The HBS Author's Spotlight SHOWCASES Merry Jones' new Book: CHILD'S PLAY.
Author Merry Jones is the bestselling author of the Elle Harrison Thrillers, The Zoe Hayes Mysteries and the Harper Jennings Mystery series.
Child's Play
Elle Harrison Novels
Author: Merry Jones
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Since her husband’s murder two years earlier, life hasn’t been easy for Elle Harrison. Now, at the start of a new school year, the second grade teacher is determined to move on. She’s selling her house and delving into new experiences—like learning trapeze.
Just before the first day of school, Elle learns that a former student, Ty Evans, has been released from juvenile detention where he served time for killing his abusive father. Within days of his release, Elle’s school principal, who’d tormented Ty as a child, is brutally murdered. So is a teacher at the school. And Ty’s former girlfriend. All the victims have links to Ty.
Ty’s younger brother, Seth, is in Elle’s class. When Seth shows up at school beaten and bruised, Elle reports the abuse, and authorities remove Seth and his older sister, Katie, from their home. Is Ty the abuser?
Ty seeks Elle out, confiding that she’s the only adult he’s ever trusted. She tries to be open-minded, even wonders if he’s been wrongly condemned. But when she’s assaulted in the night, she suspects that Ty is her attacker. Is he a serial killer? Is she his next intended victim?
Before Elle discovers the truth, she’s caught in a deadly trap that challenges her deepest convictions about guilt and innocence, childhood and family. Pushed to her limits, she’s forced to face her fears and apply new skills in a deadly fight to survive.
Excerpt from CHILD'S PLAY
I was the first one there.
The parking lot was empty, except for Stan’s pickup truck. Stan was the custodian, tall, hair thinning, face pock-marked from long ago acne. He moved silently, popped out of closets and appeared in corners, prowled the halls armed with a mop or a broom. In fourteen years, I couldn’t remember a single time when he’d looked me in the eye.
Wait--fourteen years? I’d been there that long? Faces of kids I’d taught swirled through my head. The oldest of them would now be, what? Twenty-one? Oh man. Soon I’d be one of those old school marms teaching the kids of my former students, a permanent fixture of the school like the faded picture of George Washington mounted outside the principal’s office. Hell, in a few months, I’d be forty. A middle-aged childless widow who taught second grade over and over again, year after year, repeating the cycle like a crazed hamster on its wheel.
Which reminded me: I had to pick up new hamsters. Tragically, last year’s hadn’t made it through the summer.
I told myself to stop dawdling. I had a classroom to organize, cubbies to decorate. On Monday, just three days from now, twenty-three glowing faces would show up for the first day of school, and I had to be ready. I climbed out of the car, pulled a box of supplies from the trunk, started for the building. And stopped.
My heart did triple time, as if responding to danger. But there was no danger. What alarmed me—what sent my heart racing was the school itself. But why? Did it look different? Had the windows been replaced, or the doors? Nothing looked new, but something seemed altered. Off balance. The place didn’t look like an elementary school. It looked like a giant brick factory. A prison. An incinerator.
God, no. It didn’t look like any of those things. The school was the same as it had always been, just a building. It simply looked cold and stark, unadorned by running children. Except for wifi, it hadn’t changed in fifty years, unless you counted several new layers of soot on the bricks.
I stood in the parking lot, staring at the school, seeing it fresh. I’d never paid much attention to it before. When it was filled with children, the building itself became all but invisible, just a structure, a backdrop. But now, empty, it was unable to hide behind the children, the smells of sunshine and peanut butter sandwiches, the sounds of chatter and small shoes pounding Stanley’s waxed tiles. The building stood exposed. I watched it, felt it watching me back, cold and unfeeling.
Threatening.
Seriously, what was wrong with me? The school was unchanged, benign. A pile of bricks and steel. I was wasting time, needed to go in and get to work.
But I didn’t take a single step.
Come on in, Mrs. Harrison, the school taunted. What are you afraid of—I won’t hurt you. I’m just a tired old elementary school. Nothing but empty halls, vacant rooms. Blank walls. Maybe an occasional unexplained echo or lingering scent. A flitting shadow. An unclaimed memory.
For a long moment, I stood motionless, eyes fixed on the façade. The carved letters: Logan School. The heavy double doors. The dark windows. Maybe I’d wait a while. Becky would arrive soon, after she picked up her classroom aquarium. Other teachers would show up, too. I could go in with them, blend safely into their commotion. I hefted the box, turned back to the car.
But no, what was I doing? I didn’t want to wait. I’d come early precisely so I could get work done without interruption or distraction before the others arrived. The school wasn’t daring me. I wasn’t sensing an impending tragedy. I was just jittery about starting a new year.
I turned around again, faced its faded brown bricks. Steeled my shoulders, took a breath, preparing to go inside. With a clank, the main doors flew open. Reflexively, I stepped back, half expecting a burst of flames or gunfire. Instead, Stan emerged. For the first time in fourteen years, I was glad to see him. Stan surveyed the parking lot, hitched up his pants. Looked in my direction. He didn’t wave or nod a greeting. Didn’t follow social conventions. Even so, his presence grounded me, felt familiar. I took a breath, reminded myself that the school was just that, a school. That I was prone to mental wandering and embellishing. And that children would stream into my classroom in just three days, whether I was ready or not.
