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Lisa Unger

Biography

Lisa Unger

Lisa Unger is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of 22 novels, including her latest, THE NEW COUPLE IN 5B. With books published in 33 languages and millions of copies sold worldwide, she is regarded as a master of suspense.

Unger’s critically acclaimed novels have been featured on “Best Book” lists from "Today," "Good Morning America," Entertainment Weekly, People, Amazon, Goodreads, L.A. Times, The Boston Globe, Sun Sentinel, Tampa Bay Times and many others. She has been nominated for, or won, numerous awards, including the Strand Critics, Audie, Hammett, Macavity, ITW Thriller and Goodreads Choice. In 2019, she received two Edgar Award nominations, an honor held by only a few authors, including Agatha Christie. Her short fiction has been anthologized in The Best American Mystery and Suspense, and her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR and Travel+Leisure.

Unger is the current co-President of the International Thriller Writers organization. She lives on the west coast of Florida with her family.

Books by Lisa Unger

by Lisa Unger - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Rosie and Chad Lowan are barely making ends meet in New York City when they receive life-changing news: Chad’s late uncle has left them his luxury apartment at the historic Windermere in glamorous Murray Hill. With its prewar elegance and impeccably uniformed doorman, the Windermere is the epitome of old New York charm. At first, the building and its eclectic tenants couldn’t feel more welcoming. But as the Lowans settle into their new home, Rosie starts to suspect that there’s more to the Windermere than meets the eye. Why is the doorman ever-present? Why are there cameras everywhere? And why have so many gruesome crimes occurred there throughout the years? When one of the neighbors turns up dead, Rosie must get to the truth about the Windermere before she, too, falls under its dangerous spell.

by Lisa Unger - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Madeline Martin is the young owner of a thriving business, The Next Chapter Bookshop. When Harley Granger, a failed novelist turned true crime podcaster, drifts into her shop in the days before Christmas, he seems intent on digging up events that Madeline would much rather forget. She’s the only surviving victim of Evan Handy, the man who was convicted of murdering her best friend, Steph, and is suspected in the disappearance of two sisters, also good friends of Madeline’s. Since Evan Handy went to jail, three other young women have gone missing, most recently a young college dropout named Lolly. Five young women missing in the same area in a decade. Are they connected? Was Evan Handy innocent after all? Or was there someone else there that night? Someone who is still satisfying his dark appetites?

by Lisa Unger - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

What could be more restful than a weekend getaway with family and friends? An isolated luxury cabin in the woods, complete with spectacular views, a hot tub and a personal chef. Hannah’s loving and generous tech-mogul brother found the listing online. It’s his birthday gift to Hannah and includes their spouses and another couple. The six friends need this trip with good food, good company and lots of R&R, far from the chatter and pressures of modern life. But the dreamy weekend is about to turn into a nightmare. A deadly storm is brewing. The rental host seems just a little too present. The personal chef reveals that their beautiful house has a spine-tingling history. And the friends have their own complicated past, with secrets that run blood deep.

by Lisa Unger - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

She met him through a dating app. An intriguing picture on a screen, a date at a downtown bar. What she thought might be just a quick hookup quickly became much more. She fell for him --- hard. It happens sometimes, a powerful connection with a perfect stranger takes you by surprise. Could it be love? But then, just as things were getting real, he stood her up. Then he disappeared --- profiles deleted, phone disconnected. She was ghosted. Maybe it was her fault. She shared too much, too fast. Soon she learns there were others. Girls who thought they were in love. Girls who later went missing. Chasing a digital trail into his dark past --- and hers --- she finds herself on a dangerous hunt. And she's not sure whether she's the predator --- or the prey.

by Lisa Unger - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Selena Murphy is commuting home on the train when she strikes up a conversation with a beautiful stranger in the next seat. The woman introduces herself as Martha and soon confesses that she has been stuck in an affair with her boss. Selena, in turn, confesses that she suspects her husband is sleeping with the nanny. When the train arrives at Selena’s station, the two women part ways, presumably never to meet again. Then the nanny disappears. As Selena is pulled into the mystery of what happened, and as the fractures in her marriage grow deeper, she begins to wonder who Martha really was. But she is hardly prepared for what she will discover.

by Lisa Unger - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Twelve-year-old Rain Winter narrowly escaped an abduction while walking to a friend’s house. Her two best friends, Tess and Hank, were not as lucky. Tess never came home, and Hank was held in captivity before managing to escape. Their abductor was sent to prison but years later was released. Then someone delivered real justice --- and killed him in cold blood. Now Rain is living the perfect suburban life, her dark childhood buried deep. But when another brutal murderer who escaped justice is found dead, Rain is unexpectedly drawn into the case. Eerie similarities to the murder of her friends’ abductor force Rain to revisit memories she’s worked hard to leave behind.

