A suspenseful page-turner about the evil lurking in a small town.
A woman fleeing from her cruel husband lands in a place that’s no stranger to violence.
In Bockstael’s debut novel, Alcima “the Willow” Willoughby is on the run in the “Excited States” after stealing her abusive dot-com millionaire husband’s beloved luxury RV. She plans a Thelma & Louise–style ending for the camper after quickly exiting the motorhome. But the 6-foot, 6-inch former Olympic volleyball star’s plans are thwarted when Fall River Police Sgt. Terry Gansworth finds her in violation of “a whole stack of local and state ordinances.” While she’s following the officer’s car to an overnight rest stop, her RV becomes unbalanced and overturns, and Alcima finds herself stuck temporarily in Fall River. While she’s in the small town, the local police promise to keep her husband, Reg White, from finding her. He's a monster, and Fall River is home to something far more terrifying that scuttles with the multitude of rats below the town’s quaint movie theater, bank, and Carnegie library. The theater’s owner, Don Anderson, disappears. A light goes on in the library after it’s been locked for the night. The librarian, widower Booker Thompson, is on alert when he hears thumps on the stairs after hours, and someone rifles through the Local History Room. But Booker balances trepidation with romance after he falls hard for Alcima. There’s a lot to unpack in this story, which might have benefited from jettisoning the Reg subplot and concentrating on the mysterious, malevolent events in Fall River. A sadistic serial killer/voyeur—one who enjoys the thought of poisoned “rats twitching and bleeding and dying of thirst”—will hold the audience’s attention. Other characters are well drawn, too. Cases in point: Alcima is strong, cocky, and sexy; Booker is scarred and sad, and for good reason. An example of smart dialogue: “‘She’s a bit desperate. Does me favors from time to time.’ ‘Define desperate.’ ‘Poor.’” The descriptions of the workings of a former performing arts theater, now a cinema, are particularly well crafted.
A suspenseful page-turner about the evil lurking in a small town.Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 9781778011214
Page Count: 404
Publisher: Pender Lake Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A particularly nasty villain heightens the stakes in this thriller about a woman learning how to be her own hero.
An author is targeted by a fan who just can’t let her go.
Arden Bowie has had plenty of tragedy in her life, but now she’s finally on top. After her parents died when she was a teenager, she moved from Brooklyn to Ohio to live with her aunt, uncle, and cousins. She soon became part of their loving family and grew up to become a writer and bookseller. When her debut novel is published, she meets Dustin Dubecki at her first event. He showers her with praise, asks for writing advice, and wants to take her out for coffee. Arden tells herself he’s just a little awkward, but then he keeps showing up at her local events—and, even stranger, she’s sure she sees him lurking at her event in New York City. When he bursts into her apartment one night and assaults her, Arden’s calm life is shattered. Dustin gets a five-year sentence at a psychiatric facility; Arden spends most of that time rebuilding her sense of stability. Eventually, she moves to Oregon to start a new life where Dustin can never find her. But even though she has a beautiful home, a thriving career, a doting family, new friends, and even a potential love interest in a former cop named Gideon Riley, Arden can’t escape Dustin’s rage when his sentence is finally up. Roberts toggles between Arden’s point of view and Dustin’s, giving the reader occasional glimpses into his extremely twisted mindset. Although Arden’s attempts to escape Dustin are engrossing, the story stalls in the middle when far too many pages are dedicated to Arden purchasing and decorating a house. But the excitement picks back up when Dustin, a truly odious villain, re-enters the story. It’s also satisfying to see Arden grow into someone who refuses to be a victim, even as she deals with horrifying circumstances.
A particularly nasty villain heightens the stakes in this thriller about a woman learning how to be her own hero.Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9781250413581
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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