A highly entertaining page-turner that has a propensity for melodrama and cliché.
A rural Chinese villager becomes a nanny by day and cocktail waitress by night after illegally immigrating to the U.S. in a bid to reclaim her stolen daughter.
Month after month, Jasmine tries to find work in Manhattan's Chinatown, but her lack of documentation compels most aboveboard employers to turn her away. She owes an astronomical sum to the snakeheads—human smugglers—who ferried her to New York. If she doesn’t repay them by a certain date, they’ll force her into prostitution. Overhearing Jasmine petition the manager of a teahouse for a job, a customer offers a cryptic referral: Ask for Aunt Glory at Opium. Opium turns out to be a seedy Asian strip club, Aunt Glory its ruthless proprietress. While Jasmine is repulsed by the nature of the work, she has no choice but to sign on. Her reasons for fleeing China become clear as her backstory is revealed. She is not only escaping her abusive husband, Wen, but also searching for their only child, a daughter taken from Jasmine at birth. Mindful of China’s one-child policy, Wen arranged for the baby to be spirited out of the country in an under-the-table adoption and told Jasmine the baby had died, all because he wanted a son. By snooping through Wen’s email account, Jasmine discovered the truth, identified the adoptive parents as New York City couple Brandon and Rebecca Whitney, and resolved to track down her daughter whatever the cost. Knowing Brandon and Rebecca are in search of live-in help, Jasmine successfully infiltrates the family. She balances her duties with her shifts at Opium, often sneaking back into the Whitney home through a skylight so as not to arouse suspicion. Her plan is to disappear with her daughter after making enough money to both repay the snakeheads and start a new life. But the household is soon victimized by a series of thinly veiled threats, suggesting that someone has cottoned on to Jasmine’s secret. Chapters end on cliffhangers that keep the narrative moving forward. Unfortunately, some of the plot points recall the overwrought beats of a soap opera, such as Jasmine’s will-they, won’t-they relationship with her childhood best friend and a violent confrontation that serves as the novel's climax. Jasmine herself embodies the rom-com trope of the stunning female main character who somehow doesn’t know she’s beautiful.
A highly entertaining page-turner that has a propensity for melodrama and cliché.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9780063031463
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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