A finely wrought, character-driven thriller with a propulsive and satisfying climax.
When people who inflict violence get away with it, does murder become justice—and justified?
Penny Albright is just a few shifts away from completing her training as a cop in Kennesaw, Georgia, when she pulls her first murder scene. She’s shocked to realize she knows the victim: Danny Bowery, one of three men who raped her twin sister, Nix, several years ago, sending her into a spiral that ended in her eventual death by overdose. In a nearby alley, Penny finds a woman covered in blood. Penny doesn’t arrest the woman, Thalia Gray, even though Penny knows Thalia is “a stone-cold killer”; she confiscates Thalia’s knife and lets her get away. Hiding the weapon, and now complicit, Penny can’t stop thinking about Thalia even as her own family drama clamors for attention. Penny’s teenage niece, Shadow, has been suspended from school for hacking, and her wandering influencer brother, Shadow’s father, Gand, arrives in his converted school bus—but for how long? Then Nix’s ex-boyfriend, Michael Sullivan, reaches out, having heard about the murder. Penny knows the man Thalia murdered was not the first of Nix’s attackers to die; Xav Castillo was killed right around the second anniversary of Nix’s death. Did Thalia know Nix? Is she on a revenge tour for Penny’s sister—or does Thalia have a sister story of her own? Is the third attacker now in danger? Caught up in fear and admiration for Thalia, Penny is willing to sacrifice her budding career to find out the truth about this woman and perhaps even help her. For Penny, “life [is] made almost entirely out of stories about sisters,” and this is indeed a sister story—about how far into the flames they will walk for one another and about how this love burns fiercely, even after death. Jackson’s mystery is tight and breathless, but it’s the characters who shine, especially smart, loyal, wounded Penny, but also her cast of supporting family members, her tough but fair mentor, and steel-eyed Thalia.
A finely wrought, character-driven thriller with a propulsive and satisfying climax.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9780063158719
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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