The novel offers mystery aplenty, but at its core, there is a deep and compassionate humanity.
Two old friends, relationship forged in fire and trauma, find themselves at the center of a murder mystery.
Frida Nilsen and Gabriel Miller are staying at the Ara, a comfortable desert hotel in Escalante, Utah, trying to decide whether both of them are ready to participate in a documentary about some mysterious point in their shared past. Late at night, Frida is standing on their suite’s private patio, smoking, when she overhears a fight between wealthy tabloid tycoon William Brenner and his young, glamorous wife, Sabrina. The next day, Sabrina’s body is found, her head caved in. When Frida tells the cops about the couple’s argument, William is arrested, but hours later, he returns to the Ara and seems to have both Frida and Gabriel in his sights. It turns out he recognizes Gabriel from a scandal 10 years prior, when his wife, Annie, went missing and was then discovered dead. Gabriel was never charged in her death, but papers like William’s had a field day stalking him and posting articles and photos that suggested his guilt. But unbeknownst even to William Brenner, Frida and Gabriel share a bond that’s deeper and darker than Annie’s death. They were born into a cult run by a charismatic dirtbag named Émile. Though they aren’t related by blood, this shared childhood and teenage trauma made them as close as siblings, and when they escaped, they had only each other. While Frida remains the narrator, chapters alternate back and forth between the present day and the past, offering a slow reveal from their childhood to their escape from the cult and the difficult years of adjusting to the real world. Michallon does incredible work building both characters and tension; Frida’s self-awareness and vulnerability clash with her strength and even hardness, but that’s what trauma has wrought. As Michallon poignantly writes, “This is who we are.…We start over together. Again. And again.”
The novel offers mystery aplenty, but at its core, there is a deep and compassionate humanity.Pub Date: July 8, 2025
ISBN: 9780593802762
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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