A well-manufactured but shallow tale.
A con woman goes up against an aristocratic family in this twisty tale of Victorian London.
Quinn Le Blanc is the current Queen of Fives, reigning over the underworld from a “humble old house in Spitalfields” known as the Château. At 26, she has her eye on a new mark and is planning the ultimate con, to be carried out in five steps over five days as all proper Château cons must. The target is the Duke of Kendal, who’s about to have a 30th-birthday ball. But the Kendal family rarely goes out in society, their money so old and entrenched they don’t need to parade it around, and Mr. Silk, Quinn’s right-hand man, is wary. As Quinn sets the wheels in motion, things don’t go as smoothly as she’d hoped: The Kendals have their own secrets and a troublemaker is waiting in the shadows to wreak havoc on the whole Château. Quinn has five days to pull it off, if she can survive until then. Hay has created a specific, detailed world for his characters to inhabit, a veneer of Victorian London with the intricate rituals of the Château layered underneath. Everyone is a potential agent (or double agent), and there’s a trick up everyone’s sleeve. This leads to a twisty-turny plot, with different chapters told from the perspectives of different characters—including Quinn, Mr. Silk, the duke, and his sister—with secrets unraveling with each turn of the page. Unfortunately, however, the story jumps around so much that it’s hard for a reader to get a real insight into the characters and why they’re doing what they’re doing. The story is well constructed and the final payoff is impressive, but the book feels something like one of Quinn’s cons: full of flash and dazzle to distract from a lack of depth.
A well-manufactured but shallow tale.Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9781525809859
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Graydon House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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