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers
Website: MerryJones.com
Author's Blog: Merry Jones
Twitter: @MerryDDJones
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Author Description: I've been writing ever since I could hold a pencil, but I didn't start writing books until the year after my second child was born. At that point, I asked myself: if not now, when? And I closed up my freelance video business to focus on my writing.
In the twenty odd years since then, I've written two non-fiction books (including BIRTHMOTHERS: Women who relinquished babies for adoption tell their stories), five humor books (including I LOVE HIM, BUT...) and, as of 2014, eleven suspense novels (including OUTSIDE EDEN, ELECTIVE PROCEDURES, THE TROUBLE WITH CHARLIE, WINTER BREAK, BEHIND THE WALLS, SUMMER SESSION, THE BORROWED AND BLUE MURDERS, THE DEADLY NEIGHBORS, THE RIVER KILLINGS, THE NANNY MURDERS).
My favorite writing is about the shady area between reality and perception, where people can't be sure of what they're sensing and concluding. I like putting "normal" characters into unexpected situations where they confront shadows and have to feel their way toward the truth, no matter how dangerous or frightening it may be.
Author's Book List
In the Woods
- A Harper Jennings MysteryA relaxing camping break for Iraqi war vet Harper Jennings and her husband takes an unpleasant turn when Harper stumbles across a dead body Harper Jennings – mother, Iraqi war vet and archaeology graduate – knows she should be counting her blessings that she’s able to enjoy a child-free camping trip with husband Hank. Hank’s recovery from a brain injury after falling from their roof is nothing short of miraculous. But . . . Harper misses baby Chloe. And she worries that, in being so wrapped up in her toddler, she’s lost her own identity. But her worries pale into insignificance when she stumbles across a body in the woods. Accident? Harper doesn’t think so, and nor does Ranger Daniels, who seems to blame local militia known as the Hunt Club – who will do anything, it seems, to protect the land they see as their birthright. Harper wonders what exactly she’s doing, in some dark state forest, tripping over corpses, when she could be at home with her little girl – but when a fellow camper’s husband goes missing, she finds herself reluctantly sucked into the hunt, and into a waking nightmare . . .
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Elective Procedures
- An Elle Harrison ThrillerElle Harrison is back! She and her pals Jen, Becky, and Susan travel to Mexico where Jen has arranged cosmetic surgery, after which she will recover in a plush hotel suite. But more is going on at the hotel than tummy tucks. Soon after they arrive, Elle sees the woman in the suite next door fall from her sixth floor balcony. When the room is later occupied by another patient, Elle finds her brutally mutilated body on that same balcony. Police question Elle as the last person to see these women alive. Their doctor also takes an interest in Elle; a woman staying at the hotel asks Elle to help her fend off a creepy stalker; a veiled woman sneaks into Elle's suite at night, and her late husband, Charlie, reappears (or Elle imagines that he does) when Elle gets pushed under water in the ocean and nearly drowns. As dangers swirl and intensify, Elle is forced to face her unresolved issues with Charlie, even as she races to find the connections between killings before more patients-including Jen-can be murdered. And before she herself becomes prey.
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Outside Eden
- A Harper Jennings MysteryJuly, Israel. Iraqi war vet and archaeology graduate Harper Jennings doesn’t believe in the evil eye. So when Hagit – the woman assigned to show her and Chloe, Harper’s fourteen-month-old baby, around Tel Aviv – drags the pair of them into a market to buy charms to ward off evil, it isn’t the bad luck she fears but the market itself. Close, dark and crowded, the place worries Harper, and when an American man seems to be in trouble, it is only the presence of baby Chloe that stops her from wading in to help.
Later, to Harper’s dismay, she learns that the man she saw was murdered. So when she’s invited to take part in an dig fifty miles away, while her geologist husband Hank takes part in the international symposium that has brought them both to Israel, she accepts. It will be safer away from the market, she thinks. But Hagit, who’s coming along to look after Chloe, disagrees. She is convinced the evil eye is to blame, and that it will follow Harper wherever she goes . . .
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The Trouble With Charlie
- An Elle Harrison ThrillerElle finds the body of her soon-to-be-ex husband, Charlie on her sofa, stabbed to death with her kitchen knife. Elle's close friends stand by her through the difficult funeral, but Elle alone must face the loss of the man she'd loved. Except that the loss is not total--Charlie is still around. Elle feels his presence, smells his after shave. Hears him accuse her of killing him. And even though she doesn't believe in ghosts, she argues with him, asserting her innocence. Oddly, Elle has a gap in her memory; she can't account for her activity during the time of his murder. As she tries to clear herself by finding out how Charlie died, she discovers that she had plenty of reason to kill him. Charlie had secrets. Infidelity. Unsavory business associates. Involvement with an international organization of sex abusers. The more she learns, the more danger she faces. As unscrupulous people begin to fear she'll expose them, Elle races against time to avoid arrest, fight off attackers, solve the murder, and make peace with Charlie's spirit.
