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Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Megan Abbott’s Beware the Woman, which is out May 30th!

Honey, I just want you to have everything you ever wanted. That’s what Jacy’s mom always told her.

And Jacy felt like she finally did. Newly married and with a baby on the way, Jacy and her new husband Jed embark on their first road trip together to visit his father, Doctor Ash, in Michigan’s far-flung Upper Peninsula. The moment they arrive in the cozy cottage in the lush woods, Jacy feels bathed in love by the warm and hospitable Doctor Ash, if less so by his house manager, the enigmatic Mrs. Brandt.

But their Edenic first days take a turn when Jacy has a health scare. Swiftly, vacation activities are scrapped, and all eyes are on Jacy’s condition. At the same time, whispers about Jed’s long-dead mother and complicated family history seem eerily to be impeding upon the present. As the days pass, Jacy begins to feel trapped in the cottage, her every move surveilled, her body under the looking glass. But are her fears founded or is it paranoia, or cabin fever, or—as is suggested to her—a stubborn refusal to take necessary precautions? The dense woods surrounding the cottage are full of dangers, but are the greater ones inside?

We should go back,” he said suddenly, shaking me out of sleep.

“What?” I whispered, huddled under the thin bedspread at the motor inn, the air conditioner stuck on hi. “What did you say?”

“We could turn around and go back.”

“Go back?” I was trying to see his face in the narrow band of light through the stiff crackling curtains, the gap between every motel curtain ever. “We’re only a few hours away.”

“We could go back and just explain it wasn’t a good time. Not with the baby coming.”

His voice was funny, strained from the AC, the detergent haze of the room.

I propped myself up on my elbows, shaking off the bleary weirdness.

We had driven all day. In my head, in my chest, we were still driving, the road buzzing beneath us, my feet shaking, cramped, over the gas.

“But you wanted this,” I said, reaching for him. “You said we should go before the baby comes.”

He didn’t say anything, his back to me, the great expanse of his back, my hand on his shoulder blade.

“Jed,” I said. “What is it?”

“You’re dreaming,” he said, his voice lighter, changed. It was like a switch went off.

“What?” I said again, looking at the back of his head, lost in shadow.

“You were dreaming,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”

A strange feeling came over me. It hadn’t been Jed at all. It had been some boogeyman shaking me awake, warning me to go back, go back.

Some boogeyman.

Like Captain Murderer, the smeary white man I used to dream about when I was little.

Captain Murderer.

Who? my mother used to ask me. Someone from one of your comic books, or a grown-up movie you snuck over to the Carnahans to see?

The Carnahans, with six kids from ages four to twenty-four, lived next door in a rambling house, and two of the Carnahan boys fed me warm beer in the basement once when I was ten, and another time I split my lip when one of the girls slammed a screen door on my face, and they loved to set off firecrackers in the driveway all summer long, once burning down the old sycamore everyone loved and it changed the light in our house forever.

But no, Captain Murderer didn’t come from the Carnahans’ big console TV, videogame cords dangling like spider legs. He didn’t come from my comic books or the slumber party stories swapped in our sleeping bags.

He didn’t come from anywhere at all. He was always already there.

But who is he? my mother kept asking, unease creeping into her voice.

Captain Murderer, I kept repeating because I assumed she knew him, too, deep down. Like the tooth fairy, the devil with his pitchfork and his flaming tail, like on the can label in the cupboard. Captain Murderer!

My mother, face drawn together in worry, would stop what she was doing, folding laundry or wiping glasses in the drying rack, and make me start at the beginning.

And I’d tell her how he was all white, white as milk, head to toe, with white nails and white lashes, teeth like little bones, and one red spot in the middle of his back, between his shoulder blades.

How he moved like bedsheets snapping. How he bit you and his teeth popped out, leaving you with little bones under your skin that everyone would say was a mosquito bite, a fire ant, chiggers.

But where did he come from? my mother would plead. Was it a story someone told you at camp? Where did he come from?

Later those nights, after she thought I’d fallen back to sleep, I would hear her moving from room to room, checking all the locks on every window and door.

Click-click, click-click, bolt.

I would hear her breathing all through our little house.

Captain Murderer came from nowhere. But you couldn’t tell your mother that.

He came at night, for me.

Captain Murderer came for me!

