Chances are no one will survive this killer celebration.
Inspired by Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, this twisty tale unspools what happens when a gathering of old friends devolves into a killing spree.
All the guests invited to a party to meet Will Mayer’s fiancee know they shouldn't attend, but as often happens in locked-door mysteries and horror novels, they just can't stay away. Will and fellow Bowdoin College graduates Alex and Cassandra Greene and Mitch Andersen share secrets about the deaths 12 years before of two fellow students, and the weight of those secrets has killed something inside them. Metaphorically, they're rotting from the inside out. On graduation weekend, more than a decade before, Emily Hunt was found dead. At first, the police and friends, as well as people who never knew her, blamed her because she'd been drinking and had a reputation for liking sex. But someone spread rumors that she was murdered by Brendan Clarke, another student, and not long after Emily's death, he was found dead too. Now, this reunion, set on an island in Maine, will blow up all the rumors and well-kept secrets, and everyone's life is on the line. Countless writers have employed the trapped-on-a-deserted-island setup, and this story could easily drown in a sea of clichés. But Kane methodically builds this plot-driven thriller through each character's perspective, then lets us watch as nearly all of them fall on the swords of their coverups. Tropes abound—isolated location, an approaching storm, and a plethora of unreliable narrators—but Kane still manages to keep the plot spinning in tornadic fashion. Mixing a classic plot device with the dangers inherent in victim-blaming and the damage amateur sleuths can cause through misuse of social media give Kane's novel a modern twist.
Chances are no one will survive this killer celebration.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9780063225626
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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