by Amina Akhtar
First published 2024
Dunia Ahmed thought someone trying to kill her was the worst thing that could happen. She was wrong. The successful pharmacist lives in New York, dealing with her broken engagement and her mother's recent death. When her would-be killer turns up dead, she believes her nightmare has ended. Then another person tries to murder her. And another. The police think someone close to her orchestrates these attacks. Dunia cannot understand why anyone wants her dead. Her ordinary life as the daughter of Pakistani immigrants holds no obvious secrets or enemies. As more attempts follow, childhood superstitions from her past begin bleeding into her present reality. She starts believing something supernatural hunts her. Over a year later, Dunia has vanished completely. A true crime podcast tells her story to obsessed listeners who wear merchandise demanding her return. No one knows whether she survived or died. The question remains whether human malice or something darker drove her to disappear.
Genres: mystery, crime, contemporary, thriller
Vibes: dark, emotional, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator, vanishing
Setting: New York, Pakistan
Period: 21st-century
301 pages · Paperback · Mindy's Book Studio
Content warnings: anxiety, depression, mental-illness