Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from You’ll Be Sorry by Liz Alterman, which releases on August 2nd 2026.

ONE
APRIL 2025
MIA

This story begins with a face. His face. Smiling. Beaming, really, at me from mid-magazine. Not a splashy one like Vogue or Vanity Fair. It’s the local kind addressed to “Resident,” filled with fluff pieces about high-schoolers collecting canned goods or gently used sports equipment so they’re able to “demonstrate leadership” in college essays.

Amid these faux do-gooders and a flurry of advertisements for dentists and interior designers, he’s there, wearing a navy suit that brings out the blue in his eyes and the same grin that sent sparks zipping through me the first moment I saw him.

I lean against the white marble island for support. It’s late afternoon. Beyond the kitchen windows, a steely drizzle falls on the bleak landscape. I adjust the pendant lights and lift the magazine, drawing it closer for a longer look.

It’s definitely, unmistakably Ethan.

His lips are parted and he’s doing that thing with his tongue, pressing it against the back of his straight white teeth. It sounds weird, but picture the hottest actor you know making a similar face. I’ll wait.

See? Oddly charming. It’s like he’s about to tell you a joke or let you in on a secret. What he actually wants to do, according to this glossy full-page spread, is sell you a house. It takes a full ten seconds for that to register.

It’s not easy to shock me but he’s done it. Again.

It’s quiet except for the refrigerator’s gentle hum and Button’s soft purr as she weaves figure-eights between my ankles, her tail tickling my calves.

When I collected the mail on my way in from yoga, a sweaty sheen coated my skin. Now a chill creeps up my spine.

This is not how I expected my afternoon to go. I’d been sifting through a mix of bills and birthday cards. They’d arrived right on time. Tomorrow I’ll turn forty.

Seeing my old name—Aimee Montgomery—scrawled across envelopes in my aunts’ lovely, loopy cursive stirred a sharp, unsettling recognition. I stiffened.

You could say I was rattled even before I spotted Ethan.

As I study him, in his probably airbrushed splendor, dots float at the edge of my vision. I blink, willing them to disappear. They don’t.

The Pierce Lachlan Group Welcomes Ethan Blackmore is written in an elegant gold font, bold against a shiny black backdrop. Below that announcement, in a small circle set off to the side, a silver-haired man stands, chin tucked, arms crossed. He looks a bit hostile, but maybe people want real estate agents who appear ready to spar on their behalf. Is he Pierce or Lachlan? Two people own this firm or one? Who cares? I focus only on Ethan.

Even if I hadn’t seen his name, I’d know him anywhere.

I snap the magazine shut like I’m twelve again and my sister Lyla’s caught me reading her diary.

I would’ve missed this, him, if the invitation to my cousin Daphne’s wedding (her second) hadn’t gotten stuck inside a Land’s End catalog I tossed in a basket beside the toilet a few months back. Not that I’d have minded skipping that bland affair (complete with mashed potato bar) but my non-response opened the Pandora’s box I prefer to keep locked.

“Still too painful?” my Aunt Lois whispered when she called to ask why I hadn’t RSVP’d.

“Gotta move on sometime, kid,” Uncle Ray barked in the background.

How many post-dinner glasses of port rendered my aunt bold enough to ask, “Did you ever end up freezing your eggs, dear? You were always so good with children.”

When I didn’t answer, she said, “Aimee? You still there?”

It goes without saying: my eggs are none of her business. It was “Aimee” that threw me. I’ve been “Mia” for more than a decade now. After a few dark turns that splintered my world into the beautiful before and the devastating after, I wanted nothing to do with my old life. I faced a starkly different future. Why not enter it with a new name? Amelia Montgomery lends itself to dozens of variations.

To avoid conversations like that one with my aunt, I flip through everything now. You never know what—or who— you may find.

Ethan.

I open the magazine again with unsteady hands, turning pages until I’m staring him down.

Involuntarily, I search for his ring finger. His hands are tucked inside his pants’ pockets. Only his thumbs are exposed. My gaze returns to his smile.

“Oh, Button.” I exhale and lower my shoulders down from my ears. “I hoped someone might’ve punched out those perfect teeth by now.”

Button meows. I want to believe it’s in solidarity—more likely, she’s hungry.

I scoop her onto my lap. “We all want something, don’t we?” I murmur into the soft triangle of her ear.

While I’ve changed a lot in the last thirteen years, Ethan hasn’t. Not really. Fine lines crease the corners of his blue eyes. There’s a bit more flesh around his square jaw, but his hair is still thick, still the golden brown of a wheat field shining in the late-September sun.

The first time he met my parents, my father steered him to the backyard to admire the garden—as if it could ever compare to the grounds of the Blackmore estate. Mom waited until Dad was in the middle of his lecture on the challenges of growing heirloom tomatoes before she speared a fat olive from her martini, arched her eyebrows, and said, “Ethan’s quite handsome.”

I understood the subtext: What is he doing with you?

I stroke Button’s shiny coat, hoping her purr will slow my jackhammering heart. I close the magazine, push it to the side. What I’d like to do is torch every page, but the fireplace in my overpriced townhouse is gas-powered. We’ve traded our caveman instincts for convenience.

I should shower, prepare for my birthday dinner with Matthew. I began seeing him to stop Sheri, my former assistant-turned-friend, from making “use it or lose it” jokes while pointing at my crotch.

This lackluster courtship gives me a reason to get out of the house, and Matthew’s safe—the human equivalent of vanilla ice cream: a sweet, respectable choice but, let’s be real, no one’s favorite.

At the end of our first date (bowling—I won), he said, “This was fun. Let’s do it again,” and opened a Google calendar to schedule it, decimating any hint of the romantic suspense that stems from waiting, wondering if he might like to see me again. (Spoiler: I would neither have waited nor wondered.)

The microwave’s clock reads 5:48. He’ll be here in an hour.

I can’t go. Not now. Not when spotting Ethan brings everything back.

Button meows. I’m clutching her too tightly around the middle. I kiss her head, an apology, and set her on the floor.

Moving as if I’m wading through rough tide, I open a can of cat food and spoon it into her monogrammed bowl. Usually, I sit and scratch her back while she eats. Instead, I drift into my home office, pulled by a force—the need to answer all the questions I’ve blocked. My legs go limp, boneless, and I drop into the overstuffed swivel chair beneath the desk.

I open my laptop, sign in, and click to bring up a new tab. The cursor flashes, tempting me at the same time Lyla’s voice pleads inside my head, No! Stop! You’ve moved on. Do not look back. You swore you wouldn’t.

I try to ignore it. It grows louder. You have built a life. Maybe not the one you pictured, but a life just the same. You have been good for so long.

Lyla: often bossy, usually right.

“I have been good, and where has it gotten me?” I say in response. Button stands in the doorway licking her paw, wiping her whiskers.

I turn back to the screen. The cursor continues its steady blink. I’m waiting.

On the corner of my desk rests a picture of Lyla and me in a silver frame. She’s four, wearing a pink gingham dress. I’m a newborn, swaddled in the blue blanket our mother knitted hoping I’d be a boy. Lyla’s sitting on a floral sofa, cradling me, her round dark eyes wide with worry, mouth open in a tiny ‘O’ as she gapes at me.

“Why were you making that face?” I asked her one Christmas Eve after we’d finished watching Love Actually and had begun sifting through old photos.

“Dad was using his camera with that giant scary lens. Mom was shouting, ‘Support her neck! Don’t drop her!’ I was terrified. You were my new favorite toy. I didn’t want to break you when I’d only just gotten you.”

I teared up. The Lyla I’d known my entire life was all cool confidence, bold, and fearless.

“That was the moment I knew it was my job to protect you.” She leaned forward and kissed my forehead with an exaggerated mwah. The Christmas spirit and Mom’s high-octane eggnog rendered her uncharacteristically sentimental.

After the holidays, I took the photo back to my tiny apartment and stuck it in this frame. Wherever I’ve lived, it’s always come with me, reminding me of our bond.

If Lyla were beside me now, she’d try to protect me from myself. But she’s not.

I set the picture face down, place my fingers above the keyboard, and type “Ethan Blackmore” in the search bar, breaking the promise I made to my sister more than a dozen years ago.

I hold my breath and hit return.

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Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from The Castle in the Glen by Rhys Bowen, which is August 4th 2026.

Australian writer Emma Callander has been recruited to complete the final historical mystery in a series by celebrated author Iris Blackburn. It’s 1965, and Iris’s memory is fading. She’s certain that only Emma can do justice to her novel about a murder on the Isle of Skye. When Emma ventures to Scotland for research, she discovers the story is not fiction at all but rather a true crime, unsolved for more than fifty years.

It was 1904 when a couple’s suspicious drowning led to the disappearance of a mysterious young woman the locals called the Wild Girl. To this day the mystery is unforgettable, especially among the descendants of an aristocratic family who’ll do anything to keep their secrets buried. From the misty Highlands to a medieval castle, Emma and Tony Gordon, Iris’s handsome lawyer, work ever more closely to uncover them.

But while Iris may be known for her fiendishly clever twists, there’s one not even Emma could have seen coming.

Chapter 3

As Emma was getting out of the car the front door opened and a stout middle-aged woman came out. She looked, to Emma, like the classic British countrywoman, wearing a tweed skirt and a hand-knitted twin-set in a dark, muddy green that made her pale complexion look even more washed out. She wore a strand of pearls at her neck and sensible shoes. Her greying hair was cropped in a mannish bob and there was no hint of make-up on her face.

