The Poison Garden

After Elise Waters, the owner of an herbal boutique and narrator of this impressive psychological thriller from Banner (The Twilight Wife), meets with her Seattle financial adviser, she returns to her magnificent home on nearby Chinook Island that once belonged to her late mother. She’s devastated to find her husband, Kiernan Lund, in bed with another woman. Kiernan moves out. Elise soon learns that Kiernan has amassed a huge amount of debt, and she begins to suspect he’s planning to kill her in order to inherit all her assets. Feeling alone and terrified, she turns to her ex-husband and a neighbor for support. She also begins to sleepwalk again, which has plagued her in the past. When Elise finds a body in her backyard, she fears that, while sleepwalking, she may have committed murder using a poisonous plant her mother brought back from South America that’s still growing in the garden. Is she responsible, or is someone setting her up? Banner keeps the reader guessing to the end. Fans of domestic suspense will be rewarded. Agent: Paige Wheeler, Creative Media. (Oct.)