A smart, fascinating woman leads this languid, absorbing drama of seduction and lies.
In this novel, a stenographer finds the excitement she craves when she chances on someone’s illicit financial scheme.
Seasoned stenographer Cindy Jack is one of the best in the Eastern U.S. A private firm sends her to transcribe sessions with local government agencies, a boring job for a 29-year-old. She yearns to be “tussled,” though she doesn’t know specifically what that is or even what the word means. It could be she’s looking for Alonzo Prier, the dreamy senior counsel for the Hospital Rate Review Commission. Never mind that he’s married; Cindy tries subtly seducing him when they’re together at HRRC meetings by “striking keys and striking poses.” What catches Alonzo’s attention, however, is her access to transcriptions that may reveal a hospital’s “financial discrepancies” and “extreme irregularities.” When that hospital’s CFO suspects what’s going on, he enlists co-worker Denver Simmons to date Cindy, hoping to distract her from getting close to Alonzo. But will the two men later decide that Cindy knows too much? Rose’s leisurely paced story is driven by a dramatic cast. Cindy, for example, becomes “possessed” by classic Hollywood actor Greta Garbo and sees parallels between their lives, though the intriguing possibility of Garbo’s lesbianism linking them unfortunately leads nowhere. Nevertheless, Cindy is an engaging protagonist. She strives to be more than an invisible stenographer and works to help her older sister recover from her alcoholism. Narrative perspective intermittently shifts to others, most notably Alonzo, whose exciting career sharply contrasts with his drama-free home life. The story picks up considerably in the second half; Denver struggles to keep secrets from everyone (he’s not single). Although there’s no real mystery, a few choices among the cast surprise and culminate in a relatively quiet but gratifying denouement.
A smart, fascinating woman leads this languid, absorbing drama of seduction and lies.Pub Date: June 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-66552-944-0
Page Count: 258
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.
A frustrated advice columnist takes matters into her own hands.
Before dropping out of MIT during the second semester of her sophomore year, Debbie Mullen had designs on becoming the next Bill Gates. Now, almost 30 years later, the stay-at-home wife and mother of two uses her considerable genius to keep the Mullens’ Hingham, Massachusetts, household functioning “like a well-oiled machine.” In her spare time, Debbie also gardens and shares “the fruits of [her] wisdom” with neighbors via the weekly advice column she writes for Hingham Household, a local “family-oriented” newspaper. Though Debbie is proud of her husband and teen daughters’ accomplishments, her own life sometimes feels a bit empty. As such, she’s both honored and excited when Home Gardening magazine selects her backyard to feature in their next issue. Then, at the last minute, the publication decides to go in a different direction and instead spotlights the roses of her arch rival. Later that day, the editor-in-chief of Hingham Household axes her column because she’d counseled a reader to get a divorce. That evening, Debbie learns that her hard-working husband’s miserly boss refused his promotion request, her brilliant older daughter’s sketchy boyfriend broke her heart, and her athletically gifted younger daughter’s chauvinistic coach cut her from the soccer team for being “chubby.” Enough is enough. Debbie has always given great advice—everybody says so. If certain individuals don’t know what’s best for themselves, maybe it’s her obligation to help them see the light. Increasingly unhinged entries from a “Dear Debbie” drafts folder pepper the briskly paced, meticulously crafted tale, which unfolds courtesy of a pinwheeling first-person narrative. Some of the plot’s myriad twists are more impressive than others, but plucky, puckish Debbie is a nontraditional antihero for the ages.
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249624
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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