“Here you are,” she said in a throaty posh-accented voice. “And you’ve made good time, too. Iris is waiting for you in the conservatory. I expect you’re ready for a sherry.” She turned her attention to Emma. “And I take it you are the young Australian writer. Your book made quite a splash, so we heard. Iris did enjoy it. I’m afraid I didn’t read it. I’m not much of a reader, apart from Country Life and Horse and Hound, much to Iris’s dismay. I’m Cynthia. Cynthia Morton. I’m Iris’s secretary and general dogsbody.” She gave a hearty laugh and pumped Emma’s hand in greeting. “Come on then. In we go.”

Emma stepped into a square central hall. It had a slate floor and whitewashed walls. The only adornment was a mirror above a glass-topped table on which there was a bowl of fresh flowers. A maid in a black dress with a crisp white apron and cap stepped out to greet them. “Can I take your coat, miss?” she asked.

Emma was conscious that her mack was not up to the standard of the house. She handed it over quickly, then glanced at herself in the mirror. Why hadn’t she worn something different today? Her grey flannel pleated skirt, white silky blouse and navy cardigan were almost like a school uniform, making her look ridiculously young and unfashionable. Still, there was nothing she could do about it, but she wondered whether Mr Spencer asking her to accompany him had been a last minute idea or something he’d been asked to do because of her nationality. If it was the latter then he could at least have warned her ahead of time!

“This way,” Cynthia Morton said. “Do you need to spend a penny before we go through?”

“No, thank you,” Emma muttered.

“If you do later there’s a cloakroom off the hall here. That little passageway to the left. Right then. Come on. Let’s not keep Iris waiting.” Cynthia took off down a long hallway with doors on either side.

At the end she turned into a sitting room with a sofa and armchairs arranged around a marble fireplace. Where French doors should have been there was now the entrance to a magnificent conservatory. The sound of conversation floated through until someone said, “Ah, the visitors have arrived,” and all conversation stopped. Emma hung back, letting Cynthia and Mr Spencer go before her. The conservatory was delightfully warm and Emma noticed radiators around the walls. The furniture was white wicker and everywhere there were tropical plants. Orchids hung in baskets and in one corner was a huge palm tree. Beyond the glass walls was a terrace with a fountain. Further off a lawn led to an orchard and woodland. A huge property, Emma thought. Too much for one woman.

She glanced around quickly trying to take in the scene before her. On a wicker chaise, facing the view, was a frail-looking older woman. She must have had fine features once, with high cheekbones and a good jaw, but these now made her face look sunken. Her wrinkles betrayed too many years in the cruel Australian sunshine. Her hair must have once been reddish-blonde but was now streaked with grey and was set in immaculate curls. She wore a pale mauve cashmere jumper and a large opal brooch at her neck. She had a sheepskin rug over her knees, in spite of the warmth of the room. Emma recognized her instantly. There was a photo of her on the wall at Barlow and Barlow, receiving an MBE from the queen. Sitting in a rocking chair beside her was an older man with a shock of grey wiry hair and a round, pink and remarkably boyish face. He had a glass of sherry in his hand. Emma thought she recognized him, that he might have come to Barlow and Barlow on occasion. And on Iris’s other side Emma was surprised to see a slim young man in a blazer and slacks, his dark hair neatly parted. Nobody had mentioned him and Emma wondered who he could be. She had understood that Iris had no family.

“Here they are,” Cynthia said heartily.

Iris attempted to sit up and Cynthia immediately rushed to help her.

“I’m not a complete invalid yet,” Iris snapped. “Don’t fuss.” She held out her hand to Mr Spencer. “David, my dear. How lovely to see you. It’s been ages.” Her voice sounded more smooth upper-class English than Australian and Emma guessed that she had worked on it over the years. David Spencer took her hand and kissed it. Then Iris’s gaze moved from David and fastened on Emma. “So this is my young compatriot,” she said. “Come over here, dear, don’t be shy.” She held out her hand. Emma wondered if she too was supposed to kiss it, but instead Iris grasped Emma’s hand and pulled her forward. The hand was bony. It felt like being caught by a bird of prey.

“So you are Emma Callander,” she said. “Writer of The Blue Gum Murders.” The eyes that fastened on Emma were remarkably bright, in contrast to the old, greyish face.

“I am.” Emma smiled at the old woman. “And I am so honoured to meet you, Miss Blackburn.”

“Sit down, darling,” Iris said. “Pull up a chair for her, dear boy.”

The young man leapt out of his own chair, pulled it forward, placing it beside Iris’s chaise.

“Thank you, you’re a sweetheart,” Iris said, giving him a beaming smile. Emma wondered for a moment if he could possibly be a toy boy, but that was too ridiculous to contemplate. But the moment the thought had flashed into her mind Iris said, “I don’t think you’ve met Arthur Gordon, have you David?”

“I don’t believe I have,” David said. He broke off abruptly, realizing what he was saying and frowned. “Arthur Gordon? But he’s . . .”

The young man laughed. “Arthur is my father. I’m Tony Gordon.” He had a nice laugh, Emma thought. Until then he had looked serious, almost worried, but she noticed how his eyes sparkled when he smiled. Not bad, she thought.

“Arthur’s boy? All grown up?” David asked.

“That’s right, sir,” Tony said, still smiling. He glanced across at Emma and their eyes met for a second. “All grown up and qualified as a solicitor. My father is getting ready to retire so I’m taking over the reins of the business.”

“Heavens above. How time flies. Well, congratulations.” Mr Spencer turned to Emma. “Arthur Gordon was Iris’s solicitor for years. He made sure all her contracts were legal.”

“And favourable,” Iris said, giving a throaty laugh. “Thanks to Mr Gordon I have this house.” As the laughter faded Iris looked around the room. “That’s my wonderful agent, Jeremy Feathers. Now who are we still missing? Dr Harkness, of course. That man is always late. Probably delivering a baby again. They breed like rabbits around here.”

Cynthia leaned closer to her. “Remember Dr Harkness telephoned to say he couldn’t make it today?” she said in a low whisper. “He had to go up to town for a medical conference?”

“Oh. Oh yes. Of course. No Dr Harkness then.” Iris brushed it off. “That means we’re all complete. Shall we go through to lunch then?”

“You haven’t even offered us a sherry yet, dear lady,” Mr Spencer said. “We are parched after having driven all this way.”

“Oh dear me. How ungracious. I’m turning into a terrible hostess,” Iris said. “It comes from living out here in the country. Give them a drink, for God’s sake, Cynthia, while I talk to this delightful young lady.”

Iris turned to examine Emma so critically that Emma felt herself blushing. “So tell me all about yourself, darling,” Iris said. “I want to hear all about everything.”

“There’s not much to tell,” Emma said. “I had an idyllic childhood in many ways. My family ran a vineyard in the Hunter Valley.”

“Oh, the Hunter Valley. How glorious. Sauvignon blancs?”

“Exactly.” Emma smiled, feeling herself relax a little. “And there were no other children within reach so I spent a lot of time alone.

“Did you do any writing in those days?”

“Yes, I did.” Emma looked down at her hands. “Just silly little stories, but I was always pretending to be someone else.”

“Just like me,” Iris said. “My stories were my escape from what was a harsh reality. So go on. What else did you do?”

“I rode my pony, swam in the pond and read a lot of books, including your Miss Favershams, until I was sent off to boarding school when I was thirteen.”

“How was boarding school? I hear they can be pretty grim, although when I was a girl I longed to go to school.”

“Mine was quite nice,” Emma said. “There were some rich and snooty girls who looked down on me, but on the whole I enjoyed my time there. I was all set to go to university when my father died.”

“That’s so sad. What was it, heart attack?”

Emma shook her head. “A horrible accident. He was killed when a piece of farm equipment rolled onto him.”

“You poor little thing,” Iris said. She gripped Emma’s hand again. “So which university were you heading to, Newcastle or Sydney?” Iris asked.

“Actually I’d been offered a scholarship to Oxford.”

“To Oxford. My my. Impressive. But you didn’t take it?”

“I couldn’t,” Emma said. “My mother was a wreck. Someone had to look after her. And what’s more we lost our home. The vineyard was owned by the family trust and my father’s cousin came to run it. I suppose we could have stayed on, although it would have been really crowded with his family there. I had to find a job. So we moved down to Sydney and I worked in a bookshop.”

“Good training for a writer,” Iris said.

Cynthia put a glass of sherry into Emma’s hand, but she hesitated to take a sip while Iris was still grilling her.

“It was. The owner was a wonderful old man, and when my mother got married again he let me live above the shop so I didn’t have to pay rent.” She paused. “He even helped me polish my book.”

“Ah yes. The famous book,” Iris said. “I found it most interesting. That little Abo boy. What a character. Where did he come from?”

Emma tried not to wince at the derogative term, obviously quite accepted in Australia in Iris Blackburn’s day. “There was an aboriginal family who helped with the horses at our vineyard,” Emma said. “The young son was so bright and talented and should have had a great future. But the way most people spoke to him and his family . . . it was awful. They treated them like less than human. And once there was a minor theft in the neighbourhood and immediately his family was suspected. I remember thinking at the time if he was arrested he’d get no justice from a white jury.”

Iris was nodding while she spoke. “That’s what gripped me about this story,” Iris said. “Justice. You care about justice. You wanted to make things right. That’s exactly what I do with Inspector Melrose. He has to make sure justice is served in every case. It matters to me. I’ve been passionate about it. That’s why my books resonate with so many people. In real life there is often no justice.”

