Publishers Weekly: This engrossing psychological thriller from Pashley (The Watcher) finds 25-year-old budding chef Brett Novak heartbroken, out of work, and down to seven dollars in her bank account. She’s delighted and relieved when a former colleague recommends her for a temporary job as a personal chef for bestselling mystery author Carson Smart. She arrives at Smart’s beautiful, secluded beachfront property on Cape Cod in high spirits, but nothing prepares her for his offer of $20,000 for two weeks of preparing meals while he rewrites his latest manuscript. Elated, Brett endures his flirting and overlooks his more eccentric demands. Then Carson’s wife, Vera, returns from a visit to Brazil, and the psychosexual tension in the house heats up, leading Brett to wonder if she’s been hired as a pawn in a perverse marital game. An unexpected death raises the stakes, and Pashley’s subsequent dives into the backstories of her three principals keeps the tension almost unbearably high—with each new detail, readers’ loyalties shift. It’s a riveting ride.
May 132026
Kirkus:
Jackie Dinas and Alexandra Sunshine at Kensington acquired, in a four-book deal, North American rights to the Fallen series by Melissa K. Roehrich (pictured l.) from Katie Shea Boutillier. The series, per the publisher, “is a sweeping enemies-to-lovers romantasy epic that follows a royal heiress and a vengeful warrior forced into uneasy proximity as they embark on a dangerous quest to recover a lost dragon egg—one prophesied to save their dying realm.” The first book is scheduled to publish in fall 2027.
Locus:
Audio rights to Robert McCammon’s SHOPPE OF OLDE CURIOSITIES, a short story collection, to Louise Quayle at Audible by Katie Shea Boutillier at Donald Maass Literary Agency, for Cameron McClure (World English).
Catalan rights to Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction winner Vajra Chandrasekera’s RAKESFALL, to Chronos, by Elena Rodríguez at International Editors & Yáñez Co’ S.L. in association with Michael Curry.
Historian at University of Chicago and award-winning author of INVENTING THE RENAISSANCE Ada Palmer’s untitled book on censorship, unpacking our many false assumptions about what it is and how it operates, and providing a roadmap for thoughtful resistance, based in part on a museum exhibit and series of films exploring censorship during information revolutions, to Dan Gerstle at Norton, in a pre-empt, for World excluding the UK, by Cameron McClure.