At the heart of this multicorpse thriller is a love that dare not say its name. Come on out, Jane.
Former classmates at Oxford’s MFA writing program become locked in a vicious death match at a Manhattan writers conference.
Sutanto’s campy thriller follows two successful YA novels and a cozy mystery (among other books) and shows the marks of both genres, with confessional, in-your-face, first-person narration and minimal gore, well off-screen. It begins when Jane Morgan, an unhappy midlist writer of what she calls “lit fic,” learns that her former classmate (crush, obsession, idol, muse—all of the above) Thalia Ashcroft has hit the bestseller list with a thriller that seems to be partly based on their friendship. Despite their initial intense closeness, Thalia and Jane became estranged after a mysterious incident their first year, and while Jane came back to finish, Thalia never did. Now Jane, mired in a dull marriage to a dull man, with an equally uninspiring career, is determined to reconnect with Thalia and jump-start her life. When she learns that her old friend will be appearing at SusPens Con in New York City, she pawns some apparently stolen jewelry to pay for a plane ticket and hotel room and plows ahead despite the fact that husband Ted insists on tagging along and her literary agency won’t help her get into the show. Jane reveals early on her self-diagnosis: “Pretty sure I’m a sociopath. I’m not ashamed of it; in fact it’s something I quite like, and I carry the thought in the recesses of my mind like a lucky charm, returning to it the way one might stroke a rabbit-foot once in a while.” In fact, the reason the American Jane chose England for her graduate studies is that it’s considered the third rudest, most unfriendly place in the world (after Russia and France), and life in sunny California is driving her to constant thoughts of mayhem and murder. The plot in both present and past is quite silly, but crazy stalker Jane is kind of fun. Her self-knowledge seems limited, however—despite swoony sexual fantasies about Thalia, she continues to believe she’s not attracted to women. When the point of view switches in the second half, with supporting characters streaming in and twists piling on twists piling on twists, some eye-rolling may ensue. On the other hand, Sutanto’s renderings of Jane’s Chinese Indonesian heritage and her experience at Oxford, both autobiographically based, are strong.
At the heart of this multicorpse thriller is a love that dare not say its name. Come on out, Jane.Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2023
ISBN: 9780593546918
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.
Following the mysterious disappearance of his wife, a struggling London novelist journeys to a remote Scottish island to try to get his mojo back—but all, of course, is not what it seems.
Grady Green hits the pinnacle of his publishing career on the same night that his life goes off the rails—first his book lands on the New York Times bestseller list, and then his wife, Abby, goes missing on her way home. A year later, Grady is a mere shadow of his former self: out of money and out of ideas. So, when his agent, Abby’s godmother, suggests that he spend some time on the Isle of Amberly, in a log cabin left to her by one of her writers, it seems as good a plan as any. With free housing for himself and his dog and a beautiful, distraction-free environment, maybe he can finally complete the next novel. But from the very beginning, Grady’s experiences with Amberly seem weird, if not downright ominous: As a visitor, he’s not allowed to bring his car onto the island; the local businesses are only open for a few hours at a time; and there are no birds. At all. Not to mention the skeletal hand he finds buried under the floorboards of the cabin, the creepy harmonica music in the woods, and the occasional sighting of a woman in a red coat who’s a dead ringer for Abby. As Grady falls deeper and deeper into insomnia and alcoholism, he begins to realize his being on the island is no accident—and that should make him very afraid. Through occasional chapters from before Abby’s disappearance, told from her point of view, we learn that Grady is not necessarily a reliable narrator, and the book’s slow unfolding of dread, mystery, and then truth is both creative and well-paced. Every chapter heading is an oxymoron, like the title, reminding us of the contradictions at the heart of every story.
“Nasty little fellows…always get their comeuppance,” a movie character once said. Deeply satisfying.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781250337788
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
