#Review - You'll Be Sorry by Lisa Gardner #Suspense #Thriller

Series: Standalone
Format: 357 pages, Hardcover

Release Date: August 4, 2026
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Source: Publisher
Genre: Thriller, Suspense

For Raquel and Theo Collins, it appeared to be love at first sight. Raquel, a renowned interior designer, and Theo, a brash financial wizard met and married in a matter of months, only to confront a terrible tragedy. Now, unbearably aware of the distance between them, they’ve come to a remote town in New Hampshire to begin anew.

Perched on a ledge with stunning views, the Dixon’s family lodge was once a crown jewel of the mountains. Until late one August night, when both parents and their four children vanished, leaving behind a trail of bloody footprints, and a mystery that has endured for thirty years. Now, its latest occupants, the Collinses, are arriving, and the former grand lodge is once more stirring to life.

For Amanda Grady, following in her father’s footsteps as the recently appointed Shereford police chief, it’s good to see a fresh start for the derelict Dixon place. However, not everyone is happy about a new family in the old home, and its hidden past may have returned with a vengeance.

When a stray dog leads to the discovery of a skeleton on the property, Raquel and Theo face a daunting choice of what to believe, who to trust, and how to survive. Because in the tiny village of Shereford, the time has come. The local residents, the new neighbors, and the fledgling police chief must work together to unravel the terrifying events that happened one night thirty years ago, or …

You’ll be sorry.

You’ll Be Sorry is Lisa Gardner’s first standalone thriller in years. It is a small-town cold-case novel with a strained marriage at its center: newlyweds move into a mountain lodge that never recovered from a family’s disappearance three decades earlier. The setup is immediately effective. Raquel Collins, an interior designer, and Theo Collins, a financial operator, married quickly, then suffered a private tragedy that left them distant. 

They buy the long-empty Dixon lodge in the tiny New Hampshire village of Shereford, hoping renovation and isolation will reset their lives. The house sits on a ledge with dramatic White Mountains views. Thirty years earlier, on a late August night, the Dixon parents and their four children vanished, leaving a trail of bloody footprints and an unsolved mystery that still defines the town. New police chief Amanda Grady—following in her father’s footsteps—is glad to see the derelict place occupied. 

Not everyone else is. When a stray dog leads to a skeleton on the property, the past stops being local folklore and becomes an active threat. Raquel, Theo, Grady, and the village have to decide whom to trust. Gardner works with three main contemporary viewpoints plus the shadow of the vanished Dixons. Raquel is the most fully drawn: grief-stricken, professionally capable, and less transparent than she first appears. Theo is brasher and harder to read; the marriage itself functions as a source of suspense rather than mere backdrop. 

Amanda Grady is the outsider-insider cop trying to prove herself in a town that already thinks it knows every secret. The stray dog (and at least one other canine) earns the title of scene-stealer. Shereford is the real co-lead. It is insular, scenic, and thick with gossip, old grudges, and local lore. The novel braids present-day investigation with the 1990s disappearance. Chapters are relatively short. Tension comes from withheld information: the couple’s secrets, the town’s secrets, and whether the new occupants have disturbed something that wanted to stay buried. 

Themes include grief after loss, the stories spouses tell each other, how a community protects its own version of events, and the cost of reopening a wound everyone claims to have closed. You’ll Be Sorry is Gardner working in domestic-suspense and closed-community mode rather than FBI-profiler or missing-persons-series mode. It is atmospheric, twisty, and sincerely interested in how people live with unfinished horror. It is also messier than her tightest books: ambitious layering sometimes becomes congestion, and the ending will satisfy some readers while leaving others feeling the strings were yanked. If you want a remote New England lodge, a vanished family, a marriage full of omissions, and a town that knows less than it pretends, this delivers. If you want a ruthlessly efficient plot with no extra folklore or canine side business, it may frustrate.

