The Night Before

February 18, 2019
Financial analyst Laura Lochner, the narrator of this devilishly plotted if intermittently heavy-handed psychological thriller from Walker (Emma in the Night), has a disastrous track record with men—dating back to the murder of her first boyfriend in circumstances sufficiently murky that she fled her hometown and created a new identity for herself. A devastating recent break-up has prompted her to take a leave from her job in Manhattan and move in with her sister, Rosie, and Rosie’s family in suburban Connecticut. Three weeks after the move, Laura fails to return to Rosie’s house after her first date with a man she met online. When the police treat the disappearance as less than urgent, it’s up to Rosie, husband Joe and their lifelong best friend, Gabe, to track her down. A frantic race against the clock ensues. While the psychoanalysis of the roots of Laura’s feelings of unlovability can get tedious, Walker excels at exploiting multiple timelines and ample misdirection to maximize the suspense of her twist-filled tale. Readers will be eager to see what she comes up with next. Agent: Wendy Sherman, Wendy Sherman Assoc. Literary Management.

March 1, 2019
A first date takes a sinister turn for a troubled young woman in Walker's third psychological thriller.It's the day after Laura Lochner's date with a man she met online, and she hasn't returned to the Connecticut home of her sister, Rosie, her brother-in-law, Joe, and their little boy, Mason, where she's been staying after a bad breakup. Rosie fears the worst, but Joe advises caution. After all, Laura is an adult and can have some fun, right? But Rosie has a bad feeling. Laura won't answer her phone, and Rosie only has more questions after poking around online for info on Laura's date, Jonathan Fields. Rosie eventually calls the police, and events begin to cascade like dominoes. Interspersed with Rosie's attempt to trace Laura's movements and get a handle on the guy she went out with is Laura's first-person account of the actual date as well as enlightening snippets of sessions between Laura and her therapist. Laura's is the most compelling part--a tormented, often prickly piece of storytelling by a woman carrying the pain of a horrible event that happened in high school and feelings of abandonment by a father who always seemed to love Rosie more. Laura's desire to be loved is all-consuming, but her conviction that she is not worthy of love is heartbreaking. She sees subterfuge in nearly everything Jonathan says and does. Meanwhile, Rosie must come to terms with some ugly surprises of her own as she digs into their past. As the timelines inevitably converge, Walker's clever misdirection paves the way to a truly chilling finale, and she has plenty of insightful things to say about the blame placed on women by society and themselves for the idiotic, careless, and sometimes downright evil things men do.Twisty and propulsive.

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April 1, 2019
After a devastating breakup, Laura Lochner retreats to her Branston, Connecticut, hometown, hoping to reconnect with her sister, Rosie, and their childhood friends Joe (now Rosie's husband) and Gabe. She has a good feeling about Jonathan Fields, her latest online match, too. But when Laura doesn't come home from her date with Jonathan, Rosie suspects something terrible has happened. As the clock ticks on Laura's disappearance, Rosie appeals to the dating site's female members and learns that nothing about Jonathan Fields is as it seems. Suddenly, her fears turn from concern about Laura's safety to worry about Laura's reaction to Fields' lies. In high school, Laura was found standing over her two-timing boyfriend's battered body but was eventually cleared of wrongdoing. Still, Rosie has always wondered if Laura's legendary rage claimed a victim all those years ago. Is Laura in danger, or has she fled after assaulting Fields? �Skillfully manipulating tension and using breathless pacing, Walker keeps that question in the air until the final twist unmasks secrets about Laura's disappearance and the murder in her past.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

December 1, 2018

Responsible Rosie acts fast when wild-hare sister Laura melts into thin air after a date with a stranger she met online, but soon Rosie starts wondering whether he's the one in danger. Following Emma in the Night; with a 150,000-copy distribution across formats and lots of buzz.

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