A lush, elegant thriller that successfully follows a familiar formula.
Will returning to the site of a childhood tragedy heal a fragile young artist, or trigger still more trauma?
A short prologue set in 2007 murkily dramatizes the death of opera diva Vittoria de’ Medici Rossi. Returning from the opera house in Rome after having a squabble with her husband, Carlo, Vittoria encounters Anna, her young daughter, who seems to be having night terrors, and then takes a fatal plunge…or is pushed? Decades later, Anna returns home to Tuscany after living in New York, where she earned an MFA degree. Her dream of beginning a career as an artist is undermined by the widespread suspicion that she killed her mother, a problem exacerbated by her return to the scene of the crime. The atmospheric tale includes many of the familiar tropes of both gothic and romantic suspense. There’s an ancient castle, a priceless cursed necklace, a series of evocative nightmares, a dungeon alive with eerie noises, a dead bird, and Edoardo, a creepy caretaker who lives in a cottage on the property but always seems to be nearby when danger threatens. Perhaps fueled by guilt or restlessness, Anna begins ransacking the estate in search of that necklace. A handful of Italian cousins, Giana and Paolo and Antonio Massimino, emerge as playmates. Can they be trusted? The question resonates as the quartet visits the family wine cellar, goes sailing, and shares confidences in local cafes. Throughout, Auffenorde’s crisp prose maintains the tension as she unfolds the story in short chapters from Anna’s perspective.
A lush, elegant thriller that successfully follows a familiar formula.Pub Date: July 1, 2025
ISBN: 9781613166413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scarlet
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
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
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
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