She broke off, looked around, then laughed. “Listen to me, preaching away again. Drink your sherry, darling, and have one of the cheese puffs. Mrs Fisk is a whiz at cheese puffs.”

Cynthia held out a plate and Emma took one. Before she could take a bite Iris asked, “So what is the next book about? Also set in Australia? Same characters?”

Emma hesitated. “I haven’t started on a next book yet. Frankly I’m finding it hard, feeling so much like a fish out of water here. I can’t write about London. I still don’t know enough about how people think and interact, and yet Australia seems so remote now. To be honest I’ve been feeling quite homesick lately. I’m thinking of going back home.”

“No, you can’t do that!” Iris said the words so forcefully that Emma almost spilled her sherry. Iris looked around the room. “We won’t let her go, will we, darlings?”

“Not until she’s written the next book,” Jeremy Feathers said quickly, and Emma watched him glance at Mr Spencer.

At that moment a woman appeared in the doorway. She was short and round with hair pinned back in a bun and wearing a flowery pinny. “If you don’t come in for your lunch soon the soufflé will have fallen!” she announced, hands on her hips.

As they walked through to lunch Tony fell into step beside Emma. “Well done,” he muttered moving closer to her. “You survived a cross-examination worse than being in court.”

Emma shot him a grateful smile and he returned it.

Excerpted from The Castle in the Glen, by Rhys Bowen. Lake Union Publishing, 2026. Reprinted with permission.

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A witty and sharply realistic coming-of-age tale, the novel follows new college grad Robin Clarke as she ventures out into the world on her own. Robin’s path to this point hasn’t been easy—she literally had to run away from her isolated upbringing in an abusive family. Now landing a gig in a Teach for America-esque program and settling into a downtrodden South Bend, Indiana apartment, Robin has true independence for the first time.

The freedom can be paralyzing, though. While she yearns to move forward, putting her English degree to good use with a goal to become the best teacher at Topinabee High School, everything about this new life is overwhelming. Her perfectly perfect roommate, Naomi, isn’t quite the best friend Robin hoped for. Her teaching mentor, Mrs. N, inappropriately blurs boundaries on the best of days and spouts racist microaggressions on the worst. Add to that the weight of others typecasting her, both overtly and implicitly, as the “strong Black woman” … while it takes every ounce of energy she has to wake up, shake off the trauma reminders, and do life each day.

Then there’s the older brother Robin left behind. Once a promising basketball player, Will is now a college dropout living at home and working a fast food gig. In a similar but different way, he’s also at a loss for where to go from here. Willfully oblivious to why Robin bailed without warning, he finds himself alone and stuck supporting the family when their father’s health begins to fail.

As the chapters bounce back and forth between the siblings, big questions loom: Will they learn to navigate these new lives on their own? If so, how? And what will they gain or lose in the process?

Like any great literary work, Soft Spots hooks the reader right from the start. Without spoiling anything, the story opens by alluding to the fallout of a life-altering incident that occurred months ago. This fades into a flashback that ultimately walks the reader full circle back to the present day by the end of the book.

While this plot structure has plenty of engaging moments, it’s the characters that truly carry the novel. Robin is one of the most distressingly lovable characters I’ve read in a long time. Her narrative voice is unique, her pain palpable to the reader. Although you will certainly anticipate that her journey is going to end badly, this doesn’t stop her from grabbing your whole heart.

Soft Spots has a simple clarity in the way it captures the facts of life. We each survive our experiences the best way we know how—but that doesn’t mean we always make the best choices. Try as she might, the best Robin can do is stumble forward, one questionable decision after another. But at least she keeps stumbling forward. Her story reminds us that our soft spots, hidden away from the world beneath the shields we erect for protection, may be raw and wide open to suffering, but they also make us human.

Leila Renee tenderly probes these soft spots, rendering them memorably on the page. She convincingly crafts the feeling of separateness that defines Robin’s life, the way we each hold experiences inside ourselves that those on the outside cannot imagine. She captures how we are hard-wired to love our parents even when they have caused us the most harm. She explores the way loss and grief can tear us apart—and sometimes push us together. The result is a story that is both moving and amusing in turn, an emotionally resonant new novel that you won’t soon forget.

Soft Spots is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of August 4th 2026.

Will you be picking up Soft Spots? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis

“Raven Leilani’s Luster meets Halle Butler’s The New Me, SOFT SPOTS is a darkly funny and off-kilter coming-of-age novel following recent college graduate Robin Clarke after she runs away from her family, only to be forced to confront whether she should reconcile with her father when his health takes a sudden turn for the worst.

After miraculously securing a teaching job at a dysfunctional high school, loner Robin moves to South Bend, Indiana, where she’s paired with an eerily perfect roommate: Naomi. Freshly estranged from her abusive parents, Robin obsesses over two absurd goals: to be the best teacher at the school, despite never having taught, and to become best friends with Naomi, who could not be more her opposite. Meanwhile back home, Robin’s brother must decide between being loyal to his sister or their parents.

Just as Robin grows closer to her students and Naomi, she receives earth-shattering news from her brother. Desperate to cope, Robin redoubles her efforts to befriend Naomi, spiraling even deeper into obsession and self-sabotage. Everything comes to a head when one of Robin’s many bad choices come back to bite her, and she must confront the limits of forgiveness, the weight of memory, and the true cost of estrangement.”

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Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and first chapter from How to Ruin a Wedding by Elba Luz, which releases on August 1st 2026.

Lucy Delgado knows all about things that don’t work out. Between two failed marriages and losing her job, “meant to be” doesn’t seem to mean much anymore. And watching her sister’s marriage deteriorate isn’t convincing Lucy otherwise.

Desperate for money and disillusioned by love, she turns her nothing-left-to-lose attitude into action as a professional wedding saboteur. Lucy knows how to play any part―old lover, nosy relative, wise stranger―to save brides and grooms from making the same mistakes she did.

Until she crashes the wrong ceremony.

For Anders Kennedy, Lucy’s timing couldn’t be better. She’s exactly what he needs to derail his own sister’s upcoming nuptials by posing as Anders’s new girlfriend so she can slip into the family circle and sabotage from within. And Anders has the kind of money Lucy can’t afford to turn down.

As they fake-date their way through family celebrations, high jinks, and secrets, Lucy and Anders are forced to confront their cynicism about marriage. Their schemes were meant for the greater good, but what if love really does conquer all?

1.

Face down, ass up, under a canopy of overgrown bushes in an unkempt corner of the Keos Resort is not how I envisioned spending my Saturday morning.

Sure, I’ve ended up in this position before—usually by choice and on a mattress rather than a patch of itchy, probably poison-ivy-infested grass. This is, pathetically, more action than I’ve had in months.

This secluded clearing is far from the manicured perfection of the main grounds. Hidden, quiet. The kind of place where people go when they don’t want to be seen—people like the couple currently sitting on a weather-worn bench beneath a stone archway, framed by climbing vines and wildflowers. I spy them through the dense shrubbery. The woman leans so close that her dark hair veils the man’s shoulder, and their legs tangle with each other.

I’m crouched below the benches, hidden, itchy, and crawling toward what may or may not be the most devastating evidence of infidelity I’ve ever captured.

I know who they are. And I know what this looks like.

James—the groom-to-be. Sammy—his best friend. And if Jennie’s gut is right, his not-so-secret lover.

Jennie, my newest client, has labeled them “the Birds.” Not because they’re sweet or whimsical, but because they call each other Sparrow and

Finch—the same names as the doomed lovers in James’s favorite French

war film. A film his fiancée, Eliza, never finished because she thought it was boring. But Sammy? Sammy knows every line by heart.

You can’t fake that kind of intimacy. And Jennie knows it.

She wrote to me just a week ago, her message panicked and personal: Eliza’s about to marry the wrong person. James is in love with someone else—Sammy. I’ve seen it in the way they look at each other when they think no one’s watching. I tried to tell her, but she thinks I’m jealous. Please, I need proof. You’re my Hail Mary.

So here I am, hiding in the bushes like a creeper.

I inch forward, knees bruising against the ground, phone angled up for the best shot I can manage. The blue satin of my dress is definitely not camo—it practically glows against the underbrush—but I’ve shoved myself under enough tangled greenery to be mostly hidden.

A branch snaps near my shoulder, sharp against skin. I bite back a curse.

I can hear murmuring, but nothing solid enough to form words. And though I would kill my fiancé if he was wrapped around a woman the way James is right now, they could still claim to just be the best of friends.

Got to get closer.

Slowly, so I don’t make too much of a rustle, I inch forward under the line of bushes, army crawling my way closer to my quarry. A light tingling crawls around the back of my neck, but I refrain from the instinct to jolt away or make any sudden movements. I’m sure most of these bugs are harmless—and really, I’d do anything for a paycheck, even risk a skin rash in the most sensitive of areas.

Wedding wrecking isn’t exactly glamorous, but it’s a job. And five months after my landlord pounded on my door for rent, I’ve learned dignity doesn’t pay the bills. At this point, I’d look into selling my plasma—well, I have looked, just haven’t quite worked up the nerve to actually go through with it yet.

I pause once I reach the final bench, and gain a better vantage point of James and Sammy. My cheek presses against the ground as I angle my phone up and start recording.

“We’re just friends,” Sammy says, her nose nearly touching James’s. “We always have been.”

James shuts his eyes like he’s in physical pain. “Just friends,” he repeats, like a prayer. “We don’t work any other way?” The last part is framed like a question, a plea. I zoom in, holding my breath as a tickle develops in my throat.

“That was the last time.” Sammy pulls her face back, but her hands grip his thighs and travel up until they reach his crotch.

