Author: Tiffany Crum
Year published: 2026
Category: Adult fiction (thriller)
Pages: 368
Rating: 4 out of 5
Location: (my 2025 Google Reading map): USA (CA)
Summary: Best friends Benny and Joy like to say they’ve been saving each other’s lives since the moment they met. Until the day Joy disappears and Benny is suspected of murder . . .
Benny Abbott and Joy Moore host one of the most beloved podcasts in the world. Each week, they delight listeners with a different “against all odds” survival story, gleefully finding the weird, life-affirming humor in near-death experiences. Since their first episode on Joy’s experience with severe narcolepsy, they’ve been the best friends everyone wants to befriend―and thanks to the meticulous management of Joy’s husband, Xander, they’ve built a lucrative empire.
The problem is, their next survival story may be their own. When Benny arrives at Joy and Xander’s one morning to record, he finds shattered glass and an empty house. The one clue shedding light on the couple’s disappearance is the incomplete, previously unseen first draft of Joy’s memoir. Benny is desperate to find them, even when the police soon zero in on him as their prime suspect.
Millions of devoted listeners think they know the “real” Benny and Joy. But as the hours tick by, and the odds seem increasingly stacked against Joy and Xander being found alive, not even the most devoted fans could guess the terrible secrets their favorite famous BFFs have hidden from the world―and from each other.
Review: I was looking for a thriller (you know how you just get in the mood for a certain genre?), and I thought this one would be good. I like the idea that it's based around a podcast and the hosts.
I like the (best) friendship between Joy and Benny, and that we get the story through both of their narrations. Joy gives us the buildup to "today" while Benny tells the now. There are numerous secondary characters--spouses, siblings, and more--who add necessary tidbits along the way that help us get to know the characters and the events. They are also well done.
I can't reveal one of the big things we learn, you'll have to read the book yourself to find out, but it is handled so well. Sometimes social issues in a novel feel forced to me, but this one did not. It was told with honesty and details that made it feel very real.
There are a number of twists and turns in the second half of this book, and they are all well done if not a tad fantastical. But, that's ok, I read novels to be transported and entertained, which this novel did.
Challenges for which this counts:
- Alphabet (Author)--C
- Alphabet (Title)--S
- Cover Lovers--X, Y, or Z in the author's name (Tiffany)
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