A thrilling and unpredictable hunt for answers that pays off.
A recently separated Brooklyn mother loses her one new friend and chases the woman down for answers.
As the book opens, Mary, who’s recently left her controlling husband, makes a new friend at the playground. Alex, Mary’s 2-year-old son, whines that he’s hungry, and the beautiful young mother sitting next to them on the bench offers up a bag of potato chips. This is Willa, and at this vulnerable moment in Mary’s life, she’s thrilled to connect with someone so attentive and engaging. After leaving her husband and the wealthy milieu that came along with him, Mary has been struggling to build a new life. Her relationship with fun, irreverent Willa is the one bright spot in her drearier new existence. Willa invites Mary to the opera, arranges play dates with their little boys, and fills in the gaps left by Mary’s now-estranged in-laws. Mary begins to rely heavily on Willa and maybe even love her, which is why, when Willa suddenly and inexplicably ghosts Mary, it’s so devastating. With nothing left for her in Brooklyn, Mary moves upstate with Alex, eager to start over. It’s a shock when she bumps into someone near her new home who looks exactly like Willa, but the woman insists her name is Annie. As the story unfolds, Mary learns information about Willa that she could never have imagined. This is a fast-paced, plot-driven novel that manages to poke fun at millennial parenting and the culture of wealthy Brooklynites. Although the number of coincidences and outlandish opportunities for scheming may stretch credibility, Konen does an admirable job of building suspense and keeping readers guessing. The story is perhaps tied up a bit too neatly at the end, but most readers will find themselves sufficiently surprised by the ultimate reveal.
A thrilling and unpredictable hunt for answers that pays off.Pub Date: Feb. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593544723
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
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
© Copyright 2026 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.
