From the author of The Five Year Lie comes a new twisty thriller that probes how well we actually know the men in our lives.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Sarina Bowen’s Dying To Meet You, which is out May 13th 2025.
Rowan Gallagher is a devoted single mother and a talented architect with a high-profile commission restoring an historic mansion for the most powerful family in Maine. But inside, she’s a mess. She knows that stalking her ex’s avatar all over Portland on her phone isn’t the healthiest way to heal from their breakup. But she’s out of ice cream and she’s sick of romcoms.
Watching his every move is both fascinating and infuriating. He’s dining out while she’s wallowing on the couch. The last straw comes when he parks in their favorite spot on the waterfront. In a weak moment, she leashes the dog and sets off to see who else is in his car.
Instead of catching her ex in a kiss, Rowan becomes the first witness to his murder—and the primary suspect.
But Rowan isn’t the only one keeping secrets. As she digs for the truth, she discovers the dead man was stalking her too, gathering intimate details about her job and her past.
Struggling to clear her name, Rowan finds herself spiraling into the shadowy plot that killed him.
Will she be the next to die?
My favorite college professor used to say that the best thing about being an architect is that no two days are alike. “On Monday you’re wearing a hard hat to inspect a building site, on Tuesday you’re touring a client’s newly acquired estate, and on Wednesday you’re drafting at your desk.” He failed to mention that on Thursday you’ll be frantically vacuuming mouse droppings off that desk.
“Enough already,” I mutter, jabbing the vacuum’s brush attachment at my keyboard. “This is disgusting.”
Beatrice—who, in spite (or perhaps because) of her antique name, is my younger, hipper colleague—shuts off the vacuum and takes it from me without a word. I think she can tell how strung out I feel today. How close to the edge.
And our boss is arriving at any moment.
“We need bigger traps,” I mutter. “I saw some at the hardware store.”
Beatrice shakes her perfectly straightened blond hair. “Wouldn’t help. These mice aren’t large—they’re just entitled. Here.”
She hands me a packet of disinfectant wipes, which I tear open immediately. “But I want revenge.”
“Babe, I want a martini and a ninety-minute massage. But we’re get- ting a meeting with Hank instead.” She grabs a wipe, nudges me out of the way, and disinfects my desk blotter more efficiently than I’d done it myself. “I think I heard the car outside. Go stall him?”
“Sure. Okay.” I grab my clipboard and go, my heels clicking on the newly refinished hardwood floors as I leave our makeshift office and cross through the library.
The moment my contractors finished the mansion’s structural renovation, Beatrice and I adopted this space on the first floor, which we plan to use for the remainder of the construction project. Both the library and the historic Wincott office—now our office—have hand-carved moldings and trompe l’oeil ceilings. Plus, we can seal off the library on days when the contractors are making a lot of noise on the property.
It’s a heck of a lot nicer than the construction trailer we’d been using before.
As I stride past a gilded mirror in the corridor, I check my outfit. Blouse, heels, a pencil skirt. Makeup. At least I remembered to put in some effort this morning.
Hank Wincott—our boss—always looks like a million dollars, probably because his family has billions. The Wincotts are the oldest, most successful Maine family that I can name. They first staked their claim on Portland in 1805, when a shipbuilding ancestor built a modest brick home on this property. Then, in 1860, Amos Wincott—the architect of the family—expanded that home into the mansion that stands here today.
A century and a half later, my role is to burnish the Wincott legacy and preserve this property for a new generation of Mainers. I’m six months into a two-year contract as the architect of the project. It’s a job I fought for, because I’m excellent with the details of restoration.
Client meetings, though? Not so much.
In the atrium, I pass the elaborate curving staircase, where dappled light filters down from a blue-and-gold skylight thirty-odd feet above my head. When I reach the foyer, I grasp the front door’s oversize brass knob and twist it. The door is heavy, and I have to hold on tightly to prevent the salty Maine breeze from yanking it out of my hand.
It’s a surprisingly warm day for early June, and the sunlight in my eyes is a shock after the mansion’s shadowy interior. Once my vision adjusts, I see a shiny black Jaguar parked beside the house.
Hank Wincott leans against the passenger side, his phone to his ear. He tilts his strong jaw in greeting but lifts a finger in the universal sign for “just a minute.” He’s obviously finishing up a call with someone more important than me.
Honestly, I’m a little fuzzy on the details of how Hank spends his workdays. His older brother is the CEO of their global shipping corporation, while Hank is some kind of finance guy. He manages his family’s investments and also runs the Wincott Charitable Foundation.
Twenty years ago, Hank and I were in the same class at the expensive private high school where I now send my daughter. He was a popular party boy. If Chatham Prep had been large enough to have a prom king, he would have been a shoo-in.
I was a nerd, so our social circles didn’t overlap much. But everyone knew everyone at Chatham. The connection certainly helped me get this job—Hank said as much when he gave it to me.
