That Night

March 3, 2014
In this riveting, if overly ambitious thriller, Stevens (Always Watching) raises significant themes—bullying, troubled families, the difficulties ex-cons face—but doesn’t do them all justice. In 1998, high school sweethearts Toni Murphy and Ryan Walker went to prison for killing Toni’s younger sister, Nicole—a haunted girl with secrets no one guessed. The most damning—and false—testimony came from classmate Shauna McKinney and her friends, who had tormented Toni for months before the murder. Fifteen years later, Toni and Ryan return home on parole to Campbell River on Vancouver Island. Although they’re legally prohibited from contact, Ryan asks Toni to help him clear their names. Meanwhile, Shauna is determined to send them back to prison. Toni finds an unlikely ally in Shauna’s teenage daughter, Ashley, perhaps the only person who wholeheartedly believes Toni and Ryan are innocent. Despite some wooden secondary characters, this is an exciting page-turner with an incisive twist. Author tour. Announced first printing of 150,000. Agent: Mel Berger, William Morris Agency.

June 1, 2014
Stevens (Always Watching, 2013, etc.) draws a dark crime drama from the beautiful blue-green of Canada's Vancouver Island. In the town of Campbell River, Toni has a rough home life; she can't wait for high school graduation to escape her mother's angry disapproval. Ryan's home is worse, his father an alcoholic abuser. Together, however, Toni and Ryan make the broken pieces fit. In school, Toni runs afoul of mean girls Shauna, Rachel, Kim and Cathy, who harass her and spread ugly rumors. Toni has an escape planned-a post-graduation apartment with Ryan-but then her younger sister, Nicole, her mother's favorite, joins Shauna's clique and starts dabbling in booze and boys and harassing Toni. It seems like kid stuff, until Nicole is bludgeoned to death. Toni and Ryan immediately become suspects; they're convicted of murder and sent to prison. Stevens' masterful plot spins into evil with "teen girls turning on each other, the viciousness and pack mentality that can arise." She writes from Toni's point of view, shifting easily between past and present while delving into family tensions before the murder, then prison life, then back to Campbell River after Toni's parole. Entirely believable, Toni evolves from a misunderstood, resentful and frightened teenager into an intelligent yet closed-off woman tempered by 15 years in prison. The writing is crisp and the dialogue realistic as Toni speculates about possible suspects and motives, knowing all the while that finding the killer may reveal one of Campbell River's ugliest secrets. Tension cranks to the breaking point when Cathy, now a drug-addled misfit, is murdered. Ryan and Toni become suspects again, but they realize it's a sign that the conspiracy that jailed them has fractured. Still vulnerable yet clinging to optimism, the outcasts decide they must find Nicole's murderer. Stevens has woven a warped psychological drama, a melancholy tale that comes to an existential and yet hopeful conclusion.Think James Lee Burke and Sue Grafton: Stevens' dark psychological thriller shares their damaged people and distinctive senses of place.

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May 1, 2014
We meet Toni Murphy just as she's about to be paroled from a Canadian penitentiary. When she was 18, she and her boyfriend, Ryan, were convicted of killing Toni's younger sister. Flashbacks to the months before her sister was killed and the years she spent in prison help the reader understand the woman Toni is today and why she is torn between clearing her name and keeping her head down and avoiding a parole violation. Moving back to her hometown, Toni knows that the truth behind her sister's murder is just out of reach. She's certain, though, that it's not a coincidence that her sister died shortly after befriending Shauna, a prototypical mean girl who made a hobby out of harassing Toni all through high school. Stevens does an excellent job conveying Toni's near-constant state of uneaseas a victim of teenage bullying, a prison inmate protesting her innocence, a parolee who's prohibited from coming in contact with the people who could clear her name. And she supplies a corker of an ending. Fans of Alex Marwood's The Wicked Girls (2013) will enjoy this suspenseful tale.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2014

Toni Murphy, wrongly convicted at age 18 of murdering her younger sister with boyfriend Ryan, is home on parole at 34, trying to walk the straight and narrow. Alas, Ryan is stirring things up by seeking out the real killer, and those nasty girls from high school are still nasty. Stevens is already a New York Times best-selling author, but the publisher sees greater potential and is positioning this as a breakout novel.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 1, 2014

Stevens (Still Missing; Always Watching) has crafted yet another suspenseful thriller with this tale of heartbreak, the cruelties of fate, and redemption. Toni Murphy is a woman in her mid-thirties who spent 15 years in prison for a crime she didn't commit. Back when she was in high school, she and her boyfriend Ryan were convicted of killing Toni's younger sister, Nicole. The story skillfully moves between past and present as flashbacks reveal Toni's transformation from rebellious teen to depressed inmate. The reader follows Toni on a journey marked by cruel classmates and a hateful mother as she eventually discovers the shattering truth behind her sister's untimely death. Stevens not only gives us a fresh perspective on the power adolescents hold over one another, but she also explores the way secrets can destroy lives. VERDICT Fans of layered mysteries will love this novel as they try to guess the players in Nicole's death and try to figure out exactly what happened "that night." A compelling, exceptional read. [Prepub Alert, 1/15/14; 150,000-copy first printing.]--Mariel Pachucki, Maple Valley, WA

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2014

Stevens (Still Missing; Always Watching) has crafted yet another suspenseful thriller with this tale of heartbreak, the cruelties of fate, and redemption. Toni Murphy is a woman in her mid-thirties who spent 15 years in prison for a crime she didn't commit. Back when she was in high school, she and her boyfriend Ryan were convicted of killing Toni's younger sister, Nicole. The story skillfully moves between past and present as flashbacks reveal Toni's transformation from rebellious teen to depressed inmate. The reader follows Toni on a journey marked by cruel classmates and a hateful mother as she eventually discovers the shattering truth behind her sister's untimely death. Stevens not only gives us a fresh perspective on the power adolescents hold over one another, but she also explores the way secrets can destroy lives. VERDICT Fans of layered mysteries will love this novel as they try to guess the players in Nicole's death and try to figure out exactly what happened "that night." A compelling, exceptional read. [Prepub Alert, 1/15/14; 150,000-copy first printing.]--Mariel Pachucki, Maple Valley, WA

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.