by Mary Kubica ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 10, 2023
Skillfully built tension will keep the pages turning.
When a man disappears under suspicious circumstances, a young couple tries to cover their involvement while his wife begins to wonder what they know.
When Christian Scott returns home to find his wife, Lily, upset and scared, he assumes at first that she's had another miscarriage. Instead, Lily shares with him a horrific story: While she was taking a walk at a nearby nature preserve, she'd run into Jake Hayes, the husband of her friend and fellow teacher Nina, and he dragged her into the forest and tried to rape her. She'd only escaped by hitting him on the head with a rock. This sets up the major conflict of the novel: Christian and Lily must try to cover Lily’s tracks in case the head wound turned out to be fatal. Nina and Jake had had a fight the night before, so Nina isn't surprised that she doesn't hear from him at first, but as she begins to realize Jake is missing and then goes to the police, she has no idea that Christian and Lily are working behind the scenes to protect Lily. Eventually she notices that something is wrong with their behavior, though, and she vacillates between investigating them and retreating to her mother's comforting arms. The chapters are divided between Christian's and Nina’s first-person perspectives, and the entire action unfurls after the crime has presumably been committed, which adds an intriguing layer to the suspense. There isn't much of a focus on the victim, as we never get to know Jake except through other people’s reminiscences. Instead, the possible suspects take center stage. The only weakness here is a common one in Kubica’s thrillers: The solution, when it comes, seems a somewhat unearned misdirection, but in this case, it also serves as a reminder that some characters are, as some people are, more invisible than others.
Skillfully built tension will keep the pages turning.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9780778333111
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Park Row Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
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New York Times Bestseller
by Jeneva Rose ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 30, 2024
Answers are hard to come by in this twisting tale designed to trick and delight.
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New York Times Bestseller
Three siblings on very different paths learn that their family home may be haunted by secrets.
Eldest daughter Beth is alone with her fading mother as she takes her final breath and says something about Beth’s long-departed brother and sister, who may not have disappeared forever. Beth is still reeling from the loss of her mother when her estranged siblings show up. Michael, the youngest, hasn’t been home since their father’s disappearance seven years ago. In the meantime, he’s outgrown his siblings, trading his share of the family troubles for a high-paying job in San Jose. Nicole, the middle child, has been overpowered by addiction and prioritized tuning out reality over any sense of responsibility, much to Beth’s disgust. Though their mother’s death marks an ending for the family, it’s also a beginning, as the three siblings realize when they find a disturbing videotape among their parents’ belongings. The video, from 1999, sheds suspicion on their father’s disappearance, linking it to a long-unsolved neighborhood mystery. Was it just a series of unfortunate circumstances that broke the family apart, or does something more sinister underlie the sadness they’ve all found in life? In chapters that rotate among the family’s first-person narratives, the siblings take turns digging up stories and secrets in their search for solace.
Answers are hard to come by in this twisting tale designed to trick and delight.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9798212182843
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Blackstone
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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