Later, the hint of blue dawn, I felt for Jed’s wrist. Half lost in sleep, I clambered for him, the crazy, dream-thick thought: What if Captain Murderer got him?

But he was in the bathroom, the light under the door, the drone of the automatic fan.

When he came out, a blue shadow in that blue dawn, he stood at the foot of the bed looking at me, his face too dark to see. Only the flicker of the whites of his eyes, wide and wary. Somewhere, a snarl of mosquitoes buzzed, a light sizzling.

Jed, I said, my voice gluey with sleep.

His hands clenching at his sides, looking at me as if I were this strange thing, landed in his bed, come to do him harm or wonder, an alien, a ghost, a succubus.

Jed, sweet Jed, so nervous. My fingertips tingling.

Lifting the sheet, I told him to come inside and he put the heels of his hands on my legs and dragged me to the bottom of the bed, and it was like never before.

All our times, romantic and sticky whispers, but this time something else. Something blue and strange and piercing and I shuddered all through, my breaths catching against his ear.

Day One

We’d been driving forever, the Midwest finally sneaking up on us, the hard smack of road-salt as I-75 widened and widened again.

I’d never seen Jed so nervous. Excited. Both. It was hard to tell.

It was our first road trip together and everything felt impossibly fun: the oversized rental car-a toothpaste-white Chevy-lurching across the lanes, the burr of the air conditioner, the rest stops with the beef jerky and neon flip-flops, the toaster muffins in plastic wrap and the hot dogs slinking on an endless roller grill.

On the crinkly map we traced our route up the great paw of Michigan, I-75 snaking up the state like a wriggly vein.

Sometimes we sang along to indifferent radio. Lite FM and classic rock, the occasional Christian devotional show.

Sometimes we clasped hands clammy from shivering Big Gulps in the cupholders.

Sometimes we made long lists of baby names. We’d already decided we didn’t want to know the sex. We didn’t care, and just naming names made it feel glorious and impossible all over again, my hand on my belly.

I never even thought I’d have a baby, he was saying, and now here I am and it’s the rightest thing I’ve ever done, and we’re rattling off names, Jed rejecting my favorite, “Molly,” swiftly and without mercy, confessing finally that he was once sick with love over a girl named Molly Kee at summer camp when he was fifteen.

That can’t be true, I teased. You told me you’d never been in love before.

He had said it-I never forgot it-one muggy Sunday morning, both of us too tired to make coffee, our arms and legs entwined.

Well, you know, he said now, shrugging, smiling a little, caught.

Sick with love, the phrase so unlikely from his solid, square-jawed Midwestern mouth, the words made me inexplicably sad. Before I knew it, I was crying. My sunglasses sticky from it. It makes me feel silly and sad to think of it now. To feel so close, so encircled and encircling with love and yet . . .

Is it the hormones? That’s what he kept saying, hearing the hitch in my voice, sneaking anxious looks at me, wondering if he should pull over.

I’m fine, I sputtered, and then laughed even as the tears slathered me, and somehow he thought that meant keep going, because he kept going, talking about this Molly girl, how she had a chipped tooth that drove him crazy, and how she could land bullseye after bullseye at archery with a longbow she made herself, and how she sang “Coat of Many Colors” at the talent show, and what he would have done, back then, for one glancing touch of the back of her left knee.

Behind my sunglasses, I was crying and couldn’t stop and he kept going because he couldn’t see. Crying behind one’s sunglasses-is there anything lonelier than that?

Finally, my voice became a sob and then he looked at me and stopped the car, skittering up the shoulder.

Jacy, Jacy . . . what’s wrong? What did I do?

I wanted to say, Aren’t you sick with love for me?

What woman doesn’t want that, especially with her belly slowly swelling with their first child?

Why did I tell you that? he said at last, shaking his head, grabbing my hand, gripping it until all our fingers went white. I don’t know why I told you that.

And I felt silly. I was silly. The hormones, yes. The hormones are killing, killing.

It’s just the hormones, I swear.

Thirty-two years old, too old to be in love like this, with such teen ferocity and force, but that was how it was and there was no fighting it. Why would I?

I’ve had men in love with me before-high school Paul, the poet who used to bake me cookies, and Benjy, who broke both my heart and five front windows of the dorm I lived in. I’ve had men in love with me before, but it never felt like this. Never both of us in the same way at the same time, like two spiders sewing a silken web together.