Jennie, your instincts are so on point.

“We tried before, and—”

“And we almost ruined a good thing.” Sammy pulls away.

James grabs the back of her head before she can establish a distance between them. My heart pounds in my chest. I steady my hands to ensure the camera doesn’t shake.

“Wait,” he says, his eyes on her mouth. “Just one more time.” “Finch,” Sammy says, breathless.

“Tonight, while everyone is in bed. Come to my room. I’ll be alone,” James tells her. “I need this. I need you.”

This is good. A planned meetup. More opportunity to get evidence. I’d already knocked on James’s and Sammy’s hotel doors earlier—feigned confusion, pretended I’d taken a wrong turn—but no one answered. They weren’t at brunch either; the bachelor party was off getting hammered at one of the bars, blissfully oblivious. The bridal party was holed up at the spa. I even tried the obvious choreographed moves—asked the concierge with a smile, slipped the bartender a casual question while pretending to order another drink, and scanned the pool cabanas for anything suspicious—and still came up empty.

Sammy shuts her eyes, and their mouths gravitate toward each other.

Someone clears their throat. The Birds jerk away from each other, standing and placing themselves an arm’s length away.

Luckily a new voice masks the sound of my curse.

“Excuse us for interrupting,” a deep, amused voice says. “We thought this area would be unoccupied.” I only catch the tip of his nose from my angle.

“You’re not interrupting,” James says, so smoothly I would have believed him if I hadn’t witnessed what I did. There’s no heat rolling off him, and he stands with slightly slumped shoulders, no worries within him.

My throat tickles again, and I clap a hand over my mouth before a cough escapes.

“Are you thinking about changing locations for your wedding?” another man’s voice says from a body I can’t see at this angle. “We’re set for one of the ballrooms, but my future wife heard there was an Alice in Wonderland–esque plot of land and sent me to check it out.”

Another sneeze attempts to ricochet out of me, so I press my hand hard to my mouth to muffle as much sound as possible, but it’s still audible enough. James and Sammy glance my way, but the deeper voice says, “Ah, squirrels roaming around here. Not the best wedding guests.”

The cheating couple’s attention is drawn away from my hiding spot, and I’d breathe a sigh of relief if I didn’t think it’d send me into another fit of sneezing.

“We heard the same,” James says easily, “but it’s not well maintained. We’ll be off now. You two enjoy your day.” He walks away without checking for Sammy, who follows close behind.

My nerves barely settle as the two men still remain.

“He’s right,” my unknowing savior tells his companion. “There’s no way the staff can do enough maintenance here to be ready for tomorrow. Tell your fiancée she’ll have to live out her wonderland dreams another way.”

“Well, had to try,” the other voice says.

The two walk off, and I wait as long as I can, nearly suffocating myself, measuring out enough time until they’ll be too far to hear me.

Just as my throat feels as if it’ll burst, I remove my hand, and a string of sneezes erupts from me.

Goddamn it, I must be allergic to something here. Great time to figure that out.

I wait until the sneezes slow, but something crawls along the back of my thigh, leaving a pinch of pain and heat in its trail. The sneezes rack my body as I free myself from under the bush of flowers. I mutter curses in between each one, pulling myself to a stand and straightening my dress.

For me, the video is enough. But will it be for Eliza and the people who align themselves with James? Jennie’s hunch went ignored, chalked up to two close friends with a bond that is inexplicable to people outside the bubble.

When it comes to the ones we love, we often can’t see what’s right in front of our faces. A curse of feeling too much and loving too much is that your sense of logic halves itself.

If I’d learned that lesson earlier in life, I wouldn’t have racked up two failed marriages, but that’s a conversation for my therapist . . . whenever I can afford one again. I need to regroup.

A sharp pinch burns into my arm, and I swat at the insect that hitched a ride on my skin. I’ll be finding welts, like the hives already spreading across my side, for days, but it’s fine—temporary pain for something bigger.

Every job I take gets me closer to what I’ve been working toward for years: buying into Save a Paw, the shelter where I started volunteering as a teenager. The owner’s retiring soon, and I’ve got a narrow window to come up with my share before he hands it off to someone else. I can’t let that happen. I’ve pictured myself owning part of that place since I was sixteen. All these inconveniences will fade into forgotten memories soon.

First, I’ll shower and lather myself in lotion to help with the itching. Then, I’ll check the Excel grid and see where else there’s an opportunity to catch the Birds—extra evidence wouldn’t hurt. They’re meeting at night, so that’s something, but I’d like to have less risk involved. Something might happen that means they can’t meet, or whatever evidence I gather won’t be enough. I’ll try to force as many interactions as I can before the day is up.

“Should I call security?” A voice brushes over my skin, and I yelp, whirling around.

My body stalls. I stand there in shock, half because his rough five o’clock shadow and dark, windswept hair seem so out of place in the delicate richness of where we are. This resort is like a slice of heaven, and he looks like he just sauntered his way through a storm.

The other half of me freezes to admire the height, the collection of muscles, and the eyes that seem simultaneously to be blue, green, or brown—their beautiful hazel a color I’d probably have tried to buy contacts to match a decade ago. He’s not overly muscled, but not too lean either. Like he works out when he feels like it, but it’s not a priority for him. His pale shirt is loose on him, aside from his biceps, where his sleeves seem to cling, rolled up to reveal veins and a Rolex.

And then I remember I just crawled out from under a bush. And his words sink in.

“And why would you do that?” I try to straighten myself out and make it seem like I’m not doing anything wrong. There’s a chance he didn’t see me unearth myself. I’m wandering around, just like him.

I get distracted by the dimple that appears as he speaks, when he points to me and then to my previous hiding spot. “I just assumed someone hiding under a bush isn’t a guest at the resort.” His Adam’s apple bobs as he speaks, his finger back to pointing at me. “Your wig is falling off.” Shit.

I adjust the bundle of synthetic ginger curls atop my black hair as much as I can without a mirror. “Plenty of people wear wigs. Is that a problem for you?”

He raises a thick brow. “Not at all.” I realize his voice is that of my savior from earlier. “Do you have an explanation for the first part of my question?”

I make a show of looking around. “Funny, I didn’t hear any question marks.”

He tilts his head, his full lips, with a sharply pointed Cupid’s bow, pulling up. “They were more like statements, you’re right. I just thought if I said them, you’d answer.”

“Well, I’m not a mind reader. If you have a question, you should ask it.”

I blink as the scent of mango and sandalwood encircles me. “Okay, stranger, why were you hiding under the bushes?”

“I don’t know you. I don’t have to tell you anything.”

Amusement glimmers in his gaze, which travels up and down my body, and it takes all my self-control not to shift my weight or fidget. Usually, I have so much restraint over myself, but being caught like this is disorienting.

His thickly lashed eyes, the hazel that changes color depending on the way the light hits them, narrow on me. “You’re right again.” I’m sure he broke his nose during childhood, the way it crooks at an angle slightly. “But I saw you when I first walked through, and my curiosity is more than piqued.”

I’m well aware the curiosity is more about my actions than me, but the way he says it, softer, sexier, sends ripples of awareness down my spine. Suddenly, I remember just how long it’s been since I had sex, since I had a man speak to me with his gaze piercing me into place.

Just as suddenly, I realize what he said.

“If you saw me earlier, why didn’t you say anything?” I cock my head to the side. “You knew it was me sneezing, not an animal.”

“I’m no snitch,” he says, and his smile is too infectious for me not to mirror.

“Well, I’m not a threat, stranger. No need to call security, and thanks for keeping my hiding place a secret.” I step away, trying to make a break for it. He’s already seen my real hair under the wig and already has too much attention on me when I’m supposed to maintain a semblance of anonymity while wedding wrecking. After a job, if you saw me again, you might recognize me vaguely, but you’d never be able to give an accurate description to an artist. Whether I’m contouring my face, sculpting a sharper shape from my soft features, paling out my tan complexion, covering my freckles, plopping colored contacts over my brown eyes, or wearing crooked glasses, I always put in effort to look far removed from my actual appearance.

There’s only a slim chance someone will recognize me while ruining a relationship, but I prefer to make the margin even smaller. It’s not something I want my own circle of vastly more successful marketing peers and honor-roll college graduates to know about. As much as it feels good helping, wedding wrecking’s not supposed to be my forever career path; it’s just something I stumbled into five months ago, right after I lost my job.

Even though my curiosity wants me to stick around a bit, it’s better I skedaddle while I can.

He steps toward me. “I can’t even get your name?”

“I’d only give you a fake one.”

His chuckle is stormy and sexy, eliciting spots of warmth throughout my body, and the butterflies that have been long asleep flutter with anticipation. The way his appearance seems mysterious, but his eyes are alight with harmless mischief, is stimulating too many forgotten hormonal responses from me.

Love steals your logic, but lust steals your self-preservation.

“You’re only making me want to know more,” he says, his gaze traveling lazily up my body, and my legs actually buckle. All right, seriously, I’ve got to get out of here.

“Sorry,” I say, placing much-needed space between us. “Someone’s calling for me.”

Another amused sound escapes his throat. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Coming!” I shout to the sky, and with no other options, I literally and metaphorically run away, as fast as my heels can take me.

When I make it back to my room—after showering and popping some Claritin—I remove the three missed notifications from Taina, who’s house-sitting for me since I promised to check in on my neighbor’s cat while she was away before I got this job.

I open my camera roll and pull up the video I threw out my dignity for to send to Jennie.

