Nothing Without Me

Monks Takhar (Such a Good Mother) explores the dark side of celebrity in this diabolically plotted and ferociously feminist psychological thriller. April Eden and her best friend, disgraced former national sweetheart Essie Lay, are favored to win British Film Association awards for The Vanished Woman, a movie starring Essie that April wrote and directed. It’s a huge win for April, who’s fought for years to break through as a female filmmaker, so when Essie messages April before the ceremony to say she’s staying home, April and her boyfriend, Jags, stop by the actor’s Hampstead mansion to change her mind. Instead, they discover a gown-clad Essie face down in her pool with champagne and pills nearby. Jags convinces April to leave Essie for someone else to deal with and attend the awards ceremony as though nothing happened, but when morning breaks and the news hasn’t, the couple return to find Essie and the intoxicants gone—along with Essie’s passport. Paranoia seeps into April’s first-person-present narration, while expertly timed flashbacks from April and Essie’s alternating perspectives gradually reveal the women’s fraught history, adding dimension and context to the central mystery. Exquisitely rendered, realistically damaged characters help make the novel’s jaw-dropping twists feel earned rather than contrived. Liane Moriarty fans, take note: this is a must-read. Agent: Hellie Ogden, WME. (Apr.)