A wholly absorbing dark mystery.
In Taylor’s thriller, a woman returns to her hometown to uncover a frightening truth that her mind has buried.
When Lily Doucet gets news that her brother, Beau, has died, she leaves Chicago for Louisiana, where she grew up. She has trouble believing that Beau’s fatal drowning was accidental, as it occurred in a bayou he knew well; it’s the same area where the siblings’ cousin Amelia St. Jeannot vanished two decades earlier. Since Beau had apparently been obsessed with Amelia, Lily feels she’ll “understand his last days” if she learns what happened to their cousin. But her memories from that time are hazy at best. Lily reconnects with old friends and with her stone-hearted Aunt Clara (Amelia’s mom); most of these people seem reluctant to help her dig into the past, as if the truth is better left alone. Lily searches for clues at the library and in a local detective’s case file on Amelia’s disappearance, all the while feeling certain that “Amelia’s ghost wants something.” Taylor builds suspense with a relatively slow pace. Readers don’t know any more than Lily does as she gradually uncovers truths (such as the fact that Amelia wasn’t an especially caring person). Flashbacks reveal more of Lily’s memories and additional details about the mystery surrounding Amelia. Myriad characters, even dead ones, are shrouded in ambivalence as it becomes clear that someone among them is likely guilty of something unspeakable. Throughout, Taylor maintains an unnerving mood that refuses to let up: “The staircase sighs under her weight. Upstairs, the hallway air is thick, unmoving, shadows spilling from corners like ink.” The narrative takes a shocking turn in the latter half, though it’s perfectly in line with everything that precedes it. This novel effectively closes the author’s Oblivion Cycle, a trilogy of harrowing stand-alone books connected by theme.
A wholly absorbing dark mystery.Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2025
ISBN: 9798994098950
Page Count: 237
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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