The Birds are in center view, angled slightly toward each other, as if they’re in a romance poster. This could be it, what Jennie needs to save

Eliza. I crank up the volume, hit play, and— I rewind and try again.

I stare at the screen, the silence echoing in my skull.

My finger must have been on the speaker. The only noise is the occasional rustle of movement when I inch closer.

This isn’t good enough. I can’t send this to Jennie. It’s basically a silent film.

I drop the phone on the bed and flop onto my back, staring up at the ceiling. It might have sea glass embedded in it. Or maybe I’m hallucinating from stress and Claritin.

A pounding begins to drum behind my eyes.

This job’s already been harder than usual. The ruin is always simpler with time—it also allows me to infiltrate their bubbles more organically, instead of a last-minute insertion.

Some people want me to pretend I’m a long-lost lover. Others sneak me into the bridal (or bachelor) party to plant seeds of doubt into people’s heads. Less risk, less reward for my bank account. Others—and this is mainly because of the false advertisement my sister, Taina, wrote on the website, claiming I have experience as a private detective—want me to dig around and see if their gut feelings about cheating partners are correct. My one requirement is that I only target couples I’m certain are bad for each other—this isn’t about breaking up happy relationships.

Jennie’s request came just a week ago. Extra charge for the timeline, sure—terrible for infiltration. No cover, no invitation, so I’m just another plus-one at someone else’s wedding, poking around from the outside. Harder to get access, harder to find angles, harder to get proof.

Very little time to work with for a very big job. Regardless, I’m going to have to find that couple again tonight.

Get closer. Get cleaner footage.

With a long, dramatic sigh, I rub circles into my temples.

Some birthday weekend this has been—freshly twenty-eight, no real career, no real relationships, bug bites burning into my skin, and running around trying to prove someone’s infidelity.

My parents would be so proud.

Wedding wrecking was supposed to be temporary. A weird little pit stop before I found another marketing job—preferably one that didn’t involve a New York tech firm run by misogynistic man-children with god complexes and backhanded compliments that slowly crushed your will to live.

A job where I wouldn’t have to worry about dress codes or about the way I speak. Or being assertive, but not too much, because you’ll sound like a bitch. Taking exclamation points off emails because it’s not professional, letting men think they’re explaining a process to you that you already know how to do. Repeating the same marketing plan used for every campaign because the people in charge don’t believe in thinking outside the box when they have a perfectly good, boring box already.

But that was five months ago. And I’m still here.

Every time I think I’ve hit rock bottom, the floor rips from under me and reveals another level.

When I first stumbled upon wedding wrecking, I told myself it would be just one time. That I was helping someone; that love, real love, should survive a little scrutiny. Then I did it again. And again. And suddenly, I stopped needing to lie to myself about why. Because the truth is, people don’t get married for love. Not always. Not often.

People get married for so many reasons that have nothing to do with love. Money. Timing. Guilt. Social pressure. Because they’re scared to be alone. Because their mom likes him. Because it looks good on paper. Because they’re thirty-two and tired of dating apps. Because it’s easier than breaking up and starting from scratch.

It’s not that I don’t believe in love. I do. I have so much love in me—it’s kind of the problem.

That’s why this job makes sense.

If love is real, if it’s as rare and valuable as everyone says, then what I’m doing is a service. Stopping people who don’t really feel it from walking down the aisle anyway. Making space for something truer to find them later.

Or at least keeping them from signing a contract with someone they’re already lying to.

Or maybe I’m just trying to make myself feel better about blowing up other people’s fairy tales, because mine didn’t work out.

God, okay. That’s enough of a spiral for one night.

Needing a distraction, I dial Taina. She answers on the third ring.

“Hey, Taina.”

“Hey, Lucy.”

Her tone sucks every drop of relaxation from my body. Taina never answers the phone without greeting me as a ho or bitch or both. She once called me Slut-bucket while I was in the break room at work.

My heart starts to pound and my brain surges forward with every possible devastating scenario. Losing both my parents left an ever-present fear that the universe will come and finish the job by taking Taina away. I have to remind myself that she’s on the phone, so nothing could possibly be as earth shattering as that.

“What’s wrong?”

“I left for a few hours to meet a friend,” she begins. “Just a few hours! And then when I came back—well—I tried to stop him. I swear, I didn’t even notice the eviction notice he’d taped on the door. I even offered to pay the rent, but I guess he doesn’t trust you won’t be late again. That bastard must have been waiting until both of us left the place.”

Dread fills me, streaming from the pit of my stomach and spreading everywhere. “Taina, what are you talking about?”

“You’ve been evicted.”

Time pauses, and my heartbeat does too. “I sent him half the payment! He was supposed to let me stay.”

“I’m sorry.”

This can’t be right. He swore to me I could pay half now and the rest later. I rub my chest, and my heart starts to lose a steady rhythm. Maybe he just agreed to get what little out of me I had. And you, a grown woman, were naive enough to fall for it.

Taina says, “Whatever he didn’t trash, I’m having sent to my place.” Muffled, distant, she says to someone else, “Fuck you; my husband will sue you for all you have, you absolute asshole. You’re lucky I don’t shove those keys down your wrinkled-ass throat, you lizard-looking bastard.”

God, I can’t even bring myself to ask what she managed to keep. Everything, everything in there was from our parents. I didn’t get rid of a single thing after their death. Almost everything they ever owned is in storage or in Taina’s basement, but the rest, the best stuff, was in my apartment.

With me, so I could feel them every day. So it wouldn’t feel like they were in an unreachable place. So I wouldn’t be alone.

“It’s a blessing in disguise,” Taina says in my ear, focus back on me. “You’ll be more secure with me, and we can see each other more. Your place was at risk of falling apart any moment anyway. This is exciting!” Again, muffled, to someone else. “Fuck you.”

I love my little sister, but God I don’t enjoy her voice very much right now. No way I would turn a miserable moment for her into a silver lining, not until she’s had the proper time to process. It’s been thirty seconds. I deserve at least sixty.

I turn off my phone. I close my eyes and try to breathe through my nose. Try to be calm. I hate being upset. Really, being sad is the worst. Your stomach feels raw and filled with rock salt and your eyes swell until keeping them open creates this headache, like a woodpecker is stuck behind them.

My hands grip my phone so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t crack. I take another breath and it turns into a sob.

I pitch my phone to the other side of the room. It slams against the wall, and all I can think is, How much is that going to cost?

Damn it, damn it, damn it.

I rub my knuckles against my chest. Pressing as if it’ll stop my heart from beating so damn erratic.

I should have asked Taina what she managed to save. Now I’ll just think all the best stuff is gone. The Wall of Memories. Our family dog’s ashes. Dad’s favorite baseball glove. Mom’s go-to pot for rice. I need it all. It’s like glue linking me to them. A direct connection whenever I need them.

Evicted and jobless. But I can’t think about that now . . . I have a wedding to wreck.

Text copyright © 2026 by Elba Luz. All rights reserved.

The post Read The First Chapter From ‘How To Ruin A Wedding’ by Elba Luz appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

The Mortal Enemy Murder Club is a cosy mystery thriller and the second book in the Hu Done It series, so readers will need to have read The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club before picking up the sequel. The Mortal Enemy Murder Club is perfect for fans of Only Murders in the Building as well as books like the Finlay Donovan series by Elle Cosimano, Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies by Catherine Mack, Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto, and The Maid by Nita Prose. The Mortal Enemy Murder Club explores themes and topics like revenge, cheating, secrets and lies, culture, social norms, fame, family, friendship, trust, right versus wrong, incarceration, and identity.

First off, this cosy mystery weaves together an interesting case, great female friendship, a dash of romance, and some laugh-out-loud moments, making for an enjoyable read! It was great that the mystery in The Mortal Enemy Murder Club was connected to the case in the first book and that it involved many of the same characters, so it made it really easy to dive into the book without a lot of preamble. I really enjoyed Kat’s quirky personality and found her love of idioms (and the history behind them) to be interesting. Lastly, there is definitely the potential for more books in this series so I cannot wait to see what’s up next for “the mortal enemy murder club”!

Even though I enjoyed book two, I was much more invested in and surprised by the case in book one; so in comparison, I didn’t feel like I was as engaged in the plot of The Mortal Enemy Murder Club.

Overall, I’m loving the Hu Done It series and am excited to see what other adventures await Kat, Olivia, and Elle! If you’re looking for a cosy and humorous mystery series, then I highly recommend the series!

The Mortal Enemy Murder Club is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of July 28th 2026.

Will you be picking up The Mortal Enemy Murder Club? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis

The Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club is back with a twist in this smart, hilarious mystery by USA TODAY bestselling author Gloria Chao.

Kathryn Hu is not getting into the business of solving murders. Yes, she and her friends Olivia and Elle figured out who killed their cheating ex-boyfriend. But now Kat can get back to her usual, murder-free existence.

Then she gets an unexpected plea for help. Mandy Thorne has ruined countless lives through her revenge podcast. She also did her best to frame the girls. Now, she claims, someone is trying to kill her. And the girls are the only ones who can save her.

But can the trio and Mandy put aside their mutual contempt long enough to prevent a murder and solve this case? Can they become…the Mortal Enemy Murder Club?

Filled with humor and shenanigans, The Mortal Enemy Murder Club is a romp of an adventure by USA TODAY bestselling author Gloria Chao, perfect for fans of Dial A for Aunties and Finlay Donovan Is Killing It.

The post Review: The Mortal Enemy Murder Club by Gloria Chao appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from City of Widows by Nadia Hashimi, which releases on July 28th 2026.