After our city hall wedding, four months to the day we met, I remember walking into that impromptu party at that random Irish bar (the Bucket of Blood!) near the courthouse, walking as if I were floating, as if I were a queen entering a palace, a goddess entering heaven. It was all so haphazard and lovely, a clutch of friends hauling a Party City bag bursting with tissue streamers, birdseed confetti, plastic champagne flutes, hanging a curling Just Married sign above the steam tables, corned beef and cabbage for the day drinkers.

And after everyone had left and we were kicking up streamers under our feet as we dragged ourselves along the carpet, florid and undulating, I remember nearly tripping-an errant champagne stem snapped under my foot-and reaching for him, clutching the front of his shirt.

And I could feel his heart beating like a rabbit’s under my hand. Fast and frightened, pounding and alive and terrified.

It charmed me, moved me.

Here he was, a man so strong, so upright, a good man, a man born with certain advantages: middle-class comforts, a college fund, no dependents, a thirty-year-old white man, a craftsman who works with his hands, a solid and kind man with an artistic eye and artistic yearnings. You might think a man like that has never been acquainted with doubt, with fear, with desperation.

And yet. And yet.

I looked up at his face, a narrow slick of frosting on his collar from the cake-cutting-

I looked up at his face, my hand over his thundering heart-

And his eyes were shining with such love, I tell you.

I tell you, it was love. It was love, even if it scared him. The love scared him.

But the truth was Jed ran into the fire. That’s how he’d put it: with the proposal, the wedding, the look on his face when the pregnancy stick was still shivering in my hand. He ran into it, the fire, the fear. He said it made him feel alive.

He was looking at me, eyes blinking as if shaking off the sandman’s grit from them. Like my grandma when I was little, putting her cool hand over my crusted eyes.

He was looking at me, his face full of wonder-Could this be true? Could it? Could we be married? Could you be my wife?

He was looking at me like I’d saved his life. Which, he whispered to me in the blue-dark of our honeymoon suite hours later, I had.

I never thought this would happen to me, Jed told me that night, our wedding night. I’d given up on it happening.

When he said it, I thought, how strange for a man to feel that. To feel like a girl, waiting, waiting, like when all her friends at school got their first period, one by one, the tampons in their purse zipper pocket, the whispers about the ruby slick on their underpants and now they were women . . .

I was afraid I wasn’t made for it, he told me.

For marriage? I asked, smiling gently, nudging him, teasing. Or love?

For anything, he said. And that’s when I saw it in his eyes. How deep this went and how impenetrable it felt. How had I never known this. How-

For anything but being alone.

Most men are that way, sweetie, my mom always said. And it doesn’t change when they get married. They think if they get married, it’ll change it. You think that too. But they’re lone wolves, these kinds of men. Most men.

But that was my mother’s generation, the world they lived in, the world of women huddled in kitchens and over playpens, with their husbands at the grill, a ring of khakis, fingers clipping beer necks and busting chops over a bad trade, never able to connect, to relate, unless on the football field, on the ice, feelings forever unspoken, unspoiled.

Jacy went and married a signmaker! my mother shouted to Aunt Laraine when I called her, the two of them forever sitting at my mother’s kitchen table, sneaking cigarettes and beating their breasts over the news.

I had to explain, yet again, that Jed was not merely a signmaker. That neon is both an art and a science, and yes, while commissions-for the occasional casino, for food trucks, trendy hotels-and restorations were his primary income, he also worked on his own pieces (like the picture I sent you!) and on restoring grand old signs from back before jumbotrons and LED and plastic, back in the day when neon was king.

If you could see him in his studio, I wanted to say. Heating the glass tubes with torches, bending them into these glorious glowing creations. Manipulating voltage and gas, heat and pressure. The red of neon, the cool blue of argon. The inside of each tube coated with colored powder, the blending of colors. The scorching pinks and sizzling purples.

I remember when he first showed me. No gloves, he said, laying his hand on the radiant tube, its center flamed, his face glowing. Gloves get in the way.

How I gasped when he placed his hand on the searing glass. The hiss of the constant flame.

He had burned his hands countless times, patches on his palm, a knuckle, his thumb joint, like his hand had been put back together hastily. There were hard flaps on his skin where he could barely feel and I loved when they brushed against my cheek, between my thighs.

