A ruminative, involving, and somewhat flawed psychological thriller.
Secrets bind several generations of women in this psychological thriller with paranormal elements.
You could say the story begins in 1962 in Savannah with best friends Marge and Dotty and the dark secret they come to share when they exact revenge on a violent man. Or it starts years before that with Marge’s own mother and the difficult decision she makes. But it is decades in the future when the storylines truly coalesce, when troubled artist Kevan Copeland, who’s disturbed by memory loss and the recent death of her grandmother, crosses paths with Nathan Hill, a man who dotes on and works for his aging godmother. Kevan’s return to her grandmother’s birthplace is full of resentment and hatred; it dredges up memories of Kevan’s violent father who physically and emotionally abused her and their entire family. The only friends she could count on growing up were her beloved Gammie Frances and her best friend, Beth, who accompanies her on her return journey. Back from Gammie’s funeral, Kevan starts to uncover long-buried secrets involving an old, decrepit property left to her—a house she used to visit with her grandmother. Nathan’s story is also full of tragedy; his younger sister has been missing for decades. As Nathan’s and Kevan’s tales merge, memories resurface, visions of a young girl start to haunt Kevan, and Nathan’s godmother’s own secrets add to the drama. Wright’s rich psychological thriller dabbles in the supernatural and features multiple narrators and plotlines set in the past and the present. The author explores generational trauma and questions the nature of evil: Are people born evil and can they inherit their personalities from an abusive parent? It’s a harrowing woman-centric story, with horrific, graphic sexual and physical violence. And while the answer to the mystery at its core is unsurprising and reliant on trivial details, the book is less about solving a cold case and more about thoughtfully exploring the ramifications of that case on the lives of multiple characters.
A ruminative, involving, and somewhat flawed psychological thriller.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2023
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 303
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2023
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
A haunting, timeless exploration of the evil men do—and the imprint it leaves behind.
A middle-aged woman channels her best Miss Marple when she finds herself facing a nightmare from her past as she seeks to make sense of her present.
Jane Trevally is at a crossroads of sorts. After a traumatic childhood, she sought safety and solace in marriages with wealthy men. Now twice divorced and living with her four dogs in the crumbling English country mansion that is her birthright, she’s feeling the need to do something, to take a job, when one day a runaway dog turns up on her doorstep. The dog is chipped, and with the help of a local vet and her loyal stepson, Dexter Lombardi, Jane traces the dog’s home to the edge of Hampstead Heath, in London—a place that brings back the memory of a terrifying night from her youth, when a handsome man picked her up and took her back to this very house. Everything there felt wrong; she just managed to escape, certain that if she had stayed, she would have died that night. Now, soon after knocking on the door and returning the dog, she discovers that he had run away from an Airbnb near her house, where he had been staying with a young woman who seems to have disappeared. With the help of Dexter; his father, Tony, her second ex-husband; Tony’s former security enforcer, Tobias Wilson; and her own gift for connecting with people, Jane sets out to find the woman, taking her first steps on the path to becoming a private investigator. While Jane serves as the heart of the novel, Jewell also narrates chapters from several other characters’ points of view, all of which chip away at the horror that is the house on the Heath. By slowly revealing past and present simultaneously, Jewell keeps the mystery fresh as she plays with Gothic tropes and the timeless imagery of “a house of horrors” embodying human sin. She doesn’t flinch from exploring the depths of depravity in this house—and its humans.
A haunting, timeless exploration of the evil men do—and the imprint it leaves behind.Pub Date: June 23, 2026
ISBN: 9781668033906
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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