by Katy Hays
First published 2025
Helen Lingate arrives at her family's Capri villa for their annual July retreat, thirty years after playwright Sarah Lingate died there in what the family calls a tragic accident. Helen wants to break free from her controlling father Richard's grip on her life and fortune. She turns to family assistant Lorna Silva for help, but their plans crumble when someone leaves an anonymous gift at the villa: the necklace Sarah wore the night she died. The police reopen the murder investigation. Helen's paranoid family begins to fracture as suspicions mount. She loses faith in everyone around her, including her drug-addled aunt Naomi, distant uncle Marcus, and even Lorna, whose mysterious background troubles Helen. As the family's carefully maintained unity collapses, buried secrets about that fatal night surface. The truth they've hidden from each other for decades threatens to destroy them all before they can leave the island.
Genres: suspense, mystery, crime, contemporary, thriller, family-drama
Vibes: dark, emotional, fast-paced, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Capri, Villa
Period: 30 Years Ago
336 pages · Hardcover · Bantam
Content warnings: death, murder, violence