by Lisa Unger - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

It’s been a year since Poppy’s husband, Jack, was brutally murdered during his morning run through Manhattan’s Riverside Park. In the immediate aftermath, Poppy spiraled into an oblivion of grief, disappearing for several days only to turn up ragged and confused. Those lost days have never stopped haunting her. Poppy starts having nightmares and blackouts --- there are periods of time she can’t remember, and she’s unable to tell the difference between what is real and what she’s imagining. When she begins to sense that someone is following her, Poppy is plunged into a game of cat and mouse, determined to unravel the mystery around her husband’s death. But can she handle the truth about what really happened?

by Lisa Unger - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Claudia Bishop’s perfect life fell apart when the aftermath of a brutal assault left her with a crumbling marriage, a newborn daughter, and a constant sense of anxiety about the world around her. Now, looking for a fresh start with a home restoration project and a growing blog, Claudia takes on a crumbling old house --- one that unbeknownst to her has an ugly history and may hide long-buried secrets. For Zoey Drake, the defining moment of her childhood was the horrific home invasion murder of her parents. Years later, she has embraced the rage that fuels her and is ready to face the demons from the past. These two women are on a collision course, because Zoey’s past nightmare and Claudia’s dreams for her future take place in the very same house.

by Lisa Unger - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Supernatural Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Visited by people whom others can't see and haunted by prophetic dreams, Finley Montgomery has never been able to control or understand the things that happen to her. When her abilities start to become too strong for her to handle, she turns to her grandmother Eloise Montgomery, a renowned psychic. Merri Gleason is a woman at the end of her tether after a 10-month-long search for her missing daughter. With almost every hope exhausted, she resorts to hiring Jones Cooper, a detective who sometimes works with Eloise. Finley and Eloise are ultimately drawn into the investigation, which proves to have much more at stake than even the fate of a missing girl.

by Lisa Unger - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Darkness has a way of creeping up when Ian is with Priss. Even when they were kids, playing in the woods of their small Upstate New York town, he could feel it. Still, Priss was his best friend, his salvation from the bullies who called him "loser" and "fatboy"...and from his family's deadly secrets. Now that they've both escaped to New York City, Ian no longer inhabits the tortured shell of his childhood. He is a talented and successful graphic novelist, and Priss...Priss is still trouble.

by Lisa Unger - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

When Eloise’s granddaughter, 20-year-old Finley, comes to live with her, Eloise’s abilities start to change --- things seem to be getting easier. Her load is lighter, and rather than chasing down people she needs, they are coming to her. She teams up with detective Jones Cooper to help a desperate father bring his daughter’s killer to justice. Meanwhile, Finley, who is developing gifts of her own, has bigger problems than she’s willing to admit. Will Eloise help Finley and others see the difference between justice and revenge, or will things spiral out of control first?

by Lisa Unger - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Ten years after Eloise Montgomery discovers her psychic abilities, she is a full-fledged working psychic, with a partner and a business. Now, in THE BURNING GIRL, she’s discovering some disturbing things: secrets about her genealogy that are, perhaps, best left in the past; that her granddaughter Finley has powers of her own; and that not all of Eloise’s visitors actually want to be helped. Some of them are just looking for trouble.

by Lisa Unger - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

It’s a day like any other for Eloise Montgomery --- until tragedy strikes. While she is recovering from a horrible accident that takes the lives of her husband and oldest daughter, and as she works to help her younger daughter move forward, Eloise experiences her first psychic vision. Though she struggles to understand her newfound gifts, Eloise finds a way use them to save lost women and girls --- for whom her help may be the only way out.

by Lisa Unger - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

A woman boards a plane in the African country of Burkina Faso having just completed a targeted assassination for the state of Israel. Two minutes later, her plane is blown out of the sky. Over 6,000 miles away, former Navy SEAL James Reece watches the names and pictures of the victims on cable news. One face triggers a distant memory of a Mossad operative attached to the CIA years earlier in Iraq --- a woman with ties to the intelligence services of two nations…a woman Reece thought he would never see again. Reece enlists friends new and old across the globe to track down her killer, unaware that he may be walking into a deadly trap.

by Lisa Unger - Fiction, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

Kate wrote a novel based on a very real generation-old love story that ended in tragedy. Emily is in a dead-end job and involved with the wrong man. Both head to Heart Island, owned for generations by Birdie Burke's family. The harsh and unyielding Birdie is at one with this island, which has a terrifying history all its own. She, too, has consequences to face.

by Lisa Unger - Fiction, Thriller

From the author of BEAUTIFUL LIES and FRAGILE comes a thriller about broken trust that explores our faith in those we rely on --- and how that faith can sustain or shatter us.

by Lisa Unger - Fiction, Thriller

Readers will devour Lisa Unger's terrific debut work of fiction. An emotionally charged suspense novel with a likable heroine, this sexy thriller rockets like a racecar through the streets of Manhattan.