devastating turn when young women in the area start turning up dead, and she begins to see shadowy figures outside her bedroom. As Miss Bitty grows inexplicably distant, a nagging voice makes Allie wonder if death has found her yet again…or if it never really left her at all.
As locals continue to vanish, residents begin to discover that they might not know those closest to them as well as they had thought. Lies and insecurities quickly surface, leading everyone to question one another…and their involvement in the disappearances.
Meanwhile, an unstable, twisted killer is hiding quietly in their midst. Ever since his mother’s murder four years earlier, he’s been forced to raise his disturbed teenage sister. He’s terrified of her—and of women in general—and his world revolves around his fear of and obsession over them.
In this USA Today bestselling thriller, debut novelist Jennifer Jaynes delivers a psychologically riveting page-turner that is packed with surprises and will have readers guessing to the very last page.
Revised edition: This edition of Never Smile at Strangers includes editorial revisions.