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Sara's Game: An absolutely addictive psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist (The Sara Winthrop Thriller Series Book 1) Kindle Edition

4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 9,268 ratings

As her world shatters, the game is only beginning.

Two years after Sara's husband disappeared without a trace,
her life takes a darker turn: her three children vanish from school, leaving behind nothing but an ominous, cryptic note under her windshield—Are you ready to play the game?

Dive into a heart-pounding journey in Sara's Game: A Psychological Thriller, a USA Today bestseller that has captivated over half a million readers worldwide. Discover the depths of a mother's resolve in this chilling, suspense-filled psychological thriller.

Grab your copy today and join Sara in a game where the stakes are life itself.

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More like Sara's Game: An absolutely addictive psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist (The Sara Winthrop Thriller Series Book 1)
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Reviews from Amazon readers:

★★★★★ "This captivating thriller was impossible for me to put down."

★★★★★ "A fast-paced, psychological thriller that had me sitting on the edge of my seat. I enjoyed every word and am looking forward to reading the next two books in the series."

★★★★★ "This kept me revved up and going through chapter after chapter."

★★★★★ "I could never guess what the next step would be. That, of course, makes the best sort of thriller."

★★★★★ "If you love thrillers with a lot of twists, turns, and suspense I recommend reading this book."

★★★★★ "Sara Winthrop is a momma bear on a mission."

★★★★★ "Edge of your seat thriller! Don't stop with this one!"

★★★★★ "A generous mix of whodunit suspense and humor combined to make this one of the best books I have read all year."

★★★★★ "Great characters, good plot, amazing story line. Really interesting. I think if you like mystery thrillers, you will love it."

★★★★★ "This kind of book leaves me starved for oxygen."

From the Author

Reader Note: *All of Lindsey's titles are currently available as Kindle Unlimited free books.

An Interview with Author Ernie Lindsey


1. What got you started with the Sara Winthrop Psychological Thriller Series?

I write as if I'm reading the story as I go, so I create the type of fiction that I'm drawn to. Some of the best psychological thrillers have influenced my work recently, like
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.

Those two are absolutely masterful, and I feel like I should use them as study guides.

2. Sara's Game has been downloaded over half a million times worldwide, and all of your titles together have been downloaded nearly 1.1 million times. How has the success of Sara's Game changed your writing career?

Having
Sara's Game see so much success (particularly when it reached #2 on the Kindle books best sellers list) has literally made my career what it is today. I couldn't be more thankful to Amazon for recognizing its potential and featuring it on a number of occasions.

The access to so many readers, fans, and new friends has given me the opportunity to write Amazon books full time and I wouldn't be where I am today without my readers. I'll be forever grateful.

3. You write a lot of suspense, mystery, and thriller novels. What are some of the top qualities you look for in other Amazon books?

That sense of urgency that keeps you flipping the pages long after you should've gone to bed. It's what I look for in the fiction that I read, and I absolutely try to instill that in my work.

When I first began reading suspense thriller books, I cut my teeth on Dean Koontz, and for clever mysteries, it was Elmore Leonard. Two of my heroes.

4. Are the titles in this thriller series chronological and what should readers expect?

Well, if a reader is looking for good psychological thriller books,
Sara's Game is a nice place to start, especially now that they're a part of the Kindle Unlimited free books program. (The author says, sheepishly.) With the Sara novels, readers should expect a fast-paced, heart-pounding journey throughout the whole series, and they are chronological, actually.

They do work as standalone novels, but they're best read in order so that you won't miss important details from earlier parts of the story.

So, the thriller series should be read like this:
Sara's Game, Sara's Past, Sara's Fear, and then the companion novella, One More Game, which comes later and features a different main character than Sara herself.

5. What are some of the themes, ideas, and categories that new readers can look for in Sara's Game?

Ultimately, as one reviewer suggests, this is a novel that asks, "How far will one mother go for her children?"

It falls in line with James Patterson's suspense kidnapping books; it's part psychological thriller, part puzzle, part game, and readers are encouraged to solve the clues along with Sara.

Additionally, you could say that this would easily fall into book club recommendations, beach reads, and the most suitable categories for mystery, thriller, and suspense.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B009FBK5CI
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ JCL Publishing Psychological Thrillers (March 10, 2014)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 10, 2014
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 811 KB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 263 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 9,268 ratings

About the author

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Ernie Lindsey
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Over 1.1 million copies downloaded worldwide!

