Don’t judge a book by its cover, a statement said to us over and over again in our youth, however, I did on this book. The text treatment on Marlee Bush‘s Darling, You’re Next was the initial draw, but after learning it was Bush’s next novel, that sealed the deal. Darling, You’re Next is a thrilling and psychologically terrifying book that kept me guessing.
If you aren’t bleeding honey, it isn’t love…
Maren Kemp doesn’t believe in love. Life taught her better. But when a kind stranger helps her at her lowest point, something shifts; and when he reappears days later in her grief group, the coincidence feels inevitable.
Topher Kowalski is patient, attentive – the kind of man who understands loss and makes Maren feel seen again. For the first time in what feels like forever, she wonders if healing might be possible.
Then it begins. Similar habits. Similar memories. The same eerie parallels to Topher’s late fiancée, Abby: a woman who died in a fall that never quite made sense… Abby once believed she’d found perfect love in Topher. Until everything changed… Past and present begin to blur. Two women. One man. One story with too many gaps. Because the closer Maren gets to the truth, the more it feels like she isn’t starting a new love story. She’s stepping into someone else’s ending. And this time, she’s next.
Darling, You’re Next is told from two perspective of two different women, one in the past, one in the present, who dated the same man. This back and forth was a fun way to tell this story, but sometimes after setting the book down for a bit and picking it back up, it took a few pages before I understood fully which character I was following. However, this was quickly remedied by Bush’s fantastic writing ability and had me back where I wanted each time.
The themes of addiction, controlling behavior, anxiety, and even a bit of obsession are present in each timeline. The past timeline, you know the character’s ultimate demise to start, and the present is where the mystery lies. Who is lying, who is being honest, and what the hell will happen in the end had me hooked to each and every page. Knowing something has to be up kept me attempting to guess, and when I finally figured it out was satisfied.
As time got closer together and while the two women never really cross paths, as one has already passed, it felt closer and closer as each chapter for these women got smaller and smaller, a nice little touch as the book moved along. With this the character development is strong, we get inside the minds of two women who think they have found the perfect partner, only for things to be not what they seem.
Darling, You’re Next is a twisted psychological thriller that takes finding the perfect partner and slowly turns it into something terrifying. Marlee Bush delivers on a tension-filled novel where two women’s stories intertwine in ways they wish were different. Darling, You’re Next is an unsettling and addictive thriller that will have you questioning every red flag right up until the very end.
Darling, You’re Next hits bookstores everywhere on January 5, 2027 from Poisoned Pen Press. The audiobook is available via Libro.fm!
