A woman’s dreadful, unpredictable love life proves riveting despite a largely unpleasant cast.
A divorced mother of three children finds herself accused of a crime she didn’t commit in this debut thriller.
Faith is still a teenager when she leaves her Georgia home and follows her older boyfriend to Austin, Texas. That romance doesn’t last, leaving Faith in a difficult situation: “I’m almost nineteen years old and I have nothing. I have a low paying job, no car, and an apartment I can’t afford.” Then she meets lawyer Ryan Brunick. The two marry and start a family. But sadly, they aren’t happy for long, with the subject of having more kids causing the most strife. Following a bitter divorce, Faith continues her cheerless existence until she meets a handsome businessman who’s CEO of his own company. They fall for each another, and Faith is the happiest she’s been in a long while. But everything changes when the couple take a “dream vacation” in Thailand. Authorities arrest her for a serious crime, despite her pleas of innocence, and threaten her with a severe punishment. Awaiting trial, Faith finds prison life harsh; she has trouble communicating, as few speak her language, and she can’t reach anyone, including her family, for help. When an unexpected person finally comes to her aid, she’s hopeful. But Faith’s trial brims with frustrating and surprising turns, signaling that freedom may be unattainable. Generally unlikable characters populate Holms’ tale. For example, none of Faith’s relationships end without lingering animosity. Even Faith, who narrates, implies she wants a third child with Ryan as a reason to continue staying home. As such, it’s hard to sympathize with anyone. Still, the smooth narrative meticulously follows Faith from her teens into her 30s. The author’s writing is at its strongest in describing the Thai prison. In one scene, Faith, despite her hunger, must force herself to eat the revolting prison food. While characters throughout are manipulative and deceitful, the gripping story effectively shows how damaging one apparently simple lie can be.
A woman’s dreadful, unpredictable love life proves riveting despite a largely unpleasant cast.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73619-081-4
Page Count: 341
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
An addictive psychological thriller.
When a mysterious novel appears on her bedside table, a successful documentary filmmaker finds herself face to face with a secret that threatens to unravel life as she knows it.
Catherine Ravenscroft has built a dream life, or close to it: the devoted husband, the house in London, the award-winning career as a documentary filmmaker. And though she’s never quite bonded with her 25-year-old son the way she’d hoped, he’s doing fine—there are worse things than being an electronics salesman. But when she stumbles across a sinister novel called The Perfect Stranger—no one’s quite sure how it came into the house—Catherine sees herself in its pages, living out scenes from her past she’d hoped to forget. It’s a threat—but from whom? And why now, 20 years after the fact? Meanwhile, Stephen Brigstocke, a retired teacher, widowed and in pain, is desperate to exact revenge on Catherine and make her pay for what happened all those years ago. The story is told in alternating chapters, Catherine's in the third-person and Stephen's in the first, as the two orbit each other, predator and prey, and the novel moves between the past and the present to paint a portrait of two troubled families with trauma bubbling under the surface. As their lives become increasingly entangled, Stephen’s obsession grows, Catherine’s world crumbles, and it becomes clear that—in true thriller form—everything may not be as it seems. But how much destruction must be wrought before the truth comes out? And when it does, will there be anything left to salvage? While the long buildup to the big reveal begins to drag, Knight’s elegant plot and compelling (if not unexpected) characters keep the heart of the novel beating even when the pacing falters. Atmospheric and twisting and ripe for TV adaptation, this debut novel never strays far from convention, but that doesn’t make it any less of a page-turner.
An addictive psychological thriller.Pub Date: May 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236225-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
© 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.
