An absorbing tale of dark psychological suspense.
A naïve college student is drawn into a glamorous and dangerous new lifestyle in Liautaud’s novel.
Marin Finch arrives in Chicago to begin her freshman year of college eager to leave her small-town life behind and make a fresh start, but she realizes right away that she’s just as awkward, insecure, and anxious in the big city as she was back home with her fractured family in Missouri. Then, she meets beautiful, sophisticated Bette Winston, who showers her with flattering attention and introduces her to her wealthy friends Ozzie and Harry and their expensive tastes. Soon, Marin is immersed in an exciting new world, sipping fancy cocktails, attending art gallery openings, and staying overnight in Bette’s luxurious apartment. Showered with expensive gifts, cash, and pills, Marin ignores Bette’s odd, mercurial moods and unexplained absences in spite of warnings and hints about dark secrets in Bette’s mysterious past. Marin skips classes (endangering her hard-won scholarship), blows off her housemates, and dodges calls from home, choosing to spend the Thanksgiving break with her new friends. Thrilled to be dressing in chic, sexy outfits and attending lavish parties with famous artists, Marin refuses to recognize how much Bette is manipulating her, convincing herself that she’s finding the confidence, closeness, and admiration she yearns for: “It was a false confidence, but I craved it with an insatiable hunger.” Bette’s behavior becomes increasingly erratic and destructive as copious amounts of alcohol and drugs (including cocaine, Xanax, ecstasy, and absinthe) blunt Marin’s judgment, blurring the line between fantasy and reality. Marin must hit rock bottom before she can finally reject her false transformation, learn to value her true gifts, and find the strength to break free and follow her own path.
Liautaud’s writing is lively and fast-paced, with vivid, pithy descriptions and sharp observations about the nuances of social status. (The author vividly limns a pretentious, market-driven avant-garde art scene in which artists are treated like celebrities and hypocrisy rules.) Both major and minor characters, including Harry, Ozzie, and Marin’s roommate Cassie, a conventional, bubbly sorority girl, are well drawn. At first, Marin’s passivity and misplaced trust are frustrating to the reader as she dismisses one red flag after another, never suspecting that Bette’s world is too good to be true or that her seeming generosity might have an ulterior motive. She simply follows Bette to the point of being little more than her puppet, but she becomes more interesting and relatable as she begins to question others and think for herself. Marin’s story is framed by an opening and closing scene that make it obvious from the start that Bette is dangerously unbalanced and that Marin is willfully heading for serious trouble; the suspense comes from not knowing exactly what form that will take. The story highlights the desperation inherent in seeking acceptance as a substitute for genuine self-worth and the importance of separating reality from illusion; it also deftly illustrates the ways in which rich and privileged people can shield themselves from taking responsibility for their damaging actions.
An absorbing tale of dark psychological suspense.Pub Date: May 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781955058292
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Blue Handle Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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