Susan Finlay has thirteen published mystery novels to date. The five newest are Reflections in the Dark, the first book in a new series; The Secret Town, the sequel to Liars’ Games; Not Expecting This, the third book in her Bavarian Woods series; and  Breadcrumbs and Bombs and its sequel, Bloodlines and Barbed Wire.



Reflections in the Dark:

A group of wary strangers become lost in time and are forced to lean on and trust each other to survive.

Chloe Westbrook, a modern young English woman who has given up on love and on people in general, reluctantly travels during the pandemic to Mythe, France to meet her reclusive grandfather, Frederic Chevalier, for the first time.

Nicholas Drake, a young American hippy who is afraid of commitment and carries a great burden on his shoulders, stays in a bed-and-breakfast inn run by a hippy middle-aged French woman, Josephine Lapierre, in the French town of Belvidere. There, he hopes he can bury his past for a while, or at least stop remembering his mistakes every day of his life.

These four people from two different times get caught in a time portal that catapults them backwards into the year 1880 and into the French village of Reynier, where respectable citizens are forced to live among troglodyte cave dwellers, gypsies, and at least one murderer. Somehow, they must figure out a way to fit in until they can find a way back home.

Reflections in the Dark is a romantic time travel mystery about love, fear, regrets, trust, and redemption. It’s the first in a new series, but the settings will be familiar to readers of Ms. Finlay’s Outsiders series and her Chambre Noir series.

The Secret Town:

Steve and Claire Jensen, a frightened couple who ran away from the Witness Protection Program, are desperate to protect their young children from the bad men targeting the family and the government officials who want to force them to testify despite the danger. Unexpectedly, the couple gets the offer of a lifetime—refuge in a ‘secret’ town that is off-the-grid and free of government control. The town takes care of its own; the only requirement is that all healthy adults, except caregivers, work in the town. Soon after they arrive, the family can’t believe their good-fortune. The idyllic town nestled in a wooded canyon offers peace and quiet and a small bustling community. But they discover that no place is perfect—government or not, there’s always someone in charge. After weeks there, Claire begins to notice peculiarities. What is it about this place that gives her goosebumps? Is there a bigger secret than the town’s location, or is she paranoid because of the nightmares she’s endured? When Steve begins to notice, too, they don’t know if they’re both over-reacting, worried over nothing, or if there’s a hidden agenda to the ‘secret’ town.

Bloodlines and Barbed Wire:

Lucas Landry receives an email from a teenager, Mikayla Carson, who thinks her legal guardian and great-grandmother, Elisabeth Hoffman, is related to his great-grandfather, Franz Nagel. She’s not certain, because Elisabeth suffers from dementia. Mikayla wants Lucas to help her find out more about her family’s past.

As a genealogist, Lucas is eager to untangle the family roots. He travels to Arizona to meet Mikayla, her younger brother, and Elisabeth, and begins reading old Nagel-family diaries, but his eagerness dampens when he discovers Nazis in their bloodline. Further complicating the task, he can’t even figure out how Elisabeth is related to those Nagels, and she can’t explain, either; her mind is a jumbled mess and her answers to his questions are unreliable.

He returns home, ready to give up until two events pull him back in—his discovery of an old newspaper clipping about the war-time murder of one of the Nagels, and Mikayla’s frantic call about the danger of her family being torn apart unless a family member steps in and helps.

Against his wife’s wishes, Lucas returns to Arizona and delves deeper into the WWII diaries, learning about a Lebensborn home, a Polish concentration camp, and the tragic lives of three Nagel teens; their father’s young mistress; and two nieces. But will those diaries tell what he really needs to know and empower him to help Elisabeth and her great-grandchildren?

Not Expecting This:






Breadcrumbs and Bombs:




Lucas is determined to assemble these breadcrumbs, find out how their stories intertwine, and reveal his ancestry. Will what he learns make him feel better about himself and his family, or worse? Breadcrumbs and Bombs is about secrets, lies, prejudice, betrayal, guilt, love, genealogy, and what it means to be a family.


Breadcrumbs and Bombs (Tangled Roots Book 1) by [Finlay, Susan]Breadcrumbs and Bombs
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Also by Susan Finlay on Amazon

In the Shadows (The Outsiders Book 1) by [Finlay, Susan]In the Shadows (The Outsiders Book 1)

In the Shadows is a story of trust, belonging, and murder. It’s the first book in a mystery and suspense series.


