A story rooted more deeply in setting than in suspense.
When her husband goes missing, Nora challenges the balance of power in her wealthy community to find out what happened.
It’s not easy being a younger second wife. As she surveys the glamorous party she’s throwing for her husband Will’s 46th birthday, 28-year-old Nora Somerset knows that to the ultrawealthy society of Winter Park, Florida, she’s an interloper. But after a whirlwind courtship with “Hot Mean Lawyer” Will, Nora seems to have hooked the white whale—and she’s head-over-heels in love with him. Never mind that his first wife cuts her dead every time they meet; never mind that his law partner has pressured her to sign an agreement in case the marriage doesn’t work out; and never mind that Will, a workaholic, rarely comes home for dinner and shuts her out of his business life. She finds good friends in free-spirited millionaire neighbor Este, her husband, Beau, and their friend Marcus. Despite some marital struggles between Nora and Will, the party celebrates not only Will’s birthday but also their recent recommitment to each other. So when Will gets a phone call just before they go upstairs at the end of the evening, Nora isn’t worried. And when she wakes up alone the next day, she figures he’s at work. But when two days go by without any sign from Will, it becomes clear that something has happened: Her husband is missing and—after his shirt is discovered in the lake behind their house—is presumed dead. The novel begins on the night of the party and then tells the story both forward from the couple’s first meet-cute and forward from Will’s disappearance. Nora is a feisty, self-aware, and appealing character, but as thrillers go, this is pretty tame. The focus on the wealthy community of Winter Park necessarily limits the possible suspects, so there isn’t much suspense baked in. The fascination lies in the way Lavender and Shores pull back the curtain on this enclave of affluence, and how Nora is both repelled and seduced by this world.
A story rooted more deeply in setting than in suspense.Pub Date: June 24, 2025
ISBN: 9780593974377
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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
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