Review by Booklist Review
Screenwriter Yara Gibson reluctantly returns to her desert hometown, Palmdale, to organize a twentieth anniversary gala for her parents. Things get complicated right away when she's approached by her oddball cousin, Felicia, who insists on a meeting to reveal things about Yara's life that will "change everything". Wary of drama, Yara texts Felicia a plea to desist. The next thing she hears about Felicia is that she's drowned in nearby Palmdale Lake. Admittedly influenced by her role as a writer for a crime drama and by there being too many family secrets in her family, Yara suspects that Felicia was murdered. The breadcrumbs that Yara can't stop herself from following keep leading her back to the early days of her parents' marriage, her mother's high-school frenemy feuds, and a missing Black heiress in Hollywood. The unforgiving desert setting and its mix of white supremacists, Crips, and various other outlaws ups the plot-driving paranoia here, but Hall's knack for creating driven, relatably vulnerable heroines like Yara is the key to this latest success.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
L.A. screenwriter Yara Gibson, the narrator of this crafty thriller from bestseller Hall (These Toxic Things), reluctantly returns to her childhood home in suburban Palmdale, Calif., to oversee her parents' 20th wedding anniversary. Yara, forgetful, asthmatic, and anxiety ridden, is figuratively and literally allergic to Palmdale, with its overwhelming desert dust storms and violent subculture. Her own house is toxic with cigarette smoke, especially the dust-filled attic with its forbidden secrets. While in Palmdale, Yara's lifelong clashes with her sassy younger sister, petulant father, and dominating and manipulative mother reignite. Felicia Campbell, a second cousin she hardly knows, arrives in a dust storm with a cryptic message: "I have information that will change your life." Felicia is found dead the next day, and it is Yara's search for the message's meaning that wrenches her toward a shocking resolution. Hall exhibits a mastery of slowly building pressure-cooker tension until it explodes. A less accomplished writer might not have been able to be as convincing with occasional situational constructs that stretch credulity, but Hall pulls all of it off with aplomb. She remains a writer to watch. Agent: Jill Marsal, Marsal Lyon Literary. (July)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
An anniversary party reveals a shocking family secret that will change the lives of everyone it touches. Yara Gibson, a writer on a television crime drama, has returned to her dusty hometown of Palmdale, California, to host an anniversary party for her parents. As a lifelong asthmatic, she is literally allergic to her parents' desert home, but after losing an argument with her mother--who needles her into staying in her childhood bedroom though there's a dust storm raging outside--she settles in for several days of family drama and a whole lot of wheezing. The drama escalates quickly after a long-lost cousin named Felicia texts Yara with a dangerous accusation: "I have information that will change your life." But before Yara can find out what's going on, Felicia is mysteriously killed, ratcheting up the tension in the house as Yara and her family struggle to figure out who would have killed her. Yara's asthma gets worse as the days progress, and by the time the reader starts wondering how she's still alive without access to her mysteriously disappearing inhaler, Yara is attacked, probably by the same person who murdered Felicia, and ends up in the hospital. After a quick recovery, Yara begins to learn just how much her family has been hiding. What's most special about the book is the array of complex characters, from Yara's flighty and overindulged sister to her quiet, devoted father and, most of all, Yara herself, with her assortment of ailments and traumas and resilience. (That she is a crime writer trying to solve her own real-life crime adds to her charm.) The dialogue is sharp, observant, and emotional without ever straying into sentimentality, and the mystery of who is targeting the Gibson family manages to stay compelling despite many twists and turns--though at times these misdirections and pivots can feel a little disjointed, leaving you wondering momentarily how you got there. This captivating domestic thriller will keep you on your toes. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