Excerpted from Beware the Woman by Megan Abbott, published by Putnam, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2023

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From THE TURNOUT by Megan Abbott, to be published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2021 by Megan Abbott.

The post Read An Excerpt From ‘The Turnout’ by Megan Abbott appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

The intricacies of this relationship is one of the most stimulating parts of Give Me Your Hand, demonstrating Abbott’s flair for crafting female characters that aren’t easily defined by conventional fiction tropes. Diane in particular is particularly interesting; she is the narrative’s closest thing to an antagonist, as she subtly undermines Kit’s sanity and stability, but also proves herself to be a helpful ally to her friend in tough circumstances. Consequently, Diane is a paradox—a sympathetic sociopath who elicits affection through power plays.

Kit, Diane, and Dr Severin exist in a world that underestimates their capabilities, and yet they consistently prove their value by working relentlessly against the odds in a male-dominated profession. But this isn’t what Abbott chooses to focus on. It is evident that she is more interested in the female psyche on a much deeper level.

Whether the darker tendencies of our leading characters are a product of nature or nurture is deliberately left unclear. That’s not to say it is ignored completely—the study of PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder) that Dr Severin is leading aims to tackle the very issue. However, even with the arguments for both sides taken into account, it is still impossible to determine the source of Kit and Diane’s extreme behaviour. In the end, we are never entirely sure whether it stems from society’s incessant discrimination against women in professional contexts, or whether it is some kind of deeply imbedded affliction that they are powerless against.

As a result, Abbott breaks a rule of character writing that is very rarely broken—she obscures their motivations from the reader. In this case, though, it isn’t a terrible thing. After all, the motivations are often unclear to the characters themselves, and this makes for a riveting mystery that parallels and underscores the narrative’s main thematic beats.

The story takes its time to set up Kit and Diane’s characters before any huge developments occur, choosing to leave the reader in the dark for a long time on certain things that could easily be revealed much earlier. Although Abbott is confident in her ability to create intrigue and suspense, this is a quality that may not always prove to be successful, depending on individual readers’ levels of patience.

The novel’s structure of switching between the present and past is a highlight in these early parts, building tension towards a reveal that the narrative hinges on. However, towards the end it turns into a bit of a drag, distracting from a story that has finally settled into the noir-style narrative it aspired to be from the start. Despite this, the flashbacks still offer valuable nuggets of information that, while unnecessary, fill in blanks and connect some dots that we had forgotten about.

Give Me Your Hand examines the corrupting influence that sharing secrets has on the innocent, and although it never determines the source of this corruption Abbott teases out the possibilities in exciting and revealing ways. Her development of such strong, varied female characters is a testament to her understanding of how complex the notion of gender is in our contemporary society, and her ability to articulate these ideas is remarkable. Although the suspense that drives Give Me Your Hand is certainly absorbing, it is Megan Abbott’s examination of modern femininity and its adversities that proves to be the novel’s primary strength.

Give Me Your Hand is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.

Will you be checking out this book? Tell us in the comments below!

Synopsis | Goodreads

You told each other everything. Then she told you too much.

Kit has risen to the top of her profession and is on the brink of achieving everything she wanted. She hasn’t let anything stop her.

But now someone else is standing in her way – Diane. Best friends at seventeen, their shared ambition made them inseparable. Until the day Diane told Kit her secret – the worst thing she’d ever done, the worst thing Kit could imagine – and it blew their friendship apart.

Kit is still the only person who knows what Diane did. And now Diane knows something about Kit that could destroy everything she’s worked so hard for.

How far would Kit go, to make the hard work, the sacrifice, worth it in the end? What wouldn’t she give up? Diane thinks Kit is just like her. Maybe she’s right. Ambition: it’s in the blood…

The post Review: Give Me Your Hand by Megan Abbott appeared first on The Nerd Daily.

If something with more of a historical setting is of more interest to you, Chariot On The Mountain is set two decades before the Civil War, while A Double Life and The Dying of The Light are set in the 20th century.

Read on to discover our picks and tell us in the comments below what you’re excited to read!