USA Today bestselling author Ernie Lindsey grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of southwest Virginia, working on the family farm and reading, and has spent his life telling stories to anyone that will listen.

He is the author of thirteen mystery, psychological thriller, and suspense books, along with numerous novellas and short stories. When he's not writing Kindle books or reading the works of other thriller writers, you can find him chasing, feeding, or cleaning up after his young son. He remembers non-parenting things, but they're flimsy, gauzy mysteries.

Ernie and his family live in Oregon, along with a multi-fingered Hemingway cat named Luna.

Head over to ErnieLindsey.com for more information about his Kindle books and writing career, or join him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ErnieLindseyFiction.

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
9,268 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2014
I received a copy of **Sara's Game** by *Ernie Lindsey* from NoiseTrade.com for which I "tipped the author".

Up until two years ago Sara had a very good life. Then, without any warning, her husband, Brian, vanished from the face of the earth. An extensive search was performed, but no reason for his disappearance ever surfaced. He was simply gone.

He left behind a wife, Sara, and 3 young children, 2 girls and a boy. After two years, Sara managed to put together a life for the children and her, but it is not easy raising three young children by herself and holding down a full time job. However, Sara is nothing if not resourceful. She works in marketing for a company called Lite Pulse which makes computer games. She is very good at her job and has worked her way up in the company at a pretty rapid pace. Of course there are times when she misses her husband and feels frustrated that he has never been found. There are also times she resents his not being there to help with family responsibilities. But over all, Sara has managed to accept what she cannot change and in that frame of mind, she balances her job and her family obligations very well.

That is, until the day that started off like any other day when Sara got to work and received a phone call from her son's school. The children had been playing hide-and-seek, and when they had finished the game, Jacob, Sara's son, was nowhere to be found. No one wanted to panic just yet. It had happened once before when Sara and the children were playing this game at home, and when everyone was ready to stop, Jacob couldn't be found. He had discovered a great hiding place and fell asleep waiting for someone to notice him. He finally turned up when one of his sisters stepped on him. Sara wanted to believe this current incident was just history repeating itself. Until her daughters' school called to say that both her girls were missing. The class had gone to an ice cream shop to celebrate the end of school, but when attendance was taken before returning to the school, neither of the girls was there. Sara immediately left work to go to the schools to straighten all of this out. When she got to her car, she found a note on her windshield that said, "Are You Ready To Play The Game?" This was how Sara was led to the conclusion that her children, all three of them, had been kidnapped.

From that point on, whoever was responsible for abducting the children leads Sara on an exhausting and frustrating journey with clues she has to solve and orders she has to follow if she ever wants to see her children alive again. The first task is designed to humiliate Sara as much as possible. It was hard to imagine what Sara had to be thinking and feeling as she was forced to decide whether she would allow herself to be humiliated in that fashion, and from that point on, the tension builds. It is obvious that the goal of the person who has Sara's children is to punish her severely for something she has done in the past. There is one very obvious person who could be the one behind this scheme, but realistically, it's a stretch to think that this person would go to such lengths and harbor such extreme hatred for Sarah to hatch a plan like this one. However, both Sara and the police detectives on the case agree that the one person they have in mind must be the culprit.

From the time Sara becomes aware her children are missing, the action on this story never lets up; in fact, it only intensifies with each additional chapter or revelation. Lindsey has written a very tense, believable story about testing a woman's endurance and her love for her children far beyond what any mother expects to encounter in raising her children. Fortunately for readers who enjoyed reading about Sara and her family, Lindsey has written two more books featuring these people. I immediately bought both of them. I look forward to reading more from Lindsey in the future. He certainly has a gift for keeping readers on the edge of our seats and delivering first rate storytelling.
11 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2014
The book was still good, but knowing who the villain was long before the end took away a measure of suspense. On the plus side, it was a remarkably quick read with decent dialogue, a likeable character in Sara and an interesting concept what with the protagonist playing for her life in game show fashion by answering riddles correctly if she is to get her children back. While I found myself rooting against the villain along with everyone else, it was hard believing Sara never had a clue as to who was behind it all leaving me wanting for a bit more believability. While I enjoyed the book for the most part much like I do hamburgers, Six Flags, and camping it's just not going to measure up to a steak, Disneyland or a European vacation making it good story to pass the time, but not a great one as to how mysteries generally go.
4 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2018
This captivating thriller was impossible for me to put down. Sara's husband Brian disappeared two years ago, and she has been juggling her three children, her home, and her bills alone, while successfully managing a hectic, stressful marketing job, as well as playing "house mother" to the young game designers at work. But Sara's stress is about to get much worse. Just as she's about to launch a promising new game, she receives an emergency phone call that plunges her into a nightmare. Her three children have been kidnapped, and she must play a deadly "game" at the mercy of a diabolical "voice" on the phone in order to rescue them. What follows is a nail biting roller coaster ride, with multiple twists and turns, that kept me turning the page to find out what happens next. As Sara complies with the kidnapper's demands, she struggles to outwit her tormentors and keep her children alive until she can figure out how to recover them. During the ordeal, the mystery of her husband's disappearance is also revealed. This book will keep you riveted, and guessing, to the very end! (Plus, there's a teaser for the next book in the series!) Thoroughly enjoyed it!
30 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2012
This is a good story made relevant by kidnapped children, electronic gaming, traditional mystery, personal relationships and ideas that stretch across social mores and encourage the reader to explore their own perceptions of social correctness and inter-relatedness of the friends and acquaintances we meet every day.

