Delivers all the guilty pleasures the title promises and leaves you pathetically grateful for your own petty social circle.
Days after a party celebrating the perfect New York couple's first anniversary, the roster of guests who’ve survived it is suddenly decreased by one.
Jessica and James Sommers have the ideal marriage. Of course, every marriage has its hiccups. Realtor Jessica left her first husband, high school biology teacher Wayne Fiske, and art dealer James left his first wife, investment banker Haley Sommers, following an adulterous affair. Wayne has forgiven Jessica enough to show up at the party, and Haley, who’s had a lot of time on her hands since getting fired from her high-paying job, violates a restraining order to sneak in so she can interrupt the happy couple’s anniversary toasts by announcing exactly what she thinks of them. Jessica and Wayne’s 17-year-old son, Owen, who survived a bout of leukemia four years ago, is told that it’s returned and that the frightfully expensive experimental treatment his oncologist recommends won’t be covered by insurance. James, desperate to earn more money he can give Jessica for her son, lets Reid Warwick, who has his eye on Jessica, suck him into a highly questionable deal to sell some Jackson Pollock sketches of dubious provenance. In short, virtually everyone in the cast acts as if they have a target on their back, and it’s a shame that only one of them will get bashed to death. Once he’s created his sublimely bitchy ensemble of well-groomed users and losers, Mitzner lets them run amok, subject only to their amour propre and their determination not to knuckle under to NYPD Lt. Gabriel Velasquez’s plaintive requests for the DNA samples that will end up fingering the perp.
Delivers all the guilty pleasures the title promises and leaves you pathetically grateful for your own petty social circle.Pub Date: April 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5420-0576-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.
A violent attack hijacks a woman’s memory in this novel of domestic suspense.
McFadden wastes no time pulling the trigger in this harrowing story that starts with gunfire then swiftly propels readers into a crack tale of secrets and misdirection. Originally self-published in 2016, the book carries the same formidable weight as McFadden’s later novels featuring unsuspecting women who lose their power then fight to recapture it—mostly from men who have betrayed them. That formula perfectly fits Dr. Charlotte McKenna, a 37-year-old dermatologist who isn’t looking for love until the most handsome man she’s ever seen begins to woo her. There are warning signs about Clark Douglas and Charlotte overlooks them to her detriment—but is he a killer? The novel has dual timelines split between events leading up to the day Charlotte barely survives a head wound meant to kill her and the months afterward, when she struggles to reclaim her memory and her mobility. In real life, McFadden is a physician trained to treat brain injuries. Her expertise gives Charlotte’s rehabilitation authenticity, and her writing talent makes it interesting and engaging. As good as that timeline is, readers will yearn to get back to the alternate timeline about who wants Charlotte dead. It’s only a matter of time before Charlotte starts to remember who tried to kill her, and the clock is ticking toward their next attempt. McFadden dishes up plenty of suspects: Charlotte’s secretive husband, Clark; a former patient turned stalker who confronts Charlotte on her honeymoon; and the angry husband of a patient who blames Charlotte for his wife leaving him. Though the story is delicious and dark, McFadden brightens things up with a possible love interest for Charlotte and a surprise ending sure to please the author’s many fans.
Starts with a bang and closes with a knockout punch of an ending.Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249617
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
Another entertaining Aussie cozy for readers of Liane Moriarty—and fans of tough old ladies everywhere.
When her tabloid past comes back to haunt her, an 81-year-old Australian woman gets by with a little help from her friends.
When the neighbor child asks to interview her for a school project, Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick’s first line of defense is to shift little Persephone’s focus to another “old person” in their suburban Melbourne neighborhood, 93-year-old Ishaan Patel. Too late, says Persephone, he’s dead. This surprising information turns out to be true, as when she goes to check, Elsie finds the man sprawled lifeless on his kitchen floor. Her discovery of the body proves to be the first domino in a cascade of unwanted events, as her long-buried identity as Mad Mabel, the youngest convicted killer in Australian history, comes to light and creates a tidal wave of suspicion and media attention. Hepworth’s latest cozy domestic thriller uses the device of a YouTube documentary team determined to get Elsie/Mabel’s side of the story on the record for the first time, presented here in chapters alternating between Now and Then. In the present, cantankerous, sharp-tongued loner Elsie goes from having just one friend, the loyal Daphne Barton, to a web of close connections, including even a previously reviled dog she reluctantly inherits from the late Ishaan. In the past, a landslide of dead bodies and cruel twists of fate emerges to both justify and challenge the Mad Mabel moniker. If some aspects of the premise feel overfamiliar (cranky oldster’s frozen heart thawed by charming child), other elements are less well worn—a lovely pair of lesbians named Cess and Ness in the Then thread, for example. Those quirky suburban Australian neighborhoods just keep popping out the predators, bullies, shocking family secrets, and darkly charming surprises.
Another entertaining Aussie cozy for readers of Liane Moriarty—and fans of tough old ladies everywhere.Pub Date: April 21, 2026
ISBN: 9781250284549
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2026
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