Frances Lucas is known for twisty suspense stories featuring strong women who find themselves in impossible situations where they uncover killers and fall in love. She is a Golden Crown Literary Society Award-Winner
In 1989, four-year-old Sabine Arnot survived the unthinkable: a brutal FBI raid on a doomsday cult deep in the Alaskan wilderness. Sabine’s sister vanished, and the site was sealed off, left to rot under snow and ice.
Thirty-six years later, the place has been reborn as Eden in the Wilderness, a reform school run by a disgraced military officer. When true-crime podcaster Rachel Kirk begins investigating, she hears uncanny echoes of the cult's buried past. Eager for answers, she turns to the only living witness: Sabine.
Against every instinct, Sabine returns to the place that nearly claimed her life. Together, the women find a strange garden humming beneath the surface. As Sabine and Rachel grow closer, they uncover a deadly conspiracy.
To stop it, they’ll have to dig up the truth—and survive it.
Bestselling suspense novelist Kendall Lamb boards the Aleut Queen, a vintage luxury sleeper train cutting through the stark beauty of the Alaska Peninsula. Reeling from a devastating breakup, Kendall hopes the remote journey will soothe her bruised heart. But solitude isn't in the cards, and when she finds enigmatic Harper Lambert, a striking woman with a haunted gaze, accidentally booked into her private roomette, sparks fly. Despite the red flags Harper waves like warning flares, Kendall spends the night with her.
By morning, Harper is gone. And Kendall is the prime suspect in the brutal murder of another passenger. To complicate things further, the Aleut Queen's inaugural journey includes an elaborate murder mystery game involving passengers. Each guest has been assigned a secret role: killer, victim, saboteur, witness.
The first clue reads: Take a look around you. Someone you may have already met intends to prevent this train from reaching its destination. This person is putting everyone at risk, including you. You will receive additional clues throughout your journey. Each will bring you closer to the truth, but be aware that the closer you get, the greater danger you will face. Talk to everyone. Trust no one. Remember this is only a game.
Except it isn't. As the train snakes its way through the wilderness and the line between reality and fiction blurs, Kendall must untangle the truth about Harper, the murder, and a shadowy saboteur before another life is lost that may well be her own.
Eight years ago, camp counselor Bella Estes stormed out of a late night party, angry and intoxicated. By morning she was dead—her bunkmate Mackenzie Reed the main suspect.
Lake Eklutna keeps a cold grip on its secrets. Who really killed Bella and why did Mack’s girlfriend refuse to alibi her the night Bella drowned?
New evidence casts doubt on everything Mack and Celeste thought they knew about Bella, their shared past, and the summer retreat now known as Camp Murder.
With the killer still free, can Mack and Celeste mend their fractured relationship? Or will the secrets of the lake draw them into further danger?
In 1964, young Alaska Native Jenny Adjuk mysteriously fell to her death from the roof of the infamous Elmer Lee House, a boarding school in Silver Lake, Alaska. The school was shut down soon after, left abandoned along with its secrets.
Sixty years later, journalism student Mare Mason discovers Jenny’s forgotten story. When the abandoned school reopens as a "haunted hotel," Mare takes a job there, determined to expose the owners for exploiting Jenny’s death.
Former social media star Kat Howard also joins the staff, hoping the hotel's eerie past can help her escape her own.
Mare and Kat clash from the moment they meet. But strange things start happening—unexplained noises echo through the walls, Kat begins seeing visions of Jenny’s ghost, and a murder rocks the nearby Denali National Park. As the town whispers that Jenny’s restless spirit is responsible, Mare and Kat are forced to confront their growing attraction—and the reality that something far more sinister may be at play.
Young Adult Novels
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At seventeen, introvert Nora Thomas has had a rough life, having survived an attempted kidnapping as a child and then losing both her parents on a hiking expedition nine years later. To make matters worse, she holds herself responsible for the death of her twin brother Nick at birth.
A school trip introduces Nora to Claire Tucker who is everything Nora’s not: optimistic, outgoing, self-confident, a magnet to others, including the mysterious Ethan St. James, Claire’s best friend.
When Nora and Claire begin an unlikely romance in another city, Ethan, absent for weeks, suddenly reappears. A brutal murder follows in his wake and the girls soon discover that some secrets are best left unexplored.
High school students, Virginia and Katie, uncover dark secrets about each other as they solve the mystery of another student's death. Can they trust each other to tell the truth in this lesbian romantic thriller set in Alaska?
*Book 1 of Virginia and Katie duology
High school sweethearts, Virginia and Katie, come face to face with another murder in this standalone sequel to CAN I TRUST HER? No one is quite what they seem and more than one person may be lying. Can Virgina's and Katie's romance withstand the death of a friend?
*Book 2 of the Virginia and Katie duology
