A killing cold

An amnesiac grows suspicious of her new fiancé's family in this taut psychological thriller from Marshall (No One Can Know). Within months of meeting handsome scion Connor Dalton at a party, Theodora "Theo" Scott--who has significant gaps in her memory of the early years of her life--eagerly accepts his marriage proposal. As the novel opens, Theo is preparing to accompany Connor to his family's vast, isolated winter estate, even as she fears that his relatives suspect her of gold-digging. Those anxieties spike when Theo receives a series of anonymous text messages just before they arrive, the eeriest of them asserting that the sender knows who Theo is and "what did," and will expose her secrets if she doesn't keep away from Connor. Once Theo settles in at the Daltons' estate, she attempts to suss out who's been threatening her, while also contending with an eerie feeling that she's been on the property before. Flashbacks gradually fill in the blurry details of Theo's past, keeping readers on edge. Fans of Riley Sager will enjoy this. Agent: Lauren Spieller, Folio Literary. (Feb.)

Astonishing secrets come to light at a mountain retreat when a young woman goes to meet her fiance's family. In the opening pages of Marshall's terrific--and terrifying--new thriller, Theodora Scott is on her way meet her fiance's wealthy family. Having met and fallen for Connor Dalton at a friend's party a mere six months earlier, Theo is ready to give love a chance. First, though, she has to navigate meeting his family at Idlewood, their isolated mountain retreat. As a rule, she learns, non--family members are not permitted apart from a handful of employees and a few locals who have special permission during hunting season. This delicious setup is promisingly sinister enough but, as Theo's narration continues, it becomes clear that she has secrets of her own to keep: Some of that has to do with her earlier life as a child who was adopted by a fundamentalist religious couple, Beth and Joseph; some of it has to do with anonymous messages she's been receiving, warning her to stay away from Connor. As the family gathering progresses, Theo survives the domesticity of "pie day" and a grilling by Connor's sister, mother, and grandmother. Later, she also survives a far less domestic hunting session (and just as much of a grilling) with Connor's grandfather. But it's what Theo discovers when she snoops around an abandoned cabin in the family compound that threatens to blow everything she knew--and didn't know--about herself wide open. Theo has always had vague, dreamlike, and splintered memories of her pre-adoption life--she was only 4 when she came to live with Beth and Joseph. But when her cabin exploration turns up an old photograph of herself as a child at Idlewild, that's when Theo's real-life (read: life-threatening) nightmare really begins. Marshall's chilling new novel pushes all the right buttons when it comes to inexorable suspense and psychological frights. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.