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
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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