Lovely girls A thriller

Mean girls grow up to be mean moms with mean daughters in this entertaining domestic thriller from Hunt (The Last Affair). Kate Turner moves from Buffalo, N.Y., to Shoreham, Fla., with her 17-year-old daughter, Alex, who's been depressed since her father, Ed, died in a recent car accident. Unbeknownst to Alex, her parents were considering divorce. In Florida, Alex makes instant enemies of three popular girls who catch her filming them on her phone for her video diary, which is part of her therapy. At school, the girls relentlessly bully Alex and escalate their cruel pranks after learning the circumstances of Ed's death. Kate has an uneasy feeling about the girls, wondering whether they're "predatory," but she's afraid to voice her concerns because she has become friends with the girls' mothers, having ignored warnings that the women are vicious and take pride in raising bullies. The action builds to a shockingly believable fatal incident. Small-town gossip and teenage angst drive the brisk plot, which is elevated by fully fleshed-out characters and a palpable realism. Hunt remains a writer to watch. Agent: Christina Hogrebe, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Feb.)

A teenage girl navigating the high school food chain finds herself at the center of a mystery as either a victim or a potential perp. For what may be the first time in her life, Kate Turner has made an almost-impulsive choice: to move with her teenage daughter, Alex, from Buffalo to a new home in Shoreham, Florida. Grief does funny things to a person, and Kate hasn't been sure how to deal with the sudden death of a husband she no longer loved or even really liked. But vacationing in Shoreham was one of Kate's last happy memories, so here they are. Settling into their new home, Kate makes nice with a clique of moms with daughters at Alex's school and feels like she may be fitting in, with a potentially closer relationship with chef Joe Miller. Alex has her own struggles, presented in video diary entries interspersed with chapters narrated by Kate. She hasn't been herself since her dad's death in a car accident when she was driving, and her biggest relief is her longtime love of tennis. But the Shoreham Lady Panthers are unwelcoming despite Alex's solid skills. Though Kate is friendly with the mothers of the team's members, the girls are queen bees who ignore Alex at best or take note of her simply to bully her. Alex wants to keep her head down but can't help but goad Daphne, who's at the top of the food chain. Wrong move by Alex, whose sense of principle supersedes self-preservation. A death introduced early in the book is clearly linked to the bullying, and it seems only a matter of time before Alex is either offed or held responsible when someone else is. What happens when mean girls are raised by tiger mothers. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.