Julie Parsons Books In Order

Mary Mary

He had the face of an angel but a mind of pure evil…
It starts with a phone call late on a hot Dublin evening. Margaret, an anxious mother, is desperately enquiring about her missing daughter. The police think she’s overreacting and Detective Inspector Michael McLoughlin is the only one who listens. Then a young woman’s body is found in the canal battered, mutilated and broken. And one mother’s life is shattered forever. Margaret must decide how far she will go to ensure her daughter’s sad*istic killer is brought to justice. By hunting him down will she become his next victim?

I Saw You

For 10 years, newly retired policeman Michael McLoughlin has been haunted by the case of a young woman brutally murdered and the affection he felt for the victim’s mother, Margaret. A favor for a friend leads him to another woman who has lost a child her daughter has been found drowned in the same lake her stepfather died in years earlier. Was it an accident, suicide, or murder? Margaret, too, has been tormented by thoughts of that long, hot summer so many years ago. Memories of her daughter and the killer give her no peace and she finally returns to Dublin to face her demons, leading her back to a man she never thought she’d see again, and to a mother with grief to match her own. This is a chilling and dark novel of love, revenge, and atonement.

The Courtship Gift

Julie Parsons exploded onto the literary scene with her debut novel, Mary, Mary, which, according to The New York Times, ‘takes the psychological suspense thriller to places it rarely dares to go.’ Now, in The Courtship Gift, a shy female entomologist is pitted against a murderous maniac. Dublin on a cold April night. Anna Neale arrives home late and discovers her husband, David, dead in his study, his face a rictus mask of agony. Anna gazes with disbelief at the telltale marks on his skin. It seems David died from anaphylactic shock induced by a bee sting. But it is not bee season, and he has known all his life that he is allergic to the bee’s poison. Anna finds a peculiar package addressed to David and begins to suspect that he was murdered. As the weeks pass, Anna learns that nothing in her life with David had been as it seemed. In death, her husband is an utter stranger to her. She is now alone, defenseless, and feels herself falling apart. This is just what attracts the handsome and sympathetic man who calls himself Matthew Makepiece. Matthew has been watching for months, waiting for his opportunity, orbiting her quiet world in increasingly constricting circles. As she gets to know him, Anna senses danger. Ultimately, she realizes her own life is in jeopardy and has no choice but to do what no one believed her capable of. Julie Parsons has created another female protagonist of extraordinary strength and psychological resources.

Eager to Please

Julie Parsons exploded onto the literary suspense scene with her debut novel, Mary, Mary, and continued to gain critical acclaim and readers with her follow up, The Courtship Gift. Now, in this haunting tale of seduction and revenge, Parsons introduces another strong and resourceful hero*ine. Eager to Please again proves why Jeffery Deaver called Parsons ‘one of those rare authors who can successfully combine psychological insight, literary style, and heart stopping suspense.’

After spending twelve years of a life sentence in prison for the murder of her husband a murder she swears she didn’t commit Rachel Beckett has been released on parole. In addition to the grief she feels from the loss of her husband, she has been denied the love of her only daughter, Amy, forced to stand by as another woman raised her child and enjoyed her affections. Amy, now seventeen, insists she never wants to see her real mother again. Rachel’s attempts to reach out to her are rejected.

As Rachel starts to become accustomed to life outside of prison, she suffers another loss. Her dearest friend from jail, Judith, is brutally murdered. Detective Jack Donnelly, one of the policemen who arrived at Rachel’s house the night of her husband’s murder, is assigned this new case. Once again their lives are intertwined as Jack starts keeping tabs on Rachel, as she plots vengeance on Daniel Beckett her past lover, her husband’s brother, the man who should have gone to prison for his murder. Rachel cleverly insinuates herself into Daniel’s life by making friends with his wife and children. Then she seduces him and sets the stage for the nail biting climax.

Who will survive? Daniel, Rachel, or neither?

The Guilty Heart

Whilst Nick spent an afternoon in bed with his neighbour, his son Owen went missing and was never found. Now, ten years later, he has returned from the USA with a desire to assuage his guilt and face up to his past. Little does he realize that his investigations will unleash further violence.

The Hourglass

Beyond high iron gates fastened shut with a length of chain, lies the stark, beautiful Trawbawn. Here, haunted by a dark, mysterious past and largely ignored by the people of nearby Skibbereen, lives the frail Lydia Beauchamp. But old Ma Beauchamp’s private existence is interrupted when a stranger arrives – a young man called Adam who wanders into the vast grounds of Trawbawn and becomes one of Lydia’s most welcome contacts with the outside world. When Lydia sets her new confidante a challenge, he eagerly accepts – Adam must travel to Dublin to find her estranged daughter. But it is a task tainted by an air of menace. For what terrible past has driven a daughter from her mother? And what true motive lies behind Adam’s generous act? Soon the unlikely friends are entwined in a deadly game, and a pursuit born of an old lady’s desire for peace mutates into a terrible, relentless need for revenge…