A Likeable Woman

The last place L.A. resident Kira Foster wants to go in this formulaic page-turner from Cobb (My Summer Darlings) is Longview, the East Texas hometown she couldn’t wait to leave after her mother, Sadie, died by apparent suicide two decades earlier. But when Kira’s estranged grandmother suggests she’s ready to hand over an important family heirloom, and hints she might be coming around to Kira’s conviction that Sadie didn’t kill herself, Kira can’t resist. Trouble begins before she exits Dallas Fort Worth Airport, where she receives a menacing anonymous text message: “You’re making a very big mistake. You’ll be sorry.” It’s not enough to deter her, especially since the item Kira’s grandmother wants to give her turns out to be Sadie’s unfinished memoir, baring a life—and a secret love—the troubled artist largely hid from her daughter. As Kira devours pages and rekindles a flame with her first crush, now a married neurosurgeon, she discovers clues that might solve the mystery of her mother’s death—or condemn her to the same fate. With underwritten characters and one too many plot contrivances, this doesn’t measure up to Cobb’s best work. Still, it should tide over longtime fans until the author returns to peak form. Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders and Assoc. (July)