About J.A. Baker :
J. A. Baker was born and brought up in the North East of England and Undercurrent was her debut novel, making it into the Top 100 on Amazon. She has an MA in Education & Applied Linguistics and works in a local primary school.
Mystery Thriller Books by J.A. Baker Include :
The Uninvited – A fragile woman. An unwelcome intruder. A house full of secrets
Faye and her husband Hugh have had a traumatic year. Wanting to start again, the couple decides to buy a large rundown property, Cross House in a village in North Yorkshire, hoping to leave the past behind them.
However, the tranquillity is soon ruined when Faye begins to awake, every night, to the sound of somebody creeping around the bedroom. She tries to explain it to Hugh, frightened for the safety of their children Aiden and Poppy, but Hugh dismisses her claims, thinking she is heading for another breakdown.
But when Faye discovers some diaries that contain secrets about the family that lived in the house before them, she starts to wonder if the intruder might be closer to home than she first thought.
Obsessed with finding answers, Faye is determined to learn about the Wentworth family, a fractured family with a tragic past.
And when she discovers that Hilary Wentworth fell to her death down the stairs in Cross House, Faye realises she is in mortal danger…The Cleansing – A village shrouded in mystery. Secrets buried deep…
When Ray moves to a new house in the village of Whitchurch, he leaves behind a relationship and a luxury apartment in search of a better life in the countryside.
However, he soon realises that sleepy Whitchurch also has its own fair share of problems. Last year, a woman’s body was discovered in the woods nearby. The killer was never caught.
Soon suspicious things start to happen. Threatening letters are sent, cars are vandalised and headstones are desecrated. But who is responsible for these acts and why?
As the tension in the village builds, Ray begins to feel the pressure. Someone is out to cause trouble and that someone might be closer to Ray than he ever imagined.The Woman at Number 19 – Esther lost her husband, Julian, and her children, Harriet and Dexter, in a car accident and is struggling with her grief.
Spurred on by her own loneliness and a need to make amends for not being able to save her own children, Esther takes it upon herself to watch the woman who lives at number 19.
But when unexplainable incidents begin to happen in Esther’s house, she begins to fear for her safety.
Meanwhile, over at number 19, the woman’s behaviour is becoming more explosive and unpredictable.
As Esther starts to lose her grip on reality, her world begins to unravel.
Just who is this strange woman at number 19?
And why is Esther so obsessed with her?The Girl I Used To Be – Can you ever escape the past?
Stella is a teacher in a secondary school in the village of West Compton, North Yorkshire. She and her partner Wade appear to have the perfect life, but after receiving a series of threatening letters, her life takes a sinister turn.
Stella is forced to examine her past to find out who is behind the letters. All evidence points to a man with whom she had a one-night stand.
Deciding to confront him, Stella soon discovers he is not the one responsible and must delve deeper into her past.
After a visit to her estranged alcoholic mother, Stella is forced to look even closer to home.
Meanwhile, the threats escalate.
But who is behind the campaign of hate and why?
Stella is about to find out…In The Dying Minutes – Everyone has their secrets, some are more deadly than others.
What is she running away from?
When Leah is involved in a train crash, she goes to a therapist, Will. He attempts to help her through the trauma but whenever Leah is in his presence, strange things occur. She suffers from hallucinations that include visions of her dead brother, Ellis.
As Leah reveals to Will that her friends Jacob and Chloe wronged her, further flashbacks of her childhood and parts of her life she would sooner forget begin to surface, troubling Leah even more.
But what is actually bothering her and what led Leah to be on that train?
Nothing is as it seems, and soon she will learn the heart-breaking truth…Looking For Leo – One missing boy. Four possible suspects.
When young Leo disappears after leaving school, it sets a chain of events in motion that will change the lives of the residents of a quiet Yorkshire village forever.
Ashton returns home many years after committing a heinous crime as a child, and starts to teach an art class. Lynda, a stern secondary school teacher who unwillingly gave evidence against him, recognises her tutor as the troubled boy from all those years ago, bringing him the unwelcome attention he fears.
When Sarah, a bored housewife, hears about Ashton’s return, she convinces herself he is responsible for Leo’s disappearance and reports him to the police.
Terrified, the boy remains locked in a soundproof room, growing ever more scared of his unpredictable captor.
But just who took Leo and why?
And will he be found before it’s too late?The Face of Clara Morgan – People don’t just disappear…
What happens when the past and the present collide?
Dominic Rose, a bachelor and teacher, has an antiquated hobby. He studies physiognomy, the art of judging somebody’s character by their facial features and expressions. Living in a cottage at the edge of the woods with his frail, bedridden mother, he has spent decades pining after Clara, the love of his life, who vanished while staying with her grandparents.
When Kate Winston and her family move to North Yorkshire, it sets in motion a chain of events that will alter the lives of those involved forever.
Kate’s son, Alexander, makes friends with Dane, a local boy who has a reputation for being difficult. Soon Alexander is being led astray. Then they turn their attentions to their fragile teacher Dominic.
The boys are going to learn that actions have consequences…The Midnight Child – A long-ago trauma and a family mystery may shed light on her troubled sleep—or pull her into the darkness once and for all . . .
As a child, Grace Cooper suffered from bouts of sleepwalking. Now, after the unexpected death of her husband, she’s moved back to Woodburn Cottage, her childhood home—and the sleepwalking returns. It’s all stirring up dark memories—memories that involve the disappearance of her brother Simon, who vanished one night when he was a child, and the death of her father, who fell from an upstairs window.
With her mother in a care home with dementia and her sister living in a nearby village, Grace tries to settle in—but with the passage of time, the sleepwalking only becomes more regular and the blurred memories of the past only become more disturbing. Spurred on by these hazy dreamlike recollections, Grace becomes determined to find out what happened to Simon that fateful night. But digging up the past isn’t always a good idea, because you never know what skeletons you might unearth . . .Here Lies Alice – Ever since Sophia Saunders was murdered, her husband, Peter, and daughter, Lauren, have been trying to rebuild their lives. Desperate to fill the emotional void, Peter becomes involved with a woman from his grief support group. But as his relationship with Alice progresses, Lauren becomes unsettled. Why can’t she find any trace of Alice online? Who is she, really, and what does she want?
Lauren is right to be suspicious. But the deeper her investigation of Alice goes, the greater the danger grows . . .