In February 2020 the US began to withdraw troops from Afghanistan after nearly twenty years of occupation. A whole generation of Afghan women had been born during that time—women who had grown up in relative peace, gone to school, entered the professions, even served in the army and Parliament. The women of Afghanistan watched as the Taliban filled the streets again. They knew everything was about to change.

In the bustling, cosmopolitan city of Kabul, women are TV newscasters, shop owners, doctors, teachers, lawyers, even soldiers. They include Marjan, who fought with the Afghan army, and will risk everything to keep her daughter Hawa safe. In her earlier days Marjan was called Rahima and had lived the life of a bacha posh—a girl raised as a boy until she came of age. Forced into an early marriage, Rahima took the name Marjan when she fled her warlord husband. She’s created a whole new life for herself, one she will not give up easily.

So has Soraya, who defiantly wore red lipstick as she led the army’s all-female combat force over the objections of her upper-class family. Soraya’s now a wanted woman whose brother may choose not to shelter her from the Taliban. What will become of her? Or Mina, a journalist and broadcaster whose beautiful face is known to everyone in Kabul—including the new regime?

Fight or flight? Or find a third way? One thing is for certain: none of these women will meekly accept her fate.

An epic saga of fear, resistance, change, and reinvention, City of Widows gives voices to the unforgettable Afghan women at a crossroads of history.

“Marjan,” Kobra says slowly, suspending her name in the taut air. “You have not been honest with me.”

There are a dozen eyes on Marjan, who instinctively takes a half step to the right, closing the gap between her and her daughter. She takes Hawa’s hand, gives a gentle squeeze to the thin fingers. Hawa doesn’t withdraw or resist, her fire tempered by this freshly unveiled peril in the sweltering heat of summer. It is the season of stone fruit, a hard pit in every belly.

The women have crammed themselves into this room, their numbers doubled by the shadows cast on the clay walls. They are here to bear witness. They are here to ensure their safety. They are here to gawk. Even the tightly swaddled infant holds her cries, waits on Marjan’s reply.

Marjan tries to think quickly but she cannot find her thoughts, as if it is twilight in her mind as well. She needs only to choose one of the variations of her story that she has told in the past, but this is no easy feat. She has written, erased, and rewritten her story so many times that she has worn through the paper and vanished her own history. What had she told these women the first day she had climbed this hidden hill? She wishes she could ask one of the women in the room. Surely, one of them remembers.

“She should leave,” someone says, a voice shaky with nerves. A murmur ripples through the room. Marjan feels the familiar sting of rejection. She’s spent most of her life as an outcast. She reminds herself that she is a stranger to these women, a trespasser. She reminds herself that cornered mothers are dangerous creatures.

Something flutters in her belly, the anticipation of a fall. She feels as if she is high in the inky skies, readying herself to descend from a hovering helicopter with her freshly oiled firearm. On those nights, just before she put her hands on the rope, she always became acutely aware of her limbs, her head, her spine, her hammering heart, as if she were taking inventory of everything that could be lost if she wasn’t smart, if she didn’t remain vigilant. To the women in this room, she appears whole, but she is not. She will spend a lifetime grieving what she has lost because she chose to become a soldier.

The lights of the distant city flicker behind Kobra, like embers in the remains of a fire. The hill offers a unique view of the city, which has gone quiet these days; police trucks roll through the streets, driven by men who have their own laws, their own vision of order. People watch from behind curtained windows, some old enough to remember the last time they lived through this. Their heads bow, their shoulders slump. Their bodies recall the posture of submission needed to evade lashings.

“We have to think of our children,” says another woman, and the dim room fills with the hum of agreement. “Especially our daughters.”

“She is right,” affirms another.

Marjan cannot remain silent. Recalling her training, she softens her voice.

“Please. I’m also thinking of my daughter. If we are found . . .” Marjan glances at Hawa, an instinctive gesture. She despises herself immediately for using her daughter to tenderize this clutch of women.

Hawa stiffens. She is reminded of the piteous looks she would get at the music school from the parents who had never sent their children to live in an orphanage. She has never, ever wanted to be regarded as a mascot for misfortune, and her mother knows this. Hawa also knows her mother has never sounded so desperate.

“She is not one of us,” a woman cries out, looking right and left at the widows of her community. “Our hill has been quiet for years, but our peace has not come easy, nor has it come cheap. I have three children to look after. The last thing I need is a reason for those brutes to climb up here and poke their filthy heads into my home. Do you think they will look past my daughter? A fifteen-year-old girl? Beware, ladies! Beware!”

A teenage girl lingers behind her mother, arms folded across her chest. Other mothers have similar fears. They know how easy it is to bring down clay walls. They sleep lightly. What if their children are sent to the families of their fathers? Will their boys be pulled into those trucks? Will they soon have weapons thrust into their hands?

Her face obscured by the dark, a woman begins to sob.

Kobra pulls her shoulders back and the ends of her headscarf, minty dots on a tawny fabric, skirt her hips. The lines on her face are more severe than they should be at thirty-five. She raises a finger; the henna-stained tip acts as a red light and halts the chatter. She has no officially designated authority here, no title or honorific, though her mother founded this small society and she has lived here most of her life. She has muddied her hands erecting walls and she has shared food. She has faced down corrupt police officers and settled quarrels. She has listened. The wealth of respect she holds is hard-earned, not an inheritance.

“I want to hear from Marjan,” Kobra says. The room awaits Marjan’s reply.

In her lifetime, Marjan has been on both ends of an interrogation. She knows she is on the wrong side of the questions now. She closes her eyes, tries to hear the instructive voice that has guided her in her worst moments. When she was trapped in a forced marriage. When she spotted movement in the corner of her night-vision goggles. When she wasn’t sure she could face another sunrise.

Where is that voice now?

Someone huffs, angry but not enough to violate Kobra’s call for silence. Marjan thinks of the climb to reach this city within a city, with its eroding steps and patched walls. Stepping into this place was like stepping into a gritty but mythical land. Marjan has been in spaces without men—a women’s shelter, women’s barracks, a maternity hospital. But those were stops on a journey, not a place a woman could call home. Marjan can al-most see her neighborhood from the top of this hill. Are the birds perched on her balcony now? Are they looking at everything Marjan left behind? A tea kettle and sheets of music, a battered rug and a bar of lavender soap. These trinkets have swollen with value from the moment Marjan and Hawa left them all behind and fled to this scabrous hill.

Were it not for that one whisper in the wind, she would never have known this world existed, this world apart from men, this city of widows.

“Have you no answer?” Kobra asks.

“I will tell you why we’re here,” Hawa says.

Kobra raises an eyebrow. The women are still as a winter lake. From the beginning of time, people have sought refuge in the deep folds of a story, tragedy and triumph interwoven. We seek the hand-knitted comfort of a tale, particularly one steeped in the epic suffering of innocents, to hear of others who have been cheated by fate and tricked by friends and pierced by love’s sharp arrow. The women lean in; the coven tightens. These widows are anxious, certainly. But they’re also intrigued.

“Hawa!” Marjan protests. Their story was unwieldy even when she alone was the storyteller. What if Hawa gets it wrong? What if she reveals one detail too many?

Hawa looks unsurprised and unimpressed by her mother’s reaction. They know each other as mothers and daughters do—all too well and not at all. Marjan thinks of the times she was silenced as a girl, all the decisions made for her.

At the bottom of the hill, the streets are crawling with vengeful men, patrolling and purifying a stolen city. Will they silence the women again? And if Marjan silences Hawa now, what will she have taught her daughter? Like everyone else in the room, Marjan’s eyes are trained on Hawa, her daughter’s youth marred by the shadows under her eyes. There has been no rest since the Taliban stormed into Kabul.

Marjan is reminded that their story is not exclusively hers and has not been since the day Hawa was born. She looks at her daughter and wilts, realizing that she will now yield their heavy history and their bleak fate to this young girl. She wants to scream, ashamed of the cruel inheritance she has bestowed upon her child. Marjan has endured much abuse and loss in this life, violence in all its many forms. But the humiliation burning through her body right now feels like a conspiracy of a higher order. She feels her faith slipping like water through cupped hands.

Hawa sees her mother’s face flush crimson, her lip tremble. She wants to reach out and steady her, but she’s also afraid to touch her mother, like the heat in her might sear Hawa’s fingertips. She feels as if the world, her world, is only now coming into focus. Her senses sharpen. When there is more time, she will wonder if she has missed tendrils of smoke and movement in the shadows and dark clouds. She lets her gaze float from her mother to Kobra, to the thin lines on her face and the hard set of her jaw. She understands now that every leap and step and stumble she has taken in her life thus far has steered her to this place, to this moment, and to these words.

“My mother has made a lot of enemies in her life,” Hawa says, her voice quavering like the song of an injured starling. “But I’m the reason we are in danger.”

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This is one of the most profoundly moving books I have read recently. I wept reading this, something which very rarely happens and completely caught me off guard. There is just something so special about this book. For me, it captures those aching emotions and the spectacle of a relationship, as well as all of the other quieter moments that burn just as brightly. It is a love letter to love. The emotional intensity created in these short snatches is exquisite and maybe it just found me at the right time to land quite so impactfully. I truly hope it finds readers that loved it as much as I did.

The rapid narrative shifts of this book were inspired and unique to me. I can see how they might be polarising for some readers but I thought they were such a brilliant choice. You really see how this relationship plays out from everyone around them and all of the tiny human connections and interactions we all have everyday. The conversation you hear a snippet of, the stranger you pass on the street, the person sat opposite you on the bus. For that brief moment, you are part of one another’s lives and then the moment passes. It is such a clever way to depict a romance and how that connection reverberates out. Love stories are ways of telling stories about humanity in one way or another as they tap so deeply into human nature. Palmer is taking this to a further point and creating something brilliant along the way.

