The Kinship Lie: A Forensic Genealogy Mystery. The Bloodline Files Trilogy, #2

When a woman dies at the bottom of her cellar stairs, everyone calls it a tragic accident. Everyone except forensic genealogist Ashley Burns. One impossible detail tells Ashley the scene doesn't fit the official story. Then she uncovers something even more unsettling: just weeks before her death, the victim had ordered a DNA test, begun questioning her own birth, and started searching for answers someone clearly didn't want her to find.
As Ashley follows the trail through forgotten family records, hidden birth certificates, and generations of carefully protected secrets, she discovers that the victim's entire identity was built on a lie. Every answer reveals another deception stretching back decades, exposing a web of concealed parentage, quiet betrayals, and powerful people determined to keep the past buried. In a county where everyone knows everyone-and where some secrets have been protected for generations-the truth carries a deadly price.
The deeper Ashley digs, the more she realizes this investigation isn't simply about solving a suspicious death. It's about uncovering an invisible network that has quietly shaped families, rewritten histories, and erased lives. Worse still, the questions she's asking about the victim begin to echo questions she's spent her own life avoiding. Now Ashley must decide how far she's willing to go in pursuit of the truth, because someone has already killed once to keep these secrets hidden.
And they're watching her next. The Kinship Lie is the gripping second novel in the Ashley Burns Mystery Trilogy-a compelling mystery filled with hidden identities, family secrets, forensic genealogy, and twists that will keep you turning pages until the final revelation leaves you eager for the trilogy's unforgettable conclusion.