An adrenaline-fueled thriller that will grab readers from the first page.
A first date turns into a nightmarish weekend in Amor’s grisly thriller.
At 33, Amandine has never been on a real date. Since her parents died, she’s been living in her childhood home, constantly doomscrolling and unable to retain a job due to her undiagnosed neurodiversity. Thirty-year-old Connor is unemployed, living with his father, and still dealing with the emotional trauma from his mother’s abuse and abandonment. After weeks of texting, they finally meet at a local gastropub. However, Amandine is unsettled by the only other patron there, a greasy-ponytailed middle-aged man wearing a wrinkled tuxedo and slurping down a bowl of tomato soup. Besides a few rocky moments, the date goes very well—until Amandine and Connor are alone in the parking lot, phones dead, forced to walk several miles home. They get less than a mile down the road before Amandine’s heels and the arctic chill incapacitate them, and Connor negotiates with a passing car for a ride. Amandine reluctantly allows Connor to coax her into the car, only to realize too late that the driver is the Lone Diner from earlier. What follows is a harrowing tale of kidnapping and brutality, as Amandine and Connor battle to survive. Amor’s prose is unnerving, with plenty of grotesque imagery that will keep readers hooked and disturbed. Told from the perspectives of Amandine, Connor, and the Lone Diner, the book allows readers to experience both the horror of the victims and the warped mindset of the predator. Amandine’s descriptions of daily life as a neurodivergent person ring true, such as when she describes dealing with executive dysfunction: “On the really bad days, I can’t even dress myself, wash my hair, brush my teeth.” The unexpected ending may divide readers, but they’ll be riveted from beginning to end.
An adrenaline-fueled thriller that will grab readers from the first page.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2026
ISBN: 9781915523808
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Datura Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 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
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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