👀 𝐂𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐀𝐋 ➜ New Mysteries and Thrillers Coming in June from Crooked Lane Books: Novels by Authors Cleo Ballard, Sean David Robinson and Carol Snow
ISBN TPO: 9798892425964
ISBN E: 9798892425971
June 23, 2026
THE DOOR IN
PENROSE FOREST
A NOVEL
A man returns to his strange hometown twenty years after his mother climbed a staircase in the wilderness and disappeared in this speculative mystery where We Used to Live Here meets The Midnight Library.
As a boy, Nico once accompanied his mother on a research trip to investigate a stalled migration of monarch butterflies. One night, upon hearing her sneak out of their rented cabin, he followed her to a clearing in the forest where a famed mansion once stood.
Paralyzed with fear, he watched his mother climb a staircase and vanish, along with the stairs and the strange glowing door at its peak. No one believed his story, and as he grew older, he too stopped believing it was real.
As an adult, Nico returns to his hometown to care for his ailing father. But something strange is happening to the town. There are unexplained power fluctuations, people are going missing, and, reportedly, phantoms are roaming the woods. When Nico finds his mother’s field journal from the week she disappeared, including her account of the vanishing staircase, he begins to pick apart the mystery.
All the tangled strings trail back to the same starting point: the gilded age family whose mansion burned down under mysterious circumstances in those very same woods where his mother vanished.
Equally a compelling mystery and a moving story of family and destiny, this speculative novel will spellbind readers of Emily St. John Mandel and Susanna Clarke.
Sean David Robinson is a native North Carolinian. His stage play, Starbright, debuted off-Broadway in 2018, winning two regional awards. In 2022, he became a member of the Novel in a Year cohort at StoryStudio Chicago, where he worked for two years on the manuscript that would become his debut. He lives in Asheville with his wife and their fur babies.
seandavidrobinson.com | IG: @sdr_writer X: @sdr_writer
ISBN TPO: 9798892425872
ISBN E: 9798892425889
June 9, 2026
THIS IS A LIE
A NOVEL
“A terrifyingly brilliant read! Don’t miss this smart, edgy thriller!”
—Debra Webb, USA Today bestselling author
A woman uses AI to create the perfect friend and finds herself trapped in a cat-and-mouse game in this ticking clock thriller, perfect for fans of Blake Crouch.
Penn, once a promising PhD candidate in applied language studies, gave up a scholarship to become a wife and stay-at-home mother, showcasing her perfect life and family on social media. But when she’s betrayed by her husband, her friends, and even her teenage daughter, Penn’s carefully curated world shatters.
Reeling from an ugly divorce, Penn is drawn back to her unfinished grad school dissertation project, a program designed to analyze speech patterns to discern the truth. Unsure how to proceed, she takes a computer class. At the suggestion of Luc, the professor and Penn’s one-time college crush, she uses the power of artificial intelligence to turn her program into Aletheia, the perfect friend.
Despite Luc’s warnings about the potential dangers of AI, Penn finally feels supported, safe, and open to a new romance with Luc. Until Aletheia takes her directives too far and the truth becomes more dangerous than a lie. As Aletheia grows increasingly erratic and deadly, Penn must find a way to outwit her creation before Aletheia destroys everyone Penn loves.
Cleo Ballard, a graduate of Cornell University, is a former ghostwriter who lives in the Pacific Northwest. When she’s not working on her next novel, she can be found biking, kitesurfing, and winging, or planning her family’s next adventure.
nanfischerauthor.com | IG: @nanfischerauthor
ISBN TPO: 9798892425773
ISBN E: 9798892425780
June 23, 2026
GIRL ON THE BEACH
A NOVEL
A missing child tears a family apart, and the nanny knows more than she says in this propulsive thriller, perfect for fans of Jennifer Hillier and Lisa Lutz.
On the surface, Sonia and Graham Starr were an unspeakably glamorous couple: she, the sleek and intense entrepreneur; he, the boyishly handsome painter with an irrepressible joie de vivre. But when their four-year-old daughter, Roxie, disappears into the Pacific Ocean, their world crumbles around them.
Months later, twenty-one-year-old Colleen, who was the nanny for the Starr family, plagued by guilt and confusion, returns to the beach house where she once worked. On her first night back, she sees a child who bears a striking resemblance to Roxie, but when she calls out, the child runs away.
The loss of Roxie has changed everything. Graham and Sonia have since split up. But to Colleen, it never made sense that Roxie, who was afraid of the ocean, would run into the waves on her own. Now that Colleen has seen either Roxie or her doppelgänger, she is determined to get to the truth, even if it means facing her own complicity.
Carol Snow is the author of contemporary women’s fiction and young adult literature. She grew up in New Jersey. Much of her childhood was spent immersed in books; the rest was focused on avoiding dodgeball. In her free time, Carol Snow spends time with her family, reads (of course), cooks, paints, and talks to her cats. Despite Google’s claims to the contrary, she is not and has never been a poet.
carolsnow.com | IG: @carol_snow X: @CarolSnowBooks
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