This crafty storyline hooks you from the start. All you need to do is hang on for a wild ride.
A troubled marriage undergoes a stringent series of tests in the boondocks, dislodging secrets and upending expectations, including those of the reader, in this wry, sly chiller.
Craig and Daisy have been married for two years and, on the surface anyway, are living the dream: a Brooklyn home, steady work in the creative sector, and enough income to leave the city for a weeklong anniversary getaway in upstate New York, organized by Daisy as a surprise for Craig. But the title of this wickedly inventive, briskly paced psychological thriller is enough to suggest trouble in paradise. Sure enough, Craig has been planning to slink away the day after their anniversary for a separate getaway to Cabo San Lucas with his mistress, Lilith. The “Eden Test” is also the name of a series of questions waiting in the cabin, to be posed from one partner to another over the course of seven days, to test the strength of their marriage. The first question is “Would you change for me?” (As you can probably guess, they get harder each day.) Craig is, to say the least, not amused that Daisy has dropped this game on him, and at first, he’s even more determined to leave for Mexico. Eventually, Craig decides to stay after all just as things around the couple, notably the people living in the town nearest the cabin, get weirder. Some of the locals use the portmanteau citiots to characterize “city idiots” from Gotham like Craig and Daisy. Some pop into their space unexpectedly, including a hunter wearing a blaze orange cap whose “arms and shirt are smeared with slick and shiny blood.” Even the therapist couple who came up with the test questions show up, as does a mysterious “protector” named Shep who turns out to be somehow connected to one of the secrets Daisy’s been keeping. In darkly funny domestic gothics like this, false leads, red herrings, and jolting change-ups are part of the narrative decor. And Sternbergh—author of The Blinds (2017), etc.—shows he’s gotten even better at evoking bizarre behavior in seemingly normal environs and keeping his readers in the dark just long enough to make them jump when the lights, so to speak, come up.
This crafty storyline hooks you from the start. All you need to do is hang on for a wild ride.Pub Date: April 25, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-85566-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
Maybe not the most thrilling thriller, but the role of AI in coping with grief gives this novel pathos and interest.
A widowed and disgraced plastic surgeon is drawn into a Russian oligarch’s evil schemes.
Witherspoon’s adult fiction debut, co-authored with thrillermeister Coben, opens as heart surgery performed by Dr. Marc Adams in a North African refugee camp is interrupted by the explosive invasion of armed militants. It's the last we will see of Marc in this dimension. The next chapter jumps ahead one year to a ceremony at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore where his widow, Maggie McCabe, is supposed to be presenting an award in honor of her mother. Miserable and anxious about appearing in public after having lost her medical license, she consults with her late husband on her phone—not via supernatural means, but using a "griefbot," an amazingly lifelike and functional AI app created by her genius sister, Sharon. Once the griefbot coaxes her to brave the sneering masses, she learns she’s been replaced on the podium anyway. But she runs into a former professor, a celebrity plastic surgeon, who requests a meeting with her at his office in New York and won’t take no for an answer. Next thing she knows, there’s $10 million in her bank account and she’s on a private plane heading to a palace outside Moscow where she’s been engaged to perform off-the-record surgery on billionaire Oleg Ragoravich (new face) and his girlfriend, Nadia (new boobs). And…we’re off. A whirl of surgeries, chases, and escapes ensues as Maggie gradually comes to understand who these people are and what they have in mind for her, and how it connects to Marc and their missing friend and business partner, Trace Packer. She is aided by her delightful father-in-law, Porkchop, owner of a biker bar in New York City and a very handy guy to have on your team if you've run afoul of an international criminal organization. From the palace in Rublevka the action moves to Dubai and then Bordeaux, climaxing in a high-stakes illegal heart transplant. But wait—is Marc really dead? What happened to Trace? Who is Nadia really? Though these smoldering questions don’t quite catch fire, it's a good first try for Witherspoon.
Maybe not the most thrilling thriller, but the role of AI in coping with grief gives this novel pathos and interest.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781538774700
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A grim yet gleefully gratifying tale of lost innocence and found family.
A woman fears she made a fatal mistake by taking in a blood-soaked tween during a storm.
High winds and torrential rain are forecast for “The Middle of Nowhere, New Hampshire,” making Casey question the structural integrity of her ramshackle rental cabin. Still, she’s loath to seek shelter with her lecherous landlord or her paternalistic neighbor, so instead she just crosses her fingers, gathers some candles, and hopes for the best. Casey is cooking dinner when she notices a light in her shed. She grabs her gun and investigates, only to find a rail-thin girl hiding in the corner under a blanket. She’s clutching a knife with “Eleanor” written on the handle in black marker, and though her clothes are bloody, she appears uninjured. The weather is rapidly worsening, so before she can second-guess herself, former Boston-area teacher Casey invites the girl—whom she judges to be 12 or 13—inside to eat and get warm. A wary but starving Eleanor accepts in exchange for Casey promising not to call the police—a deal Casey comes to regret after the phones go down, the power goes out, and her hostile, sullen guest drops something that’s a big surprise. Meanwhile, in interspersed chapters labeled “Before,” middle-schooler Ella befriends fellow outcast Anton, who helps her endure life in Medford, Massachusetts, with her abusive, neglectful hoarder of a mother. As per her usual, McFadden lulls readers using a seemingly straightforward thriller setup before launching headlong into a series of progressively seismic (and increasingly bonkers) plot twists. The visceral first-person, present-tense narrative alternates perspectives, fostering tension and immediacy while establishing character and engendering empathy. Ella and Anton’s relationship particularly shines, its heartrending authenticity counterbalancing some of the story’s soapier turns.
A grim yet gleefully gratifying tale of lost innocence and found family.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781464260919
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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