‘Each time my mother laid a finger on me... it was another step into the jaws of hell. Her abuse, more so than any other, destroyed me. It was the ultimate betrayal.’

A woman's murder is only the beginning as a daughter races to unravel the maze of secrets her father left behind--before she becomes the next victim--in the latest emotionally gripping novel from Sara Blaedel, #1 internationally bestselling author with over 3 million copies sold worldwide. After suddenly inheriting a funeral home from her father--who she hadn't heard from in decades--Ilka Jensen has impulsively abandoned her quiet life in Denmark to visit the small town in rural Wisconsin where her father lived. There, she's devastated to discover her father's second family: a stepmother and two half sisters she never knew existed. And who aren't the least bit welcoming, despite Ilka's efforts to reach out. Then a local woman is killed, seemingly the unfortunate victim of a home invasion turned violent. But when Ilka learns that the woman knew her father, it becomes increasingly clear that she may not have been a completely random victim after all. The more Ilka digs into her father's past, the more deeply entangled she becomes in a family drama that has spanned decades and claimed more than one life--and she may be the next victim... "Sara Blaedel knows how to reel in her readers and keep them utterly transfixed." --Tess Gerritsen "One of the best I've come across." --Michael Connelly "Crime-writer superstar Sara Blaedel's great skill is in weaving a heartbreaking social history into an edge-of-your-chair thriller." --Oprah.com

While searching his Dutch grandmother's attic for yard sale items, Jeroen finds a scrapbook which leads Gran to tell of her experiences as a girl living in Amsterdam during the Holocaust, when her father was a Nazi sympathizer and Esther, her Jewish best friend, disappeared.

Finding Family: My Search for Roots and the Secrets in My DNA is the highly suspenseful account of an adoptee trying to reclaim the biological family denied him by sealed birth records. This fascinating quest, including the author's landmark use of DNA testing, takes readers on an exhilarating roller-coaster ride and concludes with a twist that rivals anything Hollywood has to offer. In the vein of a classic mystery, Hill gathers the seemingly scant evidence surrounding the circumstances of his birth. As his resolve shores up, the author also avails of new friends, genealogists, the Internet, and the latest DNA tests in the new field of genetic genealogy. As he closes in on the truth of his ancestry, he is able to construct a living, breathing portrait of the young woman who was faced with the decision to forsake her rights to her child, and ultimately the man whose identity had remained hidden for decades. Finding Family offers guidance, insight, and motivation for anyone engaged in a similar mission, from ways to obtain information to the many networks that can facilitate adoption searches. The book includes a detailed guide to DNA and genetic genealogy and how they can produce irrefutable results in determining genetic connections and help adoptees bypass sealed records and similar stumbling blocks.

On August 18, 1951, in Barbados, my mother, Clara Carter, gave birth to me, Doris Carter, and my twin sister, Dorothy. Dorothy, who was head of records of the United States was the family secret. My mother gave Dorothy away when she was born so I never knew her, but she always knew about me. In my early thirties, I moved to Montreal, Canada, where I won the lottery for five hundred thousand dollars. My sister, Dorothy Allen, who was living in New York City at the time found out about my winnings and made her way out to Montreal, Canada. After going through hell and back with my estranged husband to get the ticket from him, I couldn't even cash in the lotto ticket. I was told that according to their records, I had died on the seventh of April, and they had the death certificate to prove it. Turns out that my twin sister, Dorothy, and my ex–sister-in-law, Angela Smith, along with a lawyer by the name of Albert Gomberg committed a federal crime and filed the certificate, and a doctor from Montreal General Hospital signed off on it. Question, what would you do in my position? When your back is against the wall and you don't know who you can trust, not even your own lover? Follow me through all the crazy twists, turns, and evil ways family can betray you.