by Mark Edwards
First published 2025
Ethan Dove moves his family to what seems like a safe neighborhood. His marriage to Emma is crumbling, and his children Dylan and Rose need stability after difficult times. When local boys bully twelve-year-old Rose, neighbor Fiona Smith intervenes and quickly becomes the family's savior. She offers to watch Rose during school holidays, giving Ethan and Emma the break they desperately need. But Fiona has darker motives. She wants revenge, and she plans to use Rose as her weapon. As Fiona begins training the girl to help with her twisted scheme, she discovers that Rose may harbor her own capacity for darkness. The question becomes whether Fiona is corrupting an innocent child or simply awakening something that was already there.
Genres: domestic-fiction, suspense, crime, adult-fiction, thriller, psychological-thriller
Vibes: dark, morally-ambiguous, psychological, suspenseful, tension-filled, unsettling
Tropes: corruption-of-innocence, toxic-relationship, unreliable-narrator, wolf-in-sheeps-clothing
Setting: suburban-neighborhood
Period: contemporary
349 pages · Paperback · Thomas & Mercer
Content warnings: child-abuse, gaslighting