Pretty Revenge

July 8, 2019
Liebert (Those Secrets We Keep) delivers a first-rate thriller in this irresistible tale of a wedding planner with a dodgy past and the longtime enemy who aims to expose her secrets. Kerrie O’Malley has just lost her job and is floundering in her hometown of Bridgeport, Conn., when she hears a voice from her past on TV—Jordana Pierson, formerly Jordan Butler, the neighbor who, 18 years earlier, stole all that was precious from Kerrie as a 12-year-old, the circumstances of which are gradually teased out over the course of the narrative. A Manhattan socialite and wedding concierge, Jordana plans the “Wedding of the Century”; Kerrie is planning, too, turning herself into Olivia Lewis, nabbing a job with Jordana’s company, and orchestrating Jordana’s downfall. Bit by bit, Kerrie—acting as a personal assistant to Jordana—gains Jordana’s trust and lays the groundwork for a humiliating fall. Liebert’s characters have surprising depth, particularly the somewhat tortured Jordana, whose past mistakes occurred amid powerful mitigating circumstances. Fans of Leila Slimani’s The Perfect Nanny will devour this expertly paced novel.

May 1, 2019
Merely by chance, Kerrie O'Malley spots the woman who ruined her life nearly two decades earlier. At 14, Kerrie admired her older neighbor, Jordan Butler, and offered to help her whenever it was needed, but in one night Jordan took everything that Kerrie held dear. Now Jordan has become Jordana Pierson, her married name, and is Manhattan's hot new wedding concierge, currently planning the wedding of the decade (or at least the year) and needing an assistant for her growing business. So Kerrie, changing her appearance and using her legal name of Olivia Lewis, gets the job and plans sabotage to achieve revenge. But Olivia doesn't count on the pleasure and sense of accomplishment her new job provides, her burgeoning relationship (even friendship) with Jordana, or her attraction to the bridegroom in the much-anticipated wedding. Liebert's forte is creating authentic female characters, as she does here with those in both primary and secondary roles, while building suspense by withholding until late in the book the details of just what Jordan did to Kerrie 18 years earlier. A psychological thriller with a surprising resolution.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)