I also have to commend how exceptional the characterisation was. You get to know the speaker quickly and have a sense of their outlook in just a few lines. They are passing through these brief moments of their lives, just going about their day and yet they are playing a minor role in this grand overarching story. It is such a beautiful concept and epitomises capturing those fleeting moments, reminding you to seize them where you can and live life to the fullest. Each voice was distinctive and I loved how the chapter headings have this wry sense of humour at times. Palmer is aware of how stretched the concept becomes at times but it does also remind you of all the minuscule interactions we have every day. It is a kaleidoscope of joy, love, hope and sadness all at once. Within just a few lines, you get a glimpse of the people who have their own stories to star in but as they cameo in this one, there is something that propels us forward.

Between all of these different perspectives, you also get to gather the jigsaw pieces of Clara and Seb who are just tantalisingly out of reach of the narrative. It mirrors the way you slowly to get to know someone in a relationship and piece together who they are as you fall. Their relationship is complicated and messy at times, with realistically complicated people that fall in love and make mistakes and argue fiercely. To be frank, their love story is refreshingly ordinary in many aspects and this framing makes it extraordinary. I did enjoy the meta aspect of the film industry and how much it influences this novel which lives so brightly on its unique framing. This is an industry built around perception and storytelling and the story encapsulates that. Despite all of this, you get so invested in these characters and their story. To me, that is the mark of an extraordinary writer.

Main Characters snuck into my heart and stole a sliver of it. This gorgeous book makes the most of its incredible concept, with a well-realised and emotionally devastating story.

Main Characters is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Waterstones, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.

Will you be picking up Main Characters? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis

Clara and Seb are about to fall in love. They don’t know it yet. But everybody else does.

When Clara and Seb meet in a quiet corner of London, it’s the start of something. She wants to be a director. He’s an actor, unsure what he wants from life.

Their connection is magnetic. Everyone can see that falling in love looks something like this. But when Clara casts Seb in the film that will make her name, what should be the happiest time of their lives ends with a gut-wrenching betrayal.

Some love stories are bigger than just two people. This one is told through the eyes of friends, flatmates, exes and strangers who see all the sides of Seb and Clara, from their first date to the moment they fell apart.

Everyone has their version of events. But only Clara and Seb can decide how their story ends…

Main Characters is the highly anticipated novel about love, friendship, dysfunctional families and life-changing connections.

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Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from The Mortal Enemy Murder Club by Gloria Chao, which releases on July 28th 2026.

Kathryn Hu is not getting into the business of solving murders. Yes, she and her friends Olivia and Elle figured out who killed their cheating ex-boyfriend. But now Kat can get back to her usual, murder-free existence.

Then she gets an unexpected plea for help. Mandy Thorne has ruined countless lives through her revenge podcast. She also did her best to frame the girls. Now, she claims, someone is trying to kill her. And the girls are the only ones who can save her.

But can the trio and Mandy put aside their mutual contempt long enough to prevent a murder and solve this case? Can they become…the Mortal Enemy Murder Club?

Filled with humor and shenanigans, The Mortal Enemy Murder Club is a romp of an adventure by USA TODAY bestselling author Gloria Chao, perfect for fans of Dial A for Aunties and Finlay Donovan Is Killing It.

EXCERPT

“You’re heeeeere!” Olivia ran up to me and squeezed me for so long I started to understand the appeal of a weighted blanket. “Thanks for coming.”

“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss it!”

When I first discovered that my ex, Tucker Jones, had been cheating on me—when I walked in, half naked, on him proposing to Olivia—I never would have guessed that we’d become the closest of friends. But now, I couldn’t imagine my life without Olivia Valentina McCarthy, whose full name I first heard from Tucker’s lips following the words will you marry me. (Not to mention, less than ten minutes later, I’d heard those very same words followed by Kathryn Yushan Hu.)

Olivia let go of me and promptly grabbed my hand, leading me into the theater. “Come sit at my table.”

“It’s your first night! Don’t you want to try your act out on a stranger?”

“Of course not! That’s terrifying. You’ll clap and love me no matter what, right?”

“Do you even have to ask?”

We shared a smile as she pulled a chair out for me.

The Magic Lounge was aptly named, being more cozy lounge than theater, with tables throughout at different levels so that everyone could see the stage. The event began with appetizers and private shows for each table, followed by two headliner performances on the main stage. Tonight was Olivia’s first table show after training for months.

When we—the Ex-Girlfriend Murder Club—had been trying to clear our names by figuring out who murdered our shared ex-boyfriend, we had called Olivia Double-Oh-livia for her 007 skills in picking locks, breaking into safes and laptops, and just being a badass in general. Skills she had learned from the private investigator she often worked with at her law firm, and maybe also from YouTube. “You never know when you might need to save your own ass,” Olivia liked to say, and she had certainly saved my ass plenty of times. Sleight of hand was something she’d always wanted to add to her arsenal, and of course, if she was going to do it, she was going to go all out and become a full-blown paid magician, even if it was just a few nights a month. This exact personality trait was what made her so good at so many things, including her chosen expertise as a criminal defense attorney. I, on the other hand, would never be able to do what she was about to, mostly because I hated being the center of attention. I preferred hiding behind my chemicals and glassware.

A plate of sliders appeared on my table like magic—though not really, the waiter was just quiet and my eyes were on Olivia. But I was definitely in the right mood for tonight.

Olivia opened a new deck of cards and fanned them in front of me like a pro, which, after tonight, she technically was. “Pick a card.”

Even though the line felt cliché, I’d never heard it from someone one-on-one. The excitement bubbled through me like carbon dioxide.

I grabbed a card from the middle.

“Look at it,” she instructed. “You can show me. Okay, three of clubs. Do you want to keep this or switch?”

“Um . . . keep.”

“Okay.” She turned the card over, then gestured for me to open my hands, which I did. She placed the card face down in my left palm and instructed, “Hold that tight between your hands. Don’t let anyone get to it.”

“Who’s coming for it?” I joked, but I of course clamped my right hand on top.

“Okay, so . . .” She squared the rest of the deck in her hands, then began to slowly flip the top card over.

“No! Is that the three of clubs?” I asked

She finished the movement quicker to reveal a king of hearts. “No. That would have been cool, though. But here we have the king of hearts, which is symbolic. I don’t currently have a king of hearts in my life. But you do.”

I blushed thinking about Adrian, who was meeting me here soon, though he was running late due to a work emergency.

“Because of that, this”—Olivia flicked the king of hearts—“should be yours.”

She turned the card face down, then waved it over my hand.

“No . . .” I said, the word just an exhale.

She grinned mischievously—the same grin right before she broke into a safe or laptop or condo—and then she pressed the card she was holding, the king of hearts, into the back of my hand that was clamped on top of the protected card. A second later, she turned her card face up to reveal it was now the three of clubs.

“That means . . .” She gestured for me to open my palms, and when I turned the card in between over, my mind was blown that it was the king of hearts. As my mouth dropped open, Olivia didn’t seem to think much of it as she asked calmly, “Things still going well with McHottie, I assume?”

“Olivia!”

“What?”

“That was amazing! Like, just—holy shit.”

“Okay, you don’t have to patronize me.”

“No, seriously, how’d you do that?” My fingers flipped the king of hearts back and forth, examining it for Hu (doesn’t) know what.

Olivia smiled—wide, unabashed, and real—and my heart soared that I not only knew this smile but that it appeared often when we were together. Then she leaned close to me and whispered, “If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you.” But she couldn’t even get through the whole sentence without giggling. “Just kidding, I’ll teach you later—it’s easy!”

She’d also been teaching me to pick locks, which I hadn’t used in any other setting, but I felt cooler just being able to do it.

Olivia leaned back and shuffled the cards. “Now, for my next trick—”

Someone slipped into the seat beside me. I turned, ready to greet Adrian with a kiss on the cheek, but thank god I didn’t because it was a stranger wearing a trench coat, a giant hat, and sunglasses.

“Oh, fun!” I exclaimed, turning so I was half facing Olivia and half facing the new arrival. “Another magician? Or your assistant?”

The newcomer’s head was tilted down so I couldn’t see their face beneath the hat. “Olivia McCarthy and Kathryn Hu?” a woman’s voice whispered.

“Yeah?” I responded automatically before asking myself, Why did she ask about Olivia’s name? And then I turned to see the confused look on Olivia’s face.

Before I could scoot backward or run off, the person whipped their disguise off. The woman before me looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her.

“Mandy?” Olivia said, her voice hesitant. “Mandy Thorne?”

“I need your help,” Mandy said, her voice desperate. “Someone’s trying to kill me.”

Excerpted from THE MORTAL ENEMY MURDER CLUB by Gloria Chao. Copyright © 2026 by Gloria Chao. Published by Park Row Books, an imprint of HTP/HarperCollins.

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Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from The Dahlia Suite by Carinn Jade, which releases on July 21st 2026.

When Paige arrives at Sueños, the Caribbean’s most exclusive resort on Beck Island, she’s eager to use the time away from her young son to shake off the writer’s block that has stifled her new career as an author.

Hollywood starlet Lindsay Law is on a mission of her own at Sueños: spiraling from a recent Oscar loss, she’s determined to find out why the winner in her category gave thanks to Mara Morgan, the legendary actress who owned Beck Island before her tragic death.

