A serviceable thriller with a few unexpected twists.
A woman living in her car saves a wealthy housewife from drowning, sending both of their lives into turmoil.
Lee Gulliver was once a plucky young restaurateur in New York City. That is, until the pandemic hit and her business—and life—fell apart. On the run from a shady businessman to whom she owes money, Lee flees to Seattle to start a new life, with very little to her name. One morning, when sleeping in her car near the beach, Lee hears a disturbance and awakens to find a beautiful young woman trying to drown herself in the ocean. Lee saves the woman, whose name is Hazel Laval, and, after a brief misstart where Hazel is annoyed at said saving, the two forge an unlikely friendship. As the women get closer, Hazel reveals that she and her husband, Benjamin, are in a BDSM relationship turned deeply abusive, and she begs Lee to help her escape. Lee, desperate for companionship in her itinerant life, wants to do anything she can to save Hazel (again). But all is not as it seems, and as Lee starts to get closer to handsome and charming Jesse Thomas, whom she meets while getting her car fixed, secrets and lies begin to unravel. Switching between Lee's and Hazel’s perspectives, the story is fast-paced and packed with action. The dialogue, however, is stilted and clichéd, with a villain saying things like “It played into my hands nicely” and a heroine waxing poetic about how in “this next chapter, I must rely on my wits and courage to survive.” While this book won't satisfy readers looking for psychological intrigue, it does check certain boxes: It's quick moving with a plot intricate enough to keep the reader hooked.
A serviceable thriller with a few unexpected twists.Pub Date: June 13, 2023
ISBN: 9781538726761
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.
A frustrated advice columnist takes matters into her own hands.
Before dropping out of MIT during the second semester of her sophomore year, Debbie Mullen had designs on becoming the next Bill Gates. Now, almost 30 years later, the stay-at-home wife and mother of two uses her considerable genius to keep the Mullens’ Hingham, Massachusetts, household functioning “like a well-oiled machine.” In her spare time, Debbie also gardens and shares “the fruits of [her] wisdom” with neighbors via the weekly advice column she writes for Hingham Household, a local “family-oriented” newspaper. Though Debbie is proud of her husband and teen daughters’ accomplishments, her own life sometimes feels a bit empty. As such, she’s both honored and excited when Home Gardening magazine selects her backyard to feature in their next issue. Then, at the last minute, the publication decides to go in a different direction and instead spotlights the roses of her arch rival. Later that day, the editor-in-chief of Hingham Household axes her column because she’d counseled a reader to get a divorce. That evening, Debbie learns that her hard-working husband’s miserly boss refused his promotion request, her brilliant older daughter’s sketchy boyfriend broke her heart, and her athletically gifted younger daughter’s chauvinistic coach cut her from the soccer team for being “chubby.” Enough is enough. Debbie has always given great advice—everybody says so. If certain individuals don’t know what’s best for themselves, maybe it’s her obligation to help them see the light. Increasingly unhinged entries from a “Dear Debbie” drafts folder pepper the briskly paced, meticulously crafted tale, which unfolds courtesy of a pinwheeling first-person narrative. Some of the plot’s myriad twists are more impressive than others, but plucky, puckish Debbie is a nontraditional antihero for the ages.
Gleefully sadistic, gloriously gratifying revenge fiction.Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249624
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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