Well paced and creepy—especially if you’re alone in the house while you read.
A TikTok trend threatens a family’s sense of safety—and may be connected to a previous crime.
Most people are probably familiar with this urban legend: a babysitter receives creepy, threatening phone calls and later finds out they’re coming from inside the house. Mara offers a more complex, grown-up version of that legend here, updated to include TikTok and hidden cameras, but the sense of dread is similar: What would you do if someone seemed to be filming themselves inside your house? Julia has recently relocated with her family from California to Ireland to return to her roots and escape an unsavory incident involving her teenage daughter, Isla. She and her ex-husband, Gabe, are divorced but share custody and living space with the two kids in a luxurious gated community; when an anonymous user starts posting videos on TikTok that seem to show the inside of their house, Julia is spooked but figures it’s probably a really good fake. She’s got a lot on her mind, from Gabe’s secretive behavior to Isla’s teenage drama to the memories raised by her return. She and her three best friends grew up in this town, and it’s also where one of them, Donna, died tragically nearly 20 years ago. When another friend dies of what seems to be an accidental drowning just after Julia’s arrival in Ireland, Julia and her one remaining friend, Eleanor, are forced to confront the pain of the past as they look for clues to who is posting the increasingly alarming videos. Are the neighbors who they say they are? What happened to Donna’s socially awkward brother? Is Julia’s son telling the truth when he says there’s a man watching him at night? Mara skillfully layers red herrings and discoveries at a satisfying pace, sprinkled with a few flashbacks that lend even more insight into Julia as a tough and resilient character. The ending rushes a bit, offering a few too many neat bows to tie up all the threads, but it’s a minor complaint.
Well paced and creepy—especially if you’re alone in the house while you read.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593831434
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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