Give Me Your Hand by Megan Abbott
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Diane Fleming’s academic brilliance lit a fire in Kit Owens, and the two developed an unlikely friendship. Until Diane shared a secret that changed everything between them. More than a decade later, Kit thinks she’s put Diane behind her forever and she’s begun to fulfil the scientific dreams Diane awakened in her. But the past comes roaring back when she discovers that Diane is her competition for a position both women covet, taking part in groundbreaking new research led by their idol. Soon enough, the two former friends find themselves locked in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse that threatens to destroy them both.

Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Meet Hanna. She’s the sweet-but-silent angel in the adoring eyes of her Daddy. He’s the only person who understands her, and all Hanna wants is to live happily ever after with him. But Mommy stands in her way, and she’ll try any trick she can think of to get rid of her. Ideally for good. Meet Suzette. She loves her daughter, really, but after years of expulsions and strained home schooling, her precarious health and sanity are weakening day by day. As Hanna’s tricks become increasingly sophisticated, and Suzette’s husband remains blind to the failing family dynamics, Suzette starts to fear that there’s something seriously wrong, and that maybe home isn’t the best place for their baby girl after all.

Her Pretty Face by Robyn Harding
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

The author of the bestselling novel The Party—lauded as “tense and riveting” by New York Times bestselling author Megan Miranda—returns with a chilling new domestic drama about two women whose deep friendship is threatened by dark, long-buried secrets. Harding spins a web of lies, deceit, and betrayal, asking the question: Can people ever change? And even if they can, is it possible to forgive the past?

Girls’ Night Out by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

For estranged friends Ashley, Natalie, and Lauren, it’s time to heal the old wounds between them. Where better to repair those severed ties than on a girls’ getaway to the beautiful paradise of Tulum, Mexico? But even after they’re reunited, no one is being completely honest about the past or the secrets they’re hiding. When Ashley disappears on their girls’ night out, Natalie and Lauren have to try to piece together their hazy memories to figure out what could have happened to her, while also reconciling their feelings of guilt over their last moments together.

A Double Life by Flynn Berry
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Loosely inspired by one of the most notorious unsolved crimes of the 20th century – the Lord Lucan case – A Double Life is at once a riveting page-turner and a moving reflection on women and violence, trauma and memory, and class and privilege.

The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Two mothers—a suburban housewife and a battle-hardened veteran—struggle to protect those they love in this modern retelling of Beowulf.

Charlotte Walsh Likes To Win by Jo Piazza
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A searing, suspenseful story of political ambition, marriage, class, sexual politics, and infidelity, Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win is an insightful portrait of what it takes for a woman to run for national office in America today. In a dramatic political moment like no other with more women running for office than ever before, Jo Piazza’s novel is timely, engrossing, and perfect for readers on both sides of the aisle.

Maze Master by Kathleen O’Neal Gear
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

With its scientific and archaeological authenticity and suspenseful clues with a retrovirus that’s inevitable, unstoppable, and utterly catastrophic for humanity. Maze Master will have readers rushing through its intricate maze to find out the fate of the world in this thrilling adventure.

Chariot on the Mountain by Jack Ford
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Based on little-known true events, this is an astonishing account of a time when the traditions of the Old South still thrived, a treacherous journey toward freedom–and a testament to determination, friendship, and courage.

The Boy At The Door by Alex Dahl
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Cecilia Wilborg has it all–a loving husband, two beautiful daughters, and a gorgeous home in an affluent Norwegian suburb. There is no room for mistakes in her life. Even taking home a little boy whose parents forgot to pick him up at the pool can put a crimp in Cecilia’s carefully planned schedule. Especially when she arrives at the address she was given and finds an empty, abandoned house… There’s nothing for Cecilia to do but to take the boy home with her, never realising that soon his quiet presence and knowing eyes will trigger unwelcome memories from her past–and unravel her meticulously crafted life…

The Dying of the Light by Robert Goolrick
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Reveling in the secrets, mores, and society of twentieth-century genteel Southern life, The Dying of the Light is a romance, a melodrama, and a cautionary tale told with the grandeur and sweep of an epic Hollywood classic.

The Girl From Blind River by Gale Massey
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

A gritty tale of how far we’ll go to protect the ones we love for fans of Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone and Emma Cline’s The Girls from Gale Massey, a talented new name in crime fiction.

Check out what other books are coming out this month on our Goodreads list!

What book are you most excited to read? Tell us in the comments below!

(P.S – The Nerd Daily occasionally receives commissions for the links included in this article, but all earnings go back into us hosting giveaways!)

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