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
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.
A frustrated advice columnist takes matters into her own hands.
Before dropping out of MIT during the second semester of her sophomore year, Debbie Mullen had designs on becoming the next Bill Gates. Now, almost 30 years later, the stay-at-home wife and mother of two uses her considerable genius to keep the Mullens’ Hingham, Massachusetts, household functioning “like a well-oiled machine.” In her spare time, Debbie also gardens and shares “the fruits of [her] wisdom” with neighbors via the weekly advice column she writes for Hingham Household, a local “family-oriented” newspaper. Though Debbie is proud of her husband and teen daughters’ accomplishments, her own life sometimes feels a bit empty. As such, she’s both honored and excited when Home Gardening magazine selects her backyard to feature in their next issue. Then, at the last minute, the publication decides to go in a different direction and instead spotlights the roses of her arch rival. Later that day, the editor-in-chief of Hingham Household axes her column because she’d counseled a reader to get a divorce. That evening, Debbie learns that her hard-working husband’s miserly boss refused his promotion request, her brilliant older daughter’s sketchy boyfriend broke her heart, and her athletically gifted younger daughter’s chauvinistic coach cut her from the soccer team for being “chubby.” Enough is enough. Debbie has always given great advice—everybody says so. If certain individuals don’t know what’s best for themselves, maybe it’s her obligation to help them see the light. Increasingly unhinged entries from a “Dear Debbie” drafts folder pepper the briskly paced, meticulously crafted tale, which unfolds courtesy of a pinwheeling first-person narrative. Some of the plot’s myriad twists are more impressive than others, but plucky, puckish Debbie is a nontraditional antihero for the ages.
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249624
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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