An easy read but lacking in depth.
A fashion intern overhears a shocking secret about her employer, with disastrous consequences for all.
Things are looking up for Brandi Maxwell; an intern at her favorite New York City fashion company, she has a professional-athlete boyfriend, Nate, who loves her, and she lives rent-free in their nice one-bedroom apartment. It's a far cry from growing up an orphan in foster care. Brandi is ambitious and unwavering in the pursuit of her goals, and when her internship is threatened, she gets herself invited to a charity ball at the home of her employer, Simon Van Doren, so she can pitch herself as the perfect employee to take on an important trip to Milan. Their meeting goes well, but her luck comes to a screeching halt when she overhears Simon's daughter, Taylor, a famous model and influencer, plotting to kill her father so she can inherit his fortune before he marries his much-younger fiancee. Taylor is still reeling from her mother's death and has developed various addictions she can't refrain from long enough to pass a drug test and regain access to her trust fund. She also has eyes for Nate, whom she dated in high school and is still in love with. After she figures out, a little too easily, that Brandi overheard her plotting to kill her own father, she gets Brandi fired from her internship and goes about trying first to bribe her, then to destroy her life. This is where the plot becomes hard to believe; despite knowing that a stranger who dislikes her is now aware of the plan, Taylor plots her father's murder anyway—and not very carefully, either. Switching the point of view between Brandi and Taylor destroys any remaining tension, because the reader is always steps ahead of the characters, most of whom are riddled with clichés. Simon, who only shows up to yell at Taylor, ignore her, or ogle his new fiancee, barely feels like a person. Taylor is shallow and greedy, and her decisions make her appear frustratingly stupid; at the same time, she thinks she's outsmarting everyone merely by talking her way out of things. The fact that other characters often believe her makes them seem to lack intelligence, too. Though a bit too naïve, Brandi is the most interesting character, and her relationship with Nate is the best part of the book.
An easy read but lacking in depth.Pub Date: Dec. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-525-89996-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Graydon House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.
Two killers are on the loose. Can they be stopped?
In this ambitious mystery, the prolific and popular King tells the story of a serial murderer who pledges, in a note to Buckeye City police, to kill “13 innocents and 1 guilty,” in order, we eventually learn, to avenge the death of a man who was framed and convicted for possession of child pornography and then killed in prison. At the same time, the author weaves in the efforts of another would-be murderer, a member of a violently abortion-opposing church who has been stalking a popular feminist author and women’s rights activist on a publicity tour. To tell these twin tales of murders done and intended, King summons some familiar characters, including private investigator Holly Gibney, whom readers may recall from previous novels. Gibney is enlisted to help Buckeye City police detective Izzy Jaynes try to identify and stop the serial killer, who has been murdering random unlucky citizens with chilling efficiency. She’s also been hired as a bodyguard for author and activist Kate McKay and her young assistant. The author succeeds in grabbing the reader’s interest and holding it throughout this page-turning tale of terror, which reads like a big-screen thriller. The action is well paced, the settings are vividly drawn, and King’s choice to focus on the real and deadly dangers of extremist thought is admirable. But the book is hamstrung by cliched characters, hackneyed dialogue (both spoken and internal), and motives that feel both convoluted and overly simplistic. King shines brightest when he gets to the heart of our darkest fears and desires, but here the dangers seem a bit cerebral. In his warning letter to the police, the serial killer wonders if his cryptic rationale to murder will make sense to others, concluding, “It does to me, and that is enough.” Is it enough? In another writer’s work, it might not be, but in King’s skilled hands, it probably is.
Even when King is not at his best, he’s still good.Pub Date: May 27, 2025
ISBN: 9781668089330
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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