A thrilling mind-freak of a mystery.
In Scozzari’s deliciously gruesome debut, a young professional learns the dangers of trusting friends.
Diana is a quirky young professional with a promising future. Her career as a business consultant is taking off, and she’s amassed a collection of close friends, including Ann (whom she’s known since high school) and her boyfriend, Arnold, a philandering former frat bro and current high school gym teacher. Diana’s somewhat-charmed life takes a turn when she starts having mysterious fainting spells. Ann (who’s convinced she’s Diana’s best friend) and Tim (her actual best friend) jump into protective mode; Arnold can’t be bothered. To make matters worse, Diana suspects that she’s the victim of frequent home invasions, unheard of in her ostensibly safe Long Island community. (“She waited in deafening silence for some midnight terror to burst through her door.”) A wild Fourth of July party becomes a catalyst for revelations regarding Diana’s friends that she hasn’t been able to confront. As her world begins to unravel, questions arise about Diana’s health, sanity, and who she can and can’t trust. Scozzari is a master storyteller, weaving tension throughout the entire narrative. The pacing is slow at first, but the narrative never feels like it lacks purpose. Details are revealed as Diana uncovers them, and readers will question her reality right along with her. This sense of the unknown—represented by the dark figure Diana thinks she sees breaking into her house, her unaddressed fainting spells, and the sense that she may be getting gaslit by multiple people—evokes an atmosphere of dread and menace that rivals the classic thriller and mystery stories Scozzari’s novel is paying homage to, like Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938). The characters are complex and fascinating, each possessing the means and motive to victimize the rest of the group, adding a Clue-like whodunit quality to an already engrossing domestic thriller. The author tells this labyrinthine story using clear prose with brutally violent descriptions that will delight fans of gothic literature, thrillers, and horror.
A thrilling mind-freak of a mystery.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2025
ISBN: 9798998781698
Page Count: 392
Publisher: EASEverything LLC
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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