Author: Mary Kubica
Year published: 2026
Category: Adult fiction (thriller)
Pages: 352
Rating: 4 out of 5
Location: (my 2025 Google Reading map): USA (WI)
Summary: Two families at a secluded lake resort are at the center of a chilling crime in this twisty thriller from the bestselling author of Local Woman Missing
A scream shatters the silence…
Courtney Gray’s peaceful vacation turns into a nightmare when she discovers her brother and sister-in-law dead in their lakeside cottage. Her niece Reese is missing. Her nephew Wyatt is asleep upstairs—unharmed.
A town full of secrets…
As police swarm the quiet resort, dark truths about Courtney’s family—and the town itself—begin to surface. Is Reese a victim… or the killer?
A truth no one saw coming…
With everyone hiding something, Courtney races to uncover the terrible mystery. But the closer she gets, the harder it is to know who—or what—to trust.
Review: I have read one other Mary Kubica novel, Just the Nicest Couple (link to my review), and didn't love it. This one, however, was much better, and I read it in one day.
As with any good thriller, we get the back story (in this novel, told by two different characters, which I like) of the situation and characters as well as the now. Reese, the teenager daughter, tells the "before," while Courtney, the aunt, tells the present. I think this setup helps lead to the tension as the reader thinks they have figured out what happened. And there are a number of red herrings along the way that I totally fell for.
Add in a rustic resort, a creepy employee, and not much evidence, and you're left with a good thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat to the very end. Kubic did a good job of conveying the desperation and panic that parents feel when something happens to the children in the family, how teenagers can so easily get caught up in "drama" and wanting to fit in, to be liked, and how younger children can act in ways that they think are funny, but have dire consequences.
Challenges for which this counts:
- Alphabet (Author)--K
- Alphabet (Title)--I
- Cover Lover--a compound word: it's
- Literary Escapes--Wisconsin
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