A riveting, unsettling psychological drama that casts an unsparing eye on the well-to-do.
Assumptions go askew when a young girl mysteriously vanishes in Snow’s thriller.
Perceptions can be tricky to navigate, as Colleen, the narrator of this disquieting, tightly plotted hair-raiser, quickly comes to appreciate. Her summer assignment as live-in babysitter for Sonia and Graham Starr’s 4-year-old daughter, Roxie, initially seems to be the proverbial golden ticket. Working for Sonia, an icily imperious lifestyle company head, provides Colleen with access to a large pool and hot tub in a house that’s a mere 10 minutes’ drive from the California coastline. (Colleen marvels, “rather than drive those ten minutes, they bought a whole other fucking house.”) Sonia’s domineering need for control makes for a striking contrast with Graham’s laid-back, more indulgent nature, which invariably flourishes in his partner’s absence. Everything comes horrifyingly undone one day when Roxie vanishes as she’s trotting to the beach while her parents lounge upstairs and Colleen sleeps off an afternoon bout with sangria (“perfect for a hot day”). No sign of Roxie emerges, despite an exhaustive search; the local police quickly label the incident an accidental drowning. The ordeal proves shattering for Colleen, who can’t bring herself to accept the official findings. (“If I’d insisted on doing the dishes, would it have made a difference? Attempting to rewrite history doesn’t help. I do it anyway.”) Her suspicions hang on a slender thread: Colleen recalls Roxie’s unwillingness to walk near a wave “without clinging to her father, knowing he’d lift her over the swells”; as she tells her clueless therapist, Leslie, “Roxie was afraid of the surf. She didn’t even like to get her face wet.” Suspicions harden into certainty when Colleen thinks she sees Roxie at the beach and an online comment prompts her to look into a different sighting that’s reported a child getting into a car. From there, the action alternates between flashbacks (“Before”) and Colleen’s attempts to deal with her trauma (“After”) while she strives to unravel the reality of the situation once and for all.
The author does an exemplary job of pacing the narrative. A series of surprising revelations (including ones about Roxie’s origins and the involvement of other babysitters) bolster Colleen’s hunches, while suspicions serve as stepping-stones on a path to unlocking hidden truths. The insights become more acute as the action heats up, especially when Colleen ponders how the Starrs’ dysfunctional relationship has affected her. (“Did I honestly suggest just becoming part of a throuple?”) At least, that’s how it appears, until another shocking twist (which hinges on a perspective shift between babysitters) pushes Colleen to question her beliefs, if not her sanity. It’s the type of did-it-or-didn’t-it-happen psychological tug of war that will feel familiar to fans of narratives that specialize in the sly manipulation of contrasting perspectives (readers may be reminded of the classic 1966 film Blow-Up). Snow has delivered the goods in abundance—psychological thriller fans will find much to savor. As summer beach reads go, they don’t come any shinier and sharper than this one.
A riveting, unsettling psychological drama that casts an unsparing eye on the well-to-do.Pub Date: June 23, 2026
ISBN: 9798892425766
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crooked Lane
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.
Dead bodies turn up in the first sentence of the prologue in McFadden’s latest domestic thriller.
The mystery of who died is at the pulsating heart of this propulsive tale. As Chapter 1 begins, Naomi arrives home to find the locks changed on the front door of the gorgeous home she shares with her husband, Jeremy, and their 5-year-old son, Teddy. Jeremy steps out the front door and convinces Naomi to move out while he has their home renovated, a plan Naomi knows nothing about. It’s all a ruse, though, as the next day Jeremy tells her he wants a divorce. Naomi is shellshocked and soon discovers that Jeremy is having an affair with Veronica, a beautiful younger woman. What seems at first like a stereotypical story about a man who leaves his wife turns into something else when Naomi decides she’ll do anything to get Veronica away from Jeremy and Teddy, and Veronica decides to fight for what she thinks she deserves. Fans of stalker novels will cringe with delight as creepy things start to happen. Teddy’s stuffed elephant, a gift from Veronica, is found impaled on a kitchen knife; Naomi suspects Jeremy is gaslighting her and that Veronica tried to poison her. A weird confrontation among Jeremy, Veronica, and Naomi at Teddy’s birthday party, to which Naomi shows up uninvited, is priceless. There are three main characters, and any or all of them may be unreliable narrators. Packing the plot with dark, gasp-inducing twists, McFadden outdoes herself in a story about how highly emotional people engage in risky behavior to get what they want—but in this novel, for better or worse, not everyone will survive.
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249631
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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