Abandoned

Mitten in der Nacht dringen in ein Haus in einer ruhigen Straße in einem Vorort von Minneapolis Eindringlinge ein, ermorden lautlos Luke Ellis’ Eltern und laden ihn in einen schwarzen SUV. Die Operation dauert weniger als zwei Minuten. Luke wird im Institut aufwachen, in einem Zimmer, das genau wie sein eigenes aussieht, nur dass es kein Fenster gibt. Und vor seiner Tür befinden sich weitere Türen, hinter denen andere Kinder mit besonderen Fähigkeiten sind – Telekinese und Telepathie –, die auf dieselbe Weise wie Luke an diesen Ort gelangt sind: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris und der zehnjährige Avery Dixon. Sie alle sind in der Vorderhälfte. Andere, erfährt Luke, sind in die Hinterhälfte übergewechselt, „wie in einer Kakerlakenfalle“, sagt Kalisha. „Man kommt rein, aber nicht wieder raus.“ In dieser äußerst düsteren Institution widmen sich die Direktorin, Mrs. Sigsby, und ihre Mitarbeiter skrupellos dem Ziel, den Kindern die Kraft ihrer außergewöhnlichen Gaben zu entziehen. Hier gibt es keine Skrupel. Wer mitmacht, bekommt Marken für die Automaten. Wer nicht mitmacht, wird brutal bestraft. Mit jedem neuen Opfer, das in die Hinterhälfte verschwindet, wird Luke immer verzweifelter, herauszukommen und Hilfe zu holen. Doch noch nie ist jemand aus dem Institut entkommen.

In an isolated college town in the hills of Southern California, a freshman girl stumbles into her dorm room, falls asleep—and doesn’t wake up. She sleeps through the morning, into the evening. Her roommate, Mei, cannot rouse her. Neither can the paramedics who carry her away, nor the perplexed doctors at the hospital. Then a second girl falls asleep, and then another, and panic takes hold of the college and spreads to the town. As the number of cases multiplies, classes are canceled, and stores begin to run out of supplies. A quarantine is established. The National Guard is summoned. Mei, an outsider in the cliquish hierarchy of dorm life, finds herself thrust together with an eccentric, idealistic classmate. Two visiting professors try to protect their newborn baby as the once-quiet streets descend into chaos. A father succumbs to the illness, leaving his daughters to fend for themselves. And at the hospital, a new life grows within a college girl, unbeknownst to her—even as she sleeps. A psychiatrist, summoned from Los Angeles, attempts to make sense of the illness as it spreads through the town. Those infected are displaying unusual levels of brain activity, more than has ever been recorded. They are dreaming heightened dreams—but of what?

Everyone's invited...everyone's a suspect... For fans of Ruth Ware and Tana French, a shivery, atmospheric, page-turning novel of psychological suspense in the tradition of Agatha Christie, in which a group of old college friends are snowed in at a hunting lodge . . . and murder and mayhem ensue. All of them are friends. One of them is a killer. During the languid days of the Christmas break, a group of thirtysomething friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students ten years ago. For this vacation, they’ve chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands—the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves. They arrive on December 30th, just before a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world. Two days later, on New Year’s Day, one of them is dead. The trip began innocently enough: admiring the stunning if foreboding scenery, champagne in front of a crackling fire, and reminiscences about the past. But after a decade, the weight of secret resentments has grown too heavy for the group’s tenuous nostalgia to bear. Amid the boisterous revelry of New Year’s Eve, the cord holding them together snaps. Now one of them is dead . . . and another of them did it. Keep your friends close, the old adage goes. But just how close is too close?