The Last Mrs. Parrish

To the pantheon of Gone Girl–type bad girls you can now add Amber Patterson, the heroine of this devilishly ingenious debut thriller. Coming from an impoverished background in Missouri, Amber sets her sights on Daphne and Jackson Parrish, a wealthy couple living with their two young children, Bella and Tallulah, in the tony coastal community of Bishops Harbor on Long Island Sound. With singular focus, Amber moves in on the glamorous couple, befriending Daphne and ultimately seducing Jackson as part of her master plan to become the next Mrs. Parrish. The reader watches with shock and delight as Amber cold-bloodedly manipulates Daphne and Jackson and lays waste to anyone else who stands in her way. Then, about halfway through, the point of view switches from Amber’s to Daphne’s, and we get a surprisingly different take on the story. To say any more would spoil all the twists that Constantine (the pseudonym of sisters Lynne and Valerie Constantine) has in store along the way to a surprising and entirely satisfying ending. Suffice it to say that readers would have to go back to the likes of Ira Levin’s A Kiss Before Dying or Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley to find as entertaining a depiction of a sociopathic monster. Agent: Bernadette Baker-Baughman, Victoria Sanders & Associates. (Oct.)