The Rumor

May 20, 2019
In 1999, single mother Joanna Critchley, the narrator of Kara’s suspenseful debut, and her six-year-old son, Alfie, move from an unnamed city to her hometown of Flinstead, which appears to be on the coast of New England. Anxious to be accepted by the other parents, Joanna thoughtlessly repeats a rumor that Sally McGowan, who at age 10 stabbed a six-year-old playmate to death in Dearborn, Mich., in 1969 and was released from a juvenile detention center in 1981, lives in the town under a new name and that the convicted child killer could easily be anyone’s neighbor. When the rumor mill starts to run rampant, a noose of suspicion begins to tighten around Flinstead, where the residents’ idyllic lives soon begin to crumble amid a firestorm of conjecture. Joanna, despite receiving warning messages from a well-meaning friend, is determined to find out whether the rumor is true. Meanwhile, a kidnapper targets Alfie. Well-developed characters and a twisty plot will keep readers turning the pages. Those who stay to the very last sentence will be doubly surprised. Kara is off to a promising start. Agent: Amanda Preston, LBA Books (U.K.).

June 1, 2019

DEBUT Single mom Joanna and young son Alfie recently relocated to the quiet seaside town where her mother lives. When Joanna hears a doozy of a rumor--that a notorious criminal, who killed as a child but did her time, is living among them with a new identity--she blithely shares it with the schoolyard mommy brigade that she so desperately wants to fit in with. But she immediately regrets sharing the rumor as paranoia causes the women, including herself, to become consumed with identifying the killer. Joanna quickly learns how a rumor can snowball and negatively affect people's lives, including her own. Kara's debut, Americanized following its initial release in the UK, is a brisk first-person narrative with short chapters and plenty of characters that will keep readers guessing (and reguessing). VERDICT Joanna's histrionic nature and Alfie's opportunistic freelance investigative journalist father are annoying, and the pervasive stilted dialog distracting, but those issues don't stop the requisite shocking twist and reveal from making this a satisfying read worth recommending.--Samantha Gust, Niagara Univ. Lib., NY

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2019
This mystery has an unusual and resonant theme?how a single rumor can morph into a completely unmanageable, deadly force. Two voices are heard throughout the novel. The first is that of single mother new to a town who hears and then spreads a rumor about another woman, who killed a boy when she herself was a child and who has now reportedly moved into the town. The second, much shorter point of view, is that of the now-grown murderer herself. The mother, hating herself all the while, finds that spreading the rumor gives her more attention and her son more play dates. Her boyfriend, an investigative journalist, keeps pushing the research on the identity of the long-ago child killer further and further. The story is marred somewhat by the fact that, although set in the U.S., the text uses so many Briticisms ( start the kettle ) that readers may keep checking to see where the book is actually set. This doesn't take away, though, from the psychological acuity throughout and the astonishing ending.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)