A decent writing that promises some mind works, the action elements are well developed and reflect details that allow the reader to get a good understanding of each scenario. With the good descriptions and mind-challenging puzzles, the novel will keep the reader's interest. As the story unfolds, the reader will question the realistic potential for the explanations offered, though the logic works. The denoument provides an awkward explanation of the culprit's motivation, and the final twist is somewhat disconcerting when applying all the careful thoughts that led up to to that final point--asking the reader to believe that the characters who used careful critical thinking skills and performed with experienced skill and honed intuition would behave in such an uncharacteristic manner in order to achieve that twist is a bit discrepant and unbelievable; however, that twist would seem to be consistent with the author's idea of marketable relevance.

A decent book with a good action-filled plot, this book is recommended for those interested in the way the mind works when challenged with pushing the boundaries of traditional social constructs--as well as for readers wanting to challenge the mind with logic puzzles.
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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mags
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 18, 2024
Couldn't stop reading not even to make a cuppa
Eventually had to take a break to grab something to eat
Thought I guessed the outcome but got that wrong sad it's all finished.
What's next.
Sweets
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastisch plot
Reviewed in Germany on April 29, 2021
I couldnt stop reading.A very fast pace,which keeps you reading,because One NEEDS Tod know .This Thriller eats you Up.........try it
Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars OUTSTANDING!
Reviewed in India on March 3, 2018
Excellent! Very well written. Keeps you glued till the end. You almost guess who the culprit is, but of course, the twist at the end pops its head! Little hasty at times, but then again, it's just the authors style. I seriously recommend this book to everyone. Cant wait to read the next books in the series! LOVED IT...!
Kindle Customer t s
5.0 out of 5 stars Good read
Reviewed in France on March 18, 2018
I gave it 5 stars because the story is written well, I enjoyed reading it and yes it was a page turner, I read it very quickly, and will choose another book by the same author
One person found this helpful
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Melyssa Curtis
5.0 out of 5 stars This Blew Me Away!
Reviewed in Canada on September 13, 2014
The story blew me away!
This is my first encounter with an Ernie Lindsay book but after what I just spent the last few days reading, I can assure you it won’t be my last.
Sara’s Game was the exact type of book I’ve been looking to read. It is the type of book that engages you on the very first page and does not let up until the very end. It’s a thriller, one that keeps you on the edge of your seat, which appealed to me on multiple levels, but what jumped out even more was how real this story seemed.
This could very well be every parent’s worst nightmare, the way things happen in the story and I was determined not to put it down at times because I had to know if the nightmare resolved itself and things turned out okay.
I wanted a happy ending the way I do with most books I read, but more so in this case because no parent should ever be without their child yet so many do daily because of the very real act of kidnapping.
I can safely say that I enjoyed all of the twists and turns and even enjoyed having my theories proven wrong as to who the person behind the madness really was.
My hat’s off to Mr. Lindsey. He created one hell of a world with characters such as DJ and Sara who I couldn’t help rooting for the entire time. I even found myself enjoying the dynamics of the bad guys, that’s how enticing the author made this book.
Very well done. Mystery, Intrigue, a real life issue spun in a very unique way and one that keeps you on the edge of your seat. What more could you want from a story?
If I could I would give this more than 5*.
6 people found this helpful
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