A thriller with plenty of tension despite being powered by an improbable plot device.
A mysterious benefactor turns menacing for a young couple with financial problems.
Everything comes at a price. That’s the lesson in Schott’s first book for adults, a suspense novel about a married couple striving for upper-middle-class success whose lives veer off course when financial problems ambush them. On the outside, the future appears rosy for the Evanses: They have two young daughters, an expensive new house in an exclusive neighborhood and once-solid careers. But Mack, who teaches English at a Cleveland technical college, falls under official scrutiny after throwing parties for his students, just as he has to take over the staggering monthly payments for his mother’s assisted living facility in Florida. His wife, Hailey, a divorce attorney, runs afoul of her successful law firm when she finds herself caught between a warring couple, neither of whom seems inclined to pay their bill. So when the Evanses start getting checks in the mail from an unknown business called Sunshine Enterprises, the money is welcome, and Mack can’t resist spending it. But then a mysterious entity starts making outrageous and illegal demands in return, and Mack and Hailey can only wonder how far they’ll go to prop up their crumbling American dream. The threat, of course, is the sort of far-fetched plot device that would be rendered impotent by calling the police, but Schott comes up with enough roadblocks to keep the story feasible, and she fills the story with enough suspects to keep you guessing. She’s also effective at chronicling the unraveling of the Evanses’ marriage and makes a strong case for the all-too-real perils of living beyond one’s means. The perspective shifts among Mack, Hailey, and a malevolent observer who provides insight into motivation, and while the ending isn’t entirely satisfying, getting there can be entertaining.
A thriller with plenty of tension despite being powered by an improbable plot device.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780063432710
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2025
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
A feisty storm of Greek tragedy headlined by three very modern women.
On the isle of Capri, Helen Lingate seeks revenge on the people responsible for her mother’s death 30 years earlier—her own family.
When Sarah Lingate fell to her death on Capri in 1992, she left behind a 3-year-old daughter, Helen, and a legacy as a gifted playwright; her favorite necklace of golden snakes was lost to the sea. Thirty years later, Helen, chafing at the restrictions she’s grown up under as a member of the old-money Lingate family, hatches a plan with her uncle Marcus’ assistant, Lorna Moreno, to blackmail her uncle and her father with that same necklace, which mysteriously entered her possession a few months before. The novel begins on Capri just after Lorna disappears, and then traces her steps from 36 hours earlier. Interweaving chapters from the points of view of Helen, Lorna, and Sarah—as well as, later, a few others—we learn how Sarah gradually became stifled by the constant pressure of keeping up appearances until she became inspired to write a play, Saltwater, that was a not-so-thinly veiled tell-all revealing dark Lingate family secrets. It was shortly after this that she fell to her death. The loss of her mother has come to define Helen’s life, and if she can use the necklace as leverage to escape her family, and maybe learn the truth along the way, she’ll take the risk. Lorna’s motives are both murkier and more straightforward—she’s never had money, and she’s got a chip on her shoulder about it, so splitting 10 million euros with Helen sounds like a way to discard her past and start fresh. These strong, conniving women drive the drama and the narrative, and they are captivating enough that as twist after twist begins to unfurl, the novel still feels character-driven. The end—well, the end shocks. And it’s well earned. By the time the sun sets on the gorgeous excess and rugged coast of Capri, lives will have been destroyed.
A feisty storm of Greek tragedy headlined by three very modern women.Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593875551
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
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