Hi reader,

Monday is Jessie Clark, and Jessie is having a summer. Two books out two weeks ago, one more coming this Friday, August 7. Let me catch you up in order of temperature.

Coming Friday: Bonneville Shadows (Utah Shadows, Book 2)

Cassidy Rourke died on the Bonneville Salt Flats. The police closed the case in nine days and called it an accident. Her brother did not believe them, so he called the one person who might: Gillian Jones, the woman who exposed Project Canyon Ghost and barely lived through it. She swore she was finished. She goes anyway.

What Gillian finds out on the salt, where the horizon lies and the ground itself can swallow a truck whole, is worse than a murder. It is a machine that can reach into a crowd and rewrite what those people see, remember, and believe, and a proving ground littered with racers who lose a day and cannot say where it went. To stop a test that is only days away from being run on ten thousand unsuspecting people, Gillian has to trust her memory in the one place on earth built to make that impossible. The catch, and the reason she has a chance at all: she has never trusted her own memory. She trusts the record. It may be the only mind the machine cannot reach.

"Some things the desert takes. Some things it is paid to erase."

If you loved Blake Crouch's Dark Matter and Recursion, this one was written for you. It is book two of the Utah Shadows thrillers but reads as a standalone, so you can start here. It goes live Friday, August 7, and it is available to pre-order right now, so it lands on your reader the second it releases. Pre-order it here: https://books.by/jlcollinspublishing/bonneville-shadows. If you would rather read it early for free, keep reading for the ARC ask.

Already on the shelf, the clever one: The Honest Man

The most respected prosecutor in the city, found dead in his locked study the night before he was going to unseal the biggest corruption case in its history. Gun in hand. Confession glowing on the screen. Everyone needs it to be a suicide. Detective Cass Vale knows it is murder before the coroner does, because she has stood in that study before, and her flawless memory is showing her the one detail that is wrong.

"The dead man's study was the most honest room in the city, and it was lying to her."

A fair-play thriller for readers who love a heroine who wins with her mind. Never read a Vale and Ward book? This one opens a fresh case, so it is a clean place to start.

Already on the shelf, the cozy one: Something Wicked This Way Brews

Harriet Godwin runs the best herbal tea shop in Crestwick and has exactly one rule about magic: keep it quiet. That rule lasts right up until she finds a beloved old professor dead on the bench outside her shop, the only person in town who can tell it was not an ordinary heart attack. Now she is the prime suspect, the detective keeps turning up at her counter, and her cat was already waiting on the doorstep the morning she found the body. He always knows first. The first in a brand-new paranormal cozy series. Clean, dry-witted, bingeable.

All of Jessie's shelves are here: https://www.jlcollinspublishing.com/books

Subscriber first look: reply with the word SALT and I will send you the opening pages of Bonneville Shadows before they go anywhere else.

Want to read Jessie early, for free? Read It First is the JL Collins launch team. Members get brand-new books about three weeks ahead of release in exchange for one honest review, and Bonneville Shadows is going out to the team now. There is no form to fill in. Just hit reply with the words READ IT FIRST and I will get you set up.

📌 Two-second favor: this week's Bonneville Shadows pin is up on Pinterest. Tap Save so more thriller readers find it: [PIN URL — paste the live pin link when building in Beehiv] (pinterest.com/jlcollinspublishing)

Reply and settle something for me: in a thriller, do you want to be able to solve it before the detective does, or do you want to be fooled fair and square right up to the end?

Happy reading,

Jessie Clark

AI is moving fast and most people are falling behind. 

The Rundown AI keeps you ahead of the curve. 

It's a free AI newsletter that keeps you up-to-date on the latest AI news, and teaches you how to apply it in just 5 minutes a day.

Plus, complete the quiz after signing up and they’ll recommend the best AI tools, guides, and courses — tailored to your needs.

Sign up to start learning.