The last guests

After seven years together, Auckland, New Zealand, paramedic Lina Phillips, the narrator of this chilling psychological thriller from Pomare (In the Clearing), and her husband, Cain, a former SAS commando turned fitness coach, have hit a rough patch. Unbeknownst to Cain, Lina is gambling on a plot to save their marriage that could just end up shattering their lives instead. With the couple seriously cash-strapped, Lina reluctantly agrees--perhaps because of guilt over the toxic secret she's concealing from Cain--to his urging to list their remote Lake Tarawera vacation property, her memory-laden childhood home, on the home-sharing platform WeStay. At first it's easy money. But then she starts getting threatening texts from a stalker who seems able to spy on her in real time during the pair's visits to the house--and the terror skyrockets from there. While some of the twists prove less than convincing, this descent into all-too-plausible cyber voyeurism scenarios should keep readers up at night for more reasons than one. Pomare knows how to keep the pages turning. Agent: Daniel Lazar, Writers House. (Aug.)

Newlyweds Lina and Cain decide to earn some extra cash by renting out their vacation home on New Zealand's Lake Tarawera. Alas, they have some secrets they want to keep buried, and unsettling events at the vacation home suggest that someone is digging them up. With a 50,000-copy first printing; from the winner of the Ngaio Marsh Award for best first novel.