Where Secrets Reside (The Outsiders Book 2)Where Secrets Reside (The Outsiders Book 2) by [Finlay, Susan]

In Reynier, France, a sleepy hillside village peppered with ancient picturesque troglodyte cave dwellings, the locals value their privacy and their quiet life. Few tourists know it exits, which suits the locals just fine.
One day, after a torrential storm, a townswoman happens across a terrified soaked toddler sitting alone in the woods. She brings the toddler into town, but no one recognizes the child. Suspecting the child’s parents—rare tourists perhaps—must be lost or in trouble nearby, the locals organize a search party to find them. Their search leads instead to the discovery of a murder victim, another stranger, in one of the caves. As the investigation gets underway, the situation heats up. The residents of this once peaceful close-knit village find themselves terrorized by a possible serial killer. Facing their own mortality, they wonder whether the killer is an outsider, or one of their own? And who will be the next victim?
Captain Pascal Goddard of the local Gendarmerie has his hands full; he must solve the biggest murder case the region has ever seen. The residents will not let him rest until he uncovers the killer’s identity, putting a stop to the killing so a frantic village can return to normal. But as the list of suspects grows, some begin to worry that past history will paint them as guilty even if they are not; at least not of murder.

Winter Tears (The Outsiders Book 3) by [Finlay, Susan]Winter Tears (The Outsiders Book 3)

Gendarme captain Pascal Goddard looks forward to taking a break from work to focus his attention on his wife Chantal and the birth of their first child. Two weeks before their baby’s due date, a couple who recently moved into a troglo in the nearby village of Reynier, France, report their baby missing. When Chantal finds out, worried for the safety of their unborn baby and for the missing baby, she begs her husband to find the child. Hours later, the unexpected happens to Chantal.
Torn between sitting at Chantal’s bedside and praying for a miracle or doing his job and fulfilling what may be her last wish, Goddard must decide soon; the missing baby, if abandoned out on the snowy hillside or left in Reynier’s labyrinthine cave system, won’t survive for long.
He brings in the Gendarmerie’s canine unit and personally interviews the short list of suspects, including the baby’s parents and her five-year-old brother. With few leads, and severe weather threatening to impede the investigation, Goddard is anxious. And then, three more people—including the baby’s brother whom Goddard has become fond of—disappear. Now Goddard puts his own life in danger to find them all.

The Forgotten Tomb (The Outsiders Book 4)The Forgotten Tomb (The Outsiders Book 4) by [Finlay, Susan]


The Outsiders series is also available as a four book box set

Liars' Games (Project Chameleon Book 1) by [Finlay, Susan]Liars’ Games (Project Chameleon Book 1)


The Handyman (Chambre Noir Book 1)The Handyman (Chambre Noir Book 1) by [Finlay, Susan]

When he stumbles across human remains on Paulette’s property, the secrets she had hoped would die with her come to the surface. A decades old murder filled with lies, love, and twists draw Joshua into the investigation. But the deeper he goes, the more nothing is as it appears.
The Handyman is the first book in a new women’s fiction/mystery, thriller and suspense series.

Inherit the Past (The Bavarian Woods Book 1) by [Finlay, Susan]Inherit the Past (The Bavarian Woods Book 1)

Inherit the Past is a story of family, love/relationships, guilt, and redemption. It’s the first book in a time travel historical mystery series. The second book is already out, and it’s ‘Tanglewood Grotto’. The third book is in the works.

Tanglewood Grotto (The Bavarian Woods Book 2)Tanglewood Grotto (The Bavarian Woods Book 2) by [Finlay, Susan]

Buried lies and tangled secrets threaten the lives of two time traveling families in the sequel to Inherit the Past. Seventy-six-year-old Lotte Furst doesn’t know who she can trust. Her time traveling brother (the only person who can operate time portals) was supposed to send her back home—to 2009—but he double-crossed her. She only got partially back. Within days, she was again in 1789 Bavaria, stuck and in grave danger.
And why? Before her failed attempt to get home, she had written a letter confessing to a murder she didn’t commit. The letter was meant to help fellow time traveler, Karl Kimmel, and atone Lotte’s past mistakes. It shouldn’t have affected her future, since she was supposed to be out of harm’s way. Now that her good deed has backfired, Lotte is on the run and hiding in a grotto like an animal because, if caught by the Bavarian Feldgendarms, she’ll go to prison. Her only hope is to find her wily brother and persuade him to send her back where she belongs.
Karl knows where her brother is and Karl owes her. Trouble is, Karl lives in a big town where danger of capture looms. Plus, he has a granddaughter who wants to see Lotte caught and brought to justice. Lotte’s visit with Karl sets off an explosive chain reaction affecting everyone she knows in the past—including estranged family members she originally time traveled with four months ago. People go missing. People die. And secrets get spilled.
Tanglewood Grotto is the second book in a time travel historical romance series. The first book is ‘Inherit the Past’. The third book is in the works.