This captivating domestic thriller will keep you on your toes.
An anniversary party reveals a shocking family secret that will change the lives of everyone it touches.
Yara Gibson, a writer on a television crime drama, has returned to her dusty hometown of Palmdale, California, to host an anniversary party for her parents. As a lifelong asthmatic, she is literally allergic to her parents' desert home, but after losing an argument with her mother—who needles her into staying in her childhood bedroom though there’s a dust storm raging outside—she settles in for several days of family drama and a whole lot of wheezing. The drama escalates quickly after a long-lost cousin named Felicia texts Yara with a dangerous accusation: “I have information that will change your life.” But before Yara can find out what’s going on, Felicia is mysteriously killed, ratcheting up the tension in the house as Yara and her family struggle to figure out who would have killed her. Yara’s asthma gets worse as the days progress, and by the time the reader starts wondering how she's still alive without access to her mysteriously disappearing inhaler, Yara is attacked, probably by the same person who murdered Felicia, and ends up in the hospital. After a quick recovery, Yara begins to learn just how much her family has been hiding. What’s most special about the book is the array of complex characters, from Yara’s flighty and overindulged sister to her quiet, devoted father and, most of all, Yara herself, with her assortment of ailments and traumas and resilience. (That she is a crime writer trying to solve her own real-life crime adds to her charm.) The dialogue is sharp, observant, and emotional without ever straying into sentimentality, and the mystery of who is targeting the Gibson family manages to stay compelling despite many twists and turns—though at times these misdirections and pivots can feel a little disjointed, leaving you wondering momentarily how you got there.
This captivating domestic thriller will keep you on your toes.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-6625-0032-9
Page Count: -
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022
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
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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