An imperfect yet entertaining debut from a promising writer.
When the married hosts of a home-renovation show struggle with infertility, it threatens to destroy their lives both on and off camera.
From the outside, Dawn and Wyatt Decker—hosts of The Perfect Home, the “crown jewel in the Home & Lawn TV lineup”—have a life that seems as flawless as the “after” footage of the houses they remodel. However, their picture-perfect appearance hides their growing insecurities around their marriage and struggles with infertility: Wyatt feels like the “meatless burger” version of a real man, while Dawn—who never really wanted fame anyway—worries that she’s not quite the match for her dashing husband. Amid their struggle to have a child, Dawn finds a mysterious package that arrives for Wyatt from Germany; containing experimental fertility drugs, it promises to make their dreams come true while also harboring a sinister threat. This discovery is not the last. Author Kenitz peels away the layers of the Deckers’ seemingly perfect life, revealing a series of dark realities that fuel betrayal, desperation, and possibly murder—challenging the loyalties of the people closest to Dawn and Wyatt while also resurfacing unlikely allies from the distant past. Like many thrillers in the wake of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, the novel alternates between Dawn and Wyatt’s perspectives, probing the power dynamics of gender and family and the illusions of the American dream. Dawn’s interior life and motivations are more developed than Wyatt’s, leaving the narrative tension lacking in places; astute readers will be able to guess the ending midway through the book. While the pages fly by, the novel lacks the psychological depth and narrative ingenuity that would lift it from good to great.
An imperfect yet entertaining debut from a promising writer.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781668063873
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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