Amazon Charts #4 this week
Book Blurb:
What is a happily ever after really worth?
Naomi was living the quintessential love story. Boy meets girl. They fall in love, get married, buy a dream house, start a family . . . Then—he kicks her out, hires the city’s best divorce lawyers, drains their accounts, and takes up with a 20-something. It’s a brutal end to the story. Naomi should accept defeat: move into a dingy apartment, get back into the workforce, and piece together the shattered remains of her life. Except, why should she?
Instead, Naomi fixates on her husband’s new girlfriend. What begins as cynical curiosity soon twists into obsession—and then into something far darker. As Naomi uncovers secrets she never imagined, she realizes her own life may be in danger.
But if it keeps her perfect family intact, isn’t it worth it?
My Review:
Okay, pop quiz! Where have I read this plot before?
Pretty much everywhere, and, I think, including another McFadden book, change the names and dates.
And, indeed, this one starts out as the very familiar MC being locked out of her own house. Only this one actually buys a really stupid plan by her husband to get her out of the house and into a nasty NY rat-infested tenement. You’d feel sorry for her if she just weren’t so dumb.
When she finally figures out that she has been truly locked out—from her gorgeous mansion, from her bank account or credit cards, she begins to plot revenge.
Nice she could stumble onto the sweet young thing that caught his attention. Not so nice that she found a truly caring and sympathetic attorney to handle her side. The little boy? Her son? EEK! Maybe that’s where the thriller part comes in, but no, she wouldn’t hurt him.
Would she?
Sometimes the outrageous twists can add up to fun, but when they snowball over each other becoming more preposterous, can you still continue?
The swing from sympathy for Naomi wanes pretty quickly when we get deeper into the support characters. The problem here is that none of the characters elicit a lot of engagement. No one seems to make a sound decision and it all leads to explosive repercussions.
The plot goes from disbelief to insanity. It appears she has hit the final straw when she can justify violent actions and loses that final thread of reality.
So, is it entertaining or fast-paced? As soon as you think you’ve solved one mystery, there’s another signature McFadden zinger…may not make sense…but definitely heads everything in another direction. Throw in some of that barbed, snarky dialogue, short chapters that keep you starting another, the slow descent to madness, and it’s a quick distraction from the heavy stuff.
The epilogue? No. Again, just no.
Is there a genre called psychotic?
Okay, I must admit to having enjoyed Dear Debbie, my last McFadden book, but as I mentioned then, her books are hit or miss for me. Guess which one this was.
Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook. The thoughts expressed here are my own.
Rosepoint Publishing: Three Stars 
Book Details:
Genre: Domestic Thrillers, Psychological Thrillers
Publisher: Dreamscape Media
Narrator: January LaVoy, Edoardo Ballerini, Marin Ireland
Release Date: May 26, 2026
Title Links:
Amazon-US | Amazon-UK | Barnes & Noble | Kobo
The Author: #1 New York Times, Amazon Charts, USA Today, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Sunday Times, and Publisher’s Weekly bestselling author Freida McFadden is a physician who has penned multiple bestselling psychological thrillers and medical humor novels. Freida is the winner of the International Thriller Writer Award for Best Paperback Original, the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Thriller, and was honored as one of TIME 100’s most influential people in the world for 2026. Her novels have been translated into more than 45 languages.
Freida lives with her family and cat in a centuries-old three-story home overlooking the ocean, with staircases that creak and moan with each step, and nobody could hear you if you scream. Unless you scream really loudly, maybe.
To hear Freida talk about herself more in the third person, check out her website freidamcfadden dot com.
©2026 V Williams
Rosepoint Publishing 