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SWIPED

Bound to become a classic of the singles scene.

Internet dating comes under the microscope in Chilton’s darkly funny thriller.

After going on a few dates with various losers she’s swiped right on, English coffee-truck owner Gwendolyn Turner is pretty fed up with the dating scene. It doesn’t help that her best friend is due to get married to her milksop of a fiance on Valentine’s Day. Gritting her teeth through Sarah’s hellish hen party, Gwen takes a break to check the Connector app and gets a weird message from a possible match: He says he’s going to have to reschedule their date and includes a link to a news story about the death of a local man—a man Gwen had gone on a terrible date with a week earlier. When the police arrive to question her, it turns out that the guy she dated next is dead, too. Reeling from this strange news, she makes a list of the six men she’s gone out with—from the racist mini-golfer to the full-of-himself mama’s boy. As the body count mounts, Gwen becomes a person of interest in the investigation, of course, but the bigger question is, who could have known to whom she was matched? Who has hacked the app and is pulling the strings? And why her? She’ll have to do her own detective work, with the help of a shady Cuppacino employee and an infamous hacker with a French bulldog. There is definitely something ridiculous about this whole affair; the saving grace is that both Gwen and the author seem to recognize this, and despite the serial killer plot, nothing is taken too seriously. Of course, this could also be off-putting to some readers; no matter how terrible these men were to Gwen, they (probably) don’t deserve to be murdered. Still, Chilton shines a blackly humorous light on male misbehavior and love in the age of the internet—plus the timeless and ridiculous societal pressure of finding “the one.”

Bound to become a classic of the singles scene.

Pub Date: May 21, 2024

ISBN: 9781668045701

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024

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THE WOMEN

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

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A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

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THE WEDDING PEOPLE

Uneven but fitfully amusing.

Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.

Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.

Uneven but fitfully amusing.

Pub Date: July 30, 2024

ISBN: 9781250899576

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024

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