This Is Not Over

November 28, 2016
In this middling tale of domestic suspense from Brown (Don’t Try to Find Me), Dawn Thiebold’s only escape from her tiny Oakland, Calif., apartment, communications-degree coursework, and boring but attractive husband are the mini-vacations they take in gorgeous homes on the coast. The vacations also help her to forget her sordid past and her uncertain future. When Dawn receives an email that she’ll lose $200 of the deposit from their last stay due to some stained sheets, she is livid. Dawn goes on the offensive against Miranda Feldt, the landlord, who’s struggling to send money to her drug-addict son without her husband’s knowledge—and the rental is the only place she can skim the money from. Neither woman can let the matter go, and things escalate quickly. Miranda loses the ability to rent the home, and Dawn’s marriage suffers, especially when she begins to engage with Miranda’s son on social media. A disappointing end wraps up a lengthy and exhausting psychological battle of paranoia and wills. Agent: Elisabeth Weed, Weed Literary Agency.

April 1, 2016

After her dream weekend at the beach turns into a nightmare, Dawn demands a refund from host Miranda, who obliges--subtracting $200 for stained sheets that need replacing. Dawn retaliates with a post that warns off future renters. This little contretemps escalates into something much scarier--this is categorized as suspense, after all, not women's fiction. With a 50,000-copy first printing; from the author of A Necessary End.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2017
Penny-pinching Dawn vacations in rich people's rentals via an Airbnb-style site, imagining that she lives in the lap of luxury. Wealthy Miranda uses the Malibu home she inherited as a way to generate cash to give to her druggie son (without her husband knowing). When Miranda charges Dawn a cleaning fee that Dawn thinks is unfounded, the two women enter into a social-media war prompted by Dawn posting a negative review that leaves Miranda in fear of losing her secret cash flow. Tension mounts and the drama deepens when Dawn meets Miranda's son via Twitter. In her third psychological thriller (after A Necessary End, 2015), Brown, a licensed mental-health professional, offers a compelling look at two women from very different walks of life who have more in common than they care to admit. It's clear that Brown uses her expertise to the hiltcharacters all have textbook issues, mainly self-esteem problems resulting from past family trauma. In fact, they don't just have issues, they have a multiyear subscription! Perfect for fans of Erin Kelly and Sophie Hannah.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)