I retreat back inside the house, making sure to leave the door unlocked. In the atrium, I lean against a hand-carved pilaster, lifting my gaze slowly upward, as the original architect had intended. Amos definitely had visitors’ awe in mind when he designed this space. He wanted them to be wowed by the elaborate staircase, which coils, serpentlike, up to the second and third floors. The upper levels of the house form a gallery, with every upstairs room opening onto the U-shaped open corridors.
Tilting my head back at a severe angle, I can finally make out the details of the ornate stained-glass window shimmering from the top floor. It’s 160 years old, and done up in a wave pattern of blues and golds with the Wincott family symbol in the center—a W styled like a trident.
Ocean imagery is everywhere in the mansion, because the Wincotts made their first fortune in shipbuilding. If I try hard enough, I can picture Portland’s leading nineteenth-century citizens in their dinner jackets, climbing the staircase toward the smoking room upstairs.
It’s all very beautiful. This commission is a big moment in my career. But it’s not an easy job. Parts of the house are so ornate that I’m struggling to merge twenty-first-century design elements into the floor plan, and all those handmade fixtures are blowing up my budget.
Then there’s the ghost. Some of our contractors think a woman haunts the place. They say they’ve heard her crying. I haven’t. Not yet, anyway. But if I had to make a bet on which old mansion in Portland is haunted, I’d put my chips on this one.
A sudden breeze tells me that the front door has been opened again. “Rowan?”
“Right here,” I call and step into the foyer.
He shuts the door and turns to me, all shiny shoes and gabardine wool and perfectly straight teeth. “Sorry I’m late.”
“It’s no problem,” I say, giving him what I hope is an energetic smile and a firm handshake.
“How are you?” he asks as we cross into the atrium.
It’s not a serious question. He doesn’t want to hear that I’m barely holding it together. It’s not his problem that I’m spiraling from a breakup. So I hold my smile. “I’m doing great.”
“Glad to hear it.” He glances around, as if checking for any new details since the last time he stopped by. The mansion is Hank’s ancestral home, although he never lived here. The family decamped in the forties to a newer, grander compound in a more private location up the coast.
In the decades afterward, the property was used as a home for unwed mothers—with the charming name the Magdalene Home for Wayward Girls—until the home closed down in the late eighties.
Now we’re in the process of converting it into a brand-new cultural institution: the Wincott Center for Maritime Heritage. It will be part museum and part educational center. The ground floor will serve as an event space and contain exhibits of maritime history. Upstairs will feature meeting rooms and offices. And out in back, I’m constructing a new-age lecture hall.
It’s a good gig. A career-making commission. Except I’m horribly behind schedule and over budget.
“Hey there, Hank!” Beatrice sweeps into the atrium wearing a smile that’s far less stilted than mine. She and our boss have worked together for years, and it shows. “Big shame about the game last night.”
His eyes crinkle at the corners as he takes a performative glance at his watch. “Seven seconds. That’s how long I was in the building before you decided to rub it in.”
She spreads her graceful arms in mock disbelief. “If you don’t want to talk about the Sox losing, maybe don’t bet on the Sox?”
“Fine, fine.” He pulls a handsome leather wallet out of his trouser pocket, plucks a crisp $10 bill out of it, and passes it to Beatrice. “Can we talk about the floor plan now? Or did I just come here to be humiliated?”
Beatrice pockets the cash. “I’ll leave you to it. Find me afterward for an update on the construction schedule.”
“Will do.” He turns to me. “Now let’s see this wall painting that’s causing all the trouble.”
“Of course. Follow me.” I lead him up the grand staircase to the second floor. Given the lofty ceilings in this place, it’s quite a climb. “I know you’ve earmarked the Blue Room for the director’s office. But I need to show you what the conservators did in there. It’s very impressive.”
“It ought to be, after a two-month delay,” he says. I cringe. Privately.
Hank already knows how the conservators work—an inch at a time, with cotton balls and Q-tips. He should be grateful they rearranged their work schedule to prioritize the mansion as soon as we’d discovered additional hand-painted walls throughout the second story.
Hank is a charming man, but he’s not a patient one.
On the second floor, we follow the curve of the gallery toward the front of the house. I step aside to let Hank enter the Blue Room first. Then I follow him, temporarily blinded by the glint of the afternoon sunshine off Casco Bay.
The room is empty and echoey, but it was once a guest bedroom with an elegant four-poster bed, hand-knotted rugs from Scotland, and curtains from France. Those furnishings were removed decades ago, but the scale of the room still gives a sense of grandeur. The ceiling height tells you straightaway that Amos Wincott had an ego. And the walls? Astonishing. They were painted by an artisan brought over from Italy.
Behind me, Hank whistles under his breath. “No wonder this took so long.”
I turn around so I can admire the largest interior wall, unbroken by windows or a door. It took the conservators weeks of work to reveal several figures from Greek mythology. The centerpiece shows the sea god Poseidon, who turns up everywhere in the mansion. This particular scene depicts him with his wife, a mermaid-like nymph named Amphitrite. She’s coiled around her husband, her bare breast plumped against his chest. Their ardor is unmistakable.
