August 1, 2024
Down-on-her-luck Drew runs into her ex-best friend Steph when she moves back home. Drew soon becomes involved in the multi-level marketing scheme in which Steph seems to be thriving. When a distributor dies under mysterious circumstances, Drew starts investigating, hoping to save herself and her friend. Horror writer Abrams (She Who Rules the Dead) turns to mystery. Prepub Alert.
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October 21, 2024
Abrams aims to skewer the world of multilevel marketing in her breezy if undercooked debut. After a failed stint as a journalist in New York City, 30-year-old Drew Cooper has reluctantly returned home to Clearwater, N.J. Adrift and depressed, she crawls through her days until she runs into her high school best friend, Stephanie Murphy, at the supermarket. Taken aback by Stephanie’s pristine, youthful appearance, which she attributes to the products she sells for cosmetics company LuminUS, Drew agrees to join her as a sales rep. After an initial boost to her self-confidence (and her bank balance), Drew starts to sense simmering animosities among her LuminUS cohorts. Stephanie, however, admits to no such divisions—even when one of the region’s top sellers turns up dead under suspicious circumstances and another murder follows. Abrams’s attempts to expose the dark heart of pyramid schemes by satirizing the predatory glee of their sales reps are amusing enough, but the book’s brisk pacing becomes a liability by the time the rushed conclusion rolls around. Though there’s some tongue-in-cheek fun to be had, this feels like a missed opportunity. Agent: Lane Heymont, Tobias Literary.
November 1, 2024
Drew Cooper was a serious journalist (well, okay, she wrote listicle clickbait for Buzzfeed) until she lost her job and was forced to move home to Clearfield, New Jersey. After a chance run-in at a grocery store, Drew reconnects with her former bff Stephanie Murphy, now making a good living as a consultant for beauty company LuminUS. She convinces Drew that she could make a killing, too; she just has to pay a small start-up fee and meet a monthly minimum. LuminUS is not a pyramid scheme, Steph insists, and Drew is desperate, so she signs on. Through the company, she meets a cadre of thin, blonde women for whom LuminUS is life--until one of them dies at a LuminUS convention. Though the police rule it a suicide, Drew's journalistic instincts kick in, and she's reluctantly suspicious of Steph anyway. Soon, Drew is knee-deep in the mysterious overdose deaths that have plagued Clearfield and its environs. Abrams perfectly skewers the MLM movement, sprinkling podcast transcripts, marketing materials, and social media posts into a funny, spot-on mystery that will appeal to genre fans and MLM-skeptics.
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