“The wages of dying is love,” Galway Kinnell once wrote. McTiernan asks if that’s enough.
A young Vermont woman goes missing and her boyfriend is the prime suspect.
“My name is Nina Fraser. There is a good chance that you know who I am.” The novel begins with a prologue in the voice of its 20-year-old title character, who relays the history of her relationship with her boyfriend, Simon Jordan, and a particular weekend they spent hiking and climbing at his parents’ new place near Stowe. It ends like this: “I went downstairs to tell Simon that we were over and that I never wanted to see him again.” From this point, other voices take over, including those of Nina’s parents, Leanne and Andy; Simon’s mother, Jamie; and Matthew Wright, the detective who’s investigating Nina’s disappearance. With the support of a few other characters, they are responsible for piecing together Nina’s story and bearing witness to the things they know—and the things they suspect—which will change all their lives. We learn that Nina never came home from that weekend trip with Simon, nor has she been in touch with her family. We learn that Simon, who was born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth, has a sense of entitlement and a shaky alibi. We learn that each of the parents would do anything to protect their children. And so the stage is set for revelation, revenge, and tragedy. McTiernan turns the traditional thriller on its head by exploring the why and the what over the who. There isn’t a lot of mystery here, but there is deep humanity; it’s a meditation on grief, and helplessness, and what it means to parent a child who might not live the life you thought they would—or might not be the person you want them to be—and how death removes from each of us the illusion of choice or control over past, present, or future. And that is truly haunting.
“The wages of dying is love,” Galway Kinnell once wrote. McTiernan asks if that’s enough.Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780063042254
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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