This enthralling book is a mystery, a thriller, and an exploration of how trust—or the lack of it—can color relationships.
Having just moved to London with her partner, a woman seeks to discover the truth behind the murder/suicide of her home's previous occupants.
Alice is a 35-year-old freelance translator who has recently uprooted herself from her cottage in Harlestone and moved to London to live full time with Leo, her long-distance partner of a year and half. They were previously able to see each other only on weekends, and this move is supposed to be the start of the rest of their lives. Upon moving into The Circle—as their gated cul-de-sac of 12 houses is called—things just seem a little off, and Leo doesn’t want Alice getting involved with the neighbors or inviting them over. But invite them she does, and Maria and Tim, Tamsin and Connor, Eve and Will, and Cara and Paul all accept her invitation on the neighborhood group chat to join her and Leo for drinks in their garden. But when Alice discovers that an uninvited guest—a man she'd thought was Tim—has shown up and then disappeared without anyone else seeing him, her hackles are raised. And then she discovers that her home's previous occupant—Nina, a therapist with the same name as her own beloved dead sister—was brutally murdered in the house and that Nina’s husband, Oliver, killed himself when he was arrested for the crime. Alice is determined to get to the bottom of the murder and discover just what her neighbors in The Circle are hiding. Author Paris has done a masterful job of upping the creep factor in this volume, hinting at the secrets that everyone is hiding and peeling back, layer by layer, the story of what happened to Nina and Oliver as Alice goes through her day-to-day life and struggles to make new friends and deal with her suspicions. As in her other books, Paris has created complex, flawed characters who grapple with death, obsessions, and fear as they try to live their lives.
This enthralling book is a mystery, a thriller, and an exploration of how trust—or the lack of it—can color relationships.Pub Date: July 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-2502-7412-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
A feisty storm of Greek tragedy headlined by three very modern women.
On the isle of Capri, Helen Lingate seeks revenge on the people responsible for her mother’s death 30 years earlier—her own family.
When Sarah Lingate fell to her death on Capri in 1992, she left behind a 3-year-old daughter, Helen, and a legacy as a gifted playwright; her favorite necklace of golden snakes was lost to the sea. Thirty years later, Helen, chafing at the restrictions she’s grown up under as a member of the old-money Lingate family, hatches a plan with her uncle Marcus’ assistant, Lorna Moreno, to blackmail her uncle and her father with that same necklace, which mysteriously entered her possession a few months before. The novel begins on Capri just after Lorna disappears, and then traces her steps from 36 hours earlier. Interweaving chapters from the points of view of Helen, Lorna, and Sarah—as well as, later, a few others—we learn how Sarah gradually became stifled by the constant pressure of keeping up appearances until she became inspired to write a play, Saltwater, that was a not-so-thinly veiled tell-all revealing dark Lingate family secrets. It was shortly after this that she fell to her death. The loss of her mother has come to define Helen’s life, and if she can use the necklace as leverage to escape her family, and maybe learn the truth along the way, she’ll take the risk. Lorna’s motives are both murkier and more straightforward—she’s never had money, and she’s got a chip on her shoulder about it, so splitting 10 million euros with Helen sounds like a way to discard her past and start fresh. These strong, conniving women drive the drama and the narrative, and they are captivating enough that as twist after twist begins to unfurl, the novel still feels character-driven. The end—well, the end shocks. And it’s well earned. By the time the sun sets on the gorgeous excess and rugged coast of Capri, lives will have been destroyed.
A feisty storm of Greek tragedy headlined by three very modern women.Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593875551
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