“All the upstairs murals are horny,” my favorite conservator pointed out last week. “There’s really no other word for it.”
I keep that observation to myself as Hank moves closer to squint at the brushstrokes. “Can’t believe they were able to uncover this. No wonder they’re so expensive.”
“They do impressive work,” I agree.
But it’s a shame they needed to. For seventy years, this lush imagery has been hidden under a layer of cheap house paint. Sometime in the 1950s, one of Hank’s uncles—Marcus Wincott—decided to cover the walls in a dull shade of beige.
Marcus had a different kind of Wincott ego. He was a religious man who probably thought that frolicking Greek gods were too scandalous for the pregnant girls who took refuge here.
So he’d painted over everything. He also broke some of the bedrooms into a rabbit warren of smaller rooms, forcing my demolition crew to painstakingly remove lots of slapdash drywall before the art restorers could even begin their work of rescuing the hidden paintings.
More than once I’ve stood here thinking: The balls on these guys. “It’s very ornate,” Hank says now. “Organic. Colorful.”
“Agreed,” I say. And then I hold back my gasp as he reaches out and
runs his fingertips across an 1860 masterwork.
Seriously, the balls on these guys.
“But it complicates the floor plan,” Hank says. “That’s the issue, right?” “Right. Our plan had a wall right here.” I indicate a spot that’s in the center of another mural panel—this one depicting Poseidon’s horses.
“We can’t unveil a rare work of art and then chop it in half.”
He frowns, possibly wondering why we can’t do exactly that. When you’re as rich as Hank, you can usually do as you please. “The director needs this space. And he’ll need to be separated from his assistant by a wall.”
That’s what I was afraid he’d say. “Can you tell me why it has to be this room? If we put the director’s office in the next room . . .”
He’s already shaking his head. “It’s the ocean view. Donors are going to sit right here”—he indicates a place on the floor—“and look at this view. They’ll contemplate the majesty of the ocean and our history upon it. And then they will open their wallets. The director needs to occupy the grandest space. It’s all about posturing.”
My heart sags. I don’t care to live in a world that’s all about posturing.
Yet here we are.
Hank’s phone rings. He checks the screen, and I expect him to silence the phone. Instead—without a word of apology—he takes the call. “Hey, Mack! What do you have for me?”
Great.
Giving Hank privacy, I leave the room and tap on the door of the neighboring one.
“Enter!” comes a female voice from inside the room I’m calling the West Room on my floor plan.
I open the door to reveal Zoya, the younger of our two conservators. She’s artsy, with a septum piercing and an angular haircut that reminds me of an I. M. Pei building. She’s standing on a ladder in overalls, dabbing a brush at the wall. When she sees me, she turns down the NPR broadcast on her Bluetooth speaker and climbs off the ladder.
“He’s impressed with your work next door,” I say in a low voice. “Just thought you’d want to know.”
She gives me a sly smile. “Did he complain about the delay, though? Only a billionaire would be upset that his house has important works of art all over it.”
“It came up,” I whisper. “But I know you can only work so fast. Is Bert gone for the day?” They often start work early and leave by three.
She nods. “I should get out of here, too. But I was listening to an interesting interview.” She grabs her tool tray off the ladder. “Look, I found Poseidon again.” She points at two horses? The larger one is nuzzling the smaller one. “If you say so?”
Zoya grins. “Poseidon pursued Demeter, but she didn’t want to be his next side piece. So she turned herself into a mare and ran. But Greek gods don’t take no for an answer, and Poseidon changed himself into a stallion to chase her down. Later, she gives birth to the horse Arion.” She shrugs. “Honestly, we’re just lucky the painting isn’t two horses fucking.”
I snort.
She grabs a drop cloth off the floor and folds it with quick competency. “Bet you ten bucks I’ll find Poseidon and Scylla next. Amos Wincott loved Poseidon. I know they were a seafaring family, and blah blah blah. But let’s face it—Amos Wincott was a dude bro. The family symbol is basically a triple penis.”
“Let’s not put that in the promotional pamphlet.” I head for the door. “You know I would.” She chuckles. “Why keep all the interesting shit
a secret? I’d also want visitors to know that there’s a sad female ghost wandering around here.”
I stop and turn around. “Have you seen her?”
“Nah.” Zoya shakes her head. “But I don’t have to. The aura is intense. Especially around the third-floor gallery.”
“Huh,” I say, because I’ve never used aura in a sentence, and I don’t know the polite response to that.
She shrugs. “The tile guys saw her, though. They say she was one of the pregnant girls who lived here. I don’t know if that part’s true but trust me—the lady ghost has the blues. There’s some bad juju in these walls.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
DYING TO MEET YOU. Copyright © 2025 by Sarina Bowen. Reprinted here with permission from Harper Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
