It’s Always the Husband

Thrust together as roommates freshman year at New Hampshire’s tony Carlisle College (think Dartmouth) sometime in the 1990s, three wildly disparate young women forge a bond that will shape—and later shatter—their lives in this suspenseful if soapy debut from former federal prosecutor Campbell. You can’t blame emotionally needy scholarship student Aubrey Miller, daughter of a struggling Las Vegas single mom, or even hypercompetent townie Jenny Vega, for being sucked into the orbit of dazzling, daring golden girl Kate Eastman, along with Carlisle’s most eligible males, including fabulously rich Griff Rothenberg and hunky hockey player Lucas Arsenault (who also happens to have been Jenny’s high school crush). But anyone too close to the dangerously troubled Kate risks getting burnt, as evidenced in a shocking tragedy freshman spring—and murder two decades later. Demonstrating diabolical plotting chops and an ability to convincingly conjure settings, Campbell crafts a twisty page-turner that might have been even more powerful if so many of the principals didn’t prove rotten at the core. [em]100,000 announced first printing. Agent: Meg Ruley, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (May) [/em]