A bold, no-nonsense story about young women dealing with and overcoming sexual assault.
In Rodger’s thriller, a serial rapist terrorizes Ontario, attacking women and upending lives—until his victims plot revenge.
This narrative is loosely based on aspects of the Scarborough Rapist case, one of the most disturbing in Canadian history, pitting a collection of young women against a perpetrator whose criminal acts threaten to destroy their futures. In 1989, high school student Samantha meets an intoxicating hockey player named Andy (“He drove a motorcycle and lived his life on the edge, a little wild, never wanting to follow the rules”). Things take a horrible turn when Andy rapes her. He disappears, and Sam learns she is pregnant. When Liz meets Blake, she is impressed by his charm and work ethic, so much so that the two are engaged within a year. Liz was planning to go away to college, and her parents convince her to do just that (and marry Blake afterward). But several disturbing comments from him give her pause. Jenny, a high school theater kid, is distressed by the news of the Scarborough Rapist but figures she’s safer since she just got a car. However, she is raped in that car one night, and the aspiring dancer is left with a broken foot. Despondent after the assault, Jenny forsakes her dream of being a physician and decides to become a psychologist instead. Oscillating between youthful optimism and intense fear, these women eventually must come together to share the truth of what happened to them and bring down the responsible party. Rodger’s concise novel wisely avoids exploiting the real-life story by giving the fictional players some distance from it. The web of lies and deceit that is woven here is complex, and the action plays out over many years. There are a lot of characters, and it requires careful reading to follow the plot over the short chapters, which can bounce around in time. All becomes crystal clear toward the end, though, and the novel works well as a testament to the resilience of survivors.
A bold, no-nonsense story about young women dealing with and overcoming sexual assault.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Sept. 5, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.
A violent attack hijacks a woman’s memory in this novel of domestic suspense.
McFadden wastes no time pulling the trigger in this harrowing story that starts with gunfire then swiftly propels readers into a crack tale of secrets and misdirection. Originally self-published in 2016, the book carries the same formidable weight as McFadden’s later novels featuring unsuspecting women who lose their power then fight to recapture it—mostly from men who have betrayed them. That formula perfectly fits Dr. Charlotte McKenna, a 37-year-old dermatologist who isn’t looking for love until the most handsome man she’s ever seen begins to woo her. There are warning signs about Clark Douglas and Charlotte overlooks them to her detriment—but is he a killer? The novel has dual timelines split between events leading up to the day Charlotte barely survives a head wound meant to kill her and the months afterward, when she struggles to reclaim her memory and her mobility. In real life, McFadden is a physician trained to treat brain injuries. Her expertise gives Charlotte’s rehabilitation authenticity, and her writing talent makes it interesting and engaging. As good as that timeline is, readers will yearn to get back to the alternate timeline about who wants Charlotte dead. It’s only a matter of time before Charlotte starts to remember who tried to kill her, and the clock is ticking toward their next attempt. McFadden dishes up plenty of suspects: Charlotte’s secretive husband, Clark; a former patient turned stalker who confronts Charlotte on her honeymoon; and the angry husband of a patient who blames Charlotte for his wife leaving him. Though the story is delicious and dark, McFadden brightens things up with a possible love interest for Charlotte and a surprise ending sure to please the author’s many fans.
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249617
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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