A riveting thriller about people caught up in—and destroyed by—the glitter of fandom.
A young woman falls in love with a British pop star only to become entangled in an explosive situation involving deceit, drugs, murder, and the tragic delusions of her younger sister.
Londoner Nicole Forbes loves the quiet life she and her Navy SEAL husband built in the sunny seaside town of Coronado, California. But when her daughter, Hannah, gets taken out of school one day by a mysterious woman she tells her parents is her “auntie,” Nicole fears that the past she tried to outrun more than two decades earlier has returned for a reckoning. In weaving Nicole’s first-person, present-tense perspective with one that is third person and past tense, Jones creates a fabulously addictive story about betrayal and retribution. In the 1980s, Nicole and her 16-year-old sister, Cassie, develop independent relationships with Ben Edwards, the lead singer of a hugely popular band named Secret Oktober. While Cassie is a groupie who fights for flirtatious backstage encounters with Ben, Nicole meets him at a bar, where he compliments her for a song she wrote and sang. Unknown to the star-struck Cassie, Nicole and Ben become musical collaborators and then lovers. When salacious news articles about drug parties and women come to light about Ben and his band, Nicole is heartbroken, unaware that Cassie was arrested for participating in one such party. The situation unravels quickly after that when the mysterious drug-related death of a Secret Oktober bandmate forces Ben, Nicole, and Cassie into painful realizations about themselves and each other. Well paced, intelligent, and tightly plotted, this novel will appeal not only to lovers of suspense but anyone with a penchant for stories that explore the fraught relationship between obsessive love and fame.
A riveting thriller about people caught up in—and destroyed by—the glitter of fandom.Pub Date: March 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781250910035
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
