The only weakness—though some may see it as a strength and a promise—is the cliffhanger ending.
It’s East Texas in the 1980s, and the only ones misbehaving more than the teenagers are the adults.
Nellie Andersen is counting the days until she can leave Longview, Texas. She may be the daughter of one of the wealthiest families, but she’s been all but shunned by her peers, mostly because of her propensity for violence when she doesn’t get her way. Then Jane Swift moves to town with her family: handsome dad Ethan, who builds custom furniture; earthy trad wife Abigail, who sells love potions and offers workshops about the divine feminine; and two boring sisters. Jane is attractive and looking to push beyond the boundaries imposed upon her; she’s also dreaming of bad boy boyfriend Luke, whom she left behind. Nellie hates Jane on sight, and her mother, Charleigh, who grew up poor but is now one of the richest, most beautiful women in town, wants Abigail out. Then there’s Jackson Ford, who walks the uneasy line between being Charleigh’s best friend but also an employee, and who discovers that there may be more to hunky Ethan’s story than he suggests. Cobb begins at the end: A body floats in the water, not sinking fast enough for the person who put it there. Other than occasional cuts to this moment, the novel shows us how we get here, and who is dead—and who is responsible. This is not an unusual structure for a modern thriller, nor is the use of multiple narrative perspectives, but Cobb builds in more complexity than is sometimes the case. Every character inhabits a moral gray area, stuck and struggling with secret desires, resentments, and plans. Cobb may claim Little House on the Prairie as an inspiration—but this is more Desperate Housewives.
The only weakness—though some may see it as a strength and a promise—is the cliffhanger ending.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9781464245794
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.
Dead bodies turn up in the first sentence of the prologue in McFadden’s latest domestic thriller.
The mystery of who died is at the pulsating heart of this propulsive tale. As Chapter 1 begins, Naomi arrives home to find the locks changed on the front door of the gorgeous home she shares with her husband, Jeremy, and their 5-year-old son, Teddy. Jeremy steps out the front door and convinces Naomi to move out while he has their home renovated, a plan Naomi knows nothing about. It’s all a ruse, though, as the next day Jeremy tells her he wants a divorce. Naomi is shellshocked and soon discovers that Jeremy is having an affair with Veronica, a beautiful younger woman. What seems at first like a stereotypical story about a man who leaves his wife turns into something else when Naomi decides she’ll do anything to get Veronica away from Jeremy and Teddy, and Veronica decides to fight for what she thinks she deserves. Fans of stalker novels will cringe with delight as creepy things start to happen. Teddy’s stuffed elephant, a gift from Veronica, is found impaled on a kitchen knife; Naomi suspects Jeremy is gaslighting her and that Veronica tried to poison her. A weird confrontation among Jeremy, Veronica, and Naomi at Teddy’s birthday party, to which Naomi shows up uninvited, is priceless. There are three main characters, and any or all of them may be unreliable narrators. Packing the plot with dark, gasp-inducing twists, McFadden outdoes herself in a story about how highly emotional people engage in risky behavior to get what they want—but in this novel, for better or worse, not everyone will survive.
Trust no one in this over-the-top tale of deception and revenge.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249631
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
BOOK TO SCREEN
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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