Book Trailer: The Trouble With Charlie
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Winter Break
- A Harper Jennings MysteryPregnant Harper sees danger everywhere in the chilling third Harper Jennings mystery, but can she keep herself and her baby safe when no one believes her? Surely Harper Jennings can survive a visit from her mother and her new boyfriend while Hank’s on his first business trip since his accident? But she has more on her mind when she glimpses a nude young man being dragged into the woods near her house. Everyone – police included – concludes it was either kids playing around . . . or Harper’s hormones talking. But Harper can’t let it go; suspecting that her mother’s boyfriend might be hiding something, soon even her own home no longer seems a place of safety . . .
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Behind the Walls
- A Harper Jennings MysteryA Harper Jennings mystery - When Harper Jennings’ staunchest rival at Cornell’s archaeology department turns up on her doorstep, babbling about seeing a Pre-Columbian shape-shifter, Harper doesn’t know what to think. But she can spot a great opportunity – Zina won a coveted post cataloguing a priceless collection of Pre-Columbian artifacts, and if Harper humours Zina, she’ll be able to see them for herself. But then Zina is killed – and the more contact Harper has with the relics, the more her life starts going wrong. The artifacts can’t really be cursed . . . can they?
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Summer Session
- A Harper Jennings MysteryThe first in a new series from the author of the 'Zoe Hayes' books - Harper Jennings is an Iraqi war veteran with PTSD. Now a teaching assistant at Cornell, her life is rosy until, carrying out repairs on their home, her husband Hank falls off the roof. The accident damages his brain and brings back terrible war memories for Harper. As Hank is treated at the prestigious Cayuga Neurological Center, Harper's flashbacks subside - until, during class, her student jumps out of the window. Suddenly, Harper is swept up in suicide, theft, betrayal and murder - and all the victims connect to her . . .
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The Deadly Neighbors
- The Zoe Hayes Mysteries Book 3In this third novel featuring art therapist Zoe Hayes, neighbors are shocked when a woman's body is found in the kitchen of Zoe's estranged father, Walter. In fact, they suspect Walter of killing her. But as Zoe investigates further, it seems that the neighbors are up to some pretty shocking shenanigans themselves.
As Zoe tries to prove her father's innocence, she encounters a cruel ring of organized criminals who specialize in dark and deadly forms of entertainment. Trying to escape their grasp, Zoe--with daughter Molly in tow--must solve a series of grisly murders, but in the process, she stumbles into secrets that force her to reconnect with a lost a frightening part of her own past.
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The Borrowed and Blue Murders
- The Zoe Hayes Mysteries Book 4Zoe Hayes is back with another fast-paced thriller set in Philadelphia. In the final days before Zoe's marriage to Detective Nick Stiles, a jogger turns up murdered on Zoe's back patio. Two of Nick's brothers have come for the wedding and are staying at her home, and Zoe--now the mother of two: baby Luke and six-year-old Molly--finds evidence that at least one of her future in-laws is not who he pretends to be.
When her babysitter has a breakdown, her wedding planner is attacked, and a psychotic former patient decides to come after Zoe and her family, Zoe is caught in an intricate web of intrigue and spiraling danger that threatens to destroy a lot more than just her wedding.
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The River Killings
- The Zoe Hayes MysteriesContinuing the pate-turning suspense of THE NANNY MURDERS, this sequel weaves another taut, fast-paced tale. Zoe Hayes, a divorced art therapist with a six-year-old adopted daughter, Molly, returns with another gripping mystery set in Philadelphia, this time taking place along historic Boathouse Row.
On summer vacation from her job, Zoe takes a sculling class for fun with her best friend, Susan Cummings. One evening, while Molly waits with Susan's children at the boathouse, Zoe rows off with Susan to practice for an upcoming regatta. When Susan's oar catches on some flotsam (which turns out to be a woman's dress), the boat flips, and the two find themselves in deep water with not just one but an entire throng of floating bodies.
Someone (but who?) along Boathouse Row is a murderer. After Zoe argues with Detective Nick Stiles, her boyfriend, he sets out for the river at night, and she and Molly head out after him. There, Zoe uncovers a sinister plot that she and Molly might be unable to escape.
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The Nanny Murders
- The Zoe Hayes MysteriesA mesmerizing page-turner about missing nannies who disappear, one by one, from a close-knit Philadelphia community.
Zoe Hayes, an art therapist at an institute for seriously deranged patients, is the divorced, single mother of an adopted and adorable little girl named Molly. When Molly makes a grisly discover while playing in the snow--finding a piece of litter that turns out to be a human finger, Zoe gets involved in the case of the missing nannies.
One of Zoe's neighbors seems to be a serial killer. Zoe and a mysteriously scarred detective named Nick Stiles team up to catch the killer, and Zoe suddenly becomes the prey…
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