Amazon | Audible | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

#Review - Kiss Her Goodbye by Lisa Gardner #Thrillers #Suspense

Series: Frankie Elkin # 4
Format: Hardcover, 416 pages
Release Date: August 12, 2025
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Source: Publisher
Genre: Thrillers / Suspense

A New York Times bestselling author returns with the latest installment in the addictive Frankie Elkin series, in which Frankie is called to Tucson, Arizona, to find a missing Afghan refugee, whose friend suspects she is in grave danger—before it is too late. “Timely and completely gripping.” (Louise Penny, New York Times bestselling author)

Recent Afghan refugee and young mother Sabera Ahmadi was last seen exiting her place of work three weeks ago. The local police have yet to open a case, while her older, domineering husband seems unconcerned. At the insistence of Sabera's closest friend, missing persons expert Frankie Elkin agrees to take up the search just in time for a video of Sabera to surface—showing her walking away from the scene of a brutal double murder.    

Frankie quickly notes there's much more to the Ahmadi family than meets the eye. The father Isaad is a brilliant mathematician, Sabera a gifted linguist, and their little girl Zahra has an uncanny ability to remember anything she sees. Which given everything that has happened during the girl's short life, may be a terrible curse.

When Isaad also disappears under mysterious circumstances and an attempt is made on Zahra's life, Frankie realizes she must crack the code of this family's horrific past. Someone is coming for the Ahmadis. And violence is clearly an option.

When everything is on the line, how far would you go to protect the ones you love? Frankie is about to find out.

Kiss Her Goodbye, by Lisa Gardner, is the 4th installment in the author's Frankie Elkin Series. Set against the scorching backdrop of Tucson, Arizona, the book follows Frankie Elkin, a recovering alcoholic and missing persons expert, as she takes on the case of Sabera Ahmadi, a young Afghan refugee who has vanished under mysterious circumstances. What unfolds is a riveting narrative filled with twists, trauma, and a deep exploration of the refugee experience, making it both a thrilling mystery and a poignant social commentary. 

The story begins with Frankie Elkin, a nomadic investigator who specializes in finding the "invisible" people society overlooks, arriving in Tucson to search for Sabera Ahmadi. Sabera, a recent Afghan refugee, wife, and mother, was last seen leaving her workplace three weeks ago. The local police have not opened a case, and Sabera’s older, domineering husband, Isaad, appears strangely unconcerned. However, Sabera’s closest friend insists she would never abandon her three-year-old daughter, Zahra. 

Driven by this conviction and her own empathy for the marginalized, Frankie takes on the case. The plot thickens when a video surfaces showing Sabera walking away from the scene of a brutal double murder, raising questions about her involvement. As Frankie digs deeper, she uncovers layers of complexity within the Ahmadi family: Isaad is a brilliant mathematician, Sabera a gifted linguist, and their daughter Zahra possesses an uncanny photographic memory. This gift may be a curse, given the family’s traumatic past. 

When Isaad also disappears and an attempt is made on Zahra’s life, Frankie realizes the stakes are higher than she imagined. The narrative spirals into a web of secrets, espionage, and violence, forcing Frankie to confront not only the Ahmadi family’s dark history but also her own demons. The novel delves into the horrors of refugee camps, the psychological toll of war, and the challenges of adapting to a new life, including issues like PTSD and postpartum struggles. 

These elements are woven seamlessly into the thriller framework, adding emotional weight without feeling didactic. The secondary cast of characters includes Detective Marc, a man who is brought into the search for Sabera after Isaad is found dead. Then there's Daryl Daniels, who helps Frankie around and tries to prevent her from getting over her head. Sabera's story is featured over the course of this story as flashbacks and storytelling to her daughter, Zahra who is only 4 years old, and was born in a refugee camp. 

Zahra, in particular, stands out as a heartbreaking yet resilient figure whose photographic memory becomes a pivotal plot device. There are, of course, other secondary characters who are essential to the story, as well as others whose participation in the story reveals that not everything is as it appears. It's a story that is filled with layers and mysteries. 

*On a side note: This story dives into the chaos that was the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the impact it had on those left behind. The US left behind many people who had worked with the US for years. These should have been the first people taken out of the country because the Taliban ended up hunting these people down.  They deserved the respect and admiration for what they did against the same threats that US troops faced in the country.

Sabera's story is interesting in that she ends up getting involved in things that her own mother likely guided her on this path before dying of cancer. The one person in this entire book you should have an emotional connection to is Zahra. This little girl has gone through so much in 4 years of existence, and it appears that she might be a prodigy like her mother, who can hear a language once and understand and speak it.  

*As always, the author does an excellent job of researching the issues in this book, and that is why she's at the top of my must-read list of authors. 

Amazon | Audible | Barnes & Noble | Kobo