THE QUIET TENANT

While a widowed man falls for a bartender, the woman he’s held hostage for years plots her escape in this fast-paced thriller.

Aidan Thomas doesn’t seem like a bad person: “People loved and trusted him because he was a normal man.” When his wife dies and he needs to move, his hostage, a woman he calls Rachel, convinces him to move her into his new house under the guise of being his tenant rather than killing her in the shed where he’s been hiding her. There, she has more access to his life—she can look through his possessions, hear who comes into the home, and even talk to his daughter. In alternating chapters, she figures out how to stay alive and how best to try to leave. The tight clip of Rachel’s voice—“Any minute now, the tires of his truck will screech outside. He’ll climb up the stairs, the furious tap-tap-tap of his boots a prelude to his anger”—lends urgency. Meanwhile, Aidan is so popular that his community is raising money for him in a 5K race; bartender Emily has volunteered to run a hot-cocoa station to get to know him better. It’s the contrast between the man Aidan appears to be to the outside world—and even to his family—and the man he is in secret that makes Rachel’s job so difficult. The people who love him will protect him because they can’t see him the way that she does. In other chapters, Aidan’s earlier victims chime in to show what’s at stake for Rachel if he isn’t caught. And when Rachel meets the other women in his life—first his daughter and then Emily—she knows she must escape for their sakes, too, but will they help or hinder her?

He'd be a rom-com hero if not for the woman tied up in his house—a twisted premise that raises unexpected moral questions.