The summer we buried

Tansy Elliot, the narrator of this gripping novel from Gehrman (The Girls Weekend), leads a relatively serene life as a guidance counselor at Valley of the Moon University in Sonoma, Calif., until Selene Rathbone appears at her office, having booked an appointment under an assumed name. The two share a terrible secret concerning a criminal act 20 years ago about which Tansy has felt guilty ever since. Tansy knows she shouldn't get involved with Selene again, but Selene threatens to reveal their secret to the police unless Tansy does her bidding. Selene's daughter, Jupiter, a student at the university, is living with Colton Blake, a man Selene thinks is abusive. She wants Tansy to make sure Jupiter breaks up with Colton. As Selene draws Tansy further and further into her grasp, Tansy comes to realize Selene has a hidden agenda. The romantic relationship that develops between Tansy and Selene's brother raises the stakes. Gehrman keeps the suspense high up to the final showdown. Psychological thriller fans will find much to like. Agent: Jill Marr, Sandra Dijkstra Literary. (Mar.)

A strong professional woman turns to jelly when her old college friend abruptly appears to ask a very loaded favor. Massage therapist Selene Rathbone has had a hold over Tansy Elliot ever since the night 18 years ago when the two of them agreed to keep mum about an attempted rape and its fatal consequences. Now Selene has popped up again to exact payment. Worried that her daughter, Jupiter, is being emotionally abused by her boyfriend, Colton Blake, she insists that Tansy, a guidance counselor at Sonoma's Valley of the Moon University, take Jupiter, a VMU undergraduate, in hand and persuade her to ditch Colton, or at least to lift the restraining order he's persuaded Jupiter to file against her flamboyant, interfering mother. Recognizing both Selene's power over her and the serious breach of professional ethics she's demanding, Tansy, a former singer and songwriter who still misses her band, the Insatiables, which broke up when its bass player died of a heroin overdose, temporizes and dithers long enough to field some barely veiled threats from Colton's father, Henry Blake, the local district attorney and VMU trustee, and fall for Selene's kid brother, Zack, a professor of psychology at VMU and a sometime FBI consultant to boot. Everybody involved has a different agenda they're desperately trying to keep secret from everybody else, but the main thing that changes when the secrets come out is another burst of violence that suggests that that summer 18 years ago may not be the only time that ends up getting buried. More smoke than fire. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.