While Paige and Lindsay are drawn together by creative inspiration, Gabby, the resort’s concierge, is torn apart by the loss of a coworker and the mysterious appearance of a man from her past. Gabby still has the power to grant her guests’ most over-the-top requests, but she’s helpless against her own grief and confusion.

As the sun-soaked days of bliss morph into sinister connections, Paige, Lindsay, and Gabby are united by a shocking twist, and must race to untangle the knot of Beck Island’s mysteries before another woman vanishes.

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Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Mr and Mrs Dixon Hide a Body by Jennifer Holdich, which releases on July 21st 2026.

Daisy Dixon is desperate to escape her controlling husband and crumbling estate. But the night before she leaves, a terrible accident changes everything.

Instead of calling for help, Daisy and her husband make a choice that binds them together in the worst possible way.

When blame starts shifting and loyalties shatter, Daisy realizes her husband isn’t just her partner in crime—he’s her competition. But if someone is going to prison, it won’t be her.

Twisted, darkly funny, and deliciously vicious, this is a high-stakes game of love, betrayal, and revenge—where the most dangerous thing in the house isn’t the body.

It’s the marriage.

CHAPTER ONE

“Doesn’t it go any faster than that?” I asked, as the chandelier descended from the ceiling at glacial speed.

The contractor rubbed his chin. “Aye.” He pressed the switch on the wall and the speed increased to iceberg.

“Any more?”

He nodded and pressed the switch again and I could actually see it moving, but anyone standing under it would have plenty of time to get away if they needed to.

“Have you ever seen one just drop from the ceiling and fall to the ground?” I asked.

“Nah, it’s got a safety cord, would stop it if the chain broke. Safe as houses. Anyway, better slow it down, don’t want to burn the motor out and leave it hanging halfway.” And that we could agree on. “The top speed’s for emergencies only,” he remarked as the chandelier returned to its glacial dignity, but he didn’t elaborate on the kind of emergency you might encounter.

“So, has nobody ever had a chandelier drop on them?” I wanted to make absolutely sure before I abandoned the idea.

“You’ve been watching too many Midsomer Murders.” He chuckled, and I nodded. I had. I was going to have to find another way to kill my husband.

On the days when I felt it was worth making an effort, I would haul laundry up and down the stairs, beneath the portraits of the ancestors, under the gaze of their ghosts, past the priceless antiques, around the chairs so valuable no one dared to sit on them, and into the washing machine that had a room all to itself. I’d dust the spots Mrs. Billings had missed and tidy until I didn’t know where anything was. Then I’d vacuum until I bashed my knee or tripped over the hose. After that, I would return to the laundry and iron until I damaged one of James’s Egyptian cotton shirts, which wasn’t usually more than two or three shirts in.

Then, I’d flop onto the sofa, craving a whodunit, or three, and as I watched them, my mind would wander to the parts of the house I hadn’t touched: the grime in the ancient carpets in the unused bedrooms, the dust in their heavy velvet curtains, mothballs in the wardrobes harboring the old, old clothes from long-dead former residents. I’d reflect, in dismay, on the herculean task I would never complete and the knowledge that I would never truly be mistress of this house. My enthusiasm would evaporate.

But that was just on the days when I felt it was worth making an effort. Most days, I would leave the cleaning to Mrs. Billings; unconcerned about the quality of her work, I would merely shift from my bed to the sofa and watch TV for much of the time, the long stretch of hours broken into manageable segments by morning chat shows and afternoon thrillers.

My only break from the TV would be time spent at my sewing machine, if I had a particularly good idea for a new dress or skirt or top. As I stitched, my mind would wander, not to the state of the house but to the parting of ways of James and me and how much longer it would be until I could put into play the perfect murder and inherit his wealth.

When James and I first got engaged and I moved into Langley Hall, I sold the house I had inherited from my mum, an old thatched cottage in the middle of our village, and invested all the money in his cryptocurrency business. All of it.

Years later, I decided enough of this marriage was enough and I asked him for my money back, along with the gains I had made, only to be told that of the £350,000 I had invested, I would only get around £20,000 if I cashed it in now.

Apparently, you had to leave it for many years to get the fortune promised at the end. I asked a few more times over the years, but I was always told, just a little bit longer.

“Think of it more like a pension plan than short-term savings,” James said to me.

Apparently, we had discussed all that before I invested and, apparently, I said I understood. James had money because he was paid for managing the currency, but we investors had to bide our time.

I couldn’t leave with only £20,000 of the inheritance my mum had left for me, and I had no realistic means of supporting myself—after years of not working, my job prospects were limited. So I had no choice but to wait until either it was worth something or I could claim the equivalent under the terms of our prenup.

“Hasn’t anyone ever taken their money out sooner?” I asked.

“Not without making a huge loss,” James said. Then he looked thoughtful. “Maybe I should make it clearer in the contract, then people wouldn’t be so confused. I’m having to explain it all the time.”

So I continued as I was.

Most days, around half past five, whether I was making an effort or not, I’d rise from the sofa and shimmy over to the kitchen, where I’d concoct nothing more technical than a Meal to Share from Marks and Spencer. For health and safety reasons, I am forbidden from making anything from scratch.

An M&S ready meal was the peak of fine dining for us. On a more average night, I’d slide fish fingers under the grill, and into the oven would go a trayful of oven chips. I’d microwave some frozen veg and serve it all out. Sometimes James would come home and eat it; sometimes he wouldn’t, and I’d either put his in the oven to keep it warm or throw it straight in the bin, depending on my mood.

When he was here to eat, it would be like attending a work meeting. He’d ask me about tasks he had set while I fussed about nervously, wondering if he was going to catch me in a lie:

“Did you get Mrs. Billings to iron the curtains?”

“Yes,” I said. No, that was a ridiculous task, I wouldn’t demean myself, or her. He couldn’t tell if they’d been ironed or not.

“Did you count up how many new roof tiles we need?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve made a note of it somewhere.” No, that was like trying to count the stars, but that was often the point of these tasks. We needed a professional to come and look at it properly.

“Has the surveyor’s report arrived yet?” he asked me one evening through mouthfuls of chicken nuggets, potato waffles, and peas, clearing his giant plate in minutes.

“Not yet,” I said, taking my time over my stingy portion. Ever since James decided I was putting on weight, he insisted I eat from a child’s plate with plenty of space visible around the edges. He says portion control is the name of the game.

“Chase them up, will you?” he said of the surveyors. “What’s taking them so long?”

What was taking them so long was the fact that there was no surveyor’s report.

On our estate is a small, private graveyard with a mausoleum. It was once attached to a chapel which belonged to the house. The chapel no longer stands, but the graveyard is still consecrated ground, and the mausoleum houses the remains of the aristocrats who once inhabited this stately home.

When James bought the house, tumbledown and unlived-in for years, he was advised to keep an eye on the mausoleum. In days gone by, the river had been rerouted and it now ran within damaging distance. More recently, a sizable part of the nearby woods was chopped down, causing drainage issues in that corner of our land and threatening the mausoleum further. The time had come for a survey, and the task of arranging it had fallen to me.

But there was a problem: James insisted we use a company run by a couple from the village, Euan and Samantha Saunders. I had gone to school with them, and they had bullied me mercilessly through every year.

I was an outcast at school: firstly, because of being poor, and secondly, because, while I was not alone in living in a single-parent household, I was unique in not knowing who my dad was. It was a goldmine for Euan and Samantha.

My mum always said I must’ve inherited my mad, blond hair from him because no one else in the family had locks like mine. I spent my childhood staring whenever I saw a bushy-haired man, looking for other similarities between us and trying to work up the courage to ask him if he was my father, but I never did.

To this day, the sight of Samantha and Euan turned me back into that same girl they tortured mercilessly, and they hadn’t evolved much further themselves. The last time they had been to Langley Hall, they had made unnecessary trips to the house together, asking to use the toilet, asking for glasses of water, insisting on coming in to pour it themselves. Turning up as and when they felt like it because I had to make allowances for their medical condition—they both had the same one. Talking about how “it’s alright for some” and “there’s no justice.” We all knew they meant more by that than the fact that I lived in Langley Hall.

There were smirks and looks exchanged, loud laughter whenever I walked away. I tried to tell myself they were just jealous. True, I had my health, while they had their medication, but there is only so far that sentiment can take you.

“I thought we might try a different company this time,” I had said to James when he first raised the issue of the survey.

But he said, “Shop local,” and that was the end of the discussion.

I shouldn’t be made to feel uncomfortable in my own home—aside from when James was there—so I put the matter on hold until I devised a strategy to make myself comfortable when they were around. To date, no such strategy had presented itself.

As a stopgap, I went down to the mausoleum and I gave the walls a good shove myself. I leaned on them with my full weight and I kicked the corners. I wandered among the trees along the riverbank until I found a good, sturdy branch. I took it back to the mausoleum and whacked the walls with it. I ran at the door with it, like a battering ram. Nothing moved, not so much as a pebble fell, not even a little bit of crumbling.

So it seemed rock solid to me, and I told James the surveyors had been and they had said it was fine and they would send their report in due course. That, I felt, deferred the problem for another five years, by which point, hopefully, James would be in there himself. For now, I just had to wait for him to forget about the report.

I put it to the back of my mind as I returned to Project Kill Your Husband, looking through cupboards and drawers for innocuous household items that would suddenly present themselves as the perfect murder weapon, knowing that out in the countryside beyond there was a plethora of toxic plants. If only he would let me cook for him properly.

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