An uneven pace is elevated by a charismatic and complex main character.
While on a book tour, a bestselling author begins to realize the steep price of fame and fortune.
Three years after publicly quitting her job under the hashtag #MomsWithDreams, Tessa Calloway has not only spent more time with her young children, she’s also written a bestselling novel about the strong and feisty character Annabelle Brown. But weeks into a national tour, she’s starting to question the balance of what she’s lost against what she’s gained; every day brings a new flight, a new hotel, a new event, and then barely time to FaceTime her husband, Henry, and kids, Linny and Zack, before tumbling into bed and waking at dawn to do it all again. The crowds are flattering, but she’s sliding into overwhelmed. You can’t keep a good storyteller down, though, so when Tessa discovers a delicate locket holding a family picture inside a hotel nightstand, she uses her social media clout to see if she can find “Locket Mom.” Despite the immediate interest of her fans, no news arises, and then Tessa begins to notice odd little incidents that, taken together, seem to point to something possibly more sinister. For one, she keeps getting questions at her events about where she grew up, which is a closely guarded secret because of a “bad thing” in her past. Has someone found out the truth? And if so, how far will they go to tear her down? Tessa is a well-developed and likable character, but there’s something a bit off about the rhythm of the novel. It takes a long time to establish a true sense of threat and how it relates to Tessa’s shadowy past, and Tessa’s guilt and paranoia begin to feel wearying, rather than sympathetic. But once the blackmail plot gets going, the pace picks up and the story unspools smoothly. The novel begins by interrogating the “have it all” myth, but twists its way into a thriller by the end.
An uneven pace is elevated by a charismatic and complex main character.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9781250349996
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
Although it lacks the surgical precision of Slaughter’s very best nightmares, this one richly earns its title.
More than a decade after a Georgia man is convicted of a monstrous double murder, an uncomfortably similar crime frees him and resets the search for the guilty party.
In Clifton County, home to the Rich Cliftons and the other Cliftons, the disappearance of teens Madison Dalrymple and Cheyenne Baker during the Halloween festivities hits everyone in North Falls hard. Working with her father, Sheriff Gerald Clifton, Deputy Emmy Lou Clifton hears the clock ticking down as she races frantically to get leads on the two friends, who’d been secretly plotting to take off for Atlanta after some undisclosed big score. As a longtime friend of Madison’s mother, Hannah, Emmy hopes against hope to find the missing teens before they’re both dead. By the time Emmy’s hopes are dashed, two unpleasantly likely suspects with strong attachments to underage sex partners have emerged, and one of them ends up in prison. In a bold move, Slaughter jumps over the next 12 years to the case of Paisley Walker, a 14-year-old whose disappearance catches the eye of retiring FBI criminal psychologist Jude Archer, who promptly crosses the country to come to Clifton County and take charge—um, that is, consult—on this heartrending new investigation. Emmy, suddenly and shockingly deprived of counsel from the parents who’ve supported her all her life, doesn’t get along any better with Jude than with the larger circle of Cliftons and the Clifton-Cliftons. But together they identify one new suspect, then another, before a shootout that arrives so early you just know there are still more surprises to come.
Although it lacks the surgical precision of Slaughter’s very best nightmares, this one richly earns its title.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2025
ISBN: 9780063336773
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
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
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