I am a big fan of Shari Lapena so I jumped at the chance to early read this thriller coming out in July 2026. Jill and Ted are greedy, selfish, really unlikable people. When teaching writing, they say, “Show the reader, don’t tell them.” For me the first 30% of this book was a lot of telling instead of showing. Not a lot of dialogue. An action-packed prologue with a murder, but then it turned into getting the reader to dislike Jill and Ted, and wonder if they were going to get caught. Which we absolutely wanted to happen. More and more characters introduced, which was easy to get them straight, because they were introduced at different times in the story.
This particular story didn’t grab me… but you know what? I definitely kept reading until the very last page. And I preordered it anyway. Ha. I will re-read it when it is published in 9 months.
Thanks to NetGalley and Viking Penguin for the ARC. Book to be published July 28, 2026
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